Worship is so powerful that we not only take on the image of what worship, but we also take on the image of the manner and style of our worship. So it’s not enough that we worship the right God, the God of the Bible, we must also worship the right God in the right way, the biblical way. And if we do so, we will become what He wants us to be – remade in His image.

Truthful
For example, the truth of God’s Word should be at the center of all worship. We read the Word, sing the Word, pray in accordance with the Word, and hear the Word preached. True Worship is truthFULL. And if our worship is truthful, we also will be truthful in our daily lives. Truthful worship on a Sunday makes for a truthful Monday to Saturday.

Spiritual
Much worship today aims primarily at stimulating and exciting our physical senses. If we can provide a colorful spectacle for the eyes, spectacular musical sounds for the ears, a pounding beat to impact the body and get the adrenaline running, then the emotions are stirred, and there’s a sense of elation and excitement. But if we become how we worship, such sensual, emotion-driven, thrill-seeking worship will produce sensual, feeling-focused, thrill-seeking Christians.

Spiritual worship does not aim primarily at the physical senses and the emotions (although it should have a secondary impact on them) but it primarily addresses the mind and seeks to impress the soul with divine truth about eternal facts. It demands thought and interaction with the Word of God and lifts people out of this world of sense and time, into the spiritual and eternal dimension.

And if our worship focuses on the spiritual, on spiritual truths, that’s the kind of people we will become Monday to Saturday. We will live in the spiritual realm, we will sustain and guide our souls with the abiding truths of God’s Word, we will be aware of eternity and the presence of God.

Reverent
If our worship is full of humor, frivolity, jokes, and casualness, we shouldn’t be surprised if that’s the kind of character that will be produced in the worshipers.

But if our worship is reverent, respectful, and careful, that will be reflected in our characters through the week.

Now this can go way too far, of course. If worship is morose, fearful, joyless, hopeless, and miserable then worshipers will become like that too. Any church that specializes in putting people in fear, in limiting hope, in minimizing assurance, is going to produce people that are like that in their daily lives – fearful, suspicious, cold, unfriendly, hopeless, and unhappy.

Christ-Centered
God has set forth His image perfectly in His Son. He is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Heb. 1:3). Therefore, if we are to become like Jesus, and we become what we worship, we must make Christ the focus of our worship. We hear Christ’s Word, we preach Christ, we pray in Christ’s name, and we sing of, to, and with Christ in our songs.

Believing
If we become how we worship, the more we exercise faith in Sunday worship the more faith we will have Monday to Saturday. The more we trust in the Lord in church, the more we will trust in him in the world. Faithless and life-less Sunday worship produces faithless and lifeless Christians at home, at work, and in the community.

All this underlines that if worshiping the true God in the true way is the biggest formative influence in our lives, then let’s prioritize worship, especially the corporate gatherings of God’s people on the Lord’s Day.

And let’s also ensure that we and our children are in churches that not only worship the one living and true God, but also where God is worshipped in a truthful and lively way.

• The Past: This is the way we have always done it.
• Preference: This is what I like and enjoy.
• Pragmatism: This works, it’s popular, it draws people in.
• Prohibition: Everything and anything goes unless it is specifically prohibited.
• Prescription: True worship is commanded worship; we may only include what God commands.

This last principle, prescription, was recovered by Calvin at the time of the Reformation and was linked to the rediscovery of the Gospel. The reformers saw that the God-centered and God-glorifying salvation they had rediscovered, required God-centered and God-glorifying worship, and that this could only be secured by including in worship only what God had commanded. This principle was based on Scripture (e.g. Lev. 10:1; Deut. 12:32; 1 Chron. 15:13-15; John 4:23-24; Matt. 15:9; Col. 2:23) and the teaching summarized in the Westminster Confession:

The acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture (WCF 21.1)

In other words, when we are considering the content and conduct of our worship, the biggest question is not “Does the Bible forbid it?” but “Does the Bible command it?” That makes things much simpler because any list of what God forbids in public worship would take an encyclopedia to cover all that the human mind has invented as “worship.”

In something as holy and serious as the worship of God, we cannot trust our fallen and foolish human natures to guess what pleases God in divine worship. Therefore, in His mercy, God has prescribed for us how we may worship Him acceptably. In the area of public worship, what Scripture does not authorize, it forbids – no matter how enjoyable it may feel.

Reformed churches have differed in how to apply that principle, but this basic idea should infuse every decision about what to include or exclude in public worship.

As John Knox put it: “All worshipping, honoring, or service, invented by the brain of man in the religion of God, without His own express commandment, is idolatry.”

Like many preachers I’ve often found it difficult to get fully engaged in corporate worship. Partly it’s because of the sense of responsibility for leading the service; partly it’s the burden of having to preach shortly; but it’s also partly the “distance” from the congregation.

On a platform or in a pulpit you hear the general volume of the gathered voices (if the instruments are quiet enough!), but you don’t get to hear the subtle and beautiful pathos in individual voices.

I was reminded of this recently when a deep male voice started singing near my pew. I recognized it immediately and, knowing the person as I do, I was able to understand why he was singing these words with such passion and feeling in his voice. It so enhanced my own singing of that Psalm as I joined my voice and experience to his. It felt like I was singing in stereo.

Another time it was a female voice and, again, from what I know of her life and providence, I could tell what was going through her mind as she sang words very appropriate to her situation. Again I was able to worship God more meaningfully as I listened to the joyful trembling in her voice.

Probably neither of these people have any idea how much they ministered to me and thereby heightened my own worship. Maybe, hopefully, I’ve done the same for others at times.

Though I still miss pulpit-Sundays, my pew-Sundays have given me a new understanding and appreciation of two-dimensional, or bi-directional, worship. There’s the “singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,” but there’s also the horizontal “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19-20).

And more of the latter results in more of the former.

President Obama’s recent formulation, “Freedom of Worship” has the religiously serious aghast.  It telegraphs a subversion of faith — by defending a right not in question, the right to conduct religious feasts and fasts and ceremonies, and downgrading religion’s heart, values.

The First Amendment interdicts the making of laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion.  The president now replaces a strong and constitutional word, “Religion,” with a weak and chic one, “Worship,” which is religion defined by esthetics, not ethics.  Implication: the Constitution protects our steeples and liturgy, not religious values.

The political elites shamelessly are in the process of “defining devotion down” to liturgy — hey kids, totally up to you to decide whether the priest faces the altar or the congregation, knock yourselves out — and delegitimize the right to advocate for laws reflecting religiously informed values.  A delegitimized right collapses, which is the objective of its adversaries.

Read the rest here.

This psalm recounts God’s multiple deliverances of His people and defeats of His enemies, each line concluding with, “For His mercy endures forever.” In the Scottish metrical version of the Psalm, that phrase alternates with: “For His grace fails never.” So, over 26 verses you sing “For his mercy endures forever” thirteen times, and “For His grace fails never” thirteen times. You could say it’s the Psalms’ version of “Amazing Grace.”

As an unbelieving teenager being raised in a Psalm-singing church, I often remember the congregation singing this Psalm (one of the pastor’s favorites) and thinking, “Man, this is so boring! Why all the repetition? Why can’t they just sing of grace and mercy once and be done with it?”

What a difference the actual experience of Christ’s grace and mercy makes!

Because, as we were singing through Psalm 136 this week, I found myself thinking, “I could sing of grace and mercy forever and ever…” When you’ve tasted Christ’s grace and mercy, it becomes the song of your heart and your life. And no matter how much you hear about it, speak about it or sing about it, it increasingly amazes and excites.

It certainly never bores. It’s sin that does that.

UPDATE: Just discovered Tim Keller on reading and praying through the Psalms.

As I watched in wonder, I could not help thinking of how Christ our Mediator gathers His people’s praises from every church and every believer in the world every Sunday and presents them, as a perfect choir, to His Father.

Then my mind went further and “I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.”