The Proper Worship of God Part 4 - It's Not Entertainment

The Scriptures tell us that we are to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24), but there is a false idea among today's Christians that the reason we worship is to "get something" out of the service.  People want to "do their own thing" in church worship; with the thought that we go to worship, not to honor and please God, but to be entertained.   The reason people cannot be satisfied with their worship experience is that they have failed to put their emphasis on the proper object of worship, their heavenly Father.

America has produced the most entertainment-oriented people in the world, and this thirst to be entertained has crept into our churches.  Today's entertainment is designed to appeal to our emotions, rendering meaningless what the Bible has to say about worship.  When the goal of the church attendees is to be entertained and they fail to focus on God's commands for worship, the productions they are offered are empty and unsatisfying.

This is the case with much of the "worship" in our churches today.  When we have choirs to sing for us and musicians to play for us, we are not worshiping God; we are simply the audience at a concert.  Let us avoid calling this worship; it is merely a show.  Calling such spectacles "worship" is demeaning and disrespectful to our heavenly Father, because we have reduced our worship of God to the entertaining of ourselves.

Today's churchgoers have the roles reversed!  We dare not become spectators, because when we worship properly, the person being entertained is God.  When there are choirs, concerts, or dramas in the worship service, the performers receive the adulations, not God.  People expect the Lord to conform His will to what seems right for them, but Scripture reminds us that "the way of a fool is right in his own eyes" (Proverbs 12:15).  We want to please and entertain ourselves, forgetting that the proper emphasis in worship is to please the Father.

Our worship to God is holy and sacred (Psalm 29:2).  To corrupt and pervert our worship with the idea that we should be entertained is blasphemous!  The sacredness of true worship must not be sacrificed on the altar of entertainment.  We are to "continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name" (Hebrews 13:15).  In worship, we must be the performers, not the spectators.  Do we seek the favor of men?  If so, then we are not the servants of Christ (Galatians 1:10). Our worship must be God-centered, not self-centered.  When the goal of our worship is to please God and not ourselves, then and only then will our worship be meaningful and spiritually uplifting, as well as pleasing and acceptable to God.

Another fault of self-centered worship is that people fail to get the emotional high they are looking for.  They begin to place blame on the performance, the performers, the preacher; anywhere but themselves.  Worshiping for the sake of being entertained is idle worship; Jesus tells us "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me.  But in vain do they worship me..." (Matthew 15:8-9).  Yet, people desire to have an mystic experience with little regard for the word of God.

Our worship to God requires great care on our part.  Jesus tells us "I say to you, every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment" (Matthew 12:36).  Our worship also requires commitment.  It is easy to worship a baby in a manger, because there no commitment is required from us.  Worshiping Christ our crucified Savior is much harder; this worship requires that we give over our whole lives to Him crucified (Luke 9:23), and put Him first in our lives.  We are told "he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:38).   Jesus must be first in our lives; this is the commitment that is required from us.