Sweat ran down in tiny rivulets and was flung from rolling muscles.

The man’s skin, bronzed from the Mediterranean sun, glistened under a hot, clear sky. Clouds of fine dust surrounded him, and he breathed in ragged gasps as he leapt about, arching his limbs and body in response to a silent rhythm.

His face was a palette of shifting emotions, and every now and then a few guttural words were shouted between dried lips.  He seemed unaware of the bystanders.

The crowds around him gaped and stared in wonder at the spectacle, rubbing their eyes as the dust rose to meet their gazes.  Mothers wrapped their robes around their children’s faces so the little ones could not watch.

The man, dancing with independent frenzy, was hardly dressed for the occasion.  Moreover, it seemed a shame to see him act as he was doing.

A pagan ritual?  Hardly. A half-crazed psychopath?  Not even close.

The dancer was King David.  We know him as “a man after God’s own heart.”

But what was David doing? Well, if we’re to judge a man’s actions by his motives, he was joyfully praising God.  The Ark of the Covenant, the very symbol and seat of God’s presence, was returning to Jerusalem.

And David was exceedingly glad. He was joyfully responding to God.  David was worshipping!

I think David was on to something here. He was 100% genuine, and in the vulnerability that this sort of honesty requires, David cared little for what others thought about what he was doing.

He cared more about pleasing God at that moment than pleasing anyone else. His royal clothing was simply too distracting for David’s pure intentions. Traditions limited him, and his kingly position was ultimately irrelevant.

The solution? Take off the finery and get down to the basics. Forget your reputation and don’t worry about what others think. Just get real.

Now he’s just an ordinary person in love with an extraordinary God. Nothing in-between.

God never changes, but people are very different. So, to be right with God may sometimes require us to be wrong with man. And that’s why David’s example makes sense to me.

I grew up in the remote bush of Africa, and the Africans there don’t worship like we do here. They dance and sing and share “with all their might,” and they really mean it, sometimes going on like this for more than three hours.  They’d give King David ‘a run for his money.’

As a child, I didn’t always understand everything I saw and heard, but my mother was there to remind me, “You must worship the Lord in your own heart and in your own way.”

True worship is not a passive or prescriptive process. There is more than one way to worship as a result, and Charles Colson states this well, “Technique cannot be confused with truth.”

But we prefer to feel good about church than feel good about God. These errant affections encourage ritual and tradition rather than an active and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

We say we want change, but that’s mostly if it’s not us being asked to change in the process.   It’s easier that way.

It’s much easier to focus on church instead of focusing on God. That’s why we water down ‘worship’ to a choreography of shallow and predictable elements that pose little threat to how we want to live or what we want to believe.

This arrangement permits us to defend the biases we are most comfortable with. We can emerge from the “worship experience” believing we are right. We feel affirmed in the mass hypnosis. The problem is productive Biblical commitment and relevancy always lose out.

So – let’s cut to the chase. What’s the deal with King David here?  Plenty.  I think David’s actions point to several things we’d all be wise to consider.

First, true worship is PERSONAL.  As far as King David was concerned, it was just he and God out there together, each delighting in the other.   We read that David danced “before the Lord with all his might.” (II Samuel 6:20-22).  David was not performing for anyone or anything.  His choices reveal that David was entirely consumed with the Almighty Lord.

Second, David’s worship was ACTIVE.  Worship for David was something to participate in.  David wouldn’t think we knew the same God if he saw how we often slink carefully into church and scuttle even more quietly out.  For David, the God who created him got everything back: mind, heart, body, and soul.

Now, I’m not advocating we all need to lose our clothes and dance, but I am concerned that too many of our worship expectations find their source in “Christian culture” more than “Christlikeness.”  If we all worshiped God as honestly as David did, the picture on our end might surprise a lot of us!

Thirdly, David’s worship was FOCUSED.  To the King of Israel, his royal attire was insignificant to God, so he took it all off.  While we are inclined to primp and prepare ourselves at great lengths on Sunday mornings, and while we often go to great pains to note what others are (or are not) wearing, David was far more concerned about the state of his heart.  Was it right?  Was it prepared?  I daresay David looked wonderful to God!

Whether it’s our clothes, or our position, or whatever consumes our attention, we need to constantly evaluate our focus.  If something else is competing with a proper perspective of God, it is best to confront the issue and to get our priorities right.

Maybe this isn’t the David we like to remember most because his example here challenges us to change.  I would argue that’s needed. The world is watching us and hoping that we have the answers that they do not.  If we are going to reach them, some changes are needed.

As one notable speaker puts it, “Too many Christians come to church just as they are, sing five stanzas of ‘Just As I Am,’ and then leave just as they were.”  It happens all the time.

If worship is intended to reflect the vitality and presence of Christ in our lives, then growth – and inevitably, “change” – is something that we must accept.

Becoming comfortable with the diversity of human expression helps us to avoid the brittle legalism that expects everyone to look, act, sing, talk, and think alike.  As we hold ourselves accountable to the Word of God, we are freed to invest ourselves into the opportunity to gain a healthy worship experience and to make this experience accessible to all kinds of people.

It is important to understand that such things as culture, environment, and expression can change while the intent of the heart can remain the same.