Stages of Worship

In thinking about worship this week I was reflecting on some thoughts from Desiring God; Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, a book by John Piper. There are many reasons I pull this book off my shelf and reread the well worn pages. But on this particular occasion I was thinking about how he describes three stages we may go through when we worship God. These thoughts from chapter 3 on Worship have proven helpful to me because I often find myself at stage three sorrowful for my lukewarm heart before God and longing for my fragmented heart to be once again satisfied in the beauty and excellence of him. And so I pray, read his Word, sit in silence and cry with longing so that I may again taste and see that the Lord is good. You can read below an abbreviated version of his thoughts or use the link above to read the larger section or the entire chapter for your encouragement. John Piper says,

I see three stages of movement toward the ideal experience of worship. We may experience all three in one hour, and God is pleased with all three-if indeed they are stages on the way to full joy in him. I will mention them in reverse order.

1. There is the final stage in which we feel an unencumbered joy in the manifold perfections of God-the joy of gratitude, wonder, hope, admiration. "My soul is feasted as with marrow and fat and my mouth praises thee with joyful lips" (Psalm 63:5). In this stage we are satisfied with the excellency of God, and we overflow with the joy of his fellowship.

2. In a prior stage that we often taste, we do not feel fullness, but rather longing and desire. Having tasted the feast before, we recall the goodness of the Lord-but it seems far off. We preach to our souls not to be downcast, because we are sure we shall again praise the Lord (Psalm 42:5). Yet for now our hearts are not very fervent.

Even though this falls short of the ideal of vigorous, heartfelt ad oration and hope, yet it is a great honor to God. We honor the water from a mountain spring not only by the satisfied "ahhh" after drinking our fill, but also by the unquenched longing to be satisfied while still climbing to it.

3. The lowest stage of worship-where all genuine worship starts, and where it often returns for a dark season-is the barrenness of soul that scarcely feels any longing, and yet is still granted the grace of repentant sorrow for having so little love. "When my soul was embit tered, when I was pricked in heart, I was stupid and ignorant, I was like a beast toward thee" (Psalm 73 :22).

Worship is a way of gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of his worth. This is the ideal. For God surely is more glorified when we delight in his magnificence than when we are so unmoved by it we scarcely feel anything, and only wish we could. Yet he is also glorified by the spark of anticipated gladness that gives rise to the sorrow we feel when our hearts are lukewarm. Even in the miserable guilt we feel over our beast-like insensitivity, the glory of God shines. If God were not gloriously desirable, why would we feel sorrowful for not feasting fully on his beauty?

Yet even this sorrow, to honor God, must in one sense be an end in itself--not that it shouldn't lead on to something better, but that it must be real and spontaneous. The glory from which we fall short cannot be reflected in a calculated sorrow. As Carnell says, "Indirect fulfillment is stripped of virtue whenever it is made a goal of conscious striving. Whoever deliberately tries to be sorry will never be sorry. Sorrow cannot be induced by human effort."