WorshipCentral

Recently I spoke from Isaiah 6 on worship, identifying 3 key things that happen as God’s people gather to worship. Here’s the first instalment of the trilogy!

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Worship is one of those subjects that everyone has an opinion on. We all have a preference on the style of worship we enjoy. I’ll never forget leading worship at a Sunday service at Soul Survivor Watford a few years ago. I was packing away my gear and talking to my keyboardist when a visitor came up and asked me if I remembered the fourth or fifth song we had sung that night. I started going through song titles. “Was it ‘Open the eyes of my heart.’” “No.” “What about ‘Give thanks to the Lord.’” “No.” And then it dawned on me. I think she means the song, “Here I am to worship.” My song! Expecting her to share the story of how she had been profoundly impacted by this song I continued, “Is it the song, ‘Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down.’” I even gently sang the chorus to trigger her memory! I stood back waiting to have my ego stroked. However she replied, “Oh no I hate that song. Whenever I hear that song I want to vomit!” They were her exact words. My keyboardist was laughing so hard he fell to the floor whilst I was trying to pretend it was a Matt Redman song and I didn’t like it either. She had very strong opinions on worship!

So what is worship? Is it a few songs at the start of a meeting? Is it the preparation for a sermon? Does true worship happen on an organ? Should worship be louder, quieter? Do we worship at work? Is worship about serving the poor? What is worship?

Worship involves the whole of our loves. It is our all-consuming response to the revelation of God’s initiating love. As the Westminster catechism states, ‘The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’

Worship is not just about the songs we sing or the style in which we sing them. The moment we reduce worship to that we’re in real trouble, because style, culture and expression are forever changing.

Check out this extract from an American Paper objecting to new modern trends in church music.

“There are several reasons for opposing it. One, it’s too new. Two, it’s often worldly, even blasphemous. The new Christian music is not as pleasant as the more established style. Because there are so many new songs, you can’t learn them all. It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than godly lyrics. This new music creates disturbances making people act indecently and disorderly. The preceding generation got along without it. It’s a money making scam and some of these new music upstarts are lewd and loose.”

You may think this is describing Al Gordon, but actually it’s an American church leader attacking Isaac Watts, writer of ‘When I survey,’ in 1723!

Worship is about a living relationship with the Almighty God. It’s about a dynamic encounter, an engagement that grabs hold of our minds, hearts and emotions and changes us forever. Richard Foster says of worship,

“It is kindled within us only when the Spirit of God touches our human spirit. We can use all the right techniques and methods, we can have the best possible liturgy, but we have not worshipped the Lord until Spirit touches spirit.”

When we gather to worship we are not simply filling a bit of time with a good old sing-song. We’re not warming things up for the preacher. We’re not even just seeking to sing good theology - although that is important. When we gather to worship we engage heart to heart, spirit to Spirit with God. We are changed, transformed and renewed.

1.    Overwhelmed by God’s glory

So what’s the first thing that happens when we gather to worship? We are left overwhelmed by God’s glory.’

In Isaiah we read,

‘In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
       "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
        the whole earth is full of his glory."
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
      And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"’                Isaiah 6:1-8

Can you begin imagine the sight unveiling before Isaiah’s eyes. He is left undone. He screams, ‘Woe to me! I am ruined!’

When God turns up, we are often left overwhelmed and amazed. Our heats are full of wonder and we don’t quite know how to respond. When we encounter the reality of God, true worship is the outcome.

It should be common in our churches to see people weeping in worship – overwhelmed by the depth of God’s mercy. It should be common to see people dancing, free and abandoned before their Maker. It should be common to be overcome by the enormous volume of people singing and shouting praise at the tops of their voices. It should be common to see people lost in silence worshipping the Lord – no one wanting to move – transfixed by the transcendence of God.

John Stott puts it brilliantly,
“There is something fundamentally flawed about a purely academic interest in God. God is not an appropriate object for cool, critical, detached, scientific observation. No, the true knowledge of God will always lead us to worship…Our place is on our faces before Him in adoration.”                        

So often I find myself at church feeling dry, discouraged - even distant from God. As we worship, as we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfected of our faith, as we see Him high and lifted up, I’m stirred, strengthened and inspired. My perspective is changed. My response is worship.

The hymn writer John Newton wrote,
“Weak is the effort of my heart and cold my warmest thought
But when I see thee as thou art, I’ll praise thee as I ought.”

When God open’s our eyes to see Him, we can’t help but respond with our lives, with our bodies and with our songs. We like Isaiah end up saying, ‘Woe!’ As we worship we are overwhelmed by God’s glory but also in that place that we become open to change.

To be continued…