The Why of Worship

Yesterday we saw the What of worship, but this morning let’s look at the Why. Psalm 96:4-6 gives us a clue…first, look at the attributes of God in verse 4,

“For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised.”

When you look at the attributes of God, the character of God, the very nature of who He is…you can’t help but worship. Little knowledge of God will lead to little worship, but great knowledge of our great God will lead to white hot passionate worship. Those attributes of God will lead to fear…holy awe drives our worship, “He is to be feared above all gods.” Nothing is to be above Him.

Verse 5 speaks of the sovereignty of God, “For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens.” He sits on the throne as Creator…over and over again the Bible points us to the creative powers of our Creator and expects that to lead us to worship. The attributes of God lead to fear, but the sovereignty of God is based on fact—all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols. This is one of the most politically incorrect verses in the Psalms—other gods are nothing—only God is God and that fact leads us to worship.

And then in verse 6 we find the majesty of God,“Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.” Before Him is splendor and majesty…it simply oozes from Him—it is His essence, but strength and beauty come from Him. He is both omnipotent and the beautiful One! The majesty of God leads us to fame of God…we worship Him and seek to make Him known.

We worship based on holy fear,

we worship based on revealed fact,

and we worship because of His fame. That’s the what and why of worship, but in the next section we find the psalmist calling us to make offerings to the King. We will pick up there tomorrow.