If you’ve ever wondered why we worship, Psalm 100 provides the ultimate answers.

It captures the very heart of why God is deserving of worship. The fundamental reasons for our praise and worship of God are succinctly highlighted in it. This Psalm serves as a definitive guide to the essential reasons for honouring God through worship.

And these are solely inherent in God – not outside Him.

The psalmist starts with a rallying cry for a celebration of the Lord, extending a warm and joyful invitation to worship and praise Him. Psalms 100:1 – 2

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
Serve the LORD with gladness!
Come into His presence with singing!

He then expands on the reasons why in Psalms 100:3–

Know that the LORD, He is God!
It is He who made us, and we are His;
we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.

The psalmist is encouraging a spirit of joyful celebration that’s centred on God’s very own identity and rooted in the knowledge of His deity. He is whipping up joy and excitement on account of the person of God – Creator, Giver and Sustainer of life.

According to Psalms 100:3, we worship God principally and foremost for who is, because of who He is, in acknowledgement of who He is – The Creator God – and our relationship with Him. True praise and worship are rooted in the person and identity of God; flowing out of this knowledge of God’s person.

Knowledge of the person of God—coupled with the truth that we belong to Him through both creation and redemption—forms the essential foundation of true praise and worship. For those who have come to know God through Christ as Creator, Redeemer, Shepherd, and Father, His very essence—who He is—is the foundation and raison d’être for their worship.

Psalms 95:3-5
For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.

The principal reasons for worshipping God are found not outside God but in Him alone. Reverence and worship are due to God principally on account of who He is. He is the cause and very reason for the whole of creation.

Psalms 95:6-7
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.

Knowledge of God as Creator (created by Him and for Him – Col 1:16), Redeemer (ransomed/purchased by His own blood – Acts 20:28, Rev 5:9, 1 Pet 1:18), and Shepherd (the One who unfailingly looks out for our soul and provides for us –1 Pet 2:25 & Heb 13:20) is the ultimate reason for the believer’s worship of God.

In closing, the psalmist reminds us that it is not only the person of God and our relationship with Him that behove us to worship and praise, but His benevolent nature and unchanging character too – Psalms 100:5

For the LORD is good;
His steadfast love endures forever,
and His faithfulness to all generations.

God’s endless goodness, His steadfast love and enduring faithfulness present us with the second pillar for joyful praise and worship that transcend life’s ever-changing circumstances. 

These two grounds the psalmist offers us to come before God in joyful praise and worship – the acknowledgement of who He is and His good nature – are both found entirely in God and God alone. His very essence and character are both outside ourselves and our situations; and being found entirely in Him alone, they are unchanging too.

The core reasons for worship of God essentially boil down to these two – His essence and His nature both of which do not change or shift. True worship is grounded on the dual pillars of God’s essence and character.

Every gathering of the redeemed, is an opportunity to acknowledge and honour God for who He is, and get to know Him more and better. So do not take the gathering of the saints lightly or casually but with all seriousness as you engage with God on His terms.