Worship - Peru
Singing A New Song
Psalm 96
Introduction
I want to speak to you about worship tonight.
Several years ago I had to learn a definition of worship. I learned it for a test. But I did not really understand what it meant. I did not understand its real meaning until recently. Let me tell it to you.
Worship is setting our minds attention and our hearts affection on the Lord, praising Him for who He is and for what He has done.
Let me say that again.
The definition really comes out in the psalms. Especially Psalm 96. Let’s look at that Psalm tonight.
1 ¡Cantad a Jehovah un cántico nuevo! ¡Cantad a Jehovah, toda la tierra! Sing to the Lord a new song; Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Cantad a Jehovah; bendecid su nombre. Anunciad de día en día su salvación. Sing to the Lord, bless His name; proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.
3 Contad entre las naciones su gloria, entre todos los pueblos sus maravillas; Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.
4 porque grande es Jehovah, y digno de suprema alabanza. El es temible sobre todos los dioses; For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods.
5 porque todos los dioses de los pueblos son ídolos, pero Jehovah hizo los cielos. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.
Worship is when we set our minds attention and our hearts affection on the LORD. Praising Him for who He is and what He has done.
One of the ways we do this is through song.
Verse 1 is a call to worship through song.
1 ¡Cantad a Jehovah un cántico nuevo! ¡Cantad a Jehovah, toda la tierra!
1Sing to the Lord a new song; Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Songs are wonderful. They are meaningful to us as individuals. And they are very good worship tools.
But I’m afraid we miss a lot of times what these tools are trying to do.
I want to tell you about three types of song that help us worship the Lord.
The first is a vertical worship song.
It’s a personal song. It’s an individual song. It’s an I – you, me – you type song.
That’s what we see in verse 2.
... Anunciad de día en día su salvación.
…Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.
Sing a song directly to him in thanks for His salvation. Use words like I…. And…. You….and….me.
“I Love You, Lord” is a great vertical song.
I Love You, Lord, and I lift My voice to worship You.
O My soul, rejoice! Take joy, My King, in what You hear:
May it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear.
You hear that. That is a vertical song. No matter how many people are in the room that is me singing to the LORD. That is me setting my minds attention and my hearts affection on the LORD and praising him for who he is and what he has done in my life.
The second is a horizontal worship song.
The vertical song is a song I sing as an individual. The horizontal song is a song that we sing together and encourage one another to set our minds and hearts on the LORD.
Look at verse 3.
3 Contad entre las naciones su gloria, entre todos los pueblos sus maravillas;
3 Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.
Martin Luther wrote one of my favorite horizontal songs around 1525.
He faced great persecution for saying what he believed to be true about God.
In the middle of that persecution, he wrote the song, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
A Mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing.
Our helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe Doth seek to work us woe.
His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.
On earth is not his equal.
There is a line in that Hymn that says this:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also.
The body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still.
His kingdom is forever.
That’s a horizontal song.
That is a song that encourages us as believer in Jesus, and it says let us together set our minds attention and hearts affection on the Lord and let us praise him for who he is and what he has done for us.
It calls for celebration. We can come together and celebrate events, just as the individuals that took part in them can celebrate vertically.
There is a third type of song, and this one we don’t talk about much.
It’s not necessarily a vertical song and it’s not necessarily a horizontal song
Look beginning at verse 4.
4 porque grande es Jehovah, y digno de suprema alabanza. El es temible sobre todos los dioses;5 porque todos los dioses de los pueblos son ídolos, pero Jehovah hizo los cielos. 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 idols. But the LORD made the heavens.
These are songs that we sing about the nature and the character of God.
And they are sung to several different places.
- They are sung to people who worship false gods. They proclaim who the real God is.
- They are sung to strongholds in my life and in your life. When we can sing about how big God is, and How Powerful God is, and how awesome God is. Our enemy the devil has got to leave us alone.
So what does a transcendent song look like:
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days, all the days of my life.”
It’s not necessarily an individual song or a congregation song, its just singing about the goodness of God. And some of us… may … need … to be reminded of that. And those songs are the kind of songs that will remind us of that. You see, if someone were to come in here and life wasn’t going good for them, they need to hear “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all of my life.” These songs will speak to the strongholds in your life. They will help you despite your circumstances to praise him for who he is and what he has done.
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After he defines worship something interesting happens. Look at verse 6.
6 Gloria y esplendor hay delante de él; poder y hermosura hay en su santuario.
6“Splendor and majesty are before Him, Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.”
When we understand worship, when we understand that we are setting our minds attention and our hearts affection on Him and praising Him for who he is and what he has done. There is splendor and glory and majesty in the place. You can almost tangibly feel the presence of God when people worship properly.
- When we worship in spirit and in truth there is splendor and glory in the sanctuary, because God is honored.
- He is still the God who inhabits the praises of His people. He still shows up in a tangible way. He is present and He is strong.
When we come to worship there are some things we get to do tangibly.
Look at verse 7.
7 Dad a Jehovah, oh familias de pueblos, dad a Jehovah la gloria y el poder. 8 Dad a Jehovah la gloria debida a su nombre;
7Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. 8Ascribe to the LORD the glory of His name.
- The first thing we get to do is to ascribe glory to the name of the LORD. You say well I thought you just talked about that in those songs. Nope! You can sing and not worship. You can sing and not worship. You know how I learned this truth. I grew up listening to old love songs. I know some of you may not be that spiritual yet… It would be Saturday mornings without fail, my mother would turn the radio on and come in and open my curtains. That would be my way of knowing it was time to get up and clean house. That’s just what we did. So, I would be in the bed and I would just wake up, and we would clean for a while and dance for a while. That was the way I grew up, but you know what, I didn’t understand those songs. Until about fifteen years ago, when I looked across my college classroom and saw this girl. All of a sudden those songs came back to my mind and I understood what they meant. You see some of you have experienced that in your spiritual lives. You might have grown up singing church songs, but you sang them without ascribing them to the LORD, but for those of you who really know him,
- The second thing we get to do in worship. Look at verse 8. Traed ofrendas y venid a sus atrios; Bring an offering and come into his courts. Amen. Bringing an offering is another way of honoring the LORD. It is a way of saying that everything I have comes from you, and here is a way for me to express that you are worth it all. Here is a way that you can express that He is LORD over everything in your life.
- It would be like the president coming here to Cajamarca and you were chosen to go and meet him. You wouldn’t show up empty handed. You might bring a simple gift. It would be symbolic of the fact that you thought he was worth something. When we come into the house of the King, we bring a gift, and it is symbolic of how we feel about the Lord. It is a tangible way of ascribing worth to God.
- The third thing we do. Verse 9. “Worship the LORD in holy attire.” You dress in holiness.
- You see if that same magistrate invited you over, you would do just like my wife when we have some place important to go. But you know if the king invite you somewhere, you say I need something to put on that is worthy of the presence of the king. When we come to worship, there is something that we put on that is worthy of the presence of our King, and that is holiness. We need to examine ourselves. I’m going to understand that I can’t say you are of ultimate worth, and then pursue with my life the evil things of this world. I must cloth myself in His holiness and His righteousness. It’s a tangible thing I do as an act of worship.
When we do these things, there is something we begin to look forward to. Listen to this.
10 Decid entre las naciones: "¡Jehovah reina! Ciertamente ha afirmado el mundo, y no será movido. Juzgará a los pueblos con rectitud."
11 ¡Alégrense los cielos, y gócese la tierra! ¡Ruja el mar y su plenitud!
12 ¡Regocíjese el campo, y todo lo que hay en él! Entonces cantarán con júbilo todos los árboles del bosque 13 delante de Jehovah,......WHY?........ pues él viene.
10Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity.”
11Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and all it contains;
12Let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy. Before the LORD…….WHY?………For…He…Is….Coming.
You see nature already knows, it groans, He’s coming and I want him to come. Nature cries out. Nature is groaning in anticipation of the day that Jesus comes to redeem it. The only thing on earth that does not groan in the anticipation of the returning of our King …is man! Why? Because we forget that this is not our home. We forget that we too need to be redeemed. We forget that we need the King to come and rescue us. But when we do all the things I’ve talked about this evening in honesty, then there comes a moment when we long for home.
A few months ago, we were here in Cajamarca. I called home one night about half way through the week and got to talk to my kids. My daughter and I had a short conversation. I asked her how she was and she said “Daddy where are you?” I said sweetheart I’m in Peru. She asked where are you sleeping? I’m sleeping in a room here in Peru. And then she said, I wish I would have gone with you. I said sweetie Daddy needs to go….and I hung up the phone….and my heart sank. I had four more days left here, but my heart was already home. My heart was with my family. I knew I had things to do, and I wanted to do them, and I wanted to do them well, but I couldn’t wait to get home.
When we experience genuine worship each day of our lives -- that is how we should feel about heaven. We know we have things to do, and we want to do them, and we want to do them well, but at the same time we should long for the day when the work is over and we can get to go home.
Our King is Coming. When I set my minds attention and my hearts affection on the Him and when I praise Him for who He is in my life and what He’s done in my life, then I understand for a moment, and if just for a moment, I understand that He’s coming…… and I want Him to come….. because I guarantee you when our King opens the heavens….NO ONE WILL CHOOSE TO STAY BEHIND.
My king is coming. I’m not scared my king is coming. Because when he comes he’s going to call me by name. Jesus said his sheep know his voice. And I’m one of his sheep. I just wonder if you are. Will be able to hear the sound of His voice when he comes back for us?
Because when he comes… he will be Savior to some…..but judge to all!