The Wrong Way To Worship
Is There A Wrong Way?
As we come off of a week where we addressed why we worship and what the benefits of worship are for believers, I want to go to the flip side of things and ask a more negative, yet still important question. That question being, ‘Is there a wrong way to worship?’ We know that God alone is who we should worship and no one else from the very beginning. Back in Exodus, we see this in the 10 commandments. Exodus 34:14 says, “14 —for you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” I want to point this out early on because I don’t want to focus on who we worship as being incorrect, but how we worship as being incorrect. In other words, I think many of us understand that worshiping anyone other than God alone is sinful, but we may not know that how we worship God is also important and can in some instances be considered sinful. Bob Kauflin mentions one of the most vital yet realistic struggles that I believe the American Church is facing today regarding worship. He notes, “When our songs and prayers are dominated by what we think and feel about God and focus less on who he is and what he thinks and feels about us, we run the risk of fueling our emotions with more emotion.” Sounds familiar doesn’t it? I’m willing to bet most of us can recall a time when worshiping the Lord was less about what true worship is and more about how we feel, or worse, how people feel about us. I’ve personally been a part of way too many ‘worship’ experiences where it was less about who God is and more about what I want and what I’m doing. I’ve even been told before that I’m not passionate about God at all simply because I didn’t worship in the same manner that other people did. But that can be for another time. My goal here isn’t to rant about churches that get worship wrong, that would be missing the bigger picture. My goal here is to show us through God’s Word what is considered unacceptable worship, so that we may not be among the many that offer this type of worship to our Lord.
Opposing Spirit & Truth
To start, let’s look at a passage that we’ve discussed earlier that I told you we would come back and address. Let’s read John 4:24 “24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” We addressed this verse in our very first doxology discussion when we dove into what worship really means. We saw that worship was giving all honor, glory, and reverence to God, and in this passage, we see just how we are supposed to do that. Our worship of the Lord must be in ‘Spirit and Truth.’ If this is the right way to worship, then surely the opposite approach to this would be the wrong way to worship. What if we don’t worship the Lord in spirit and truth? This is where our worship becomes unacceptable to God. First off, to worship the Lord in spirit simply means to worship Him from our hearts because of the Holy Spirit. In other words, if we are not saved, we cannot offer acceptable worship to God. But what about truth? This is where I think we have the biggest problem in the Church today. We don’t care if our worship music involves singing truths to God as long as it sounds good. ‘The more people who are emotionally attached to our music the better! Who cares if there’s no biblical basis in our music? The people like it and that’s what matters!’ This mindset has become a real issue and shows deeply where our priorities are. We would rather worship God with a lie and a good melody than with the truth and an old hymnal. The truth matters, and it’s time to stop pretending like it doesn’t. When we sing songs to the Lord in a way that is not rooted in biblical truth, we should immediately realize that this is unacceptable to Him.
The Truth Matters
Another form of this is seen in the gospel of Mark. Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and reminds them of the prophet Isaiah and what he had to say about false worship. Mark 7:6-7 says, “6 And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. 7 ‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’” Right away we see this spirit issue again. People who honor God with their lips but their hearts are not in the right place. Not only must we be believers who have been saved by grace and filled with His Spirit to worship in spirit, but we must actually worship God with our hearts too. Whenever we do anything for the Lord, whether it’s singing or how we live our lives, we can’t claim that we are worshiping God if our hearts are far from Him. This would be failing to worship God in spirit like the Pharisees were doing. But what else does Jesus say? He also notes that they worship in vain and teach doctrines that are the precepts of men. Why would He say this? Because truth matters. However, truth doesn’t just matter in terms of what we are singing, truth matters when we decide what we believe and what church we will attend.
If we attend a church that has a great congregation and yet they don’t preach the truth of God’s Word, we are not worshiping the Lord in our church services. It breaks my heart whenever I hear people say they don’t care too much about the preaching at their church but they attend becasue they like the worship. Submitting ourselves to sound biblical teaching is a way in which we worship our Lord. We can’t say we love to worship God if we only go to a church service that makes us feel good and doesn’t teach the truth of scripture. If we are to truly worship God we must acknowledge these things. We must not worship anyone but God and God alone, but it doesn’t end there. We must also refuse to partake in worship if our hearts are far from Him and if we are not doing so in a truthful manner. Any church that allows songs to be sung that are not rooted in biblical truths and preaching to be taught that isn’t founded in God’s Word is a church that isn’t acceptable to God at all. I hope and pray that as we read this, we realize where our worship has fallen short, so that we may offer to God the worship that is due His name. Worship that is acceptable to Him and Him alone.
Sources
[1] “Access Your Bible from Anywhere.” BibleGateway.Com: A Searchable Online Bible in over 150 Versions and 50 Languages., www.biblegateway.com/. Accessed 2023.
[2] Kauflin, B. (2023, October 5). How not to worship your worship. Desiring God. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-not-to-worship-your-worship
Great read!