Psalm 95: 6
Worship

October 1, 2000


Last week I spoke about the service of the Lord's church, i.e., the main service when the congregation gathers together and what they do at that time.  It included hearing the Word of Christ, teaching and admonishment, singing, glorifying Christ and worship.  Today I want to look in more detail at the activity of worship and I use this exhortation in Psalm 95 to focus our minds on the question of what is worship?   ("v.6a") What does it mean to "worship"? -- To worship a deity who alone is God, who alone exists eternally, not having been created or developed and who created all things and by right of the chain of creation has created us and all that we see and feel?  What does it mean to worship him?  And why do we worship him?

I. FIRST, IS THAT QUESTION:  WHAT IS WORSHIP?

1. One thing that is very clear is that it is a recognition of who he is and a calling of one's self -- and of others -- to recognize who he is and then worship him with praise and glad devotion.  Psalm 33: 1 says: 
"Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous!  Praise befits the upright. Praise
the Lord with the lyre, make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! Sing to him a new song, play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts!" 
That lovely beginning of Psalm 103 comes to mind:  "Bless the Lord O my soul!  And all that is within me bless his holy name!"  It is a charming, commanding of one's soul to heap deserved praise upon God with a thankful heart.

Perhaps this is the reason that "Old Hundredth" has been sung in the English speaking church from time in memoriam.  In its English form, it goes back to within a few years of the beginning of the Reformation.  It is a paraphrase of Psalm 100:

All people that on earth do dwell 
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice
Him serve with fear, his praise forthtell,
Come ye before him and rejoice.

The Lord you know is God indeed;
Without our aid he did us make;
We are his folk, he doth us feed
And for his flock he doth us take.

O enter then his gates with praise
Approach with joy his courts unto;
Praise, laud and bless his name always, 
for it is seemly so to do.

For why?  The Lord our God is good!
His mercy is forever sure
His truth at all times firmly stood
And shall from age to age endure.

And then, has frequently been added as a finale using the same tune of Old Hundredth
Praise God from whom all blessings flow 
Praise him all creatures here below
Praise him above ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!
You do this recognition of God for whom he is and you invite others to join you when you joyfully take part in the singing of praise to him and when you participate in leading the congregation in heartfelt worship.
2. And then worship includes admiration of  God and recognition of God's works by the worshipper.  Just listen to this worship of God as the worshipper admires God's handiwork in nature: "Psalm 19: 1-6" 
Do you ever give thanks to God and devoutly worship him as you contemplate his creation?  And even when you see something that is a delightful aspect of the human genius it is equally a cause for worship -- a Beethoven piano composition that seems that it must be almost impossible to play; or a Bach cantata, or a Handel oratorio, or a Vivaldi piece, or one of the artistic works of the great visual artists.  Does it stimulate you to worship the God who created man in his image?  And the same might be said of beauty in other areas: literary, architectural, environmental or even mechanical.  The wonder of the computer is a reason to worship God who made the human species;  The World Wide Web is not a cause to praise Al Gore but the God of all Creation.
3. Worship is a longing for a deeper relationship with God and the expression of that longing.  This has been the cry of Biblical Christians from the beginning:  "Psalm 42: 1-2"  And then listen to "Psalm 63: 1-4".  There have been those who have claimed to satisfy this longing and have thus turned it into a cult with their particular formula for doing so.  But the normative experience is to always long after God and to come before him with this mindset.  "My soul thirsts for God for the living God."  "O God, I seek thee; my soul thirsts for thee."
We often express this in our church hymnody.   William Cowper wrote: 
O for a closer walk with God, a calm and heavenly frame
A light to shine upon the road that leads me to the Lamb.
And then follows a pessimistic verse; and then a resolution to put away every idol in the third verse.  And then: 
So shall my walk be close with God, calm and serene my frame
So purer light shall mark the road that leads me to the Lamb.
Do you pray like this in your private devotion? 
4. And worship is thanksgiving to God for specific things that have benefited us or which we have noted in God's dealing with others.  "Psalm 103: 6-9."   Psalm 23, that most memorable psalm that many of us learned in our youth in Sunday School, ends with an optimistic evaluation of the future which is essentially an act of worship:  "Thou preparest a table before me in..." 
Do you regularly thank God for favors throughout the day, or make lists when you go to prayer of the things for which you are thankful?  Do you join us in our prayers of thanksgiving on Sunday mornings with something for which we are thankful?
5. It includes a confession of dependence upon God:  Look at "Psalm 62: 5-6" for example or "Psalm 46: 1-3."  These are confessions in the third person but there can be no doubt that they are consciously said in the very presence of God.  They are an act of worship.

6. And it includes humility on the part of the worshipper:  Traditionally, people kneel or bow showing deference in his presence.  Some times in the O.T. it was total prostration!  But this deference is not necessarily expressed physically.  Our text here in Psalm 95 calls upon those who hear:

O come let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord
our maker.
I am not sure that there is a requirement hat we kneel but that we kneel with our hearts and bow with our wills. 
Do you express humility in your prayers, in the way that you address God and in your demeanor as you speak to him?  Just how do you do this?  In my generation it was the use of the archaic pronoun that signified this.  In the generation of many of you that is not done.  But it is no reason to treat the almighty and all holy God as if he were a fishing buddy of yours.  How do you show reverence before God?  This is a part of what it means to worship him.
6. It may include a verbal contrast of the worshipper to his God either in the existential or in the moral sense:  How I love the beginning lines of Psalm 8 and often repeat it in worship when I walk in the woods or on a starry night when it seems as if the whole universe is in sight:  ("Psalm 8: 1-4")
II.  BUT WHY DO WE WORSHIP?
1. Because God is existentially, morally, and graciously worthy of praise.  "For he is our God  and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand"

2. But why does God encourage, or even permit this?  People often get this idea that God ought to be humble!  But any sense that we think this, shows a woeful lack of understanding of who he is.

The reason that humans should be humble is that even the best them and the most successful of them is only a creature.  The almighty God is the creator of all things, the only uncreated one or thing.  And he made us so that we might conceive of him, know him, serve him, worship him.

3. When man is idolatrous and worships idols or other created beings (whether they be living things, or inanimate, or intangible) he, as a creature created in the image of God, debases himself.  When he worships the true and only God he is lifted up to the pinnacle of his capabilities as the only creature created in God's image.

We worship God and are lifted up by the experience.  It is a wonderful experience to have personally as one sings in our culture "All hail the power of Jesus' Name!" or "Immortal, invisible, God only Wise..."  That probably gives us a sense of the uplifting worship of the ancient Hebrews as they sang or chanted "Psalm 150:" 

Now this is a sermon and not a lecture on worship.  And it needs an application.  Consciously, bring worship into your life and more and more fulfill your calling as a creature created in the image of God.  And as you do this -pray that God will, by the Holy Spirit, give you the grace to join all the saints in heaven and all the holy angels as a worshipper of our Triune God. And join us here on Sundays in a spirit of worship.  Let's make our church a place of serious worship in the midst of a society that worships false gods.  Let that worship be of the best quality we can offer from a cultural point of view, remembering the perfection of the God we serve and in whose image we are created. Let it be reverent, remembering his awesome holiness. Let it be enthusiastic. (Of course, worship is culturally influenced.  But let us have none of that Georgia Football kind of enthusiasm: "Give me a 'J'!  Give me an 'E'! Give me a 'U'!"  Remember Who it is whom we worship! 

As you see, we have the communion elements set out and are reminded, in this connection, of the medieval people idolatrously worshipping the consecrated host as they called it.  As the priest elevated the host and intoned the words urging them to worship the bread and the wine supposedly made into the body and blood of the Lord the congregation in great awe worshipped bread and wine and thereby humiliated themselves. 

But the Biblical Christian worships that dear Lord Jesus (God the Son in human flesh) as he is reminded of the Savior's agony; of his and all true believers' sins laid upon him; and he worships that dear Savior and the Father who sent him and the Holy Spirit who is here making it all real to us.  And he is lifted up and profoundly ennobled!

Take this cup that speaks of his atonement for sins (for the blood is a biblical symbol of the life of a creature) and worship and thank the Father that the life of the Savior was given in sacrifice, bearing your sins.  And the bread (which stands for his body, not his flesh but his body, as that body was the representation of his person, who he was, the God/man) -- take this bread and worship him whose personal righteousness is imputed to your account.  Confess him and worship him who lived a perfect life for you and died in you behalf.

Worship!  Worship the Father who sent the Savior!  Worship the Son who saved us!  Worship the Holy Spirit who makes it all real.  Worship the great Three in One!

O 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.

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