Gathering to Worship

Intro

a) We’ve spent the last few weeks unpacking our mission here at CrossWay to: Love God, Love People & Make Disciples. Now, for the next 3 weeks I want us to unpack our vision. What does it look like for us to Love God, Love People & Make Disciples. Here’s our vision of how we do that:

b) By being a Romans 12 community & culture that makes much of Jesus by gathering together to worship Him, by growing to become more like Him & by going to others to tell them about Him. Today, I want us to unpack the 1st part of that vision: gathering together to worship Him.

c) If you have your Bible, I invite you to turn w/ me to Psalm 95. As always, we’re going to begin by hearing God’s holy word in Psalm 95, starting in v1. Read & Pray

I’ve titled today’s sermon “Gather to Worship.”

a) Ps. 95 is a call to worship. Every Sunday we begin w/ such a call to worship. We start by hearing the Lord call us to come & worship Him. Now every single person is a worshiper. As American writer David Foster Wallace, who was not a Christian, said at a commencement speech:

b) “Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” And Scripture agrees. We were made for worship. But more than that, we were also made to do so in community. Consider, why is it so compelling to be part of a crowd at a sporting event, concert, or political rally?

c) It’s b/c we were not only wired for worship, but to do so in community w/ other people made in God’s image. As Christians, we are called to gather as His people & worship Him. Before we jump into our 1st section, look at how we see that reality here in Ps. 95. v1 says twice: “Let us.”

d) Then we see that repeated 2x again in v2: “Let us.” It’s then repeated 2x again in v6: “Let us.” We also see this corporate dimension in v7, “He is our God. We are the people of His pasture.” Christians aren’t described in Scripture as individuals, but as a corporate body w/ many members.

e) As 1 Cor. 12:27 says, “Now you are the body of Christ & individually members of it.” We are all united to Christ by faith. And it is b/c of this unity in Christ, that the church exists. The church is not a building. The church is an assembly of Christians who gather to express that unity in Christ.

f) Jesus said in Matt. 16:18, “I will build my church.” The Greek word we translate as church is ekklesia, which means an assembly or gathering. Jesus could have said, “I will build my synagogue”, which means a place of assembly? Rather He said ekklesia, a people who gather.

g) And in the NT that’s what we see. Those who came to faith gathered in various assemblies to worship & declare they were members of His body. 1 Cor. 11:18 says: “In the 1st place, when you come together as a church.” 1 Cor. 14:23 says: “If, therefore, the whole church comes together.”

h) And these verses are followed by instructions for how the church behaves & functions when gathered. Why did they & we gather? To worship. We’re not only called to worship & glorify God in all that we do, but we’re called to gather w/ other believers on the Lord’s Day & worship Him.

Here’s our 1st point in Ps. 95 in v1-2: God invites & commands His people to come.

a) Ps. 95 begins w/ God’s grace: “Oh come”. Why does that reveal God’s grace? Think back to the garden when Adam & Eve sinned. How did God respond? He drove them out of the garden & away from His presence & put the cherubim & a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life.

b) So here in Ps. 95 when God’s people are invited & commanded to come, it’s God’s grace speaking to us. It’s God saying to sinners like us: “Come into my presence.” How’s that possible? Only by His mercy & grace. It’s only possible b/c God has made a way for us to be reconciled by His Son.

c) You & I are invited & commanded to do something we wouldn’t be able to do except for the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said in Matt. 11:28, “Come to Me all who labor & are heavy laden & I will give you rest.” Jesus declared He has the authority & ability to allow us to come.

d) He alone provides the way in which we can come into God’s presence & worship Him. As Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, & the truth & the life. No 1 comes to the Father except through me.” See, coming to God to worship Him is the point of our salvation.

e) It’s why God saved us & redeemed us as His people. Think about Israel in the OT. Multiple times in Ex. 3–10, corporate worship is stated as the purpose for their redemption. Why did God tell Pharoah to let His people go? So they might come & serve & worship the Lord.

f) When Ps. 95 begins w/ God saying: “Oh come.” It’s God saying to us as His people: “Stop what you’re doing & come to worship Me. Come w/ others I’ve saved by My grace & worship Me.” We need this. In the Gospels, we see Jesus gather w/ God’s people Sabbath after Sabbath to worship.

g) And it’s through His life, death & resurrection that we now are invited to come. God calls still today to leave our work & worries & burdens & fears & suffering & even our successes behind, & to come to Him through the Lord Jesus Christ & by His Spirit to worship Him.

Here’s our 2nd point in v3-7a: Why God’s people gather to worship Him.

a) In v3-7 we see 3 reasons why we gather & worship God. 1st, look at v3: “For the Lord is a great God & a great King above all gods.” When we become aware of the reality of who God is, that He is sovereign & majestic. He is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present & holy…we rightly worship.

b) 2nd, look at v4-5: “In His hand are the depths of the earth; & the heights of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for He made it, & His hands formed the dry land.” We also gather to worship God b/c He’s the Creator of all things & He rules over all that He has made.

c) But 3rd, look at the end of v6. It says: the Lord is “our Maker!” He not only made the world & all that we see, He made us. He created each of us. He knit each of us together in our mother’s womb. He formed & fashioned us. We are each fearfully & wonderfully made. As Ps. 139:15-16 says:

d) “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every 1 of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

4th, notice in v7 we not only gather to worship Him b/c He is God & our Maker, but He is our God.

f) God not only made us, but He chose us & called us & saved us as His people. As v7 says: “We are the people of His pasture, & the sheep of His hand.” He is our great Shepherd who cares for us. The God who made this universe, w/ 100s of billions of galaxies, sees you & cares about you.

g) He loves & cares about you & I so much that He sent His only Son into the world to live & die & to be raised for us. Why? So, we might come to Him as His people & we might worship Him as our God. And notice in v6 what it looks like to worship Him:

h) “Oh come, let us worship & bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!” The original Hebrew uses 3 verbs that all have the same meaning to give us a picture of what worship looks like. The 3 Hebrew verbs all mean bow down.

i) A literal English translation of v6 would be: “Oh come, let us bow down, bow down, bow down before the Lord, our Maker.” Worship is getting low before God. It’s a public act of homage. It’s accepting our place & acknowledging His rightful place as the mighty, awesome & holy God He is

j) And yet, look back at v1-2. We are invited to come. There is an intimacy. In His presence we are called to sing & make a joyful noise. We are to come into His presence w/ thanksgiving. Ps. 95 is a picture of God’s people coming & bowing before Him, yet filled w/ joy & thanksgiving. Why?

k) B/c we know we are not worthy to come into His presence. We worship in reverence & awe of who God is. Yet, we also worship w/ joy & thanksgiving b/c we know God has made this possible. Through His Son & by His Spirit, our Father in heaven has made a way for sinners like us to come.

l) Not just to our Creator, but to our God, Shepherd, Redeemer & heavenly Father. He has forgiven us & saved us & adopted us by His mercy & grace. So, we come humbly, but happily to worship Him. We don’t go through the motions, but we come together w/ a passion to worship Him.

Here’s the 3rd point in v7b-11: A warning as God’s people gather to worship Him.

a) Look at the warning at the end of v7 & the beginning of v8: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” Now up to this point Ps. 95 has been positive & upbeat. But now it offers a solemn & sobering warning about how we worship. It points us back to Israel testing God in Ex.17.

b) It points us back to the grumbling & unbelief of the wilderness generation God redeemed from slavery in Egypt? What’s the warning given to us about how we worship? The warning is not to respond to God’s gracious invitation & command to come the way the wilderness generation did.

c) God saved, redeemed & freed them from being slaves to Pharoah & Egypt. He broke the shackles from their hands & feet. He subdued their masters holding them captive. He led them out to safety & provided for them in the wilderness. And did they respond like what we’ve seen in v1-7.

d) Singing. Joyful noise. Thanksgiving. Bowing. Kneeling. Worship. No. How did they respond? Unbelief. Doubt. Ingratitude. Hardened hearts. The warning is: don’t gather & worship God as they did. Not remembering & celebrate all that God has done to save us & free us from our enemies.

e) See, when they came together, they only thought about what they didn’t have. At Meribah they gathered to grumble & complain about their lack of water. Rather than trusting the God who saved them & parted the Red Sea & calling upon Him, they quarreled, blamed & doubted Him.

g) The people He graciously saved as His own did not praise & thank Him. And b/c of their unbelief & refusal to come & worship Him, the Lord swore in His wrath: “They shall not enter my rest.” See, we can’t gather & worship God if we aren’t trusting God & His word & His promises.

h) We can’t live however we want Monday-Saturday, not believing God’s word, not trusting Jesus, being unresponsive to God’s mercy & grace, & then gather to worship. We must worship in Spirit & in truth. We gather as those saved & redeemed. We gather not to be entertained, but to worship.

i) We gather in faith to hear God’s word & promises read & preached & sang. We gather to pray & call upon Him. We gather to see His word & promises through baptism & the Lord’s Supper.

Conclusion

Let me end this way. What difference does gathering to worship make? 4 God-glorifying effects.

a) 1st & foremost is Exaltation. When we gather to worship, God is more highly exalted than if we worshiped alone. His glory doesn’t change, but the manifestation His glory does. Let me give you an analogy. Think about a championship game played in an empty arena & w/ no fans watching at home. Now think about the same game played in front of 20k fans & millions watching on TV.

b) The final score may be the same, but the glory of the winning team will be far greater. God’s glory doesn’t change when we gather, but His glory is made more manifest when we gather. That’s why David says in Ps. 34:3, “Oh, magnify the Lord w/ me, & let us exalt his name together!”

c) Here’s a 2nd God-glorifying effect: Edification. My personal time of Bible reading, prayer & worship can be rich & rewarding. By myself I can experience the HS’s conviction of sin & the assurance my sins are forgiven. But those times can’t replace what happens when we gather. Why?

d) 1 Pet. 2:4-5 says: “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen & precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house.” To belong to Christ is to belong to His body. And it’s w/ the body that we grow & are built up.

e) See, some Sundays my weary soul is buoyed when I see the worship team here early to practice. My anxious soul is calmed by those who show up early for pre-service prayer. My discouraged soul is encouraged by the praises of others, which remind me that I’m not alone in my struggles.

f) And at the same time, God uses the unique gifts he’s given me to build up & encourage some of you. We can’t do that on our own. Each week we are surrounded by people dealing w/ life in a fallen world: sin, pain, lost jobs, family drama, addiction, anxiety, exhaustion, financial distress.

g) We each bring our own hurts through that door & we are given 1 another to persevere in hope. And part of the way we are edified is through hearing our brothers & sisters in Christ sing & pray & read & preach. Together we taste & see the Lord is good & we are edified & encouraged & built up

i) “It is by God’s grace that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world. Not all Christians receive this blessing. The persecuted, imprisoned, sick know the visible fellowship is a blessing. The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy & strength.”

j) That’s why Heb. 10:25 says we aren’t to neglect gathering. We gather b/c it helps us hold fast our confession of hope. We gather b/c it encourages us. We gather b/c we are exhorting 1 another to realign our priorities, to refocus on what’s true, & to remember who has called us & saved us.

k) Here’s a 3rd God-glorifying effect: Evangelism. Yes, you & I should share the gospel w/ others outside of these walls. But what we can’t do on our own is show them a gathering of sinners saved by grace rejoicing in Christ. Gathered worship gives unbelievers a picture of the gospel’s beauty.

l) Our gathering is meant to put Christ’s life-transforming work on display in a way a no single person’s life or worship or testimony can. Seeing a people who would not know each other except for the gospel, love 1 another, care for 1 another & worship, puts the truth of the gospel on display.

m) When churches are forced to meet in secret, their very existence & willingness to gather & worship testifies to the power, beauty, glory & truth of the gospel.

n) Here’s a 4th & final God-glorifying effect of gathered worship: Expectation. Every Sunday we gather brings us 1 day closer to the day when God will gather His people from every tribe, tongue & nation & age. Until then, God gives us each Lord’s Day to gather & get ready for that day.

o) Our gathering foreshadows a heavenly reality. Heb. 8:5 says the OT tabernacle, where God’s people met w/ Him & came into His presence, served as a copy & shadow of the heavenly things. Today, those united to Christ by faith are that tent or tabernacle b/c God’s Spirit dwells in us.

p) We display God’s holiness & beauty & presence. Each local church is meant to be a mirror & image of the heavenly reality where Christ is. Others should see our relationships, fellowship, holiness & worship & see Jesus. But our gathering also foreshadows what is to come.

q) It foreshadows hat eternal day, when a great multitude no 1 can # gathers before the throne & the Lamb. That day when we will enjoy the never-ending joy of God’s presence. See friends, our heartfelt hugs & handshakes & the sound of us raising our voices all point forward to that day.

r) These are all foretastes of what we will experience when we gather around the throne in the new heavens & new earth. God has given us this day to worship Him. He saved us so we might come & worship Him. Why do we gather to worship? To remember when we’re exhausted, God is not.

s) To remember when we’re discouraged, God is not. To remember when we’re unfaithful, God is not. To remember when we’re weak, God is not. God ordained our worship gatherings so we remember where our hope lies. To remind us that 1 day, we will finally enter His promised rest!