Sermon Tone Analysis

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.