Worship – Come let us bow down | Psalm 95
INTRODUCTION
What is worship? What comes to your mind when you hear the word worship? How do we worship God? Well, today I want to speak a sermon on worship entitled: COME, LET US BOW DOWN
ILLUSTRATION
Henry Ward Beecher was a famous American preacher in the 19th Century. He was coming to a church in Brookland one Sunday to preach. Many had gathered to hear Henry Ward Beecher preach. Due to unavoidable circumstance, the preacher had to leave and his brother Thomas Beecher got up to preach. As Thomas went to the pulpit, many who came to hear Henry started to leave. Thomas reached the pulpit and announced, “All who came this morning to worship Henry Ward Beecher may now be excused. Those who came to worship God may certainly remain.”
Psalm 95 helps us understand what worship is. Let’s stand and read this Psalm.
Psalm 95:1-11
1Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8“Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’” (Hebrews 3-4 Jesus is the sabbath rest)
“Worship is the highest and noblest activity of which man by the grace of God is capable.” – John Stott
Another better definition of worship is by Archbishop William Temple. Temple, “Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God. It is the quickening of the conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose – all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable.”
Psalm 95 begins with God’s invitation to worship. God is calling us “Come…” God longs for us to come into His presence. He sends out the invitation to each of us. He wants us to come without hesitation. You and I are invited into His very presence to worship God.
Three aspects of God’s invitation regarding worship is seen in Psalm 95
1. REJOICE
The first invitation is come to rejoice.
Psalm 95:1-5
1Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
This passage gives us at least 4 characteristics of rejoicing in worship.
a. Worship is collective.
Psalm 95:1-2
1Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
Three times in verses 1 and 2 we read, “Let us…” While worship should have a private element to it throughout the week, however, the psalmist here is stating that worship is designed to be congregational, not only individual.
I worship God individually, and I worship God collectively.
b. Worship is participative.
When we come collectively to worship we are to participate in worship. We may worship God in our heart or even sing quietly, but God also is longing for us to be exuberant in our worship.
The psalmist tells us how we can participate:
Psalm 95:1-2
1Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
We are to sing and shout aloud to the Rock of our Salvation. In Hebrew, it literally means to “raise a shout.” This was done when the Israelites were anticipating a battle or celebrating a triumph.
This expression is used in Joshua 6, when the Israelites were marching around the walls of Jericho. Joshua 6:20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.
1 Samuel 4:5 When the ark of the Lord’s covenant came into the camp, all Israel raised such a great shout that the ground shook.
Friends, worship has to be vibrant. Churches mainly in Africa and some in the west have such vibrance in their worship. I’m personally challenged by this Psalm to become much more exuberant and expressive in my worship. While there are extremes that we should avoid, it is good to be vibrant, energetic, cheerful in worship. See how David worshipped God in in 2 Samuel 6:
2 Samuel 6:12-16
12Now King David was told, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. 13When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed [Hebrews 13:15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that openly profess his name] a bull and a fattened calf. 14Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might,
15while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. 16 As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.
2 Samuel 6:21-22
21David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me rule rover the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. 22I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”
And so, we are to collectively express our worship vocally and with vibrancy.
c. Worship is God-centered.
Psalm 95:1-2
1Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
We are to “sing for joy to the Lord,” we are to “shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation,” we are to “come before Him with thanksgiving,” and we’re to “extol Him with music and song.” David danced and shouted, but he did it “before the Lord.”
This is a good reminder because we are not to just get emotional or sing loudly for our own sake. Our focus should not be on how worship makes us feel. Our worship must be centered on God alone.
We need to make sure our music is “Christ centered,” not man-centered. It is to sing and shout to the Lord, make music to the Lord. We are called engage our body, soul and spirit, complete with our emotions, in a total preoccupation to God who is the Rock of our salvation.
d. Worship is founded on truth that God is Sovereign.
Psalm 95:3-5
3For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
God is great, the great King above all gods. He is in control of His creation. He is in charge of all that He has created and possesses. The expressions “depths,” “peaks,” “sea” and “dry land” emphasize the totality of His creation and control of the earth. He is sovereign over all. The world is not only the work of His hands – the world is in God’s hands.
Thus our collective, vocal, vibrant, God-centered rejoicing must be founded on the truth of who God is and what He has done. God is in control of everything, isn’t He? No matter where we go, He is already there. The psalmist calls each of us to rejoice in His awesome transcendence.
2. REVERENCE.
Psalm 95:6-7 gives us the second reason to worship.
Psalm 95:6-7
6Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Notice the change of tone from enthusiastic and loud songs of joy to awe-inspired reverence and humility before God. We are called to move from praise to prostration. In verses 1 and 2, the worshipper stands in God’s presence, shouting forth praise. Now, in verse 6, the worshipper falls on His face before God in humbled silence. Worship involves both vibrant rejoicing and speechless reverence.
Not only has the mood of the Psalm changed, so has the focus. It is now no longer God our Creator who is in view but it is rather God as our Redeemer and Savior. He is no longer a distant God but a personal God. God is our maker, we are the people of his pasture and the flock under His care.
God is our loving shepherd who pays close attention to each of us personally. This should cause us to bow down in worship and to kneel before the Lord our Maker. Bowing and kneeling helps us get “low” before God, which is really the essence of worship. We accept our place before Him while acknowledging His place before us.
The call for rejoicing in worship is based upon God’s sovereignty as Creator in the first part of the Psalm and that the call for reverence here is based upon our relationship with this God. The deeper our relationship with God is, the more profound our sense of awe and reverence.
This happened on a couple occasions with the disciples. One day, after Jesus did a miracle by a great catch of fish.
Luke 5:4-10
4When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” 5Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. 8When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.
Knowing the Lord and experiencing God’s caring hand in our lives should induce us to greater submission and reverence.
Our corporate worship services should always contain elements of both expressive rejoicing and reverence to God. We need to have worship services filled with praise and prostration; shouts and silence; happiness and holiness; rejoicing and reverence.
3. RESPOND.
Psalm 95:7c
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
MSG Drop everything and listen, listen as he speaks: Don’t turn a deaf ear.
See some observations here: First, there is another dramatic change of mood here. From the jubilant praise of the opening verses to the call to reverence in verse 6, we come now to a solemn warning that cannot be taken lightly. Second, there is a change in speaker. In the first seven verses, the psalmist has spoken, now we will hear from God Himself as He warns us against the dangers of a hard heart.
Psalm 95:8-11
8“Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
Basically, what God wants in worship is this: that we would listen to His voice. More than just coming together to sing, He wants us to live out what we hear. That’s why we look at our entire service as corporate worship, not just the singing times. Part of worship is listening and responding to God’s Word as it is preached.
Illustrations from Israel’s history
God here warns us against the danger of having a hard heart. He does this by using a couple of illustrations from Israel’s history. Specifically God is referring to what happened to the Hebrews who left Egypt failed to possess the land of Canaan. They hardened their heart at Meribah and Massah. Massah is a Hebrew word for testing; Meribah is the Hebrew for quarrelling.
Exodus 17 mentions the first instance of Massah and Meribah. God had set His people free from the bondage in Egypt by parting the Red Sea. In chapter 15, the people sang a song of praise to God for His redemption. When the Israelites thirsted and began to grumble at Marah, God sweetened their water and gave them both manna and meat.
Response with grumbling
In chapter 17 the people began to quarrel with Moses because they had run out of water. Moses told them that they were really grumbling against God and the people threatened to stone Moses. God then instructs Moses to strike the rock with his rod. Water gushed out and the people were able to drink. The place was named Massah and Meribah because the people had grumbled and tested God.
The second account is found in Numbers 20. Here only the term Meribah is used. The event is similar to the one in Exodus, but this one happened nearly 40 years later, when the people were just about to enter the Promised Land. The people are grumbling and complaining again. Moses and Aaron fall on their faces before God and His glory appears to them.
Response with Anger
God instructs Moses to speak to the rock so that water will come out. Instead of obeying God, in anger Moses scolded the people and twice struck the rock with his rod. While water came out, God indicted Moses for his unbelief and lack of reverence before the people.
Numbers 20:12
But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”
As a result, Moses was not allowed to lead the Israelites into Canaan. In Exodus 17, it was the people who sinned. In Numbers 20, it was the people and their leaders.
These two accounts reveal a common problem in every generation we are all prone to grumble and put God to the test. Each of us can be demanding of God as we try to force Him into satisfying our wants. While it is not wrong to ask God for help, we do have to be careful about our complaining attitudes. Like Israel in the wilderness, our grumbling proves our lack of trust in God. Massah and Meribah are historical events which expose a deep-seated and recurring tendency to become hardened in heart. That’s why the psalmist says, “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah and Massah.” God hates Massah-like attitude of heart which God despises.
Author Leonard Sweet, “Our pews are occupied by people who want to be moved, but who don’t want to move.” Let’s make sure that our worship always leads to action. Let’s come on Sundays not wanting to be moved, but with a commitment to move to obedience.
CONCLUSION
How is our worship this morning? Someone has said that there are two times to praise and worship God when we feel like it and when we don’t. Ruth Graham keeps a sign above her kitchen sink that says, “Worship services held here three times a day.”
First, worship is to be primary. God calls us to worship him. We should worship by rejoicing.
Second, Our worship is to give reverence to God for who he is. God is to be worshipped because he is sovereign. He is our creator, our Shepherd.
The third level is worship is to obedience according to this Psalm. It’s more than just the shouting of praises or our acts of reverence; wholehearted obedience is the evidence of true worship. Worship without obedience is worthless to God in fact, verse 10 says that it makes God angry. Failure to worship through our obedience causes our hearts to harden, which is repulsive to God and destructive to us. When we fail to worship, our hearts will become hardened which can lead to disobedience and even discipline.
This Psalm ends with a pretty blunt warning: “They shall never enter my rest.” Moses and his generation were not able to enter the Promised Land, a place of rest, because of their hard hearts.
Let’s take part in exuberant rejoicing, with humble reverence, and with immediate response. Are you tired today? Is your heart starting to get hard? If so, listen to the Lord knocking on the door of your life and open yourself to Him right now.
Brining Pleasure to God
Brining pleasure to God is called worship. Worship is more than praise and worship. Worship is not determined by the tempo of the song. Some say worship as the service from the opening prayer to the benediction. Third way is people ask which church do you worship? They have limited worship to a geographical location. These are all not wrong, but they are very narrow.
Worship has something much bigger to it. Worship is not about the song that we sing, worship is the heart that we bring. It is a realization that there is someone in the house who is worthy of adoration, praise, and lifted up. We bring sacrifices to adore God in our midst. Worship is far more than music. In the Bible worship predates music. Beginning of music is Genesis 4:21, Jubel was the father of those who played the pipes. Do you know people worshipped even before music came to the scene. Adam and Eve worshipped God.
Matt Redman wrote when the music fails when the church realized that music is taking over. But they decided for the next 6 months they will worship without music and he wrote this song.
a. Worship is far more than music.
I am for music. But when we depend on music without recognizing who we worship, we miss the point. We should have authentic worship and accurate worship. Our worship has to go beyond worship, it has to transcend music. Worship is not about the music or the worship leader, worship is about God who is worthy of worship.
b. Worship is not for our enjoyment. It is for God’s pleasure.
You come not to receive in worship. You come to give. Worship is about is God pleased with the worship that you bring to him. Noah’s worship came to God as a sweet smelling aroma. Our worship can touch the heart of God when it comes from deep within us.
c. Worship is not part of our life, it is our whole life.
In the Bible people worshipped the Lord at all times: Home, battle, jail, at bed. Worship was an integral part of their life.
Ex: What if I said to my wife during courtship I will be with you for 20 hours and 4 hours don’t ask me where I am, what I do. Come down to 2 hours. In a marital relationship, either you are fully in or you are out. If marital relationship can demand commitment, how about relationship with your maker, your maker and creator. Cup of the Lord and partake in the cup of demons.
Martin Luther – A dairy milkmaid milks cows for the glory of God.
Means every facet of our life should become our worship to the Lord.
Psalm 34:1, Psalm 113:1
Worship is a lifestyle.
Surrender to God Absolutely.
The word surrender has an indication of defeat. Ex: When we play chess, the final point is surrender, cheque. To yield to a more powerful opponent.
When we come to God, we must learn the importance of surrender. We say, “Lord I want to obey you, surrender to you absolutely.”
Ex: Saul
Saul asked, “Who are you Lord.” Jesus, “I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.”
Second question, “What do you want me to God.” Acts 22
This is a question of surrender. We all want to do what we want to do. But when we come to the Lord the important thing is “Lord what do you want me to do.”
Romans 12:1, Psalm 51:17
“Prayer is not asking God to do your will in heaven. Prayer is asking God to do His will on earth.”