The Worship Lifestyle, Pt. 4

Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3

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I'm not sure if this is a new school of thought or if it's existed for some time now, but I've encountered on a number of occasions now the perspective that a god who demands worship is a god who is needy or selfish.  "If I'm going to worship a god," these individuals say, "I want to worship a god who deserves it.  Not one who just tells me to."

Though He does require of us adoring praise and worship, the God we serve needs no validation.  He is not an emotionally insecure deity -- like some Greek god, lusting after humans and self-fulfillment, all as part of an endless competition with other minor deities for supremacy.  To the contrary, God demands worship because He is worthy to receive it, and there are no other gods with which He contends.

Furthermore, when we raise our voices in praise to Him, we are not giving Him something He does not already possess.  By attributing to Him glory and honor, we are not adding to His character or refilling his "glory" tank, as though He is somehow dependent upon us.  The popular vote of the people is not what will elect Him "God" for another four years.  When we worship our God, we are merely celebrating who He is by making statements pertaining to His holiness, justice, power, and eternality.  We are making much of who He is.

One of my favorite hymns captures the idea this way:

Could we, with ink, the oceans fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
Would drain the oceans dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky

In our worship of God, we are merely in the act of describing what He already possesses.  Furthermore, our best effort -- our life-long endeavor -- will still fall so far short of the praise God truly deserves.  Yet our practice of worship is not an exercise in futility, because we offer our lives in totality.  As believers, we are giving everything we have in response to the grace which He gave to us.  That is why, for all of eternity, we will join with the angels in constant and unending praise of our Father, Maker, Redeemer, and Friend.

The first verse of another favorite hymn begins this way:

Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing
My Great Redeemer's praise
The glories of our God and King
The triumphs of His grace

I used to think the writer of "Oh For a Thousand Tongues" was longing for a throng of fellow worshipers to join with him in praising God, and that a thousand was just an arbitrary number intended to evoke the image of a huge crowd, all worshiping together.  However, upon deeper reflection, I think what he's really wishing for is a thousand tongues all of his own with which to give the Great Redeemer praise, because the solitary instrument he does possess is simply not enough.  He sees the worship of God for what it is: an exercise in reflecting back to God His own honor, glory, and praise.  Even 999 additional tongues in the mouths of all the saints could not possibly express the sum total of God's magnificence.

We worship a God who is not "needy."

We worship a God who needs no validation.

We worship a God who is worthy of the praise and adoration we express to Him, and then some.

We worship a God whose surpassing greatness eclipses the wisest theologian's estimate, yet whose humble condescension on our behalf brought Christ the Son to an inglorious death on a cross, forsaken by man and the Father alike -- all for the sake of His creation, out of the kindness of His eternal, gracious character.

That is why we worship Him now, and it is why we will sing of Him for all eternity. 

He is rich in might, love, and power.

He breaks the power of cancelled sin.

He sets the prisoners free.

What more could we possibly give Him than all our hearts in adoring worship?  He deserves that and more.

The Worship Lifestyle, Pt. 3

When I started writing about worship, I didn't intend for the topic to cover three posts, but as I've continued studying and learning myself, there have been a number of ideas and convictions that I still felt needed to be shared. So in this post, I want to address the issue of personal preference as it pertains to worship (and hopefully do so without any more alliteration).

The statement I'm about to make is going to ruffle a few feathers, but it's the driving motivation behind this post: the exercise of personal preference stands opposed to proper worship.  To those of you still reading, I'm of course speaking in an absolute sense, because preference is not always something that is necessarily wrong or inappropriate, but as it pertains to musical styles and worship songs, I have very rarely found someone who is able to share his or her preferences on worship in a humble and unassuming manner, and where his or her desire to see a particular style of worship every Sunday morning doesn't stem from a (sometimes unintentional) sense of entitlement.  What I'm saying is that when we insist on our preference in a worship service, verbalizing or internalizing, we are effectively determining that our mode of thinking is superior and completely forgoing Paul's exhortation to humility in regard to considering one another (Phil 2.3).  So while it's not wrong to have opinions on a worship service, the exercise of them is.

Again, I'm speaking in absolutes, because this is a problem with which all of us struggle.  By being pointedly narrow, I intend to leave no loopholes for those who may feel justified in their ideas on worship (more aptly called "opinions"), so that it is impossible for any of us to avoid evaluating where we fall concerning this issue.

Christians struggle with preference partially because of familial upbringing or cultural background, partially because of negative experiences, and partially because we're just very strong-headed.  Notice that I use the plural pronoun to include myself as well: I certainly have my ideas of the way things should be, and it can get under my skin if a church or individual fails to meet those expectations.  The truly disgusting thing about this issue, however, is not simply that we cling to our own notions, but that we go so far as to disparage the preferences of other individuals or congregations -- as though their practices are somehow inherently sinful.  We have reasons for why we like things to be a certain way, and if someone doesn't share our perspective, they are invariably thinking in a different manner, or upholding different priorities, than we do.  In our human condition, we can't help but be affronted.

Over the course of leading worship for almost a decade, I've heard from all schools of thought.  I've conversed with those who despise modern hymns, either because of their instrumentation or the quality of their lyrics.  I've heard form those who despise the ancient hymns because of their archaic vocabulary or presumed lack of cultural relevance.  I've heard from those who think that singing is a moot point and should be minimized or even excluded from worship services.  As a musician, I totally understand how difficult it is to engage in worship when you simply don't like the musical style.  However, many of the conversations I've had with people on the matter of worship preference have raised red flags in my heart concerning common conceptions (there I go again) of what worship truly is.

I've discussed worship as a definition much more deeply in two earlier posts (Pt. 1 and Pt. 2), but for the purpose of this discussion, I'll keep our working definition to two major points, specific to church or public worship (as opposed to private or individual worship).

First of all, church worship is a celebration of God.  It is the bringing of our firstfruits, or the best of what we have, to the One who already owns them all and recognizing Him for it.  It's an expression of dependence, love, and awe, coming from the hearts of people who see their need fulfilled only in Christ alone.  The verse I've heard quoted in a semi-joking manner to console those who aren't the best singers is "Give a joyful noise to the Lord" (Psa 100.1).  The idea is that it is the attitude of the noise, not the quality thereof, that truly matters.  It's amusing, but it's also true: God is not honored by our excellent display of musical prowess if our hearts are far from Him.  That becomes a mask which does not reflect our internal condition, something which Joel 2.13 encourages us not to exercise.  What honors God is the joyful noise which springs from the hearts of repentant sinners -- sinners who glorify God for His mercy, love, and other eternal, indefatigable qualities, and whose worship of Him doesn't end with the song.

Second, church worship is a corporate expression.  A worship service can be tailored to the tastes of a subset of its members, but it is not (or should not be) based on pleasing individuals.  In the same way that the early church in Jerusalem was built upon commonality, equality, and was devoid of even a mention of preference, so should our modern assemblies.  Everyone shared everything back then, and everyone was enriched by contributing to the needs of the body on a daily basis (Acts 2.47).  Sadly, we can't even have "everything in common" in our modern generation even one day of the week.  Church worship is about participation and contribution.  You don't come to get -- you come to give, and ultimately, you come to give glory to God.  When that is the primary focus of a body of believers, then their church prospers and arguments over petty differences of opinion are nonexistent.  People who simply "attend" a given church, however, don't understand what church is truly about.  People who go into a worship service but refuse to sing because they are appalled by the style of music likewise don't understand what worship is truly about.  When our focus is on God alone, suddenly everything we don't care for isn't a big deal, because our perspective has been focused on what truly matters.  This is what brings unity to the Body of Christ.  At this point, when we are in one accord, true worship can take place.

So that's what worship is in a nutshell.  Now we can understand why the exercise of personal preference can be incredibly damaging: if left unchecked, it is an exertion of my petty feelings over the very real needs of others.  It assumes the superiority of my thinking over that of brothers and sisters, and subjects the worship of a holy God (for which, by the way, He laid the necessary parameters) to the ideas we have about the way it should look, sound, and feel.  Instead of being a beautiful fragrance (2 Cor 2.15), our singing and feeble attempts at ministry become an expression of our internal selfishness, which will inevitably suck out the sacrificial and joyful nature of worship and render it empty lipservice.

As it pertains to singing, if you really don't care for old time gospel songs, you don't have to attend a gospel service, but you should be able to go and participate anyway.  Even though you don't like or know the songs, you should still have the ability to go into a gospel-led service and appreciate the truth within the lyrics.  Maybe you don't try to sing every song, but you celebrate the glory of God in your heart with everyone around you, and maybe you lift your hands and pray instead.  Participation doesn't mean you go in and mouth lyrics with a stony expression, or approach an extended musical interlude with a begrudging attitude, presuming that gospel music is beneath you because it is old-fashioned or somehow sinful.  The same is true for an individual who has difficulty engaging with contemporary hymns: just because you aren't moved by anything written by Chris Tomlin or Paul Baloche doesn't mean you should refuse to celebrate a holy and risen Savior through their music either.  Songs which tend to lean toward personal experience with Jesus are still worshipful, even if they don't use words like "Thee" and "forsakest," or because words like "heaven" with too many syllables aren't truncated with apostrophes.

All that being said, I will submit that we do have to be careful about the songs we choose for worship.    There are far too many which speak of Jesus as though He were a lover.  In fact, any song that could be played on the radio and sound like a love song is the kind I want to steer well away from.  Those kinds of songs reduce the divine love which God has for us to the truncated, misnomer "love" which society encourages today.  Speaking from the perspective of a worship leader, it is extremely important and also very challenging to find songs that are theologically accurate, because there are so many songs out there that just aren't.  Carefully putting together music which not only introduce the sermon material for the day but also accurately point the congregation to the person of Christ is a deep concern of mine -- and hopefully of the worship leaders of your church body as well.  If you find yourself struggling with the lyrics to a particular song -- not because you just don't like them, but because you are genuinely concerned that they aren't biblically based -- then I would encourage you to spend some serious time in prayer and then humbly approach your worship leader with your concerns.  But be careful that your motivation is truly out of a concern for your congregation to worship in spirit and truth, and not simply out of a deep-seated desire to get your own way.

So where are we with this discussion?

To those of you who dislike a particular style of music (and that means all of us), get off your high-horse and join in anyway.  The joy of the Lord should be infectious, not conditional.  To those of you who love all kinds of music but wrestle with lyrical content, take some time to read through those songs you aren't fond of singing and unpack exactly what unsettles you about them, and then do something about it -- out of a humble and loving spirit.  Don't just stew and allow frustration to suck the joy of worshiping out of your heart.  To those of you who simply struggle with wanting your own way, even in areas that have nothing to do with music, take some time to evaluate who sits on the throne of your heart -- your desires, or a Savior whose only desire is that you worship Him with all your heart, soul, and mind, and who commanded that we love others before we even think about loving ourselves.  For everyone, let us sing heartily to the Lord no matter what style of music is being played, because our Holy Father cares little for instrumentation, chords, or beats per minute.  He cares very much, however, about the conditions of our hearts - whenever, wherever, and with whomever we lift songs to give Him praise.

The Worship Lifestyle, Pt. 2

I've had the privilege of leading music at my church for the better part of eight years.  Ever since I was an awkward teenager in our youth group who dug his mothers' vintage Fender F-70 out of the attic and began learning chords so I could play U2 songs, I've had a passion for singing about the Lord and engaging with others in worshiping Him.  One of the most difficult things I've encountered in conversations with people about what the musical side of worship should encompass is the issue of emotions and what their appropriate role should be.  This topic is something I've written about before (hence the "Pt. 2" in this blog's title), but I'd like to dig into the matter once again, not only because it is a very pressing issue in how the church worships (both privately and corporately), but also because it's something that is dear to my heart as a worshiper of Jesus Christ.

I've encountered several extremes concerning emotion's role in worship.

One is this mindset: "I don't worship God when I don't feel like it, because it would be meaningless."

A second is this: "I'm going to worship God whether I feel like it or not, because it's the right thing to do."

Another is as follows: "I worship God when I feel close to Him."

As is usually the case, all of these perspectives possesses some very real shreds of truth.  On one hand, we absolutely want to worship God when we feel like it, because that is a genuine outpouring of our dependence upon and love for Him.  On the other hand, we want to worship God even when we don't feel like it, because our emotions are unstable and we can't base worship upon them.  Additionally, we want to celebrate God when we feel close to Him, because his nearness means joy and salvation (Psalm 73.28).  However, worshiping God is never a "fake it 'til you make it" type of learning process, nor does it allow for a "follow your heart" mentality.

After leading for so long and studying a number of excellent resources (most notably, Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin and Desiring God by John Piper) in addition to the Word of God itself, the conclusion at which I've arrived is as follows: worship is 1. built upon sound theology and 2. expressed through our emotions.  It is always a two-step progression, and it is essential that the process happens in that order: our response to God should be emotional, but the foundation of our worship should never be.  In fact, Bob Kauflin says it perfectly: "Magnifying God's greatness begins with the proclamation of objective, biblical truths about God, but it ends with the expression of deep and holy affections toward God."  This is rooted in the fact that worship is all about God's character.  It's all about Jesus.  That's why worship transcends musical style, be it through ancient or modern hymns.  That's why worship is a lifestyle, and not just an action.  Worship is a celebration of who God truly is, expressed through our desire to see His truth proclaimed - both to others and to our own hearts.

It's simply all about Jesus.  Therefore, we respond whole-heartedly, emotionally, to Him.

Another way to think about it is that we worship God through our emotions and in spite of them.  This is due to the fact that while our emotions are incredibly unstable, God's character constant forever.  When we are wrestling with sorrow, anxiety, and even anger, we must worship in spite of our emotions.  If I find myself walking into a worship service while in this frame of mind, then in order for me to worship God effectively, I need to mirror the heart of Job, captured in Matt Redman's "Blessed Be Your Name:" "My heart will choose to say, 'Lord, blessed be Your name!'"  In this vein, although I am singing out of a heart which needs divine comfort, I am also magnifying the Lord's sovereignty and compassion, effectively minimizing my suffering in the wake of His provision.  It may sound like a subtle difference, but it is all the difference that is necessary.  It's a matter of perspective: instead of weeping over my pain and begging the Lord to take it away, my worship is now built upon a sound understanding that God is sovereign (Deut 10.17) and that He cares about my pain (Psa 56.8), poured out in humble expression of my desperate need.  It doesn't mean that I'm all of a sudden carefree, it just means that in esteeming God to be greater than my circumstances, I experience the Joy of the Lord which transcends pain and heartache.  Inevitably, my worship then becomes about His character, not what I am feeling.

On the other side of the coin, when we are soaring on Cloud 9 with joy, or when we experience a peace that surpasses understanding, then we worship God because of our emotions.  If I find myself here, then I must channel my celebration into magnification of God's benevolent character and esteem Him the author of my good fortune, while at the same time acknowledging that my promotion or an answered prayer ultimately takes a back seat to the gift of His Son (Psalm 13.6; Titus 2.13).  Otherwise, I begin to stray dangerously close to arrogance, independence, and even self-worship.  Once again, by celebrating the Creator because of who He is rather than simply because of what I feel, I am subtly shifting my perspective so that my worship is dependent upon His character, not what I experience or achieve.

There is a third mindset toward worship, however, that I haven't mentioned yet.  That perspective is one of indifference.  If I find myself in this position, then I have to very honestly and very carefully consider my own heart.  It's been said that the opposite of love isn't hate, because both are driven by passion: therefore, the true opposite of love must be apathy.  If we simply don't care, if we could take or leave a worship service, then we certainly can't engage in worship that magnifies a holy and righteous Creator.  John Piper writes, "The engagement of the heart in worship is the coming alive of the feelings and emotions and affections of the heart.  Where feelings for God are dead, worship is dead."  However, the problem I need to address is not my lack of emotions, but the condition of my heart.  To try to change how I feel would be to treat the symptoms and not the disease.  Either something in my understanding of God needs to change, or a sin that is callousing my heart toward Him needs to be addressed.  Only when the heart has been cleansed can emotion follow that may be used to glorify God.

In sum, worship is expressed through emotion, but is not built upon it.  In this regard, the appropriate expression of our feelings in worship should always be in response to God's character, and we should use our emotions to magnify Him above what we feel and experience.  However, worship is also very much dependent upon our feelings, because love is empty and meaningless without passion.  It can't be 100% objective in the same way that it can't be 100% subjective.  The Bible makes it very clear that God desires worshipers who celebrate Him in spirit and truth - in other words, with all of their being and with their fullest understanding of His character (John 4.23; Matt 22.37).  Jesus also proclaimed that it is out of the "abundance of the heart" that the mouth speaks, a statement which clearly implies that the only lips worthy of offering praise are those which are connected to a heart full of passionate love for God (Matt 12.34).  As Bob Kauflin states it, "What we love most will determine what we genuinely worship."  If God truly sits on the throne of our heart, if He truly encompasses our being, then we will only desire to worship Him, no matter what circumstances beset us.  Encountering His greatness should always result in the outpouring of heartfelt emotion, because He is holy, wonderful, and eternally deserving of our praise.

I'd like to conclude with a passage from Kauflin's Worship Matters as a final encouragement: "Worship is accepted not on the basis of what we have done, but on the basis of what Christ has done.  It's not uncommon for us to 'feel' accepted and loved by God when we're engaged in worship.  But if that feeling isn't rooted in the gospel, it will be an elusive sensation.  It's not enough to sing songs about God's love that produce warm feelings in our hearts.  We need to glory in the reality of Jesus Christ, beaten and bruised for our transgressions, giving up his life in our place on the cross.  There will never be a greater proof or demonstration of God's love."

Successful worship is worship that celebrates Jesus Christ as our mediator.  Successful worship is worship which glorifies God as our Holy Father, who - out of unfathomable love for us - gave such grace that He poured out all of His just wrath against sin upon His only Son.  Therefore, successful worship is dependent upon the condition of our hearts, in response to that truth.  Whenever we enter into a time of singing, prayer, or Bible study, we should always preclude entry by pausing to evaluate ourselves.  No matter what stage of life, no matter what frame of mind, we need to constantly check where our hearts are in relation to God.  If there's one thing I know about myself, it's that I am a wicked human being and my heart is incredibly deceptive (Jer 17.9).  As believers, it is our responsibility to be certain that we are loving the Lord with all of our hearts, souls, and minds.  Frequent self-evaluation is necessary to ensure that we are not behaving as the Pharisees did, whose lips were quick to spout all the right answers but whose hearts were simultaneously distant from the Messiah's (Matt 15.8-9; 23:27).

So examine your heart, because if it is far from God, then worship is impossible.

The Worship Lifestyle [Pt. 1]

As a worship leader, one of the passages which I've spent a lot of time studying is John 4, the gospel account of Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the village of Sychar. There are a lot of important components within this passage, but the most notable is Jesus' statement of what defines true worship. In verse 23, John records Jesus' words:

“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”

It wasn't until this morning that I finally took notice of the immediate context of Jesus' statement, which contains an often overlooked implication for modern-day believers.

There are some differing perspectives on this verse, like many passages of Scripture. Some people think that when Jesus describes true worshipers as worshiping “in spirit,” He is referring to the coming of the Holy Spirit, and that the worship of a true follower of God is confirmed or made genuine by the unique spiritual communion with the Father which the Holy Spirit makes possible. This isn't necessarily a wrong interpretation, because we do worship with the guidance of the Spirit, but that reading of this particular passage is slightly off-base. Remember, Jesus said in verse 23 that “the hour is coming, and is now here,” but the giving of the Holy Spirit would not take place until the Day of Pentecost, after His ascension to heaven. The word for “spirit” used in this passage is the Greek word “pneuma,” which is used throughout Scripture to define both “rational soul, vital principle, and mental disposition” and “God, Christ's spirit, the Holy Spirit” (compare John 4.23 with 2 Cor 3.17, and Phil 3.3). However, the term typically used for the Holy Spirit in describing His divine office (the comforter, helper) is the word “parakletos,” literally “come beside,” which may be translated as “comforter” or “advocate” (see John 14.15-17; 14.25-26; 16.7). John 4, however, uses the primary definition of pneuma to denote the “vital principle and mental disposition” of the worshiper – in other words, the state of his or her heart.

But although the heart or spirit is crucial to this passage, it is not the immediate context.

When worship leaders discuss this passage, we talk about the appropriate approach to worship services, picking songs that are grounded in biblical truth, inspiring within the congregation attitudes of reverence, celebration, thanksgiving. And while these things are all bundled into the description of worshiping “in spirit” and certainly defining of true worship, there is another qualifier that is missing.

What Jesus is talking about deals specifically with location. The dividing issue between the Samaritans and Jews (blood heritage aside) was the place of worship: the Jews called Jerusalem the place of worship, and the Samaritans considered Mount Gerizim the sacred location. That is why the woman, abruptly changing the subject away from her adulterous lifestyle, says to Jesus, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship” (4.19-20). This, in turn, prompts Jesus' warm reply: “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (4.21-24). Jesus says that neither Gerizim nor Jerusalem would be the singular location of true worship.

So the obvious question which follows is, “Where is the appropriate place of worship for us as believers?”

MacArthur's study Bible contains the following footnote for this passage: “Jesus' point is that in light of His coming as Messiah and Savior, worshipers will be identified, not by a particular shrine or location, but by their worship of the Father through the Son. With Christ's coming, previous distinctions between true and false worshipers based on locations disappeared. True worshipers are all those everywhere who worship god through the Son, from the heart.”

Therefore, the (hopefully) obvious answer is, “Anywhere and everywhere.”

We can't consider worship just singing any more than we can consider it restricted to one particular locale: Jesus negated both Mount Gerizim and Jerusalem as the “appropriate” place of worship. He said, simply, that true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth. This implies a lack of specific location, or an all-inclusive one. What Jesus is saying is that worship is no longer tied to the physical realm, no longer solely an act of obeying the law and making sacrifices at the temple. It now primarily incorporates the spiritual realm.

In other words, worship takes place in the heart.

Unfortunately, there are people who take this idea that worship shouldn't be restricted to a church building and begin to run too far in the opposite direction. Their idea is that worship services should be socially relative and accessible to the common man, so they meet in bars, coffee houses, and libraries instead of pews and sanctuaries. This Emergent Church movement, which may begin with great intentions, suffers from the domino effect: they misinterpret one of the three pillars of true worship (spirit, truth, location – or lack thereof) and the rest begin to crumble. Because they desire less structure and more accessibility, they remove the location pillar. Because they desire to reach culture, they soften ideas of Biblical judgment and accept and encourage all walks of life within their congregation, and so the next pillar – truth in worship – begins to slide downhill. Gradually, they begin to question the comprehensive nature of the Bible and move away from belief in its infallibility. When truth in worship becomes compromised, whats left is a purely philosophical, opinion-based, emotion-driven “faith” which has divorced itself from true belief in Jesus Christ. It becomes a road to inter-spirituality through mysticism, a blending of religions and morals to suit the desires of the congregants.

In other words, that's not what I'm trying to communicate.

As a member of a church which began in a school, and a volunteer worship leader at another which rents out a bar while waiting on their permanent location, I know for a fact that true worship can take place beneath a steeple or otherwise. The point of this post is not to say that we should or shouldn't meet in a church building on Sundays to worship: the point is that worship should be our continual state, present with the body of Christ or apart.

So if worship is characterized by heart motive and truth, and is no longer dependent upon location, then our understanding of worship should be that it is not simply an activity which needs to take place in church on Sunday – or even an activity at all, for that matter. To the contrary, worship is a lifestyle, necessarily incorporating our daily thoughts and actions. Worship is proper, loving interaction with brothers and sisters in Christ. Worship is service – true and undefiled religion which cares for the orphans and widows without expecting reciprocation (Jas 1.27). In that regard, worship is very much like love. It involves action, sure, but that action is an expression of the heart. Just like faith cannot exist without the verification of works (Jas 2.26), and love is nonexistent without sacrifice, so worship is a condition of the heart which demands external expression. But the inverse is also true: works profit nothing without the foundation of faith, actions done “in love” do not always reflect the genuine sentiment of the heart, and simply going through the motions in worship does not mean we are truly celebrating the Lord.

There is one more defining characteristic of worship that I want to tease out of John 4.

Near the beginning of their conversation, Jesus had told the Samaritan woman, “Everyone who drinks of this [well's] water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (4.13-14). Similarly, in Luke's account of the Beatitudes, Christ blessed the ones “who are hungry now, for [they] shall be satisfied” (6.21). In both passages, what Jesus was trying to teach is that satisfaction is found only in worshipping God. Therefore, genuine worship done in spirit and in truth is soul-satisfying.  When we are consumed with Him, the distractions of this empty world lose their ability to draw us away from the truth.  Therefore, worshipping the Father is predicated upon dissatisfaction with this life and longing for intimacy with Him.   It is recognition of the fact that only He is worthy of our worship, and that only He can satisfy our thirst and our hunger.  Jesus often cautioned the one who is rich in this life that he has “already received consolation” (Luke 6.24).  In other words, the one who has invested all his time and passion in worldly things has already received his earnings.  True worshipers are not fooled by the material, however.  They worship God because He alone brings satisfaction.

The sum total of our lives should be a testament of worship -- the type of living sacrifice which continuously glorifies God on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis (Rom. 12.1).  Worship does not take place solely in singing any more than it is restricted to a church building on a Sunday morning.  It is an active, abiding expression of love and adoration for our heavenly Father which must encompass every facet of our lives -- in spirit, truth, and any locale.  In fact, our lifestyles should be so full of worship that we are clearly identifiable as Christ-followers -- so that the expression of our faith through words is merely a confirmation of the observer's pre-existing assumption.