Chapter One
Facedown
When we face up to the glory of God, we soon
find ourselves facedown in worship. To worship
facedown is the ultimate outward sign of inner
reverence.
Every posture in worship says something of
both the worshipper and the One being gloried
in. The raising of hands tells of a soul stretched
out high in praise and the worth of the One being
exalted. Joyful dancing interprets a grateful heart
and points in adoration to the source of that joy.
When it comes to expressing our worship, what
we do on the outside is a key reflection of what's taking
place on the inside. Out of the overflow of our
heart we speak and sing, we dance, and we bow. God
reveals, and we respond. God shines, and we reflect.
In the very same way, facedown worship is the overflow
of a heart humbled and amazed by the glory of
God.
Facedown worship always begins as a posture of
the heart. It's people so desperate for the increase
of Christ that they find themselves decreasing to the
ground in an act of reverent submission. When a soul
is so captivated by the Almighty, to bend low in true
and total surrender seems the only appropriate
response.
On several different occasions, the Bible allows us
a glimpse into an open heaven. Each time is a window
of revelation through which we discover more of what
worship looks like before the heavenly throne. And
there's a whole lot of facedown worship going on. In
Revelation, John encounters the risen and exalted
Jesus, whose eyes blaze like fire and whose face is shining
like the sun in all its brilliance. Overwhelmed to the
core, John shrinks to the ground in reverence and fear
(see Revelation 1). A few chapters later, the elders too
are falling down in holy devotion. And as we journey
further into this heavenly flow of praise, we find even
more facedown worshippers:
All the angels were standing around the
throne and around the elders and the four living
creatures. They fell down on their faces before
the throne and worshipped God (Revelation
7:11, emphasis added).
The book of Ezekiel gives us another glimpse into
an open heaven, and we find more of the same. The
prophet beholds the "appearance of the likeness of
the glory of the Lord" (1:28). There can be only one
response:
When I saw it, I fell facedown. (1:28, emphasis
added).
The reflex of his soul was reverence and submission.
Facing up to the glory of God, Ezekiel soon found himself
falling facedown in awe and astonishment.
Daniel gives us another Old Testament glimpse
of this heavenly scene. He sees a vision of the Lord
Almighty, whose face shines like lightning and whose
eyes blaze like flaming torches. Undone by this divine
encounter, here's another worshipper who cannot stay
on his feet:
I bowed with my face toward the ground and was
speechless (Daniel 10:15, emphasis added).
So many clues as to what our congregational gatherings
should look like are found in these encounters
of the heavenly throne. When it comes to worship, the
throne always sets the tone. Each time we gather
together, we don't just journey to a church building-we
journey to the very throne of God. To lose sight of
this is to lose sight of the majestic in worship. Every
kingdom has a king, and every king has a throne. And
the kingdom of God is no exception. He is the King
above all kings, and He has the throne above all thrones.
There is no higher seat of authority, power and splendor
in the whole of the universe. The elders bow low
there, the angels encircle it, and the whole host of heaven
arrange themselves around it (see 1 Kings 22:19). One
day, a countless multitude, from every nation, tribe,
people and tongue, will gather there (see Revelation
7:9). As Ron Owens tells us, "When we come to worship,
we come to a throne . [and] everything else
arranges itself around that throne."
Journeying through the Bible, we find a whole
host of facedown worshippers. Abram becomes one
as the Lord God Almighty appears to him (see
Genesis 17:3). Moses and Aaron fall facedown too,
as they encounter His glory (see Numbers 20:6).
King David also adopts the posture, in an act of
humble repentance (see 1 Chronicles 21:16). And
overwhelmed by the radiance of the transfigured
Jesus, Peter, James and John are also found amongst
the ranks of the facedown (see Matthew 17:6).
Throughout Scripture, countless worshippers meet
with God-and soon reposture themselves before His
splendor.
And it's not only the willing who find themselves
facedown in an encounter with the Living God. In
the book of 1 Samuel, the Philistine nation captures
the Ark of the Lord. Unaware of the power involved
with this embodiment of God's presence, they carry
it into their temple and place it beside the idol of
Dagon. Early the next morning, they find the idol
facedown on the ground before the Ark of the Lord
(see 1 Samuel 5:1-5). My friend Louie Giglio comments
that if you find your god bowed facedown on the
floor before another God, then it's time to get a new
one! Somehow, the Philistines didn't quite get the
message, and they have the audacity to lift Dagon up,
putting him neatly back in place. Big mistake. The
next day they arrive at the temple, and there's Dagon,
back on the ground, facedown before the Ark of the
Lord. Only this time his head and hands have been
broken off-and he's lying in pieces.
No power set against our Almighty God can
stand in His presence. And those who dare to set
themselves up against Him are setting themselves up
for a fall. It is a facedown fall.
A few years ago, I saw a powerful example of facedown
devotion at a gathering in Memphis, Tennessee.
Hosted by the Passion movement of college students,
this was a sacred assembly-a time set apart to worship,
fast and seek the Lord. Thousands of students
gathered on the field that day to consecrate themselves
and pursue the glory of God in the nations of
this world. Large events aren't automatically the most
profound, but this one truly was. There were moments
of heightened celebration, as we rejoiced in the Savior.
There were times of "Selah," when we quieted our
heart and let the stillness remind us He is God. And
there were moments of facedown worship. Part way
through the day, I saw a sight I shall never forget. It
was pouring with rain and the ground was getting
pretty saturated. Yet all around me were students, face
to the ground in the dirt, offering up their lives to
God. They were not concerned about the downpour or
the mud-or even the fact they'd already been in that
field for many hours. Here were a people consumed
with the glory of God and everything they saw of Him
propelled them to their knees in an extended act of
lowly worship. The movement called Passion lived up
to its name that day. It was passion accompanied by
reverence, celebration accompanied by submission.
We see this fusion of joy and reverence many times
throughout the Bible. The second psalm counsels us
to "rejoice with trembling" (v. 11). To delight in the
welcoming mercies of His great love yet all the while
quaking in the depths of our hearts at the astonishing
beauty of His holiness. In the same way, in Psalm
95 we begin by singing for joy to the Lord-yet
before long find ourselves bowing down low in worship.
As Charles Spurgeon comments on these verses,
"Joyful noise is to be accompanied with the lowliest
reverence."
My favorite example of this mix of celebration and
awe is found in the book of Leviticus. The glory of the
Lord appeared and fire came out from His presence.
When the people of God saw this, they "shouted for joy
and fell facedown" (Leviticus 9:24). An amazing picture.
It is the wow and the woe of worship. A joyful shout lifted
high to celebrate the goodness of God, followed by
an Isaiah-like woe as they tremble at His greatness.
There's a whole lot of shouting for joy to be found
in some of our worship gatherings, but how much
face-to-the-ground devotion do we see? The Scriptures
show us that the most profound and wholesome worship
contains elements of both.
The beautiful news is this: When God draws near
in worship, we don't have to head for the door-God
loves to meet with His people. Yet sometimes it can
be a pretty wise move to head for the floor-we must
stay ever mindful of the glory of the One we are
encountering.
Yes, when we truly face up to the glory of God, we'll
find ourselves facedown in worship. And every heart
will have to face up to it sooner or later. C. S. Lewis, talking
about the second coming of Christ, puts it brilliantly:
Christians think that He is going to land in
force. We do not know when, but we can guess
why He is delaying. He wants to give us the
chance of joining His side freely. God will
invade . But what is the good of saying
that you are on His side then? When you see
the whole natural universe melting away like a
dream and something else comes crashing in.
Something so beautiful to some of us, and so
terrible to others, that none of us will have any
choice left . it will strike irresistible love or
irresistible horror into every creature. It will be
too late then to choose your side. There is no
use saying you choose to lie down, when it has
become impossible to stand up.
One day we will all find ourselves facedown in the
worship of Jesus. Every willing and unwilling knee
bowed in humility. Every artificial power and authority
forced to the ground, just like the crumbled idol of
Dagon. Rebellious tongues will not be merely silenced
but will urgently confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father. It will be impossible to stand
up on that day.
Chapter Two
The Otherness
of God
Worship thrives on wonder. We can admire,
appreciate and perhaps even adore someone
without a sense of wonder. But we cannot worship
without wonder. For worship to be worship,
it must contain something of the otherness
of God.
I've come to love that word-"otherness."
It's such a great worship word. A sense that God
is so pure, matchless and unique that no one
else and nothing else even comes close. He is
altogether glorious-unequalled in splendor and unrivalled
in power. He is beyond the grasp of human reason-far
above the reach of even the loftiest scientific
mind. Inexhaustible, immeasurable and unfathomable-eternal,
immortal and invisible. The highest
mountain peaks and the deepest canyon depths are
just tiny echoes of His proclaimed greatness. And the
blazing stars above, the faintest emblems of the full
measure of His glory.
Many music critics note that the skill of songwriter
Bruce Springsteen lies in his ability to take the
everyday, the ordinary, and make it sound extraordinary.
Sometimes in the Church we find ourselves
doing the total opposite-we take the extraordinary
revelation of God and somehow manage to make Him
sound completely ordinary! We fail to communicate
the sense of God's otherness. As A. W. Tozer puts it,
"Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God
to manageable terms."
Time after time the book of Isaiah reminds us of
the uniqueness of God: "I will not give my glory to
another" (42:8). "I am the first and I am the last; apart
from me there is no God" (44:6). "To whom will you
compare me or count me equal?" (46:5). "I am God,
and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like
me" (46:9). In light of Scriptures like these, I'm becoming
more and more wary of worship songs that seem
to make God merely sound like our equal. Once or
twice people have shown me a worship song and said,
"This is great. The lyrics are so down to Earth that you
wouldn't even know you're singing to God-it could
be a normal pop song or a love song." Now, I guess the
point they're making is cultural relevance, and that's a
good point to make, but there is a higher value in worship
than cultural relevance. It is the glory of God.
God will not be diluted, dumbed down or patronized.
He rebukes worshippers in Psalm 50:
You thought I was altogether like you (v. 21).
But He is not like one of us. He is utterly incomparable-beyond
the furthest horizon of our imaginations.
He is off the scale of our comprehension. We have
merely known the shallows of the mighty deep.
A while back I bought my daughter a couple of
little goldfish. I've never really been one for keeping
pets, but I figured that these tiny creatures were
probably quieter and tamer than most. So there they
swam, up on the mantelpiece, apparently forgetting
everything every one and a half times around the
bowl. The very next day I found myself watching a
documentary about creatures of the deep sea. Right
down in the depths of the ocean, the camera was capturing
the most fascinating images of wild fish and
other strange sea creatures. I sat glued to the screen-so
many varieties, so much untamed beauty. And
there in the background were Maisey's tame little
goldfish, doing yet another lap of the bowl.
Sometimes in the Church, I worry that we've settled
for "goldfish bowl" worship. We convey a tame
and domesticated God, and then find ourselves stuck
in the endless pursuit of the ordinary. But the call is
to venture out into the ocean, to encounter the extraordinary
and to explore the mighty depths of God.
And though our earthly gathered worship times may
never fully sound the depths of His glory, beware of
those that don't even attempt to do so.
Back to Psalm 50 and we discover that God doesn't
even need our worship:
If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the
world is mine, and all that is in it (v. 12).
Do we detect a harsh tone in the voice of God
here? Yes, we most certainly do. This is the voice of
the all-sufficient King of the universe. He does not
need to be sustained, supported or sponsored. He is
not in urgent need of our offerings, like a TV charity
fund-raiser, urgently appealing for as many contributions
as possible. Charles Spurgeon writes:
Do men fancy that the Lord needs banners
and music, and incense, and fine linen? If He
did, the stars would emblazon His standard, the winds and the waves become His orchestra, ten thousand times ten thousand flowers
would breathe forth perfume.
The apostle Paul echoes the same truth in his speech
to the men of Athens:
He is not served by human hands, as if He needed
anything, because he himself gives all men
life and breath and everything else (Acts 17:25).
The plain truth is this: God has absolutely no need
of our offerings. In fact, every single thing our open
hands bring to Him-whether a good deed, a tithe or a
simple act of compassion-came to us first from His
hand. We cannot even offer a simple song of praise
without using the breath God first gave to us.
Continues.
