How to Enjoy God

You and I are created to worship God. But why would God create human beings in order to receive their worship? Is this not, as some suggest, pure vanity?

Many years ago, I was helped in my understanding of worship through C.S. Lewis’s explanation in his Reflections on the Psalms.

He wrote: ‘The most obvious fact about praise… strangely escaped me… I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise… the world rings with praise... walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game – praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare books, even sometimes politicians and scholars…

‘I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It’s not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.’

In other words, worship is the consummation of joy. Our joy is not complete until it is expressed in worship. It is out of his love for you that God created you to worship. According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, humankind’s ‘chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever’.

Singing and music - Psalm 98:1-9

The psalmist calls people to worship God in song and music: ‘Sing to the Lord a new song… Burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord’ (v.1,4–5).

This psalm is full of noise, as the people are asked to celebrate God’s goodness in a whole host of different ways. There is a call to sing, shout for joy, play instruments, and even applaud in our celebration of God:

‘Shout your praises to God, everybody!

   Let loose and sing! Strike up the band!

Round up an orchestra to play for God,

   Add on a hundred-voice choir.

Feature trumpets and big trombones,

   Fill the air with praises to King God.

Let the sea and its fish give a round of applause,

   With everything living on earth joining in’ (v.4–7, MSG).

This is all a response to what God has done for us. You are called to worship the Lord who is Saviour (v.1–3), King (v.4–6), and Judge (v.7–9).

As we read this through the lens of Jesus, we can see this as a prophetic psalm. Jesus is the one at God’s ‘right hand’ who has ‘worked salvation’ (v.1). He has made God’s salvation known and ‘revealed his righteousness to the nations’ (v.2). (See also Romans 3:21.)

There is a joyful anticipation of the universal restoration of all things when the Saviour will come to judge the earth (Psalm 98:9). Then all creation will be restored (v.7–8). As St Paul puts it, ‘The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed… the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God’ (Romans 8:19–21).

This psalm is a growing crescendo of praise – from the worshipping community of the people of God (Psalm 98:1–3) to all people (v.4–6) and finally to all of creation (v.7–9).