Worship is Serious Business

Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.

Psalm 2:11

Are you ready for church?

That’s a good question for today. I’m not asking if you are dressed and ready to go. I’m asking about your heart. Are you ready to worship God with fear and rejoicing? I wonder how many of us would answer “yes.”

Rejoicing and trembling may seem like opposite emotions, but the psalmist joins them together as the proper way to approach God. We are to rejoice that we know the Lord, but we are never, ever to take Him lightly. As Charles Spurgeon says, this is a “sacred compound."

Fear without joy is torment, and joy without fear is presumption. Martin Luther pointed out that hypocrites rejoice in God without fear because they have too high an opinion of themselves. But the righteous despair of themselves, thus they tremble; casting themselves upon God, they rejoice in His mercy.

True believers constantly accuse themselves (in the sense of being deeply aware of their own sinfulness) and simultaneously rejoice in God their Savior. They are like wheat when the husk of self-trust is broken off, leaving only the sweet fruit of Christ within.

The word trembling carries with it the concept of timidity and fear—which might seem to contradict the invitation to “come boldly” to the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16 KJV). We are invited to come to God as often as we like—especially in the “time of need”—but we must not come lightly, flippantly, or casually.

We are to tremble in the presence of the Lord, to feel such gratitude for the awesome privilege of knowing Him that we come into His presence knowing we are standing before the King of the universe.

If that thought doesn’t make you fearful, it should. It’s the sudden fear that grips you late at night when you are almost asleep, right on the edge, and suddenly you hear a tiny noise, a strange sound, and you think: Burglars have broken in!

It happens to me from time to time. I’ll be drifting off to sleep when I hear something creak. Suddenly I’m wide awake, sitting up in bed, straining to hear every sound. One writer called it “aroused fear in the moment of danger.” Serve God that way so you can hear everything He is saying to you in the Word. It keeps you on your toes.

Worship is serious business. Don’t take it lightly. Don’t drift away from the Lord. Stay on your toes. Be alert. We know how easy it is to go to church and just tune out. We’re there, but we’re not there. We’re looking attentive, but our minds are ten thousand miles away.

Let’s take Psalm 2 to heart today. God wants our whole-hearted worship—nothing less!

Ο God of all things, help me not to take lightly that which You take seriously. Amen.

1. Have you ever trembled over your own sin?

2. How can such self-despair lead to rejoicing?

3. What can we do to keep from taking God lightly?