“Fundamentally, worship is the celebrative response to what God has done, is doing, and promises to do … Nicholas Wolferstoff concurs: ‘A striking feature of the Christian liturgy is that it is focused not just on God’s nature but on God’s actions; and more specifically, on actions which took place in historical time.’ ”
— John Witvliet, Worship Seeking Understanding: Windows Into Christian Practice
When our praise is very general,
- “You are so good,”
- “You are beautiful,”
- “You are holy,”
Then we fail to fully worship Him in the way that He prescribes. These adjectives for God’s character do not differentiate Him from all other possible objects of worship if they’re divorced from the concrete descriptions in history that prove His goodness, beauty and holiness.
Our songs, our prayers, our readings and of course our sermons must celebrate the attributes of God, along with the actions of God — in short, they must recount the gospel story. In this way, we teach and admonish each other, which brings our Lord great delight.
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. — Colossians 3:16
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I’ve seen this over and over again in the Psalms, where the psalmist will recount God’s actions (like the Exodus and other events recorded in Scripture) that have manifested the general attributes that they may be worshipping Him for (holiness, goodness, faithfulness, wisdom, etc.). I know that we can worship God today for His character as expressed in these historical events that have been recorded in Scripture. But I wonder how appropriate it would be to recount and describe God’s concrete interactions with His people in events that aren’t recorded in Scripture. Some examples may include the Reformation, the canonization of Scripture, local expressions of God’s providence, etc. I could see a lot of controversy spurring from it, but it may be a way for people to express deeper and more genuine worship.
The gospel is a story of God’s interaction with man. I once tried to reduce the worship songwriter’s calling to a tweet. Here is what I came up with:
The worship muse’s calling is to be a student of God, a student of man, and to strive to illuminate God in the hearts of man through music.
I think to properly look at how God works in the heart’s of man, you have to go to the historical gospel. I think also you need to look at the ministry of the Holy Spirit, something that is very rarely treated in any depth at all in worship songs, but is nonetheless real and a part of history as it unfolds today.