The Purpose Of Worship - Week 1

We've been studying the PRICE of worship over the last 4 weeks, and are hopefully willingly paying that price just as Jesus paid the ultimate price for us. Now, let's move on to looking at the PURPOSE of worship.


Scholars have tried to makes sense of just what worship is for years. However, I feel that the Westminster Catechism puts it about as concisely as can be said: The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.


This statement hits home on two points:

1.) The Lord wants us to know Him. He wants us to know his heart and to worship Him for what He has done.

Now, the word "know" here isn't used like a couple of friends hanging out. It's not "oh yeah, I know them." The meaning of the word in this context is in the way a husband and wife know each other; a complete and intimate knowledge of absolutely all there is to know. That's the kind of relationship God desires with us.

2.) The Lord wants us to enjoy Him forever. The scriptures back this up completely.

Any notion that references in the Bible to reverence and "fear" of God should be so out of proportion that any form of joy would somehow be considered sacrilegious or offensive is NOT the point. Worship is to bring joy to both God and to us. Rejoicing in worship brings glory and enjoyment to God, and it gives us a way to step back from the issues at hand in our lives and to allow God to work in us and through us.

See, worship is not so much for God, as it is for us. Now, we are BY NO MEANS the center of worship, but rather, worship is a means for us to catch a grander vision of what God has done and is doing in our lives.


Psalm 100:3-5 [NIV] says this - Know that the Lord is GOD. It is He who made us and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness endures through all generations.


We worship not only to glorify Him, but to experience a rejoicing that transforms us by bringing our focus back to the Creator of all things.

It allows us to resonate with the One who made us, and allows us to know Him more and see the joy of the Lord becoming our strength regardless of what may be going on in our lives.

It is in this balanced and joyful worship that we come to find out more about the Lord and His contiued work at hand in our lives. We come to Him by His glory and power and rejoice in the Lord as He becomes our strength.

This is all dealth with in the Scriptures, and the best place to find the purpose of worship is to go back to the beginning. We need to look at its purpose as it was seen in the very fountainhead of the created order.

It is in understanding God and man's relationship, and what was to flow out of that relationship.

Only in capturing human kind's original purpose in the created order can we understand God's highest objectives of coming in to worship Him with the freedom given to us by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Worship is not only for the sake of praising Him for redemption, but it is for the purpose of seeing a restoration in our being of what the original idea was behind our creation.


Genesis 1:26-28 [NKJV] says this - Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion ove rthe fish of the seas, over the birds of the air, and over every t living thing that moves on the earth."


There are three fundamental things laid out in this passage:

1.) We have been created by God, and therefore our being exists because of His idea for us, His power shown in bringing us about, and the resource of His being made available to help us become what it was He made us to be.

2.) What god made us to be is described here as well. He made us to be people that experienced dominion. This word carries with it a dependency; to excercise this area of oversight. It's not some chest thumping authority, but rather, a realm of assignment, which was planet earth.

3.) Man was also given the promise of a compounded diving creative power working in and through him. Procreation is one example of this power. However, even while the birth of a child is a miraculous thing, the idea of "be fruitful and multiply" doesn't stop there.


Being fruitful is more about the idea of being productive; seeing something meaningful come out of our lives while here on earth.

The Garden of Eden is a good example - It was considered a paradise because of its sinless state, but it wasn't a place where people just ran around popping grapes into their mouths and playing all day. God made it as a place to be productive; to subdue the earth and all the creatures on it.

We talked in class about whether or not Eden had weeds that needed to be pulled. And while the general consensus was that there weren't any weeds to be pulled, we need only look at the care it takes for plants and animals to thrive today to see that there was some subduing that had to be done. Fruit trees thrive best when the fruit is harvested and the cycle of producing it starts over again. Rose bushes thrive best when pruned on occasion. Animals thrive best when properly fed, cleaned, and cared for. The thought was also presented that Eden may have been the "resting place" for those who when out to subdue the rest of the earth. All of these are interesting thoughts, and we'll have to ask when we get there!


All of these things, however, were continually related to man's deep dependence on the One who created him in the first place. It was only in walking in that fellowship with God that the rulership of the earth could happen.


What we need to remember as pastors, teachers, small group leaders, nursery workers, cooks in the kitchen, or congregation members, as that we have not been given the idea of worship as an excercise. It's not there for us just to go through the motions and check all the elements off the list, no matter how sincere our motives.

It's not even to simply tell God how great He is! That is certainly a large part of why we worship, but it's not the whole reason. God calls us into His presence, not only for the purpose of receiving our gift of worship, but that in response, His love gives back to us by re-actuating the loving idea He originally had for human kind.

Worship's purpose is that there might come the fullness of the realization of God's purpose in us, and in us, begin to extend it to all the earth.


As the Church, we are called to worship that we might be fruitful and multiply; that we would subdue the earth not with force, but by sharing the unending love of God with all in our view and loving them unconditionally.

The Church is called to have dominion in the spiritual realm as well.

We are called to worship in order to overthrow the powers of darkness that press into our world.

We are called to worship in order to overthrow the powers of destructiveness that break marriages, friendships, relationships, and people.

It is the power of a Church worshiping in spirit and in truth that will see it's power multiplied and released through the presence of the Holy Spirit in it and through it.


Questions to Ponder:

1.) How can I do more to know God and enjoy Him forever?

2.) What can I do to get back to the original purpose God intended for humankind in my own life?