Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church
Enhancing worship on earth would greatly increase if believers understood what worship in heaven is like. So, in this brief write-up, let us examine how the Scriptures describe heaven. Let us seek to model heaven’s worship on earth.
1. God-focused.
The worship in heaven focuses on one central, dominant, and inexhaustible subject -- the person of God. The triune God is the focus of heaven and thus is the focus of all worship. If the worship in heaven is saturated with the person, work, glory and personhood of the triune God, then how much more should believers’ worship here be like that.
2. Christ-exalting.
The Lamb of God, seated on His throne, receives praise, worship, adoration, honor, glory, and blessing from the vast multitude of worshipers in heaven. The Lord of glory, the risen and exalted Christ, receives worship as He sits on his sovereign throne. Heaven is Christ-exalting and it is full of delightful joy and worshipful praise to His great name.
3. Corporately loud.
Many multitudes gather corporately to worship the Lord around His throne in glory. God did not design worship to merely be an individual endeavor only. Corporate worship characterizes heaven. Heaven is a world of corporate love as believers love Christ, love each other in pointing each other to Christ, and sing loudly His praises to His renown.
4. Cross-saturated.
Heaven’s worship focuses on the cross of Christ! The Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, who made His people white through the blood of His cross is the apex of worship! The righteousness of Christ, the atonement of the Lamb, and the perfection of redemption comprises the singing, the conversations, the minds, and the thoughts of heaven’s inhabitants.
5. Always enduring.
Worship does not grow old in heaven. After ten million ages have past, heaven’s praises shall not diminish in the slightest. Worship will always endure in heaven. No songs will grow old. The story of redemption will not fade away. The worship always endures and always saturates and always gladdens those who dwell in this eternal dwelling.
6. Loud singing.
If many multitudes of people reside in the new heavens and the new earth and if the elect from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation stand together to exalt the God-Man forevermore, one can only imagine how deafeningly loud this singing must be! Worship in the Old Testament included many instruments, cymbals, vocalists, and choirs. O to imagine how loud, beautiful, breathtaking, and sweet the singing in perfect glory must be!
7. Sinless service.
Worship is not synonymous with singing. Though singing can be an element of worship, worship is much bigger than the singing of songs. Worship is the response of a worshiper to the revelation of God. Worship in heaven includes living life for God’s glory. It will include service to the living God and performing His bidding in the massive expanse of the new earth. Imagine a life of absolutely sinless service to the living God with an always-perfect-attitude and a relentless-pursuit of God’s glory in every act! Let heaven’s worshipful service guide Christians now to serve him in this manner.
8. Entirely pure.
Nothing unclean will enter the new heavens and the new earth. No impurities, no lust, no selfishness, no coveting, no materialism, no sinful temptations, and no deceptions will exist there. Heaven’s worship will wholly be clean, pure, undefiled, and genuine. All the motives to worship God will stem from hearts always and ever filled with divine love and supreme consolations. No wandering minds, heartless songs, or man-fearing dispositions will reside in this place!
9. Eternally happy.
No sadness will ever fill a believer’s heart in heaven. No sickness, no mourning, no pain, no tears will ever be found in glory. The heaven of God is a happy place. The heaven that believers enjoy is a world of ecstatic and exuberant and enthralled happiness in God’s personhood and salvation. No reason will ever be found in heaven for a person to be sad or mournful. No depression, no fears, no anxiety, no worries, and no anger. All is happy because all who live in heaven will be caught up in supreme and everlasting happiness in the triune God and in His love for the Godhead.
10. All-encompassing.
Worship defines all that happens in heaven. From traveling the endless expanse of the new heavens and the new earth, to conversing with God’s elect from all the ages past, to performing God’s bidding and doing His service, to gathering with the redeemed to sing His praises, to musing on the bankless ocean of blessings and graces of the gospel of Christ’s redemption. All that believers do in heaven will be worship. Heaven is a world of perfect worship, joy, peace, blessing, fullness, energy, life and delight. Let believers here endeavor to worship God now in this way.