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This
past week I received the same email from two of our church members,
active church members, loyal church members, loving church members.
The email was entitled, “Adorable”. I was so flattered by the
heading of the email that I barely noticed the “FW” that preceded
it. The email was a collection of twelve stories about faith,
church, and children. One of the stories, the inclusion of which
sparked my curiosity, reads as follows:
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The preacher's 5 year-old daughter noticed that her
father always paused and bowed his head for a moment
before starting his sermon. One day, she asked him why.
“Well, Honey,” he began, proud that his daughter was so
observant of his messages. “I’m asking the Lord to help
me preach a good sermon.”
“So, how come He doesn’t?” she asked.
Ouch! It reminded me of the story about a boy named
Johnny, a story I receive at least once a year:
One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Johnny
standing in the foyer of the church, looking at a large
plaque that hung there. After the young man of seven
had stood there for some time, the pastor walked up
beside him and said quietly, “Good morning, son.”
“Good morning, Pastor,” replied the youngster, not
taking his eyes off the plaque. “Can I ask you, Sir, why
are all these names listed on here?”
“Well, son, these are all the people who have died in
the service,” replied the pastor.
Soberly, they stood together, staring up at the large
plaque. Little Johnny’s voice barely broke the silence
when he asked quietly, “Which one, Sir, the 8:30 or the
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We have been focusing on Faithfulness to
Fruitfulness in the past several weeks. The five common practices
of fruitful congregations have been identified as radical
hospitality, passionate worship, faith forming small groups, risk
taking missions and service, and extravagant generosity. Today, we
look at Passionate Worship. John Stott wrote in his commentary on
Acts, “It is right in public worship to be dignified; it is
unforgivable to be dull.” This certainly seems to be the
sense of the Psalms. We opened our worship service with the last
psalm in the Book of Psalms, listen now to the beginning of the next
to last Psalm, the 149th Psalm, verses 1-5. Hear now the
Word of the Lord:
1Praise the
Lord! Sing to the Lord
a new song,
his praise
in the assembly of the faithful.
2Let Israel be glad
in its Maker;
let the
children of Zion rejoice in their King.
3Let them praise
his name with dancing,
making
melody to him with tambourine and lyre.
4For the
Lord takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns
the humble with victory.
5Let the faithful
exult in glory;
let them
sing for joy on their couches.
This
is the word of God for the people of God. In this passage the
psalmist invited the Israelites to a joyous celebration of worship.
Let us pray.
There
is something in us that yearns to worship our creator and
caregiver. Perhaps it is the breath of God that was breathed into
the very first human and continues to operate in each of us. This
first half of the next to the last psalm identifies both the call
and the cause for passionate worship.
We Have a Call to Passionate
Worship
The
psalmist began this psalm with an excited imperative, “Praise the
Lord!” It is both an invitation and a command. “How could you not
do it?!” he seemed to exclaim. We don’t know exactly when this
psalm was written. Some believe it was after David established the
kingdom of Israel in Jerusalem. After hundreds of years of struggle
for independence, a solid and renowned kingdom was fixed in the
reign of David. Some believe it was after the exiles returned to
Jerusalem more than 400 years after David. It was a time when God
had brought his people home and the call went out to praise the
Lord. Some think it was during the time of Judas Maccabeus who led
a revolt against the Seleucids in the 2nd century B.C.
liberating Jerusalem. It is not clear what prompted the psalm, but
it was one of those great moments that called for a new song. We
have such an experience today as we have the debut of the new song,
written by Brian Wren and set to music by David Schwoebel, “Acclaim
with jubilation…flex your hearts and voices, your fingers and your
feet, bring music cool or classic…expand the celebration till earth
and ocean ring and all the people sing…To sing is to belong to God,
whose mighty singing sets all creation ringing, lift heart and soul
and voice, be thankful and rejoice.” This new song is to
release from within us the joy we have toward our Maker and our
King. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “When the Lord saves a soul its holy
joy overflows, and it cannot find channels enough for its exceeding
gratitude; if the man does not leap, or play, or sing, at any rate
he praises God, and wishes for a thousand tongues with which to
magnify his savior.” Yes! That is the kind of worship I like, the
kind where we want to do something.
Last
Sunday as I finished the sermon at around noon, my voice started to
leave me and it is just now coming back. That meant that Monday
night, at the basketball game between the Aggies and Longhorns, in a
seat close enough for the players and referees to hear me, I was
mute. What was worse, I was seated next to Sterling, who to his
credit, was politely and with great reserve cheering for the orange
and white. Can you imagine what it was like for me to have no voice
when the Aggies built a 19 point lead, and when that lead shrunk to
three? I needed to yell. Instead, all I could do was throw my arms
in the air and simulate a ball going into the net when Nathan Walkup
sunk a critical three pointer. I wanted to celebrate. I wanted to
yell, to throw my hands in the air, and be a part of the sixth man.
It was frustrating to be so limited by laryngitis.
Wouldn’t it be great if that was the spirit of worship? What would
this place sound like if we stood to sing a hymn and all joined in
with same enthusiasm that I heard Monday night at Reed Arena or this
weekend at Olsen Field? What would happen if our recitation of the
Lord’s Prayer was offered with our whole being instead of our gentle
voices? When we affirm our faith, how different would it be if we
were truly affirming our faith? In this psalm, we have a call to
worship, we are not sure when it was written, but I am confident
that it was written for us, this very day.
“It is right in public worship to be
dignified; it is unforgivable to be dull.”
We Have a Cause for Passionate
Worship
Verse
four reveals the cause for passionate worship. Whenever there is
that word, “For” that begins a sentence, it is good to look all
around that word for an important message. The psalmist gave a call
to worship before that word and the cause afterwards. “For the Lord
takes pleasure in his people.” Think about that. God likes you,
likes you a lot. Likes to just look at you, watch you, love you.
“Let them sing for joy on their couches,” the psalmist wrote. John
Gill commented on this phrase years ago by writing, “This denotes a
safe and secure status of saints upon their beds, lying down and
sleeping comfortably, having nothing to fear, the Lord sustaining
them, and so may they sing upon their beds.” There is cause for
passionate worship as we praise a God who actually loves to commune
with us. In fact, cries with confidence that God adorns the humble
with victory. Eugene Peterson paraphrased verses three and four
with these words, “Strike up the band and make great music! And
why? Because God delights in his people; festoons plain folk with
salvation garlands.” God has turned the paupers into princes in
his kingdom, the Cinderellas into princesses. You are a child of
God, and God dotes on you as a parent does the child.
I
shared with some of you that for Zac’s 18th birthday last
month he wanted to go snowboarding. On his birthday he was making
his last run down the mountain. I had already turned in my gear and
had determined that my greatest joy on his birthday would be to be
there, camera in hand, to observe the last stretch of the last run.
I wasn’t there because I had to be there or because I was obliged to
do so. I wanted to watch my son on the steep decline that completed
a three mile run. I had gone down this run on skis and knew it to
be treacherous. I had almost gone off the left edge the day
before. That edge dropped about 12 – 20 feet, but as far as I was
concerned it dropped off the face of the earth. I was sure that if
I went off that edge I went out of this life. So you can imagine
how nervous this father was, at nine o’clock at night, in the dim
lights of the course when I saw my son hugging that left edge with a
snowboard as he glided into the shadows and then out of sight. He
went off the edge of the earth. Disappeared and was gone for a long
time. I text messaged him, “Are you alright?” I watched as other
skiers and snowboarders came down the mountain. No one looked in
that direction. Finally, a faint figure climbed out of the abyss
and back onto the course. He fastened his snowboard and finished
the run standing up. I was so happy to see him in one piece with a
smile on his face.
Can
it be that God cares for us that much? Of course it can be. This
gives great cause for passionate worship. God takes pleasure in
you, adorns you with victory, gives you a couch on which to rest and
invites you to sing for joy. This is amazing!
“It is right in public worship to be
dignified; it is unforgivable to be dull.”
Today we have the opportunity to present
our commitments to God in this service. It is to be an act of
worship. Linda Marr shared with me that one of the highlights of
her mission trip to Africa was the worship service, and that one of
the highlights of worship was the offering. People lined up to come
forward and present their offerings with great joy, festive music,
even dancing. They felt the call to passionate worship and
recognized the cause for passionate worship. I invite you to
respond in that same spirit. If you have yet to respond to
Faithfulness to Fruitfulness, you have a Response Card in your
bulletin. Please take the time to fill this out with an estimate of
giving for the year beginning June 1. I encourage you to move
toward the tithe in this response. Consider what percent of your
income you are currently giving back to God and increase that by 1-2
or 10 percent of your income, however God directs you, and bring it
forward. If you have already made your commitment or you are a
visitor or guest, we have provided a Dedication Card in the bulletin
for you to place in the envelope and bring forward. This is a way
where everyone can come forward and commit ourselves to God in a
time of passionate worship. There is something in us that
yearns to worship our creator and caregiver, our Maker and King.
Let us do so this morning, but first let us prepare our hearts. Let
us pray.
“It is right in public worship to be
dignified; it is unforgivable to be dull.”
Amen.
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