O Worship The Lord
Delivered on February 5, 2006
By
The Rev. Dr. W. Maynard Pittendreigh
Senior Pastor
Mpittendreigh@goodshepherdpc.org
Psalm 24:1-10
1 The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;
2 for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.
3 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.
5 He will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from God his Savior.
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob.
7 Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.
9 Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
10 Who is he, this King of glory? The LORD Almighty-- he is the King of glory.
With the recent tragedies of mining accidents, I came across an interesting story in a recent newspaper. Many years ago a visitor to Pennsylvania was out for a walk and he noticed that in that small mining community the fields were absolutely full of mules. He saw a young child and asked why the fields were so full of mules.
The child explained that these were mine mules. They worked in the mines during the week and were brought up on Sundays to keep from going blind.
Not a bad reason to be in church on Sundays after spending a week in cultural darkness and moral blindness. Worship can help us keep and/or recover our spiritual sight.
But we don’t think about how to worship nearly enough. And that is why I want us to look at Psalm 24 today.
It is wonderful that we did not read the Old Testament lesson for today, but instead we sang it – because Psalm 24 was not meant to be read. It was meant to be sung.
We have been studying the Book of Psalms. This is the hymnal of the Bible – the prayer book. Our banner reminds us of the wide variety of different types of Psalms. There are Prayers of Confession, Praise, Thanksgiving, Laments – and there are also Psalms that focus specifically on worship.
Now in a sense, all of the psalms have to do with worship, but some are specifically to be used in community worship, and when we look at these psalms, we can learn a great deal about what God expects of us in our worship.
Psalm 24 is a worship psalm that the congregation would begin singing as they walked up the hill and into the sanctuary. Their worship would actually begin outside, in the world, and would begin as they started their journey to the Temple.
It started with a hymn of praise, in which the congregation would praise God for who He is.
Community Worship Needs To Be God-Centered
First and foremost, worship needs to have that God-Centered element to it.
It is unfortunate, but many times our worship has become self-centered.
It’s all about us, not about God.
What do we think about when we start worship? As we get into our cars and drive to church, why are we coming here?
Sometimes it is all about us.
We think in terms of “I need to be blessed” rather than, “I need to bless God.”
But in the Bible, the Worship Psalms always start with a focus on God.
Our Old Testament Lesson today begins, “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.”
Parents – have you ever tried to get your children into the car to come to church and met with resistance? They squirm and wiggle and then they start insisting that they want to stay home. And when you say, “We’re going to church,” they respond with “Why?”
Teenagers – have you ever been in bed and enjoyed the opportunity to sleep late – and you want to sleep even later – but Mom and Dad are telling you to come to worship and you lay there thinking, “Why?”
In all honesty, that is not a bad question at all. It is a wonderful question to ask.
Why worship God?
In an episode of The Simpsons Homer is asked a similar question. He replies, "God is very powerful, but also very insecure.”
NO! We don’t worship God because he is insecure and desperately needs attention in the form of worship.
The opening lines of Psalm 24 provide an answer.
It might not be the answer you are wanting.
In our culture, we might be looking for self-centered reasons to worship God.
“We want to feel good.” Nothing wrong with that – and hopefully, that will be one of the results of worship, but that is not the reason we worship God.
“We want to be blessed – we want God to heal us, give us a job, lead us to the winning ticket to the lottery – “ Nope, those are not reasons to worship God.
We come not of ourselves, but of God.
Reformed theologian John Calvin says that “seeing that God creates and preserves the world by his providence and power is evidence that God deserves to be worshiped.”
Do you want to know why we worship? Take a look at the photographs that have been taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, then read Psalm 19 – “The heavens declare the glory of God.”
Do you want to know why we worship? Look around your home, at the birds and butterflies, the trees and the changing of the seasons. God has created a wonderful universe, and that means he deserves our worship.
Community Worship Needs to Involve Everyone
Our community’s worship needs to be God-Centered, but that does not mean it does not need people! Of course we need to be involved in worship – not as the center focus, but as the participants.
Verse three of Psalm 24 asks the question WHO? Who may worship? “Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place?”
And the answer that comes back is again something we might not want to hear.
Let’s read verse 4 to find the answer: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.”
OK. How many here have spiritually clean hands and a pure heart?
And before you answer that, let me remind you of what St. Paul said in the New Testament: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
Well, that doesn’t sound very good.
Imagine how this psalm was originally used. The congregation is gathered outside the Temple. The Temple is on a hill, and the people begin to march up the hill. As they march, they sing praises to God. Then the song asks, “Who can ascend this hill and enter the Sanctuary,” and the singers continue with, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart.”
So is this when the music stops and everyone goes home? No. The music continues with even more enthusiasm and the singers sing out in verse 7: “Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.”
You see, we are not worthy to enter the Sanctuary and worship God, but God wants our worship and it is through the worthiness of Christ the King that we are allowed to enter and worship.
This is God’s Sanctuary, not ours. We come into worship by the grace of God. He deserves to be here, we don’t – but he invites us in to worship Him.
Community Worship Should Have a Quality of Excellence
Worship should be God-Centered.
Worship should involve our participation.
And worship also needs excellence.
We are gathered together to worship God Almighty, and He deserves the best quality worship we can provide.
In the King James Version of the Bible, there are several Psalms that speak of singing to the God in terms of “making a joyful noise.”
Psalm 95 says, “O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.”
In my last pastorate, when we added a Contemporary Worship, we had trouble putting together a praise band. What we put together was a group of people who could sing and play instruments, but they did not have the time to practice – so they didn’t sound as well as they might. Perhaps I should say, “they didn’t sound that good.”
Actually, I should just come right out and say, they really sounded terrible.
The name of their group? “The Joyful Noise.”
That was a reference to several of the psalms as translated in the King James Version that encourages people to make a joyful noise to the Lord. But in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament writers, the word “noise” has nothing to do with quality or the lack of it – the word has to do with volume. In other words, the music should be LOUD and enthusiastic.
And yet, we sometimes use this phrase as an excuse to become sloppy in our worship. And lazy.
But if God deserve to be worshipped, he deserves the best quality of worship we are able to provide.
Psalm 33:3 says, “Sing to him a new song; play skillfully…”
The very context of Psalm 24 is a skillful production, with careful choreography of a march up a hill and into the Temple.
How many of us put any effort toward making worship meaningful to God?
Valentine’s Day is coming up soon – how many of you will be sloppy about the plans you make? How many of you will take your spouse or date to a McDonalds and say, “Hey, it’s the thought that counts?”
Or how many students would show up for a test and not study – actually, that was me in high school. In college I learned to love the academic life and did very well, but in high school I was lazy. And believe me, it is better to study and prepare.
Do we prepare for worship?
Do we join in the singing?
Do we keep our focus on God during the prayers?
Worship should be done with excellence. The worship we offer to God should have quality. And yet we often offer a sloppy worship to God.
We don’t prepare our hearts.
We don’t focus on God.
We don’t sing out with joy.
We don’t open our hearts to the prayers, the reading of Scriptures or the message.
Copyright 2006, The Rev. Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.com
