Let the Nations Be Glad!

Jesus strips proskyneo of its last vestiges of localized and outward connotations.5 It will not be wrong for worship to be in a place or to use outward forms, but he makes explicit and central that this is not what makes worship worship. What makes worship worship is what happens “in spirit and truth”—with or without a place and with or without out

Not a few pastors foster this very thing by saying things such as, “The problem is that our people don’t come on Sunday morning to give; they only come to get. If they came to give, we would have life.” That is probably not a good diagnosis. People ought to come to get. They ought to come starved for God. They ought to come saying, “As a deer pants

3. A third implication of saying that the essence of worship is satisfaction in God is that this essence protects the primacy of worship by forcing us to come to terms with the fact that worship is an end in itself. If the essence of worship is satisfaction in God, then worship can’t be a means to anything else. We simply can’t say to God, “I want to

All of creation, all of redemption, all of history is designed by God to display God. That is the ultimate goal of the church.

Let me illustrate this so we can feel its full force. In the Old Testament, the most common word for worship is the Hebrew word hishtahavah (or a related form of that word). Its basic meaning is “bow down,” with the sense of reverence, respect, and honor. It occurs 171 times. In the Greek Old Testament, 164 of those instances of this Hebrew word ar

For example, in Romans 1:9, he says, “I serve [or worship, latreuo] [God] with my spirit in the gospel of his Son.” In Philippians 3:3, Paul says that true Christians “worship by the Spirit of God . . . and put no confidence in the flesh.” And in Romans 12:1, Paul urges Christians, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to

Prayer puts God in the place of the all-sufficient Benefactor and puts us in the place of needy beneficiaries.

So when I say, “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is,” I do not mean “worship services.” I do not mean “worship singing.” Those are part of the expression of the essence of worship, but those things can happen and not be worship. Worship is not first an outward act; it is an inner spiritual treasuring of the character and the

In other words, genuine, heartfelt praise is not artificially tacked on to joy. It is the consummation of joy. Joy in some beauty or some value is not complete until it is expressed in a kind of praise. Now, if God loves us the way the Bible says he does, then he would surely give us what is best for us. And what is best for us is himself. So if Go