Worship That Is Pleasing
I heard a great illustration a few years ago given by Voddie Baucham that I am going to borrow here. You take a very young boy into a strawberry patch, and pick out a fully ripe, deep red, juicy strawberry and give him a bite of it. His face lights up, as that strawberry flavor bursts into his mouth…it is so good. That young boy grows into a child, though, and over time he puts strawberry jam on his toast that is loaded with sugar along with the strawberries. He is given strawberry fruit rollups and strawberry fruit snacks that have the slightest amount of strawberries in them. He then is given strawberry candy, that contains no strawberry at all, but rather is a makeup of chemicals designed to reflect the essence of strawberry. Now, you take that same young man into the strawberry patch and pick out a fully ripe, deep red, juicy strawberry and give him a bite of it, and he responds that it does not taste at all like strawberry. It is not sweet enough, nor does it have that flavor that the candy has, and he would much rather eat strawberry flavored candy that has no strawberries than the real thing.
Voddie used this illustration for the gospel, but I think it also fits very well with worship in the church today. Take a young Christian, newly saved, to a church and let him sing the songs that are rich in theology and deep in their doctrine. Let him hear prayers to almighty God that adore Him and plead with Him for help. Let him hear the public reading of Scripture read with vibrancy and meaning. Let him hear the Word of God preached with passion and truth proclaimed. Let him be baptized and sense the glory of obedience in that ordinance. Let him partake in the Lord’s Supper and sense the communion we have with Christ and with one another. After doing so, listen to him say how great it is to worship God together.
But that man then grows in his faith, and he moves on to another church. Before they begin singing at the new church, he hears the leader say, “Now we are going to move into our time of worship." The pastor says as he gets up to preach the sermon, “What a wonderful time of worship together that was!” He hears the song leader called the “worship leader”, he hears the musicians called the “worship band”, and he begins to think that worship and music in the church are the same thing. There is no Scripture reading, and prayers are extremely brief. The Lord's Supper is given on the way out the door a few times a year for those who want to partake in it. Later, the church feels the pressure of dwindling numbers and is fielding complaints about the music not being as good as elsewhere, so they decide to make many changes regarding the music so that the congregation might be more pleased with the music. Their song choice is based more on the style and form than the substance.
Our young friend now finds himself being led by people who do not know God, into something they call worship of God, that is designed not to please God, but to please him.
For some, though, the performance is still lacking, so the church decides to hire a professional to lead the music, or what is now being called worship, and they recruit people in the community to play in what they call their worship band, despite the fact that these people do not even know the Lord Jesus Christ. Our young friend now finds himself being led by people who do not know God, into something they call worship of God, that is designed not to please God, but to please men.
One Sunday, our young friend returns to his former church for a visit and sits down for the service. When the music begins our young friend smirks a bit, and thinks to himself what a sorry display of worship this is. He now wonders why he ever thought this was good and is so thankful that he has what he has in this other church where he can feel the music, where he can be moved by the “worship time”, and can really get something out of worship, and he wonders how anyone could possibly get anything out of the worship time here at this church.
Worship is so much broader and bigger than music, but more than that, worship has as its goal to please the one who is being worshiped.
Unfortunately, this type of scenario has played out in the church over the past couple of generations, often because the church has such a poor theology of worship and music. I took the time to examine the Legacy Standard Bible and found that the word worship is used in that translation 114 times, and only in one of those verses will you find music, the rest either reference bowing down, bringing a sacrifice or offering, or giving devotion to someone or something, whether God or an idol. Worship is so much broader and bigger than music, but more than that, worship has as its goal to please the one who is being worshiped. The sacrifices brought to the temple were to be pure and unblemished in order that they might be found pleasing in the sight of God. Bowing low before something may be uncomfortable for the worshiper, but it is about showing reverence that might please the one being worshiped. Devoting one’s activities to someone might be arduous and physically demanding on the worshiper, but they do it in order to please the one being worshiped.
The church is now reaping what it has been sowing for many years. We have been calling music worship, and now the congregation equates the two. We have been saying that our focus in music must please the people, and now the congregation expects that to be the case. But when combined together, many in the congregation believe that excellent worship is made up of music that is pleasing to themselves. Therefore, some leave a church service and sound spiritual when they say, “Worship is really important to me, and I need better worship.” It sounds spiritual when you say it that way because we believe we ought to worship God and do well in it, but if someone were to say, “Music is really important to me, and I need better music,” now the self-centeredness comes to the forefront. It sounds more carnal, but that is effectively the same statement just given in more clear language.
I understand, for people who have been given artificial worship, the real thing just does not seem to taste as good, yet, the real thing is focusing on the almighty, infinite God of the universe who is glorious beyond all imagination.
How do we respond to all of this? We must continue to teach people about corporate worship, making clear that music is not equivalent to worship, although our desire in our music is that it would be worship to God. We need to teach that the Scripture reading is worship of God, that the praying is worship of God, that the preaching is worship of God, and that the ordinances are worship of God. We must try to make sure the songs we sing are Biblical, are theologically rich and deeply doctrinal, that they fit right in with the reading, praying, and preaching because they are truly a different form of that same function, giving forth the truth of God. We must continue to teach people that worship is not about their pleasure or comfort or desires, but it is only about God’s pleasure and God’s desires.
But that is not to say worship should be boring for the worshiper. I understand, for people who have been given artificial worship, the real thing just does not seem to taste as good, yet, the real thing is focusing on the almighty, infinite God of the universe who is glorious beyond all imagination. The real thing is giving honor and glory to the One who sits on the throne, who is worthy of all of it. The real thing is the God who loves us, who freely bestows His grace on all who come to Him for salvation, who Himself paid the price to redeem those people to Himself. The real thing is the God who sustains us, protects us, guides us, and loves us with an everlasting love. The real thing is the God who will bring us safely home by His good grace to glory. The real thing is so much greater than anything the artificial could bring forth. We must remind people of the God we worship, who He is, what He has done, and how worthy He is. If we can shift the focus to God, I believe that true Christians will learn to find this worship tasting better and better the longer they practice it. We must learn to enjoy God, enjoy worship of God, in song, in reading, in prayer, in preaching, and in the ordinances. Let us never forget just how enjoyable it is to know and worship our awesome God together.
