How to Worship God
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind…[1]
How does one worship? On every page of the Bible is found the concept that we are created to worship God who made us and who saves us. However, so much of what passes for worship fails to accomplish the goal of worship. We know that a great deal of worship so-called fails, because we fail to engage our beings. Doubtless, God Himself is not engaged by such efforts.
Worship is not about me. Worship is not about what benefits me or even about what God does for me, though worship does benefit me. Worship is about God! It is recognising that I am for Him. I live for Him. I focus on Him. I serve Him.
God is not some exalted human being at the top of the chain of mankind. God is Creator. He dwells in unapproachable light [1 Timothy 6:16]. God is greater than man’s imagination. Had He not revealed Himself to us, we would never be capable of searching Him out. Therefore, the essence of worship is proclaiming God’s rightful worth and position. It is recognising His glory and declaring that glory so that others might know Him. This is one of the reasons we come to church. Here, united in worship before the Lord our God we sweep away all that has crowded our hearts and minds, displacing God from His rightful place, the throne of our very lives.
In Matthew 22:37, Jesus was asked, Which is the great commandment in the Law? Jesus answered, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. In our text, a similar statement is made. However, this time, a lawyer provides the answer. Indeed, the lawyer had initiated this particular conversation by asking how one inherited eternal life. Jesus, as was His method, sought to draw out the lawyer’s understanding by asking him what the law said. The lawyer responded with the answer which serves as our text—You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. Jesus affirmed his answer.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. This means that one it to love—worship—God with all that one is. Careful consideration of these words will expand our capacity to worship God as we discover what is meant and apply the truth revealed.
Worshipping God is Expressing Love toward Him. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. In parlance of the day, the concept of love is intimately tied to the emotions. Therefore, in our minds, love is an expression of how we feel about another. The love which God has demonstrated toward us, however, really cannot be expressed in emotional terms. The love which God has for us is an expression of His character. Love is the very essence of our God. God is love [1 John 1:8]. Similarly, the love which we express toward God does not flow from how we feel, though it will effect our emotions.
How does one demonstrate love for another? A perfect example is provided in the love husbands are to have for their wives. Husbands are taught to love their wives [Ephesians 5:25]. Moreover, the love which husbands hold for their wives is to be of the identical nature as the love which God has for us. Therefore, we can discover the love of God for us through reflecting on the love which a husband is to hold for his wife.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
[Ephesians 5:25-31]
To love one’s wife is to live sacrificially, considering her needs above your desires. To love one’s wife is to seek her benefit in all things. Love, therefore, is active. In the same way, love for God is active and not passive. What I feel is secondary to what I do for God. To love God is to live sacrificially for God. To love God is to seek His benefit in all things. Let’s look at this business of the relationship of love and worship in some greater detail.
To love God is to live sacrificially for Him. This means that when I worship, God has all of my attention and all that I hold. Giving is an act of love. If you are not giving sacrificially of the possessions you hold, you are not yet worshipping. Worshipping is seeking the advance of God’s Kingdom work beyond what you desire for yourself. The evidence that we worship is reflected in the record of our giving to His cause.
May I say candidly that if the support of one’s hobby exceeds investment in the advance of Christ’s Kingdom, that individual is failing to worship. I suspect that many of us spend more on cosmetics and clothing than we do on Great Commission causes. If your car represents a greater investment than does support for your church, you are not worshipping. When we spend more on entertainment for our children than we invest in the outreach of our church to the youth of our city, we are not worshipping God as we should. Can it be that poverty-stricken villagers in Peru know more of worship than do Canadians with sufficient food, clothing and money for sporting events? The answer is, unfortunately, obvious.
However, living sacrificially is much more than a matter of surrender of my finances. Living sacrificially speaks also of surrender of the claim on one’s time and talents. Is one gifted in some area of the arts? Let that one lend his or her talents to the cause of Christ, glorifying Him and honouring Him through encouraging others. Does one have some particular ability, whether by virtue of divine gifting or as result of study? Let that individual employ those abilities to the cause of Christ that the Faithful may be strengthened and knowledge of Christ be made known throughout the region.
One great concern worrying me as I survey the professed people of God in this day so late in the penultimate dispensation of God is that we live essentially for our own benefit. We will not inconvenience ourselves to serve God. We promote our desires over the needs of the Body of Christ. We ignore the spiritual needs of our children and actually rejoice as we watch them stumble toward Hell. We have prostituted the spiritual gifts we received as we promote our own causes in preference to building the Body.
Remember that I said that to worship God is to consider His benefit in all things. Whenever I make a purchase, do I consider how that purchase will glorify God? The home in which I live is either merely a roof and walls, or it is a tool for the advance of the Kingdom of Christ the Lord. The vehicle I drive is either just a means of transportation, or it is a means by which I am enabled to serve God more efficiently. The clothing I wear is either merely a covering for my nakedness, or it honours God and glorifies His Name. In the smallest aspects of life, I either serve my interests or I serve Christ’s cause.
When I love God with all my heart, honouring Him above my own desires, I will discover the richness of worship. There will be genuine emotion resulting from my worship. I will rejoice in His love. I will delight in His compassion. I will exult in His goodness toward me. I will be enraptured—carried into His presence. Since that seldom happens among us, I suspect that few of us worship God from the heart.
I know there are individuals who have said they did not wish to come to church to be scolded. They believe that if I speak of the failings of contemporary Christians that I am lecturing them. No, my brothers and sisters, I am but a prophet of God, pointing to the ways in which we can yet honour Him. The choice is ours. Either we shall advance the cause of Christ the Lord or we will continue to work out our own agenda.
Worshipping God is Determining to Obey Him in All Things. You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul. To love God with all one’s soul speaks of surrender of the human will to the divine will of God. To love God with all one’s soul is to deliberately seek to find out what pleases God and then to do those things. Not only are we to worship God with the heart, but we are to obey. Actually, we cannot separate love of God from service for His Name’s sake. Listen to just two verses of the Word which emphasise that glorious truth.
In the first verse which I will ask you to consider, note Paul’s commendation of the saints in Rome. At first, the Apostle speaks hypothetically, but then he turns practical as he says, thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed [Romans 6:17]. These saints are commended for becoming obedient from the heart. The evidence of their obedience was adherence to the teaching which had been delivered.
Another example which teaches the need for loving with both heart and soul is that found in the Ephesian encyclical as the Apostle addresses the situation for slaves. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him [Ephesians 6:5-9].
Though their situation was undoubtedly difficult, slaves who shared in the common Faith of Christ the Lord were enjoined to serve, doing the will of God from the heart. In a very real sense, their labours were a means of worship if done in the right spirit. Similarly, your labours, whether in the church or in the community or in the home, are a means of worshipping God. What is at issue is nothing less than your attitude and your commitment to discover what pleases God and your commitment to fulfil the will of God for your life. We must obey God in all things in order to worship!
Ours is a world in rebellion to the will of God. Let me give one example to demonstrate the veracity of this contention. When the disciples came down from that upper room and each was filled with the Spirit of the ascended Christ, they praised God and declared His glory. Peter, seizing the moment presented the glorious declaration that Jesus was the promised Messiah appointed to die because of the sin of all mankind. Those listening to that sermon were cut to the heart and compelled to cry out for guidance from the disciples. Brothers, what shall we do? As they cried out, Peter answered them, Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins [Acts 2:37, 38].
Now, notice the result of Peter’s instruction to seeking souls. So those who received his word were baptised, and there were added that day about three thousand souls [Acts 2:41]. Those who received the Word were baptised—immediately! Throughout the whole of the New Testament, there is to be found not a single instance where one professed salvation and delayed baptism! Those who believed immediately obeyed the command of Christ to be baptised.
Today, our churches depreciate baptism in raw defiance of the command of Christ our Lord. Pastors and church members advise people to “go slow.” They suggest to those coming to faith in Christ, “Don’t get in a rush about baptism.” The concern of many Christians is that the decision to obey Christ may be unpopular—it may cost you popularity or your family might object.
Perhaps Christians no longer heed the voice of the Master as He warns against esteeming popularity with the masses instead of esteeming obedience to Him. Is it possible that we have actually forgotten the warning which our Lord issued for long ago? “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you” [Luke 6:46]? Perhaps we need to again remind ourselves of the frightful warning which the Lord God delivered through Samuel to a wayward king.
Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
[1 Samuel 15:22, 23]
We within the community of Faith devise every sort of mechanism we can imagine to delay obedience. We have “baptism” classes. We pass resolutions asking that people be required to “wait” for a specified period before they are baptised. Yet, the Word of God teaches us that obedience to Christ leads those who believe to immediately identify in baptism. There is no delay.
The reason so much of modern worship is fraudulent is that we are disobedient. Until the people of God begin to obey God, they will never worship. What I have said about baptism holds equally true for membership in the local congregation. Likewise, obedience is demanded of congregations to embrace the biblical model of church governance. In like fashion, churches are called to obedience to Christ in holding one another accountable for holy lives.
Worshipping God is Discovering Ways to Serve Him. You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength. One of the most powerful passages of Scripture which is all but neglected today is that which is found in the Mosaic Law. The great commandment which the lawyer cited and Jesus affirmed is given in Deuteronomy 6:5. A corollary is provided a few chapters later as Moses continued instructing the people. Listen as I read the command of God to the people of Israel through Moses.
And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good [Deuteronomy 10:12, 13]?
As I review that command, I cannot help but observe that in the delivery of these words, love for God is equated with service to Him and to His cause. I am speaking the truth when I caution each listener that if you are not serving God, you are not expressing love for Him. If you love God, you will serve Him. If you do not have a place of service at this time, you will seek out a place to serve and there you will invest yourself in service to the true and living God.
This is the basis for one of the sentiments which I frequently express as we worship God through the act of giving. We serve God as we bring a portion of the goods He has entrusted to us. We present those gifts before the Lord that His work may advance throughout all the earth. This is an act of worship in which we express love for Him through serving with our worldly possessions.
We serve God through praising Him, whether praising Him in song or exclaiming aloud our wonder and marvel at His grace. We serve God as we point others to the light of Christ the Lord. We serve God as we exercise the gifts which He has entrusted to us. This latter point deserves careful consideration.
At salvation, the Spirit of God gives us life. Saved, we have a living spirit within to replace that spirit which was dead in trespasses and sins. As the Spirit of God takes up residence, He entrusts to each of us gift(s) which are sovereignly given for the express purpose of building up the Body of Christ. You are no doubt aware that the Word of God teaches that we have a multiplicity of gifts represented among us as a congregation.
To each [Christian] is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ [1 Corinthians 12:7-12].
The variety of gifts is suggested by reading the words of the Apostles in the passage before us, together with Romans 12:4-8; 1 Corinthians 12:27-30; Ephesians 4:11; and 1 Peter 4:10, 11. A review of those gracious gifts to the people of God will convince us of several great truths. First, the gifts are given to each Christian. Again, the gifts are given for the express purpose of building the Body where you are placed. Among all the gifts, there is not even a suggestion that there exists a gift of warming a pew. If you are not exercising your gift, you are prostituting the gifts of God.
Our congregation is currently in a period of assessment as we prepare for the future. Should Christ tarry, we are determined to build a church to the glory of God. We have engaged in thoughtful consideration of what we should do to accomplish the great task of growing this particular church, determining our priorities and a timeline. What is necessary now is to provide opportunity for each Christian to engage in this great work. Though we make opportunity as a congregation, the challenge remains that each believer worshipping here must determine that she or he will find a ministry and invest her or his time in that ministry. What are you doing for Christ’s sake?
You do know that when I say “ministry,” it is but another way of saying “service.” Every Christian must determine to become a minister of Christ. There is a great work waiting on us individually and as a congregation, and the call has gone forth to each of us to labour with the Master. As a congregation, it is our responsibility to discover where Christ is working and there work with Him.
We have a “church covenant” which we have adopted as a congregation. This means that each member of the assembly accepts the conditions of that covenant. Without question, that covenant says that we will support the welfare of the congregation through serving Christ with our earthly goods, with our spiritual gifts, with our concern for one another, with our loving investment of life and love here.
Yet, when some are held to account and called to ask where the support is, they often inform this pastor that they are serving elsewhere. Perhaps they were offended by another member of the assembly, so they just began to attend elsewhere. Perhaps they were angered at some statement made in a sermon, so they simply ceased participating in the life of the Body. Perhaps they simply became lazy or chose to ignore the love of the people, and now attend bedside tabernacle each Sunday morning. The excuses for no longer worshipping God through loving service are astonishing.
When the pastor informs such people that they can no longer be a member if they fail to fulfil the conditions of the covenant of this congregation, how offended they become. Why, they have been a member for years! Why, their family is one of the oldest families in this church! Why, they have rights! They call their family members. They call their friends. They rage and they complain. The fact remains, they have failed to keep the covenant, and we take it seriously when a professed member of the assembly ceases to exercise responsibility according to the covenant they accepted as members.
You see, joyfully accepting the conditions of the church covenant is nothing less than openly determining to worship Christ the Lord through loving service to His cause. This is the reason I am adamant that it is impossible to worship Christ if you do not serve Him. I cannot excuse someone by saying that they serve in “the church universal.” Where does that church meet? Who is the pastor? To whom are those who float about accountable? Without roots in a local congregation, there is no accountability for a Christian, and consequently, there is no place of service for that individual.
Dear people, accept this truth that worship of God means that we serve Him. Sadly, I fear that far too many of the professed saints of God never worship because they fail to serve. Sadly, I fear that even among the professed members of this congregation are some who never worship because they have yet to serve. They have attempted to make the church into a social organisation, a religious society, instead of the living Body of Christ where we joyfully accept the opportunity to serve Christ and to serve one another. Let that condemnation not be applied to any of us who now hear these words.
Worshipping God is Seeking Knowledge of Him. You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind. How does one worship God with all the mind? To worship God with all the mind means that we seek both to know God intimately and to discover what pleases God. It implies that since we are sentient creatures, conscious and aware, that we therefore make every effort to worship God with the intellect. Worship is not merely seeking to lose ourselves in some form of ecstasy.
Paul speaks to this issue in 1 Corinthians 14:13-19. Listen to that passage of the Word. Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue.
Paul was speaking to a congregation that had within a growing number of individuals convinced that worship consisted of losing control of one’s senses and speaking in gibberish. The people thought that by such ecstatic speech they were worshipping. Note what the Apostle says.
First, if you actually do speak in a language foreign to those worshipping, pray for the power to interpret. Later, he will make it plain that if there is no one to interpret what is being uttered in foreign speech, then the speaker is to remain silent. There must be an exercise of the intellect to control the tongue!
Paul is willing to concede that praying in a foreign tongue may well minister to one’s spirit, but the mind is unengaged. Therefore, he determines that he will pray both with the spirit and with the mind. Likewise, he will sing praise with the spirit and with the mind. In essence, the Apostle is saying that exercise of the intellect does not preclude exercise of the spirit; but exercise of the spirit can preclude exercise of the mind.
An unspoken assumption of this passage is that worship assumes its true character when it is corporate. Otherwise, why should one be concerned for the need to interpret when speaking in a foreign language? One can worship alone in nature, but throughout the whole of the Word, worship is assumed to be corporate. Gathering with others, we seek to worship God.
Again, spiritual fervour is not diminished by exercise of the intellect. That individual who insists upon losing himself or herself in ecstasy is both unfruitful and untrue to his or her true calling as a worshipper of the Living God. In fact, to insist upon ecstasy in worship is a form of selfishness, for it excludes others who do not understand.
One verse which our family memorised many years ago is 2 Peter 3:18. Perhaps you also memorised that verse in your family devotions. If not, it is a good verse to commit to memory. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. As Peter concludes this delightful letter, he enjoins the saints to grow in grace, which each of us would concede is a good thing to do. However, he also admonishes us to grow in knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the command which is too frequently neglected in this day. We must know Christ—His character and His will for our lives. This is our responsibility.
Worship of God entails planning. We need to know what God calls us to do. We also need to know what pleases God. We need to knowingly confess our sin and knowingly seek His forgiveness. We must know the direction He would have us go. We must know what the Spirit is saying to the flock. This demands that we read the Word, hearing the voice of the Master and determining that we will fulfil His will for each life.
Do you worship? If you worship God, you will love Him. Your life will demonstrate that you are a lover of God, if you worship. If you worship God, you will obey Him, beginning with obedience to His command to be baptised and continuing with His call to openly identify with His people. If you worship God, you will serve Him. You will not be content with that attitude which characterised far too many of the professed saints of God which is best described as an effervescent, casual, will-‘o-the-wisp form of service without roots. You will invest yourself in building the assembly where Christ has set you, serving Him with your whole being there. Otherwise, you will not worship, whatever else you may be doing. If you will worship God, you will engage the intellect, and knowing worship Him who is worthy of your worship.
To that end, let the people of God determine that they will worship Him from the heart. Let His holy people determine that they will obey Him, ceasing to make excuses for defiance and insubordination. Let the redeemed of the Lord determine that they will serve Him with their whole heart, finding a place of service and honouring Him through loyal labour as He has commanded each of us. Let those who are called by the Name of the Risen Son of God determine that they will serve God knowingly. When we have done this, we will then have begun to worship.
Is it possible that we find “worship” boring simply because we have never worshipped as God teaches? Perhaps that is why the prospect of eternal worship strikes terror in the heart of so many of the professed saints of God—they have never worshipped. We have sinned against Holy God through our failure to worship. Consequently, our youth have never seen truth in worship among us and they are likewise ignorant of what it is to worship. We are responsible to teach them how to worship, and we have responsibility before God to worship in spirit and in truth. Let us, therefore, begin to worship the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength and with all our mind. Amen.
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[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Ó 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.