For the Love of Music
Can we talk about music for a bit? My love for music has always been embedded deeply in the fiber of my being. I thank my parents for pressing this love into my soul at a young age. Although for obvious reasons, I’ve been unable to touch an instrument for a long time, once upon a time I played the clarinet, jazz trumpet, guitar, bass, and some percussion as well as singing baritone and bass in choirs.
Today, I’d specifically like to talk about worship music. Over the years, as my love and understanding of God deepened, music and faith intertwined in profound ways. And while my perception of worship has evolved well beyond music to a concept of every action and breath given in worship to the Living God, I am still deeply connected to song and worship music is the embodiment of that intertwined faith and music.
The Worship Experience
Many churches today talk about the “worship experience.” The problem with this is that worship is not an experience, it’s an act. You see, worship as defined by God through the Bible means engaging with God on His terms not our own. It’s full submission of our bodies, hearts, minds, and souls to the One who created and sustains each of us as a reverent response to all that He is and a full and unwavering commitment to His will. Put another way: we give Him our physical actions (bodies), our emotions (hearts), our thoughts and focus (minds), and our spiritual lives (souls), choosing to walk in His ways and not our own. Why? Because He is the all-powerful King of the universe and the only one worthy of all devotion and praise.
Worshipping the Wrong Way
Not everything that’s called “worship” is worship. We don’t get to define what worship is or how it should look; God does that. Quoting Isaiah, Jesus said, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” So, there are definite bad forms of worship. Our sincerity and pious feelings don’t equal worship. Going all the way back to Cain and Able, God said one sacrifice was an acceptable form of worship, and one was unacceptable. Cain tried to redefine worship by bringing an unacceptable sacrifice then demanding that God be pleased with it. I’m sure Cain was sincere in his self-righteous feelings but that just meant his worship was sincerely wrong.
Worship is not singing pretty words and feeling good. Nor is it JUST bowing in reverence before God. Worship is submitting our whole selves, every part of who we are to the God of the universe and His will. We honor and praise Him by devoting ourselves to Him in response to His character, attributes, and works.
It’s Worship O’clock
In our modern age, we tend to think of worship as that time when we get together in a building to sing songs with other Christians and raise our hands, having an emotional experience of some kind that makes us feel better. Then we put worship time away to hear a sermon and go about our lives the rest of the week. But worship isn’t—and was never meant to be—limited to church gatherings, emotional experiences, or snippets of our time. God says it’s a way of life in which day-by-day, minute-by-minute, every single second we should be offering our every action, thought, breath, and heartbeat to God. (Deuteronomy 6:5; Micah 6:8; John 4:23-24; Romans 12:1; Galatians 5:16-25; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19)
No Other Gods Before Me (Especially Yourselves)
Musically oriented praise is just one aspect of worship. It helps direct or bodies, hearts, minds, and souls toward God but should never be our full understanding of what worship is. And it’s worthless if it leads us astray. Worship music should be about the Creator not the created.
I find most modern “worship” to subtly—and sometimes quite overtly—change the object of our worship from the eternal, all-deserving, Creator of the universe to ourselves. This is unsurprising considering most contemporary “worship” comes from biblically unsound and heretical churches like Elevation which teaches that we’re all little gods, Hillsong which promotes a plethora of false teachings like word of faith and prosperity gospel nonsense, and Bethel whose leader Bill Johnson claims apostolic authority equal to Peter or Paul and has taught heresies too numerous to list here, not the least of which is his declaring new revelations from God that directly contradict scripture. I’m planning on elaborating in future posts.
I would like to emphasize that not all modern contemporary worship music is bad. But there’s a plethora of bad stuff. So much, in fact, that it’s easy for the bad stuff to slip in with the good and sometimes, churches simply throw out all modern stuff rather than exercise a little discernment. So, here are some biblical principles to help with that discernment.
Disclaimer
I would like to say, I’m not trying to condemn new Christians—or even older Christians who’ve never been taught this before. When I was younger, I fell into all these traps. But this is important. God doesn’t want false worship and false worship offered sincerely, is still false. I just want us all to think and use discernment.
The First of Three
Correct biblical worship involves three essential elements. First, it should be reverential. According to Merriam-Webster, reverence is defined as, “honor or respect felt or shown : deference [respect and esteem due a superior] especially : profound adoring awed respect” and really that barely scratches the surface of what we should be bringing to God. So, first and foremost, our worship in action, music, and lyrics should honor, respect, and adore the One to whom we’re worshipping. Our worship needs to recognize God as holy, just, righteous, perfect, powerful, and loving. (Deuteronomy 32:3-4; 1 Chronicles 16:28-29; Psalm 29; Psalm 96; Psalm 145; Isaiah 45:21; Jeremiah 9:24; John 3:16-17; Romans 3:26; Hebrews 1:3; etc.)
Which Way Am I Pointing?
It should also be directed to and be about God. We shouldn’t be secretly elevating ourselves. If I want to tell my wife how wonderful she is, I could say things like you lift me up and make me want to be strong and provide. You make me a better man when I’m around you. Or I could tell her, you’re beautiful and wonderful. I recognize all that you do, and I can’t imagine a life without you and your love.
Both things are true, but the first set of statements isn’t about my wife. I was talking about me and using my wife as cover for elevating myself. Now I’m not saying we can’t worship and honor God by saying He lifts us up and makes us better. Psalm 92 is a song of praise and contains statements like, “For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work”, “But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox; you have poured over me fresh oil”, and “the righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” However, they’re surrounded by other statements like, “It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.”
All those lines pointing directly to God are punctuated by a line about how glad He makes us. And for what reason? That we would sing for joy at the works of His hands. Those few “us” oriented lines are only there to highlight Him and all that He’s done. Worship and praise elevating the One who truly deserves it; not using Him as a cover to say how good we are now.
The Second of Three
Second, worship should be truthful and doctrinally sound. Lyrically, it needs to align with and affirm what scripture says, not our self-made understanding or experiences. It shouldn’t introduce bad theology or unbiblical concepts.
Bad Theology is Bad
There’s a popular song by Elevation Worship called Graves into Gardens. The opening line, “I searched the world” sets us up as the supposed authority capable of determining the value of God. The second section talks about God putting us back together and satisfying our every desire. No, sorry, that’s not how it works. We weren’t put back together. Our old natures are offensive to God. By phrasing it this way, we’re affirming that our brokenness isn’t that bad, we just need some divine help to make our brokenness acceptable to God. But our sin and brokenness will never be acceptable. That’s why we’re made new creations and our old lives have passed away. We don’t say, “take my old self and put me back together.” We die to our old selves. Lines like this deny the doctrine of regeneration and what the cross actually accomplished. Then the nonsense about satisfying our every desire. I’m sorry, your name-it-and-claim-it/prosperity gospel is showing. And it just gets worse as it goes. But I’ll stop there because this post isn’t about breaking down an individual song theologically. Let me know if something like that interests you.
We need to be biblically literate and allow God’s Word to shape our minds so we can recognize when bad theology creeps into our music. Some lyrics may sound and feel good, but Jesus didn’t say we worship in spirit and in good feels. He said we worship in spirit and in TRUTH. And when I say “allow God’s Word to shape our minds” I mean the whole Word not just one verse. We’ve all seen or heard a single verse taken out of context and twisted into a mockery of what God’s Word actually says. The same is true of worship music. Just because a song might have a verse inserted somewhere doesn’t mean the song suddenly becomes theologically sound.
The Third of Three
Finally, worship should be a spiritual act. Now this one has some controversy and debate if you ask five people what they think that means, you’ll probably get six different answers. I’m going to do my best to ground my answer biblically. Jesus told the Samaritan woman that “the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth”. When Jesus said this, He was correcting the woman’s fundamental understanding of what worship is. She was arguing for a specific location of the Temple over another. But Jesus shifted that concept from a place to a person. The location isn’t what makes worship, it’s the One we worship and how we worship Him.
I think I’ve shown the importance of the One we worship. As to how, that’s where the debate comes in. I don’t think there’s one right way to offer our worship and praise to God though there are definitely wrong ways. We can and should use all our gifts to honor God, whether it’s through music, painting, writing, or some other artistic outlet. I can honor God whether I’m an accountant or a welder.
To Capitalize or Not to Capitalize
The main debate falls on the word “spirit.” Did Jesus mean worshipping in The Spirit or with the right spirit? Essentially, did He mean spirit with a capital “S” or lowercase? If the former, then true Christian worship would be an expression of The Spirit within us and if the latter, then true worship is how our spirits are oriented. I think both of these can be true at once. The problem is people tend to think of expressions of The Spirit as babbling incomprehensibly or being “slain” in the spirit, but Paul was very clear that those things are confusion and have nothing to do with the God of order and unity.
Our worship needs to reflect our spirits bowing down in submission to God, His Word, and His will. Isaiah 66:2 says, “this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word”. And 1 Samuel 15:22 tells us, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” So, God is telling us that our actions and ritual means nothing to Him if we aren’t bringing our whole selves too. And as Christians we need to understand that we can’t bring our whole selves without the Holy Spirit’s help. Paul said, “you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” and that, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”
So, when I say worship needs to be a spiritual act and Jesus said to worship in spirit and truth, that means our spirits need to be devoted to God alone, praising Him for all that He is and everything He’s done—and continues to do—for us. Our spirits need to cry out to Him and that, by definition, can only happen through an outpouring of the Spirit within us. As I said, both can be true at once. Jesus could have meant “spirit” with both a capital and lowercase “s.”
All That to Say…
So, where does that leave us? Authentic worship transforms the heart, deepening love for God and obedience to Him. Worship that does not lead to obedience is not genuine, and worship outside God’s revealed will is false worship—even when directed toward the living God. It needs to be God oriented, not me oriented. True worship needs to reflect biblical truth and should be both an aligning of our spirits to the heart and will of God and it should be an outpouring of the Holy Spirit within us.
So go and worship. Worship in spirit and truth as well as in Spirit and truth. Walk in the freedom and joy that we have through Christ Jesus and let your praise and thanks drip from your tongues. Worship Him for everything He is and everything He does. Worship Him because He alone is worthy. Let every thought, breath, and heartbeat be offered up to God as an act of worship.
Final Question: What’s your favorite worship song and why? Have you ever looked at its lyrics through this lens, or has it just made you feel good?
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” – Romans 12:1 (NIV)
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