Pastor Chris Matthis Epiphany Lutheran Church, Castle Rock, Colorado Lent 3, Series A Sunday, March 19 th, 2017 Sermon: Why Worship? 1 Text: Psalm 95 Focus Statement: God made us and saves us. Function Statement: That they would worship God in Spirit and truth. Sermon Structure: Definition Doctrinal Locus: For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him (SC, 1 st Article of the Apostles Creed). Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. The basis for today s message is Psalm 95, especially the opening verse: Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation (Psalm 95:1, ESV). 2 Come! That s the invitation of our psalm, and that s the invitation every time we gather for worship. The opening verses of Psalm 95 are captured in the joyful song called the Venite, which is the service of Matins in our hymnal. Venite is the Latin word for come, and that s what we do this morning. We come and gather to worship God. But what is worship? By definition, worship is reverent honor and homage paid to a god or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred (Dictionary.com). As fallen, sinful human beings, we show reverence and honor to many people and things. It s very natural for us to worship a god. You could say we re hard-wired for worship. After all, God has placed eternity in our hearts (Eccl. 3:11). We re all born with a need to connect with the divine. We all want to stand in awe of someone or something greater than ourselves. The key is to make sure we worship the right God. 1 This sermon was originally preached at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Englewood, Colorado, on Sunday, March 27 th, 2011. 2 All Scripture passages, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.
Matthis 2 According to Psalm 95, we worship the LORD, that is Yahweh, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 3:16). There are many false gods that people wrongly worship in their lives: money, sex, celebrity, power, and tradition. According to Luther, whatever you put your trust in, that is your God (LC, 1 st Commandment). Our hearts reveal the object of our worship based on what we spend the most time and energy thinking and worrying about. In our Old Testament lesson, the Israelites wandering in the wilderness showed that hunger and thirst were their gods (Ex. 17:1-7). Their god was their stomach (Phil. 3:19). My father also a pastor says that worry is a form of worship, but worry is praying to the wrong god. All the gods of our own making will let us down. But our God never disappoints, and he is the greatest of all: For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods (Ps. 95:3). He s the only one worthy of being praised. Jesus says, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve (Matt. 4:10). As Christians, we understand the Lord to be the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And this Triune God reveals himself to us in the flesh of Jesus Christ. In other words, Jesus is Lord! (1 Cor. 12:3). Buddha is not Lord. Allah is not Lord. Neither are Shiva or Krishna, Mother Earth, my inner light, or what I ate for breakfast. None of these are Lord. Jesus is Lord! He is the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16), the beginning and the end and there is none like him! There is no other god like Jesus, because he s the only God who loves you, the only one who saves you. His name is the name above any other (Phil. 2:9), for there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). So why do we worship Jesus? Do I really need to ask? There are so many wonderful reasons to worship the Lord Jesus Christ: his love, his mercy, his forgiveness, his power, and his
Matthis 3 might! According to Psalm 95, it ultimately boils down to two: (1) the Lord made us; and (2) he saves us. We worship God because he made us. And the creature always gives glory to the Creator. When you admire a painting by Picasso or a symphony by Mozart, you enjoy the beauty of the art or music. Yet ultimately, you admire the artist or composer. The work brings glory to the one who made it. So it is with us and God. We worship Jesus because he made us. We are his workmanship. He is the potter, we are the clay. So we give him glory: The sea is his, for he made it; and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand (Ps. 95:5-7). Because God made us, we are his. Everything we have is his: our family, our friends, our job, our house, and our money. Everything is his, right down to our very life. Like a beautiful master painting, we bear his signature on our hearts. And so we worship the Master! We also worship because God saves us: Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! (Ps. 95:1b). Jesus is the only God who saves you from sin, death, and the devil. He s the only God who died on the cross to forgive your sins and rose again to give you eternal life. He saves you from your sin, saves you from your enemies saves you from yourself! In our culture, we honor those who save others. We build memorials for soldiers who sacrifice their lives in battle. We remember police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty. We even pin medals on little boys and girls who save puppies from drowning in swimming pools. We honor those who save others.
Matthis 4 That s why we worship God. Jesus saves us, and so we honor him with worship. That s why in heaven we will sing, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! (Rev. 7:10). We worship God because he made us and saves us. So now the final question: How do we worship? The way we worship is one of the big debates in the Lutheran church today. People get caught up in all kinds of arguments about whether or not you can have a contemporary praise band with guitars and drums, or whether you should only sing the hymns in the hymnal played on the piano or organ. I happen to believe these arguments miss the point, and there s a place for both. As Paul says, Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord (Eph. 5:19). Psalm 95 says, make a joyful noise (v. 2). Some are joyful. Some are noisy. But God wants to hear all of us! It doesn t matter if we worship with a pipe organ or a piccolo, a harpsichord or a harmonica. What matters is that we come to thank and praise the Lord! In the end, worship isn t a matter of practice but posture. The psalmist says: Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! (Ps. 95:6). Worship isn t about our personal preferences. It isn t about which styles work the best or whether or not we sing my favorite hymns or praise songs. Worship is about the heart! Do we bow down and kneel before the Lord? Do we set aside our clamoring claims and surrender it all to Jesus? Do we come into his presence with open ears, open hearts, and open mouths to receive what God is going to give us? Historically, Lutherans have called their worship services the Divine Service, or the Lord s Service (German: Gottesdienst). Worship isn t so much about what we do for God as it is about what God does for us! We come to hear his voice (Ps. 95:7) and receive his gifts. God gives us the Word and Sacraments, and we respond with praise and thanksgiving. God
Matthis 5 speaks to us in his Word of Law and Gospel, and we echo that Word in our prayer, praise, and proclamation, here in church, and in our daily lives. God gives us his Body and Blood for the forgiveness of our sins, and we live out our lives as the Body of Christ the rest of the week. Worship isn t about us. It s about Jesus. But worship is for us. That is, it benefits us. For here we see the cross of Christ, the rock of our salvation (Ps. 95:1b). Here we find our sins forgiven. Here we celebrate what God has done for us in Christ. And that is why we go and tell others, giving glory to God for what he s done, so they can come and worship Jesus with us in this place. The Bible says a day is coming when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:10-11). For some that confession will be one of praise! For others, it will be one of regret that is, for all who do not know the Lord their Maker. I pray that for you and your friends and family, Christ s coming will be a homecoming, a celebration like no other. I hope we ll all be raising a racket and making a joyful noise in the unending worship of heaven. And I hope that all our friends and family will be there too. That is why we go from here with the invitation of the Venite: Come! Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; Let us make a joyful noise 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! Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! (Ps. 95:1-2, 6). We come because Christ calls us. We come because Christ came for us in mercy. We come because Christ will come again. And what a joyful coming that will be! In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.