Does God care about how we worship?
All Christians everywhere recognize that they should worship God. It is an irrefutable fact that the Lord tells believers to worship Him. The Psalms are full of exhortations to worship God (Ps. 100:1; 111:1).
We sometimes hear about a church going through a “worship war.” There are endless debates over contemporary or modern worship and traditional worship. But one question that fails to get asked: Does God care how we worship Him?
Do the forms and elements of worship matter to Him? Or are Christians free to worship however they please, inventing new forms and elements of worship?
In order to answer that question, we must turn to the Scriptures. After all, followers of Christ learn about God's character and how He wants them to live by reading the Scriptures.
How We Worship Matters
The Lord is passionate about receiving our worship, but He’s also passionate about the manner in which we worship Him.
For much of my adult life as a Christian, I never thought much about this particular issue; I always assumed that God was pleased with me simply because I was a Christian. And to be clear, if you’re walking with God, that is pleasing to Him. But to say that God only cares about your salvation and growth in godliness while being indifferent toward how you worship Him is inconsistent with what His Word clearly teaches.
There are many passages that could be used to support this, but I want to look at one Old Testament passage, one passage from the gospels, and one from the letters of Paul.
Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10)
In Leviticus 10, we read that God struck down Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's two sons who were also priests, for offering strange fire to the Lord. Verse one records, “Now Nadab and Abihu the Sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. (v. 1)”
Upon a cursory reading, you may be led to think that God is being severe. After all, Nadab and Abihu offered their unauthorized fire to the Lord – not to some pagan god.
But that is, in fact, the issue. They offered fire in the context of worship in a way that was not commanded by the Lord. Leviticus 10 doesn’t spell out exactly what Nadab and Abihu did, but it doesn’t need to.
The overall message is clear: Their form of worship displeased the Lord.
Perhaps you’re thinking to yourself, that’s in the Old Testament! New Testament worship is different.
But if God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, it would follow that the Lord is just as passionate about the form of New Testament worship. Here are two passages from the New Testament that demonstrate God still cares about how we worship.
Jesus Cleanses the Temple (Matt. 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-19; Luke 19:45-48; John 2:13-22)
All four gospels record Jesus cleansing the Temple. In fact, many scholars believe that Jesus cleansed the temple twice: Once at the beginning of his ministry and once at the end. Jesus cleansed the Temple because He was outraged over what Temple worship had turned into. Temple worship had been short-circuited by the merchants. The money changers and those selling animals in the Temple were making worship more convenient.
The Jews would travel for miles and miles in order to offer sacrifices to the Lord. Money changing and selling animals in the Temple eliminated the inconvenience of having to drag an animal all the way to Jerusalem.
When the Jews got to the Temple there were animals for them to pick up as their sacrifice to the Lord. The merchants wanted to line their own pockets by providing a service to the Jewish people.
But really, they were inhibiting Temple worship because the Jewish people weren’t compelled to offer their best to the Lord. The merchants had created a system of worship that catered to the needs of the people instead of the demands of God.
And so, Jesus drove out the merchants.
All four gospels also mention Jesus’ passion for the Lord’s house, but only John 2 quotes Psalm 69: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” God cared not just that the people made animal sacrifices; He also cared about the means by which they got the animals and offered them in worship.
Undoubtedly, the hearts of the people are in view because they were nonchalantly offering worship to the Lord. But the merchant system certainly encouraged irreverent, disinterested, detached worship.
Jesus was certainly concerned with their hearts in worship, but He was also concerned with the form of worship as well. The merchants were polluting Temple worship. In his commentary on John, William Hendrickson wrote that Jesus, “attacked the secularizing spirit of the Jews.” And he demonstrated that, “One should not tamper with holy things.” [1]
Jesus cleansing the Temple forces us to conclude that the Lord cares about both our hearts and the form of our worship.
Orderly Worship (1 Corinthians 14)
1 Corinthians 14:26-40 is another passage that demonstrates God’s passion for how we worship, and it deals heavily with spiritual gifts.
Table what you think about the continuation of spiritual gifts for a second and look at the context surrounding the passage. Apparently, worship in Corinth was chaos! They were speaking in tongues and prophesying at random and on top of each other.
And so, the Apostle Paul gives the church in Corinth instructions for how to conduct worship. He tells them only two or three should speak in tongues at a time and to remain silent if there isn’t an interpreter (vv. 27-28).
The Apostle Paul gives the church instructions regarding how things should be done in the context of a worship service. He says, “all things should be done decently and in order.” (v.40)
We understand Paul to be writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, he reiterates to the Corinthians that what he is writing to them should be treated as a “command of the Lord.”
He invokes his apostolic authority in order to regulate the worship of the church in Corinth.
Again, these individuals were worshiping God, but the form and manner in which they were doing it displeased the Lord.
Of course, God cares about your heart in worship, but to say that God doesn’t care about how you worship is inaccurate.
Too often we’ve been taught that as long as our worship is heartfelt, sincere, and passionate, it automatically pleases God. We’ve slowly been led to believe that God cares exclusively about our emotional response and is ambivalent toward our form of worship or liturgy.
But even a very brief examination of Scripture demonstrates that God cares about both our hearts and the form of our worship.
The Guiding Principle for Worship
So if we want to please God in how we worship, what should we do? We should turn to the Scriptures!
Doesn’t it logically follow that if Christians derive how to live from the Scriptures, that we should also derive how to worship from the Scriptures? After all, everything we know about worshiping God is found in God’s Word.
If Christians take their worship cues from Scripture, then what’s appropriate for Lord’s Day worship will naturally narrow.
And the practice of doing in worship services what’s only explicitly stated in Scripture historically been known as the regulative principle.
Generally, there are seven elements that are permissible for worship.
Preaching of the Word (2 Tim. 4:2)
Reading the Word (1 Tim. 4:13)
Prayer (Matt. 21:13)
Singing (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16)
The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Matt. 28:19; Acts 2:38–39; 1 Cor. 11:23–26; Col. 2:11–12)
Offerings (2 Cor. 9:7)
And occasionally, vows/oaths (Deut. 6:13; Ps. 116:14)
Despite the appearance of exclusivity, there is much freedom within the bounds of the regulative principle of worship. There is wide variety among the worship services of churches that prescribe to the regulative principle.
Everything Led By God’s Word
Christians’ lives and worship should be directed and informed by God’s Word.
That’s why we preach the Scriptures, read the Scriptures, pray the Scriptures, sing the Scriptures, participate in the Lord’s Supper and baptism according to the Scriptures, tithe according to the Scriptures, and occasionally take vows or oaths according to the Scriptures.
Everything we do in worship should be infused with the Scriptures.
We should seek God’s Word in order to learn about worship. Why? Because we want to please God!
Lord’s Day Worship is Different
One of the saddest things about American Christianity today is that it seems more direction for worship comes from stand-up comedy, concerts, and broadway shows than God’s Word.
But can even the best megachurch band outperform John Mayer (or fill in your favorite musician)? Or can the best sermon be more entertaining or culturally relevant than a TED talk? The church will never be able to out-entertain the entertainers and even if you think it’s possible, views on YouTube will tell a different story.
But for some reason, there is this unspoken expectation in many churches to capture the attention of the masses at all costs.
The Christian worship service is and should be something different entirely. The worship of God is a separate category all to itself. The church isn’t competing with the culture for attention. Rather, Lord’s Day worship is a day to ascribe all the praise, honor, and glory to the Triune God for the redemption we have in Jesus Christ.
Christians are not playing the same game nor should we. A wise woman once told me, “What you win them with is what you win them to.”
The way in which the church worships should be thoughtful and seek to please God on His terms.
A Formal Liturgy?
But how do you ensure that your worship service is consistently gospel-centered each and every week? Having a formal order of worship gives a church the consistency that we desperately need.
Not to mention, there’s something different and distinctly Christian about a formal order of worship or liturgy. A good liturgy helps ensure that worship is conducted in a manner prescribed by God.
A worship liturgy doesn’t necessarily mean that a church is steeped in traditionalism and therefore, full of people just going through the motions. Perhaps that is sometimes true, but it’s certainly not always true. Every Christian, regardless of tradition or worship conviction, must wrestle with a cold heart at risk of going through the motions.
The beauty of liturgical worship guided by God’s Word is not in its cultural relevance but in its commitment to the Word, sacraments, and prayer - the means by which the Lord brings us into his presence.
A formal order of worship forces man to step aside so that congregants can receive a word from the Lord through His means of grace.
And isn’t that what we all need? Less opinions. Less conversations. Less debates. More from the words of Christ.
I’m a millennial church planter, currently sitting in a coffee shop, typing this out on my MacBook. I feel a real sense of irony writing this because in many ways I feel like a walking contradiction. My demographic and convictions seem to be at odds with one another.
And to be honest, I would have never thought that I would advocate for what may appear on the surface as “traditional” or “liturgical” worship.
But at the end of the day, this conviction has nothing to do with my personal preference. I’m not writing this because I prefer “traditional” worship over “contemporary” worship.
It has everything to do with being faithful to God’s Word and doing my best to implement it into worship. Because if God cares about how He’s worshiped, I should care about how I worship Him.
God cares about the ends (your salvation and sanctification) and the means (how you worship Him). God wants Biblical, thoughtful, and reverent worship.
[1] William Hendrickson, New Testament Commentary: John (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2002), 129.
