HOW DOES GOD LIKE OUR WORSHIP?

HOW DOES GOD LIKE OUR WORSHIP?

                “Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth; Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre; with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn, shout joyfully before the King, the Lord. Let the sea roar and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands; Let the mountains sing together for joy before the Lore; for He is coming to judge the earth; and the peoples with equity.”  Psalm 98:4-9

                Hmmm. Something doesn’t compute here. The Lord is coming to judge the earth and this is cause for celebration? What was the psalmist thinking? The Lord is coming to judge the earth! Should we not be shaking in our boots… somber… serious… funereal?  Not according to our God.

                Could it be that our God actually loves noisy worship? Maybe we missed something. Maybe we should check again.

                “Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God; it is He who has made us and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations. Psalm 100:1-5

                The difference between God’s people and the rest of the world is that they live in sin, but we live in victory. We do not fear judgment for we have already been judged in Christ Jesus. We were judged as fallen sinners with no hope, but Jesus took that sin and that hopelessness and He bore it on the cross so that we can shout joyfully to the Lord. He has delivered us from darkness and into His glorious light.

                Some Christians think that we are to be somber and serious… that we should bow before the Lord in shame and the humility of defeat. Far be it from us to worship Him in a noisy manner. We must tread softly and keep our heads lowered. We must keep our noses in a hymnbook as we mumble out our songs of contrition to an unreachable God.

                Did you ever stop to think what a slap in the face our worship must be to God if we worship Him as defeated and battered sheep? After all He has done for us in setting us free, are we going to continue worshipping Him as if He has done nothing for us? Should we act as if our Shepherd has never led us to green pastures or protected us from ravaging wolves?

                “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” Gal. 5:1. We are prisoners set free. We are slaves ransomed as freemen. We need not return to the yoke of slavery. We should come forth from the house of bondage leaping and shouting and praising God.

                Some years ago there was a video on YouTube. Someone had paid for a bunch of cattle that were in line for slaughter and they released them into an open field. It was amazing and heartwarming to see those cows leaping and dancing and snorting and carrying on. Somehow they knew that they had been set free and many people were moved by their obvious expressions of thanksgiving and freedom.

                Likewise in the book of Galatians, some religious sorts had come to this Christian community and tried to put them in bondage to traditions again and Paul said: “But it was because of the false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus in order to bring us into bondage.”

                If someone came to your congregation to spy out your freedom, what would they find? Would they find exuberant sounds of joy and noisy celebration or would they find a people still in bondage?

                I am by nature a sort of conservative and quiet person in public. It is very difficult for me to get outside of myself and to become more God conscious than self-conscious. I would rather be intellectual and analytical. I would rather keep my thoughts to myself… my exuberance contained within the shell of flesh. Oh, I am a very happy guy. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and my inner being is filled with exuberant joy, but it is, (maybe because of my upbringing), hard to let it out and to express my joy in the ways that God intended for a free people to express it.

                Many people are so convinced that God loves their conservative mumblings that they make a religion out of it. For them it is shameful to shout to the Lord or to express their praise with the kinds of instruments and shouts and dancing that the Lord calls for. They actually turn a blind eye to all that the Lord has said to us about His kind of worship. Far be it from them to lose control of themselves for even one moment of God –consciousness.

                Imagine what it is going to sound like in heaven when a billion people and ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels worship before the throne with unbridled passion. Imagine the roar of such worship. Image the exuberant joy of all attending realizing that they have been eternally set free, never to be dogged by sin and Satan any longer. IN the deafening roar of a billion voices will we then be able to forget ourselves for a minute and place every last ounce of our attention upon Him?

                What we try to pass off as conservatism is more often than not, our self- consciousness. We choose a religion where we don’t have to come out of ourselves. We can maintain a tight grip on our emotions. Oh yes, we can shout our bloody heads off at the ball game, but in the house of the Lord, we must stay all bound up in ourselves and worship Him in our way instead of His.

                And be it from us to repeat a powerful chorus more than once. That would be vain repetition right?  But can you imagine God saying to His angels, “Quit it with the holy, holy, holy, that is vain repetition, Just say one holy?”  Hardly! So I am here to testify that it is maybe the fifth time or the tenth time through a powerful song that it finally gets through my thick shell. My heart is melted and for that euphoric moment of comprehension I am more God-conscious than self- conscious and for that moment I have entered into true worship.

                Over and over again the Lord calls to us through the Psalms. “Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song.” Yes, I’m sure He loves the old songs as well, as long as they come forth from true hearts of praise, but He wants us to sing new songs too.

                “Let the godly ones exult in glory; Let them sing for joy on their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two –edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples; to bind kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute on them the judgment written; this is an honor for all His godly ones. Praise the Lord!” Psalms 149:5-9

                Here god is portraying worship as a form of spiritual warfare… not of killing people, but principalities and powers and forces of wickedness in high places. WE are tearing down strongholds and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 2Cor. 10:3-5. Here we might see a picture of Gideon and his army. They attacked an army many time greater than they were. They broke open their lamps of light and shouted ,”The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” And they blew shofars and they brought confusion upon the enemy camp with the shouts of their victory, so that the Midianites killed each other in a massive slaughter.

                Did you ever stop to think that our worship is a form of spiritual warfare? Would you want to go into battle with your head buried in a hymnbook and your thoughts limited to your own ability? No! It is Christ who gives the victory and so we must go up with a shout.

                “Parise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty expanse, praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise him with trumpet sound; praise Him with the harp and lyre. Praise Him with timbrel and dancing; Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe. Praise Him with loud cymbals. Praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Psalm 150:1-6

                There are, of course, times for the solemn assembly. The ten days of awe after the Feast of Trumpets and leading up to the Day of Atonement was such a time. There was a time of fasting and soul searching and quiet reflection. On the Day of Atonement the books would be opened and it would be determined if their names are written in the book.

                We too as Christians must give serious thought to our salvation. Are we living in faith or presumption? Are we living in obedience or disobedience? Are we truly redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, or are we just playing church? Have we truly been born again or have we just presumed that mental consent was enough? Have we washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb? Are we truly in Christ and Him in us? Can we say that it is not I, who lives, but Christ lives in me… that I am living by faith in Him and not in myself?

                If we have those things settled in our lives then we can say: “Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; Thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness; that my soul may sing praise to Thee and not be silent; O Lord my God, I will give thanks to thee forever.” Psalms 30:11-12

                God loves heartfelt and unmitigated worship because He, like us, is longing for that day when a great multitude that no one can count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, is standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palm branches in their hands; and they are crying out with a loud voice, saying “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.” And all the angels are standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fall down on their faces before the throne and worship God, saying, “Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen! Revelation 7:9-12

                I want to be among those standing on the Sea of Glass singing and shouting the Song of Moses and the Lamb saying:

                “Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God the Almighty; Righteous and true are Thy ways thou King of the nations. Who will not fear, O Lord and glorify Thy name? For Thou alone are holy; for all the nations will come and worship before Thee, for Thy righteous acts have been revealed.”

                Here we have not been talking about careless worship, lacking in reverence and awe and fear of the Lord. We have been talking about selfless worship in which all flesh has been laid low and our hearts, having been unshackled from self, are rejoicing in the boundless joy of the Lord. This is the kind of worship that our Lord is calling forth from His people. And about the only way to break out of that tough outer shell of self is to abandon ourselves to unfettered praise and worship.

                In a world that is being consumed by darkness… where the people are turning in rebellion back to their idols and making ready to worship the Beast and his image, there is a Remnant people of God who dare to worship Him with exuberant joy, and faith and the noise of victorious battle. His eyes are upon them.

 “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!