When I was a college student at New Mexico State University, I also worked as an intern in a campus ministry. One summer our campus minister had to leave town for a couple of weeks. He left me in charge. Gave me the keys to his office. Told me to run the show. I loved it. I could do what I wanted.
But I didn’t realize that with great power….that’s right, comes great responsibility. Being in charge can be fun. But it can also be frustrating. Like the day I had to talk to two college students about worship. Both of them had stopped attending our church’s worship services. And with the campus minister out, it was up to me to address the infraction. The conversation was dismal. This was back in the late 1980’s. But even then there were seeds of the now popular “give me Jesus but not the church” kind of mentality. Both college students explained that they loved God. Read Scripture. Prayed. But they didn’t see the big deal about attending worship services. So they stopped coming. And my conversation did nothing to change their minds.
There’s a lot of that going around these days. The Barna Organization recently studied this phenomenon. They found that 70% of Americans either do not attend church worship services or are ambivalent about attending church worship services.[1] Attending corporate worship is becoming rarer and rarer.
And that makes this morning’s text challenging. Because this text is a call to worship. Not a call to individual worship on a mountain, just you and God. It’s a call to corporate worship. It’s a summons to come to church and worship with other people:
Notice the repeated call to corporate worship:
“Let us sing to the LORD” (v. 1)
“let us make a joyful noise” (v. 1)
“Let us come into his presence” (v. 2)
“let us make a joyful noise to him” (v. 2)
“let us worship and bow down” (v. 6)
“let us kneel before the LORD” (v. 6)
This is a call to corporate worship. Not private worship. Not individual worship. But corporate worship. Six times the author invites: “let us worship.” The author is saying, “All of you, stop what you are doing and join together in corporate worship.”
And, as a brief aside, let’s reflect on two ways the author describes the worship to which we are invited. First, twice he describes the worship as a “joyful noise” (vs. 1, 2). That’s the same word used in Josh. 6:16 to describe how the Israelites “shouted” and the wall around Jericho came tumbling down. That’s a loud shout! In fact, eight times the Psalms command us to “shout” in worship. Let’s do that. I’m going to count to three. After I say “three” I want you to shout. Ready? 1, 2, 3…Shout! Thus, corporate worship is intended to have moments that are loud and enthusiastic.
Second, the author also describes corporate worship as a time to “worship and bow down” and “kneel” (vs. 6). In fact the word “worship” in vs. 6 literally means to “bow down.” Fourteen times the Psalms call us to “worship,” or literally “bow down” before God. That conveys the idea of reverence and humility. Let’s do that. We won’t kneel because not everyone is in a position to do so. But we can bow our heads. I’m going to count to three. After I say “three” I want you to bow your head. Ready? 1, 2, 3…bow. Corporate worship is meant to have moments of quiet reverence.
In other words, corporate worship involves noise and kneeling; chaos and quiet; loud celebration and quiet reflection. That’s important, because some worshipers today get in worship wars over those two contrasts. For instance, recently I taught a class at Lipscomb University. Afterwards a man took me aside and remarked how he hated the corporate worship at his church. “It’s too noisy,” he said. “Worship should be quiet.” he said. And he wondered if I supported him in this. Well…yes and no. Yes, corporate worship should have elements of bowing down and kneeling. But it should also have elements of joyful noise. That’s biblical worship. And saying that one is better than the other is, well, unbiblical.
In the rest of Psalm 95, the author gives two reasons why corporate worship is so important. One reason is found in vv. 1-5. The other reason is found in vv. 6-11. Let’s listen to vv. 1-5:
1 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3 For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
Notice the focus of our corporate worship. It’s found in the word “for.” The word “for” is a “why” word – it tells why we engage in corporate worship: “For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” Pay attention to that final phrase: “Above all gods.” This call to corporate worship acknowledges that our lives take place amidst a sea of gods. There are other gods competing for our worship.
That’s why the author goes on to describe how our God is the God of the depths of the earth; He is the God of the heights of the mountains; He is the God of the sea; and He is the God of the dry land. Pagan people in the ancient world believed that each of these locations were ruled over by different gods:
- The depths of the earth–the valleys and low lying areas would have been under the rule of one god or gods.
- And the heights–the mountains and high areas on earth would have been under the rule of another god or gods.
- One god or group of gods would have reigned over the seas.
- Another god or group of gods would have reigned over the land.
This call to corporate worship acknowledges that God has a lot of competition. There are many counterfeit gods out there.
It’s easy for us to dismiss that idea. After all we no longer live in an era when there’s a temple or altar on every corner devoted to a different god. We don’t know people who pray to Artemis or Aphrodite. Thankfully, we don’t have idolatry today. There are no more counterfeit gods.
Or are there?
In his book Counterfeit Gods author Timothy Keller argues that there are. He writes this:
“Each culture is dominated by its own set of idols…We may not physically kneel before the statue of Aphrodite, but many young women today are driven into depression and eating disorders by an obsessive concern over their body image. We may not actually burn incense to Artemis, but when money and career are raised to cosmic proportions, we perform a kind of child sacrifice, neglecting family and community to achieve a higher place in business and gain more wealth and prestige.”
In other words, in the ancient world you might worship at the altar of Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty; or Artemis, the goddess of wealth. Today many still worship these gods. Just in other forms. We still worship beauty. We still elevate wealth.
In fact, there are many counterfeit gods today. Keller provides a list of modern-day counterfeit gods. If you tend to live as if your life only has meaning and worth if…then you have made that thing an idol. For example:
“Life only has meaning or I only have worth if…
- 1. I have power and influence over others.” (Power Idolatry)
- 2. I am loved and respected by _____.” (Approval Idolatry)
- 3. I have this kind of pleasure experience, a particular quality of life.” (Comfort idolatry)
- 4. I am able to get mastery over my life in the area of _____.” (Control idolatry)
- 5. I am being recognized for my accomplishments.” (Achievement idolatry)
- 6. My race and culture is ascendant and recognized as superior.” (Racial/cultural idolatry)
- 7. My children and/or my parents are happy and happy with me.” (Family idolatry)
- 8. My political or social cause is ascending in influence or power.” (Ideology idolatry)
- 9. I have a particular kind of look or body image.” (Image idolatry)
If anything, idolatry is even more prevalent today than it was in the day of Psalm 95.
And, according to this call to corporate worship, here’s one of the things that happens in corporate worship: we leave our counterfeit gods. The author says that when we gather for corporate worship, in many different ways, we proclaim “3 For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.” When we gather together for worship, we are reminded and we remind each other which gods are counterfeit and which God is not. Corporate worship is a time when we finally take the masks off those false gods we’ve been following and we reorient ourselves to the only true God, the greatest God, of all.
American writer David Foster Wallace once gave a commencement address in which he spoke about the futility of following counterfeit gods:[2]
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism …. Everybody worships…And … pretty much anything you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things…then you will never have enough …. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you …. Worship power—you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.
Everybody worships. And pretty much anything you worship will eat you alive. That’s why we need corporate worship. When we sing together about God and to God, and we listen to words from God, and we pray to God, and we gather around the table of God, we are able to see with renewed clarity how dangerous our counterfeit gods are and how delightful the true God is. Corporate worship helps us to leave our counterfeit gods.
But there’s a second reason for corporate worship. Listen to vv. 6-11:
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
11 Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.” (Ps. 95:1-11 ESV)
Did you notice what he wrote in vv. 7-8? “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” The author is referring to a time when God’s people responded to God’s voice with hardness of heart (Ex. 17; Num. 20). It was just after they had crossed the Red Sea from Egypt, and things in the wilderness were difficult. They doubted God was still with them and would provide for them. And the author of the psalm counsels those of us gathered in corporate worship that today, if we hear God’s voice, we should not respond as those Israelites did. Today, if we hear God’s voice, we should respond with obedience.
Notice that this discussion about hearing God’s voice comes in the context of corporate worship. First, the author calls us together and gets us worshipping. And then, while we are worshiping he says, “If you happen to hear God’s voice, make sure to obey what you hear.” This means there is the real possibility of hearing God’s voice when we gather for worship. And that’s the second aspect of this call to worship. In corporate worship we not only leave counterfeit gods, we also listen to the real God.
Earlier in vs. 2 the author tells us that we are coming into the presence of the Lord when we gather together for corporate worship. And we come to his presence not merely to lift up our voice. We also come to listen to his voice.
And we listen with the intent of obeying. The word “listen” or “hear” is translated “obey” elsewhere in the Old Testament. More than one hundred times this word is translated “obey.” For the Old Testament, listening is synonymous with obeying. In corporate worship we are given the opportunity to listen to the one true God so that we might obey what we hear.
God speaks in corporate worship. He speaks through the words of the songs we sing. He speaks through the words spoken to us in a sermon or testimony. He speaks through the media we experience. He speaks as we gather around the table. He speaks through those who are gathered us. We may think that worship is where God comes to hear our voice. But worship is also where we come to hear his voice. It’s where we listen to the real God.
Every day many of us turn to people with limited knowledge and we listen to their voice on a wide range of things. We ask them about our dating relationship, our marriage, our parents, our children, our job, our purchasing decisions, job decisions, or school decisions. We listen to our hair stylist or barber, our best friend, our boyfriend or girlfriend, our teachers and coaches, our neighbors and our family members about all of those things. But what if there was someone with unlimited knowledge to whom we could also listen? Someone who knows us better than we know ourselves? Someone who is deeply in love with us? That’s God. And in corporate worship we have the chance to hear his voice.
Over the past three months I’ve received three anonymous pieces of mail. One was a notebook filled with handwritten pages describing texts from the Bible which the author believed I or Highland was apparently violating. Another was a book about a particular topic with teaching that ran contrary to the way we handle that topic at Highland. The third was a card on which was scrawled a grossly inaccurate accusation about my ministry. All of these were anonymous. No name. No return address. Can you guess what I did with those? Did I listen to those voices? Absolutely not. I threw them in the trash. How can I listen to someone who wants to remain so distant that they don’t even sign their name or give a return address?
On the other hand, my twin brother Craig called the other day. He had been out of the country for weeks doing mission work and was now back home. He called one morning. Did I pick it up? Absolutely. Did I listen? Absolutely. I stopped what I was doing and spent thirty minutes listening to his voice. Why? Because he’s someone who’s very close to me, cares for me, knows me (he is my twin after all) and wants the best for me. You bet I listened to him.
Every Sunday we have an opportunity to come into the presence of a Father and King who knows us intimately and cares for us deeply. He is our God. We are the people of his pasture. The sheep of his hand. And he’s got plenty of vital things to share with us. And corporate worship is one of those times we gather together to hear a voice worth listening to.
Here’s what I want you to do this week: Write down one thing you hear God saying to you from today’s worship or one counterfeit god you need to leave. Take some time this afternoon or tomorrow to either record one thing you heard God saying to you in this corporate worship or one counterfeit god which this worship has helped you realize you need to leave. And then act on what you’ve written down. Let today’s corporate worship drive you to become a more sensitive, faithful, obedient and passionate follower of God.
[1] [Jon Tyson, Sacred Roots, Frames, 14-15]
[2] [Adapted from Timothy Keller, The Insider and the Outcast (Dutton Adult, 2013); original source: David Foster Wallace, “David Foster Wallace on Life and Work,” The Wall Street Journal (9-19-08)]
