Exodus 15:1-21
1 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD: “I will sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea. 2 The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. 3 The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name. 4 Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea. 5 The deep waters have covered them; they sank to the depths like a stone. 6 “Your right hand, O LORD, was majestic in power. Your right hand, O LORD, shattered the enemy. 7 In the greatness of your majesty you threw down those who opposed you. You unleashed your burning anger; it consumed them like stubble. 8 By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up. The surging waters stood firm like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea. 9 “The enemy boasted, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake them. I will divide the spoils; I will gorge myself on them. I will draw my sword and my hand will destroy them.’ 10 But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. 11 “Who among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is like you— majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? 12 You stretched out your right hand and the earth swallowed them. 13 “In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling. 14 The nations will hear and tremble; anguish will grip the people of Philistia. 15 The chiefs of Edom will be terrified, the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling, the people of Canaan will melt away; 16 terror and dread will fall upon them. By the power of your arm they will be as still as a stone— until your people pass by, O LORD, until the people you bought pass by. 17 You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance— the place, O LORD, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established. 18 The LORD will reign for ever and ever.” 19 When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the LORD brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. 20 Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. 21 Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea.”
Christ followers who don’t put their hearts into worship are like roosters who won’t crow at sunrise. They’re simply not doing what God programmed them to do!
When Moses and the children of Israel had church on the shores of the Red Sea (we could call it CHURCH ON THE BEACH) there certainly was a lot of passion in their worship! They did what they were divinely programmed to do. Their worship was exemplary.
The worship leader didn’t have to say, "Come on folks, sing like you mean it!" The audio technicians didn’t have to turn up the volume to provide artificial excitement. Their worship was a natural response to the great deliverance of God!
Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf: “I have but one passion; it is He, He only.”
Let’s face it - some folks let their worship get boring, and boring worship certainly doesn’t energize Christ followers for re-entry into the world on Monday. Neither does it attract the unchurched. Most importantly, it doesn’t glorify God - which is the primary purpose of worship.
What ignited this passion for worship and praise to God on the banks of the Red Sea? Was it simply the fresh surroundings? Should we have church at the beach next Sunday? (Put your hands down - we’re not voting.)
Honestly, nothing in scripture says we have to gather together in a building. Acts 17:24 says, "The Lord of heaven and earth...does not live in temples built by hands." The word just says we should gather together. "Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:25 NIV). It might be a good idea for us to have church in some different surroundings some Sunday. Nothing wrong with that. Kind of creative.
G. Campbell Morgan, Preaching, says, “There is a tale told of that great English actor Macready. An eminent preacher once said to him: "I wish you would explain to me something." "Well, what is it? I don’t know that I can explain anything to a preacher." "What is the reason for the difference between you and me? You are appearing before crowds night after night with fiction, and the crowds come wherever you go. I am preaching the essential and unchangeable truth, and I am not getting any crowd at all." Macready’s answer was this: "This is quite simple. I can tell you the difference between us. I present my fiction as though it were truth; you present your truth as though it were fiction."”
And, while CHURCH ON THE BEACH may not be a bad idea, I don’t believe the surroundings were the key to the vital worship.
The purpose of the sermon today is TO DRAW ATTENTION TO OUR NEED FOR RENEWED PASSION IN OUR PRAISE AND WORSHIP OF GOD.
Here’s how I believe it happens.
1 PASSIONATE WORSHIP OCCURS WHEN WE FOCUS ON GOD. (Exodus 15:1a)
"Duh!" "Peter, we already know that!"
I’m not talking about what we know. I’m talking about what we DO with what we know.
A weakness of all human beings, " Henry Ford said, "is trying to do too many things at once. That scatters effort and destroys direction. It makes for haste, and haste makes waste. So we do things all the wrong ways possible before we come to the right one. Then we think it is the best way because it works, and it was the only way left that we could see. Every now and then I wake up in the morning headed toward that finality, with a dozen things I want to do. I know I can’t do them all at once." When asked what he did about that, Ford replied, "I go out and trot around the house. While I’m running off the excess energy that wants to do too much, my mind clears and I see what can be done and should be done first."
Golf immortal Arnold Palmer recalls a lesson about overconfidence and a loss of focus: “It was the final hole of the 1961 Masters tournament, and I had a one-stroke lead and had just hit a very satisfying tee shot. I felt I was in pretty good shape. As I approached my ball, I saw an old friend standing at the edge of the gallery. He motioned me over, stuck out his hand and said, "Congratulations." I took his hand and shook it, but as soon as I did, I knew I had lost my focus. On my next two shots, I hit the ball into a sand trop, and then put it over the edge of the green. I missed a putt and lost the Masters. You don’t forget a mistake like that; you just learn from it and become determined that you will never do that again. I haven’t in the 30 years since.”
Exodus 15:1 says, "Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD."
When was the last time you sang "to the LORD" in corporate worship? When did you worry little about the person next to you, or in front of you, or behind you in church? Here’s one of the things I try to do. I try to praise and worship God in church like I do when I’m alone with God. Take, for example, times I’m alone with God. Sometimes I put in a good Christian CD, or I spend the time in silence before God, praising the Lord. Nobody there but God and me. Know what happens? Sometimes the tears begin to flow. (Usually that’s because the fears begin to go! You see, a great practical by-product of worship for us is, when we focus on God, our fears become less threatening to us!) I get so happy thinking about how great God is and how good He’s been to me, that often I can hardly contain myself!
When I’m on my face before the Lord, in His presence, praying for His wisdom, guidance, and provision, I begin to sense my prayer has been heard and a big smile comes across my face. My heart rejoices and my spirit soars because I know God cares, He understands, and He’s going to respond to my supplication!
Have you experienced the presence of God in a similar fashion to that?
Then what do we do next? We come to church to "worship", supposedly. But where are the tears, the shouts, the hands raised in exultation, the smiles, and the verbal praises? We left them at home in our prayer closet. Why? Someone might see us. On what, then, is our focus? Other people.
When our focus is on God, like it is in personal worship, we can experience the full range of emotions in corporate worship also.
Can you imagine Moses saying to some of the Israelites on the beach, "Hey, you folks from the tribe of Judah, hold it down over there, you’re getting a little too excited about God’s miraculous intervention.”? Or, to his sister Miriam and the other women dancing with tambourines in their hands, "Cut it out, don’t you know our denomination doesn’t believe in that!"
God had just done the unbelievable! The Israelites walked across the Red Sea on dry ground! To prove the danger was real and to deliver His people from the Egyptians, God then enclosed the chariots of Pharaoh in the water of that same sea! Were they not supposed to be excited about that?
Folks don’t make up songs like the one Moses and the Israelites sang out of thin air! They sang what they knew! They sang what they felt! They sang about what they had experienced! They didn’t concern themselves all that much with appearances. They focused on God. And the worship was full of passion.
2 PASSIONATE WORSHIP OCCURS WHEN WE RECOUNT GOD’S ATTRIBUTES AND ACTS. (Exodus 15:1b-19)
Verses 1 through 19 of Exodus 15 is a great song about who God is and the great things that He alone can do!
After some research I believe Moses burst into a song of praise, singing this song a line at a time with the congregation following. The worship leader sang a line, and then the congregation repeated that line.
MOSES: "I will sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted."
CONGREGATION: "I will sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted."
MOSES: "The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea."
CONGREGATION: "The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea."
You get the idea. The song continues to extol the greatness of God! That’s what worship should be like. Unashamedly we should lift up our praise to our heavenly Father. We should recount who He is and what He has done for us!
A modern song could go something like this:
(You repeat after me.)
PASTOR: Praise God, He helped me pay my bills last week!
CONGREGATION: Praise God, He helped me pay my bills last week!
PASTOR: I resisted the devil and he had to flee.
CONGREGATION: I resisted the devil and he had to flee.
PASTOR: Our church has the best minister in the world.
CONGREGATION: Our church has the best minister in the world.
No, Moses didn’t praise himself. His leadership and faith in God were colossal but His praise was reserved for God! This inspired the congregation to experience worship at its zenith!
One more thought.
3 PASSIONATE WORSHIP OCCURS WHEN WE INCORPORATE CREATIVITY IN OUR WORSHIP. (Exodus 15:20,21)
Joyce Brothers in Homemade: “The most important way parents can help children be creative is to teach them not to fear failure. To be creative, people need to explore and try new things. Also, children need to learn to tolerate being laughed at. Creative people are willing to risk criticism and aren’t afraid to be different. Trap: Stressing success. Children whose parents have emphasized achievement over exploration are more inclined to try only things they know they do well. These activities make them feel secure in their abilities, but they don’t lead to fulfilling success.”
Roger von Oech, A Whack on the Side of the Head
Mental blocks to creativity:
1. The right answer.
2. That’s not logical
3. Follow the rules
4. Be practical
5. Avoid ambiguity
6. To err is wrong
7. Play is frivolous
8. That’s not my area
9. Don’t be foolish
10. I’m not creative
Miriam and the women took tambourines in their hands and danced to the Lord, while they continued to sing God’s praises. We have so many modern innovations at our disposal today that tambourines and dancing should just scratch the surface. I’m aware that "dancing" and "church" don’t go together in some of your minds. We’re not talking about Britney Spears here. It’s Miriam. Prophetess. Moses’ big sister.
A mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
During periods of great change, answers don’t last very long but a question is worth a lot. The word question is derived from the Latin quaere (to seek), which is the same root as the word quest. A creative life is a continued quest, and good questions are useful guides. We have found that the most useful questions are open-ended; they allow a fresh, unanticipated answer to reveal itself. These are the kind of questions children aren’t afraid to ask. They seem naive at first. But think how different our lives would be if certain questions of wonder were never asked. Jon Collins of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business has compiled the following list of questions of wonder:
Albert Einstein: What would a light wave look like to someone keeping pace with it?
Bill Bowerman (inventor of Nike shoes): What happens if I pour rubber into my waffle iron?
Fred Smith (founder of Federal Express): Why can’t there be reliable overnight mail service?
Godfrey Hounsfield (inventor of the CAT scanner): Why can’t we see in three dimensions what is inside a human body without cutting it open?
Masaru Ibuka (honorary chairman, Sony): Why don’t we remove the recording function and speakers and put headphones in the recorder? (Result: the Sony Walkman.)
Many of these questions are deemed ridiculous at first.
Other shoe companies thought Bowerman’s waffle shoe was a "really stupid idea."
Godfrey Hounsfield was told the CAT scan was "impractical."
Masaru Ibuka got comments like: "A recorder with no speaker and no recorder -- are you crazy?"
Fred Smith proposed the idea of Federal Express in a paper at Yale and got a C.
You heard about the guy who didn’t want guitars played in worship of the church because he wanted to stick with the piano. He didn’t want any stringed instruments in worship. When someone reminded him that the piano was a stringed instrument he didn’t know what to say. But I’m not just talking about using a variety of instruments in worship. From trumpets to an entire orchestra, instrumentalizing our worship gives it a depth that shows its value to us. I’m also talking about drama, and video-projection, and computerized images, and banners, and props, and lighting,...well, you get the picture.
A lot of churches have been using these innovations for years. But still we need to use our imagination in worship.
* Passion Play
In his book, "Color Outside the Lines", Howard Hendricks says,
"How much in the evangelical church continues to exist because no one cares to find a better way? We are often confronted by a mania of mediocrity, rather than the challenge of change. The question is, "Is that what we want?"
It takes a lot of preparation, investment, and effort to be creative in worship. But the dividends are well worth the up-front capital!
When we think of creativity, we tend to picture a composer or an artist at work on a masterpiece. But creativity is simply a new approach to anything. Earle Dickson, an employee of Johnson & Johnson, married a young woman who was accident-prone. Johnson & Johnson sold large surgical dressings in individual packages, but these were not practical for small cuts and burns. Dickson put a small wad of sterile cotton and gauze in the center of an adhesive strip to hold it in place. Finally, tired of making up these little bandages every time one was needed, he got the idea of making them in quantity and using crinoline fabric to temporarily cover the adhesive strip. When the bandage was needed, the two pieces of crinoline could easily be peeled off, producing a small, ready-to-use bandage. The firm’s president, James Johnson, saw Dickson put one of his homemade bandages on his finger. Impressed by its convenience, he decided to start mass-producing them under the name Band-Aids. Dickson had been looking for a way to handle a small problem, and in the process he invented a useful new product.
When Jean-Claude Killy made the French national ski team in the early 1960s, he was prepared to work harder than anyone else to be the best. At the crack of dawn he would run up the slopes with his skis on, an unbelievably grueling activity. In the evening he would lift weights, run sprints--anything to get an edge. But the other team members were working as hard and long as he was. He realized instinctively that simply training harder would never be enough. Killy then began challenging the basic theories of racing technique. Each week he would try something different to see if he could find a better, faster way down the mountain. His experiments resulted in a new style that was almost exactly opposite the accepted technique of the time. It involved skiing with his legs apart (not together) for better balance and sitting back (not forward) on the skis when he came to a turn. He also used ski poles in an unorthodox way--to propel himself as he skied. The explosive new style helped cut Killy’s racing times dramatically. In 1966 and 1967 he captured virtually every major skiing trophy. The next year he won three gold medals in the Winter Olympics, a record in ski racing that has never been topped. Killy learned an important secret shared by many creative people: innovations don’t require genius, just willingness to question the way things have always been done.
Let’s close by looking closely at what happened to the Israelites right after the Red Sea victory and their passionate worship. They went three days into the wilderness and couldn’t find any water. And when they found water at Marah, they couldn’t drink it because it was bitter. Sure God was testing them. They didn’t exactly pass the test. But if they had kept their minds and hearts on their worship at the beach of the Red Sea they would have been ready. We’re going to be tested every week. Our passionate worship on the Lord’s Day will help us over the hurdles.
