What Do We Get Out Of Worship?

One of the biggest hurdles for Christians in contemporary America to leap is why we worship. Why spend fifteen minutes, or twenty-five minutes praising God as we do at our weekend services? Why read aloud a worship Psalm to God at the beginning of one's prayers, such as Psalm 100, or Psalm 150? Why does practically every Vineyard meeting begin with public worship?

In other words, why don't we just get down to business? If we are going to pray, why begin our prayers by praising God? Are we trying to butter him up? Does God need flattering like some insecure, egotistical public official before he grants us our petition? And at church, why not just get down to the business of teaching? Do people really need to be warmed up by twenty-five minutes of worship songs before we are ready to receive God's Word? What do we get out of worship anyway?

It would be very legitimate for someone to object even to asking such a question. After all, worship in the Bible is not all about us, it is about God. It is about celebrating God's worth (indeed, the word "worship" springs from the Old English word "worth-ship": the recognition of the worth of God). We do live in a very self-centered world, a world in which self-indulgence, self-gratification, self-fulfillment, and self-interest drive many of our activities.

Certainly, it is legitimate to critique the question about what we get out of worship. One could appropriately respond saying: "Did it ever occur to you that we aren't getting together to worship you? We're getting together to worship God."

Why do we worship?

1. Because God deserves our worship. Worship is our proper response to God, both because of who he is and because of what he has done. We worship God because we recognize that he is infinitely superior to us. We worship him for his goodness and his mercy. We worship God because of his greatness and his great acts as Creator and Redeemer.

2. Because God requires our worship. Both under the Old covenant and the New covenant, God commands that we worship him. Much of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) are concerned with regulating the proper worship of God. In the New Testament worship is also a covenant requirement (John 4:22-24; Romans 12:1; Hebrews 12:28). God calls us priests before him whose duty is to "declare the praises of God" (1 Peter 2:9).

But when we worship God, we also discover that worship has tremendous spiritual benefits for us.

What do we get out of worship?

1. Worship offers us freedom from our addictions. Don Williams writes: "Worship money and you will become a greedy person. Worship sex and you will become a lustful person. Worship power and you will become a corrupt person. Worship Jesus Christ and you will become a Christ-like person. We become like the object of our worship…The worship of money, or sex, or power, or people results in addictive and compulsive behaviors. The staggering truth is that we are all lured into worshipping something or someone other than the Living God. This is idolatry, pure and simple."

   The only way to be set free from our idolatrous addictions is to learn to worship the True God.

2. Worship offers us freedom from our worries.
Why do we worry so much? Why doesn't prayer and petition release us from our worries? Isn't our basic problem most of the time that our problems and other people are very big and our God is very small? Worship re-sizes everything. In Isaiah 40 we read: Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, weighed the mountains on scales and the hills on a balance? The nations are like a drop in a bucket, like dust on the scales; idols are made of wood, plated with gold or silver, earth's inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him; he brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the world as nothing; he created the stars, bringing them out and counting them, calling them by name, checking that they are all present.

What would it do to your sense of anxiety if the world got recalibrated for you so that God was very big and your problems and other people were comparatively very small? Worship offers us freedom from our worries.

3. Worship offers us freedom for the enjoyment of God's presence. Throughout the Bible, when God's people worship him, God shows up. Do you desire to feel closer to God? Have you longed for deeper communion and greater intimacy with God? Do you have a hunger to see God's power at work for healing, for deliverance, and for emotional liberation? Then learn to worship God!

Worship is the subject of Vineyard Columbus' major conference in 2004-2005. We are calling our conference, "Hungry for God." Lance Pittluck, Senior Pastor of the Anaheim Vineyard, and Don Williams, our long-time friend and Vineyard's premier theologian, are our guest speakers. The dates for our conference are the evenings of November 3-5, 2004. Registration is at the door. Please mark your calendars and make plans to attend this very special conference.