Gave my last talk on worship yesterday morning, and I have to say, that it must have been ALL GOD, because I was not ready, or feeling it. But God really moved. Here are my initial thoughts that were the basis of the little talk. Warning: this one is a jumbled mess. I can’t believe it actually came together when I got on stage.

Thoughts, Week 5

I find that it’s easy to really over-theologize worship. I have been talking about all these different facets of worship—sitting in God’s presence, expectation, obedience, one-ness—which are definitely all valid, but sometimes we need to just get down to the basics. Worship is definitely all these things. Worship is more than all these things as well. I could probably talk for weeks about all the different parts and effects of worship. But what is worship—real worship—at it’s core?

It’s worshipping God.

Sounds condescending to say it like that, but that’s really what it is. Its beholding God’s glory, exalting his name, magnifying who he is above all. It’s boldly declaring who God is. It’s laying down all the things we make God into, and all of the other theological stuff, and really just declaring what we know about God.

It’s declaring to God that we know He is our refuge. That He is sovereign. That He knows what He is doing. That we put our lives, and our wills in His hands. It’s taking ourselves out of the equation, and making sure that we put God on the throne. Recognizing our place in the hierarchy. This truth-speaking not only builts our faith, but ushers in a complete transformation of our hearts and minds. In God-centered worship (which is what it should ALWAYS be, shouldn’t it?), we stop focusing on ourselves, what song we are singing, what prayer we are praying, whatever we are doing and just put ALL the focus on God. And in doing that, we are dying to ourselves. We are letting God transform us into His people. We are no longer being conformed to the pattern of this world, we are being transformed by the renewing of our mind.

Psalm 95:1-2 (and 3-7 for that matter) is a great example of this type of adoration for God: “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.” Sometimes we need to take ourselves out of theology, and just WORSHIP GOD.

We need to just bring it to it’s simplest level.

To just say “God. I love you. You are the reason for my existence. You are the way, the truth, and the life.”