Psalm 95.1-11

Every Church: Ministry to God

Introduction

We begin a new series, Every Church. In this series, we are going to look at the three ministries of every church. In this sermon, we will talk about our first ministry, our ministry to God through worship. We are meant to worship God.

In the Gospel account of Luke, in the fourth chapter, we see Jesus head into the wilderness to fast and pray. At the end of forty days, the devil appears to Jesus and begins to tempt him. The devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of this world, and he promises that all the glory and authority of these kingdoms would belong to Jesus if he would only worship the devil. Without hesitation, Jesus rejected this offer and replied, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” This command to worship the Lord alone is the first and foremost command. We are meant to worship the Lord.

The first two commandments of the Ten Commandments get at this very same point: We are to have but one God and no idols. We are to worship the Lord God alone. When someone asks Jesus about the greatest commandment, he says it is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. We are meant to worship God. In the Exodus, when God rescued the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, the call out of Egypt was a call to worship God, to form a people of distinction that would worship him by sacrifice and service to him. The formation of the church is a continued vision of this great, worshipping assembly. In fact, the Greek word for “church,” ekklesia, means “called out ones” or for short, “assembly.” This name, “church,” points us back to that first worshipping assembly, Israel at Mount Sinai. This is why in a series, Every Church, about the church, we start here with worship. This is our first ministry as a church: Every church is to worship and serve the Lord. We are to worship and serve the Lord. And indeed, as we get glimpses in the Bible of the future we see a destiny where the knowledge of God covers the world and all come to Him and worship. So, the point may be stated in different ways, but the chief end of man and of the church is clear: We are to worship the Lord God and serve him only. This is the first and foremost command.

And yet, many folks freeze at this first and most basic command. They stop at this starting line. It unsettles them. They don’t like it. It makes them squirm. They don’t want to do it. For many, the worship of the Lord God is a noxious and tedious proposition.

For some, it feels egotistical that God would command worship of himself. After all, nobody likes a self-centered showoff. I saw a certain celebrity the other day tweet that they would be on a particular television show. They concluded their tweet with the command to “Enjoy!” That final word made me bristle. Does this person think they are a gift to me? Am I supposed to thank them for this public appearance? Nobody likes a showboat. And yet God says “Worship me.” For some this is a deplorable, primitive command. How can this be a good thing? How can a good God be so self-centered?

For others, this command to worship him feels laborious. Certainly, we love God, and we are thankful for all that he has done for us, but must we say so every week? Must we mess up a perfectly good Sunday morning with a worship service at church? Must we sing those songs again? Must we read the Bible again? Must the prayers be so long? Does the worship leader have to be so smiley? Do we have to clap? Can’t I just sleep in? Can’t I just get the cliffnotes? Why must we go through all this trouble to worship in Farragut Middle? Shouldn’t we just be out serving the community?

These questions and concerns are very reasonable, and I admit that I have had these same hesitations myself, but this morning I would like to suggest that if we will see the worship of God for what it really is, if we will come to understand what we are doing in worship, these questions and concerns will begin to find their resolution. So, what are we doing in worship and why is it so important? Why does the Lord command us to worship him? Why is this right and good for him and for us? I would like to give you three facets of worship found in Psalm 95 that help explain what we are doing in worship and why it is so important. Please turn with me to Psalm 95, and let us read it together.

Psalm 95

[1] Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
[2] Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
[3] For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
[4] In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
[5] The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.

[6] Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
[7] For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
[8] do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
[9] when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
[10] For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
[11] Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.”

What is happening in worship? What are we doing in worship? This Psalm captures three important facets of worship that I would like to consider this morning. These three facets help explain what is going on as we worship, and I hope as we better understand what is going on in worship, we will see the need for and the wonder of worship. So what are we doing in worship? In worship, we are first…

Lifting (up God to his proper place)

In worship, we lift up God. We lift up God to his proper place. How do we lift him up? The Psalmist says we should sing to the Lord. And what are we singing? Verse two tells us. We are singing our “thanksgiving” (v. 2), and we are singing God’s “praise” (v. 2). In both cases, we are lifting up the reality of who God is. In singing our thanksgiving, we sing of all he has done. We say thank you Lord for your salvation. Thank you Jesus for your sacrifice and rescue. Thank you for saving me. We remind ourselves of who He really is and give him glory. We also sing his praises. We say, God, you are all-wise. You are all-powerful. You are good. Thus worship is lifting up God and showing his true greatness. In fact, oftentimes in the Bible, we see the word “ascribe” used almost synonymously with worship. In worship we are ascribing, or attributing, to God all his greatness. He is awesome. He has done great things. He is the greatest. And in worship, we lift him up to his rightful place and point to him and say, “It’s all him. It is all because of him.”

Another way of saying this is that we are magnifying the name of God. In worshiping, we are lifting up or magnifying God. One pastor¹ has noted that there are two types of magnification. There is the magnification of a microscope, and there is the magnification of a telescope. A microscope takes something that is very small and magnifies it so that it is bigger than it really is. But a telescope takes something that is very big, like a star or a planet, and magnifies it so that is it gets closer to its actual size. When we lift up or magnify God in worship, we are acting like telescopes. We are not trying to make more of God than he is. We are trying to show God to be a big as he really is. He is worthy of all our worship because he is so great. He belongs on the throne, and in worship, we seek to lift him up onto his throne in our hearts and minds and lives. Oftentimes we lose sight of how great God is. In the busyness of our week, in the darkness of this evil world, in the panic of the moment, God sometimes seems to us like the flicker of a distant star; he seems small. Indeed, the Psalmist reminds us of a time in the history of Israel when God seemed small, when they grumbled and worried instead of worshipped. But we are not to focus on our worries but on the greatness of God. In worship, we lift up God over everything. We gather here each Sunday and declare, “NO! He is not some distant, dim star. He is great and awesome. He has delivered and he will deliver!” In worship, we lift up God. We magnify him. We ascribe to him all that he really is. And that is what the Psalmist does here. He says let’s sing and shout “[3] For the Lord is a great God, and a great king above all gods. [4] In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. [5] The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land” (vv. 3-5). 

And if I might just add something here, this is one of the reasons why we gather to worship. We are lifting up the name of God. We are lifting up the name of Jesus that he might be seen to be as grand and wonderful as he truly is. And the endgame is that God would be so exalted that the knowledge of him would cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. The endgame is voices from every tribe and tongue would sing out to his praise. Technology and American individualism has made us less convinced of our need to actually go to church. Can’t we simply worship God from our sack chair by the lake? Can’t we simply listen to a sermon on Soundcloud and sing along with Spotify? Well, yes, you certainly can. Those are good things. And I’m not saying you’re a sinner for missing church every now and again. But the endgame is the thunderous, earth-shattering praise of our God. He deserves nothing less. So we gather to literally make some noise. We gather to get a taste of that future glorious day when the earth will be filled with his glory. We gather because we’re louder together than we are apart. We gather to lift up the name of God. Like the multiple lenses of a telescope work together to bring the stars to scale, so the multiple gifts and personalities and voices of the church come together to bring God into full view and full size.

So, worshiping God, lifting him up, is not about boosting a weak ego or making a mountain out of a molehill. Worship is lifting him up, giving him the glory He is due and restoring Him to his rightful place in this universe. God does not need his ego boosted. No, it is us who need him restored to his rightful glory and place. It is us, the people of this fallen world, who need to be reminded of who He really is. So for those who struggle with the idea of a God who demands worship, you must understand this is not about massaging egos. It is about putting the universe back in order. It is about making sure that everyone knows and remembers that God is our only hope. In worship, we lift him up to his rightful place.

But as we lift up God and his name, something else must happen at the very same time. And this leads us to our second point: Lowering. In worship, we are also lowering ourselves. We are lifting up God but we are lowering ourselves.

Lowering (ourselves)

At the very same moment that we are lifting up God, we are also lowering ourselves. What does the Psalmist say in verse six? He says, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker” (v. 6). This kneeling, bowing, lowering is the twin action of any movement towards God. We lower ourselves and lift him up. We turn from our sin and turn to God. We forsake our former life and trust in him. We must decrease; He must increase. This is how true worship has always been, and this is how it always must be.

Before Jesus began his public ministry, a prophet appeared by the name of John the Baptist, and he came to prepare the way for Jesus. He preached repentance, and he announced the imminent arrival of the Christ. When Jesus the Christ at last arrived, many of John’s disciples left him and went to Jesus. What did John say in response to this apparent abandonment? He said it is right and good. He said that Jesus must increase (he must be lifted up) and he, John, must decrease (he must be lowered). This exchange is not unique to John the Baptist. We all must decrease that Christ our Lord may increase. We cannot lift up God without lowering ourselves. We cannot worship God and worship ourselves. We cannot try to make a name for ourselves and make a name for God. We must decrease.

The Apostle Paul also understood the necessity of lowering himself. His philosophy of ministry was to work in weakness so that God would be lifted up, that is, seen for who he really is. Paul said he never tried to be overly eloquent or witty or charming in ministry because he was afraid people might be tempted to anchor their hope in him instead of God and that would be no hope at all. He knew that to lift himself up might obscure our true hope, who is God. So Paul lowered himself. He embraced weakness. He did not insist on his rights. He got out of the way so that God could be God, so that people could see Jesus, their true and only hope.

Friends, what might the example of John the Baptist and the Apostle Paul mean for the ministry of Immanuel Church? In some ways, we are trying to make a name for ourselves; we want people to know we exist. But there is a name that is above all names, that is alone worthy of all praise. How shall we lower ourselves that God might be lifted up, unobscured? I will suggest no answer right now, but we should all meditate on this question and its answer. 

So we must lift up God, and we must lower ourselves. This is the basic posture of worship, lifting and lowering, lifting up God and lowering ourselves. But why is this so important? It still may sound horrible to some, so why do I insist this so good? Why is God gracious to command worship? The answer comes in our the third facet of worship.

Becoming (whom we worship)

In worship, something glorious is happening. In worship, we are becoming. We are becoming what or whom we worship. We are becoming like the one we worship as we worship. We are being changed. The Psalmist implies this fact when he suggests that the alternative to worshiping God is hardening one’s heart. He says, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down…Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…” (v. 6, 8). The idea here is that there is no neutral ground. When you hear His voice you have a choice: worship or deny. When you catch a glimpse of God’s glory you will either worship and grow closer to him or ignore and move away from him. To turn away from God is to harden one’s heart. We will move towards God in worship, or we will move away with ever harder hearts. To turn towards God is to have one’s heart transformed. Worship is transformative.

Indeed, this is why worshiping anything or anyone that is not God is so doubly deadly. Psalm 115:8 makes this amazing statement about the worship of idols: “[8] Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” People who worship idols are then shaped by them. This makes sense. If worship is lifting and lowering, then we are coming up under someone or something. We are submitting to what we worship. The horizon of our worship becomes our horizon. So, if we submit ourselves to an idol then we have only what an idol can offer. If it is dumb and mute, then so will we be.

If I worship a relationship, if I lift up this relationship above all else and lower myself before it, then my life will become like that relationship. My life will only be as good as that relationship. Its ceiling will be my ceiling. If it is going well, then I will be doing well. If it is doing poorly, I will be doing poorly. If I worship a career, if I lift it up above all else and lower myself to it, then I will become like it. If my career is going well and I am making lots of money, then I am doing well. But if I lose my job, then I will be utterly, hopelessly crushed. We are what we worship. So, we must be extremely careful to worship wisely.

In this consideration, we might then return to one of our first concerns about worship: Why would God command us to worship him? We have seen that he is worthy of it, and we have seen that worship puts him in his rightful place. It makes him approach his true size. But it may still seem a tad egocentric or hubristic to command it. But when we realize that worship is transformative, that we become what we worship, we see why commanding the worship of the one true God is so gracious to us. 

If we worship the true and living God, if we lift him up and lower ourselves to him, then we are safe, and we will become more like he who is true love and life and hope. We will soar with him. If we become like the object of our worship then it is gracious and good that God should command us to worship him, because in that worship we find true hope and true change. If our destiny is tied to what or whom we worship, then it is right and good that we should worship (lift up and lower ourselves t0) the one who is all-wise and all-powerful and all-loving and unchanging and reliable and rust-proof and generous and forgiving. Why would we ever want to lift up or lower ourselves to anything or anyone else? It would be total folly. This hope of worship is what this Psalm keeps getting at. It’s not just that we should worship God because he is great (though that would certainly be cause enough). We should worship him because he is our maker (v 6). We are his creatures. He is our shepherd; we are his sheep (v. 7). So the worship of him is good because in lifting him and lowering ourselves we slide into our rightful spot as he gains his rightful spot in our hearts.

For those who worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the promise is that we will be transformed more and more into his likeness. We will become more like him. The Apostle Paul confirms this when he writes, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit…” (2 Corinthians 3:18). When we worship, we are becoming more like the one we worship and that is gloriously good news. 

Now this process is not instantaneous. It takes a while. We must wait. I wish we had more time to look at this idea of waiting in worship. There are so many stories of folks who came before the Lord for decades, worshiping as waiting, and slowly God worked His miracle. We don’t have time to consider these stories, but just know that worshiping often goes hand in hand with waiting. So keep that in mind as you live your life. Not every week at church will be glorious. But we go and we worship and we wait, and slowly, in His perfect time, God grants and transforms and reveals glory. And one day Jesus will come back in all his glory and we shall be fully like him, but until that time we worship and wait, patiently and diligently, that we might be found ready and awake when he returns. But again, the promise is that he will change us and bless us as we look to him.

Conclusion

So, why must we worship God? Why is it right and good? Why do we gather every week as we do to sing about God and pray to God and hear about God? Because in the act of worship we lift up God to his rightful place. We give him the glory he is due. We lower ourselves so that God might be God, so that God can show up and show off. And we worship the true and living God that we might ourselves be changed and filled with his fullness.

So this morning and every Sunday morning hereafter, until the Lord returns, let us worship the Lord. Let us lift him up. Let us proclaim his name. Let us lower ourselves before Him. That He might receive the praise due his name and that we might be changed into his likeness.

Proclaim his name over your family. He loves the children. He hates divorce. He is gracious and kind. Worship him and look to him. It is his rightful due and your only hope.

Lift up his name over your career. He is the God who owns everything. He can provide for you. His word to you will speak more life and significance and meaning to you than any accolades from a boss.

Magnify His name over your busyness. Sit at his feet and worship and wait.

Lift up his name above your sins. He is greater than all our sins. Bow before him that he might forgive you and change you. This is the good news about Jesus, that the God who is great and awesome really is near to the broken hearted, that he helps the humble, that he lifts those who lower themselves before him, that he grants forgiveness through Jesus to those who call on His name.

So, worship Him. Worship him always. Worship him weekly. Restore him to his rightful place all the day long, every Sunday, in every area of your life. Worship the Lord. Let us bow before him now.

1. I believe this comes from L. Giglio. ↩︎