What Makes Our Worship Beautiful?

The Church, Our Mother

The early church father Cyprian said, “You can no longer have God for your Father, if you have not the Church for your mother.”¹ Such a statement may sound strange to our modern sensibilities. Protestants may even muster a bit of nervousness as they hear in this statement the rattle of incense bowls and see the vestments of the priesthood. But John Calvin helps us with Cyprian’s analogy to see that the church is vitally our “mother” in the sense that her ministry in our lives is essential in our Christian development and sanctification. For Calvin, we must

learn even from the simple title “mother” how useful, indeed how necessary, it is that we should know her. For there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly, unless she keep us under her care and guidance until, putting off mortal flesh, we become like the angels. Our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school until we have been pupils all our lives. Furthermore, away from her bosom one cannot hope for any forgiveness of sins or any salvation.²

And

we must allow ourselves to be ruled and taught by men. This is the universal rule, which extends equally from the highest and the lowest. The church is the common mother of all the godly, which bears, nourishes, and brings up children to God, kings and peasants alike; this is done by the ministry. Those who neglect or despise this order choose to be wiser than Christ. Woe to the pride of such men!³

Our “mother” is the church not of national or cultural identity but of spiritual sustenance as we humbly submit ourselves before God in beautiful worship.

The Loveliest Place

Dustin Benge

The church—which was created by God, bought by Jesus, and empowered by the Holy Spirit—exists to be a reflection of God’s indescribable love. Learn to see beyond methodology and structure into the church’s eternal beauty with this theologically robust book.

The apex of our fellowship and communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is holy worship. Worship of God originates with God, not man. Worship was never the idea or plan of man, as there’s nothing in us that seeks after God or even desires to know him (Rom. 3:11). The desire to worship God is wrought in the heart of believers by the Holy Spirit. We love God because he first loved us. We seek God because he first sought us. We worship God because he commands such worship, and we willingly obey.

The context in which worship is most abundantly realized is within the church—not ornate buildings, entertaining experiences, or worship liturgies, but God’s gathered people. Worship is the conscious recognition of God’s sovereign greatness and resplendent, holy beauty and our ascribing honor, adoration, reverence, and glory to him. It is the bride of Christ extolling praise and adoration to who God is, what he has done, and what he has promised to do. It is the forsaking of all idols in our lives—which divert our focus, attention, and devotion—and singularly riveting our hearts and minds on the supreme, transcendent God of the cosmos.

You may have thought worship had to do with a dynamic music program, a passionate praise band, or a robed reverential choir. Nothing could be further from biblical reality. While forms of worship are essential, these in and of themselves are not worship. Legitimate worship consists of thinking, believing, and living for God’s glory and honor.

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Beautiful Worship

John Owen said that the church should regularly be finding ways to express worship in manners that are “more decent, beautiful, and orderly.”⁴ What did Owen mean by “beautiful” worship? Was this beauty meant to proceed from rites and rituals, incense and candles, worship bands and spotlights? Was he talking about organizing a worship experience wherein the participant is caught up in a trance-like state in a darkened, fog-filled room? This is not quite what Owen had in mind. For worship to be biblically beautiful, Owen believed, it must focus on the triune God.

All acceptable devotion in them that worship God is the effect of faith, which respects the precepts and promises of God alone. And the comeliness and beauty of gospel worship consisteth in its relation unto God by Jesus Christ, as the merciful high priest over his house, with the glorious administration of the Spirit therein.⁵

We would do well to keep in mind that “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). This is the only manner of devotion and worship that God accepts. God seeks those who will worship “in spirit.” The Greek is quite clear here. It does not say “in the Spirit” but “in spirit.” Jesus is not instructing believers to worship in the Holy Spirit but with or in the human spirit. He is telling the Samaritan woman in John 4 not only that he desires worship that flows from a knowledge of the truth of who he is, but also that he is looking for worshipers who will worship from the very depth of their inner being—their spirit.

Authentic biblical worship occurs only when the very core of our being is employed in worshiping God.

Authentic biblical worship occurs only when the very core of our being is employed in worshiping God. Our lips may mouth the words, our hands may be lifted upward, our eyes may fill with tears, but unless these expressions flow from “the effect of faith,” as Owen describes, our worship is mere performance. Valid worship proceeds from the heart of faith, for “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb. 11:6). Worship isn’t born in the void of our conscience but proceeds from truth.

The truth of who God is as revealed in his word, the understanding of who Christ is and what he accomplished in his incarnation, the realization of who the Spirit is and what he is currently doing in our lives. Without truth born in faith, worship becomes ordinary, humdrum, and even carnal.

In John 4:23, a peculiar phrase warrants our attention here: “The Father is seeking such people to worship him.” Wait. Don’t we, as worshipers, seek God? Indeed, we do. All genuine worship begins with a heartfelt seeking after God. This is the clarion call of 1 Chronicles 16:8–11:

Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
tell of all his wondrous works!
Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
Seek the Lord and his strength;
seek his presence continually!

Extended to all believers, the command is clear: “seek his presence continually.” But Jesus reminds his people not only that we seek God in worship but also that he is seeking us. The Father is actively pursuing those whose hearts yearn to bask in his omnipotent glory.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of the conventionally humdrum “worship service,” giving little thought to the extemporaneous beauty that becomes a reality when we properly behold the holiness of God. We don’t have to work up some frenzied performance to appease God; we just need to come in faith and truth offering our innermost selves, for God is already pursuing and singing over us (Zeph. 3:17).

Notes:

Cyprian, De catholica ecclesiae unitate 6 (PL 4:503): “Habere jam non potest Deum patrem, qui Ecclesiam non habet matrem.”
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 4.1.4. For a fuller treatment, see Jonathan Gibson and Mark Earngey, eds., Reformation Worship (Greensboro, NC: New Growth, 2018), 51.
John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, trans. William Pringle (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1854), 282.
John Owen, Brief Instruction, in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, 24 vols. (1850–1855; repr., vols. 1–16, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965–1968), 15:467. See Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, “John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship,” chap. 41 in A Puritan Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2012), 653–79.
Owen, Works, 15:467.

This article is adapted from The Loveliest Place: The Beauty and Glory of the Church by Dustin Benge.

Dustin Benge (MDiv, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the managing director of Unashamed Truth. He and his wife, Molli, live in Louisville, Kentucky.