After the wind there was an earthquake. . . but God was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire. . . but God was not in the fire.

After the fire came a gentle whisper. . . it was the still, small voice of God.

Being still is difficult for us, especially in worship. We believe that what we hear and smell and taste causes us to worship, when in reality these things simply help us worship. The ingredients of worship may add to our ability to worship God - but they can also hinder us.

When we see Jesus worshipping, we don’t see Him singing or dancing. Jesus regularly worshipped the Father by “extolling” His character. The word “extol” means “to praise with great admiration.” Jesus talked to the Father about His attributes and His nature and His achievements.

“. . . You have loved them even as You have loved me.” (John 17:23)

“. . . they may know You, the only true God. . .” (John 17:3)

“Father, hallowed is Your name.” (Luke 11:2)

“Father, everything is possible for You.” (Mark 14:36)

“Your word is truth.” (John 17:17)

When was the last time you quieted yourself, and simply told God how wonderful He is? That’s worship: you and God together. . . and you spending the time telling Him how wonderful He is!

Talking to God about His character and His nature and His achievements is far more important than the tools you use. It’s all about your relationship with Him and your transparency before Him and your personal conversation with Him!

Sometimes, the Church tends to worship God with the wind and the earthquake and the fire, when what He longs to hear is our individual, still, small voice.

Read Psalm 145:

I will exalt You, my God the King;
I will praise Your name for ever and ever.
Every day I will praise You
and extol Your name for ever and ever.

Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
His greatness no one can fathom.
One generation will commend Your works to another;
they will tell of Your mighty acts.
They will speak of the glorious splendor of Your majesty,
and I will meditate on Your wonderful works.
They will tell of the power of Your awesome works,
and I will proclaim Your great deeds.
They will celebrate Your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of Your righteousness.

The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
The LORD is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made.

All you have made will praise You, O LORD;
your saints will extol You.
They will tell of the glory of Your Kingdom and speak of Your might,
so that all men may know of Your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of Your Kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom,
and Your dominion endures through all generations.

The LORD is faithful to all His promises
and loving toward all He has made.
The LORD upholds all those who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to You,
and You give them their food at the proper time.
You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

The LORD is righteous in all His ways
and loving toward all He has made.
The LORD is near to all who call on Him,
to all who call on Him in truth.
He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him;
He hears their cry and saves them.
The LORD watches over all who love Him,
but all the wicked He will destroy.

My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD.
Let every creature praise His holy name for ever and ever.

Did you note the words interspersed in this Psalm that speak of how we’re to worship God? The verbs in this scripture – and throughout God’s Word – explain what worship really is. Words like Exalt, Praise, Extol, Commend, Meditate, Proclaim, and Celebrate. They show that we’re to personally speak of the character of God. They also lend themselves to other words in our language that explain worship: esteem, lift up, approve, admire, honor, endorse, recommend, account, inform, contemplate, declare, show, reveal.

The NOUN “worship” comes from the Old English word [weorthscipe] which means “worth-ship.”

worth: important; having value; excellence of character; quality commanding esteem.

-ship: a suffix denoting character, condition, office, state or condition of being.

The bottom line is that God, and God alone, is worthy of our adoration.

So how is worship done? The VERB “worship” means we’re to engage in expressing His worthiness, listing His attributes and boasting about His “worth-ship.” We talk to Him, and to each other, of His worth-ship or worthiness. That is “worship.”

If you’re like most people, when you think of worship, you’ll have the tendency to think of music. Music seems to be the most universally accepted form of worship known in most churches and by most Christ-followers. There’s also dance and raising hands and speaking in tongues and drama and film and other art forms, but music seems to be the predominate form of worship that most people use. Singing and watching dramas and clapping hands or raising hands are tools to help us boast about God and honor Him.

Unfortunately, in the modern Church, instead of helping us worship, these tools have tended to BE our worship. I’m not saying that the tools we use to worship have become the object of our worship – but I do believe the tools may have become the REASON for gathering on Sunday mornings! The tools meant to point us toward the object of our worship have tended to become an object all to themselves; instead of a means to an end – they have become the end.

Now – I know this is tough for some to hear, but we really have the tendency to be “worship fanatics” or “worship groupies.” We come in, trying to leave all our junk outside, hoping to get swept up in 15-20 minutes of “feel-good” worship. We sing some songs and watch a drama or experience a video almost as an attempt to awaken our senses or as a way of being enthused after a hum-drum or perhaps a stressful week. We come here saying, “OK – fill me up! Make me feel better!”

Then, when the worship experience doesn’t quite do it for us, we tend to “rate” the worship experience in terms of how much it did for us, and who the best leader is and what the best song was. Instead of asking about how much we “enjoyed” worship, we should ask ourselves, “Did our heart connect with God’s heart?”

Us enjoying worship or participating in worship for our own purposes or to make us feel good is not what worship of our incredible Heavenly Father is supposed to be about! Worship is about us personally connecting with God, and telling Him – extolling, exalting, commending, celebrating – speaking to Him about His Majesty and His Holiness and His Transcendence.

Before you think I’m knocking music or drama or dance or visuals like film or video or art, let me emphasize that the real problem we face in terms of worshipping God is that we’ve lost the sense of His Majesty, we’ve lost the sense of His Holiness, and we’ve lost the almost unfathomable sense of His Transcendence.

We’re unaware of His royal status as King of the Universe. We’re clueless of His impressive dignity as the Only True God. We don’t view Him as the supreme authority and Ruler of all things. We’re oblivious of His sovereign power over everything. We’re unconscious of His absolute purity and goodness. We’re uninformed and in the dark concerning His self-existence and His infiniteness.

A.W. Tozer wrote about our loss of our sense of the majesty and holiness and transcendence of God:

“The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping man. This she has done not deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge, and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic.

“The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of 100 lesser evils everywhere among us. A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error in our religious thinking.”

That loss of the sense of majesty and holiness and transcendence has created a barrier to worship - an inability to worship – because we’ve lost our feeling of awe and our connection to and experience of His Presence. We no longer have the ability, or certainly seldom practice the ability, to quiet ourselves in our inner being and connect with the Father intimately.

This is cause for great concern. There is no way the Church – no way you and I – can truly grow in our spirit or in our likeness of Christ if our concept of our transcendent God is lacking or just plain wrong or if our intimate connection to Him is lacking or altogether missing.

For our spiritual lives to have power, our worship must have power; and for our worship to have power, we must regain the sense of God’s majesty and holiness. What we need to learn to do is connect with the Father – the God of the Universe - and grow more and more intimate with Him each time we encounter Him.

Can you imagine getting ready to get married, but the only time you spend with your future mate is when you go to plays and concerts and movies and special events? You spend your time doing things and experiencing things; it’s a lot of fun and you enjoy every minute of it. Yet, you never really have any personal, intimate encounters where you spend time getting to know one another deeply. There are no long hours spent talking and getting to know each other over pizza; or sitting at the dining room table or on the living room couch and going over all the details of what you like and dislike and how you plan to live life together. You play well together – but where’s the relationship?

That’s our tendency in our worship of God: lots of action and fun, but little or no intimate connection.

In 1 Samuel 3:2-10 we read how Samuel heard the gentle whisper of God’s voice – and responded in the same way: “Lord, speak – your servant is listening.”

In the quietness of our personal adoration of God, we can begin to learn to hear Him speak to us. As worshippers, we need to learn the technique of becoming quiet, and listening to the gentle whisper of God.

At the same time, we need to learn how to boast about God in front of God! God doesn’t need us to build Him up as if He has self-esteem problem. . . we talk to God about God as our way of gushing our love for Him.

King David, whom the prophet Samuel anointed as king of Israel, knew how to worship God by talking to God about His character and His attributes. In 2 Samuel 7:18-24, 28 we read how David boasted and poured out his praise and adoration about the majesty and holiness and goodness of God. Many of David’s Psalms were filled with words of honor and lists of God’s attributes and His achievements. It’s as if David couldn’t tell God enough about His wonder and majesty.

Have you ever encountered a famous person or celebrity? I have, and the first thing out of my mouth was to start talking to them about them! No joke, I was acting just like Chris Farley in his old shtick from SNL when he would interview a celebrity.

“Hey – you remember that part in that movie where you did that thing? Man, that was awesome!”

We gush about what they did. They know what they did, but they’re glad we know it, too.

In God’s case, He’s so far above everything earthly, that to worship Him only through the mundane tools of art in order to stimulate our senses may not touch His heart – especially if it doesn’t matter much in our own hearts. Instead, we need to boast about His achievements and His nature – we need to honor His character.

“Hey, God – you remember when you created the earth and created animals and created humans? Man, that was awesome!”

Then – we’re on the same page with Him and share the same point of reference with Him; He knows we’re in tune with Him. He’s always in tune with us – we use worship to get in tune and in step with Him.

Even when things are looking bad for you – worship is still about Him! David worshipped God in the midst of his sadness and affliction all the time.

Read David’s words of worship in Psalm 109:1-5 and 30-31.

O God, whom I praise, do not remain silent,
for wicked and deceitful men have opened their mouths against me;
they have spoken against me with lying tongues.

With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause.
In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer.
They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship.

But David ends his cry for help and his worship of God with words that promise that he will honor God by listing His achievements and tell the world about God’s nature:

With my mouth I will greatly extol the LORD;
in the great throng I will praise Him.
For He stands at the right hand of the needy one,
to save his life from those who condemn him.

Worship is about us honoring His character – talking to Him about Him and His majesty and His holiness, listing His accomplishments and His traits and gushing out our love and our need for Him. We can do that even when our hearts are heavy and our life is filled with stress or sadness. In fact, one of the best remedies for a life of stress is time alone with God worshipping Him and extolling the virtues of His character!

We need to learn. . .
to exalt Him,
to esteem Him,
to lift Him up,
to approve of Him in the presence of the gathering,
to honor His character,
to admire Him,
to extol His qualities with great admiration,
to commend Him to others,
to endorse and recommend Him,
to proclaim Him before one another,
to declare Him and His character,
to reveal our understanding of Him,
to celebrate Him. . .
to WORSHIP Him!

We can use music and drama and visuals aids and movement – but we can’t get wrapped up in them.

What we need to do is to quiet ourselves in His presence, and list His qualities, to boast about Him, and talk TO Him ABOUT. . . HIM. . . about His awesome majesty, the purity of His holiness, and His indescribable transcendence!