Text: Psalm 96
AN INVITATION TO WORSHIP
This is an invitation to worship God. If we could take this Psalm and put it in an envelope you would read your name printed on the outside of the envelope - for God always deals with us personally. It wouldn't be your spouse's name, it wouldn't be your child's name - they would get their own invitation. It would be your name on the outside of the envelope. And when you received it and opened it you would read, "You are cordially invited to worship God the King"
This is what the Psalmist says,
It is an invitation to worship God. Do you see the verbs - sing, bless (or praise) tell, declare? They are worship verbs. You are cordially invited to sing to Him a new song - for His mercies are new every day. To tell of His salvation day after day - for each new day brings a fresh experience of His salvation and shows again our worlds need for His salvation. To declare the awesomeness of God for the world is in desperate need to be rescued for our small, puny conceptions of God. Indeed, all of this is the essence of worship to recount the salvation of God and celebrate the awesomeness of God. And you are invited. You are invited to worship God the King. But you may say, "Who is this king? Who invites me to worship Him? Is he worth worshipping?" And that is a good question because it gets to the heart of worship. To worship something is to declare its worth. Some people worship their children - that is their children are of supreme worth. Some people worship money - which means that they attach a great deal of worth to dollars and cents. But we are invited to worship God the King. So we ask, "Who is this king? Is He worth worshipping?" And the Psalmist replies, "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised." It was Charles Spurgeon who said that our praise should be proportionate to the object. If the object is small and of no consequence then so the praise. Since our Lord is so great, let your praise of Him be infinite, let it be great - realize that you cannot praise God too much, or too often, or too zealously, or too carefully, or too joyfully. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. But the question persists is - is it worth worshipping God? After all, there are lots of gods in this world to choose from why not worship one of them? And the Psalmist says, "He is to be revered above all gods. The gods of the peoples are idols but the Lord made the heavens." Is God worth worshipping? The Psalmist says, "Yes, Yes!" Look at your options, says the Psalmist. All the other gods are idols - they are mere nothings. They are mere idols. As you read through the books of the Old Testament prophets you see a recurring theme - they make fun of idols. And they always seem to be scratching their heads in bewilderment at those who worship idols and say, "You actually worship that?" Read Isaiah and at one point he says to the people incredulously, "Do you realize that you actually have to nail your idol down to keep it from falling over? What kind of god is that?" And in another place he points out the incongruity of it all, saying, "you take a limb from a tree and with part of that limb you carve the idol and from the rest of that limb you throw on the fire and cook your dinner! How special is that?” Is God worthy to be worshipped? Yes, a thousand times yes! For He was not made by human hands, He was not formed by our imaginations, He was not created by craftsmen. NO! he is the living God who made the heavens itself. What has an idol ever done? Nothing. Isaiah at one point even asks the idols to do something - anything, either good or bad. But nothing happens. Because they cannot. In the Psalmists day the idols were made of wood and stone, they were tangible. The idols in our day may not be so obvious or so tangible but they are just as prevalent and just as worthless. In our day we have made an idol of youthfulness, we have made an idol of good looks. We have made an idol of celebrity status. Do you know the highest rated show on television these days? “American Idol”. This show is so popular that the Ford Motor Company has committed a 20 million-dollar ad campaign to run during “American Idol” to boost its profile. It's a reality show where 20-25 year olds display their talent before a panel of judges, with the hopes of being the next big star, the next big idol, a person revered and adored by thousands of screaming fans. The show is aptly named “American Idol” - mere nothings. Fake, useless and powerless. In a survey done recently it was shown that the top ten finalists from last year's show have done nothing! The final winner - Kelly I think it was - the one proclaimed as the “American Idol” - has done nothing. To be sure she had initial success, but that was with a song that she did not write or compose. Is God worth our worship? O yes! Look at all there is in this world to worship. Look at all that we sometime mistakenly bow down to and see their emptiness, the sheer nothingness of the idols of this world. Then look at the qualities of the living God. Don't rush take your time and see His honour and majesty. Look at His regal qualities. All the pomp and all the pageantry of Buckingham Palace are nothing compared to the honor and majesty that belong to the living God. All the qualities of a true king are in Him. All the qualities that make you catch your breath. Not only honour and majesty but also strength and beauty fill His sanctuary. He holds both qualities in perfect balance. All strength is His to be sure, a mere word from Him and whole mountains are raised up. A mere flex of His powerful right arm and whole nations are brought low. And all beauty is His. Beauty does not come from a single attribute but a whole combination of attributes. There is His majesty, but not just His majesty, but His holiness too. And not just His holiness but His strength. And not just His majesty and holiness and strength but His grace. All combine in perfect unity in Him and mirrored so wonderfully and completely in our Lord Jesus Christ. Think of what you worship in life. My friends there is nothing more worthy of your worship than the living God. There is nothing more worthy for you to give your life to than the God in whose hands is honour, majesty, strength and beauty. Psalm 96 is an invitation for you to worship God the King. Is He worthy? O yes! Well you may ask, "What shall I bring?" And this is a good question too. Because worship is not about receiving, but giving. True worship is about our response to God, who has revealed His majesty, His strength and His beauty to us. The Psalmist, the invitation tells us what we should bring, “Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the nations, 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 holy splendour.” What shall we bring? Bring an offering. For this is true worship. True worship is an active response - it is where we declare His worth. Worship is not a mood but is a response; it is not a feeling but a declaration. Our God is king. So bring an offering. Bring an offering of praise, for here is the God who lives. Here is the God who has rescued you through the death and resurrection of His Son. Bring an offering of adoration. Allow yourself to see His majesty, His strength and His beauty. Fall down before Him and adore Him, for who He is, the living God who made the heavens. Bring an offering of your life for anything less would be an insult to such a great God. Don't hold anything back - bring your entire life, give your whole self to Him in submission to Him. Bring an offering - do I dare say, bring a material offering, for fear that that is all you hear and think that is all God wants from you. Nothing could be further from the truth - He wants the whole of you, He wants your life to be lived in obedience to Him. Without that your offerings are useless but to say we live in obedience to Him and to hold back our material offering would be an insult. Your material offering is to be a response to His majesty, to His saving grace in your life. That is why we don't take up a collection. It is not a collection for church projects and expenses and ministries. It is not a collection – it is an offering. It is a response to the beauty of God, to His greatness and strength, to His salvation. The offering is always an act of worship in which the people of God express their devotion and love for Him. It's not that God needs your offerings. That's not the point! You don't have to give Him anything. You can hold on tight to your spiritual gifts and abilities; you can hold on tight to your time; you can hold on tight to your soul; you can hold on tight to your material goods. It is that we give these as an OFFERING, out of a response to who He is. And may our response be great for He has done great things in our lives, He has loved us with an undying love, He is enthroned in heaven and He is worthy to be worshipped. It's not that you have to bring an offering. Listen, here is a principle I learned about preaching that I think applies also to giving an offering to God. A Wesleyan evangelist from Georgia named Eddie Fox taught me this - he said its not that we pastors have to preach. He said to us, "If anyone says to you – ‘Pastor, do you have to preach on Sunday morning?’ you say, ‘No I don't have to - I get to!’ ” There's all the difference in the world in those responses, for one is an obligation and the other is a great privilege. One is arm-twisting; the other is a response of love. My friends we don't have to bring an offering, we get to! It's not an obligation, it's a privilege. It's not arm-twisting, it's a response of love and adoration. It is an act of worship toward Him who is worthy. So let your offerings, the offering of your time, the offering of your soul, the offering of your praise, the offering of your gifts and abilities, the offering of your material goods be a reflection of His worth to you. Let your offerings show Him the depth of your love for Him. But not only an offering but bring Him your worship. Again, we worship God not because we feel like it but because worship is His due. "Worship God in holy splendour" says the text. The NIV reads that we are to worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness, that is, bow down before His beauty and His awesome purity. And tremble before Him all the earth. Realize that you are worshipping the great God. Let's do away with ideas that pull God down to our level, and make Him our good buddy. Get it into your heart and mind that we are worshipping the Creator of the universe. The one who holds it all together. And let the awesome fact sink in that we actually have the privilege of calling Him "Abba, Father". An invitation to worship. Is he worthy? Yes! What shall we bring? Bring an offering, bring your worship. And then this, what will we discover? This really is the grace of our Lord. We are called to give in worship, but we end up receiving more than we ever give. What will we receive? We will receive a vision of the greatness of God. Isn't this strange, because it is a vision of the greatness of God that motivated us to worship in the first place. But then we worship Him we discover that He is greater than we first believed and there seems to be no end to His greatness. So we say in worship - The Lord is King. We discover even deeper truths about God, even greater wonders about God, even more spectacular beauty about God. There is no end to God and just when we think we have reached the border in our discovery, we find that there is a whole new territory to experience and relish. But not only a vision of the greatness of God but a role in the mission of God. Say among the nations, The Lord is King. This is not only an affirmation it is an assertion. This is one of the great results of worship as we bow before His holiness and see again His honour, His majesty, His strength and His beauty we realize there is a part for me to play there is a role for me in His mission. His kingship needs to be known in all the nations. Of course we know we cannot say the Lord is King. We must demonstrate His kingship in our lives - in our priorities, in our commitments - otherwise our profession will mean little. The Lord reigns. He is King. Then of course worship is not an event but a lifestyle. But also we are given, through worship an assurance of the victory of God. The world is firmly established it shall never be moved. The good news is that God in Christ has taken the throne and those who know Christ as Lord and Saviour know that nothing can separate them from His love. Nothing can snatch us out of His hand, nothing can steal the victory that is ours in Christ for in Christ we can do all things. Not even the gates of hell can stand against His people as they move forward in faith. So Jesus says, “To be sure in this world you will have trials and difficulties but do not fear for I have overcome the world.” "He will judge the peoples with equity." The whole passage speaks of the victory of God. Evil, slander, malice, hatred, anger and violence will all be vanquished for the Lord is coming. He will judge the earth; He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with His truth. And all of creation that has witnessed the fall and the bondage of humanity will shout for joy before the Lord. This morning you have received an invitation to worship God the King. Is He worthy? Yes! What shall I bring? Bring an offering, bring your worship What will I receive? A vision of the greatness of God. An understanding of your role in the mission of God, an assurance of the victory of God. There is in this an RSVP inherent in the psalm. Do you have to accept the invitation to worship God? Do you have to accept it? No. But the question then you must answer is "Why would you ever miss it?" Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - January 2003
|