Great Thoughts (From Paul Washer) on Worship

 

C.S. Lewis on Praise

I have probably quoted this before, but bear with me as I find the need to quote it again ... I am typing this (not copying and pasting) from the book Desiring God by John Piper. (I type it because it helps me to consider each word in the phrase.) This particular Lewis quote comes from that book, though he is not the only one who has revisited this quote. Lewis' insight on Praise in this quote has, I am sure, helped many in their understanding of the strong connection between God's love for His people and His command that they praise Him.

... the most obvious fact about praise -- whether of God or any thing -- strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness of the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check on it. The world rings with praise -- lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game -- praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least ...  

I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?" The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what in deed we can't help doing, about everything else we value.  

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. 

Like I said, this is C.S. Lewis speaking. It comes from his book Reflections on the Psalms. The portion that I quoted came from the book Desiring God. You can also read an article on this by Sam Storms on the Desiring God website, by clicking here: Praise: The Consummation of Joy.

eaten alive

In the book, Encounters with Jesus by Timothy Keller, there is a great quote concerning our propensity to worship things. The quote comes from a commencement speech given at Kenyon College by an American writer named David Foster Wallace.

Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god ... to worship ... is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before [your loved ones] finally plant you ... Worship power, and you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they are all evil or sinful; it is that they're unconscious. They are default settings.

These are powerful words, and some of those descriptions really hit home. Tim Keller goes on to say this after Wallace's quote:

Wallace was by no means a religious person, but he understood that everyone worships, everyone trusts in something for their salvation, everyone bases their lives on something that requires faith. A couple of years after giving that speech, Wallace killed himself. And this nonreligious man's parting words to us are pretty terrifying: "Something will eat you alive." Because even though you might never call it worship, you can be absolutely sure you are worshiping and you are seeking. And Jesus says, "Unless you are worshiping me, unless I'm the center of your life, unless you're trying to get your spiritual thirst quenched through me and not through these other things, unless you see that the solution must come inside rather than just pass by outside, then whatever you worship will abandon you in the end."

This is true. Forsake whatever else you are worshiping and turn your worship to the only one who deserves it.

Spirit and Truth

"Worshipping in spirit is the opposite of worshipping in merely external ways. It is the opposite of empty formalism and traditionalism. Worshipping in truth is the opposite of worship based on an inadequate view of God. Worship must have hear and head. Worship must engage emotions and thought." 

"Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers (like people who write generic anniversary cards for a living). On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship."

~ John Piper, Desiring God

a joyful noise!

I just read an interesting article on Christian Week, which I found via Tim Challies' weekly "A La Carte" post. It is by a guy names Michael Krahn and has to do with the affect that technology has had on singing in the church. Here is an excerpt:

I see a parallel between the lack of confidence in singing and the world of visual images in tabloid and fashion magazines. Photoshopped images create unrealistic body expectations. In the modern era of music autotuned recordings give us unrealistically perfect sounds.

The end goal of both processes is the same: the appearance of perfection. Whether we are trying to look as perfect as a picture we've seen or sound as perfect as a recording we've heard, we are destined to fail.

All of this has led to a crisis of confidence. Autotuned recordings have robbed average singers of confidence in the quality of their voices.

(read the rest of the article here)