Come, Let Us Worship the Lord Together
By Rev. Jeremiah Cheung
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Psalm 95 is an invitation card, inviting us to worship the Lord together. It is a wonderful thing to be invited. Sometimes, when we are not invited, we feel we had been overlooked. If the President of the Philippines invited your whole family to the Palace, will you accept the invitation and go? Today, it is not an earthly king inviting you, but the Heavenly King, the King of kings and Lord of lords; how glorious this is! Psalm 95 is God’s invitation to us:
I. This is an Invitation for All, an Open Invitation
The author invites us to worship. Twice, in verses 1 and 6, he said, “Come.” Verses 1 and 6 mentioned “us” seven times. The author is not inviting just any one person but he is inviting all of us to worship together. Individual worship is of course very important – praying daily, singing praises, reading the Bible and worshipping God is good. But corporate worship is truly more wonderful.
What is worship? Worship is responding to God. The English word, worship, means He is worthy of our all. Worship is not simply the act of singing praise songs, or listening to the preaching, or giving our offerings. Worship itself is a kind of response. We are saying from our hearts, “Lord, you are truly great!” and this is worship; that is, praise coming from our hearts. Worship is when we drop our treasured money into the offering box because we are giving God thanks for his grace and glory, because He is worthy. When we sing praise songs, pray, present song offerings, listen to the preaching, give offerings, we are saying to the Lord, “You are worthy!” This is worship. The author invites us again and again to worship the Lord together. Sometimes, our hearts and minds aren’t prepared, or when we are in the midst of troubles and our hearts are heavy, we find ourselves without strength to worship, and yet when we come and worship the Lord together with our fellow believers, we will influence each other, andthen, we become encouraged. This cannot be found in individual worship. Indeed, we must treasure the invitation we get each Sunday.
II. Worship Involves Our Emotions
We are a people who find it hard to express ourselves. Love may be in our hearts but we do not express it out loud. That is why we have this song entitled “The Moon Represents My Love”. The song goes, “You ask me how much I love you”, unwilling to say “I love you”, he answers with the line, “The moon represents my heart.”
Yet, the psalmist teaches us to express ourselves, to show our emotions. We find it hard to express our emotions because we had been taught to be quiet since our childhood – “Be still for the Lord is in His Holy Temple, silence, silence.” In the Lord’s temple, we truly should not be casual, we must learn to be still, to observe silence, but during worship, there is a time to be silent and also a time to express ourselves. During silence, you need to be quiet. But when it is time to articulate ourselves, do you? We must be able to express ourselves freely before the Lord in worship, but remember – all of us come to worship, only God is the audience. We must all come with an attitude of worship. During praise and worship, we should sing out loud, during prayer we must say our amen’s out loud. Let us learn to express our feelings.
III. Worship Involves Our Rational Mind
If worship involves only our emotions, then what difference would there be from the religious fanatics or pop-music concerts? When you observe the audience of pop-music concerts, you find that they are truly moved by the music, even more than we are during our worship time. On stage, they jump and shout, even remove their clothes. Down stage, the audience responds emotionally- they laugh, they cry, they scream, but is that worship? Therefore, we must understand, that emotional involvement is not enough, we must also involve our rationale. We must know why we worship, why we are engaging our whole being in worship.
Verse 3, “For the Lord is the great God, the great King…” Verses 4-5 state how He is the creator of heaven and earth. These are the reasons we worship Him; because He is a great God. Our God is a great God. How we worship Him reflects how great He is. In verses 6 -7, the psalmist says to worship the Lord with reverence. The psalmist teaches us to bow down in worship, to kneel before the Lord. He instructs us to show God our reverence, because the Lord is a great God, a great King; not only is he the creator of the earth, he is also our God, our Lord. We are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care, He is our shepherd – these verses describe our relationship with Him. We truly must revere our God, love Him, and fear Him. Then, we will not be casual with him!
IV. Worship requires our response
The psalmist reflects, “Today, if you hear his voice…” When we worship the Lord, do our lives experience change? If we do not experience change, then, we must ask ourselves whether we have truly worshipped the Lord? True worship is an encounter with God, and it is impossible for any person to encounter God without experiencing life change.
The psalmist reminds us with the words “Today, if you hear his voice…” but verses 9 -11 are God’s own words. While the psalmist’s words are a reminder, God’s words are a warning. God says, “…where your fathers tested and tried me… for forty years I was angry with that generation.”
He says in verse 11 “So, I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” The Israelites remained unchanged for forty years because, their hearts were hardened, as God says in verse 8 “…do not harden your hearts a you did in Meribah.” When our hearts are hardened, we cannot truly worship and our lives will not find true change. Do not come with hardened hearts to worship our God. We must come, with a softened heart, a gentle teachable heart, to worship God. Do not remain stiff-necked. What does it mean to be a stiff-necked person? It is refusing to change while knowing that you are wrong, it is continuing on despite knowing that it is wrong. It is in vain for such a person to worship God, not only so, he is inviting God’s anger, God’s judgment upon himself.
Today, this psalm teaches us three things:
1. Today, we must take heed when we hear his voice. Today is every day. May the Lord help us, may we not have a hardened heart. May we have a teachable heart every day as we come into his presence, as we worship Him; may we allow God’s Word teach us.
2. May we treasure our opportunities to join corporate worship, the chance to worship with our fellow believers. It is truly a wonderful thing when believers come together to worship. Hebrews 10:25 “Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but, let us encourage one another.”
3. We must learn to engage our whole being in worship. We must learn to be silent during times of silence and to express ourselves during times of expression. Treasure every part of worship: praise and worship, listening to the message, offering, fellowship after the service; in this way, our worship will truly be fruitful.