The Gift of Worship

While in this season of the year our focus is on the gift of Jesus, God has given us other gifts that we need to recognize, receive and celebrate. Last week we saw how the word of God is a gift that brings life and we have the opportunity each and every day to allow the word of God to shape us if we will take the time to read it and allow God to speak to us. Another gift that God gives us is the gift of worship. We may not think of worship as a gift because as part of the law we were commanded to worship God. The first commandment says “you shall have no other gods before me”, which means we are to worship God and God alone. The second commandment is similar when it says that you shall not make for yourself an idol, you shall not bow down to them or worship them. So the law is clear, we are commanded to worship God, so if worship is a commandment, how can it also be a gift? I think the shepherds in the Christmas story help give us the answer.


On the night that Jesus was born the very first thing God did was send an angel to a group of shepherds to tell them that the Savior had been born and through the angel God gave these shepherds directions on where to go to find the Messiah. Jesus would be the babe not just wrapped in cloth like every other child in Bethlehem, he would be the one lying in a manger. God didn’t just want the news of Jesus’ birth to be proclaimed, God in the flesh wanted to be found, God wanted to be worshipped, so in giving the shepherds directions on how to find Jesus – God was giving the invitation to come and worship Him.

The shepherds were not commanded to go and find Jesus, they weren’t ordered to worship him, they were invited. Worship is a gift. That the shepherds were able to worship God that night was because God invited them into his presence. That we are able to worship God and enter His presence is because God invites us, worship is a gift and it always has been. In Jeremiah 29:13 it says, when you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me. So God is the one who allows himself to be found. God is the one who invites us into his presence and so our ability to worship God is a gift.

Sometimes I think we get this backwards and we feel like our worship is a gift to God and on some level it is, God wants the gift of our hearts and lives centered on him and lifted up to him, but really – worship, or our ability to enter into the presence of God and experience God’s love and grace and joy and peace and power is God’s gift to us and like all gifts from God, it is a gift that we need to receive. More importantly it is a gift that we all can receive.

What I like about the shepherds being the first ones to receive the gift of worship on the night that Jesus was born is that it shows us that this gift is open and available to everyone. God doesn’t exclude anyone from worship, quite the opposite; God wants everyone to worship him and that is part of the reason I think God chose a group of shepherds to first announce the news of Jesus birth. While the idea of being a shepherd in Jesus day may have been noble because Moses and David, the two greatest men of Israel’s history both worked as shepherds, the reality of being a shepherd was quite different.

In Jesus day, shepherds were near the bottom of the social ladder. They had bad reputations and were known as being notorious liars. In fact, shepherds were not able to give testimony in a court of law because they were not recognized as men who were able to tell the truth. Shepherds were social outcasts because they spent so much time away from the community tending to the sheep and because they worked in unclean environments they were not able to follow all the religious laws of they day and so were considered religious outcast as well. All in all the life of a shepherd was not highly regarded and if the angels had tried they could not have found a more unlikely group of people to invite to worship God, and yet because they were the first ones who were given the gift of worshipping Jesus it shows us that we are all given this gift of worship. We are all invited into the presence of God.

Any gift that is given has to be received and it can often be difficult for us to receive the gift of worship because there are times when we all struggle with feeling unworthy to be in God’s presence. I know there are times when I think to myself, how God could want me to be in his presence after all I’ve done? How could God want me to worship him when I know how far away I am from the life He wants for me? When I think of who God is and who I am, I am humbled and amazed to think that this gift of worship has been given to me, but it has been given to me. The gift of worship has been given to all of us no matter who we are or what we have done or where we are in life and God wants us to receive it. God wants us to come into his presence and know the power of his love.

In 1 John 4:10 it says, this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and gave his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin. Again, we see here that God initiates the relationship of love with us. God first loves us and it is God’s love in Jesus that reconciles us to himself. It is through the death and resurrection of Jesus that our sins are atoned for, or forgiven, and it is through Jesus that the door is opened for us to enter into the presence of God, and all of this is a gift because we don’t deserve it. We don’t deserve God’s love and we didn’t earn it – but it is given to us none the less.

So the shepherds show us that worship is a gift – God invites all of us to enter into his presence so that we can experience the love and grace and power of God, but this gift of worship does more than just warm our hearts – it can change our lives and again it is the shepherds of Bethlehem who show us this. While they go to Bethlehem with open hearts and minds to find God – they leave Bethlehem praising and glorifying God for all they had seen and heard. And they didn’t just praise God, they shared with others what they had seen and heard. Notice that they didn’t do any of this after they heard the message of the angels; it was only after they worshipped Jesus that their lives changed.

The gift of worship, the gift of being in the presence of God filled the shepherds until their hearts overflowed and that is what the gift of worship needs to do for us. Worship needs to do more than just warm our hearts; it needs to change our lives from the inside out. Our experience of the living God in worship needs to shine light into the areas of our hearts and minds that are dark. Worship needs to bring hope where there is despair, joy where there is sorrow, acceptance where these is isolation and loneliness, grace where there is brokenness and sin, and love where this fear. What amazes me is that this can all take place if we will let down our defenses and enter into the presence of God. When we tear down the walls of our heart – God can enter in.

The shepherds didn’t have those walls built up in their hearts and lives. For example, they didn’t have that wall of doubt or fear in their lives when they went to find Jesus. They didn’t question what the angels said, they didn’t doubt, they believed. It says they went to see this thing that had happened. They believed it to be true, they had faith and trust that they would find the Messiah lying in a manger and because their minds and lives were open – they found him. And their hearts were open as well because they didn’t say to themselves, well we can’t go because we aren’t worthy, they trusted in the love that was shown when the angels sang to them and when the invitation to worship God was given. They believed they were accepted by God and so the set out to worship Jesus and because they believed, because their hearts were opened, their lives were changed. That is the key to worship, we have to accept this gift with the faith that God wants us to enter into his presence and receive his love. We have to trust that God loves us more than we can possibly imagine and that his love can heal us and forgive us and fill us with all that we need.

On the night Jesus was born the shepherds were given the gift of worship, they were invited into the presence of God through the person of Jesus and their lives were never the same. That same gift is being offered to us today. God extends to all of us this gift of worship, through Jesus we can enter into the presence of God and if we will open our hearts to the spirit of God, our lives can be changed today, in this moment. As we pray, as we sing, as we share in the bread and cup, our lives can be changed, so come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the new born king.