Hebrews 12:28-29: “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (ESV).
Fittingly, I read this verse in a morning study shortly after watching on YouTube a video from a popular collaborative worship group. While I enjoy much of their content, the beginning of one of their videos really struck me in an odd way. The gentlemen praying, while constantly referring to God the Father as “Daddy”, used the word “amazeballs” in his prayer. Of course, people lit him up in the comments. And the people coming to his defense had some very strange justification for why his approach to prayer was, well, acceptable.
So, how do we know what is acceptable worship to the Lord?
It seems anything is acceptable in the today’s worship climate as long as we call it worship. What seems to be happening is that people are defining worship by what they see on YouTube, at concerts, by what the “big boys” are doing, rather than reading the bible and gaining a complete understanding of what true worship is. And, based on the “amazeballs” comment, this is playing itself out in some odd ways. People are wrapping very odd behavior in a robe called worship; it’s misleading and misrepresents the Lord–and sometimes, this is being communicated to a very large audience via YouTube, Instagram, etc.
Hebrews 12:28-29 tells us how to worship. It’s very clear: we are to worship in reverence and awe.
Worship in reverence and awe, because our God is a CONSUMING fire. Something about that description of God makes me a little hesitant to use such flippant language while praying to him. And then we consider holiness, which opens up a completely separate issue. If God calls us to holiness (1 Peter 1:13-25), then we ought to bridle our tongue, especially when entering his presence. He deserves it. He demands it.
Now, I don’t doubt these folks’ love for the Lord. We are all at different places in our walk with the Almighty. I get it. Totally been there. The seven-year-ago-me did not have the understanding of the Lord I have now. I probably said some crazy stuff. While we will never fully comprehend God, we should dig in the bible to better understand him, because that’s how he has chosen to reveal himself to us–on this side of things, anyway. If we all did this more, we’d earn a right understanding of the God we worship.
Why this grumpy, crusty-old-man post? I simply pray that the impressionable folks out there would learn about the Lord, worship and the Way of life from reading the bible. I think they’d find their current perspective might be different from some of the lines they are being fed. I am fearful of a generation of believers being led astray by the “big” worship teams, leaders and groups out there. The only knowledge some of them have about God and his character is formed by the songs they sing and groups they watch on YouTube.
To the big names out there: I pray you take seriously your responsibility to rightly teach generations about the wonder of God. That your lyrics accurately communicate the truth about God as revealed in the Bible. And that you realize folks out there are impressionable; they will believe what you say, so make it TRUTH.
To all worshipers: I pray the Lord blesses you with discernment through the reading of his Word. The bible tells us to be discerning. Read your bible so you can discern truth from heresy. Don’t sing songs just because they are popular. Sing them because they are true, because they help us worship in reverence and awe. Judge the worthiness of a song based on its faithfulness to scripture.
I find the words of Philippians 1:9-11 (ESV) very encouraging here:
“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”