Worship - Psalm 96

Psalm 96

I’ve been reading through the prophets and one of the themes that bothered me was the Lord rejecting the peoples worship. What does your worship look like?

I want to give you a definition of Worship this morning.  It’s a definition that I got from a seminary professor believe it or not.  I learned it for a test, but it has come to mean a whole lot more.  And that definition is this:

Worship is setting our minds attention and our hearts affection on the Lord, praising Him for who He is and for what He has done. 

Let me say that again.

In various surveys, when people are asked why they don’t go to church, they often say that church is just too boring.  Now, I recognize that sometimes a church service can seem dull, especially to a non-Christian, I want to suggest this morning that true worship is anything but boring.  The very essence of what worship is doesn’t not allow us to be bored.  When we come together before the majestic God of the universe, who created everything and has done amazing things in our lives, we should just break out in song for recognizing we are always in his presence.

We have got to restore the joy in Worship.

The psalmist seemed to understand worship.  I want to look at Psalm 96 this morning.  I want you to see if you can recognize the psalmist praising God for who he is and what he has done. 

1Sing to the LORD a new song; Sing to the LORD, all the earth.

2Sing to the LORD, bless his name;(Who He Is) Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day (What He Has Done).

3Tell of His glory among the nations, (Who He Is) His wonderful deeds among all the peoples (What He Has Done).

4For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods.

5For the gods of the peoples are idols (Who He Is).

But the LORD made the heavens (What He Has Done).

Worship is when we set our minds attention and our hearts affection on the LORD.  Praising Him for who He is and what He has done.

One of the ways we do this is through song. 

Verse 1 is an admonition to worship through song.

1Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the Lord all the earth.

Songs are wonderful.  They are tremendously meaningful to us as individuals.  And they are extremely good worship tools.

But often I’m afraid we miss what these tools are trying to do.  With our definition in mind I want us to look at three types of worship songs that help us set our minds attention and our hearts affection on the LORD and praise Him for who he is and what he has done.

The first is a vertical worship song.

It’s a personal song.  It’s an individual song.  It’s an I – you, me – you type song.

That’s what we see in verse 2.  …Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.

Sing a song directly to him in thanks for His salvation.  Use words like I…. And…. You….and….me.

Probably the epitome of a vertical song is the chorus: “I Love You, Lord”

I Love You, Lord, and I lift My voice to worship You.

O My soul, rejoice! Take joy, My King, in what You hear:

May it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear.

You hear that.  That is a vertical song.  No matter how many people are in the room that is me singing to the LORD.  That is me setting my minds attention and my hearts affection on the LORD and praising him for who he is and what he has done in my life.

The second kind of song is a horizontal song.

The vertical song is a song I sing as an individual.  The horizontal song is a song that we sing together corporately and encourage one another to set our minds and hearts on the LORD.

Look at verse 3.

Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.

I want you to realize that we are in the midst of a period where God is moving all across the world today and there are some great songs being written, but most of them are vertical songs.  To get back to a really great horizontal song you have to go back to the Reformation.

For those of you who may not know what the Reformation is that was in the early 16th century when Martin Luther decides the church is corrupt and he goes to the Wittenberg Church and nails his 95 theses to the door on October 31st, 1517 and begins what is known as the Protestant Reformation.

During that time there was great persecution that came from those who opposed the church.

Great songs came out of the Reformation and Martin Luther wrote one of those.

Extremely encouraging, extremely horizontal.

A Mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing.

Our helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

For still our ancient foe Doth seek to work us woe.

His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.

On earth is not his equal.

You know there is a line in that Hymn that says:

Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also.

The body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still.

His kingdom is forever.

That’s a horizontal song Ya’ll.

That is a song that encourages the body and it says let us corporately set our minds attention and our hearts affection on the Lord and let us praise him for who he is and what he has done for us.

It calls for celebration.  We can come together and corporately or horizontally celebrate events, just as the individuals that took part in them can celebrate vertically.

There is a third type of song, and this one we don’t talk about much.

It’s not necessarily a vertical song and it’s not necessarily a horizontal song.  It’s what I like to call a transcendent song.

Look beginning at verse 4.

For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods.

For all the gods of the peoples are idols.  But the LORD made the heavens.

First of all, where does the transcendent song go?  If it’s not a vertical song and it’s not a horizontal song where’s it going?  I’m glad you asked.  These are songs that we sing about the nature and the character of God.

And they are sung to several different places.

1. They are sung to people who worship false gods.  They are sung to the nations and in those songs we proclaim who the real God is.
2. They are sung to strongholds in my life and in your life.  You see there are time when stuff just has a hold of you, and that stuff that has a hold of you needs to know who your God is.  Sometimes we come together and sing about how big your God is, and How Powerful your God is, and How awesome your God is.  The enemy has got to leave you alone.
3. It goes to the enemy himself.  You see I’m not one who likes to sing songs about the enemy.  I don’t want to sing about the devil.  I don’t want to give him more time than he already has.  But when I sing about my Father, my Daddy, the enemy knows not to come around here.  He says let’s go somewhere where they don’t quite know who God is Ya’ll.

So what does a transcendent song look like:

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days, all the days of my life.”

It’s not necessarily a vertical song or a horizontal song, its just singing about the goodness of God.

And some of us… may … need … to be reminded of that.  And those songs are the kind of songs that will remind us of that.  They are the kind of songs that will speak to the strongholds in your life.

Because you see, if someone were to come in here and life wasn’t going good for them, they need to hear “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all of my life.”  That transcendent song will speak to the strongholds in your life.  It will help you despite your circumstances to set your minds attention and your hearts affection on the LORD and praise him for who he is and what he has done.

After he defines worship something interesting happens.  Look at verse 6.

“Splendor and majesty are before Him, Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.”

When we worship the LORD, Splendor and Majesty are before Him, Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.  I remember once after a Wednesday night service, a person came up to me and said I am going to get a tape of your message and give it to my brother because he doesn’t come to church anymore and really finds church boring.  So I said to him do you ever think that he may be right? 

He said, What?  I said man there are some places I’ve been, that I don’t want to go back to. Can I just be honest with you on that? I mean there have been some places I’ve been you just want to shout, “Excuse Me, He has Risen!”

When we understand worship, when we understand that we are setting our minds attention and our hearts affection on Him and praising Him for who he is and what he has done.  There is splendor and glory and majesty in the place.  You can almost tangibly feel the presence of God when people worship properly.

But just as true as that is you can almost smell the stench of death when worship becomes meaningless to a people.

• It is the last place you will ever want to come back to.
• When we worship in spirit and in truth there is splendor and glory in the sanctuary, because God is honored.
• He is still the God who inhabits the praises of His people. He still shows up in a tangible way.  He is present and He is strong.
• We don’t make Him that way with our songs.  We just acknowledge that He is that way.  We simply allow him to be what he already is – in and through us – as we worship Him.
• When we come to worship there are some things we get to do tangibly.

Look at verse 7.

Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples,  Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

Ascribe to the LORD the glory of His name.

1. The first thing we get to do is to ascribe glory to the name of the LORD.  You say well I thought you just talked about that in those songs.  Nope!   You can sing and not worship.  Some of us did it this morning.  You can sing and not worship.  You can be singing and not be ascribing glory to the LORD.  You know how I learned this truth.  I grew up listening to old rock and roll and Motown songs.  I know some of you may not be that spiritual yet…  Now I’m taking about old rock and roll and old Motown songs, that’s when they used to sing love songs.  The stuff you get today are not love songs they are sex songs, but that is a sermon for a different time.  It would be Saturday mornings without fail, my mother would turn the radio on and come in and open my blinds.  That would be my way of knowing it was time to get up and clean house.  That’s just what we did.  So, I would be in the bed and I would just wake up, and we would clean for a while and dance for a while.  That was the way I grew up, but you know what, I didn’t understand those songs.  Until about fourteen years ago, when I looked across my college band hall and saw this girl playing flute.  All of a sudden “Ain’t no Mountain High Enough” meant something to me.  I walked around campus thinking “Tell me Have You Seen Her.”  Once we started dating “My Brown-Eyed Girl” became a special song for us.  You see some of you have experienced that in your spiritual lives.  You grew up singing church songs, but you sang them without ascribing them to the LORD, but one day you met him and “Amazing Grace How Sweet the Sound” was no longer just a cool song, it was your testimony.  You can sing and  not worship.

1. The second thing we get to do in worship.  Look at verse 8.  Bring an offering and come into his courts.  Amen somebody.  Bringing an offering is a tangible way of ascribing worth to the LORD.  It is a way of saying that everything I have comes from you, and here is a tangible way for me to express that you are worth it all.  Here is a tangible way that you can express that He is LORD over everything in your life.  I’ll let you get in my pocketbook God.  It would be like if the president were to come to Arkansas and you were chosen to go and meet him.  You wouldn’t show up empty handed.  Even if you just went out and bought one of those Razorback hats and said I’m from Arkansas and we wear these.  Here you go.  It would be symbolic of the fact that you thought they were worth something.  When we some into the house of the King, we bring a gift and it is symbolic of how we feel about the King.  It is a tangible way of ascribing worth to God.

1. The third thing we do.  Verse 9.  “Worship the LORD in holy attire.”  You dress in holiness.  Let’s say the president invited you to the White House, you would do just like my wife when we have some place important to go.  You walk over to the closet, look around and say “I don’t have a thing to wear.”  Ladies can I tell you something.  We don’t understand that. And more than that we don’t want to understand that.  But if the president were to invite you, you would say I need something to put on that is worthy of meeting the president.  When we come to worship, there is something that we put on that is worthy of the presence of our King, and that is holiness.  The truth be know there are some of us that should have been scared to come through those doors this morning, because we weren’t dressed in holiness.  Because we didn’t examine ourselves.  See because if I’m going to ascribe worth to Him and mean it then I’m going to understand that His splendor and glory is best manifest through a holy life.  I’m going to understand that I can’t say you are of ultimate worth, and then pursue with my life the things He has not called me to.  I must cloth myself in His holiness and His righteousness.  It’s a tangible thing I do as an act of worship.

When we do these tangible things, and we have come before the LORD and we have genuinely set our minds attention and our hearts affection on Him, and we have genuinely praised him for who he is and what he has done.  There is something else that happens.  Don’t miss this.  Listen to this.

10Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved;  He will judge the peoples with equity.”

11Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and all it contains;

12Let the field exult, and all that is in it.  Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy.  Before the LORD…….WHY?………For…He…Is….Coming.

You see nature already knows, it groans, He’s coming and I want him to come.  According to Romans 8 Nature cries out.  Sometime it cries out like in a tsunami and we run.  Nature is groaning in anticipation of the day when the King comes to redeem it.  The only thing on earth that does not groan in the anticipation of the returning of our King …is man!  Because we hold on to the stuff of this world.  And we don’t realize that this is not home.  We don’t realize that we too need to be redeemed.  We don’t realize that we need the King to come and rescue us.  But when we do all the things I’ve talked about this morning in honesty, then there comes a moment when we long for home.

A couple of months ago, I was away from home in Peru and it just broke my heart.  I called home one night about half way through the week and got to talk to my kids.  My daughter and I had a short conversation.  I asked her how she was and she said “Daddy where are you?”  I said sweetheart I’m in Peru.  She asked where are you sleeping?  I’m sleeping in a room here in Peru.  And then she said, I wish I would have gone with you.  I said sweetie Daddy needs to go….and I hung up the phone….and I cried.  Tell anybody and I’ll deny it….but I did.  I had four more days left in Peru, but my heart was already home.  My heart was gone.  My heart was with my family.  I knew I had stuff to do, and I wanted to do what I had left to do, and I wanted to do it well, but I wanted to get home.

Folks when we experience genuine worship that is how we should feel about heaven.  We know we have got stuff to do, and we want to do the stuff we’ve got to do, and we want to do it well, but at the same time we can’t wait until the work is over and we can get home.  You know when I start holding on to the stuff of this world, I am reminded about what I experienced there in Peru.  People who had nothing….. working on someone else’s land.  Working in the hard soil and there’s no paycheck at the end of the day.  I say to myself what on earth is there to hold on to…and the answer that comes back is nothing… but I hear them singing a tune.  You see I don’t care what else you do in this life….. but it ultimately ends up being working someone else’s land.  Because everything here is just hay and stubble and it will all burn up one day ….nothing is going home with us…. when I remind myself of that…and I stop holding on so tightly to the world….and I start singing a tune.

Our King is Coming.  When I set my minds attention and my hearts affection on the Him and when I praise Him for who He is in my life and what He’s done in my life, then I understand for a moment, and if just for a moment, I understand that He’s coming…… and I want Him to come…..and I want to see Him face to face, because for all the joy I’ve experienced here….it is nothing compared to what I will experience when my King comes home….because I guarantee you when the King cracks the sky….NO ONE WILL CHOOSE TO STAY BEHIND.

My king is coming Ya’ll.  He’s coming soon.  And I’m not scared my king is coming.  Because when he comes he’s going to call me by name.  Because his sheep know his voice.  And I’m one of his sheep.

I just wonder if you are.  I wonder if it is at all possible for you not knowing the sound of His voice to be excited that He’s coming.  You see it’s easy to play with God now, because you don’t think it’s urgent.  Can I just tell that any day now He could crack the sky.  I’m not talking about myth, fairy tale or legend.

I wonder how many of us don’t rejoice in the fact that He’s coming back.  I wonder how many look at that fact with fear and anxiety.  Because when he comes… he will be Savior to some…..but judge to all!

Ready or Not!  Here He Comes!