John 4:23 (NET) But a time is coming – and now is here – when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers.
I heard of a young woman who said she loved to worship and get caught up in Jesus until she went to a secular concert and felt the same emotion!
Now, certainly, the attitude and focus of the individual believers is on them. But as leaders of worship and ministers of the Word, we have to be very careful that we are not crafting a service (or a show) to evoke an emotional response from people.
Hold on! I am not saying that worship shouldn’t touch our emotions. But there is a way to whip a crowd into heightened emotions. There is even a tempo and a Herz that will spin a crowd into an emotional state. It is manipulative and dangerous. Once a person gets to a heightened emotional state, false doctrine is more easily embraced.
Worship is mentioned over 500 times in the Bible, so it’s very important to the heart of God. The first act of worship mentioned is Abraham offering his son on an altar to God. And believe me, it was full of emotion: angst, fear, dread, sweat, and tears. Not unlike what Jesus went through heading to the cross.
Deuteronomy 12 talks about the Israelites not getting taken up by the emotions of their ungodly neighbors. Verse 4 says, “You must not worship the LORD your God the way they worship their Gods.” Later in verse 31, God tells them that everything their neighbors do is abhorrent to him; it is everything He hates. That’s strong language!
We are not to worship like the world around us.
Here are some examples of true worship according to the Bible: In 2 Samuel 24:24, David says I will not offer to the Lord my God that which costs me nothing. He says the same thing in a different situation in 1 Chronicles 21:24.
David, when he danced before the Lord when the Arc of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem. This was emotional; it was pure joy and celebration for the presence of God (which the Arc represented) had returned to its rightful house.
Are worship leaders who jump and dance around the stage doing so in response to the music or the message? Are we trying to look like the world around us? When the “audience” is all jumping as well, it seems to be pure emotion, not worship. What message does this send to the world around us?
We must be careful when stepping into a leadership role in the Church. Be careful that our service doesn’t become an altar to worship human leaders!
Speaking about the presence of God, Isaiah said this in chapter 6:5-7, “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 seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it, he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”(NIV)
Today, of course, we have the blood of Christ, which has washed us clean and atoned for our sins. But do we approach Jesus in worship too casually? After all, He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Maybe that’s too old of a concept for us to really grasp.
But when we are in the presence of God or when we come to Him in worship, let our approach be like Isaiah’s experience with the hot coal. Let us come with reverence and authentic awe to give Him the worship He deserves.
Let it be all about Him and not about us.
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