Worship

Psalm 24:1-10 “Worship”

The 24th Psalm is an interesting Psalm.

It’s a praise song that David is said to have written when he went to get the Ark of the Covenant from the house of Obed-Edom.

This was an exciting time for David and the Hebrew nation.

The Ark had been out of Israel’s possession for about 50 years, and David was going to get it back. It was a time of celebration!

2 Samuel 6:5 says that "David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD, with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals."

If you continue reading the account in 2 Samuel, you’ll see that this is the occasion when David danced in the street.

David worshiped, but his wife, Michal, got angry.

David knew how to worship, and he experienced the joy of worshipping his God.

We come to church on Sunday mornings to worship God.

As a matter of fact, we refer to our services as "morning worship service" or "evening worship service."

To most people worship and going to church are the same thing.

Going to church is very important.

Church is a haven from the outside world where we can put away all our troubles and focus on something more pleasant for a little while.

Going to church gives us a chance to enjoy some healthy fellowship with people who share a similar belief system.

We can laugh, sing, cry, all in the same hour.

We can enjoy each other’s company.

We can find comfort and encouragement by going to church.

Going to church makes us feel good about ourselves, like we’ve done something commendable and praiseworthy.

But worship is more than going to church.

Worship is the act of entering God’s presence for the sole purpose of exalting Him.

Each worship service should be an experience we’ll never forget because we enter into the very presence of God Almighty each time we worship.

Many times we leave church the same as when we entered.

We sit in church, unmoved and unemotional because, to us, attendance and worship are the same thing.

We even say, "I attend worship services on Sunday."

Just because we attend the service doesn’t mean we worship.

We worship when we enter into his presence to express our humility, our respect, our adoration, our gratitude, and our love for him.

We don’t need to wait until Sunday to do that, but there are some conditions we must meet before we can truly worship God.

The first condition is this:

I. God must be the focus of our worship. (1-2)

Now, I know you’re saying, "No kidding...that’s obvious."

But the fact is that what we say and what we do are often entirely different.

Listen to the excitement in David’s words:

1 The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; 2 for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

David’s focus was God - and only God.

He understood that everything in the world - the earth, everything in it, everyone who lives in it - everything belongs to God.

He made the world out of nothing.

He preserves it, he sustains it, he provides for it.

He has the deed to this property.

He is the sole owner.

David makes a special point to say that everything living on the earth belongs to God.

He is talking specifically about people.

We live on the earth because God allows it, not because we deserve it.

We are special to God, but we aren’t God.

We the stewards of His stuff.

Knowing that it all belongs to God should help us see life from a different perspective.

• The late Bishop Edwin Hughes once delivered a rousing sermon on "God’s Ownership" that put a rich parishioner’s nose out-of-joint. The wealthy man took the Bishop off for lunch, and then walked him through his elaborate gardens, woodlands, and farm. "Now are you going to tell me," he demanded when the tour was completed, "that all this land does not belong to me?" Bishop Hughes smiled and suggested, "Ask me that same question a hundred years from now." (Bennett Cerf, Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 2)

If we focus on praising God as the Creator of everything then our worship will be different.

We will have the same excitement that David had.

David acted like a little boy trying to please his daddy.

Is your worship like that?

When you worship do you realize that you didn’t have anything to do with any of this?

Do you realize that if not for God’s grace, you wouldn’t be here?

Why did David worship God with all his might?

It’s because he understood the glorious majesty of Almighty God.