235 A Passion for His Presence: Why Worship Matters

Worship is basic to everything else in the walk of faith. Seeing God for who He really is and responding to Him as he truly deserves is at the center of everything the church believes, practices, and seeks to accomplish. It is so important, that if it gets off track, it is disastrous for the people of God.

When the people lost their awe of God and let their worship deteriorate, everything else fell apart. They began to compromise and fall into sin. They lost their passion for the lost around them. They stopped giving sacrificially and dissension arose within their ranks.  When worship got fuzzy it led to cold hearts, hard spirits, and the death of love.

The Bible gives us three reasons why worship matters both personally and corporately.

1.     Worship is the dividing line of all humanity. 

Essentially, all human beings can be divided into two groups: those who willingly bow their knee to the true and Living God, and those who do not…and will not. 

This line was first seen back in the book of Genesis with the first two people ever born—Cain and Abel. Abel gave God his first and his best, and God was pleased. But Cain only gave “some” of his crops. His worship was careless and mindless, and God was displeased. In the end, Cain’s hardened heart led him to murder his brother. (Gen. 4:1-12)  

A failure to worship wholeheartedly not only dishonors God, it removes you from God’s blessing, and is the first step toward sin gaining a foothold in your life. 

2.     Worship is the destiny of the redeemed.

We were made to worship. We were saved so that we might “declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” (1 Pet. 2:9) And one day, when we see Him face to face, we will worship Him fully, an eternal celebration of the wonders and glories of God.

But we don’t have to wait until then to experience His presence.  You can know the firstfruits of that here and now as you provide Him a throne in your worship.

3.     Worship is the one disctinctive that God cannot give Himself. 

God is completely self-existent. He depends no one and no thing for anything. And yet, there is one thing He cannot give Himself: people who will worship Him. Indeed, He longs for this. 

In John 4:23, Jesus said that the Father is seeking those who will worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

Will you be one who says, “I will be that kind of worshipper. I will respond to all that You are with all that I have.”

Text: Genesis 4:1-12; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 19:5-10; John 4:23 

Originally recorded on January 3, 1999, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN