THE IMPORTANCE OF THE COMMUNITY
Psalm 96:7-9
S: Worship
C: Worshipping in community
Th: God – Most Worthy of Praise
Pr: GOD DESIRES OUR SHARED WORSHIP.
?: How? How do we get it accomplished?
KW: Directives
TS: We will find in our study of Psalm 96:7-9 three directives we should follow in order to more effectively worship in community.
Type: Propositional
The ____ directive is…
I. RECOGNIZE GOD FOR WHO HE IS
II. BRING AN OFFERING TO GOD
III. RESPECT GOD’S PURITY
PA: How is the change to be observed?
Version: ESV
RMBC 11 September 05 AM
INTRODUCTION:
1. Have you ever noticed that perfection eludes the church?
I pulled out some actual bulletin or church newsletter bloopers to show that some of the most innocent mistakes can communicate the opposite of what is intended:
ILL Church: Bulletin bloopers
(Note: read it the right way first, and then with the mistake)
~ Women’s Luncheon: Each member bring a sandwich. Polly Phillips will give the medication. (meditation)
~ Palm Sunday: Our regular service will be gin (begin) at 11:00 a.m.
~ When parking on the north side of the church, please remember to park on an angel. (angle)
~ Jean will be leading a weight-management series Wednesday nights. She’s used the program herself and has been growing like crazy!
~ This evening at 7 P.M. there will be a hymn sing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin. (sing)
ILL Community: Orchestra (idea borrowed from Steven Fry and revised)
The excitement hung in the air. People were dressed in their best, and a low buzz of expectant whispers echoed throughout the concert hall. One by one, the finest classical musicians took their seats, instruments at the ready.
Then they began to play.
But you might have grimaced. It sounded more like rush hour than Mozart.
The sound emanating from that stage was a cacophony [ku – cough – u – knee] of a hundred separate instruments tuning up. Each musician played without paying any attention to the others. And it sounded bad.
Then the conductor took the stand. The instruments fell silent. A hush came over the audience as he raised his baton. At the downbeat, an ocean of harmony cascaded into the concert hall.
The musicians now played in concert with each other. Together, they were an orchestra. Together they expressed sounds that simply couldn’t be created individually.
You see…
2. There is a beauty in harmony.
In the same way, I would like us to understand today that our worship is like this.
There is a beauty to worship that is done together.
TRANSITION:
September is discipleship month
Our theme for discipleship month is…
1. God – Most Worthy to Be Praised!
It corresponds to our theme for 2005: “A Passionate Pursuit of God.”
God is worthy of our praise.
And it is absolutely proper and necessary as His children to worship Him.
For…
2. Followers of our Lord are worshippers.
We described last week that there are many reasons to come to worship.
And in varying degrees, they have their place.
Some come from habit.
It is what they do every Sunday.
Some come from duty.
They possess a feeling of “oughtness” they can’t escape.
Some come for the emotional uplift.
They know that the music and the fellowship will pump them up for another week.
Some come because their friends come.
They wouldn’t go anywhere else because where they go is where their friends go.
Some come because they love the music.
They enjoy the organ or they enjoy the worship band.
Some come because this is their family’s church.
Their parents came to the church, as did their parents, etc.
Some come to support its ministries.
They know a lot of good is happening, people are coming to know the Lord and they are growing in Christ.
Again, these are all good reasons to varying degrees, but there is one reason is better than the rest.
It is to have a significant encounter with the living God.
This is what the author of Psalm 96 exhorts us to do:
Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples,
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 the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth!
There is a presumption in this psalm that we are not to miss.
The psalmist presumes worship in the plural.
There is an absolute need for worship to take place among the many.
This is not to say that personal worship is not important.
It very much is.
It too is an absolute need in our lives, but it is not exclusive.
By calling on the families of the peoples to come into His courts, the psalmist is calling on a unity of worship that comes when we gather together.
You see…
3. We are called to come together for worship (Hebrews 10:23-25).
Note how the author of Hebrews states it:
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
The author recognized that it has never been in God’s plan that we worship as we please.
The statement that one can worship on the golf course just as easy as one can at the gathering of God’s people is not true.
Because…
4. GOD DESIRES OUR SHARED WORSHIP.
He desires that we enjoy Him together in the community He has chosen us to be in.
ILL Community: Blind women at game W. Glyn Evans
A family found their way to their seats in Fenway Park and waited for their favorite team, the Boston Red Sox to play. Suddenly they noticed two blind women, led by seeing-eye dogs, ease their way down the concrete steps to the row of seats immediately in front of them. The women found their places and began to settle in for an evening’s enjoyment of a major league event.
The family looked at each other in amazement. How could these women enjoy a game they could not see? Why would they even think about coming?
The game began and dragged on through its triumphs and heartbreaks. But they couldn’t keep their eyes off the blind women. They were savoring every minute of it. Outfitted with small, portable radios with ear plugs, they followed every play with intense interest. And along with the crowd they reflected every agony and joy. When an umpire made a questionable call on a close play they shouted outrageously, “Put on your glasses!” They cheered when the home team got on base and groaned when they made an out. They entered fully into the spirit of the event and were evidently sorry to see it end.
On the way home, the family had a discussion about what they had just experienced. What was the value of two blind women going to a professional baseball game.
The answer: they desired the dynamic energy of the crowd. To participate even without seeing was to drink in the vitality which only a crowd can give.
There is a vitality in worship that comes with being in community.
God desires to experience this in our worship of Him.
And God desires us to experience the encouragement we receive when we join with like minds in worship.
So, how do we accomplish this shared worship?
Well…
5. We will find in our study of Psalm 96:7-9 three directives we should follow in order to more effectively worship in community.
OUR STUDY:
I. The first directive is RECOGNIZE GOD FOR WHO HE IS.
1. We are to have a firm grasp of reality.
The reality we are speaking about, of course, is God.
As we noted last week, we have a responsibility to know what we are able about our Creator.
And the more we understand about God, the more we grasp his grace.
The more we grasp His grace, the better we worship.
When we are truly worshiping, understanding God for who He is, we are able to ascribe to Him the glory due His name.
You see…
2. We are to render what is due.
We are to recognize that glory belongs to Him.
We are to recognize strength is His.
We are, simply, to give to God the praise that He deserves.
II. The second directive is BRING AN OFFERING TO GOD.
We do not give so to appease an angry God.
We do not give for good luck.
We do not give because we fear what will happen if we don’t.
Please note this…
We do not give to a selfish God.
He is a self-giving and a self-sacrificing God.
So…
1. We are to respond to the God who sacrifices.
He is a God that has reached out to us in love.
So, it is entirely appropriate to respond in love.
It is a proper response to answer Him with obedience and thanksgiving.
We received a very generous offering this past Sunday for the victims of Hurricane Katrina (which you can still give to…).
It reminds me of this quote…
ILL Giving quote
“I just gave away money I don’t have, for people I’ve never met, for a God I love very much.”
We give today because we love God very much!
But sometimes we fail in that.
ILL Giving: Tithe Tied Up in Brooms
A church member stopped the pastor and angrily complained that the church had purchased five new brooms - an expenditure that he thought was completely unnecessary.
The pastor was surprised at the man’s reaction and mentioned it to the church treasurer, who said, "It’s understandable. How would you feel if you saw everything you gave in the past year tied up in five brooms?"
I think that story speaks to our next point…
2. We are to be fully engaged in our worship.
Giving is more than money.
Giving is being engaged in worship of the One who has saved us from an eternity in hell.
He has given us grace – the grace to know Him and love Him for eternity.
So be fully engaged in worship.
Adore Him with music.
Offer a sacrifice of praise.
Give willingly of your financial resources.
And offer your body, surrender your life for His use.
That’s real giving.
But it will cost us.
It will cost us our self-centeredness, for we cannot exalt God and ourselves at the same time.
Which brings us to…
III. The third directive is RESPECT GOD’S PURITY.
1. We have reason to fear.
The text uses tremble.
We do come before an awesome God.
He is One that appropriately drives us to our knees.
He expects reverence.
We are to be in wonder of His divine majesty and presence.
Therefore…
2. We should not fiddle with His holiness.
There is an awesome beauty to His being and to His work, if we will only take time to pause and consider it.
This is why integrity and excellence, majesty and splendor, pure and holy, are words that belong to Him.
And so our response should be an appropriate reflection of those descriptive words as we gather together in worship.
APPLICATION:
I think it is interesting to note this fact.
1. Worshiping together reflects God’s nature.
The Trinity is a community of persons.
They exist together – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
They are three in one, and they never have, at any time (except perhaps for a moment at the cross), been alone.
God is complete in Himself.
He is a triunity of persons, fundamentally whole.
We, on the other hand, are fundamentally incomplete.
We are not designed to be alone.
We are not designed to act alone.
We are not designed to be the rugged individualist.
We are designed for relationship.
We should, as Steven Curtis Chapman sings, make a declaration of dependence.
When we worship, we acknowledge that dependence.
So, when we worship together, we reflect the relational nature of our design.
In worship, we actually represent God’s nature, who lives in perfect community.
This being so…
2. God’s design for us is to stay together.
Worshiping together is for our benefit.
Don’t worry, I have not lost sight of who the audience is when we gather for worship.
We are not primarily here for ourselves.
We are here to give to God what He deserves.
But in God’s great economy, He has also designed it for our benefit.
Worship in community shows that there exists an extension of our selves.
Worship in community stimulates us to be more productive.
The enthusiasm creates a bond of shared experience.
Worship in community allows us to grow together, establishing a collective mind.
Worship in community establishes us in unity by the Spirit’s working through the Word.
Worshiping together is essential if we are to know the unity of the Spirit.
ILL Unity: Successful Spiritual Warfare Demands Unity
General Maximus comes to Rome dirty and shackled. This is not the way it’s supposed to be. Where’s Rome’s legendary pageantry to greet one of her war heroes—the heraldry, the burnished armor, the laurel crown? Where’s the honor due him?
Maximus comes as a slave.
That’s the premise of the movie Gladiator. Through a maze of events, Maximus goes from celebrated warrior, favorite of one emperor, to despised traitor, nemesis of another. He becomes a fugitive, then caged slave, then unvanquished gladiator. His growing fame in the arena brings him to the sport’s pinnacle: Rome’s magnificent Coliseum to face her elite warriors.
The games open with a re-enactment of the battle of Carthage. The gladiators, all foot soldiers, are cast as the hapless Carthaginians. It is a stage for slaughter. They are marched out a dark passageway into brilliant sunlight and met with a roar of bloodlust.
Maximus, their leader, shouts to his men: "Stay together." He assembles them in a tight circle in the center of the arena: back-to-back, shields aloft, spears outward. Again he shouts, "Whatever comes out that gate, stay together."
What comes out that gate is swift and sleek and full of terror. Chariot upon chariot thunder forth. War horses pull, with deadly agility and earthshaking strength, wagons driven by master charioteers. Amazonian warrior princesses ride behind and with deadly precision hurl spears and volley arrows. One gladiator strays from the circle, ignoring Maximus’s order, and is cut down. Maximus shouts once more: "Stay together!"
The instinct to scatter is strong. But Maximus exerts his authority, and they resist that impulse. The chariots circle, closer, closer, closer. Spears and arrows rain down on the men’s wood shields. The chariots are about to cinch the knot. Right then Maximus shouts, "Now!"
The gladiators attack, and decimate the Romans. Commodus, the evil emperor, caustically remarks to the games organizer: "My memory of Roman history is rusty, but didn’t we beat Carthage the first time?"
Citation: Mark Buchanan, “The Good Fight,”
Leadership Journal, (Fall 2004)
Whatever comes out that gate, stay together.
That echoes what Jesus prayed for us:
"May they be brought to complete unity."
John 17:23
And he promises that the gates of hell will not overcome his church.
We are about war.
But we are not about worship wars.
This is not about what we like and what we don’t like.
I know that some of you are disappointed that we have discontinued with announcements and the fellowship time when we shook hands.
The problem is, that over and over again, we seemed unable to cap the amount of time this was taking, sometimes up to 15 minutes long.
Now, it is not that these are bad things, but when it comes to worship, they are not the main things.
When we enter into this room, worship is our main thing.
This is our privilege and responsibility.
And when we gather for worship, our fellowship is a united worship that gives glory to God and gives us a collective courage to accomplish His mission for us.
If you are willing to consider this, everything you really need to know is in the Current, and there is plenty of opportunity to fellowship before and after the service.
So let us remember…
We are about war.
But conflict about such things is a distraction about the real war.
For worship prepares us for spiritual warfare.
Because the only conflict that should concern us, is the conflict for the souls of people.
God desires our shared worship.
He desires it, not only because He deserves it, but because it is for our benefit as well.
For…
3. We are nourished and strengthened in community.
So, let’s be found as a people that worship Him together.
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are ]
Let’s worship together…and recognize God for who He is – most worthy to be praised.
Let’s worship together…and bring an offering to God – let’s offer what He deserves – all we have and all we are.
Let’s worship together…and respect His purity – for He is excellent, He is majestic, He is holy – and we should be on our knees in awe before Him.
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
RESOURCES:
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 5, William A. VanGemeren
Psalms 73-150, Derek Kidner, Tyndale series
“Purpose Driven Life: Worship that Pleases God”, Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox, Rick Warren
“Why Did You Go to Church?” Alliance Life, November 1, 1995, p. 31, M. R. Irvin
“The Healing Power of Public Worship” Conservative Baptist, Winter 1987, W. Glyn Evans
“Beyond Lone-Ranger Worship” Discipleship Journal, Issue 132 2002, p 53-58, Steven Fry
Sermoncentral:
The Imperatives of Worship, Brian Bill
Bring an Offering, R. Metcalfe
