Worship or Singing about Worship?

I was moved this morning as our choir led us in worship in a very simple yet powerfully profound song. They sang "To Him Who Sits On The Throne," echoing the words of "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, 'To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!'” (Revelation 5:13).

The choir sang the words again, and again, and again - just as these worshippers in heaven did and are doing even now as you read this.

As I thought about this, I remembered something I read a while back. It's truly moving to participate in the actual worship of God because so many of our songs talk ABOUT worship instead of actually worshipping. At times, it seems we have begun to worship worship!

D.A. Carson wrote Worship by the Book and in the introductory chapter wrote, "This point is acknowledged in a praise chorus like 'Let's forget about ourselves, and magnify the Lord, and worship him.' The trouble is that after you have sung this repetitious chorus three of four times, you are no farther ahead. The way you forget about yourself is by focusing on God – not by singing about doing it, but by doing it."

A familiar song is "I Will Worship" and the lyrics really lead to nowhere:

I will worship (I will worship)
With all of my heart (with all of my heart)
I will praise You (I will praise You)
With all of my strength (all my strength)
I will seek You (I will seek You)
All of my days (all of my days)
And I will follow (I will follow)
All of Your ways (all Your ways)

I will give You all my worship. I will give You all my praise.
You alone I long to worship. You alone are worthy of my praise.

I will bow down (I will bow down)
Hail You as king (hail You as king)
And I will serve You (I will serve You)
Give You everything (give You everything)
I will lift up (I will lift up)
My eyes to Your throne (my eyes to Your throne)
And I will trust You (I will trust You)
I will trust You alone (trust You alone)

What has been accomplished here? Have we worshipped the Lord? I think not. I think we have just sang ABOUT worshipping. We are proclaiming that we will worship, we will praise, we will bow down. But we are doing NONE of that!

Tim Challies wrote, "We do not worship God by telling Him that we will, at some point in the future, worship Him. It is akin to a husband heading to work and instead of telling his wife that he loves her, telling her that he will express his love for her at some other time. That is not an expression of love!"

To put it negatively they are songs of procrastination. To put it positively, they are "notices of intent" to worship. The trouble is that so many modern praise songs make it is easy to sing a string of "notices of intent" and call it a day. I am thankful for our worship leader who does such a good job of leading us in the worship of our King.