I’ve just been up in Brisbane at our Hillsong Brisbane Campus for the weekend. I’ve got to say, I’m impressed by our team.. Bright are the days ahead in Brisbane.

I was sharing with the team in Brisbane on Thursday night on the kind of worship that moves the heart of God. This is obviously a crucial consideration for our worship teams. We want to honor God by developing the gifts He has given, though even more than writing and learning songs, creating stage designs, mixing sound, etc, we must be aware and moved by what it is that God is looking for.

Worship That Moves The Heart Of God

Psalm 51 says:

15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

 16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; 
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; 
a broken and contrite heart,
 O God, you will not despise.

I love the way E.Peterson puts it in the Message:

“Unbutton my lips, dear God; I’ll let loose with your praise. Going through the motions doesn’t please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.”

An Act Of Worship Is Not Enough

Our worship must involve a move of our own hearts

I remember planning my proposal to my now wife Karalee. Yes, it was a successful proposal. It is interesting how the proposer, who creates an elaborate plan, then executes it with intricate detail, will often retell the story with particular emphasis on how successful the plan itself was. My proposal plans were elaborate. I flew to London, where Karalee was staying, to surprise her on the banks of the river Thames with a diamond ring. There were a lot of details to be taken care of. But imagine in all that, if I had missed the point, that I had never expressed my heart, my love for her, that I had rushed the experience with my concern for the next part of my plan. “Quick take the ring, we have dinner plans in 5 minutes…”.

Similarly our worship must involve a move and expression of our own hearts. God is not after a heartless, obligated act of worship, rather, a move towards genuine humility and an awareness of our need for Him and His grace. (Read Romans 5 and 6, it provides some more perspective).

Amos 5 says:

21 “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. 22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offering, I will have no regard for them. 23 Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps! 24 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Quite a wake up call. The problem here is that with one hand God’s people are oppressing, and with the other they are offering sacrifices.

Our worship must also involve a move towards justice, towards restoring our own communities and bringing our world to rights. In God’s eyes there should be no discontinuity between singing our songs, and standing alongside someone in need; rather with one hand raised to God in worship, let the other be extended to the poor.

God’s Heart Is Moved By Us

I imagine God receiving our worship, like a dad who receives a picture from his young son. A picture of a cat, that comes out looking nothing like a cat, with a use of colours that will never and have never been seen amongst the feline population. Though when you go into that dad’s office, up on the wall, with pride of place, sits that very picture. An inaccurate, slightly tainted attempt, received as if it were fine art.

God’s wisdom confounds the wisdom of the world. He sees beauty where we do not.

Where To From Here?

We must continue to move well beyond viewing worship as 20mins of singing on a weekend, or even our greatest and most exciting projects. God wants all we are. He is looking for worshippers who will come in spirit and in truth, with hearts of humility and transparency, people desperate to meet with Him.

So let us be a people attentive to the point of obsession with God, the object and subject of our worship, desperately seeking His will and His purposes, and let us do our best with what we put our hands to, to the glory of his name.