There are several reasons I’m so passionate about helping people understand biblical worship. And one of them is because it’s vitally important to a healthy, impactful church to get worship right!
My first seven points showing how God works in response to our worship showed the more intimate, inner works of the Spirit of God in our lives. But we can also find evidence of God responding in ways with more outward effects. You’ll see what I mean.
Finishing up this series, here are four more ways God works in response to our worship:
#8 Encouragement
Did you know that worship among believers inspires encouragement?
When we worship together, our words, proclaiming and adoring who God is, encourage and stimulate others in their faith and walk with Him.
“My soul will make its boast in the LORD; The humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the LORD with me, And let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:2-3).
“I will praise the name of God with song and magnify Him with thanksgiving . . . The humble have seen it and are glad; You who seek God, let your heart revive” (Psalm 69:30, 32).
True worship encourages others in their relationships with God and reproduces more worship!
#9 Unity
Related to encouragement, transforming worship brings about unity.
These verses show the additional display of God’s power in encouraging unity in the lives of believers who worship together. It’s the most powerful thing that the body of Christ can share!
“Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people” (Acts 2:46-47a).
“My soul will make its boast in the LORD; The humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the LORD with me, And let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:2-3).
The revelation of God in authentic worship has the power to bring unity to those lifting His name together.
#10 Evangelism
Another powerful outward effect of worship is evangelism.
I love the powerful Acts 16 story of when Paul and Silas worshiped in jail after a severe beating. I won’t go back over the whole story when you can catch it here, but the movement of God in, through, and around them was undeniable by those eavesdropping on their chain-bound worship service.
The end result of Paul and Silas’ faithfulness to turn to God in worship was the powerful salvation story of the jailer and his family. After witnessing God’s power in the earthquake, in the physical releasing of the chains, and in Paul and Silas’ implausible attitudes, he asked, “What must I do to be saved?” (v.30). The jailer’s heart turned from fighting, to keep them captive, to hungering to know their kind of freedom. He wanted to know their God!
I think Satan wants us to think that worshiping our Savior is so foreign to the lost that it would always push them further away from Him. But the Bible proves that line of thinking false.
“He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear and will trust in the LORD” (Psalm 40:3).
There’s obviously something supernatural that happens when we lift the name of our God for all to see. It’s unexplainable. It’s convicting!
#11 Help in battle
One of the most extraordinary examples of God’s display of power in response to worship is that of His movement in times of battle. (Again, remember Paul and Silas!)
In 2 Chronicles 20:1-24, we read how King Jehoshaphat wisely led his people to seek and worship God as his first response to the news of a great army advancing to attack them. God knows that Satan fears the worship of God most of all. So when Judah went out before the army and proclaimed, “Give thanks to the Lord, for His lovingkindness is everlasting” (v21), there couldn’t have been a more devastating assault on the approaching enemy!
The well-known Daniel 3:10-30 passage also shows how God protected men who refused to worship other gods in the face of life-threatening danger. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did this knowing full well that God could choose to not save them. But He did save them.
And not only that, the kingdom, and eventually the world, heard of God’s miraculous deliverance of His worshipers! That was a result of their heathen king responding with a decree against the very idolatry that was the reason for his attempt on their lives to begin with.
I believe this truly was God’s greater goal – the powerful glory brought to His name as a result!
It’s easy to put Biblical characters in a different category from ourselves. We tend to see them as more spiritually mature, more knowledgeable, and even more lovable to God. But they needed to confess their sins just like us. They struggled with self-centeredness, distractions, apathy – all of the same things that threaten to take us away from worshiping God. Yet they continued to strive towards the goal to become the worshipers that He made them to be. And as a result, He blessed them with greater revelations of Himself – just like He longs to do for us.
This series has been a short, and obviously incomplete, look at how God works in response to our faithful, diligent worship. We saw God’s work through His presence, changed perspective, conviction of sin, spiritual transformation, guidance, supplication, desire for heaven, encouragement, unity, evangelism, and help in battle.
It’s an incredible picture of who He is – of His incredible love for us, His amazing grace towards us, and His unfathomable power in us.
Chances are pretty good that we may never see prison chains fall off or enemy armies fall over dead. But we’ll surely see His transforming power working in our hearts, minds, and lives, if we just keep pursuing His grand purpose for us – that of becoming worshipers of the Almighty God. Maybe that’s a greater work! So let’s keep striving!
**Sections of this post are an excerpt from my book, Worship and the Word. If you want to learn more about Worship and the Word or where to buy it, this is where you go to do that!
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