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If worshipers leave a service with no thought of becoming more godly in their lives, then the purpose of worship has not been achieved. If they walk away from an assembly without a conviction that they need to conform their lives to Holy Scripture, even if it means changing their lifestyle, then worship has been perverted somewhere. . . . The clear teaching of Scripture is that genuine worship is life changing.8
we must be careful never to refer to God in a way that dishonors his transcendence and uniqueness.
God’s transcendent holiness and justice required the sacrifice of the Son of God to be satisfied. At Calvary we stand in awe of perfect righteousness, holy justice, and unerring judgment. We can offer no excuses or justification for our sin. We’re completely at the mercy of our sovereign Creator and King. Yet the gospel assures us that our sins have been completely atoned for. We’re no longer God’s enemies. We’re his adopted children.
Every time we lead the church in worship we’re doing more than singing songs. We’re leading believers in a battle for the truth.
God wants our worship to be intelligent and informed. He wants to stretch our minds to the limits as we consider the greatness of his being and the wonder of his works.
The Puritan pastor Jonathan Edwards considered it his duty to “raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with.”1
“When describing our relationship with God, or when communicating our passion for him in prayer or worship, it’s right to use a vocabulary of love. But this language should never include anything erotic.”3
So God’s glory is the end of our worship, and not simply a means to something else. In the midst of a culture that glorifies our pitiful accomplishments in countless ways, we gather each week to proclaim God’s wondrous deeds and to glory in his supreme value. He is holy, holy, holy. There is no one, and nothing, like the Lord.
Cultures change, styles change, traditions change, times change. God remains the same. Through
In Music Through the Eyes of Faith, Harold Best defines excellence as “the process of becoming better than I once was.” God used that definition to help our team realize we’re called to develop the gifts God gives us, not to be better than others.
Although there are several Greek words in the New Testament that we translate “worship,” none of them mean “singing.”
prayer helps me remember what I can’t do. Only the Spirit can actively open people’s eyes to see the hope of the gospel, their glorious inheritance in the saints, and God’s power at work in their lives (Ephesians 1:16–19).
