Worship and Witness and Changing the World
Notes
Transcript
Where else could you go on a Sunday morning, or any other morning for that matter, and be part of a community that sings songs together about someone they can’t see? Why do we do this? Even though we can’t see God, we can see the effects of God in our lives. He has saved us. He has revealed His glory to us in Jesus Christ, who gave His life for us and in His resurrection, gives His life to us. His power has saved us, and His righteousness and faithfulness are transforming us.
We believe worship is the best response to an experience of the power of God to save and transform us. And when our worship includes our witness, it changes the world. And this is the heart of missions.
The community of saved people singing God’s praise goes back to Israel when they were delivered from Egypt. They walked through the sea on dry ground and they watched the chariots of Pharaoh swallowed up in the sea. Their response to experiencing the saving power of God was to stand on the shore and sang a song.
“You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed;
you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
And in the very next verse, they see the nations trembling at God’s power.
The peoples have heard; they tremble;
pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.
Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed;
trembling seizes the leaders of Moab;
all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
Terror and dread fall upon them;
because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone,
till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased.
Israel’s new life in God was a witness to the rest of the nations of God’s saving power. Their worship of the Ever-Living God is inseparable from that witness. We see the fulfillment of that theme in the final chapters of the Bible, in which there are people from every nation, tribe, and language singing the same song of God’s saving power. How is that vision fulfilled? It’s the work of Jesus Christ through His Spirit-filled, Ever-living God worshipping church.
Leslie Newbegin, “The church is the pilgrim people of God. It is on the move - hastening to the ends of the earth to beseech all men to be reconciled to God, hastening to the end of time to meet its Lord who will gather all into one (Newbegin 1953, 25).”
Philip Steyne says, “The church is God’s vehicle through which He will bring every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God. This view of the Church differs from that known and practiced by most Christians.
“It is my conviction that only a biblical understanding o what it means to be the true people of God will counteract the disinterest in world evangelization. The average Christian has little understanding of being on a personal mission in life which is also corporately reflected in the local church.”
Michael Griffiths says, “The church is not a third class waiting room where we twiddle our thumbs while we wait for first-class accommodations in heaven. It is a new dynamic community, winsome and attractive, and with eternal significance in the purpose of God. The Bible makes it clear that the church is God’s goal for mankind (Griffiths, 1978, 9).”
What could be more winsome and attractive than a worshipping, witnessing, dynamic community “hastening to the ends of the earth to beseech all men to be reconciled to God, hastening to the end of time to meet its Lord who will gather all into one”? Are we that community? Do our priorities align with the biblical vision of gathering every nation, tribe, and tongue to sing the glory of God in the world to come?
Bob Roberts Jr., who spoke at our district conference fifteen years ago, is a pastor from Texas that began a church planting organization called Glocalnet. The word “glocal” is a made-up word that reflects their conviction that we need to think and act both globally and locally at the same time, and there is a relationship between the two. He says, “The great tragedy of American church planting is that it has become about us, our location, and our community. Local churches, having been given the Great Commission, have become the epitome of religious institutional consumerism. The multiplying gene of a new church is...focused beyond itself. This is a DNA that moves out (bobrobertsjr.com/blog/planting-glocal-churches-for-the-world/).”
The three main pillars of their U.S. churches are sponsoring the planting of other churches, serving the poor or needy in their city, and engaging their members from all vocations and walks of life to serve in a hard part of the world. They say, “What does it mean for a church to move from a Sunday event to being on-call 24/7 for God.?” And isn’t that true worship? This is one way one church network has found to connect their worship with their witness. But what if every local church in the U.S. was invested in one other church in their town, and invested in demonstrating God’s righteousness and faithfulness in a community on the other side of the world? Could we change the world?
The American church has been experiencing a disconnect between our worship and witness in the church for decades now. We are happy to gather in worship and sing God’s praises. But our singing has been disconnected from our true worship, which is offering ourselves to God, who has given His church a mission, to declare His glory among the nations and invite them into the song.
Our psalm uses two words to describe the people of the world outside the community of faith. The first is “nations”.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
This is the word for all nations that aren’t Israel. There are roughly 200 nations in the world today. If we use Genesis 10 as our guide, it’s 70. But the second word is “peoples”. This breaks down nations into smaller boundaries, what we would call people groups or tribes. There are somewhere between 10-16,000 of these. However you count them, there are a lot of them, and God’s desire is that His glory is declared among them all. How is that going?
Of the roughly 8.2 billion people among the nations, roughly 3.3 billion people live in the 4,000 unreached people groups. Maybe as many as 4.8 billion people have never heard the gospel of Jesus. 290 million people have no one actively seeking to bring them the gospel. 1.5 billion people don’t have access to a Bible in their language. The number of foreign missionaries decreased 50% in the last 25 years.
I did some math. American Christians spend $1.1B/year on Christian music. If we spent 60% of that on sending missionaries to unreached peoples ($83,000/year global average), we could send teams of two missionaries into every one of the 4,000 unreached people groups left in the world, and we could see all peoples of the earth with a gospel witness in our lifetime.
Have we separated our worship from our witness, or at least our songs of worship from our mission to reach the lost world with the gospel of Jesus?
I believe Psalm 96 teaches that the church can change the world when she invites the nations into the song of God’s salvation, His glory, and His kingdom. Our psalm is a call to worship, and for the church, a call to witness to the nations. These two are inseparable.
John Piper opens his book, “Let the Nations Be Glad” this way, “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of god, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal in missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God.”
Do you rejoice in God’s glory? Has He made you glad with His saving power? To whom are you declaring that? Who has not yet heard? Where is the joy of God’s glorious, saving power not yet known, and how can we help them hear?
Psalm 96 is a call to worship. We sing to the LORD, the Ever-living God.
Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth!
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
And this immediately turns into witness in the next verse.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
Why does our worship directly lead to witness? For two intertwined reasons.
Because the glory of Ever-living God is so great, He is worthy of the worship of every person, people group, and nation. The worship of one person, or even one people group is not enough to sing His praise as He truly deserves. His glory is worthy of the worship of all the peoples of all the earth.
The nations are wasting their worship on idols.
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 worthless idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
God is the great, splendid, majestic, strong, beautiful maker of the heavens.
Verses 7-9 is a summons to the court of the King of the universe. They are a call to worship for not just the nations, or even the people groups. The psalmist breaks it down even more to the families of the people groups:
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts!
Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth!
God is worthy of worship, and this is why we witness. Missions exists because worship does not. How would the world change if every family among every people among every nation ascribed to the Ever-living God the glory due his name and offered themselves to His service? The call to worship in verse 9 includes the call to tremble before Him. If we have a true, knee-knocking fear of God (do our worship songs produce this in us?), we would see less selfishness, less fear of one another, less worry, more joy, more generosity, and one other surprising result. The trembling in verse 9 leads to stability in verse 10.
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.”
The summons to God’s courts should cause us fear and trembling, but when we enter His courts, and gain an understanding of His kingdom, the justice with which He judges, we find stability for our lives. The declaration that God is King, the LORD reigns, is good news. In the final verses of Psalm 96, the call to worship now extends beyond the saved people, beyond the nations and the peoples, beyond the families of the peoples to the whole universe.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord, for he comes,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
and the peoples in his faithfulness.
The message here is that the God who established the world in an immovable way is able to establish your life. His judgments are equitable and just. Rejoice! Because the LORD reigns, the universe is held in place. Because the LORD reigns, He will hold your life.
God’s kingdom is established in righteousness and faithfulness. The kingdom of God, His reign, is good news. That’s what Jesus said,
[Jesus was] saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel (good news).”
This is Jesus’ witness: when you repent of your self-rule and believe that God’s rule is good news, you receive eternal life. And His greatest witness was His greatest act of worship. He offered His body as a sacrifice in obedience to God the Father. His death was an atoning sacrifice for sinners, idolaters from every nation, tribe, and language. His resurrection gives them eternal life. He establishes the kingdom of God in the hearts of believers. He fulfills the vision of Psalm 96.
This is the witness of the church. We are the body of Christ on earth, singing to Him, blessing His name, telling of His salvation from day to day. We are the “new dynamic community, winsome and attractive, and with eternal significance in the purpose of God...God’s goal for mankind (Griffiths)”... “hastening to the ends of the earth to beseech all men to be reconciled to God, hastening to the end of time to meet its Lord who will gather all into one (Newbegin).”
Can you envision a future in which the whole earth sings the same song of praise to God for His glory revealed in Jesus Christ? Where are the places in our world in which He is not yet known? What would change in our world if the earth was filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Ever-living God as the waters cover the sea?
For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
Have you experienced the life-changing power of God’s salvation in Jesus? Have you seen the strength and beauty of His glory? Do you love to sing about Him? What would change in our world if Christians did not just sing for our own joy and comfort, but we sang our song for those whose eyes need to be lifted up from their conflicts and fears and failures to the God who made us and saves us? Could a winsome, worshipping band of believers change the world through their witness? Among what unreached people could we sing our witness?
I’m glad to say our church invests in missions. Our foreign and domestic missions represents 15.5% of our budget, well above a tithe (10%). (I would love to make it 20%.) I’m happy to say our church does not just gather to sing and rejoice in our own salvation. Our worship is more wholistic. It also includes our giving financially to seek the salvation of the nations. Are there ways this could grow? Are there more personal ways you and I could connect our worship and our witness?
For one thing, our missions team is happy to welcome more members who could help us strengthen our ties to the missionaries we support. Another thought to consider: What is one nation, people group, or family that does not yet sing the song of salvation to the glory of God, that you, your family, your triad or community group, could “adopt”? Start with praying for them, contacting a missionary or Christian organization in that nation to learn more, and go from there. For some, maybe God is calling you to go to some people group that has no gospel witness and share the good news. The God who made them and reigns in justice and righteousness is faithful to save all who repent and believe in Jesus the Savior.
Communion
Questions for Discussion
What are you praising God for this week?
Do you have a worship song that is especially meaningful to you? Why?
What do we learn about God in Psalm 96?
Why is God worthy of worship?
How does the imagery in this psalm teach us about God’s glory?
Why is God not worshipped among all nations? What does that teach us about the human condition?
What do we learn about ourselves in this psalm?
What is the relationship between our worship and our witness, as described in this psalm? In what ways are they connected in our church? In what ways can they be better connected?
How will you respond to this passage this week?
With whom can you share this passage this week?
