Sermon Tone Analysis

!! 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.

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

* *

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

* *

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

* *

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

* *

*5**For 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.*

*1**Sing 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.

#.

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.

#.

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.

#.

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.”/*