1 Valley View Chapel August 22, 2010 Music from the Heart, Part 1 The Worshiping Heart Selected Psalms Introduction Public worship was never meant to put people to sleep. It was meant to be a time when the church gathers together to glorify God and celebrate who we are in Christ. There is nothing more exciting on earth than encountering the dynamic presence of the living God with others who share our commitment to him! Today we re going to take a look at why God is worthy of our worship and what kind of worship pleases him. But before we do, I want to take a couple of minutes to introduce this end-of-the summer three week series. I ve called it Music from the Heart. The idea for this series emerged from my personal Bible study. This summer I ve been reading in the Psalms. I couldn t help but be impressed by the number of times I encountered the word heart. In fact there are 103 verses in the psalms where the word heart appears. Some verses Like Psalm 28:7 even use the word more than once: The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. (NIV) After I looked up all the references where the writer used the word heart, I then tried to identify the context in which the word was used. I discovered that the authors wrote about a joyful heart; foolish heart; pure heart; blameless heart; wounded heart; humble heart; broken and contrite heart; and 22 other descriptions of the human heart 29 in all. Of these 29 ways that the psalmists used the word heart I ve selected three for this series: the worshiping heart; the faint heart; and the upright heart. Definition of the heart First let me define what the Bible means by heart. The heart is often used interchangeably with the word soul. Moses and Jesus used the two words heart and soul in the same statement. The words in both places mean the same thing.
2 Deuteronomy 6:5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (NIV) Jesus said in Matthew 22:37 that his followers are called to Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (NIV) The heart and the soul have three components: the intellect; the motions; and the will. The intellect is the part of us that thinks. The emotions is the part of us that feels. The will is the part of us that makes choices. Our heart is our true character; it s who we really are. Someone described the heart as the home of our personal life. On my Face book home page I have a quote from the late John Wooden: Your reputation is what people think you are. Your character is what you really are. He could just as well have said from a biblical perspective: Your heart is who you really are. You can t see it but the saying next to Coach Wooden reads: I pray thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within. John Wooden s greatest ambition was not to be known as a great basketball coach. It was to be beautiful within, to have a beautiful heart. I don t know if John Wooden was musical or not. But he had a worshiping heart. Unfortunately, Christians have associated worship with music. Many people divide the Sunday service up between the worship time and the sermon time. Some people who aren t musical find it hard to get engaged during the singing part of the service. And others who like music often find it hard to get engaged during the sermon. Worship has nothing to do with music and it has nothing to do with a sermon. It has everything to do with our attitude toward God. If their attitude toward God is right, then non-musical people will worship during the music and non-intellectuals will worship during the sermon. But to do that, they need a worshiping heart. The worshiping heart knows God. The one prerequisite for the worshiping heart I can t recommend a restaurant I ve never been to; a car I ve never driven; a church I ve never attended; or a movie I ve never seen. I have to have personal knowledge in order to praise a product and recommend it to someone else. The worshiping heart must know the Lord on three levels. The worshiping heart knows the Lord mentally. We need to comprehend certain truths about God. The fancy word for this is theology or the doctrine of God. Theology consists of the attributes of God (who he is) and the acts of God (what he has done). Unless you are a theologian at some level, you can t have a worshiping heart.
3 Pastor and author Joshua Harris observed: If you were to ask me why it matters that we study the doctrine of God, I'd say [that] when we know the truth about God, it fills us with wonder. If we fail to understand his true character, we'll never be amazed by him. We'll never feel small as we stare up at him. We'll never worship him as we ought. Theology matters. And we get our knowledge of God from two sources. The first is God s natural revelation or what God has made. Psalm 19:1-4 (NIV) The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. (NIV) The second is God s special or written revelation. It s called The Holy Bible. The Bible is our primary source of information concerning the attributes and the acts of God. Jesus said as much when he told the Jewish religious leaders in John 5:39, You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me. (NIV) While knowing about God is foundational for a worshiping heart, head knowledge alone is insufficient to generate God-glorifying worship. The worshiping heart needs to know the Lord personally. It s one thing to know about a person. It s one thing to even know a lot about a person. But that s not the same as knowing someone personally. In a few weeks I ll be attending the National Conference on Preaching at Gordon- Conwell Seminary. I m looking forward to hearing three of the country s best preachers: Alistair Begg, Tony Evans, and Haddon Robinson. I know about Alistair Begg and Tony Evans. In fact I know quite a lot about them. But I know Haddon Robinson. He spent three days teaching the Bible at our church in Maryland. Emily and I drove him around. We had a couple of meals with him. We enjoyed Christian fellowship. When I see him next month, he ll remember something about the time we spent together in ministry. The person with the worshiping heart has opened the door of her heart and invited Jesus Christ into the home of her personal life. She knows his love, his forgiveness, and the hope he gives for a life beyond this life in a place called heaven personally. The worshiping heart knows God mentally through nature and the Bible. The worshiping heart knows God personally because she has invited the Lord Jesus Christ to make his home in the core of her character. Third, the worshiping heart knows God intimately.
4 I know about a lot of people. I even know personally a lot of people. But I only know a few people intimately. I only know a few people intimately because I only have a desire to know a few people intimately. And desire is the key to knowing God at this level. 700 years ago the German theologian and philosopher Meister Eckhart said: The reason we are not able to see God is the faintness of our desire. In her book Sacred Rhythms Ruth Haley Barton observed: The depth of our desire has a great deal to do with the outcome of our life. Often those who accomplish what they set out to do in life are not those who are the most talented or gifted or who have had the best opportunities. Often they are the ones who are most deeply in touch with how badly they want whatever they want; they are the ones who consistently refuse to be deterred by the things that many of us allow to become excuses. Many of us don t seek intimacy with God because we don t desire it. And the reason why we don t desire it is because it costs too much. Intimacy with God requires the same three things that are required to know a person intimately. And they are the three most precious things in life which is why we are hesitant to take the plunge into intimacy. The first component of intimacy is time. Time is a non-renewable resource. We can t get it back. Whatever stage you are in life, you need to use your time wisely. But if a relationship is really important then you ve got to give that relationship a lot of time. And no relationship is more important than our relationship with God. The second component of intimacy is trust. It s hard to trust because there s always the possibility that our trust will be betrayed. We should only give our trust to people we know well or those who have a track record of trustworthiness in the estimation of the people we know well. The psalmists wrote often of their trust in God. Psalm 9:10 Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you. (NIV) Psalm 22:4-5 In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed. (NIV) Psalm 56:3-4 When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. (NIV)
5 We can trust the Lord because he s been there for us throughout life s circumstances and we can trust him because those who have trusted him before us have found him flawlessly faithful. The third component of intimacy is transparency. Once I come to trust someone, I ll be transparent. I ll reveal my innermost secrets, my fondest hopes, and my most embarrassing failures. Adam and Eve knew each other transparently nothing hidden, no secrets. It s significant that the Hebrew word for sexual intercourse is translated in Genesis 4:1 this way: Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain. (NKJV) Their physical nakedness, implied in Genesis 4:1, is symbolic of the emotional and spiritual nakedness that ought to characterize and authentic relationship with God. God knows everything about us and he loves us anyway! Talk about transparency! The psalmist celebrated his transparency before the Lord when he wrote: O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. Psalm 139:1 (NIV) The need for balance Worship is an exercise of the intellect and the emotions. Worship involves right thinking about God (correct theology) accompanied by certain feelings - awe, joy, peace, contentment, rest, and a thousand other wonderful sensations. Worship is never a choice between our mind or our emotions; our intellect or our feelings. Some churches specialize in generating emotion. Their worship leaders and their preachers are experts at moving worshipers to laughter or tears. Those who attend a church like that gradually learn to evaluate the service in terms of the emotion they feel. In time, however, the law of diminishing returns sets in. Prayers have to get more emotional. Testimonies have to get more sensational. Songs have to produce more goose bumps. The preaching has to be more passionate. The name of the game is to keep people having intense emotional experiences. Such worship is often shallow, sometimes artificial, and rarely reflective. Little attention is given to worshiping with the mind. Worshipers may develop a "zeal for God, but not according to knowledge" (Romans 10:2). They become worship junkies, searching for whichever church can supply the best rush. This is Scarecrow worship: it would be better if it only had a brain.
6 On the other hand, some churches focus entirely on doctrinal correctness. They recite the historic creeds; distribute reams of study notes copiously sprinkled with Greek and Hebrew words; and sing hymns at least 200 years old to the accompaniment of a fiverank pipe organ. Yet the hearts of the congregation are seldom gripped by wonder and passion in the presence of the living God. People who attend churches like this may be able to spot doctrinal error, but rarely if ever does this cold and sterile attempt at worship generate awe or great joy. This is Tin Man worship: if it only had a heart. Conclusion The author of Psalm 9:1 declared: I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. (NIV) I will tell of all your wonders. The psalmist could tell of all God s wonders because he worshiped intellectually. He knew something. The author of Psalm 30:11-12 proclaimed: You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever. (NIV) The author of this psalm danced before the Lord. He wore a jacket of joy. He refused to remain silent in the presence of the living God. He worshiped emotionally. He felt something. A.W. Tozer - in his book Whatever Happened to Worship? - said that the purpose of our salvation is to make worshipers out of rebels. If Tozer was right, then let us be biblical worshipers people who know something about the glory of God and feel something in response to the glory of God.