As I have grown up, I have been at a few different churches that have had many different styles of worship. For most of my life I attended a Baptist church, where all of our music was done on the piano and the organ. We always sang hymns. We would stand, hold the hymnal in our hands, sing the song, and then sit. That was how I came to know this thing called worship.
In eighth grade, I started going to a youth group at a different church. Here they had a band that played the songs and most often they were very upbeat and a lot of fun. I was enamored with the fact that they were playing songs in church with drums and an electric guitar. During the songs people would clap and occasionally jump up and down or bounce from side to side as they sang. Here some of the people also did some strange things like raising their hands while they sang; some people sat down and prayed in their chairs or at the front. This was a little weird for me at first since it was nothing like the worship at my church. I took me a few years of going there to get comfortable with doing much more than clapping. Eventually though I grew more comfortable with being able to go and kneel at the front if I needed to or bouncing up and down for a certain song.
Just as I grew comfortable with this new way of worship my ways were challenged again. My junior and senior year was when I met my friends who I eventually started a band with and I would occasionally go to their church. They had a full band to do their chorus songs just like the youth group that I was at. Except when they were playing the people seemed almost…well, out of control. They would clap, raise their hands, kneel in prayer, and those things but they would also be dancing in the aisles. They would be jumping up and down in the back of the church yelling praises to God, and they had an official dance team who stood at the front of the church and did interpretive dance while the worship team played.
I didn’t really know what to think. I almost would always refuse to dance in the aisles. “That was just too much,” I thought, “these people were just making spectacles of themselves.” It was distracting too. I had a hard time worshiping and paying attention to God as people right next to me were dancing around not to mention the older women in purple spandex were dancing with blue ribbons in their hands at the front of the church. That would make it hard to think straight about anything, let alone worshipping God.
As I went to their church more and more I began to realize something. I began to notice that most of the people there weren’t just putting on a show. They weren’t just trying to make it all about themselves. These people were truly just excited and passionately in love with God. They didn’t care what anyone else thought; they worshipped God with everything they had.
I began to watch these people as they danced and bounded around the sanctuary and the more I understood their heart for God, the more I noticed that I was catching that same urge to dance in joy for my God. It started slow as I began to feel free to bounce around in front of my seat. It grew as I eventually felt comfortable with moving from “my place” out to the side or back of the church. Eventually, I felt free to dance and be free in my worship towards God.
As I have been in different worship settings and churches throughout my life I have noticed there is always one common thread that is shared in each situation. As I have gone to different church or events with worship and even when I come here on Sundays or Mondays, I sometimes tend to focus on what everyone else is doing. I tend to be concerned with how I will look to the people around me if I do or don’t do the same thing that everyone else is doing. Sometimes I feel weird as I wonder if people think I looked dumb in church on Sunday as I bobbed my head and shut my eyes as I played my bass and sang. Sometimes I will refrain from raising my hands here at youth group because I think, “These kids are going to think I am a weirdo!” All too often we come into a situation of worship, looking around and paying attention to the people around us when it all honesty, they should be the last thing on our minds. When we worship, our sole focus should be on our relationship with God. The songs we sing should be as if we are singing a prayer to God. We should be focused on expressing our love and admiration to God first and foremost.
This attitude was something that David knew and expressed in the passage that we will look at tonight. Please grab your pew Bibles and open to 2 Samuel 6:12-16, 20-22 (pg. 299 in the pew Bibles). Please keep your Bibles open and follow along as I will be going through the text piece by piece.
We pick up this story at verse 12 where David has made the decision to bring the Ark of God to Jerusalem. This was a significant event because of what the Ark was. The ark was not just a box that held the 10 commandment tablets, it was so much more. The ark represented the Presence of God. In Exodus 25:22, as God is giving Moses the commanded for building the ark, he says to Moses, “There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.” Bringing the Ark to Jerusalem meant that they were bringing God’s direct presence into Jerusalem.
This was such a big deal that in verse 13 we read that every six steps that the priests took, they stopped and David sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. The reason they did this is because they were saying thank you to God that they were able to be so close to His presence and asking God to have mercy on them because they were not worthy to be in His presence. This is where worship starts, when people come into God’s presence.
In the Old Testament, God’s presence was only at the ark and latter on, at the temple, as the ark was placed in the inner most room. Only certain people were allowed to come into God’s presence and worship Him there because of sin. Even the high priest, when he went into God’s presence had to offer sacrifices to make him worthy. Today, because of Christ’s death and ultimate sacrifice, we all have the ability to come into God’s presence no matter where we are. Again, this is where worship begins, as we make a conscious decision to come into God’s presence.
David and the people were so excited to be in God’s presence that verses 14-15 describe their actions.
“David, wearing a linen ephod, [which is kind of similar to a toga] danced before the LORD with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.”
This was a celebration with dancing and joy. This was a major time of worship. Everyone was excited and happy! Well…almost everyone.
In verse 16 we read about David’s wife, Michal.
“As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.”
What?!? Why did she despise him? He was worshipping, with all his heart before God? What was her problem? Well…she tells David her problem with his actions in verse 20.
“When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, ‘How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!’”
She basically said to Daivd, “What the heck were you doing out there today?!. You are the King!!! And you striped down to your underwear and danced around like an idiot in front of everybody! How could you do something so stupid?! The slaves were there, the whole nation was there and you acted just like any disgusting man would! You did not act the way you were supposed to!”
In verses 21-22 David responds very boldly to his wife.
“David said to Michal, ‘It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD’s people Israel - I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.’”
What did David mean by this response? I think he was saying two important things here.
First, he was saying, “I don’t care what anyone else thinks! I don’t care what YOU think! I was dancing and celebrating in front of God and God alone. I will become even more humbled, I will make an even bigger fool of myself because I will lower myself before God.” David says he “will become even more undignified than this.”
David’s wife, Michal, had the problem that so many of us share. She was concerned with looking around at everybody else and she was concerned with what people would think. David knew though that that had nothing to do with worship. He knew that worship was to be between him and God and that he didn’t care who was watching.
Second, he says that the slave girls will hold him in honor. I think what he is saying here is that his act of worship would move others to see his heart for God. And not only would they see his heart and love for God but they would want and desire that same kind of relationship with God. This is similar to the situation I was in at my friend’s church. As the people danced and bounded around the sanctuary I saw their hearts for God. This created a desire in me to worship God with that same free spirit.
The important thing here is that we learn how to worship God fully and be humbled and undignified in our worship. Sometimes we do things just to have fun or be goofy. That does not help others to worship but just distracts them. Real, heartfelt worship is what will make a lasting impression on their heart.
Worship begins when we make a decision to come into God’s presence. It is a time where we seek God and try to spend our time with him as we sing songs as prayers. We need to get into the mind set that it is just us and God. It doesn’t matter who is watching us or what others are doing, we need to worship God freely and be undignified even. It is then, that others will be lead into a spirit of worship because they can see that we are in God’s presence and they want what we have that same experience.
