Sunday, February 8, 2009

Come to Worship - part 2 - Psalm 95:1-11

Title: Let us come to worship – part 2
Date: February 8, 2009
Text: Psalm 95:1-11

Introduction

- Deeply immersed in meditation during a church service, Italian poet Dante Alighieri failed to kneel at the appropriate moment.
- His enemies hurried to the bishop and demanded that Dante be punished for his sacrilege.
- Dante defended himself by saying, "If those who accuse me had had their eyes and minds on God, as I had, they too would have failed to notice events around them, and they most certainly would not have noticed what I was doing."
- Last week we started talking about worship
- We discussed the greatness of God and we also talked about his closeness
- God is here with each one of us that has accepted him into our life
- Today we are going to look at Psalm 95 which leads us into a further discussion about worship

An invitation to worship

- Psa 95:1-5 “O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
- Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.
- For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
- In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.
- The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land”.
- It is an invitation, a privilege, to be allowed into the presence of Almighty God
- This is not a take it or leave it kind of thing
- God is the creator of all things
- He is the one who created the sun which gives us warmth and light
- Did you know that the Sun is by far the largest object in our solar system. It contains 98% of the solar system's total mass.
- It would take 109 Earths to stretch across the Sun, and it would take over one million Earths to "fill up" the Sun if it were hollow
- God created this sun. But this sun is not alone
- Astronomers estimate that there are over 100 billion galaxies or clusters of stars in the universe
- On average, each galaxy has around 100 billion stars
- This means that our sun which is a relatively small star, is only one of 10 thousand billion, billion stars
- That is a 10 with 21 zeros after it
- This one person or being we worship, to whom we sing praise songs, made all of this!
- This demands some respect!!!
- But this person also wants to spend time with us, help us, lead us in ways that are beneficial to us! That is awesome!

Ways to worship

- Psa 95:6-7a “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.”
- There are many ways in which we can worship
- We can worship in silence, just like Dante Alighieri. We can be so absorbed by the closeness and love of God, that we are silent before him
- We can also show emotion in our worship
- Dance
- David was so enthusiastic at the ark being brought to Jerusalem that he danced before the Lord with all his might – have you ever seen people dance the highland fling!
- 2Samuel 6:14 And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod
- Kneel
- Psa 95:6-7a “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.
- We can lift our hands to God
- Psalms 28:2 Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.
- Psalms 134:2 Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the LORD.
- Lifting our hands to God is an expression of our desire for closeness with him at particular times in worship
- My own experience with raising hands – was afraid people would see me
- But was really denying God, not doing what I recognized I needed to learn to do, because of fear of people
- My worship is something I want to do with all my heart
- We will cheer at the top of my lungs when someone puts a little leather ball on the ground in a football game
- How much more do I want to be enthusiastic in my worship of this great God who has come so close to us
- Ultimately it does not matter if we raise our hands, kneel or dance
- What counts is what is happening inside

The source of worship

- Psa 95:7b “To day if ye will hear his voice,
- Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
- When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.
- Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:
- Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.”
- It seem strange that these verses are tacked on to a psalm about worship
- But they are not just tacked on, they mean something
- David is here drawing attention to the rest of our life when we leave this chapel
- The whole of my life should be an expression of the relationship I have with God
- And it is
- When I am close to God, the things I do on a day to day basis will be close to the way God would conduct himself
- And when I am far away from God, that will be evident in my actions, because I will not be as open to being led by the Holy Spirit
- This is why David refers to the ways in which the ancient Israelites messed up – he is encouraging us to not be like that but let our whole life be an expression of worship to the one who made us
- Everything we do can express our worship to God
- Because we are in close relationship with God every moment of the day
- He is here, inside us – can’t get any closer than that

Sing “All the Earth”

- We will now sing a praise song. First of I I would like you to sit and listen to the tune
- Then we will all get up and have an opportunity to worship God from the depths of our being

Prayer

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Why Should I Worship? - Psalm 122

Title: Why should I worship?
Date: February 3, 2009
Text: Psalm 122

Introduction

- Many people are like nomads
- In school we learned that nomads move from place to place, nowhere is really the place to stay and put down roots
- nomads focus on the journey, on enjoying the traveling rather than finding meaning or relevance in a fixed place
- a lot of us have been like nomads
- we traveled our journey, enjoying life as we were able, but without a fixed purpose or destination in life
- a pilgrim, on the other hand, is a person who is on a journey, but to a fixed destination- their life has meaning and purpose
- they are not walking around aimlessly, but have a reason for being
- this difference particularly comes out in the way we worship

Whom to worship

- Nomads have all kinds of ideas about whom to worship
- People think it doesn’t really matter whom we worship
- It is as though we can have our own personal private little God and we can take it or leave it
– this morning I want to have relationship with Him, the next day we choose to leave Him aside
- Here are some comments by college students being asked about their views on God and why they exist:
- “Why do we exist? Um, because we are very, very lucky
- “Because we're here; because that's what happened, I think."
-“ I think people should be here just to do as much good as they can."
- “Some rock got moved to the side which caused some blade of grass that some cow was going to eat to not eat it and then that cow died."
- “I guess we are here to help other people"
- “To have as much fun before we go."
- “Don't read any Bible or any scripture from any of those religions."
- “I am pretty scarce. I have my own ways of doing it."
- “Evolving to the more individualized and personal religion where everybody has their own conception of what is good and what is bad and what is right and what is wrong."
- “I would like to be a good person in my own relative terms."
- “I have my own little traditions, like my own rituals, but nothing that like has a name or people affiliated with it or anything like that.”
- “You know it's karma based - it's give and take."
- “My own voodoo or something you know."
- Here are some comments from people you know of:
- “I believe in God. I just don't know if that God is Jehovah, Buddha or Allah." – actress Halle Berry
- “Eastern thought western mysticism. I really dig the whole Hindu pantheon and I just pull from all kinds of things." – actress Meg Ryan
- “I go to the synagogue. I study Hinduism. All paths lead to God," and then she has her son baptized in an Anglican Church - Madonna in interview on 60 Minutes
- this is all very normal thinking for a nomad
– a nomad has no purpose in life except to enjoy the journey, wherever it leads

Pilgrim worship

- Madonna’s type of thinking is very different than the thinking of a pilgrim.
- In Psalm 122 we have the mindset of the pilgrim.
- this pilgrim has been on a journey, but this journey has a focus
- the pilgrim’s focus is to come to Jerusalem to worship
- This psalm gives a picture of the pilgrim arriving at the gates of Jerusalem and the kind of response that that person has
- let's take a look at Psalm 122

David the pilgrim

- Psalm 122:1-2- King David was a pilgim
- he had been anointed to be king, and his destination was Jerusalem
- Jerusalem was the place of God’s temple, a place where God was close, where man and God met each other in worship
- Jerusalem was also the place where David would reach his purpose, to be king
- David longed to reach his destination, Jerusalem
- but the road had been difficult and hard for David
- he had been kept from worshiping God in Jerusalem because of being on the run from King Saul
- so to David it was very special to at last be at the entrance to Jerusalem
- David in this psalm expresses his heart for the destination of his journey
- Verse 3-5 David describes the place to which he has been traveling all these many years
- it is a place with foundations, a place where people go to worship, a place where God rules his people, and a place which is David’s destiny
- Verses 6-9 Here David responds to his joy at having arrived at the destination of his journey
- he prays for the peace of Jerusalem, because it is a place where God dwells, a place where David goes to worship, a place which is the focal pointy of David’s journey

We too are pilgrims

- we too are on a journey
- our journey is to meet God in the place that he has chosen
- God no longer dwells in a temple made with hands
- today, he dwells in a different kind of temple
- the temple today is inside of us
- he tells us in John 14 that he will make his home with us individually
- the journey we have been on has not been one of traveling various roads till we reach our destination
- instead, our journey has been to find the one being who can give meaning and purpose to our lives
- this is the reason why we worship
- in Psalm 122 David expresses his joy at having arrived at the place where he can finally worship with all his being and strength
- when we worship here in chapel we have a chance to express our joy at having found our destination, Jesus
- when we worship we express that joy in the words we sing, in our participation, in our heart of prayer before God
- worship is a special event, it is the whole purpose of our being
- worship expresses our relationship with God
- We can’t imagine David standing quietly while everyone is worshiping God
- David worshiped with all his heart
- we too desire to worship God with all our being
- that may mean getting out of our personal comfort zone
- but we want to express what is in our heart when we hear the songs of worship that are expressed here in chapel
- if we don’t feel that joy, there is something missing and maybe we should consider what is going on
- we are not nomads, focusing on the journey
- instead we are pilgrims with a destination
- that destination is a close and intimate relationship with God
- Next week we will take a look at how we worship – what God’s word says about it

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Dealing With Anxiety - Phil 4:6-7

Title: Dealing with anxiety
Date: February 1, 2009
Text: Phil 4:6-7, Mat 6:25-34, Psa 55:22

Introduction

- Anxiety is a big problem to many people
-The Maryland Medical Center states that over 23 million Americans are affected by anxiety each year
- It takes the forms of butterflysie anxiety, worry, all the way to straightout fear
- It robs us of accepting opportunities, it immobilizes us when we could master the situation, in stops us from achieving our potential
- It also is an emotion which goes along with drinking and using – many of us here this morning battle against anxiety
- This morning we will be examining some aspects of how the Bible guides us in overcoming this mental state
- Phil 4:6-7
- Mat 6:25-34

What causes anxiety?

- 1. Fear of things we can’t control
- The unknown
- The future
- The worries of life
- Luke 21:34 – “be careful or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap”.
- 2. Trying to carry our burdens alone
- We weren’t created to carry our own burdens
- Corrie Ten Boom – “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength”
- It steals our focus on God in our worship and devotions and during our activities
- It robs us of the desire to serve and help others because it immobilizes us
- John 10:10 – “the thief comes only to steal and to kill and destroy”
- So anxiety is something the enemy uses to stop our progress as a Christian
- The word the Bible uses for anxious, both in Phil 4 and Mat 6, is: merimnao. It means to be anxious and troubled with cares.
- We were not made to carry the burden of anxiety
- Mat 11:28 – “come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”
- Jesus promises he will take our burdens from us and give us rest from the pressures of life
- 1 Pet 5:7 – “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you”
- Worry is futile, it is not of faith, it is sin
- A preacher once said – “Worry is sin because it denies the rulership of God; it says He does not know what He is doing; it denies the love of God; it says He does not care. And it denies the power of God; it says that He isn’t able to deliver me from whatever is causing me to worry.”
- 3. Not seeking God first in our lives
- So what is the secret of not having anxiety – it is that we seek God first in our lives
- Mat 6:33 – “but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”
- What things? Life, clothing, food, physical needs
- God never wanted us to be discouraged by the cares of this life – he wants us to know that He is able to care for us

What is the cure for anxiety?

- Phil 4:6 – “do not be anxious about anything”
- The way this is written in the Greek is as a command – stop being anxious
- 1. Make a choice to trust God
- Remember that God is in control
- He is sovereign – he exercises the ultimate permanent authority
- He is supreme – he is greatest in power, authority and rank
- Remember that God is capable
- Anxiety merely steals our faith
- It shows we are trusting in our own strength, not God
- We have to choose to trust in God’s protection and provision
- He is able to take care of our situation, but we have to make the choice
- 2. Make our needs known to God
- Phil 4:6 – “in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God”
- This is not just a quick short let’s get it out of the way type of prayer, but prayer from the heart
- Opening our life up before God
- Example of Hezekiah spreading a letter out and reading it before God
- This requires that we communicate with God
- It means we don’t run away from God when things get tough, but that we run to him for help
- It also requires that we confess our anxiety to him, that we tell him our needs, and that we thank him for progress in the situation
- 3. Make God’s peace your protection
- Phil 4:7 – “and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”
- The opposite of anxiety is peace
- The peace God gives to us replaces the anxiety in our heart
- This peace will see us through any problem
- It says that this peace will guard our hearts and minds
- The Greek word for guard here refers to an armed guard of soldiers keeping watch over a city, not allowing anyone in or out
- We don’t need to be ok one day and fearful the next
- God will give us this peace, and it will be impenetrable
- Why? Because it is not dependent on the circumstances, but on the capability of a big God to take care of things
- 2 Cor 4:16-18 “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”

Conclusion

- We may have a problem with anxiety
- The key to dealing with this is
- 1) Make a choice to trust God in this situation
- 2) We make our needs known to God – he loves to hear from us
- 3) Lastly, allow God’s peace to protect you
- This comes by looking at the eternal, rather than focusing on the immediate problem
- The way to be anxious about nothing is to be prayerful about everything
- The absence of anxiety comes from the presence of God in every aspect of our life