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You’re a guy and on this particular day, you are feeling real sexy. What happens next ruptures all your flyness because you have just walked into church. You are now gazing at people clapping their hands and a few of them even RAISE THEIR HANDS.  The drums are kickin, the guitars are blastin’ and there are a few cute singers up front too which makes it all the more confusing? Concert or church? Do I throw my sexiness back on or leave it in the car?

You are at church but you feel like you’re at a concert. You are at church but it feels exciting? You are at church but you see loads of people who look really cool. You do a quick panorama to see who has been engaging in some pre-partying prior to church. They must have a beer garden at least to pump this crowd up. How – do – they – do – it?

I went off the other day on a bunch of dudes.  They somehow thought they were awesome because they sit in the back and have their arms folded the entire time during worship. Our worship segment at church consists of 4 – 5 songs which simply remind us of how amazing our God is, who He is and how we are idiots because we don’t worship enough. Anyway, these guys are fully devoted in non-participation during worship but fully committed to writing down 5 pages of notes that they will never look at again.

If you’re a guy there is a 90% chance that you are too scared of people around you to actively worship in any of these manners. I’ll bust some B-I-B-L-E on yah. Chances are you probably still won’t care because you are too caught up in the “I am Awesome Zone.” Let me know how that is working since you’re by yourself.

Before you go through the following passages, let me clarify all of this worship stuff. Here we go. You cannot worship a God that you don’t know. If you don’t have a revelation of who God is, you will continue to imagine that it is just not for you. Until you read what it says in John 4:23. Soak your socks on some of that and maybe you’ll find your “Sexy_ness”.

Psalm 63:4 Thus will I bless you while I live;I will lift up my hands in your name.
In Psalm 141:2 David describes a similar act of worship: Let my prayer be set forth before you as incense,The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

In Psalm 143:6 David describes a different position of his hands which expresses his longing for God:I spread out my hands to You;My soul longs for you like a thirsty land.
Lifting up our hands is an act by which we acknowledge God’s majesty. Spreading out our hands indicates our desire to receive from God.

Another way in which we may use our hands in worship is described in Psalm 47:1 – 2: Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth.

By clapping our hands in this way we acknowledge the awesome majesty of our great King. By joining this with a shout of triumph, we proclaim His total victory. From time to time I have been present in a meeting when something that was said or done provoked a burst of clapping and sometimes also of shouting. Probably some who responded in this way did not realise that it was a scriptural act of worship.

Shouting – let me add – does not mean loud singing. It means shouting – like when Devon Hester takes a kickoff 103 yards TO – THE – HOUSE. Like that.

When Solomon was dedicating the temple that he had built to the Lord, he spread out his hands. But he also went further: he knelt down on his knees (2 Chronicles 6:12 – 13). This form of worship typifies total submission to the Lord.

In Ephesians 3:15 Paul reveals that he too approached God in this position: “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Ultimately the whole universe will make this act of submission to the Creator. In Isaiah 45:23 the Lord declares: “I have sworn by myself . . . that to Me every knee shall bow . . .” In Philippians 2:10 Paul reveals that this act of submission will be made specifically to Jesus, as God’s appointed ruler: “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . .”

There is a further act of worship which includes the whole body and which is depicted in the Bible more often than any other: to prostrate one’s self before God. When we prostrate ourselves in this way, we acknowledge our total dependence on God. We thus revoke the desire to be independent of God which prompted the original disobedience of Adam and Eve and which characterises the fallen nature of every one of their descendants.
At some time or other most of the great men in the Bible had found themselves flat on their faces before God. Twice in Genesis 17 it records that Abraham fell on his face before the Lord (verses 3, 17).

When the Lord appeared to Joshua outside Jericho as the commander of God’s army, [Joshua] fell on his face to the earth. He was further commanded to take off his sandals from his feet (Joshua 5:13 – 15). Both actions – falling on his face and taking off his sandals – expressed worship. It was in this posture of worship that Joshua received the Lord’s direction for taking Jericho.

By contemporary standards, however, the most unconventional act of worship is described in 2 Samuel 6:12 – 14. When David had successfully brought the ark up to Jerusalem, he danced before the Lord with all his might. Since David was a mighty man of valour, the phrase “all his might” must indicate extremely energetic actions that included every part of his body. This was the most appropriate expression of his exuberant joy and gratitude to God.

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