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Many people, even many professing Christians, might shudder at hearing worship called a rule. That sounds rigid. We might think of worship as a free expression of hearts warmed by God’s love. That it is—but it is also a rule. Understanding that can help us establish priorities that will enable us to freely and “diligently attend the assembly of God’s people,” as Heidelberg Catechism 103 puts it.
Psalm 81 opens with three strong calls to worship: “Sing aloud to God . . . ; shout for joy to . . . God . . . ! Raise a song” (vv. 1–2). This doesn’t refer to the important disciplines of personal devotions and family worship; it is a call to corporate worship initiated by a blown trumpet on a day of feasting (v. 3). Asaph establishes the necessity of worship by calling it a statute, a rule, and a decree (vv. 4–5). He gives two main reasons for this. First, God relieves His people from misery. He lovingly “brought [them] out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex. 20:2–3) so that they would serve no other gods but Him (Ps. 81:6–7). Second, He proves Himself faithful. God and Israel tested each other “at the waters of Meribah” as the people traveled from Egypt to Canaan (Ps. 81:7; see Ex. 17:7). The test was this: Will God’s people trust and worship Him even when He seems distant? God passed the test valiantly. He is holy, worthy of our trust and worship.
Many Israelites failed the test. They didn’t care about God’s kindness. Because they would not submit, God “gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels” (Ps. 81:12). That’s tragic. God wanted something better for His people, to “subdue their enemies” and give them not just water but “honey from the rock” (vv. 14, 16).
Everything this psalm says to Israel, it says louder to us. At Meribah, the Israelites wondered, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Ex. 17:7). He was. They drank from the Rock of Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). Today it is even more clear: in Christ, by the gift of His Spirit, God is powerfully among us. So the communal worship of God must be a leading rule for us. Matthew Henry wrote, “No time is amiss for praising God . . . but some are times appointed for us . . . to meet one another, that we may join together in praising God.” To do so, you must believe that God is worthy of your regular, wholehearted, sacrificial praise. And you can’t gain for yourself a better blessing than what God offers. Instead, disobeying God’s call to worship may lead you to follow your own counsel away from His good path.
If you were bought with a price, you must glorify God in your body, through biblical, tangible, congregational worship (1 Cor. 6:20). God alone can satisfy your longings. For meeting God and receiving His blessings, there is no substitute for corporate worship.