The year was 1997. After serving as a pastor for twelve years, I was taking on a new role at a large church in the Washington, D.C., area. My focus was going to be less on pastoral care and more on music and worship. After getting a degree in piano, touring with a Christian band, leading congregational worship for over twenty years, and being featured on a couple of worship albums, I thought I couldn’t be more prepared.

A few months after I arrived, my senior pastor, C.J. Mahaney, walked into my office with three books he wanted me to read. One of them was Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship by David Peterson, an author I had never heard of. It looked more academic than most books on worship, and Peterson didn’t appear to be a musician. But I knew C.J. would only recommend books he thought would serve me well. So I dove in.

On the second page, I came across this quote:

Is worship, then, essentially an experience or feeling? Is it to be identified with a special sense of the presence of God, or with some kind of religious ecstasy or with expressions of deep humiliation before God? Are there special moments in a Christian meeting when we are truly “worshipping” God? Are church services to be measured by the extent to which they enable the participants to enter into such experiences? Such a subjective approach is often reflected in the comments people make about Christian gatherings, but it has little to do with biblical teaching on the matter. (16)

I scribbled “Good question” in the margin. As months went by, however, and I kept reflecting on that paragraph, I became increasingly unsettled by his closing statement: “ . . . it has little to do with biblical teaching on the matter.”

Outside the Holy of Holies

Until then, I had treated worship primarily as a “special moment in a Christian meeting.” It typically happened after we had sung two or three songs. Suddenly, we would become more aware that God was with us. We were emotionally engaged and sure something spontaneous was about to happen. To our minds, it directly corresponded to the Old Testament pattern of the temple. We started in the outer court, passed through the inner court, and finally entered the Holy of Holies. As a worship leader, I sought to lead the church into that “Holy of Holies” experience.

Twenty-five years later, I still appreciate and anticipate times when the church has a strong awareness that the Holy One of Israel is in our midst (Isaiah 12:6), but I no longer define worship that way. Because Scripture doesn’t.

Peterson’s quote brought me face to face with my underdeveloped theology of worship. If worship wasn’t defined by a “special sense of the presence of God, religious ecstasy, or deep humiliation before God,” what was it? Over time, and by God’s grace, I began to see more clearly what I was missing, including these five valuable lessons.

1. Worship isn’t centered on me.

As much as I knew that worship was about God, I somehow managed to make it about me: how I felt, how passionate I was, what I sensed or didn’t sense. And if it wasn’t about me, it was about us. I tended to measure worship by crowd size, volume, or how many hands were raised. What escaped me is that our desires, planning, and actions aren’t the essence of worship. The essence has been taking place from time eternal, as the triune God has gloried and delighted in himself (John 17:5).

“In worship, God invites us to join him in what he is already doing.”

In worship, God invites us to join him in what he is already doing. Our response is initiated by God, grounded in the reconciling work of Christ, and enabled by his Spirit (John 4:23–24; Ephesians 2:18; Philippians 3:3). As Peterson goes on to say, “Acceptable worship does not start with human intuition or inventiveness, but with the action of God” (26). Our part is to gladly participate in the perfect worship of Jesus, who through his once-and-for-all sacrifice has made all our offerings acceptable to God (1 Peter 2:5).

2. Worship isn’t defined by a musical experience.

I understood years ago that worship applies to all of life and not just to singing. But my vocabulary revealed (and at the same time shaped) my theology. Statements like, “The church was really worshiping in the last song,” or, “We’re going to return to worship after the sermon,” or, “If you’re late you’ll miss the worship,” reinforced the misguided idea that worship was a spiritually infused musical experience God turned on and off like a faucet.

In light of our tendency to equate worship with music, it’s stunning that the Bible rarely puts the two together. When Job hears that his possessions are gone and his children have died, the biblical writer says he falls to the ground and worships (Job 1:20). In John 4, when Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman at the well, his description of the kind of worship the Father is seeking has zero musical references (John 4:21–24). The various Hebrew and Greek words we translate as worship in the Bible are associated with reverence, service, submission, and honor — but rarely with music.

“Singing to God can be a part of our worship, but it was never meant to be the heart.”

In other words, singing to God can be a part of our worship, but it was never meant to be the heart.

3. Worship doesn’t start and stop.

In truth, we are never not worshiping. At any given moment, we’re directing our affections, attention, and allegiance either to the one true God or to idols that can never satisfy, comfort, or rescue us. That means I come into every Sunday gathering already worshiping something. I don’t have to wait for the right chords to be played, the right words to be said, or the right “atmosphere” to develop.

Far from being a “special moment in a Christian meeting,” God-honoring worship is the natural state of our hearts when we seek to “do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). I can worship God by greeting a church member on Sunday morning and continue worshiping as I lift my voice in songs of praise (Hebrews 13:15–16). Gladly giving my tithes and offerings, listening attentively to the sermon, and praying for a friend after the service are all acts of worship.

More to the point, I can continue worshiping God as I have guests over for lunch, clean up afterward, and take a nap later that afternoon. And my worship doesn’t stop as I faithfully seek to exalt Christ in my home, workplace, school, or neighborhood by displaying a heart of grateful servanthood that has been transformed by the gospel.

Scripture does speak of distinct acts of worship (Psalm 29:2; Acts 13:2), but all of these take place within the larger context of our all-of-life “spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

4. Worship is still about God’s presence.

While worship may not be “identified with a special sense of the presence of God,” it is still very much about God’s presence, sensed or not.

Those nearest to God’s throne can’t help but be in a state of wonder, gratefulness, awe, and, yes, worship (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8; 5:13–14). And though we may not feel we’re in the presence of God at any given moment, God has seated those who have trusted in Christ “with him in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6). In Christ, God has brought us “to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering” (Hebrews 12:22). The apostle Paul asks the Corinthian believers, as well as us, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

We are always in God’s presence, and live coram deo, before the face of God. We can trust his promises to be with us (Matthew 28:20; John 14:16; Hebrews 13:5). But when we gather, God often sovereignly makes his presence known in more experiential ways (Acts 4:31; 1 Corinthians 12:7; 1 Corinthians 2:4; 1 Thessalonians 1:5). It would contradict the biblical evidence to say that worship in God’s presence, in the broad or narrow sense, never moves our affections, causes us to “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8), convicts our hearts (1 Corinthians 14:24–25), leads us to a greater pursuit of holiness (2 Corinthians 6:16–7:1), bolsters our confidence (Hebrews 13:5–6), or deepens our love for God (1 Peter 1:8).

God’s Spirit tends to move more evidently when we gather together, and we should pray and long for those times. But these aren’t the only times we’re worshiping God!

5. Worship will never end.

We worship God when we do whatever we do, “in word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17). Worship is a continual Spirit-enabled response to God’s self-revelation that exalts his glory in Christ in our minds, hearts, and wills. It doesn’t require music and can’t be limited to the realm of feelings (but can certainly involve both!). Worship is a gracious gift from our heavenly Father, who invites us, over and over again, to find our greatest joy in him. Any time. Anywhere.

And the greatest news of all is that, for those washed clean through the blood of Christ, worship will never, ever end.

At the end of his life, my friend David leaned into Christ’s promise of rest. The hope he drew from that promise so comforted him that he spent his last moments witnessing to others.

He’d endured a long, arduous struggle with end-stage emphysema. For months he ricocheted back and forth between the hospital and rehab, and wrestled with fear, doubt, and exhaustion as the simple act of breathing became a burden. “I’m so tired,” he would say, between gasps of air. “I just wish I knew what God is doing.”

Yet even when David could barely breathe, he felt an urgency to share the hope and peace he gleaned from the gospel, so he diligently planned a funeral that would offer Christian hope to all in attendance. When my kids and I visited him the day before he died, we found him sitting at a table with his laptop open to a letter he wanted read during the service. He passed into Jesus’s arms a little over 24 hours later.

I was privileged to read the passages he chose for his funeral, and tears sprang to my eyes when I saw his most cherished verse among them. It was a verse that had offered him a cool cup of water in arid times, and he now ensured that it would be offered to the gathered mourners so that they too might find comfort: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28–29).

Seeking a Hidden Rest

In our world that prizes productivity over stillness, rest seems an alluring but ever-elusive gift. A startling number of Americans struggle with sleep deprivation, and more than half of American employees report symptoms of workplace burnout.

The tourism industry in the United States generates over one trillion dollars in revenue each year, as we flee our hometowns with the hope that ocean breezes, mountain air, or a change in scenery might finally calm our frayed nerves. Inevitably, when the vacation weeks fly by, and we return home sunburned, weary, and deflated, we wonder how the refreshment we sought has escaped us yet again. While our Lord calls us to “be still” and know he is God (Psalm 46:10), we never seem to find the time.

Meanwhile, the travails of life exhaust us. Businesses fail. Disasters strike. Loved ones fall ill, and some die. Our bodies wither and break, and our hopes along with them. Pain and loneliness, grief and worry weigh down our souls, and we find ourselves broken, parched, exhausted, and yearning for stillness. For relief. For rest — that cool cup of water that never seems to come.

Fallen from Rest

We yearn for rest because God made us in his image, and he set apart a day of rest during creation (Genesis 1:26; 2:2). As reflections of him, we too must pause from our labors and revel in his goodness. Sadly, no matter how diligently we strive, or how ardently we yearn, such rest slips from our grasp over and over, because although we’re made to rest, we’re also fallen in sin.

“Wrenched from fellowship with our loving Father, weary in our sins, we toil and ache for rest.”

God provided rest from the first, walking with Adam and Eve “in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8). Yet in their rebellion, our first parents unleashed sin into the world, and in so doing, tore us from the respite with the Lord for which we were made. Since the fall, sin has tainted our work, and dragged down our efforts with weariness: “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. . . . By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground” (Genesis 3:17, 19).

Wrenched from fellowship with our loving Father, weary in our sins, we toil and ache for rest. We pine for relief, but find we are “like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt” (Isaiah 57:20).

Since the fall, mankind has secretly yearned for the peace that comes not from the toil of our own hands, but from communion with the loving, sovereign Creator who gives us life and breath and everything else (Acts 17:25). And over millennia, the prophets have clung to God’s promise that while we can’t usher in that rest ourselves, he would pave a path for us. He would save us.

God’s Promised Rest

Lamech hoped God would bring this relief through his son, Noah: “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (Genesis 5:29). Moses and Joshua hoped for respite in Canaan.

Yet even after the floodwaters receded, or the walls of Jericho crumbled to the ground, mankind largely remained sinful, restless, and alienated from the God of rest. Hundreds of years later, God describes Israel as “a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways. Therefore I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest’” (Psalm 95:10–11).

Still, through his prophets God promised an eternal jubilee, an ultimate Sabbath, when those who mourn would be comforted, and righteousness and praise would “sprout up before all nations” (Isaiah 61:11). He promised freedom from sin and the sweet relief of communion, at last, with our holy God, “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6).

He promised rest in Christ.

Rest for Our Souls

Jesus invites those who are weary, burdened, and heavy laden to savor the rest he offers (Matthew 11:28-30). Relief from the yoke of the law and from our toilsome labors. Rest for the soul. The restoration of God with his children, to abide together in his rest for all eternity.

Right now, we live on in a sin-stricken world. But when Christ returns, God will dwell among us, and “he will wipe away every tear, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

“Jesus invites those who are weary, burdened, and heavy laden to savor the rest he offers.”

Although we stoop with weariness, when we place our faith in Christ, we have assurance. Jesus will return. He has overcome (John 16:33). “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9–10).

During his walk upon the earth, my friend David endured homelessness, drug addiction, breathlessness, and the despair of a life whittled away by disease. Yet, ultimately none of these hardships overcame the promise God gave him in Christ: rest for his weary soul. The world wore him down, but Christ promised an easy yoke. A light burden. A heart, mind, and body made new by God’s grace, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

The effects of sin strangle us. The woes we carry crush us. But in Christ, we who labor and are heavy laden find rest for our souls. And in him, we have hope.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15331180/what-does-it-mean-to-be-in-god