5.2.21 - Lessons From The Psalms_ How To Worship (final)

May 2, 2021 - Lessons From The Psalms: How To Worship Hello, good to be together today & welcome again to those joining online. We are in the middle of a sermon series from the book of Psalms. The Psalms are a portion of the Bible that people often turn to... in large part because they cover the full scope of our human emotions and experiences. The Psalms give voice to our cries for mercy and justice, for help and rescue... and the Psalms contain praises for how good God is and how wonderful it is to be connected with Him. ● As we began this series a few weeks ago, John encouraged us to take up the daily practice of reading and praying the Psalms for ourselves. If you haven't started in on that yet, I'd highly recommend it. The Psalms are super powerful and can help us experience more of God in our lives. As we continue our series - today, we're going to look at Psalm 95, and talk about how to worship. For many people, when they hear the word "worship" - they think about the music that happens before and after the sermon at church. Singing to God is one form of worship (and something that we'll talk a fair amount about today), but it's not the only way we worship. Worship is something we do with our whole lives - even with our bodies, and our minds. I want to begin this morning with a quote. Even after quite a bit of research, I'm still not sure who this comes from originally, but it's really good. "We worship whatever has captured our mind's attention, our heart's affection and our soul's ambition." ● You may not realize it, but you are a worship factory. And so am I. We produce and express worship by what we fix our thoughts on, what we give our hearts to, and what drives our actions. Those items can become objects of our worship. What we focus on in life isn't automatic. We have a choice about what and who we worship. And the Psalms point us to this truth: God is meant to be the ultimate object of our worship. When we choose to center our worship on God rather than other things, it brings a centering to all the other areas of our lives. ● Let's dive into Psalm 95 & see what we can learn about who this God is that we worship & what it can look like for us to respond to Him. Psalm 95:1-7 (NIV) (Let's read this aloud together) 1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and praise him with music and song. 3 For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; 7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Okay here is the the big idea we want to hit on today: Worship is our response to our experience and knowledge of God. We respond to who God is and what God has done. ● If you don't have any knowledge or experience of God.. you are probably not very motivated to worship God. ● But, as you come to know who God is, and you experience God's work in your life... worship becomes a natural response. Those responses of worship don't have to be fancy or complex. For example here's how we teach this down in our VKids classes (images). We talk about how worship is saying... ● "God, we love you." And... ● "God, we thank you... Thank you for all the good things you've done." Every good thing we have comes from you." Kids, you know this... every week we are training even the youngest children how to connect with God and respond to Him. And sometimes, these ideas can be beneficial to us as adults, as well. So - if worship is our response to our knowledge and experience of God... Who is this God that we worship? Let's look at a few things from Ps 95. First - God is the great king. Verse 3 says... The Lord is a great God, a great king above all other gods. (v. 3) ● This fits with how God is described throughout the Scriptures. He is the king of a great kingdom. The God above all other gods. He rules and reigns over heaven and earth. There is no one like Him, and he is worthy of every bit of honor that we can give him. ● We can be tempted to build our own kingdoms with us at the center... but it's when we acknowledge God as King - that's when life really starts to make sense. Next, we worship because, God is the creator and sustainer. Verses 4-5 point to this: In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. (v. 4-5) Being in nature and taking in its beauty can so powerful - whether that's standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, hiking through the Rocky Mountains, or coming down a hill in Duluth with a view of Lake Superior ● Moments like these can stir awe in us... but that awe needs a direction. If we simply admire the beauty of creation, without connecting it to the Creator, we're missing the full experience. Horizontal awe is meant to stimulate vertical awe - pointing us to the one who alone is worthy of our worship. This past week, I was reading a bit about Francis Collins. Collins was previously head of the Human Genome Project and is currently the director of the National Institute of Health. (TV) Collins is also a devoted follower of Jesus. But he didn't grow up that way. It was actually in his 20's that he began to investigate the person of Jesus, much like he investigated scientific questions in his work as a doctor. That search was very important, but there was an additional layer to his journey to faith. Listen to his own description: "You can argue yourself, on the basis of pure intellect, right up to the precipice of belief, but then you have to decide. I don't believe intellectual argument alone will push someone across that gap, because we are not talking about something which can be measured in the same way that science measures the natural world, and then you decide what is natural truth. This is supernatural truth. And in that regard, the spirit enters into this, not just the mind. I struggled with that for many months, really resisting this decision, going forward, going backward. Finally, after about a year, I was on a trip to the northwest, and on a beautiful afternoon hiking in the Cascade Mountains, where the remarkable beauty of the creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, "I cannot resist this another moment. This is something I have really longed for all my life without realizing it, and now I've got the chance to say yes." So I said yes. I was 27. I've never turned back. That was the most significant moment in my life. ● Isn't that a great story? (Recap / dig in) ● Gospel moment... "God, if you are real, would you show me?" Again - Who is this God we worship? God is our good shepherd Verse 7: He is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. (v. 7) This is one of most repeated word pictures used in the Bible for our relationship with God: God is the shepherd and we are his sheep. Famously, we read that in Psalm 23. "The Lord is my shepherd." Jesus picks up on this idea in John 10... "I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and they know me." What do you think about that analogy? About a week ago, a friend forwarded me a tweet and attached video. Here's the tweet text... and then take a look at the video: https://bit.ly/32PYDuI Here is the simple truth... we are like sheep in need of a shepherd. Left to ourselves, we are prone to get stuck in one rut after another. But God is our good shepherd, rescuing us & leading us towards the best path for our lives Friends, this is the God we worship: the great King, the creator & sustainer, the good shepherd. As we come to know God like this, and we experience His work in our lives: it produces worship in us. We are captured by who God is and we want to express our love and gratitude to Him. What does that practically look like? Let's shift gears and focus on a 2nd big question for today: How do we respond to God through worship? As we do that, I want to draw your attention to this short phrase that appears multiple times in this Psalm: the two words, "Let us." It's important to not that Psalm 95 was originally written in Hebrew, not in Minnesotan English. You all know what Minnesota English sounds like, right??? ● "If you don't mind and it's not too much trouble and it happens to fall on the 5th Tuesday of the month & the weather is nice that day, would you think about considering the potential of possibly doing this? ● No, this is much more forceful - it's in the "imperfect cohortative tense" & conveys a command or exhortation instead of a suggestion. More like "Vamonos - Let's Go" Or "Come on - Let's Do This!" So... in verse 1, when we read... Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. (v. 1) The Psalmist is exhorting us... Let's do this! Let's Sing and shout with joy to God. This is active, not passive. It's passionate, not apathetic. We make the intentional choice to sing and shout for joy to the Lord! Think about how powerful this is: we can have a boatload of thoughts that run through our heads... but there's an added punch to what comes out of our mouths. We see the power of this when we are confronted with injustice and we respond: "I just had to say something!" Or when we are blown away by someone's unexpected kindness... "I just had to thank you." There is real significance to what we give our voices to. ● In the same way - when we are captured by God's goodness and greatness, it is natural for us to give voice to our response of worship. ● We sing, we shout, we speak up and speak out. Here's a few items on what can that look like: ● I encourage you to actually sing in church. That's still a bit muted right now with us wearing masks, but there is power in giving your voice to worshipping God. The words that come out of your mouth help the truths you're singing about to burrow their way into your heart. And even if you're out of tune... it's a joyful noise to the Lord. ● Worship in song at home / on your own. Screen Shot This is one of the great things about our day and age... you don't have to own hundreds of cassette tapes or CD's. There are endless amounts of worship music to listen to and engage with online. Plug for the new Vineyard Worship 24/7 stream on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music. ● But as we touched on earlier, worship is so much more than music. In Philippians 4:4, we read this: "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice." In any (and every) kind of situation we find ourselves, there is real impact in choosing to rejoice in God. ● To re-joice is like hitting the re-set button on life. (BUTTON IMAGE) We turn away from whatever else can be capturing our attention or our affections, and we turn to God - saying. "Lord, you are my focus. God, you are the one I look to. Jesus - you are the one I'm listening to and following in every area of my life." Here is the next bit of instruction from Ps 95: Give God thanks and praise Remember the pictures I showed you earlier about what we teach in VKids "God, we love you & we thank you." V2 gives us the same direction: Let us come before him with thanksgiving and praise him with music and song. Here's another item our kids pastors - Becca and Steph shared with me the other day. They often ask older students: if God is completely sufficient, lacking nothing, what could we ever give God? (Christmas ???) ● We can give God our worship. That's what He desires most. ● We worship God from our hearts and with our whole lives. Here's how the Apostle Paul describes that in his letter to the Ephesians ● Don't be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. (PRAISE) And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Eph 5:18-20 With that in mind - here are a few practical ideas on giving thanks and praise to God from our hearts. ● This past week in one of my small groups, a good friend was talking about the gratitude journal that he has kept for about a decade. Each night before he goes to bed, he simply writes down things that he is thankful for from that day. When he first started this practice, it was a challenge to come up with the minimum requirement of "3 things to be thankful for today." But over time, he has conditioned himself to see dozens upon dozens of things each day to be grateful for. And that has had a tremendous positive impact in his life. Thankfulness in general has been helpful (it's better than being bitter). But pointing that thankfulness to God does even more. You might pick up that practice of a gratitude journal. ● Similarly, you could explore ancient practice of the daily examen, where you review your day with the question: "where did I see God today?" You might immediately remember a way that God intervened in your day and you can be thankful for that. Or as you pause, you might recall God's presence in a moment where you didn't originally notice it. If you want to learn more about that practice... you can look up some videos on YouTube that a Vineyard friend of ours, Dan Wilt recorded. Dan Wilt - Daily Examen. Great stuff. There are times when gratitude just overflows from our hearts and lips. But, let's be honest, there are other times when it is not that easy. The Scriptures also talk about giving God a "sacrifice of praise." Here's what that can look like: Even though you don't fully "feel it" in the moment, you make the choice to worship God. You worship your way through the wilderness, through the valley. You worship God in the midst of deep grief. This isn't in-authentic... it's about choosing a truth that is higher than your present emotions and experiences. This practice has been transformative in my life, particularly as I have processed significant losses. At times, it felt impossible to say or sing the words out loud and so I just listened. And at other times, I gave voice to worshipping God, even if it was through a face full of tears. Even this past week, offering God a sacrifice of praise was so powerful, as I worked through a difficult situation and I battled some anger. I was not feeling like praising God, but another friend from small group texted me a Psalm that helped me remember who God is as the Great King (much like we talked about early in the message). I spent time praising God for that being true, even though I wasn't 100% feeling it at the time. Those are a few examples: Where does this hit home for you today? Is there thankfulness that has been bubbling up in you, that you simply need to direct specifically to God? Or maybe you're in a tough spot right now, or facing some big challenges. Could God be inviting you to offer "a sacrifice of praise" even before you are fully feeling it? Whatever the case, I'd encourage you to take that step this morning. Bow down and kneel before God ● Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. (v. 6) There is so much in this one verse. First, Bowing down and kneeling before the Lord are postures of vulnerability and surrender. They are ways to say "You're God and I'm not - and my whole life belongs to you." It's interesting - right after this - there are a few more verses that finish Psalm 95... focused on the choice between cultivating either a soft heart or a hardened heart. Worship is key to having our hearts in the right spots. Worship is a doorway for us to enter into God's presence and experience his rest. But there's more here in this verse. It's worth highlighting the physicality of worship that is described here. Again, v. 6 talks about bowing down and kneeling before the Lord. Other parts of the Psalms talk about raising our hands in prayer, clapping our hands, singing & dancing before the Lord. We don't just think about God; we use our physical bodies to engage with God. The Apostle Paul picks up on these themes in his letter to the Romans. In view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1 ● Worship is meant to encompass the entirety of who we are - including our bodies. And often, intentionally engaging our bodies in worship can help kick start other expressions of worship in us. This posture of bowing down, kneeling before the Lord also points to the expressions of worship that we read about in the book of Revelation. At the end of time, when God's kingdom has come in all its fullness, the picture we get is of people from every tribe, tongue and nation bowing in worship before Jesus. For all eternity, we will worship Jesus because he has rescued us from sin, death and the power of the enemy. By his blood, Jesus has welcomed us right into God's presence, and our natural and ongoing response is to worship. To say - Only you Jesus are worthy! Those expressions of worship don't have to wait until heaven. We can start right here and now. Along those lines... here is what we're going to do to finish up today's message. We're actually going to take a specific step to respond to God in worship, drawing from some of the things we've been talking about this morning. ● Invite band up and invite people to stand ● Going to read a portion of a Psalm together... giving our voices to this ● Then, we're going to sing a song of worship in response. ● Again, worship is so much more than music, but music is often like a jump start to other forms of worship in our lives. Psalm 103:1-5 Bless the Lord, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, And do not forget any of His benefits; Who pardons all your sins; Who heals all your diseases; Who redeems your life from the pit, Who crowns you with favor and compassion; Who satisfies your years with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle. Bless the Lord, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name. Ministry Time: 3 Images ● Image of someone with a whole bunch of poker chips... at first, this immense struggle to give over one chip at a time. But eventually... they push the whole pile in.... This is worth everything that I am and that I have. (Surrender to God) ● Reset button... brand new start ○ First time commitment to Jesus ○ Others... you know that you've been allowing your attention, affections and ambitions to be dominated by other things. Reset on putting God first in your life. ● Unlock worship