Reverent Worship: Bow Down to Our Creator

Bible Passage: Psalm 95:6

… I confess a sadness about the shallowness of Christian thinking in our day. Many are interested in religion as a kind of toy. If we could make a judgment, it would appear that numbers of men and women go to church without any genuine desire to gear into deity. They do not come to meet God and delight in His presence. They do not come to hear from that everlasting world above!

Psalm 95:6–7; Psalm 100; Acts 10:33

Christ the Eternal Son, 31.

A. W. Tozer

These words were written in 1991, nearly 34 years ago. Although it seems as if they could have been written today, consider these words that are even much older than Tozer’s.

Mark 7:6 ESV

6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;

Big Idea: True worship requires a humble heart that recognizes God's majesty, leading us to bow down in reverence and awe before our Creator, who is worthy of all praise. Worship is both a stature and a practice, or as Jesus put it in John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

For the past 4 weeks we have learned much about how we are to worship: in spirit, in truth, and our method. To close out our study on this topic, we will now turn our focus to our approach

Let us now read our text: Psalm 95:6

Psalm 95:6 KJV 1900

6 O come, let us worship and bow down: Let us kneel before the Lord our maker.

In this passage, we see 3 things that we must recognize about our worship.

Purposeful Presence

Bowing in Humility

Created for His Purpose

1. Purposeful Presence

Psalm 95:6a

This verse begins with an invitation: literally “come in”

In the 100th Psalm, David sang about this in greater detail when he said, “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise”

You cannot enter a room without being intentional

for you to come here today required a decision to intentionally wake up, get dressed, get in your car, navigate traffic, drive here, walk across the parking lot, come in through the door

a lot of thought and effort went into just arriving to the church building, and that is before the worship begins

For many would-be worshippers, all of that effort is put forth to show up, but little to no true worship takes place

They come, they sit, some give offerings, they leave and never once truly worshipped. They were mere observers of other people worshipping

The invitation never expires and is never revoked!

We are invited by the psalmist, who is, quite literally, our worship leader

We are invited by the Holy Spirit, who is our worship instructor

We are told to

Pray without ceasing

Give thanks for everything

Sing in our hearts to the Lord

Take up our cross daily

This goes beyond just the Lord’s Day

It also indicates the necessity of moving in the direction of God

He calls US to HIM

He does pursue us many times when we are astray, and certainly had to pursue us before we were saved because we never would have pursued Him first, but He still calls us to come before Him

When we are making the intentional decision and action to come before the Lord in worship, we are anticipating Him meeting with us and having fellowship with us

the anticipation should be so much that we cannot hardly contain the excitement

it should preoccupy our hearts and minds

it should be what we most desire about the week

we plan our entire week around our other travels and activities, but far too often we let these other activities dictate our worship

Our worship should never be only for one hour of the week, although the Lord’s Day is especially set aside for Him

“let us worship” is for every day and every moment

whether we are coming in to our church, your prayer closet, your commute to work, or anything else, our worship should never cease being a priority and practice

2. Bowing in Humility

Psalm 95:6b

The basis for this bowing down of the whole person is the awed recognition that Yahweh, the supreme God over the entire world, has deigned to be our God and to shepherd us.

John Goldingay

Beginning in 2009, President Barack Obama took a lot of heat for bowing to multiple foreign leaders. Perhaps the most egregious occasion was when he bowed to Saudi King Abdullah, an act that was considered by many Americans to be a sign of weakness at best, treason at worst.

Not a good thing for any American president to do, but the reason behind it is simple.

To bow to anyone, namely the sovereign of a nation, is to demonstrate your subservience to him, at least in the immediate context.

At the very least, it is a sign of respect or humility in his presence, which again will turn the stomachs of freedom-loving Americans whose very existence is owed in part to men and women who refused to bow to King George and every king since then, British or otherwise.

Consequently, we have developed a rejection of bowing to anyone, and unfortunately, that often means the high King of Heaven.

Even if we don’t realize it, we either refuse or forget to bow humbly and completely to the Master and Creator of Heaven and Earth, the one and only God, the mighty Prince of Peace, Jehovah!

To bow is to make oneself vulnerable

you have no defense

you cannot demonstrate pride

you will not easily rebound

Bowing also helps to close off distractions

I have prayed

while driving (eyes opened!)

walking

standing

sitting

kneeling

prostrate

in each instance, I worshipped the Lord, talked to Him, and He heard me and answered me, but sometimes, my heart is more open and my head is clearer the lower I physically make myself

this is because our body does effect our mind, and our mind effects our body

how can I be prideful and simultaneously allow myself to be humbled?

how can I be debased and humble and still stand up straight and be distracted in my worship?

We are invited by the Psalmist to bow down, to kneel before the Lord in worship, and it is not by accident he used this imagery and posture

Bowing and kneeling without joy, or on the other hand, shouting and singing without bowing and kneeling in the life, without change in the life, is not real worship.

Timothy Keller

3. Created for His Glory

Psalm 95:6c

How can we enter into His presence and humble ourselves in worship without acknowledging that He is the One who created us? But for what purpose are we created?

1 Peter 2:9 ESV

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

This is the very purpose for which we were created by God and called out of darkness.

One day, every man and woman will kneel and be humbled before the presence of God (Isa. 45:23; Rom. 14:11)

but for those of us who are the chosen people of His, we are to humble and bow before Him on THIS side of Judgement Day

Christ, who created all things, became the ultimate focus of worship.

for thousands of years, mankind has sought for an outlet for worship. It is a desire that burns in the spirit of every man and woman

Romans 1 addresses this in depth, citing the worship of creation rather than the Creator as the reason for man’s hearts being given over to all manner of debauchery and filthiness

every culture that worships nature has incorporated human sacrifice, sexual perversion and promiscuity, ritualistic cuttings, and many other abominations

this is just one reason why it is so very important that we acknowledge and insist on teaching that Jehovah is the Creator!

There is no room for the mixing of evolution and other science cults with the worship of God. It has to be one or the other, and heaven help those who reject Jehovah!

when we worship God not only for Who He is, but for what He has done, we rightfully place our focus on the source of our beginning, and Who was there in the beginning?

John 1:1 ESV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

If you are purposeful in your presence, and you come to Him bowing in humility and understanding you are created for His purpose, how can you do anything but fall on your face in your worship?

The God that we worship is the same Yahweh that Moses met in the wilderness when he had to shuck off his shoes and bow down in His presence. Is it really our understanding that we can stand proudly in His presence, on His day, in His house, when His word is opened and preached? Can we really think that we are able to lackadaisically approach the throne of the Almighty God? If the God you worship does not cause you to fall before Him, you are worshiping something other than the Most High!

Practically, we may not always be able to physically bow or lie face down in our worship, but if your soul and spirit are in their proper place with a reverent and appropriate view of God as the Creator and Sovereign, it will be only natural to humble yourself in His presence as you worship Him. This is the ultimate thing that He desires, more so than humbling our bodies, and that is to humble our hearts.

It is delightful to worship God, but it is also a humbling thing; and the man who has not been humbled in the presence of God will never be a worshiper of God at all. He may be a church member who keeps the rules and obeys the discipline, who tithes and goes to conference, but he’ll never be a worshiper unless he is deeply humbled. “A humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe.”6

A. W. Tozer