by John Piper
When Paul uses it for Christian worship, he goes out of his way to make sure that we know he does not mean a localized or outward form for worship practice but a nonlocalized, spiritual experience. In fact, he treats virtually all of life as worship when lived in the right spirit. For example, in Romans 1:9, he says, “I serve [or worship, latreuo] [God] with my spirit in the gospel of his Son.” In Philippians 3:3, Paul says that true Christians “worship by the Spirit of God . . . and put no confidence in the flesh.” And in Romans 12:1, Paul urges Christians, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Even when Paul uses an Old Testament word for worship, he takes pains to convey that what he has in mind is not mainly a localized or external event of worship but an internal, spiritual experience—so much so that he sees all of life and ministry as an expression of that inner experience of worship.
The same thing can be seen in the New Testament use of the Old Testament language for temple sacrifices and priestly service. The praise and thanks of the lips is called a sacrifice to God (Heb. 13:15). But so are the good works in everyday life (Heb. 13:16). Paul calls his own ministry a “priestly service [of worship],” and he calls the converts themselves an “acceptable offering [in worship]” to God (Rom. 15:16; see also Phil. 2:17). He even calls the money that the churches send him “a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God [in worship]” (Phil. 4:18). And his own death for Christ he calls a “drink offering” to God (2 Tim. 4:6).9
Making Worship Radically Inward So That It Permeates All of Life Outwardly
In the New Testament, worship is significantly de-institutionalized, de-localized, de-externalized. The entire thrust is taken off ceremony and seasons and places and forms and is shifted to what is happening in the heart—not just on Sunday but on every day, and all the time in all of life.
This is what is meant when we read things such as, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). And “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17). This is the essence of worship: to act in a way that reflects the heart’s valuing of the glory of God. But the New Testament uses those greatest of all worship sentences without any reference to worship services. They describe life.
Even when Paul calls us to “be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:18–20), he makes no reference to a time or a place or a service. In fact, the keys words are “always” and “for everything”—“giving thanks always and for everything” (cf. Col. 3:16). This may in fact be what we should do in a worship service, but it is not Paul’s burden to tell us that. His burden is to call for a radical, inward authenticity of worship and an all-encompassing pervasiveness of worship in all of life. Place and form are not of the essence. Spirit and truth are all-important.
The Reformed and Puritan Impulse
This is what gripped and shaped the Reformed tradition, especially the Puritans and their heirs. Worship is radically oriented on the experience of the heart and freed from form and place. John Calvin expresses the freedom of worship from traditional form in the following way:
[The Master] did not will in outward discipline and ceremonies to prescribe in detail what we ought to do (because he foresaw that this depended on the state of the times, and he did not deem one form suitable for all ages). . . . Because he has taught nothing specifically, and because these things are not necessary to salvation, and for the upbuilding of the church ought to be variously accommodated to the customs of each nation and age, it will be fitting (as the advantage of the church will require) to change and abrogate traditional practices and to establish new ones. Indeed, I admit that we ought not to charge into innovation rashly, suddenly, for insufficient cause. But love will best judge what may hurt or edify; and if we let love be our guide, all will be safe.10
Luther expresses the freedom of worship from place: “The worship of God . . . should be free at table, in private rooms, downstairs, upstairs, at home, abroad, in all places, by all people, at all times. Whoever tells you anything else is lying as badly as the pope and the devil himself.”11 The Puritans carried through the simplification and freedom of worship in music, liturgy, and architecture. Patrick Collinson summarizes Puritan theory and practice by saying that “the life of the Puritan was in one sense a continuous act of worship, pursued under an unremitting and lively sense of God’s providential purposes and constantly refreshed by religious activity, personal, domestic and public.”12 One of the reasons Puritans called their churches “meeting houses” and kept them very simple was to divert attention from the physical place to the inward, spiritual nature of worship through the Word.
A Radical Intensification of Worship as Inward, Spiritual Experience
My conclusion, then, is that in the New Testament there is a stunning indifference to the outward forms and places of worship. At the same time, there is a radical intensification of worship as an inward, spiritual experience that has no bounds and pervades all of life. These emphases were recaptured in the Reformation and came to clear expression in the Puritan wing of the Reformed tradition. One of the reasons for this development in the New Testament is that the New Testament is not a manual for worship services. Rather, it is a vision for missions in thousands of diverse people groups around the world. In such groups, outward forms of worship will vary drastically, but the inner reality of treasuring Christ in spirit and truth is common ground.
What Is the Essence of This Radical, Inward Experience of Worship?
What begs for attention now is the question, What is the essence of this radical, authentic, inward, unifying experience called worship, and how is it that this experience comes to expression in gathered congregations and in everyday life? My answer in advance is that the essential, vital, indispensable, defining heart of worship is the experience of being satisfied with God. And the reason this worship pervades all of life is that all Christian behavior is properly motivated by a thirst for more and more satisfaction in God.
In other words, the basic reason why the apostle Paul makes so little distinction between worship as a congregational service, on the one hand, and worship as a pattern of daily life, on the other hand, is that they are united with the same root—a radical valuing, cherishing, esteeming, treasuring of God in Christ and a passion for more of him. The impulse for singing a hymn and the impulse for visiting a prisoner are the same: a freeing contentment in God and a thirst for more of God—a desire to experience as much satisfaction in God as we can.
I have written for some years on these things and have tried to unfold them and defend them biblically, especially in Desiring God,13Future Grace,14The Pleasures of God,15 and God’s Passion for His Glory.16 So here I will give just a brief explanation to show the biblical root of my thesis, which is so crucial for the missionary enterprise.
I start with God. The root of our passion and thirst for God is God’s own infinite exuberance for God. The root of our quest for satisfaction in God’s glory is God’s jealousy that his own satisfaction in his own glory be known and shared by his people. God is infinitely committed to preserving and displaying his glory in all that he does from creation to consummation. And in this commitment, we see his zeal and love and satisfaction in his glory (as we saw in chapter 1 and chapter 6). God has purposed and worked so that predestination (Eph. 1:4–6), creation (Isa. 43:6–7), incarnation (Rom. 15:8–9), propitiation (Rom. 3:25–26), sanctification (Phil. 1:10–11), and consummation (2 Thess. 1:10) are all designed to magnify his own worth and glory in the world.
In other words, God is so overflowingly, unashamedly satisfied with his own glory that he devotes all his energies to making this glory known. The creation
of the universe, the history of redemption, and the consummation of all things are driven ultimately by this great passion in the heart of God—to exult fully in his own glory by making it known and praised among all the nations.
But if God is so satisfied with his glory that he makes its display the goal of all that he does, then is not his own satisfaction in himself the root of our satisfaction in him? But putting it that way doesn’t quite get to the heart of the matter. To get to the heart of the matter we need to ask, Why is it a loving thing for God to be so self-exalting, and why, if we come to share his satisfaction in himself, is it the essence and heart of worship?
How C. S. Lewis Helped Me See the Obvious
The answer to the first question—Why is it loving of God to be so self-exalting that he does all that he does for his own glory?—came to me with the help of C. S. Lewis. When I was pondering the fact that in Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14 Paul says that God performs all the acts of redemption so that we might praise his glory, I discovered that in his early days as a Christian, Lewis was bothered by the commands of God to praise God. They seemed vain.
But then he discovered why this is not vain but profoundly loving of God to do. Here is his all-important insight:
The most obvious fact about praise . . . strangely escaped me. . . . I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. . . . 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, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians and scholars. . . . My whole, more general difficulty about praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed 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.17
In other words, genuine, heartfelt praise is not artificially tacked on to joy. It is the consummation of joy. Joy in some beauty or some value is not complete until it is expressed in a kind of praise.
Now, if God loves us the way the Bible says he does, then he would surely give us what is best for us. And what is best for us is himself. So if God loves us, God must give us God, for our enjoyment, and nothing less. But if our enjoyment—if our satisfaction in God—is incomplete until it comes to completion in praise, then God would not be loving if he were indifferent to our praise. If he didn’t command us to praise him, he would not be commanding us to be as satisfied as we could be, and that would not be loving.
So what emerges on reflection is that God’s self-exaltation—his doing everything to display his glory and to win our praise—is not unloving; it is the only way that an infinitely all-glorious God can love. His greatest gift of love is to give us a share in the very satisfaction that he has in himself and then to call that satisfaction to its fullest consummation in the expression of praise.
The love of God is expressed by the repeated biblical commands that we rejoice in the Lord (Phil. 4:4), that we delight ourselves in the Lord (Ps. 37:4), that we serve the Lord with gladness (Ps. 100:2), that we be glad in the Lord (Ps. 32:11) and by the manifold promise that “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11).
Joy in God Is Itself a Tribute to His All-Satisfying Worth, Even before Praise
There is one more component of this argument, leading to the conclusion that overflowing satisfaction in God is the essence (not the entirety) of worship. I will state it logically and then exegetically. Logically, if our praise is the consummation of our joy in God and not a mere add-on, then our joy in God must itself be a tribute to God. This joy, even before it overflows in praise, is a reflection (if we could see into the heart) of God’s all-satisfying worth. That is, he is honored by our delight in him. We know this from experience; to enjoy someone’s presence is to honor that person. To feel constrained to be around someone out of duty does not honor the person very much. This, then, is our conclusion: God is glorified in us when we are satisfied in him. And since worship is essentially the experience of magnifying the glory of God, the essence of worship is being satisfied in God.
Now, we must see how this is rooted in Scripture. Consider Philippians 1:20–21. Paul says, “It is my eager expectation and hope that . . . Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” The issue is, How shall Christ be honored in Paul’s body? That is a worship question. How shall Paul show the worth of Christ with his body? He says he wants to honor Christ “whether by life or by death,” so there is a way to honor Christ in the body by dying. The question is, What is it? How do we honor Christ in death?
Paul answers in verse 21. He says in sum, “I expect and hope to honor Christ in my body in death . . . for to me to die is gain.” In other words, if I can experience death as gain, my death will honor Christ. We can see here how Paul’s mind is working. The honor and all-satisfying worth of Christ is reflected in my dying to the degree that in my soul I am not begrudging the loss of all my earthly things and relations but am counting Christ as so superior that death is all gain. The assumption—which he makes clear in verse 23—is that death means a closer intimacy with Christ. In verse 23, he says, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” So the reason death is gain is that it brings a better experience of Christ. The exegetical conclusion then is that savoring Christ above all that we lose in death magnifies the worth of Christ. The degree to which we are satisfied in him as we die is the degree to which he is honored as we die. He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him—in life and death.
What Then Is the Essence of Worship?
From all this I conclude (logically and exegetically) that the essential, vital, indispensable, defining heart of worship is the experience of being satisfied with God in Christ. This experience magnifies his worth, and such magnifying is what worship is. This is why Jesus and the apostles were so stunningly indifferent to external forms and so radically intent on inward, spiritual, authentic worship. Without the experience of heartfelt satisfaction in God, praises are vain. If genuine praise can flow from a heart without satisfaction in God, then the word “hypocrisy” has no meaning, and Jesus’ words are pointless when he says, “This people honors me with their lips [that is, with verbal praises], but their heart [that is, their heartfelt treasuring and satisfaction] is far from me” (Matt. 15:8).
So when I say, “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is,” I do not mean “worship services.” I do not mean “worship singing.” Those are part of the expression of the essence of worship, but those things can happen and not be worship. Worship is not first an outward act; it is an inner spiritual treasuring of the character and the ways of God in Christ. It is a cherishing of Christ, a being satisfied with all that God is for us in Christ. When these things are missing, there is no worship, no matter what forms or expressions are present.18
Implications
Now consider four implications of this for the experience of worship and its expression in worship services.
1. The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is our highest duty. Millions of Christians have absorbed a popular ethic that comes more from Immanuel Kant than from the Bible. Their assumption is that it is morally defective to seek happiness—to pursue joy, to crave satisfaction, and to devote ourselves to seeking it. This is absolutely deadly for authentic worship. The degree to which this Kantian ethic flourishes is the degree to which worship dies, for the essence of worship is satisfaction in God. To be indifferent to or even fearful of the pursuit19 of what is essential to worship
is to oppose worship—and the authenticity of worship services (in any culture or any form).
Not a few pastors foster this very thing by saying things such as, “The problem is that our people don’t come on Sunday morning to give; they only come to get. If they came to give, we would have life.” That is probably not a good diagnosis. People ought to come to get. They ought to come starved for God. They ought to come saying, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God” (Ps. 42:1). God is mightily honored when a people know that they will die of hunger and thirst unless they have God. It is the job of pastors to spread a banquet for them. Recovering the rightness and indispensability of pursuing our satisfaction in God will go a long way toward restoring the authenticity and power of worship—whether in solitude, in a group of six elders in Uzbekistan, in a rented garage in Liberia, in a megachurch in America, or on the scaffold in the last moment just before “gain.”
2. Another implication of saying that the essence of worship is satisfaction in God is that worship becomes radically God-centered. Nothing makes God more supreme and more central than when people are utterly persuaded that nothing—not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends or ministry—is going to bring satisfaction to their aching hearts besides God. This conviction breeds a people who go hard after God on Sunday morning (or any other time). They are not confused about why they are there. They do not see songs and prayers and sermons as mere traditions or mere duties. They see them as means of getting to God or God getting to them for more of his fullness.
If the focus shifts to our giving to God, subtly it becomes not God at the center but the quality of our giving. Are we singing worthily of the Lord? Are our instrumentalists playing with quality fitting a gift to the Lord? Is the preaching a suitable offering to the Lord? And little by little the focus shifts from the utter indispensability of the Lord himself to the quality of our performances. We even start to define excellence and power in worship in terms of the technical distinction of our artistic acts.