February 15, 2009
Sermon by: Robert Austell
download (click, then choose "save to disk" for playback on computer or iPod, or play sermon live in this window below) **Sermon audio is also accessible as a free podcast in iTunes - search for "Good Shepherd Sermons or Robert Austell"**Shout joyfully to God all the earth; sing the glory of His name; make His praise glorious. (Ps. 66:2)
We have finally arrived at the aspect of worship that is most commonly connected to worship – praise. Worship is about praising God and today we are going to look at two key passages to try to better understand what it means to praise God.
I put “worship as praise” here in the series because it is important to understand how rich and all-encompassing biblical worship is when we come to the act of praising God. We need to understand that we were made to worship. We need to understand that worship involves our response to God through serving, obeying, yielding, and loving God. We need to understand worship isn’t a thing we do at a specified time, but is our entire life – who we are – lived before God privately and publicly. We are God’s artwork, made to bring glory to God even as an artist’s work honors the name of the artist. (Likewise, we can dishonor our Creator’s name – that’s the opposite of worship.)
Today we are going to focus on praise and how our worship brings honor to God’s name (and to God). We will also see that this worship principle stretches from beginning to end, from the Psalms of ancient Israel to a scene of eternity in Heaven before the throne of God.
Turn with me to Psalm 66 and we’ll begin with this invitation to make God’s praise glorious.
Make His Praise Glorious (Psalm 66)
Well because God is God and He made everything and is all-wise and all-knowing, God is worthy of praise. You know that, and there are all kinds of ways to praise God – when we pray, when we sing, when we serve God. It is right and appropriate to praise God in private, in your heart, in your thoughts and your prayers. But as we have seen, worship is primarily a public activity, and this Psalm bears that out in its description of praise.
This Psalm specifically describes praising God publicly, that is, pointing to God and thanking God and worshiping God in a way others can see. Not a showy way, a self-righteous way, but in a way that honors God, that gets His name out. That is our mission, as children of God, as followers of Christ, and as Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church – to get God’s name out, the famous one, all over the earth.
What this Psalm does is not only say, “That’s what you’re supposed to do.” It also gives us an example of that. You’ll see there, if you follow along, in verses 3-4, that the Psalmist engages in praise. He writes, “Say to God, ‘How awesome are your works’.” That’s an act of praise; it’s out loud, something people can hear or see. Then, in verse 4 he gets to “and all the earth will worship you.” That’s what’s on his heart – praising God in a way that is public, so that the entire world might see God.
The rest of the Psalm does something we have talked about regularly – telling God’s story and telling our story. There are two clear sections. First, in verses 5-8, the Psalmist tells God’s story. He’s says, “This is who God is.” He’s singing about it – that’s what a Psalm is. He’s telling the story musically. Then, in the rest of the Psalm, verses 9 to the end, he’s says, “This is what that God has done in my life.” Though we didn’t read those verses out loud, look at them now and I’ll point to some key highlights.
A. Telling God’s Story – vv. 5, 8
God’s story is the broad story of God’s love, power, mercy, and salvation, written large through the history of the world and recorded in scripture. It is described in verses 5-8, where we are to call people to “come and see” (v. 5):
Come and see the works of God, who is awesome in His deeds toward the sons of men.
It’s that lighthouse idea. “Come with me to church. Let’s go to this worship service at my church, or this Bible study, and hear about this God. The pastor seems to like to talk about it. Come around the scripture and the story of who God is and what He’s done.”
And look; the Psalmist gives an example of how to do that. In verses 6-8, he’s telling God’s story, first about the crossing of the Red Sea, then about the next generation coming through the Jordan River into the Promised Land:
He turned the sea into dry land …they passed through the river on foot
In remembering those events the Psalmist is saying, “This is God – God who delivers from slavery into freedom, from death into life. This is the Deliverer and Savior, the Rescuer. That’s God!” He is publicly telling God’s story. Listen to verse 8:
Bless our God, O peoples, and sound His praise abroad… (vv. 6-8)
Let’s tell God’s story. THIS is the God of the Bible. Then, the Psalmist turns and says, “Now I’m going to tell you the story of what God has done in my life.” It’s more personal, more specific. He’s doing it as if he is one of that group who crossed through the Jordan.
B. Telling My Story – v. 16
In verse 16, the Psalmist writes:
God you’ve tried us… you’ve tested us… you’ve refined us… you’ve brought us into the net. You laid an oppressive burden upon our loins. (vv. 10-11)
He is talking about a pretty miserable event in the life of God’s people. It’s a euphemism – “you laid an oppressive burden upon our loins.” In Joshua 5, right after God parted the Jordan River and they came into the Promised Land, all that stood between the Israelites and the Promised Land were these Canaanite people. And first was the city of Jericho, there with the walls.
Well the first thing God told them to do after they crossed the Jordan – because this was a new generation that had not followed the Law and been circumcised – he had all the men in the camp be circumcised. That’s the oppressive burden upon their loins. And then they were to go fight. That doesn’t work! It was nonsensical. God crippled them just as they were supposed to go take this land. And remember the story of Jericho? They walked around, sang, and shouted, and the walls fell down. They were so weak, so limited by this act of obedience, the circumcision, there could be no doubt that God took Jericho for them. There’s no way they could do it; God did it!
So the Psalmist is saying, “Even there in this situation of such crippling weakness, now I can look back and see God right in the middle of that.”
He goes on in verse 12 to describe other events recorded in Joshua (ch. 7):
You made men ride over our heads…then we went through fire and water… He’s brought us into a place of abundance.
After the defeat of Jericho, one man stole some of the gold of Jericho against God’s express orders and God brought consequences on the whole people of Israel. They collectively had to endure those consequences, repent, and come clean with God. With specific references, this Psalm points to those events as illustrative of his story. These are representative stories for us as well. Each of us has sinned against God and endured the consequences of our own choices. We are in different places of denial, repentance, and restoration. These are our stories of our own dealings with God.
The Psalmist comes down to verse 16, which is really the key verse of this whole Psalm. It says, “Come and hear; come and see. I not only want to tell you about the Great God and His story of deliverance and salvation, I want to tell you what He’s done for me.”
And where the Psalm ends up is saying, “In all of that – the highs the lowest lows, when I was faithful and when I was unfaithful – God was there and that is the God I want to hold out to you.” And he describes God in the last few verses as merciful, a listening God, a forgiving God, and a loving God. This is the power of telling our story – it is that same God who has loved, chastened, forgiven, and healed us.
This telling of God’s story and our story is basic evangelism, but even evangelism is an act of worship because ultimately it is not about me converting or saving one, it is about me pointing to the God who saves. That’s what this Psalm is saying: that act of pointing to the God who saves is an act of worship or praise.
Giving God the Credit (Revelation 5)
Let’s turn now to Revelation 5, another Psalm or song offered as worship and praise. This one is sung to Jesus Christ. He is the "Lamb that was slain" because he was the perfect and innocent man put to death on the cross for the sins of the world. In his death, people from every tribe, tongue, and nation are brought into the kingdom of God. The very multitude that sings in Heaven owes their presence there to Jesus Christ.
Again…. we acknowledge that Christ is worthy of praise. But do we give him the praise he is worth? The song goes on to describe Christ as worthy to receive power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and praise. In other words, Christ is worth everything! Then the song continues, declaring God who sits on the throne and the Lamb that was slain as worthy to receive eternal glory, power, honor, and praise. This is the same triune God, described here as enthroned God and slain Lamb, who accomplishes our salvation - to whom salvation belongs. And the heart of this song is that this God is worthy of our thanks and praise.
It's as straightforward as a scene from Jesus' life. Once, when he miraculously healed ten lepers, only one stopped to thank him. This song of heaven is this scene set to music and sung before the company of heaven. God, in Christ, has accomplished our salvation, and is worthy of our thankful response and praise.
Yet, do we first thank and praise God when things go right, or even when we have been "miraculously" delivered from some ordeal? Human as ever, we tend to see what credit we can claim or assign to a more tangible source. Good Christians even will credit "fate" with sparing them in a car accident rather than thanking God.
It should not be so! That is the spiritual version of biting the hand that feeds us. Incorporating praise into our daily lives will mean consciously remembering to give God thanks for each breath, for blessings and salvation, even for trials and difficulties.
If Psalm 66 was about telling God’s story and telling our story, Revelation 5 is about giving God the credit (or praise) He deserves. And each of these is primarily a public act. That’s what praise is – it is pointing to God’s glorious greatness in all the ways that we are able.
Worship, Worship Everywhere
I hope that these sermons have made it clear that worship involves every aspect of our lives. We’ve been talking about being a lighthouse and a searchlight for Jesus for several years now, and it’s easy to think about lighthouse as worship in here and searchlight as mission out there. Instead, ALL of it is an act of worship.
All that we say or do is an opportunity to worship God through service, obedience, yielding, love, humility, community, and praise.
You were made to worship, created as a piece of art by the glorious God who has made Himself known to us. Tell your story; tell God’s story; give God the credit, honor, and praise, and you will make His praise glorious! Amen.
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