Does worship really matter?

At the church where I serve we are spending our time together asking and answering the questions “What is worship? Who actually worships? Why are we supposed to worship? What happens when we worship? And how are we supposed to worship?” Does worship really matter?"

We are discovering that all humanity has been wired for worship. And during this time our hope and prayer is that God would move in our heads, hearts, and hands in a way that results in us understanding and embracing the life of worship that we were created for in a way that results in us worshipping Jesus with our lives.

Last week, we discovered the timeless reality that we are wired for worship because we all worship something. You see, the question is not whether or not you worship. The question is “who or what do you worship”? Because worship, simply put, is a response to what we value most: Worship is a life that is lived in response to what we value most. If you want to know what you truly worship, simply look at there you leverage your time, your affection, your energy, and your loyalty, because that is what you worship. And regardless of what we say, our worship is more about what we do than what we say. Often what we say we worship is betrayed by what we actually worship with our time, talent, and treasure.

This week, I would like for us to spend our time together asking and answering the second question in this series, which is “Does worship really matter?” Now a natural question or objection to this idea that we all worship something, if you could have a conversation with to express your question or objection, the conversation would sound something like this: “Well, Dave does worship really matter? Even if I agree with your definition that worship is a life lived in response to what we value most, is worship really that big a deal? Does it really matter whether or not I worship God?”

If those questions and objections are running through your mind, I just want to let you know that those are great questions to be asking. And to answer those questions, I would like for us to spend our time together looking at three different passages that are found in two different letters that are recorded for us in the Bible. And it is in these three different passages that we will discover a timeless answer to the question “Does worship really matter?”

The first passage that we are going to look at is found in a section of a letter in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Psalms. Now the book of Psalms are a collection of prayers and songs that were spoken and sung by the Jewish people that were collected together to form the first playlist of worship for the people of God. This playlist was then preserved and recorded for us in the Bible. So let’s look at a part of this playlist together, which is found in Psalm 19:1-4:

For the choir director. A Psalm of David. The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; Their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their utterances to the end of the world.

Here we see a man named David, who was the most famous king to even lead the Jewish people, demonstrate the heart that he had to worship the Lord. King David wrote a song of worship for one of the worship leaders to perform as part of the worship that would occur in the Temple in Jerusalem, which is where the Jewish people would gather to worship the Lord. And as part of this song of worship, we see King David proclaim a profound truth about worship.

And that profound truth is that the Heavens are telling the glory of God. In other words, the universe that God created is actively worshipping the Lord in a way the recounts the splendor, radiance, and majesty of the Lord. The universe declares and provides the evidence of God’s character and activity in the world. The start of every day speaks in a way that informs us of the glory of God. The activity of the universe during every evening declares its knowledge of the greatness and splendor of God.

King David then explains that the universe worships the Lord in a way that recounts and informs us of the glory of God not through words. The universe worships the Lord in a way that recounts and informs us of the glory of God not by singing a worship song.

Instead, the “sound” of the worship of the universe that makes much of the God is revealed and recounted through the awesome act of God’s activity in the creation. The sound of the worship of the universe is revealed and recounted in the expanse and activity of the universe. To prove his point, King David points to the God’s activity in the creation of time and the luminaries that serve as signs that mark the passage of time and provide light to the earth. Notice King David’s words in the second half of 4:

In them He has placed a tent for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; It rejoices as a strong man to run his course. Its rising is from one end of the heavens, And its circuit to the other end of them; And there is nothing hidden from its heat.

King David points to the sun as evidence of the creation’s worship of the Lord. The sun, which is 93 million miles away from the earth; the sun whose light takes 8 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth, worships the Lord by recounting and revealing the splendor, radiance, and majesty of the Lord at every sunrise. King David uses the word picture of a tent used in a wedding ceremony to point to the greatness and grandeur of the universe.

The sun, like a bridegroom emerging from a tent, proclaims the splendor and majesty of the Lord as it rises in the sky every day. Every day, as the sun travels its course across the sky, the sun proclaims the glory of God as the source of life and light.

Even if every human being on the planet refused to worship the Lord, the Lord would not be lacking in worship. Even if every angelic being refused to worship the Lord, the Lord would not be lacking worship. The Lord would not be lacking worship because the entire created universe worships the Lord. The entire universe worships the Lord in a way that recounts and declares the splendor, radiance and majesty of the Lord.

And a few chapters later in the book of Psalms, we see another song on this playlist. We will look at that song tomorrow…