God is great, and worship is our response to His greatness! The church’s primary purpose is to insure that God receives the glory He desires and deserves. That is why the saints gather together to corporately rehearse the greatness of God through worship. The focus of the church should be the worth-ship of God. Evangelism’s main goal is first and foremost to recruit worshippers for God. When Christ is embraced as offered in the Gospel, the believer is brought into a personal worshipping relationship with God the Father.
The Goal of Redemption, Tabletalk, Feb. 2004, p. 55, Used by Permission.
There is a difference between going to a service “for the worship” and going to a service “to worship the Lord.” The distinction appears to be a minor one, but it may imply the difference between the worship of God and the worship of music!
A Heart for God, 1987, p. 110, by permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA.
Where God is at the center of things, worship inevitably follows. Where there is no spirit of worship, there God has been dethroned and displaced.
A Heart for God, 1987, p. 107, by permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA.
The single most important activity of your life is to worship God. You were made for this – to offer your whole life, in all its parts, as a hymn of praise to the Lord. When the psalmist says: “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name” (Ps. 103:1), he is speaking as a spiritual athlete in peak condition; his entire life is unreservedly directed to the Lord in praise; whole-heartedness of devotion to God is his most obvious characteristic.
Healthy Christian Growth, by Permission of the Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, PA. 1991, p. 7.
If God did not insist that we worship Him alone, we would have to conclude that He is evil, or at least two-faced, since He would not be directing us to the one thing we desperately need.
What Does it Mean to Know God? by Scott Hafemann taken from The God of Promise and the Life of Faith by Scott Hafemann, copyright 2001, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org, page 41.
On Sundays God wants us to do more than sing songs together and have wonderful worship experiences. He wants to knit the fabric of our lives together. For many, church has become all about me – what I’m learning, what I’m seeking, what I’m desperate for, what I need, how I’ve been affected, what I can do. We see ourselves as isolated individuals all seeking personal encounters with God, wherever we can find them. Sadly, this reflects our individualistic, me-obsessed culture. Rather than seeing ourselves as part of a worship community, we become worship consumers. We want worship on demand, served up in our own time, and with our own music.
Worship Matters, Crossway Books, 2008, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org, p. 126-127. Get this book!
The secret to freedom from enslaving patterns of sin is worship. You need worship. You need great worship. You need weeping worship. You need glorious worship. You need to sense God’s greatness and to be moved by it — moved to tears and moved to laughter — moved by who God is and what He has done for you. And this needs to be happening all the time.
Sin as Slavery, March, 17, 1996, available at Gospelinlife.com. Used by Permission.
[Do we] want a ministry designed to amuse the dying or a ministry aimed at raising the dead?
The Story of Creation by Michael Lawrence taken from Biblical Theology by Michael Lawrence, copyright 2010, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org. Page 124
Music is hateful and intolerable to the devil. I truly believe, and do not mind saying, that there is no art like music, next to theology. It is the only art, next to theology, that can calm the agitations of the soul, which plainly shows that the devil, the source of anxiety and sadness, flees from the sound of music as he does from religious worship. That is why the Scriptures are full of psalms and hymns, in which praise is given to God. That is why, when we gather round God’s throne in heaven, we shall sing His glory. Music is the perfect way to express our love and devotion to God. It is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.
If we want to prepare for our final destination, we should begin to worship God here on earth. Our arrival in heaven will only be a continuation of what we have already begun. Praise is the language of heaven and the language of the faithful on earth.
Taken from One Minute After You Die by Erwin Lutzer, Moody Publishers, 1997, p. 87-88.
If we haven’t learned to be worshipers, it doesn’t really matter how well we do anything else.
The Father and Son have sought to redeem us that we may become worshipers. Jesus said that the Son of Man came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). In John 4 he reveals the purpose for His seeking: “For such people the Father seeks to be His worshiper” (vs. 23). The Father sent Christ to seek and save for the specific purpose of producing worshiping people.
The Ultimate Priority, Moody Press 1983, p. 23.
Missions is about the worship of Jesus. The goal of missions is the global worship of Jesus by His redeemed people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. The outcome of missions is all peoples delighting to praise Jesus. And the motivation for missions is the enjoyment that His people have in Him. Missions aims at, brings about, and is fueled by the worship of Jesus.
Missions by David Mathis taken from Don’t Call it a Comeback, edited by Kevin DeYoung, copyright 2011, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org, p. 225.
If the essence of worship is satisfaction in God, then worship can’t be a means to anything else.
The Dangerous Duty of Delight, Copyright 2001, p. 57-58, John Piper. Used by permission. www.DesiringGod.org.
When we delight in something, we declare our delight. When we adore someone, we announce our adoration. Isn’t this, then, the essence of worship – lifting up with our lips and our lives the One we love above everything else?
Taken from Follow Me by David Platt. Copyright © 2013 by David Platt. Used by permission. Website: Radical.net. Page 119.
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.
Taken from: Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship from the Garden to the New Creation, 2006, Published by Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI. Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved, p. 60.
Worship isn’t a means to an end, but the end of all means
Pragmatic Principle, Tabletalk, October 2007, p. 59. Used by Permission of Ligonier Ministries.
We do not design [worship] for the lost, nor for the found. We listen to the seeker of the lost, as do as He commands. We come to worship Him in spirit and truth. We come to worship Him in the beauty of His holiness. We come to worship Him, for His is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.
Pragmatic Principle, Tabletalk, October 2007, p. 59. Used by Permission of Ligonier Ministries.
To say that worship is either about glorifying God or finding personal satisfaction is to put asunder what God has joined together. His glory and your gladness are not separate tracks moving in opposite directions. Rather His glory is in your gladness in Him.
Copied from: Pleasures Evermore: The Life-Changing Power of Knowing God by Sam Storms, © 2000, p. 211. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.org. All rights reserved. Get this book!
Worship is eminently practical because adoring and affectionate praise is what restores our sense of ultimate value. It exposes the worthless and temporary and tawdry stuff of this world. Worship energizes the heart to seek satisfaction in Jesus alone. In worship we are reminded that this world is fleeting and unworthy of our heart’s devotion. Worship connects our souls with the transcendent power of God and awakens in us appreciation for true beauty. It pulls back the veil of deception and exposes the ugliness of sin and Satan. Worship is a joyful rebuke of the world. When our hearts are riveted on Jesus everything else in life becomes so utterly unnecessary and we become far less demanding.
One Thing, Christian Focus, © Enjoying God Ministries, 2004, p.70-71. www.enjoyinggodministries.com. Used by Permission.
I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.
We’re here to be worshippers first and workers only second. We take a convert and immediately make a worker out of him. God never meant it to be so. God meant that a convert should learn to be a worshiper, and after that he can learn to be a worker…The work done by a worshiper will have eternity in it.
God wants us to worship Him. He doesn’t need us, for He couldn’t be a self-sufficient God and need anything or anybody, but He wants us. When Adam sinned it was not He who cried, "God, where art Thou?" It was God who cried, "Adam, where art thou?"
Worship: The Missing Jewel. Christianity Today, v. 41, n. 5.
Just as an indescribable sunset or a breath-taking mountaintop vista evokes a spontaneous response, so we cannot encounter the worthiness of God without the response of worship. If you could see God at this moment, you would so utterly understand how worthy He is of worship that you would instinctively fall on you face and worship Him.
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 1991, p. 87, Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com, All rights reserved. For more information please see the website www.BibicalSpirituality.org. Get this book!
