What’s the Big Deal About Worship?

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Have you ever wondered, “What’s the big deal about worship?” Maybe you’ve been to church and seen people singing their hearts out, raising their hands, or even crying. You might’ve thought, “I don’t get it. Is this necessary? Can’t I pray at home and get on with my day?” Maybe you have been doing the “church thing” for years but still feel you’re missing the point of all the singing and praying. Worship feels like a mystery, and you’re unsure how to understand it, much less do it. Well, today, we’re going to explore all the fuss and why worship matters more than you might think. I will start by sharing three moments of worship from my life—ones I’ll never forget.

Worship Among the Nations

My first time overseas, I participated in an International church service in Prague. In this English-speaking service, we all sang together, and many accents united. Then, the worship leader asked those singing to raise their voice in their own language. One by one, those gathering prayed. And although I couldn’t understand the words, my heart lifted in worship of God.

Worship in My Brokenness

Years before that, I went to church as a pregnant teenager. There weren’t more than fifty people in the congregation, and we sang along with a piano, a guitar, and drums. There were no strobe lights, fog machines, or huge screens – just us, the musicians, and the words to the songs printed in a book. No one was performing for us; we were all there for the same reason: to lift our voices and hearts to God. I found a sense of belonging and peace in that simple setting that I desperately needed. I learned that true worship isn’t about a showy experience but honestly coming to God as I am, brokenness and all.

As I stood there, hands resting on my protruding stomach, I thought of God. At that moment, He was on His throne. At that moment, the worries about my situation faded into the background. God was present. He cared for me, and I knew everything would be alright.

Worship in a Tender, Thankful Moment

Less than three years after that moment, I lay in bed with my toddler Cory. God had blessed me with this beautiful boy, and as we sang “Jesus Loves Me,” laying side by side, I felt God’s goodness in that room and the joy of being God’s child and teaching my child about God.

Each of these times was a unique moment of worship. I was reminded of these moments this morning when I read Psalm 84. 

Psalm 84: Our Journey Through Worship

Psalm 84 beautifully describes the glory and joy of God’s presence. Seeing God, knowing God, and loving God make life worth living. If your life lacks joy, purpose, and radiance, we must do what the psalmist did: see God afresh.

The first half of this psalm is the journey to God. The second half is the worship of Him when we are gathered in a church community. So many times, we think of the latter, but we forget about the former. Our worship happens in our daily moments, too.

1. The psalmist longs to enter the courts of the Lord.

To long for something is to yearn or hunger for it. Psalm 84:2, “Says my soul faints for longing.” Psalm 42:2 says, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” With everything in us, we desire the living God whose presence is like an ever-quenching spring for our soul. Whether things are going well or terrible, we want more of God. This only comes by pausing to experience His goodness, whether with others or alone. Worship is understanding only God can satisfy our soul … and seeking Him.

2. The psalmist shouts joyfully to the living God.

To shout joyfully is translated as “To give a ringing cry.” This isn’t the exciting shouting we see in some worship services. Instead, it’s crying out to God during times of lament. The same word is used in Lamentations 2:19, “Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord. Lift up your hands to him in prayer, pleading for your children, for in every street they are faint with hunger.” Worship is turning to God when the pain and darkness are pressing in: turning to Him in reverence, in need, and with a prayer for help.

3. The psalmist is always singing praises.

Psalm 84:4 specifically speaks of the Levites who rotated their time in their homes and God’s temple, serving and worshipping. Yet now, we are the temples of the living God, and our work is different. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” 

AW Tozer writes, “Certainly it is more important to lead a soul to Christ than to plant a garden, but the planting of the garden can be as holy an act as the winning of a soul … Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act. All he does is good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For such a man, living itself will be sacramental and the whole world a sanctuary. His entire life will be a priestly ministration. As he performs his never so simple task he will hear the voice of the seraphim saying, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.’ ” Worship is praising God with our work and worshiping as we work.

4. The psalmist sets his mind on pilgrimage, even through pain.

“When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs. They will continue to grow stronger, and each of them will appear before God in Jerusalem” (Pslam 84:6). This Valley of Weeping is a place of lamentation and grief. Worship is seeking God in our hardest moments and growing stronger with each step.

5. The psalmist continues to grow stronger until he appears before God.

Richard Foster writes, “We can schedule personal times of inner worship and confession and attentiveness to Christ, our present Teacher. Doing this heightens our expectancy in public worship because the gathered experience becomes a continuation and intensification of what we have been trying to do all week long.” Worship is seeing our gatherings of corporate praise as the culmination of our daily praise throughout the week.

6. The psalmist praises God.

Finally, standing before God, the words arise, “For the LORD God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The LORD will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.” François Fénelon writes, ‘Happy the soul which by a sincere self-renunciation, holds itself ceaselessly in the hands of its Creator, ready to do everything which He wishes; which never stops saying to itself a hundred times a day, “Lord, what wouldst thou that I should do?” Worship is declaring God’s glory, attributes, and care for His children. 

7. The psalmist then lives like one who has just worshipped God.

Richard Foster writes in The Celebration of Discipline, “Just as worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship. To stand before the Holy One of eternity is to be changed.” Worship is putting yourself in God’s hands and seeking your next step.

So, what’s the big deal about worship? It’s not about what we get out of it. It’s about giving God what He deserves: our praise, our honor, our lives. A.W. Tozer says, “The whole course of the life is upset by failure to put God where He belongs.”

We must stop asking, “What do I get from worship?” and ask, “How does God want me to worship?” The Bible tells us that He wants our everything all the time. That’s the only way to find what we’re looking for—in giving Him all of us. Then, as we seek God, He meets us. And as He meets us, we are changed. Our lives become a shining example of someone who praises God with all we are, seeking Him with all we do and following Him wherever we go. And when we live life that way, everything changes.

Additional Resources

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