Psalm 66:1-2
Shout joyful praises to God, all the earth! Sing about the glory of his name! Tell the world how glorious he is. When we think about worship, we naturally focus on the church community we meet with regularly, and this is entirely understandable and deeply precious. We thank God for our brothers and sisters and the relationship we share with them. We need to be careful, however, because worship belongs to the whole world, not just to the group with whom we worship. The psalmist’s vision was for everyone to worship God, so when we worship, we should keep everyone else in mind. Because everyone has been made by God, everyone needs a relationship with him, and their life will only be complete when they live in partnership with him. At the heart of our worship, there needs to be a longing that everyone around us will join in. We see a similar attitude in the New Testament. Writing to the Philippians, Paul spoke about how Jesus took upon himself the nature of servant. He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. As a result of this, God gave him a name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. When we worship, we should always have this much larger congregation in mind. The psalmist moves from encouraging the whole world to join in with the worship to declaring how great God is. We should see our worship as the inevitable launchpad to our evangelism. Proclaiming the greatness and love of God should propel us into a life of sharing the good news with others. If we’re honest, there can be times when worship becomes stale. It can be dull, predictable and uninspiring, but when we recognise that God’s love embraces the whole world and that everyone needs to join in, we should start seeing worship as the most exciting thing we do.
Question What do you find most inspiring about worship?
Prayer Father God, I thank you for the privilege of worshipping you and of knowing of your perfect love for everyone. Amen