Lots has been written about worship and the purpose of it. Our understanding of the purpose of worship has a tremendous impact on what we include in our services and what we do. I certainly don’t mean to suggest that I know better than anyone else, but let me throw this out there:
The purpose of worship is to know God.
I was reading Psalm 100 today which says this:
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
I realized that there’s an interesting parallel between Ps 100 and 1 Kings 18:39:
39When all the people saw this, they fell prostratee and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”
Psalm 100 has always been associated with worship, but little more than a call to worship. What is often over looked is that Ps 100 not issues a call to worship but also presents us with the purpose of our worship: to know God. Logically, the worship service should be designed and structured so that people come to know God through the service. 1 Kings 18 backs that idea up by giving us a picture of “the people” proclaiming “The Lord – he is God! The Lord – he is God!”
This is encouraging for church planters who strive to make their worship both educational and evangelistic, and possibly corrective for many other congregations. We talk so often about the worship services being a time to “proclaim worth” to God when we should be simply proclaiming God as king. We have the ability to make a decision every Sunday as to whether or not we’re going to attend church; when we do so, we are choosing an “alternative lifestyle” of living according to God’s decrees, not to remind God how awesome he is.
Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Church Planting, Worship
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