The Presence at the Center of Worship

Many years ago, the Lord began teaching me something about worship that I could never have learned simply by studying it.

He taught me to worship by worshiping.

I could study the words. I could read the Scriptures. I could learn about praise, surrender, holiness and reverence.

But at some point, worship had to become more than something I understood.

I had to worship.

And somewhere in the doing, I began discovering God in ways I hadn't known Him before.

Recently, I found myself tracing the places throughout Scripture where God met with His people, from the Tent of Meeting and the Tabernacle to Solomon's Temple and the rebuilt Temple, and eventually all the way to the river of life in Revelation.

And I began to see one beautiful thread running through it all:

God has always desired to dwell among His people.

And worship is our response to His presence.

That I May Dwell Among Them

When God instructed Moses to build the Tabernacle, He revealed the reason:

“Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.”
Exodus 25:8

Those words have captured me.

God wasn't merely establishing a religious system or giving Israel a place to perform acts of worship.

He wanted to dwell among His people.

His presence appeared at the Tent of Meeting. His glory filled the Tabernacle. There was a place in the midst of Israel where the holy God made His presence known.

He was near. And He was holy. The wonder wasn't simply that Israel could worship God.

The wonder was that God had invited them near.

When His Glory Filled the Temple

Years later, Solomon built the Temple.

When the Ark was brought into the Most Holy Place, the glory of the Lord filled the Temple so completely that the priests could not continue their service.

Once again, worship gathered around one breathtaking reality:

God was dwelling among His people.

But after Israel's exile, the Temple was destroyed.

Eventually another Temple was built. It didn't have the grandeur of Solomon's Temple, and Scripture doesn't record the glory filling it as it had before.

Yet God made an astonishing promise through Haggai:

“The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house.”
Haggai 2:9

How could that be?

Centuries later, Jesus walked into that Temple.

The God who had said, “I will dwell among them,” had come to dwell among us.

John tells us:

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
John 1:14

Not simply another building filled with His glory.

God with us.

And Then He Made Us His Dwelling Place

But the story didn't stop there.

Through Jesus, God did something even more astonishing.

Paul writes:

“Do you not know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?”
1 Corinthians 3:16

Think about the progression.

The God whose presence filled the Tabernacle.

The God whose glory filled Solomon's Temple.

The God who came near to us in Jesus.

Now dwells within His people by His Spirit.

We don't make ourselves holy enough to reach Him. Christ has made the way for us to come near. And yet His nearness has never made Him less holy.

If anything, grace should make His holiness even more astonishing to us.

Nearness Should Never Make Him Common

I learned something about this many years ago.

During an extremely difficult season, I was praying with a friend when I heard myself tell the Lord that His grace didn't feel sufficient for what I was facing. As soon as the words left my mouth, I heard what was underneath them.

I had begun measuring the sufficiency of God by the difficulty of my circumstances.

It broke my heart.

I couldn't even wait until I got home to be alone with Him. I stopped my car and got on my knees right there in the front seat.

And something came rushing back into my heart:

honor.

That experience stayed with me.

Because there is a danger in familiarity.

We can become so accustomed to talking about God, singing about God and approaching God that we forget the astonishing reality of who it is we are approaching.

God has brought us incredibly near.

But nearness should never make Him common.

From His Presence Flows Life

Then Scripture gives us another remarkable picture.

Ezekiel sees water flowing from the Temple.

The farther it travels, the deeper it becomes, until it is a river that cannot be crossed.

And everywhere the river goes, there is life.

Then, in the final chapter of Revelation, John sees:

“the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”
Revelation 22:1

The tree of life is there. The throne of God and of the Lamb is there. And His servants worship Him.

The story has carried us somewhere extraordinary.

From God saying:

“I will dwell among them.”

To the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

To the Spirit dwelling within His people.

And finally, to God's dwelling being fully and forever with humanity.

God has always been drawing His people near.

Learning to Worship by Worshiping

Many years ago, the Lord began teaching me to worship by worshiping.

After all these years, I am still learning.

Because the more I worship, the more I discover that worship isn't ultimately about the song, the atmosphere, what I feel, or even what I need from God.

It begins with seeing Him.

We behold His holiness and bow.

We encounter His goodness and give thanks.

We see His beauty and adore Him.

From the Tabernacle to the Temple, from Jesus dwelling among us, to the Spirit dwelling within us, the story has always been about His presence.

And perhaps that is the worship shift beneath every other worship shift:

Worship is not something we do to enter His presence.

Worship is our response to the God who has drawn us near.