What is God looking for in worship? He makes his desires plain in a wonderful psalm of Asaph — Psalm 50. First, He is looking to see that the pre­scribed forms for worship are all properly in use (v8).

There is a logic to worship, and this logic includes the use of prescribed forms in a reasonable arrangement, such that our coming before the Lord honours Him properly and allows us to fulfill all that this work requires of us. I have sat through too many services of worship in which this or that prescribed element of worship is omitted, inserted at an illogical place, or given less prominence than it deserves. Some churches today omit any confession of sin. In others the prayers are shorter than we might expect, or too narrowly focused. Some churches take the offering after the sermon, as though, having heard what God has to say to us, we will now decide how much that word was worth!

Second, we need to keep in mind that worship is primarily a matter of our pleas­ing God, and not the other way around.

That God can be pleased with the wor­ship we offer Him is clear from Psalm 50:23, where we are told that we can, indeed, honour the Lord, and to such a degree that He is willing to unfold more of the riches of His salvation to us. Think of it! Puny creatures such as we can actu­ally honour the God of heaven and earth! Astonishing! Yet, wondrously true!

This is what we should be striving for in our worship. Yet how many of God’s covenant people actually do this? Is it not more often the norm that people come to the service of worship for what they hope to get out of it? The sooner we get it in our minds that worship is not primarily for us, but for God, the greater is the likelihood both that we will actually honour God with our worship and that we ourselves will be richly blessed as a result.

Third, we need to see that worship is primarily a matter of the heart.

In verses 14 and 15 this “inward” aspect of worship is made clear. “Sacrifice thank-offerings to me...” Here we learn that wor­ship requires a heart of gratitude. God calls such thanksgiving a “sacrifice”. It should cost us something — thoughtfulness, time, spoken words, renewed commitments, even the denial of our feelings (if we do not feel thankful). Indeed, the Scriptures call us to give thanks in everything and at all times (Phil. 4:6-7; 1 Thess. 5:18).

The ideal seems to be that we devote ourselves constantly to giving thanks to God, day in and day out, in all our activi­ties, for all our concerns, in every situation and circumstance into which the Lord brings us. After we have spent a week in such continuous thanksgiving, we then come together with the rest of God’s peo­ple and rehearse our thanks and praise before Him together.

Again, God can see that our hearts are fully committed to him when He is our first line of appeal in times of trouble (Ps. 50:15). How do we typically react to trials or disappointments? Many people start by either complaining or casting about for some quick fix. Their hearts are wired to look to their own resources. God says our hearts will be right when we turn first to Him.

During our worship, God is looking to see if we trust Him. If we do not give Him the tithe that He requires because we fear we might not have enough money to meet our needs, how can He see that our hearts are fully trusting in Him? To Him it will appear that we are trusting more in money. If we do not concentrate during the sermon, asking God to make His Word clear and to show us how to apply it to our own lives, how will God see that we actually trust His Word?

Fourth, the inward aspect of worship is seen in how we are to respond to God’s covenant care of us.

God intends that we should “honour” Him (v. 15 NASB). The Hebrew verb here has the sense of “being heavy” or “weighty”. It is the same root from which the words “glory” and “glorify” come.

We honour God when we make His presence heavy or weighty to everyone around us. We honour God by the manner of our lives, by the words we speak, and by the interests and passions we pursue. Honouring God must begin in the heart, or it will be merely superfi­cial, whatever form we try to give it.

Fifth, the final element of covenant wor­ship is that it seeks the salvation of God (v. 23).

He who sacrifices thank-offerings honours Me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.

God wants to bestow his salvation on his people. Worship is the primary arena in which we may drink more deeply of it and learn to appreciate more fully its final outworking in glory. This means that worship among the members of the covenant community must therefore be decidedly Christocentric and Trinitarian. Jesus Christ must be the focus. Worship should rehearse all aspects of His saving work — His incarnation, obedience, sacri­fice, death and resurrection, session and intercession, and return. Worship should invoke and draw on the power of God’s Spirit to make that salvation real.

God desires for us to know more of His salvation. When we worship Him according to His forms, in a manner designed above all to please and honour Him, and out of hearts filled with grati­tude to and trust in Him, we can be sure that He will open up the riches of His grace in ever more glorious ways to the community of which we are a part.