So, I would contend that what is on God’s mind when we worship Him is not how many grandiose thoughts we have about Him, but how passionately our hearts desire Him and that what He most wants to achieve in the intercourse of our spirits with His is the transmission of love, life and joy. Thus, I tread the risky territory of seeming to minimize “worship”by not focusing first on “God’s holiness and our unworthiness” by proposing that, from God’s viewpoint, worship is a means designed to unlock the human heart that God may answer to human need and serve His own heartfelt interest in the well-being of His most beloved creatures. Of course, I also hasten to emphasize that God’s excellent glory and man’s sin and need are not in question or subject to debate here: He is holy and we are unworthy. But once the redemption provided through Jesus’ Cross has been received by faith, I want to assert:
a. That the worship God most welcomes is neither essentially or primarily intellectual (though it is certainly not unintelligent); and
b. That God’s primary focus in giving us access to worship Him is to provide an exposure and experience intended for our benefit, not His (though it is unquestionable He delights in our coming to Him).
I propose such a “theology of worship” upon the evidence of His pleasure with worship we find offered to Him in settings reported in His Word, as well as in direct statements He has made, revealing that the worship that God welcomes and honors is:
1. Worship that treasures His presence.
Foremost, God welcomes those into His presence who want Him. Their quest may be one of desperation or of delight, of frantic need or of a loving hunger for fellowship, but the motivation is clearly focused—and so is His pleasure with it.
In Exodus 33 and 34, a tender and powerful exchange takes place between God and Moses, spanning the range of actions from an intimate face-to-face encounter to a dramatic declaration by the Almighty, at which time the second set of tablets containing the Law are given to Moses. Central to this scene is the heart-cry Moses utters:
“‘Now, therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. … And He said, ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’ Then he said to Him, ‘If your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.’”(Exodus 33:13-15)
Shortly following this, God displays His glory to Moses—as sure a sign of His pleasure and presence as He ever gives (Exodus 40:33-38; 1 Kings 1:8-11).
It was not until I had been in pastoral leadership for nearly 15 years that a transformation took place in my thinking about our corporate worship services. More than tightly regimented gatherings, concerned over the aesthetics, mechanics and academics of our time together, we began to prioritize providing an unpressured portion of the service for free-flowing songs of praise and adoration—often, songs directly expressive of the scriptures. To this day, I usually introduce this season of time during our worship with brief instruction, interpreting our objective—perhaps expressed as well as possible in the words of the Kendrick musical setting of Paul’s words in Philippians 3:7-11.
Within two years of our earnest quest for God’s manifest presence among us—a season of time rich with its own fulfillment, and never void of a sense of His nearness—our church was visited with a display of His glory and grace that continues still. This continuance has not been without our periodic need for re-renewal in our own passion for Him. We are vigilant in the fact that even the finest spiritual habits are vulnerable to the arthritis of ritualism—when form loses its focus, though its practice may remain flawless in exercise. But with gentleness, the Holy Spirit has a way of drawing us back to “first love”—to regularly prompting renewed hunger and thirst for the Living God.