5. Why Do We Worship
"Let's face it; God has a big ego problem. Why do we always have to worship him?" – Bill Maher The Bible does clearly teach that God directs us to worship and praise him. We see this, for example, in the Exodus story: "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Go to Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me'" (Exodus 8:1).
In the Psalms, David puts it poetically by writing that God is "enthroned on the praises" of his people (Psalm 22:3 ESV). We find praise and worship being continually offered to God throughout the Old and New Testaments.
In fact, 1 Peter 2:9 tells us that one of the reasons we are called as Christians today is to praise God: "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."
But for many atheists and agnostics, the idea of a God who encourages praise and worship seems to suggest a being who is selfishly motivated and self-centered. It is presumed that a divine desire for worship is the equivalent of the actions of humans whose egos cannot get enough praise and reinforcement.
The failure to understand God's requirement for worship is based on the fallacy that God acts in human ways, for human reasons. While a man or woman who constantly seeks praise is at the least insecure and self-centered, that is not the character or personality of God.
When we look beneath the surface of what might "appear" to be, we find that God seeks our praise not primarily for his sake, but for ours. Consider four aspects of this truth.
Happiness Requires Verbalizing What We Love C. S. Lewis convincingly argued that God initiated the cycle of praise and worship because humans need to praise things they love in order to fully appreciate and enjoy them. Have you never walked a beautiful beach or watched a serene sunset and wished there was someone you could tell about it? As Lewis pointed out, wine lovers don't just drink fine wines, they talk about them – describe them and extoll them. Lovers don't just stare at each other; they verbalize how they feel about each other with praise.
Lewis touched on a clear aspect of the human mind in that our happiness about anything we like or love is made complete in praising it; and this is something recognized by every human society. Although not a Christian, Mahatma Gandhi wrote: "When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator." The biblical correlation between praise and happiness is clear.
We see this often in the Psalms: "My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him" (Psalm 28:7b), and elsewhere in the Bible – including the life of Jesus himself: "At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, 'I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…'" (Luke 10:21). It is only natural to praise what brings us happiness and what we love! Praise Helps Us to Remember Our Need of God Many of us grow up learning the value of self-reliance, and that is not always a bad thing if it is maintained in right balance. But there are things in life for which we cannot be self-reliant. The Christian faith, by its very nature, demands that we come to see our need of God in terms of his forgiveness and righteousness. Those are things that Christianity shows we cannot manufacture ourselves, and it is in our ongoing worship of God that we are continually reminded of our need of him.
As author Madeleine L'Engle once wrote, "One cannot be humble and aware of oneself at the same time." It is in getting our focus off of ourselves and onto God in praise and worship that we find that broader perspective and remain humble – as King David wrote:
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? (Psalms 8:3-4). It is in praise that we gain true perspective and better see our need of God. Worship Helps Us to Remain Obedient Yet another benefit of worship is that it helps us dedicate ourselves to the purposes of God. It is in worshipping the nature and character of God that we are reminded of the nature and character we are called to emulate, as much as is possible, in our own lives (Psalm 119:15).
There is an important aspect of this that we should always remember. Despite what many atheists may think, the question we all end up answering in life is not "Will I worship?" but "What will I worship?" As Pastor Paul David Tripp wrote: "You cannot divide human beings into those who worship and those who don't. Everybody worships; it's just a matter of what, or whom, we serve." Those who do not worship God eventually worship things of their own choosing, and history has shown that this inevitably leads to humans badly hurting themselves, and others, in the process.
That is why the writer of the Book of Chronicles states: "For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods" (1 Chronicles 16:25). When we realize the truth of this, we see that worship and praise of God protects us from wrong worship that inevitably harms us.
Praise Is a Form of Thankfulness When someone helps us or does something for us, we often don't just use the expression "thank you." We feel we want to go beyond that and we say something like "That's very kind of you!"– acknowledging the help and even praising the person who helped us. That is the natural reaction of sincere appreciation. Not surprisingly, then, we find that individuals throughout the Bible who recognized what God had done for them offered praise as part of their thanksgiving.
Look at these two examples from the many we find in Scripture: "Praise be to the Lord … who with his own hand has fulfilled what he promised…" (1 Kings 8:15); "Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name" (1 Chronicles 29:13). Praise is a natural part of grateful thanksgiving, and the more thankful we feel, the more natural it is to praise.
In all these ways, and more, Christians find that their worship has nothing to do with the imaginary flattering "worship" envisaged by atheists and others. Those who hold a meaningful relationship with God may have begun to worship him in some cases because they see God's instruction to do so, but they invariably continue because they want to do so – whether they are "supposed to" or not. They realize what worship adds to their lives. The critics of religion do not understand that it is not God who needs our worship, but we who need to praise him.
In the next chapter we will see how we can learn to do this – to praise in a full and intensely meaningful way.