Why Worship?

What does the Grand Canyon have to do with worship? Let me see if I can explain…

In the summer of 1987, I stood on the lip of the Grand Canyon for the very first time. The experience literally took my breath away. I was overcome by its immensity. Although I had seen pictures of the Grand Canyon, and had even read books about it before our visit, nothing had prepared me for its enormous size.

One of the things that struck me forcefully was the sound of the Grand Canyon. It was so vast that it seemed to radiate silence. I stood there, with my eyes struggling to come to terms with what they were seeing, but my ears had nothing to do. There was simply no sound coming from this vast panorama. That, more than anything else, told me how big it was.

In the years since then, I have made it a personal goal to return to the Canyon. I want to hike down to the bottom. I want to go into it and become a part of it. But in the meantime, I want to tell other people about it. I want to urge them to go there, to see it if at all possible. I’m always ready to extol its virtues to others because the Grand Canyon is something that is really worth seeing.

In the same way, only on a much grander scale, God is someone who is worth knowing. And because he is worth knowing, he is worthy of our praise. The word “worship” comes from the Old English word “worth-ship”. It simply means that someone or something has worth.

That’s why the Psalmist says in Psalm 95 “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.”

It’s obvious that David was excited about God! If you are a Christian, you should be excited about God. And you should want to communicate to others your excitement.

Have you ever talked to a dyed in the wool NY Jets fan? You don’t get too far into the conversation before the subject of the NY Jets comes up. He wants to talk about them because he’s excited by them.

It’s the same way with God. A person who never talks about God is a person who doesn’t really know God. Because to know God is to be awed by him, to be overwhelmed with who he is and what he does. He is awesome.

There are at least four answers to the question “Why Worship?”

1. Because worship is simply the right response to God.

Imagine if you were to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You pay your admission and you go into the first of the many great galleries there. But just before entering, you take out a blindfold and tie it around your head. Then, for the rest of the day, you feel your way around the museum.

That would be absurd, would it not? That would be a totally inappropriate response to one of the world’s greatest art collections. In the same way, not to worship God is a totally wrong response for a human being to make.

We used to live near Niagara Falls. We often enjoyed taking visitors to see the Falls. For some of them, it was their first time ever seeing the Falls. Invariably, their reaction would be “Wow! Look at that!”

But imagine if someone were seeing the Falls for the first time and they said “Ho hum. How boring.” That’s the wrong response, isn’t it? That response doesn’t say anything about Niagara Falls, does it? You think Niagara Falls cares what people say? But it sure says a lot about the person who said it!

We don’t worship God because we have to, or because somebody tells us to. We worship God because when you come face to face with who God is, worship is simply the right thing to do. It is the appropriate response, given who God is.

2. Because worship gives us a right perspective on ourselves. The author of the book of Ecclesiastes wanted to find out what life was all about. So he tried many things. He tried knowledge and education. But that didn’t give him the answer. Then he tried deliberately becoming a fool. (Incidentally, I’ve met people who seem to be taking this approach) But that didn’t give him the answer.

So he tried making money. But that didn’t give him the answer. He tried pursuing pleasure. But that didn’t give him the answer,either. He tried to find the answers to life by living life in every dimension, and he didn’t get them.

In the end, he concluded that the only way to get the answers to life was to focus on God. Listen to what he said: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

When you come into church on Sunday morning, your mind is on many things. Perhaps you have been wrestling with pain or problems in your life. You feel like you are under a heavy load. And the more you think about those things, the heavier that load seems to get.

But when you turn your eyes toward heaven and begin to worship God, you start to gain a new perspective on things. You see God in all his glory and majesty and power. You remember that God loves you. You remember that he is in control of your life and of all the things that come into your life. You remember that you can trust him to always do the right thing. But you would never remember those things if you never took time to worship.

Worship gives us the right perspective on ourselves.

3. Worship helps us to deal with sin.

When we come into God’s presence in worship, one of the first things that happens is that we become conscious of our own sin. The prophet Isaiah in Isa. 6 had a vision of the Lord, high and lifted up on his mighty throne. The angels were crying “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The first thing Isaiah said was “Woe is me for I am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips. I’m a sinner. I don’t even deserve to be here in the presence of God.”

When you come face to face with God, in all his holiness, you become acutely aware of your own unrighteousness. But that is not a bad thing. You have to realize you are a sinner before you can do anything about your sin. And the thing to do about it is to let God cover it with the blood of Jesus.

That’s why worship is an activity for sinners. If you don’t think you’re a sinner; if you’re clinging to your self-righteous pride, it only proves one thing. It proves that you haven’t really come face to face with God.

There is an old Arab legend about the prophet Mohammed. One day, a disciple of Mohammed came to him and said “Master, my six brothers are sleeping, and I alone have remained awake to worship God.”

The prophet replied “My son, it would have been better for you to remain asleep than for your worship of God to be mixed with accusations against your brothers.”

True worship makes us aware of our own sinfulness, not somebody else’s. And becoming aware of our own sinfulness is essential if we’re ever going to let God cleanse us.

4. Worship draws others to God.

In the book of Acts, the early Christians met together with glad and sincere hearts to worship God. And their worship had a magnetic quality about it. As other people saw their excitement and their enthusiasm for the risen Lord Jesus Christ, they were attracted. They wanted to know more.

Is that how the people in Lynbrook feel about us? Well, in some ways, yes. We’re getting a lot of curiosity from folks in our community through programs like Sonshine Street and Mother’s Morning Out. They want to know what we believe. They want to know why we’re doing such neat things.

But if those people come into our worship services on Sunday, what are they going to think? Are they going to see us just going through the motions? Or are they going to sense a spirit of life and excitement here. Are they going to sense that we are enthused to be in the presence of God?

Worship is the right response to God. Worship gives us the right perspective on ourselves and on life. Worship helps us to deal with the sin that creeps into our lives. And worship attracts others to Christ.

I’m praying that in the next weeks and months, God will revitalize our worship.