Three Directions of Worship

 Three Directions of Worship¹

“Worship in All Direction”

Perhaps you are like many people who, when they hear the word worship, assume it is mostly about singing, clapping, and talking to God. Worship is much more than that. True biblical worship encompasses our entire lives. In fact, in his book, The Ultimate Priority, John MacArthur Jr. explains that for our worship to be “whole-life” it must include three aspects or directions. Most certainly, we worship God when we focus directly on Him, pointing our worship upward (as we normally think of worship). However, we should also worship God inwardly. The third direction we should worship Him is outwardly, to those around us.²

I. Three Directions of Worship: Inward, Outward, and Upward

You might think of three-directional worship like this: imagine you say to your boss, “You are the greatest boss to ever walk the face of the earth. Furthermore, this is the best job I've ever had or ever will have. In fact, I practically worship at your feet for just letting me do this job every day.”

Having said such a mouthful upward toward your boss, how should you behave when no one's looking? If you really meant what you said, you will talk well of your boss and your job when he or she is not around, and you will work hard and enthusiastically even when no one's watching you. Why? Because inwardly you really do love your boss and you want to please him or her.

Now let's take this idea a step further. Let's say you are in the service industry, and your job involves assisting other people. Every time you cheerfully seek to help someone, every time you go out of your way to meet someone's needs, you are outwardly honoring your employer and saying by your actions how much you appreciate working for him or her. In much the same way, our God is honored, or worshiped, not only by what we say to Him, but also by how much we love Him on the inside and by how we respond to those He died for.

The inward direction of our worship refers to who I am when no one is looking. It's not really difficult to lift up praises to God when we are at church or around other Christians. In those environments we are encouraged, even expected, to do so. But what about when we are in the privacy of our own homes, browsing the Internet, or glancing at a magazine? Are we being careful to please God with our private thoughts, with the things we see, and with the places we visit?

Worshiping inwardly by being good is perhaps the litmus test for all of worship. If our heart's desire is to please God, we can no longer enjoy our former sins. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” This refers to a change inside of us. According to Psalm 51:16-17, God wants a broken and contrite heart more than our outward sacrifices. He knows that if our hearts are purely devoted to Him, that can't help but affect our outward behavior.

Read Proverbs 4:23. A wellspring is the source from which water flows. Likewise our hearts are the source of all our thoughts, motives, and actions. The importance of this inward direction of worship cannot be overstated. As I read 2 Chronicles 16:9, God is searching the earth not to support those who sing the best. Rather, He seeks for those “who hearts are fully committed to Him.” As believers, that must our foremost goal. Without that commitment, all other expressions of worship are actually sickening to God (Amos 5:21-23; Psalm 51).

The outward direction of worship contains four distinct ways we can bring glory to God, and they all have to do with our relationships with other people.

First, God is worshiped when we share our faith with someone, or play a part in a person coming to faith in Christ.

In Romans 15:16, Paul says God gave him the “priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel...so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God.” What a privilege to take part in such an offering! Once we have helped someone become eternally transformed, we will be hooked on sharing our faith for life.

Second, we worship God when we help others.

These days, old-fashioned neighborly help can be hard to find. And if we are really honest, most of us are OK with that trend. We often lack the motivation to lend a hand. We build privacy fences so we don't see our neighbors, and then we fill up our schedules so we don't have time to notice if they need our help. But as followers of Jesus we can't afford not to be the good Samaritans he has called us to be (Luke 10:33). Jesus clearly taught us to give “a cup of cold water” in his name (Matthew 10:42).

Read Philippians 4:14-19. Notice that Paul described the Philippians gifts as “a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God” (v. 18). Giving financial aid to those in need is a third wonderful way to express our love for God. However, it's imperative that we be cheerful when we give, not grudgingly, because that represents the real motives of our hearts (2 Corinthians 9:7). Once again, God considers our willing and compassionate hearts as the source of true worship.

The fourth way we worship God outwardly is by being sensitive to our weaker brothers and sisters. The entirety of Romans 14 focuses on strong and weak Christians. According to verse 13, we are to “live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall” (NLT). Verse 18 shows God's view of this: “If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God” (NLT).

Because our entire study is based on 2 Chronicles 20, I want to close this lesson by focusing for a moment on Jehoshaphat, the story's main character. The Bible says, “Jehoshaphat was a good king, following the example of his father, Asa. He did what was pleasing in the Lord's sight” (1 Kings 22:43 NLT).

He was obviously a man of character, a good man on the inside. He also respected his people and taught them the Word of God (2 Chronicles 17:7). He protected them. In fact, he had over a million men ready and willing to fight in his army. No wonder he was “highly esteemed” by the people (2 Chronicles 17:5, NLT). In short, Jehoshaphat not only said he loved and honored God, he exemplified his passion and commitment to God by who he was and how he acted toward others. He was a man who worshiped God with his whole life.

1 This material is taken from Dwayne Moore's Pure Praise (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2009), 17-19.

2 John MacArthur, The Ultimate Priority (Chicago: Moody Press, 1983), 109-110.