March 29- "Worship, Or Else!"

Pastor Jeff Manning's Message from Psalm 95

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Good morning to you. Psalm 95. Not Mark chapter 5, but Psalm 95. Kevin just mentioned that we're having our preaching prayer and praise service today. For those of you who might be new and therefore this is your first time experiencing a preaching prayer and praise service, it does not mean that I'm going to be preaching for the remainder of the service. And for that reason, some of you are ready to give praise. But no, I'm going to preach my message in parts. I'll actually preach it in four parts, and we will sing andor pray in between all of those sections. So instead of all the praise and worship being up front, then the sermon coming after that, we intersperse the prayer and the praise as we move along. So while you're finding Psalm 95, just one other little uh housekeeping thing. Uh we, our women's ministry, they're also sponsoring a cake auction and a live auction. And uh if you've got questions about that, Sherry Kent would be the one to ask. But there is a table probably right beside the women's ministry table where you could sign up to be of help on things, and Sherry Kent will be there, and she'd be delighted to answer any questions that you might have for that. So today, Psalm 95, my title is Worship or Else. Worship or Else? So many years ago, Henry Ward Beecher, a pretty prominent American preacher, was scheduled to preach at a certain church. The service had begun. He's there, and due to some unavoidable consequences, he had to leave. Felt horrible about it, but he had to leave. And so once the singing ended, his brother Thomas went up to preach. And as he's going up into the pulpit, some people started getting up and leaving. And so Thomas comes to the pulpit and said, Now, folks, those of you who came here to hear my brother Henry preach, you're free to go ahead and leave. But for those of you who came to worship the Lord, I would invite you to stay. May I ask you, did you come into this worship center, into this sanctuary, intending to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth? Did you come in expecting and planning to worship Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Because the scripture gives us a directive to do so in numerous places in Psalm 95 would be close to the top. Now, directives, we we really don't like directives. That's just another way of talking about a command, something that you must do. But you know what? We come out of the womb receiving directives. Stop. Don't, don't do that. And early on, some of the consequences for not obeying those directives are quite minimal. It might be a or a little SWAT on your backside. But then you go on and you have other directives. Those directives come from your teachers, your coaches, your parents, your youth pastor, uh your boss, your supervisor, the governmental authorities. And when you do not follow those directives, the consequences start to increase in their significance. You might fail a grade, you might hurt yourself, you might lose your job, you might actually die, or even worse, if you fail to obey God's directives, it can affect where you spend eternity. And so this morning we're going to be reminded the directive is to worship or else. I know that almost sounds like it's not all that gracious and kind, but you'll see in a few moments how true that is. Psalm 95. It has two halves to it. We will be focusing on the first half. The first half is an invitation to worship the king, the God of the universe, the Lord Himself. And then the second part is a warning if you don't. It is a warning to make sure you do not stop up your ears from hearing the Lord. It is a warning not to harden your heart. And um, Israel hardened its heart. Scores of them hardened their heart against the Lord in the wilderness. And so Psalm 95 ends rather abruptly. Verse 11. Therefore I swore, this is God speaking, therefore I swore in my anger, truly, they shall not enter my rest. And so again, the ultimatum is worship or else. Worship or you could potentially perish. But now hold on. I know some of you are thinking, well, come on, Jeff, for crying out loud, don't you know this is Old Testament? This was for Israel. Well, did you know that the warning section, verses 7b through the end of the chapter, the author of Hebrews in the New Testament quotes it in chapter 3, verses 7 through 11 in its entirety. He also quotes other parts in other parts of Hebrews. So the warning is still for today. The directive is still for today. Anybody breathing now should put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus and worship him with all of their being, or else you run the risk of facing some pretty significant consequences. So, Psalm 95, it presents us with two ways to live. With uh praise of a praise and joyful worship of God, or with a hard heart that's ungrateful and unappreciative of what the Lord has done for you. So, even though you're in a church service, if this morning, truth be told, we peel back all the layers and we find there someone who is ungrateful, someone who is unbelieving. Maybe you're here against your will. You're here when you you would love to be about 1,700 other places. Um, if that's the case, you're in trouble. An ungrateful person is in trouble. An unbelieving person is in trouble, and probably in more trouble than you might now realize. So I'm I'm urging you, give ear to what God has for you this morning. Now, you can't blame anyone but yourself if you disregard God's warning. The responsibility to love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is yours. It is mine. Now, having said all of that, my purpose in preaching the remainder of the sermon, even though it'll be broken up in pieces, is to share with you three appropriate ways to worship the Lord. Three appropriate ways to worship the Lord. Number one, worship with exuberance. Worship with exuberance. Just read these first two verses. Oh, come. Let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. Do those two verses reverberate in your heart? Do they represent what you have maybe already done in part and plan to do as the service continues? A guy by the name of Keith Getty. He and his wife have written and they sing lots of praise and worship type music, contemporary hymns of the faith today. He says, in part, folks, we are called to sing. Indeed, the scriptures command, the scriptures command us more than 250 times to sing. It's not a choice. It's not dependent on whether you feel like it. Singing together, it is a picture here on earth of our hope in heaven where every tribe, tongue, and nation will sing to the Lord. Throughout history, God's people have both discovered and affirmed their solidarity in times of celebration and in times of tragedy through singing. He goes on and says, How we sing, if we sing, and how passionately we sing, is a witness to those looking on. And so as you stand and sing in a few more moments on a few more occasions, if somebody, maybe not worshiping the way they should, not following the words the way they should, or maybe they know the words well enough they can look around. And if if while they're singing they look over at you, what impression might you be giving about your worship of the Lord? But yeah, you don't know how my voice sounds. Really doesn't matter. Now, if it sounds really, really bad, maybe just don't sing so loud. No. No, but I mean really, if somebody, if somebody were to look at you while we're worshiping the Lord through song and music, would they get the impression that you love him, that you're thankful to him? Um we testify to the joy of an excited believer, or we betray the chill of a disinterested spectator. Please don't let the latter describe you. Think about it. Ephesians 5. Uh don't be drunk with wine, where is an excess, but be filled with the spirit. Be filled with the spirit. Let the Holy Spirit fill you. One of the first, well, the very first results of being filled with the Spirit, according to Ephesians 5, 18 and following. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord. So, um, let's come into his presence with thanksgiving, the scripture says. No one walking the planet should be more thankful than God's people. Because we have the awareness of all that we should be thankful for. A second way to worship the Lord appropriately from Psalm 95 is to worship with intelligence. Worship with intelligence. Now, let me remind you, or let me remind all of us, of who it is that we are worshiping. Our minds need to be engaged so that our worship isn't intelligent. It's well informed so that we worship him in the right way. Number one, the Lord is steadfast. Let's be reminded, let's have our minds engaged to the fact that when we worship the Lord, we are worshiping the Lord who is steadfast. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Now, when you when you read the word rock there, do not think of something that maybe you've picked up before. And you've skimmed it across a lake or a stream or whatever. No, no, no, no. Not that kind of rock. Um, we're talking about a massive mountain type rock. As a matter of fact, the very slide there, I believe that's Mount Everest. It's showing a massive rock. Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain above sea level. It stands nearly five and a half miles high above sea level. But if you were to measure its base underwater, then um uh Mount Nukea is recognized as the tallest mountain on Earth. Um, it's 33,500 feet, nearly 4,500 feet higher than Mount Everest. But, man, I learned something this week. Uh astrologers have actually measured mountains on other planets. And the highest mountain that's ever been measured is actually on Mars. It is called Olympus Muns. It stands two and a half times the elevation of Mount Everest. Two and a half times taller. Guess what? Our God is more steady and steadfast than any mountain that might ever be discovered. He is greater and more steadfast than all mountain ranges put together. And according to Jesus in Matthew chapter 7, the wise person builds his house upon the what? The rock. The rock representing Jesus. And the rains can come and the floods can rise, but whoever builds his house on that rock, their rock stands firm. Their house stands firm. So let's worship the Lord, knowing that he is steadfast. Number two, the Lord is Savior. He is Savior. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Our salvation. Now, in context, when Israel would read this, when Israel would sing this, they were celebrating their salvation, their deliverance from Egyptian captivity. And as many of you know, that salvation experience, that deliverance from Egyptian captivity pictures our deliverance from satanic captivity. Our deliverance from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And folks, listen, in John 10, verse 11, it calls Jesus the good shepherd who died for us. Hebrews 11, 20 calls Jesus the great shepherd who rose for us. And 1 Peter 5, verse 4 calls Jesus the chief shepherd who is coming again for us. Hallelujah, what a savior. What a savior. May we worship him now through communion. I'm hoping that everybody received a communion cup when you came in. And obviously, Jesus being our Savior, communion reminds us of what was required to make salvation possible. And so for our next few minutes as we partake of communion, there is one truth I want us to focus on, one truth that we will be symbolically proclaiming this morning, and that is this. We need salvation. We need salvation. Matthew 26, 28. This is when Jesus was first instituting the Lord's Supper. Jesus said, This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Folks, do you have any idea how many millions and millions of times I have sinned against my God? Some of those I did because I just wasn't careful enough. And some of those I have done with willful, stubborn disobedience. And yet the blood that Christ shed, while making an atonement for our sins, it is sufficient to cover all our sins. His grace is greater than our sins. There's only one way of salvation. There's only one way to heaven, and that's through Jesus. It might seem more generous, it might seem more sophisticated to say, but you know, there are multiple ways of salvation. There are multiple ways to go to heaven. But now think about it. Remember what Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane? He said, Father, if there be any other way, if there's any other way to make salvation possible, Lord, let this cup pass from me. Imagine if God the Father had said, Well, you know, there are some other ways, and I'll make those known, but I'm gonna have you suffer on the cross just the same. What sense would that have made? Either Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is sufficient and it is, or it's not, but it is, and so God forbid that we, his people, would ever, ever get over what Jesus did for us when he stretched out his hands willingly and allowed himself to be nailed to a cruel cross. It wasn't the physiological pain that was the worst, it was God pouring out his righteous wrath on Jesus, punishing him as though he had committed all our sins, so we could be treated as if we'd never sinned, because we get Christ's righteousness imputed to us. So, 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says, I received from the Lord what also I passed on to you. On the same night in which Jesus was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. So if if you're a believer, um you believers only should participate. You don't have to be a member, but you you're supposed to be a believer. If you know Jesus as your Savior, would you turn your communion cup up so that the small portion is on top? That's where the bread is. And this is a gloriously rich, symbolic act of worship. This bread represents Jesus' body willingly, broken, if you will, for us. Let's thank him, Lord Jesus. All of us, without exception, try our best to get away from pain. We don't like being bruised or battered, let alone having broken bones or worse. And yet, you, Lord, you willingly laid your body on that cross. Nobody took your life. You willingly gave it. And you allowed your body to be broken for us. We thank you, we praise you, we worship you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Let's partake together. 1 Corinthians 11 continues. In the same way also he took the cup after supper and said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So now if you'll just carefully open the larger um wrapping, and we'll pray and then we'll partake together. Lord, it seems as though the Red Cross and other agencies that collect blood, they are constantly in short supply. But I am so thankful that the blood that Christ you shed while making atonement for our sins, it is sufficient for however long human history goes, for however many more people need to put their faith in Jesus. There is a fountain filled with blood that was drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And all of those who put their faith and trust in him will be cleansed from all of their sins. So thank you, Lord, that our sins can be forgiven because of your shed blood. In Jesus' name. Amen. If you will, you can put your used communion cup in those little holders in between seats. And when the service is over, we'll try to remind you take these out with you, and we'll have uh containers to put the used cups in when the service is over. Jesus was the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. He's also the lion of Judah. And one day, he's going to be crowned king. As we continue to make sure we're fully informed about who our God is and therefore how worthy of our worship he is, I want us to notice with me next that the Lord is shepherd. Or I'm sorry, he is superior. He is superior. Verse 3 for the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. Yahweh, Jehovah. He is not only a great, great God and a great king, he is the great one and the only one. Just listen to Psalm 113, verses 3 to 6. From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations and his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God who is seated on high? And who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? Who is like him? It's a rhetorical question. The answer is no one. No one. Psalm 145, verse 3. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. No matter how much more man learns, no matter how much more, how many more discoveries are made about how massive this universe is, his glory and his honor, his greatness will be unsearchable. Now, the psalmist here in Psalm 95, verse 3 is not suggesting that any of the other gods of the nations are real. They're only man-made idols. They have no life to them. Or if indeed these other idols that other people worship have a demonic influence behind them, the Lord is still a great king above all the hosts of heaven, and one day all of those other smaller gods, demons behind them will be destroyed. Number four, the Lord is sovereign. He is sovereign. Verses four and five. In his hand are the depths of the earth, the heights of the mountain are also his. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. So there's a form of literature that is used here, a literary device called a marismus. It's when you combine two polar opposites, like night and day, and then you proclaim a truth in conjunction with it that covers everything in between. So here in verses four and five, the psalmist uses the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountains, implying that everything in between and everything throughout, he is the creator of them all. Now, you can dig down to the earth's molten core, and it's all in God's hand. The oil is his. Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro, they are his. Niagara Falls and the Sahara Desert, they are his. The Grand Canyon is one of my favorite places. My brother and I have been multiple times. My wife and I have been a couple of times. You might think that the Grand Canyon, as grand as it is, you might think that it is the deepest canyon on earth, but it's not. Now the Grand Canyon goes all the way down a full mile deep, but it's not the deepest. That honor goes to the Calawaxi. I don't know if I just spoke in tongues or not. But it's this canyon in southwestern Peru. It goes down twice the depth of the Grand Canyon. And do you know who carved it out? The Lord did. With his hand, as it were. Think about Christ's sovereignty. He made the sea, he calmed the sea, and he walked on the sea. Who can do that? Only the sovereign Lord can. Largest ocean in the world, Pacific, 167 million cubic miles. Deepest point in any ocean is the Mariana Trench, almost seven miles deep. The longest river is Africa's Nile, 4,100 miles. The river that carries the most water, South America's Amazon. It pours 4 million cubic feet every second into the Atlantic Ocean. The highest waterfall, Venezuela's Angel Falls, which has a total drop of 3,212 feet, and the Lord made them all. And then number five, the Lord is shepherd. He is shepherd. Verse 7, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. I didn't mention this earlier, but when you read Psalm 95 in the Hebrew song book, it does not give an author, but the author of Hebrews does attribute Psalm 95 to David as the author. And so David, who was he? What did he do before he became a king? He was a shepherd. And David was a faithful shepherd. And so David thinks about all of his interacting with sheep and his care for them, protecting them, feeding them, leading them into the green pastures and in still waters. And yet we have an infinitely superior shepherd who cares for us. And so just picture, among other things, you could picture about a loving shepherd when a lamb has fallen or gotten hurt, and that shepherd picks that lamb up and just gently holds the lamb in his arms. And that's what the Lord has done for us, spiritually speaking, who knows how many hundreds, thousands of times. We've fallen, we've gotten hurt, we've sinned again. Come here, sweet child. Come here, precious lamb. Let me just love on you. Let me restore you. Let me put a splint on it. Let me just heal you. Um, Alita danced forth. She became a missionary in the Congo, formerly Zaire, back in 1979. She was heartbroken when she and her missionary team had to leave the country back in 1997. A tribal war had begun in Rwanda and it was sweeping across that country, heading toward theirs. And then sure enough, soldiers began to be sighted, and so word was if you've got any sense at all, missions agencies were calling their missionaries back home. And so Alita and her missionary team, they evacuated, and they had done so a few years earlier, and then they were able to go back, and now here they are leaving again, wondering if they will ever be able to come back. Once she got back to the States, she's standing not unlike missionaries do, not unlike we've had missionaries do the last couple of Sundays, but she was standing in her own home church. And she was just being brutally honest, just talking about how it just feels like we've been on a roller coaster ride. Ups and downs, ups and downs, man, people coming to know the Lord, people's lives being changed, and then having to leave the country, people's lives being changed by God's grace and then having to leave the country. And she said that while she was actually conveying that metaphor of a roller coaster ride, she was reminded that almost every single time any of us have ever gotten in a roller coaster, there's a safety bar or a safety latch that's put on you to make sure that you're okay. And she thought, you know, throughout all of the ups and downs, I'm in the Lord's arms. There's no better place I could possibly be. Oh, how He loves me. And when the Lord is your Savior Shepherd, you can sing and say, Surely, surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And then we conclude with worship with reverence. Worship with reverence. Verse 6, oh come. And by the way, there are three invitations, three times it says, Oh come, oh come, oh come. Let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker. Most of us have either been in a courtroom or we've at least seen it on TV where court cases about to get started, and people are filing in, and attorneys are in their seats, and defendant and plaintiff, etc., and people are having conversations, probably not all that loud, but they're having conversations, they're talking, all of a sudden there's a voice. All right. And everybody in their right mind does what? They stand up, they stop their talking, they stop shuffling papers. Why? Because a person of authority has walked in. Now everybody in their right mind knows he or she is just a human being, but they have authority vested in them. And so we rise out of respect for them. Well, here we're told to bow down, to humble yourself, to get on your knees, to get prostrate before the Lord. You see, oh come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker. Not just stand, but bow. Not just acknowledge, but humble yourself. Bow down, kneel before the Lord. In a few moments, you're going to be invited to do that if you can. I know that for some of you, you have physical reasons, you cannot do that. But in just a matter of moments, when we have another prayer, Kevin or somebody's going to invite you to just get on your knees, turn around, and make your seat something that you lean on as we just humble ourselves before the Lord. Verse 6, three acts, worship, bow down, kneel. All three communicate self-humiliation. The God who made the seas and made Israel his people, he has made us his people through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. And as his people, we humbly but gladly bow down, right? And one day, every knee is going to bow.