“Worshipping the Lord”
A sermon on God’s Purpose for the church to worship God
by Pastor Ron Trimmer
July 1, 2007
Matthew 22:34-40
34When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Psalm 92:1-4
1It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; 2to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, 3to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. 4For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
Psalm 95:1-7
1O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! 2Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! 3For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 4In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. 5The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed. 6O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! 7For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice!
Psalm 66:1-4
1Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; 2sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise. 3Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you. 4All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you, sing praises to your name.”
Psalm 118:24
This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Worshipping the Lord
We know we are to worship the Lord, in all thanksgiving, to magnify the name of the Lord in all glory, majesty, and power, to declare our love, our devotion, our faithfulness to our Creator, our God, our Lord.
It is right and good to give God thanks and praise! Amen!
For the month of July, each Sunday I will be commenting on our purpose as a church. With Three Apart here today, I thought what better time than this to talk about worship, about our call as a community of faith to declare, celebrate, and sing praises to our God. It pleased me that when the congregational surveys on purpose came back, two of the statements virtually tied for the most important thing a church is called to do: 1) to teach the Bible and about God and Jesus Christ and 2) to praise God. Often, when people think about church, we think about Sunday morning, about our time together as a community of faith, worshipping the Lord, singing songs, listening to the Word, praying to our Lord, celebrating the Lord’s Supper—to feel the Holy Spirit in our midst, together, and to respond to God’s call upon our lives. It is important to worship, but more than that, our worship of God is one way we declare our love for our Lord.
The short passage from the Gospel of Matthew bears this out, a passage which is also present in Mark and Luke. After being asked a question about which commandment was the greatest, Jesus answers: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
You shall love the Lord your God with all your being. Everything that you are; everything that you will ever be, you are to give to God. Your love, your being, your very soul—the Lord wants it all, and we are to place God first in our lives, always.
Of course, Jesus goes on to say that there is a second commandment which follows up on our love to God. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Now, my friends, I happen to think that a church must be about much more than Sunday worship. Scripture in general and this verse in particular bear that out, and we will look at this more closely in the next few weeks as we examine our call to minister and be of service not just to each other as we support one another but also to our community and to our world, to reach out with love and mercy and to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We’ll also talk about our calling to teach folks about Jesus Christ, our God, and all that is in God’s Holy Word, and how we have an obligation and responsibility to help and nurture folks upon their faith journey, from infancy and through adolescence to our adult life and our old age. We’ll talk about being that light on the hill for all to see, to be open and welcoming, to be reaching out with love with an invitation to find a new life, a redeemed life, a righteous life.
But all that being said, we are still called to sing praises to our God and to worship the Lord in all God’s glory.
So what do you think about when you consider worship? What does it mean to worship God? And what are the elements of faithful worship? One must note that through the ages, Christians have worshiped God in a variety of ways, and in the last twenty years or so, there has been a revival of finding new and exciting ways to worship God. So what do we do in worship? What is worship all about?
· Singing hymns
· Prayers
· Thanksgiving
· Listening to the Word
· Responding to the Word
What needs to be in there? What is optional?
First of all, worship is an expression of our love for God. We sing praises; we offer prayers; we declare that God is good and faithful and full of blessing! We express our thanksgiving.
Second, worship is corporate. “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus said, “there I am among them.” Although you can pray to God in private, even declare your praise to God or sing all by yourself, God has called us to come together for worship, cause there is something powerful about being together with other believers—a power, a presence, a Spirit that binds us to one another.
Three, worship is one of the ways we celebrate the Lord’s Holy Word. God is still speaking! As one of forefathers, John Robinson a pilgrim, said, “God hath yet more light and truth to break forth from God’s Holy Word.” It’s the old, old story of God’s new, new love! Something would be missing from worship if we didn’t read Scripture, wouldn’t it? And it is such a humbling task of a preacher to offer the Word of God, to comment on the Scripture, to try and connect it to our everyday lives: to comfort, inspire, and at times declare a prophetic Word from God.
I think about the elements of worship:
· Songs and music—music can stir the soul in a way mere words cannot, and it can be a lot of fun too. I think of praise and thanksgiving and celebrating what God has done in our lives, from everything in the past to the present to trusting that God will always be with us.
· I think of times of confession. For me, this is an integral part of faithful worship, for it helps us to remain humble and with a proper orientation on God. We all stand in need of forgiveness, and there is something powerful about realizing our shortcomings in a corporate manner.
· But of course, just as we always have confession, we must always be reminded of God’s unconditional and steadfast love for us. The Lord, through the grace of Jesus Christ, offers us forgiveness and mercy, again and again. It’s who God is, and who God will always be.
· I’ve already commented on the Word, as we hear God’s story and see how it interacts with our own, and see how and what God is calling us to do and be. The Word brings comfort, assurance, love, grace, inspiration, purpose and vision, and of course challenge, cause God’s Word always calls us to be more than we are.
· And at times, we celebrate the Sacraments and other rites, as we see how the Still Speaking God continues to intersect our lives, whether surrounding the new life of an infant baptized, the death of a loved one, or remembering Christ’s passion—it is all important and faithful.
· There must be prayer: not only times of confession and thanksgiving, but also reflection, perhaps even silence. To feel the Holy Spirit, to feel God’s presence, within us, around us. To truly listen for God’s still small voice. And to offer petitions to God, for our community and the world, for our church, for those we love, that we all might find healing and wholeness.
· And there must be a response: an offering, a sending forth, a renewal and new awakening. We are called to be a new people. It might be the old, old story we tell every week, but God’s grace is as new as the next dawn and as important as our next breath.
Of course, through worship we hope folks are “fed” on some basic level: to experience the life-giving presence of our God. As someone has said, evangelism is simply one beggar telling another beggar where to find food. We hope and pray that our worship feeds and nourishes, bringing drink to a thirsty soul.
Finally, I do want to make one last comment about worship, which shall lead us in the coming weeks. According to the ancient Hebrew, the word for worship is taken from the same word for service or even to “be a slave to”. Thus, to worship God is to serve God, to give over your entire being in service to our Lord.
May we all worship the Lord our God, with faithfulness, with purpose and passion and love. Amen.
1