First Mennonite Church
February 4, 2024
Why Do We Worship God?
Text: Psalm 95:1-7a
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
The last two Sundays we reflected on the attributes of God and what they mean to us. Today, I would like for us to reflect on the reasons we worship God. As we know it, worshipping God usually takes place in a reserved space we call the church or sanctuary. We worship God in the company of fellow worshipers and our worship takes place in the form of songs, prayers, reading, and listening to the Holy Scripture.
What is your first memory of participating in a worship service? What was in it that made you realize, it was not, let’s say, a party, or a common social activity, but something of deeper significance?
For me, it took place when I was very young. My paternal grandmother took me along to church for a Good Friday service at a Catholic church. I don’t remember much, except the sound of the hammer hitting the nail during the enactment of Jesus’ crucifixion. The atmosphere of that service, as I recall, was tense, or reverent maybe. I don’t recall it being joyous or celebratory.
When I turned 10, my mother started attending the church our neighbors attended. They had visited my mom for some time and had invited her to attend their service. What struck me as completely different from my previous experience of going to a church was the joyous singing and that people were allowed to participate in what was happening. After many years of attending, I learned it was a Mennonite congregation. From there on, for my family and me by extension, attending church became a natural thing to do, almost like breathing. Worshipping God became a fact of life. And since then, I have done it around campfires, when I was young. I have done it while traveling in a vehicle as we went to another town when we were establishing another church. I have done it in the company of a large group of people as well as when there were only a few.
But as with everything that becomes natural as breathing or something we do in various spaces and forms, it is very important to take the time to reconsider the reason we do it.
So, why do we worship God? Maybe, to help us respond to the question, we must first define what worship is and then know what it means when it is offered to God.
The online Cambridge Dictionary defines worship this way: to have or show a strong feeling, or respect and admiration for God or a god.
Commonly, we refer to the activities we carry out in this place at this hour, the worship service. In some churches, there is an even narrower definition of what worship is. It is that prolonged singing that is considered differently than the prayers offered or the sermon, or Communion that is celebrated. Even when there is some truth to that perspective about what worship is, we need to be reminded about the all-encompassing and extensive reach of worship.
In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for worship is shawkhaw. It, literally, means: to prostrate in humble reverence before a superior being, like a subject to a king.
Psalm 95, verses 1-7 can help us understand three aspects about worshipping God. First, it tells us the context; secondly, it tells us the reasons why God is worthy of our praise. And thirdly, Psalm 95 tells us the manner in which our praise and worship can be offered to God.
The context
In these seven short verses, the call is made as “Come, let us worship. . . .” Worshipping God is a collective activity for the people of God. That is why we come together to offer God our worship. Worshipping God in community is the proper setting for the other two aspects about worship to happen.
There are some who believe they can worship God anywhere. Which is possible, but it is not the intended manner we should worship God. Some people say, “I can worship God while I am hiking in the mountains or while I have my fishing rod in hand.” And they can. But in the Scriptures, worshipping God is always called to take place in the company of God’s people. That must be the reason why we designate places of worship and oftentimes church buildings are necessary. The community of believers needs to gather together to offer worship and praise to God.
Now, before I go to the two other aspects of worship, let us take note that there are two distinct calls to worship in our passage.
The first call to worship is found in verses one to five.
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
This call to worship invites exuberant rejoicing before God. Joyful singing should characterize our worship. Extol the Lord with music and song, commands the psalmist. I tell you, having a pianist to accompany our singing enhances the beauty of worship. But, even without it, let us make sure that we sing with joy and gratitude to the Lord when we sing. And the reason why this form of celebratory worship of God is expected is because he is the Rock of our salvation. He is the great God and King above anything or anyone worthy of praise. He holds together the order the universe needs to function well. God created this magnificent world, the mountains, the seas, the-ever-expanding universe came from his hands and all they belong to our God. And as we stand before God, as minute as we are within this magnificent creation to us God has given the knowledge of himself to give him praise.
Clearly, some might find a little disconcerting this kind of loud, exuberant, and celebratory worship. Some would prefer the quiet inner manner of worshipping God, which is fine. But it should not be the only way we are called to worship God and it is not what is called for here. Worship in the company of God’s people should often be, if not always, one in which we celebrate the majesty, the power, and the glory of the presence of the Divine among us. The manner of worship, commanded here, describes an activity which seems more appropriate in the football stadium than in the church “sanctuary.” The kind of worship called for here is vociferous, unsubdued, and enthusiastic.
The second call to worship is contained in verse 6, and its basis is given in verse 7.
Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Notice especially the change of tone, from exuberant and enthusiastic praise to awe-inspired prostration. The worshipper is seen standing in God’s presence, shouting forth praise in verses 1 and 2. Now, in verse 6 the worshipper falls on his/her face before God in humbled silence.
This physical posture and manner of worship is exactly what the Hebrew and Greek words for worship mean. Worship means to throw oneself face down before a superior being. It’s an act in which we physically communicate our inferiority and our willing disposal to comply with the bidding of him who we bow down to—in this case God.
Why do we bow down to God in reverent awe? The psalmist says, “the Lord is our Maker, and because he is our God.
We worship God because we recognize that we owe God our very existence. We are not the product of ourselves. We are not masters of our own destiny because regardless of our finitude and imperfectness, God created us out of pure love and mercy. We are the sheep of his pasture and the flock under his care. We depend on God for sustenance and care. He is the loving shepherd of our souls, thus we worship him in humility, reverence, and gratitude.
You see, God not only created us but he lovingly takes care of us. He guides us as a shepherd does his flock. He goes before us. We do not have to look for ourselves if we allow him to walk ahead of us. He defends us from dangers. He keeps us safely under his watching sight.
We worship God because he is both our Maker and our Protector.
Next Sunday, we will look at the effects of worship.
Pastor Romero