Skip to main content

worship is not for spectators

Over the last few posts, we’ve been looking at why worship is so important. As we continue our look at Psalm 96, I want to point out something that jumped out at me:

Worship isn’t just passively acknowledging the greatness of God. It requires us to be actively engaged with him.

As you read Psalm 96, notice these commands …

  • Sing to the Lord
  • Praise his name
  • Proclaim his salvation
  • Declare his glory among the nations
  • Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength
  • Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness
  • Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.”

Worship is not a spectator sport, something that you come to watch. Worship is a verb. It is something you do.

It’s not that God needs our worship. He certainly isn’t suffering from low self-esteem. Yet throughout the Bible, we find passages just like this one where God calls us to honor and glorify him.

When the ancient church was trying to capture this idea, they crafted the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Part of it says that “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

Two years ago, when our church leadership revised our mission statement as a church, we kept coming back to this same idea. It’s reflected as the first G of our 3G’s. “Moutainview exists to Glorify God, Grow in Jesus, and to Go into the world.”

How well you sing is not the issue. Whether you raise your hands or not is not the issue. What does matter is whether or not you are actively engaged in honoring God.

A healthy, growing church will be filled with healthy, growing worshipers.