Good morning, everyone. The church are eating this morning is from Psalm 29, Psalm 29, and if you have a Bible You'll probably want to turn there, but as you do just let me say that I'm delighted that everyone's here this morning, especially visitors We're always happy to have you and it's good to see so many here today, and let me encourage you that today We're having a covered dish after church. That means if you can cover a dish, you can come And that's everybody. There's gonna be plenty of food, so if you forgot, please don't hesitate to come. We'd be more than happy for you to come and get to know each other and to share in the love that we have for each other in Christ We've been in a series of sermons now for a number of weeks on the mission of the church, because this church is beginning to think at last about why it exists Imagine that, because we can give platitudes as to why independent Presbyterian Church exists, but you have leaders of your church who are now praying and working very hard to know and to represent you as a congregation as to what God has called this church to be And so for a number of weeks, we're talking about this mission, this goal, this vision of the church of Jesus And the first part of that mission that we've been concentrating on now for a number of weeks is worship As strange as it may sound, all the way back in the beginning God made human beings and privileged them with the opportunity of coming into his presence and honoring him The one who made everything thinks that much of you, that he would give you that privilege of worship before him And we've noticed looking at Psalm 29 for a number of weeks now, that very often as we practice worship on a week-to-week basis, even on a day-to-day basis, that sometimes we've turned things upside down We've had the wrong priorities, and looking at Psalm 29 can give us a fresh peak into what God thinks is important in worship Here now the word of God from Psalm 29 Ascribe to the Lord, Almighty One, ascribe to the Lord, glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord the glory, do His name, worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness The voice of the Lord is over the waters, the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters The voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is majestic, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, Syrian like a young wild ox The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning, the voice of the Lord shakes the desert, the Lord shakes the desert of cottage The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest bare and in His temple all cry, glory The Lord sits and throened over the flood, the Lord is enthroned as king forever, the Lord gives strength to His people, the Lord blesses His people with peace Let's pray together
O Lord, whose voice shakes the entire earth, shakes the entire universe, we bow before you now to hear you speak Though your word comes through frail human beings, though your word comes through those who are weak, we eagerly, we yearn, we eagerly yearn to hear you speak
And so we pray now that by the power of your spirit, this will be so that we may know what a privilege and honor it is to come before you in a time like this May your spirit write these things in our hearts that we may give ourselves to you in humble service Amen Can you imagine if you were throwing a party at your house and you'd worked really hard and gathered all kinds of food and prepared things and invited lots of friends You're standing at the door and you're really glad when the first couple drives up 15 minutes late because you thought nobody would come But there's the first couple, they come up and you shake the hands and you say we're really glad you came and they say to you, well, we couldn't think of anything better to do tonight It'd be a little disappointing, wouldn't it? I think you want a little more enthusiasm to that And so you'd probably be very pleased if the next couple came up and said, oh yeah, we're so glad to be here There's nothing else we'd rather be doing tonight than this Yeah, that's what you want to hear when you throw a party, that they want to be there and that they're enthusiastic about it, that they sense that you're honoring them And they want to honor you because you've been so kind to them
Unfortunately, as I've watched Christians, especially in our country, it's across the board and almost every denomination I've noticed that when it comes to going to church, when it comes to doing what we're doing right now, usually our attitude is, well, I guess we'll go if we can't think of anything better to do Rather than, man, I can't think of anything and the world that I'd rather be doing today than going to worship I sure am glad it's Sunday, we lack enthusiasm for this thing that we call worship And if there's one thing that can be said about Psalm 29, this person is enthusiastic about what he's doing And you can tell it by the way he keeps repeating the same phrases over and over again, did you hear it? Ascribe to the Lord, ascribe to the Lord, ascribe to the Lord, worship the Lord, the voice of the Lord does this, voice of the Lord does that I mean, when do you repeat yourself like that? Well, on the one side, if you're absolutely depressed, you'll say, oh my, oh my, oh my, like that Or, if you're enthusiastic about something, you might do just the opposite and say, oh my, oh my, oh my, you just keep saying the same thing over and over again That's what's going on here This person isn't depressed, he's so enthusiastic that the same words just keep coming to his lips a time and again Because he knows what an honor it is to come to a time like this when God's people have gathered to worship the creator of all things
Now, as we've thought about Psalm 29 for a few weeks, we've been noticing that this Psalm is different from the way that we usually think about a time of worship Remember, I said that many Christians think of going to church like a family reunion And you'd be enthusiastic about that, you'd want to be there, you'd get there on time maybe even earlier if you like the people who are there Yeah, you could be enthusiastic about a family reunion Also, many times we think of church as sort of a therapy session And I suppose that if every time you went to church, your felt needs, the needs that you are thinking about were met, and you could leave, satisfied, well then you'd probably be very enthusiastic about coming to church Or maybe you tend like many Christians do to think of worship as a variety show where you sit there as the audience, there's a show going on up here And you're watching and you have music and things Well, if you like the style of music in your church, if you like the sorts of things they do, like the preacher, think the robe looks nice, things like that Well then, okay, yeah, let's go Or maybe like this branch of the body of Christ tends to do You think of worship primarily as a classroom where you're going to learn something new, well maybe if you have a very erudite preacher who teaches you things that you never thought about before And yeah, let's go, it'll be great You know, it's really unfortunate about church It usually doesn't meet those kinds of expectations Me typically, we find people outside of church that we might like better than the ones we find in church, so the family reunion thing, I don't think I want to go
The therapy, well you know, pastors don't even know what your felt needs are, much less, are we able to meet them We talk about things that sometimes seem irrelevant to you, so no enthusiasm for that The variety show, well, lots of us don't even like that kind of stuff that goes on up there And the classroom, well how many times can you hear these Christian things over and over and over again
We tend to lack enthusiasm for worship because we don't think of it the way that this Psalmist does Because this Psalmist says that worship, like we're doing right now, is in the palace of God in heaven
It's a throne room experience And until our hearts are attuned to that, we will certainly lack enthusiasm for it The expectations of a time when you enter into the throne room of God himself What are the expectations we should have that will lead to enthusiasm, even a desire to go to church? Well the first thing we can see in Psalm 29 is this We can expect something extraordinary, something extraordinary Do you remember how this Psalm begins? A scribe to the Lord, almighty ones, talking to the angels, almighty ones A scribe to the Lord, glory and strength, a scribe to the Lord, the glory, do his name, worship the Lord and the splendor of his holiness This was not an everyday experience for this person who wrote this Psalm, nor for all the Israelites, nor is it an everyday experience for Christians To enter into the place where the angels are in your heart and in your mind, to actually think about the myriads upon myriads of creatures That are before the throne of God in heaven is not something you do every day But it is to be something that we do in a time like this Our minds and hearts are to be preoccupied, even overwhelmed by that experience of the special presence of God in heaven
I think if you think about your normal everyday life, most of us would have to admit that we're fairly bored with it Wouldn't you say so? I mean, people love to take vacations, and I know they do because I fly in and out of Orlando, Florida a lot And you can imagine that every time I'm flying, let's say, from here to Orlando, there's a lot of enthusiasm on the airplane The kids are going, yeah, Mickey, yeah, Mickey The parents are going, oh, it's going to be so great, it's going to be so wonderful They sit down next to me and I say, are you going to go to Disney? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah Now, why are you going to Orlando? Well, I live there Whoa, man! Yeah, that's so cool, I can't stand it Man, you must be able to go to Disney every day, that's what a wonderful life They're on their way Now, every time I fly from Orlando to here, the kids are going, yo, Mickey, yo, Mickey They're going, whoa, I hate it, I'm so tired, it's not miserable, the parents are slapping their kids around and things And I sit down next to them and I say, what did you go to Disney? They say, yes, and they say, what do you do on the plane? Well, I live here and they go, oh, I'm so sorry What a nightmare to live in Orlando, it's horrible You see, the problem, of course, is that we all love vacations, we all love holidays because it gives us a break from the boring, it's something that's extraordinary That's what you're hoping for Unfortunately, those vacations and holidays come to an end and you get right back to the misery And usually you're disappointed in the holiday in one way or another Well, the extraordinary is what we're supposed to have here today in this hour If this is an ordinary experience for you, you're not with the program You're not understanding what's actually happening here Well, maybe you're not a follower of Christ and you think of this as well I was bored before I even walked in the building And I can understand that, but think for just a minute about what's happening in this room Just on a human level You have this room filled with people that come from all kinds of different backgrounds, all kinds of upbrings If we were out there in the world, we would not even like each other Many of us just would not get along, but here we are singing the same songs, here we are Saying the same words together And it's all because Jesus has done something to us And He's given us a love for Him and a love for each other that bonds us together It's a remarkable thing, this is nothing ordinary, this is quite extraordinary And for those of you who are followers of Jesus, it's even more extraordinary for you That it is for perhaps an unbeliever who just looks at the different kinds of people who are here Because you know that Jesus has come into this world That He's paid the price for sin, that He resurrected on the third day and ascended into heaven And He is there before the Father, the forerunner of you and me He got to go there when nobody else could really make it right up to the throne And He opened the gates for us, even on a date like today Even for people like you and me, He opened the doors of heaven so that we can bow down before the God of the universe And we can sing to Him with angels joining in We can sing to Him with your grandmother joining in We can sing to Him, we can pray to Him, we can worship Him with your brothers and your sisters and your father And your mother who have gone on before you there We are joining the heavenly host and we are singing and bowing and worshipping before the God of heaven and earth What could be ordinary about that? When you come before that throne, you're suddenly confronted in ways you can easily ignore during the week I'm a failure And you're given this great news that despite your failure, He smiles on you He loves you, He cares for you, it will be okay There's nothing ordinary about that But if you allow this time because of coldness of heart, because you're not prepared for it Because you slip in here, not even thinking about what you're doing Well, it can become ordinary and no wonder then you lack enthusiasm Do we have to go to church again? So the song starts off telling us that what we're doing here is unbelievable But at the same time, it tells us something else that raises expectations of a worship time So that we can gain enthusiasm for it and you know what it is? This is a time, this is a moment When you are experiencing something you don't experience day after day after day out there You are experiencing truth Have you noticed how they're lying to you? All of them all the time Have you noticed that all around you are points of view that contradict each other and are absolutely opposed to each other and how there's hatred filling this world Here, in a time of worship, we hear from God Himself in so many different ways We hear it in the prayers, we hear it in the confession of our faith in the apostles' creed We hear it as we read the scriptures, we hear it as the choir sings We hear truth that maybe we already know but truth that are easily forgotten This morning we heard a solo, a prophetic word to you, which said There's no one who's been a friend to me like Jesus Now I hope you were able to sit there in this context and say, you know, that's true And that your heart was taken there But admittedly on a day-to-day basis our hearts go to other things, don't they? So that's what happens in this Psalm beginning in verse 4 The Psalmist starts talking about something that in his day was a statement of great truth The voice of the Lord is over the waters The God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters The voice of Yahweh, the Lord is powerful, the voice of Yahweh, the Lord is majestic You remember that last week I explained to you that in the days of ancient Israel The Canaanites who lived around Israelites believed that there was a God whose name was Bale Who was the one who had the power of the storm And they believed that Bale would be in the Mediterranean Sea And he would rise up, riding on a cloud, and then fly toward the coast And when he got to the coast of course he'd get to the low-lying hills and then up to the mountains And when the clouds would go up into the mountains, the water would condense, and it would rain It was very important to have rain at the right time Otherwise your crops wouldn't grow, your animals could not live, you could not live Now as far as they were concerned that was common sense That's what you need to hear When we hear that Bales in the Mediterranean you see coming over doing this We go what? That's crazy No, for them it was common sense Because there's that thing about religion based on weather patterns It always works Because the weather patterns are stable And if they don't remain stable you just pray harder until the cycle comes back And it proves your religion It was as common-sensical to them as voting is to you and me As democracy is to you and me As the idea that the earth spins on an axis and goes around the sun is common-sensical to us That's how common-sensical it was That Bale is the one who has the power of the storm And this Psalm is saying no it is not true Let us tell you the truth The truth is that the God of Israel and the God of Israel alone has that kind of power That the God of Jesus is the only one who controls all things He's the only one who gives life, he's the only one who gives hope Now you know as well as I do that when you work with unbelievers day after day, week after week It's so easy for their views of the world to seep into your life, isn't it? Have you noticed it? Have you noticed how you adopt their values? How you adopt their points of view? How easy it is for you to forget the truth of the matter And then discover the lies that are all around us I'm not talking about truth in church where we cut the pie thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner Distinguishing ourselves from this Christian and that Christian and making this Christian group bad And that Christian group bad I'm talking about the basic truths of the Bible that tell us there is a God And those who diligently seek him will please him I'm talking about salvation being only in Jesus I'm talking about the honor and the glory that he deserves for those great truths And we need to hear those things again or we will forget them When you come to church to worship you're coming to a time When you're going to hear the word of God spoken to you You're going to see the word of God And knowing how much you need that should create within you an enthusiasm that is beyond measure If you don't think that you're influenced by the people around you, just think this way Aren't chopsticks absolutely crazy? You ever eat with chopsticks? It's the craziest thing in the world Now we as Americans think chopsticks, you know, you're right I'm going to pick up a boiled egg with chopsticks I remember one time being evaging my first time I was chasing, obviously only American in the group and I was chasing a boiled egg on the plate Like this with my chopsticks And I finally gave up by this time the whole crowd was looking at me and I just stabbed it like that Oh, they liked it But I'm going, this is the craziest custom I've seen in my whole life Well, you know what they think, don't you? What? A knife and a fork? Are you insane? You uncivilized people You see, so much of us, so much of what we believe is important, what's valuable, what's true Comes from the influence of things around us we don't even see, and that is happening to you As you are out there in the world, it is happening to you and to me This is the place where you hear the truth again This is the place where you can rely upon that truth This is the place where you can gain your reorientation to the truth and know that you will not be misled Because it is the word of the God of heaven and earth How could you not have enthusiasm for that? The expectation that something extraordinary is going to happen The expectation that there's going to be truth given in a time like this But then there's a third expectation It's the expectation that I'll leave here confident, I'll leave here confident, assured and strong Listen to the way it said here beginning in verse 10 The Lord sits enthroned over the flood, the Lord is enthroned as king forever You have to understand something about the people who worship veil They actually believe that every year when the rainy season would stop and the dry season would come That veil died He died and he was carried out into the Mediterranean Sea and buried in the sea And he was held in prison by the God of death and the God of the sea And it was only in the winter, early spring when the rains would come that he came up again This passage is telling us, none of that is true for the God of heaven and earth That he doesn't reign for a while and then die He doesn't go up and he doesn't go down No, he has been the king from the time of the flood Probably talking not about Noah's flood but probably the very beginning of the earth When the earth was covered with a vast chaotic sea, the deep You know, if you think about the earth covered with the deep, the chaos of the deep You might say, well where's God in all this? Is he buried in there somewhere? No, the Psalmist is saying Yahweh, the Lord has been king and he was even king at the very beginning because it was by his power That the chaos was pushed back and the dry land appeared and he put humanity on the earth From the very beginning God has been king and he is not just king in the past but he is king forever more Have you noticed how your life does go up and down? Have you noticed how many troubles come into your life? It's so bad that sometimes when good things come you're just expecting the next thing to be horrible Isn't that true? Have you noticed how families are breaking apart? Have you noticed how children go away? Have you noticed how with every breath you take your one breath closer to the time when you will die? I'm at the age now where people my age are dying of natural causes It's the strangest thing in the world to see that isn't it? But it's happening and it reminds us that all we have to do is blink twice and our lives are over And you know that moment when you die, nobody's going to be dying with you is just going to be you The anticipation of that, the thought of that, of all the troubles that are ahead of you leading up to that terrible moment Should cause you to ask where am I going to get some confidence for that? Where am I going to have security for that? How in the world am I going to be able to face that? And the answer of the Psalmist is this It comes by going to God in worship Having an extraordinary experience of His presence Hearing His truth and your heart is lifted up so that no matter how life goes up and down You know He is king and He is king forever and it will be okay There will be a resurrection of the body, there will be life everlasting And you leave the time of worship confident that that is true once again You know it used to be that a person could stand in a pulpit like this and say to a group like this The Lord says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy And it could tell you because of that you ought to come to church and you ought to come with enthusiasm Unfortunately in some ways but fortunately in others because it can easily get to where That is just another one of those five million rules we have got to remember Got to go to church We live instead in a day where it is very easy to choose not to go to church No one is going to fuss at you, no one is going to say oh what a bad person for not going to worship this week And in fact we live in such a mobile society and this church is so capable of using that mobility That is very easy for you to find all kinds of reasons not to come to the worship of God on a Sunday morning isn't it? All kinds of reason, the lake house, the mountain house, the beach house, the vacation I don't feel good, I got golf to do, my university is having a football game I don't know if we can name them all, there are probably 50 good reasons for you not to come to church this morning Couldn't find one this morning so you can't Now here's my challenge to you, it's not that you stop doing those things, I think that's impossible We are too used to such things but I am challenging you this way If you understand the importance of corporate worship with God's people, when you are not here, please make sure That wherever you are, you take time out of that Sunday and go to where the body of Christ has gathered and is worshiping the God of heaven and earth You might be on vacation but God is not on vacation, he is still the king and you still need to worship him And when you are here and you have no important reason for not coming Come to worship with enthusiasm because of what your expectations of this time may be What could be more valuable than having an extraordinary experience of the presence of God, than hearing the truth once in a while And gaining confidence that this truth about King Jesus is actually reliable You know it is true if you have a party, you don't want people saying yeah we came just because we couldn't think of anything better to do You don't want to do that, what you want is you want them to come with enthusiasm, this is God's party And he has paid a great price for this party, the price of his own precious son And he has been merciful and kind to prepare a party like this for us And when we walk through the door our attitude should not be couldn't think of anything better to do so I came No, it should be this is the best way I can possibly imagine spending a Sunday morning Because I am going to have an extraordinary experience of God I am going to hear the truth and I am going to leave here confident that he is the king forever We are going to pray now, but we are going to have a few moments of silent prayer in which I am going to ask you as individuals simply to contemplate before God What kind of enthusiasm you have for this kind of event And if it is one of saying thank you for giving it to me, that is great If it is one where I haven't had it then maybe you need to deal with God Let's go to the Lord for just a few moments together in silence and I will close our time A Lord whose voice thunders A Lord whose lightning flashes and strikes the earth You have honored us beyond imagination by giving us this privilege And we confess to you that many times we are not enthusiastic about it But now we bow our heads before you and say we want to experience you in extraordinary ways We want to hear truth please give it to us and please strengthen our hearts to believe and to be confident in your reign over all things We delight in you and we worship you, we honor you for this your holy word Amen