Singing Is Not Worship: Becoming the Worshipers God Is Seeking

I want to talk with you about praise and worship — and I'm going to make some contrasts, and I'm going to tell you a little of my story. I'm old, so that might take a couple of minutes. But stay with me, because I believe there is something waiting for you in the presence of God that you have not yet stepped into. I'm not here to condemn anyone or chastise anyone, including myself. I'm here to incentivize us to press in to God.

Psalm 150 Is Not a Suggestion — It Is a Commandment

Turn with me to Psalm 150. "Praise the Lord!" Man, that's an emphatic declaration. But it's more than a declaration — it's a commandment. It's in God's Word.

Psalm 150:1 — "Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!" That's what we do when we gather. And praise him in his mighty heavens means we go outside and enjoy nature and see God's hand in it. We realize we are not a random output of some primordial soup that somehow crawled out and — fast forward — here we are. No. The heavens are the Lord's heavens, and the earth he has given to the sons of men to steward on his behalf, to be his hands and feet.

Psalm 150:2 — "Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!" Now, that second part isn't easy, because his excellent greatness is so vast and so high that our praise has a hard time getting up there. That's the challenge. That is the call — to praise him according to what he deserves. I know we can't fully achieve that. But we can try, and we can do our best. That's what God looks for.

Then he tells us we can go beyond just ourselves. Praise him with trumpet, with lute and harp, with tambourine and dance, with strings and pipe, with sounding cymbals. And then, as if that wasn't enough, he says praise him with loud clashing cymbals. Come on — put something into it!

Notice that dance is not something you play. Dance is something you do. He's not calling us to ballroom dancing. He's not calling us to do the mashed potato. He's calling us to move.

And the final verse: Psalm 150:6 — "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!" That is a very wide category. I've told you before about the gentleman who used to bring a wax paper and comb to church — a kazoo, essentially. Now, I'm not trying to encourage that. Save it for home, put the dogs and cats in another room, and have fun. But we didn't stop him. He was doing it unto the Lord with a pure heart, and it had breath. It was capable of uttering sound. I've been in times when we just banged on a pot. Let everything capable of making noise be used to the glory of God.

And if that's true of a pot and a comb, how much more is it true of you?

What I Learned Growing Up in the Song Service

When I was growing up in church, we started our Sunday gathering with what was called the song service. Some of you remember that terminology. We would open a hymn book and sing the selections the song leader had scheduled for us. We'd read the lyrics, try to follow the notes on the staff, try to read the fourth verse and still catch the top notes — and it just wasn't easy. You had to look at two things at once.

I grew up in a happening place, actually. There was a real revival going on, and I was saved in the midst of it. I wasn't aware that was unusual. I thought that's how everything was all the time. Our church was large — it would be called a megachurch today, back in the 50s and 60s, one of the fastest growing Sunday schools in the Assemblies of God in the whole nation. Our hymns and choruses were accompanied by a 30-member orchestra: brass, winds, rhythm section, violins, xylophone, accordions, and a tuba for sure. I played trombone and trumpet in those days.

There were times we would feel the presence of God or recognize the moving of the Spirit — it was a Pentecostal church, after all. Someone might raise a hand to the Lord. But it wasn't that common. Then the choir would sing, announcements were given, the message was preached, and we'd be dismissed in time to catch the church buses home.

Here's what I want you to hear: we wanted God. We wanted to experience the lift of the Spirit. But God had not yet revealed to the church what we now take for granted as praise and worship. It didn't exist among us. It was unheard of.

The Day I Stepped Into the Presence of God

Then, at 16 years old, everything changed.

I was already saved, baptized in the Holy Ghost, baptized in water — all that had been done. And I walked into a church for the first time and I felt like I had stepped into heaven. The presence of God was thick, like a mist or a fog. Not visible. You know how air can be heavy? It wasn't oppressive-heavy. It was just different.

My ears had never heard anything like it, and I was a musical person. My spirit was just swelling up in appreciation of God. The Word was preached in both places I'd known — but there was something about the tangible presence of God, being able to literally feel God, that I had not known to that degree.

We began attending camp meetings in the 70s, where they'd bring in well-known teachers of the Word. It was an unusual time in the body of Christ. Every serious believer had a cassette recorder in one hand and a Bible in the other, and if you went into their home there were racks of teachings. There was a hunger. And in that season a new kind of song began to emerge, and we realized it was possible not just to listen to worship, not just to stand in close proximity to it, but to step into it and be enveloped by the presence of God.

Does that sound weird? It was weird to me. And it became what I craved. It became the way I wanted it to always be.

There were times we would praise and worship for two or three hours and never get to the message. We'd just be lost in God. Somebody would come home after three hours and their husband would say, "Where have you been?" Church. Because he could barely spend 45 minutes in a church — what do you even do all that time? But when you learn to enter in, when you learn to have that communication in the Spirit with God, you lose all concept of time.

Here's my question for you today: what would change in your week if you stopped attending worship and started entering into it? Take one honest moment and ask yourself whether you are singing songs about God, or actually meeting with God.

The Difference Between Singing and Praise and Worship

Now, these overlap. Singing can be part of worship, and usually is. But they are not the same. There's a difference between the external act of singing and the internal posture of the heart. So let me draw the contrast.

Singing starts in the mind. Worship starts in the heart.

Singing is a mental exercise that you add your voice to. Praise and worship starts in the heart, and you can hardly keep it from coming out. In singing, the object is to sound as pleasing as possible. In praise and worship, the object is to please the One who made you, saved you, kept you, and has given you way more benefits than you deserve, including eternity in heaven with him.

In singing, it usually matters how well you sing. Thankfully, in worship, it doesn't really matter — we all fall back on Psalm 100:1 (KJV) — "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands." Make a joyful noise. Praise God that's in the Bible, because that's what I do.

We sing because the Lord commands it — sing, sing, sing, you can find it all through Scripture. But we praise and worship not just because it's commanded, but because he deserves it. It's elicited by who he is. It's stirred by his goodness, his character, his mercy, his grace, his love. And it just wells up within us. Singing is often done out of obedience. Worship moves beyond mere obedience into revelation and inspiration.

In church, singing is accomplished by reading words on a screen or in a hymn book. But worship is a readout of your heart, and any lyrics on a screen are only springboards. We sing "He's a good, good Father" — but we don't have to stop there. You are a good, good Father. You're a great, great Father. Lyrics become doorways to more, and they are often exceeded by spontaneous expression, because you are the instrument God is interested in.

Singing can be accomplished mindlessly and passively. Worship requires engagement of spirit, soul, and body — intentional, in tune, active. Faith isn't necessary to sing a song, but worship requires faith. Singing is for the moment; worship taps into eternity and extends into every area of our life. Singing dispenses and disperses itself and disappears into the air. But worship ascends to the throne of God.

Repetition gets boring — but heaven never gets bored

People have told me, "You guys sang that chorus 23 times." And I'm always reminded of Isaiah chapter six.

Isaiah 6:1 — "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord." There was political unrest — let's leave it at that. It was a terrible shake-up in the monarchy. And Isaiah says, I saw the Lord. You can take that one home. In the year that ______ was president — fill in the blank with anybody — I saw the Lord. I was aware of the political climate, but I am connected to something that supersedes it and will determine the outcome of it all.

He saw him high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim, each with six wings. And one called to another: Isaiah 6:3 — "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!"

Now that's repetition. But the angels weren't up there going, "Holy... holy... how long is this going to take?" No. They were witnessing the glory of God, and it triggered a response. It was an outburst of what they were seeing. There was a revelation of God they could hardly handle. It wasn't a song lyric. It wasn't a word on a page. It came right out of the heart, and they could not but cry, Holy. There was no way to stuff it.

And I believe when one cried out to the other, that other seraphim's eyes were opened a little bit more. God revealed a little more of himself, and the very next "Holy" was fresh — out of fresh revelation, fresh understanding of whom they were beholding. It wasn't repetition. Every word was fresh. And this can happen to us.

Singers get irritated by musical mistakes. Worshipers hardly notice, because they're not there as music critics. They're there to behold him. Worship comes from the word worth-ship — we esteem his worth. All we need is a drop. All we need is a glimpse, a peek, a revelation of something about him, and that can fill our tank for a long, long time.

Open my eyes, Lord. Help me to see past the words, the lyrics, the stanzas, the choruses. Help me to see you in all of this.

Worshipers Are a Little Unruly — And God Doesn't Mind

Mere singers do not sing between songs. They behave themselves; when the song stops, they stop. Worshipers are unruly. Worshipers often build a bridge of spontaneous expression from one song to the next. It's really hard to stop a worshiper. The music stopped — well, my heart hasn't stopped. You're worthy to be praised. I just love you. I didn't even notice the music stop. I'm locked in.

Look at David. His wife Michal said, "Oh, how glorious was the king today," when he stripped off his kingly robes and kicked up dust and made a fool of himself. And David said, I don't care. You think that was something? I'm going to be even more vile than this. And David danced before the Lord with all his might.

This was a guy who slew thousands of Philistines. He was a dude, man — give him three mighty men and they'd clear the board. And yet there he was saying, I'm going to worship him with all my might. Just get out of my way, I'm going to dance until I can't dance anymore.

Now, we don't have to be idiots — we shouldn't be idiots. But some will say, "Doesn't Scripture say let everything be done decently and in order?" Well, let me take my cue of order from the seraphim and the elders and the inhabitants of heaven. That revelation opens a window to see how they carry on in the presence of God. That's heaven's decent order. We think decently and in order means we don't dare move a muscle. This is my assigned seat. I don't dare move — except to stand up and sit down.

Around here we say, you're free to move about the cabin. Come up front and worship God. God has said that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. He wants us to worship him, and he doesn't want us held back by barriers, physical or otherwise.

The Father Is Seeking Worshipers

What did Jesus tell the woman at the well? John 4:24 — "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." And then he said something remarkable: the Father is seeking such people to worship him. The Father is on a hunt for this. He's not as much seeking worship as he is seeking worshipers — because once he has worshipers, worship will be there.

And then there's the other side. Isaiah 29:13, which Jesus quoted in Mark 7 — "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." Lord, don't let that be me. Help me. I've been there. I've done that. I've gone through the motions.

Because here's what happens in the course of the life of a church. I've pastored this church some 40 years, and we've been through many cycles. People come and people go, and over the years there's a change of air in the room, a change of awareness. People bring their history with them — it's only natural. So from time to time it's important that we refresh ourselves as to who we are as a church and what we do and why we do it. If you've just begun coming here, you might observe, "I guess we sing a little bit and then we sit for a while." That is correct — and very disproportionate, the two. But that's not really what we're attempting to do.

We're attempting to worship the living God. We don't want to just sing songs. We don't want to just hear a sermon. We want to hear from heaven. We want to understand his Word. We want to know the Holy Spirit. We want it to be life. And we don't want to be here if we can't do that.

Draw Near — There Is More Waiting for You

What God has for us today and tomorrow can supersede anything we've known up to this point. I had known church for 16 years, and then I stepped into a different dimension of it, and I was never the same. That can happen to me again. And there are levels for you that perhaps you have not yet entered into. But it's waiting for you. He's waiting for you. Let us draw near.

So here's my challenge to you this week: pray, and ask God to make you a true worshiper. And if you already are one, ask him to take you to another level. I want my eyes to be open more. I don't think I'm seeing you accurately enough or thoroughly enough. Give me a little more aperture, Lord — I know it will have an effect on my worship. Teach me how to enter in.

Pray this with me:

Father in heaven, teach us how to be those worshipers that you are on a hunt for. We remember your Word that says your eyes run to and fro over the earth to see whose hearts are completely toward you. Let me be one of those. I want to be one of those. Help me to realize the cheapness of the things of this world compared to the glory of you yourself. Bring us to the place where we can say, like the Apostle Paul, that I count all this stuff as dung compared to the glorious God that I worship. Teach us how to enter in. Teach us how to be praisers and worshipers — immersed, clothed, bathed, saturated, like a sponge in a bucket full of you and surrounded by you. Help us, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.

If this stirred something in you, I'd love for you to share it with someone who needs it, or leave a comment below telling me what God is doing in your worship. Better yet — come and join us this Sunday. Don't just come to sing. Come to enter in. And remember: if you can't glorify God in and through it, then maybe you shouldn't do it.

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You can also watch the full sermon on our Youtube page below.

https://youtu.be/lgH5jClQIn4