This Isn't Worship...

The Problem With Reducing Worship to Music and Emotion

Those people really can worship. Let's consider this question. If someone says, wow, those people can worship, what comes to your mind? What do you immediately think of about those people who were just identified as wow, those people can worship?

Most likely, the image that immediately comes to mind is an image of people worshiping at a Hillsong, Bethel or Elevation church concert or worship service or a similar event where the music is exciting and people are experiencing extreme emotion, perhaps even jumping up and down.

Usually we talk about the volume of their singing, the emotion that they exhibit, passion that we see from them or the style that we see from them. Usually we're referring to these externals or when we say, wow, that really was spirit filled worship.

Again, volume, emotion, external experiences, external appearances.

For many mega churches and churches, it's when the music begins that the Holy Spirit really arrives. It's at a time when the light show is most impressive, the fog machine is at full blast, the music is the loudest and the people are most excited in jumping up and down that the Spirit's presence is the fullest and mightiest.

But is there a problem with manipulating an emotional response from the audience with external factors such as lights, fog machines and emotional music?

But is that what worship is? The answer that you've already heard is a resounding no. Music is not worship.

They're not synonymous. Music is music and worship is worship. But typically you hear people today say, we're going to worship and then immediately that is essentially defined by music.

Although there certainly are elements of true worship and there are true worshipers, during these kinds of meticulously crafted worship experiences, the truth is that the idea of using external elements like lights, fog and planning an order of songs to lead worshipers on an emotional journey is a man-centered way to craft a worship experience that is not rooted upon biblical truth, but rather upon emotional manipulation.

But it's exactly this kind of emotional manipulation using flashing lights that really have nothing to do with worship that countless churches and Christians gravitate towards because it looks and feels impressive and powerful.

Even many churches that are otherwise solid biblically have been deceived into thinking that this is the right way to do worship.

But the truth be told, when we look at our word of faith friends or when we look at people who are out there on the fringes of this or that and we see their faces contorted and we see the tears and we see the sweat dripping down and their bodies heaving all over the place, the tendency, even though we've come to believe what the Bible says about worship, is to look at that and say, wow, those people really can worship.

More often than not, the churches that put on these impressive, emotional, powerful worship experiences have teachings that are full of falsehood. For example, Stephen Furtick at Elevation Church has a terrible, if not heretical, view of human nature.

And the process of discipleship is not God changing you into something else. It's him revealing who you've been all along.

Brian Houston has a book called, You Need More Money.

You, from Pastor Brian Houston, money. There's not one person in this building who doesn't need more money.

And if you say, well, I don't need more money, then I would say you have a very poor outlook on life.

You'll learn why you need more money.

Poor does not have to be permanent. All the answers here, you say, well, you know, how do you know that? Because why would the scripture say, let the poor say I am rich if it wasn't the will of God to break the power of poverty over people's life.

And Bill Johnson of Bethel Church teaches that Jesus emptied himself of his divinity while he was here on earth.

Do you know that Jesus so restricted his function on earth that he actually couldn't heal anyone? Yet for some reason,.

These are the examples of how to do worship that most churches are gravitating towards.

Mired in falsehood, often devoid of truth, mimicking pagan rituals. And when we see it, our response is, wow, those people really can worship.

Christians will even leave very solid churches to go to much less solid churches simply because other churches have more exciting worship experiences.

It's the person who comes and says, preacher, I just want you to know, we have grown more at this church than at any other place that we've ever been. But we're just really looking for a little something more from the worship.

And so they will go to a place where they will get nothing near the spiritual nourishment from the word so that they can go every Sunday and say, wow, these people really can worship. There is a brokenness there.

Worship Is More Than the Songs We Sing

The truth is that while singing is certainly an important part of worship, we need to recognize that singing is not at all the main point of worship.

As many churches present it as. If I had to give you a title tonight, it would be. Our worship is about so much more than the songs we sing. Our worship is about so much more than the songs we sing. Hallelujah, praise the Lord.

Our worship is about so much more than the songs we sing.

And it's clear from this text. Oftentimes the worship service looks more like a performance than real worship. If you like this video, subscribe to help spread the truth. The worship leaders are performing as they sing and the audience is performing and acting the way the worship leaders are leading them to act, raising their hands, jumping up and down, their emotions being led by the flow and intensity of the music.

We often look at worship as performance. And there are a couple of ways that we look at worship. And especially when we gather and when we sing, there are a couple of things that we're trying to do. We're either trying to appease God or we're trying to manipulate him.

For many, their thinking is that if they act spiritual enough, if they perform enough during the worship experience, then God will be pleased and will therefore bless them in some way.

But there are other circles out there who gather together in worship and just like the pagans do, they try to manipulate God. If I can just be loud enough, if I can just cry enough, if I can just sweat enough, if I can beat myself and bleed enough, then perhaps, perhaps God will hear and I will manipulate God into giving me what I want and he will look down and he will say, you know what, you, I see you, you did a good job.

What can I do for you?

But in Ephesians 5, where Paul talks about psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, the context is overwhelmingly about worshiping God with our minds and intellect rather than being led by music and other external factors in an emotional worship experience.

Here's what's amazing.

Listen to how many times he references some intellectual idea. No longer walk as Gentiles doing the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding. This is not turning off your mind in order to engage with God in worship.

This is engaging your mind in order to engage with God in worship. We miss this.

The problem is not the newness because if it is, then our old hymns at one time were new. Right. The problem is the lack of theological content.

That's the great problem. The reason why most Christians associate worship more with emotion than with scriptural teaching and engaging the mind is because of an unbiblical view of the Holy Spirit as a force rather than as a person like the Father and the Son.

So the Spirit is most present when the emotion is highest, not when spiritual truth is being proclaimed. We miss this and we miss this because of our poor understanding of who the Spirit is. We see the Spirit as a force and not a person.

And we think that being spiritual means turning off your mind. This view of the Holy Spirit leads countless Christians to prefer spontaneity and mysticism over careful study of the Word of God. They want something exciting, something new, something emotional rather than straightforward.

Expository preaching from the Word of God. But we do. We believe this, don't we? I've said it before. If you want to get an audience on the edge of their seats as a preacher, here's what you do. You stand up and say, listen, I was going to preach Sermon A, but just before I came up here, the Lord just said, no, this is what you preach today.

People were like, ooh, we about to get it now. Holy Ghost about to bust out up in this place now, boy. Hours and hours in the text, praying and pouring over it. But you stand up and say, throwing that away and got something new for you.

And people believe now, now we're going to meet the Spirit. Now he's going to show up. Another problem.

Worship Cannot Be Separated From a Holy Life

With modern worship experiences is that it allows professing Christians to appear very spiritual while they lift up their hands and jump up and down, even if their lives are filled with sin and love of the world.

In countless youth groups, the youth love watching movies they shouldn't be watching. They love celebrities who are terrible examples and they engage in inappropriate relationships. But they lift up their hands and jump up and down when the music is exciting.

So they and everyone else think they are right with God.

But another reason, another reason that we want to reduce the idea of worship to the songs we sing and how we sing them is because that's a whole lot easier. If I can divorce my life from my singing, that's a lot easier.

If I could have absolutely no communion with God whatsoever, but just really enjoy loud, emotional, vibrant singing, I can do that. If I am a rebel who does not want to submit to anyone, but I just can't resist a good, powerful worship set, that's easy.

Because I can, on the one hand, call myself a worshiper, an exemplary worshiper. And on the other hand, not have to amend my life at all.

Because churches so often equate emotion with worship, countless audience members think they are worshiping simply because they feel a lot of emotion, when the reality is that they do not understand God and have not truly submitted to God.

If I'm just here for the experience, I can sing songs that completely contradict the truth of God's word, and I'm okay. I mean, if the beat is right and the band is hot, I can sing all kinds of lies and feel like I've met with God.

True Christian worship.

Has absolutely nothing to do with the volume of the music or with emotion crafted by lights, fog machines, and the transition from exciting songs to slower songs. True Christian worship centers around the truth of God's word and singing the truth of God's word.

This is not dependent on volume. It won't be dependent upon emotion. Here's one thing that I've come to understand. When I recognize this theological reality. The kind of worship that many of these modern worshipers would consider dead or spiritless worship may actually be far more God-honoring and worshipful than the most exciting and emotional moment in any elevation,.

Hillsong, or Bethel worship service or concert. I may not look like the pagans with the sweat beating down off of their face, and I may not look like them with their convulsions, and I may not sound like them with their animalistic sounds coming out of me and all that, but that does not mean that I can't or don't have a deeply meaningful and in many ways more emotional connection to the God who saved me and redeemed me and with whom I commune in worship because of the person and work of Christ who redeemed me.