Part #6 – Worship Without Holding Back
2 Samuel 6:12-23, “And it was told king David, saying, The Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with gladness. And it was so, that when they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings. And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.”
The ark sat in the house of Obed-edom for three months while David figured out what went wrong the first time. The cart had cost him a man and three months of waiting. This time around David came back with a different approach. He called the priests and the Levites together, told them they had to consecrate themselves, and made it clear that nobody but the Levites was going to carry the ark this time. They were going to do it on their shoulders with poles, the way God said back in the Book of Moses (1 Chronicles 15:2, 12-15).
Now the ark is on the move again. The Levites have it on their shoulders. A few steps in, David stops the procession and offers oxen and fatlings as a sacrifice. He is making sure he honors God before he goes one step further. And then something happens that the Bible records about David that it never records about any king before him. “And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod” (2 Samuel 6:14).
The king of Israel is wearing a simple priestly garment instead of his royal robes. Dancing in the street with the people. Not a controlled, dignified, royal little step. Dancing with all his might. The whole nation was singing and shouting along with him. The presence of God was coming home and David did not care what he looked like. He did not care who was watching. He was going to give God everything he had.
Standing in a window above the street, somebody else was watching. His own wife, Michal. She was Saul’s daughter, and she had been raised in the palace where everything was about appearance and royal dignity. When she looked down and saw her husband leaping and dancing in front of the common people, the Bible says, “she despised him in her heart” (2 Samuel 6:16).
When David finally came home to bless his own house, she met him at the door with a sneer.
“How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself” (2 Samuel 6:20). She mocked and accused him. She told him he looked foolish in front of the servants.
David did not back down for a second. “It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel: therefore will I play before the Lord. And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour” (2 Samuel 6:21-22).
He was telling her that what she saw as embarrassing, God saw as worship. He was saying he would get even more undignified than that for the Lord.
The chapter ends with one line. “Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death” (2 Samuel 6:23).
This whole story is about worship that does not hold back. David held nothing back from God in that street, and his own wife despised him for it. There are people in your life right now who will despise you for the same thing. But David walked through it without flinching, and he laid down a pattern for what it looks like to love God so much that you stop caring what anybody else thinks of you.
Here are seven things from this passage that line up directly with how a believer is supposed to worship today.
1. Worship With All Your Might
David danced before the Lord with all his might. He did not give God a polite little step or a careful little nod from his throne. He gave God everything he had. The same king who had walked patiently through the wilderness, who had refused to grab the throne early, who had led armies into battle, that man came undone in the street because the ark of God was coming home.
Most Christians never worship God like this and they do not even know what they are missing. They sing the songs without singing. They go through the motions without engaging. They guard themselves so carefully that nothing of their actual heart ever leaves their chest. Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” (Mark 12:30).
If God is worth worshiping at all, He is worth worshiping with everything in you.
2. Take Off the Royal Robe Sometimes
David was the king, so he could have stayed in his palace robes and walked at the head of the procession with his crown on. He chose to put on a linen ephod, a simple priestly garment, and walk with the people. He laid down the title for the moment so he could be a worshipper instead of a king.
There is something important in that. Some Christians will not worship God freely because they think it is beneath their position. They are too educated, professional, or refined. They have a reputation to keep up. So they hold back. The Bible says, “Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6). Pride will keep you from real worship.
David was the highest man in the nation and he took off his royal robe to dance with shepherds and farmers in the street. The most powerful people in your church should be the most undignified worshippers in your church. Position does not make you too good to praise the Lord. It just makes you more accountable for whether you do.
3. Make Sacrifices Along the Way
After the Levites took six steps with the ark on their shoulders, David stopped the procession and sacrificed oxen and fatlings (2 Samuel 6:13). He stopped along the way to honor God before he kept going.
Worship is not just an event. It is a habit of stopping along the way to give God His honor before you keep moving. We bare often so busy running through our days that we never stop. We never sacrifice anything. We never pause and say “Lord, before I go any further, let me give You something.” Paul said it like this. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).
4. People Will Despise You for Real Worship
Michal stood in a window and watched her husband worship God with everything in him, and she despised him for it. And when she saw him give God his all, what came up in her heart was contempt.
There will be people in your life who cannot stand it when you start really worshipping the Lord. Some of them will be people you love. Family members, old friends, or sometimes a spouse. They will look at your enthusiasm for God and call it foolishness. They will mock your prayer life. They will roll their eyes at how you carry on at church. They will ask you why you have to be so fanatical about it. Jesus said, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). Real worship draws real opposition. Most of the time the opposition does not come from the world out there. It comes from the people closest to you.
5. Don’t Let Their Opinion Stop Your Praise
David did not break stride or apologize. He did not water down what he did out there in the street. When Michal mocked him, he said, “And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight” (2 Samuel 6:22). Translated, he said, “If you thought that was too much, just wait. I am going to get even more undignified for God than that.”
That is the right answer. When people in your life try to shame you out of worshipping the Lord with everything you have, do not back down or apologize. Do not promise to keep it more controlled next time. Get more passionate, not less. Get louder, not quieter. The fear of man will rob you of more praise than the devil ever will. Solomon wrote, “The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe” (Proverbs 29:25).
6. Real Worship Cares What God Thinks, Not What Man Thinks
“It was before the Lord” (2 Samuel 6:21). His audience was God. Not the servants. Not the people in the street. Not Michal in the window. Not even himself. He danced for God and that was the only opinion that mattered to him.
This is the difference between a real worshipper and a performer. A performer is always thinking about who is watching. A real worshipper is only thinking about who he is worshipping. Paul wrote, “For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). You cannot serve two audiences. You will either be a worshipper of God or a performer for people. Pick one!
When you stop caring what anybody else thinks of how you praise the Lord, you finally start to worship Him the way He deserves to be worshipped.
7. There Is a Cost to Despising Worship
The chapter ends with a sad line. “Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death” (2 Samuel 6:23). Whether you read that as God closing her womb or as David never going near her again, the result is the same. The woman who despised her husband for worshipping God ended her life with nothing.
There is a cost to looking down on the worship of others. There is a cost to mocking somebody else’s love for the Lord. There is a cost to standing in a window and rolling your eyes at people who are giving God everything they have. The Bible says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). You sow contempt for worshippers, you can reap a barren life. You sow undignified praise, you reap the favor of God.
Be careful which side of the window you are standing on.
David came home from that day with the ark of God in Jerusalem and his hands lifted high in praise. Michal went to bed bitter and barren. Two completely different responses to the worship of God.
There is no in between. You can hold back, watch from a window, and protect your dignity. Or you can take off the royal robe, get out in the street, and give God everything you have. One ends in barrenness and the other ends in blessing.
David danced before the Lord with all his might. So can you.
