When Prideful Worship Leaders Provoke God

Worship leaders are called to give glory to God, not attempt to take it. Scripture is clear that God opposes the proud, and those who lead in worship need to be on notice.

Since worship music is a lightning rod for controversy in local churches, worship teams are very familiar with hostile opposition. From the lady with her arms crossed during a particular type of worship song, to the man with his hands over his ears when those devilish drums start, to the staunch purist who scoffs at anything sung that is not in his preferential lyrical realm, to the anonymous pen pal that threatens the leader concerning all things done poorly, worship teams are no stranger to antagonism. 

You think you know the opposition, but even the best of those aforementioned opponents are nothing to be concerned about. There is a greater nemesis at hand.

You don’t know what opposition is until you have experienced the hand of God against you.

And guess what?  If pride remains ungoverned, the least of your concerns is the critics in your church. The Almighty God is against you. Prepare for that bout.

• He opposes the proud (James 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5).
• He tears down the homes of the prideful (Prov 15:25).
• He keeps the lofty at a distance (Ps 138:6).
• An arrogant heart is an abomination to the LORD, and he has promised to punish such treason (Prov 16:5).

God will not share his glory with another, and if you are trying to take it from him, mark my words – you will lose this fight.  

Learn what it means to humble yourselves and do it quickly (1 Pet 5:6; James 4:10; Mic 6:8; Matt 23:12).  Worship teams, humble yourselves before God does it for you.

The story in 2 Chronicles 26 is chilling. Uzziah is the King of Judah who originally “set himself to seek God” (2 Chron 26:5). It says that “God helped him” (2 Chron 26:7) in many amazing tasks as king. And as “long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper” (2 Chron 26:5).

But there arose a problem. This next line is one of the most intense phrases in the Bible because it reveals so much concerning our oblivious nature to the actual conditions of our hearts.  It says that “he was marvelously helped until he was strong. But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction” (2 Chron 26:15-16).  

That’s the problem with many worship leaders and Christians in general. We have been marvelously helped, and we continue to be marvelously helped until we become strong in our own eyes and think we are somebody. We think we deserve something. We think we are truly significant. We begin to think that we can’t be replaced. Pride blinds us to many essential truths.  

• Never forget that all the good we have has been received (1 Cor 4:7).
• We are mere jars of clay molded together in order to possess God’s power (2 Cor 4:7).
• Even if we did everything commanded of us we are still only able to be called “worthless slaves” (Luke 17:10).
• We don’t possess anything that we didn’t receive from heaven (John 3:27).
• All things come from God (1 Chron 29:14).
• Anything good in us or around us comes from God (James 1:17).

God marvelously helps us, and at some point, we forget that truth.

With success comes baggage. We begin to think we have arrived. We honestly believe that we deserve what we have, and we neglect to thank God. In those times, it is not beyond God to say, “So you think that you don’t need me and you can do it all on your own? Let’s see how you do if I remove my hand of blessing from your ministry. I won’t marvelously help you anymore.”

The tragedy is that most of us never see it coming. We have hit a certain stride and believe that God is blessing our incredibly remarkable efforts. The danger is that so many of us are experiencing natural success and thinking a supernatural blessing is guiding it. We never realize that God is the only good we have (Ps 16:2). In our ignorance, we continue our pathetic efforts to do something of significance only later to find out that the only times when our works ever amounted to anything is when we were marvelously helped. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (Prov 16:18). We must walk so carefully.