It Must Groove

The Wonder of Worship

Tonight at my home group we talked about worship; a topic that's close to my heart. We are working through the book "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller; and the chapter for the night was "Worship." The conversations we had around the room were good and insightful and it got me thinking about worship.

The author of the book ends the chapter by writing “At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay. And wonder is that feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. I don’t think there is any better worship than wonder.”

That paragraph from the book reminded me of how self-centered I am when worshipping God. I often let my own intellect (or lack thereof) get in the way of being able to focus on who I am worshipping. I forget the wonder of who God is and what He has done and all that He has created. I set rules and parameters around what I would consider a true worship experience. I am not keen to the idea of reckless abandonment - I worry about what others might think. I remember King David, as described in 2 Samuel, Chapter 6, and his experience of reckless abandon, dancing and worshipping God. King David even said he was willing to become even more undignified in order to celebrate and worship God. What about me?

In John 4, we hear the powerful story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. There is a part in that story that again reminds me of obstacles we put up that prevents us from worshipping. In verse 19 through 24 we see the boundaries people put up even back in the day:

19"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

So what is true worship? True worship is to worship in spirit and in truth. Jesus summed it up pretty well. God is spirit and He is the truth, the life and the way! So, basically, it is all about Him. It can never be about us, how we feel or what we want; it has to be about Jesus and who He is - the wonder of worship. We need to stop being wrapped up in ourselves and start letting God take control. We need to tune into what He is saying to us as we offer up worship. We need a re-sensitizing of our hearts to the Spirit's moving.

A while back I posted a blog on myspace called "Costly Worship" so I thought I would read it again since I was thinking about this topic. Those scriptures I had put down really resonated with me again this time. Here are excerpts from the blog and some of the scriptures:

Isaiah 29:12-14 (referenced also in Matthew 15:7-9 & Mark 7:5-7). It reads:

12 Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I don't know how to read."
13 The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
14 Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."

How much more prompting do I need? I just need to look into the night sky and see the wonder God has created; or just count the many blessings He has provided.

Another passage that kinda ties in is from 1 Chronicles 21:23-25

23 Araunah said to David, "Take it! Let my lord the king do whatever pleases him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I will give all this."
24 But King David replied to Araunah, "No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing."
25 So David paid Araunah six hundred shekels of gold for the site.

David had an amazing insight on what it meant to worship God. Here was a great example. We are blessed to live in freedom and be allowed to express our faith. Most of us don't know what sacrifice is. I am challenged to think about my worship and my offering to Jesus. Am I willing to worship Him when times are bad or when there is a "cost" to worship? Am I willing to give up something dear to me (like time) and worship wholeheartedly?

It says in Psalm 51:16 & 17

16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

The song that Matt Redman wrote sums up my thoughts for tonight...

When the music fades

And all is stripped away and I simply come

Longing just to bring something that's of worth

That will bless your heart

I'll bring you more than a song

For a song in itself is not what you have required

You search much deeper within

Through the way things appear

You're looking into my heart

I'm coming back to the heart of worship

And it's all about you, all about you, Jesus

I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it

When it's all about you, all about you, Jesus

King of endless worth, no one could express

How much you deserve.

Though I'm weak and poor

All I have is yours, every single breath