Such worship will be awed by His Presence and will “fall in love” with His Person. If the phrase “fall in love” seems offensive to anyone (as it once did to me, as not being sufficiently “objective”), perhaps we might learn to be offended by whatever line of reason distances the heart from a passion to simply know and love God.
2. Worship that humbles the heart.
Perhaps the most memorable encounter between God and man in all the prophets is the occasion of Isaiah’s call (Isaiah 6:1-8). The abject cry of a sinful man, “Woe is me, for I am undone,” was not an achievement of intellectual analysis, but of a self-discovery faced upon entering God’s presence with unabashed passion and with childlike openness. “I saw the Lord,” he says with neither apology or arrogance, as a breakthrough of grace produces a breakup of pride—a viewpoint even more deeply affirmed later in the same book (Isaiah 57:15).
The starting place for confronting pride is in how we approach worship. Isaiah, who is known to be from the cultural, educated elite of Judah during His time, describes a childlike humility and teachability that can only attend an unpretentious entry into God’s presence. His cry, without a vestige of style-consciousness and revealing an unreserved availability to God’s revelation of Himself, is the very thing to which Jesus calls us all:
“Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. … Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:3, 10).
It is this heartfelt conviction of the essential need for childlikeness (not childishness) in worship that caused me to begin to understand why the scriptures call us to expressive worship—both vocally and physically expressed—verbalized without foolishness, dramatized without pretense. Few things challenge our pride more than the simplest summons to expressiveness (even to “sing a bit louder on the next verse”). I carry no brief for orchestrated calisthenics in church, as though a set of exercises verified a superior liturgical practice in God’s eyes. But I have learned that careful teaching and pastoral modeling can help a congregation past self-consciousness, releasing a childlike liberty in expression … and challenges our adult preoccupation with our own self-importance.
I think the motive was sincere, but it was misguided that day one of our members suggested I temper my pastoral practice in leading worship. “Pastor, if you didn’t teach and invite people to lift their hands in worship, I think our church would grow faster”; adding, “I think you might injure some people’s pride.” Without previous thought, my candid answer cut to the point as I see it: “Injure pride?” I said gently. “Why, I was hoping to kill it altogether.”
I hold no disdain for the propriety of respecting human dignity. But there is a disposition, ensconced in the church as surely as in the world, that equates dignity and pride—and it’s a false equation. The worth of each individual in my congregation requires that that I teach, help and model a pathway for all of us to “come as children before the Father.” But the deceptiveness of pride, and its insistence on finding a way to justify its preservation—even in church!—calls me to find a means to help hearts toward a humility like Isaiah’s, that will give place to a fresh view of God and pave the way to deeply felt confession and purification in His presence.
3. Worship that sacrifices and expects something from God.
Hebrews 11:6 puts it clearly: “He that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who humbly seek Him.” The text is based on the proposition that worship always bring a sacrifice to God—that “he that comes,” whether with praise, an offering or in the laying down of something being asked by the Holy Spirit’s call, is presenting something of themselves to Him. But simultaneously, we are told that the worshipper is with equal faith to believe something will be given in return by God Himself—something rewarding, enriching, benevolent and good.