THE THIRD PURPOSE: TO EXALT THE LORD

PSALM 29

Dr. Wm. J. Maxwell

First Presbyterian Church, Newport, RI

 

 

“I didn’t know what I was getting into.” Many people say this, having found themselves engaged in something far more that they’d anticipated. This has certainly happened to me.

 

About five weeks ago, I sensed the Lord’s leading to study, teach and preach this year on the subject of worship. I have announced this to the congregation in several ways, including a Session meeting, the Annual Congregational meeting, newsletter articles and more. In addition to this leading of the Lord, I’m conscious that exalting or worshipping the Lord is the Third Purpose we mention in our Statement of Purpose here at FPC, in that “We seek to glorify God …”

 

But the more I study and teach and preach about worship, the more I realize that I’ve hardly begun. Yesterday, for example, our Leadership Retreat for Elders, Deacons and staff had as our focus the subject of worship, with the title being, “Returning to the Wonder in Worship.” I found myself struggling in wanting to cover so much material and yet having only 4 or 5 hours together!

 

Tonight, we have a great opportunity to learn about Christ in the Passover. Here in this sanctuary, I believe we will be fascinated to learn how the Lord Jesus can be seen in the Passover Seder, and how it makes perfect sense that Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper in the Passover Meal.

 

I am saying all of this to say that I believe God has so much to teach us about worship that we’ll realize together that we just “didn’t know what we were getting into” … for worship is a big as God Himself!

 

However, having said this, let me also say that I believe our text for this morning nevertheless teaches us a great deal about worship. It is a psalm by David, written as a song of praise to the LORD. In an area of the world where numerous gods and goddesses were acknowledged, followed and worshipped, David wrote this psalm to summon everyone to worship the one, true living God.

 

Baal, for example, was a Canaanite deity, believed to bring rain and fertility. Baal was a god of the storm and was called “cloud rider” in their religious texts. There were also other deities believed to be powerful over the forces of chaos and evil, represented by the power and force of floodwaters. But David knew full well that there is only one God – Yahweh, Jehovah, the LORD, and the LORD is supremely the ruler over all the earth.

 

The psalm begins with a call to worship, starting first with the heavenly court. The heavenly beings, those of supernatural might, are called upon by David to ascribe to or make acknowledgement of God’s great glory and immense strength. They are called to recognize God’s glory, the splendor, the majesty, the infinite supremacy of God in all of His being and character. They are to behold in adoration this awesome God.

                                                                                     

Then, in verse 2, we read what could be applied to us as well: Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness. Out of this verse, I find four elements in worship that I want us to consider. These are the conditions that make for true and sincere worship.

 

 

I

WORSHIP INCLUDES APPRECIATION OF GOD.

David is calling us to recognize in worship what is God’s nature or character. In worship, we don’t give God what God does not now possess in His nature or being. We instead take the time and attention to note what is already true of God in all of His attributes.

 

Worship is the opportunity for us to consider God’s character in all of its immensity and absolute perfection. When we take the time to do this, we cannot help but find ourselves in worship with a sense of the deepest appreciation. After all, worship recognizes the “worth-ship” of God.

                                                                                            

David is given to us as an example himself in I Chronicles 29. The occasion was the dedication of all the materials to be used for the building of the Temple. David would not build the Temple, his son Solomon would. But he did provide most of the building materials and it was on the occasion of dedicating those materials that David prayed a prayer of blessing:

 

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is Yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all … [i]

 

Note that David doesn’t say that God is great or powerful, but rather says that greatness and power and all the rest are God’s fully and completely – as if they are fully and completely in His possession! David has a great appreciation of God and of all His attributes, and so should we.

 

In his ever-so colorful way, Puritan pastor and author Thomas Watson has this to say:

 

We glorify God when we are God-admirers; admire His attributes, which are the glistening beams by which the divine nature shines forth; His promises which are the charter of free grace, and the spiritual cabinet where the pearl of price is hid; the noble effects of His power and wisdom in making the world, which is called ‘the work of His fingers.’ To glorify God is to have God-admiring thoughts; to esteem Him most excellent, and search for diamonds in this rock only.[ii]

 

 

II

WORSHIP ALSO INCLUDES ADORATION OF GOD.

 

As we ascribe what is true of God’s nature and being, we then cannot help but give Him glory by adoring Him. We give God honor and praise in view of all the wonderful attributes that rightly suggest and lead to sincere worship.

 

Today, people honor others in light of their office or station in life. There have been Presidents, for example, whom we may not have agreed with, either because of their personal character or their actions. But nevertheless, because of their high office, they have at least deserved some respect. How much more so should we give honor and praise to the absolute Ruler of heaven and earth, to the One whose character is flawless, whose decisions are always wise, whose mercy toward the undeserving is magnanimous, and whose actions are always just?

                                                                                           

Many have tried to express a definition of worship with this in mind. A.W. Tozer has been one of these persons in particular. A.W. Tozer was a Christian Missionary and Alliance pastor who lived in the middle of the last century. Tozer wrote and spoke a great deal about worship, as he feared what was happening to worship – not in the liberal churches – but in the evangelical churches. Much of his warnings, I think, are ever so relevant today.

 

In this matter of worship, he said:

 

There are ingredients that make up worship. One is admiration. We can admire without worshipping but we cannot worship without admiring, because worship is admiration carried to infinitude. [iii]

 

In a similar vein, Tozer described worship in this way: “Worship is to feel in the heart and express in an appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe.” [iv]

 

For those who worship with both appreciation and adoration, worship truly is “a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe."

                                                                                             

 

III

WORSHIP INCLUDES AFFECTION FOR GOD.

 

The Psalmist calls us to ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name. The name of the LORD stands for the character of God and for the personhood of God. When God’s name may be blasphemed by others and misused in the public arena in many ways, for us it is a precious word, the “name above all names.” The name of the triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is ever so special to us as by His grace, God has made us ever so special to Him.

 

Many people refer to I Corinthians 13 as the so-called “Love Chapter” of the New Testament. Although there is certainly some truth to this, to some extent I disagree. I believe it is Ephesians 1, where we read: “In love, God predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.” To our sheer amazement, the sovereign God of the universe loved us before the foundation of the world. How could we not want in turn, by His grace, to love God with all of our being – with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength?

                                                                                                    

Jonathan Edwards asked this question during one of the most exciting periods of Church history. This 18^th century Congregational pastor in western Massachusetts was used by God in a great spiritual awakening that swept through Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and through all the colonies.

 

In one of his books, Edwards wrote about the place of strong and vital affections toward God. One of the reasons was that Edwards was concerned about extremes – too much emotionalism and ecstasy on the one hand, and on the other hand, a love for God that was as cold as the coldest stone. In search of balance, Edwards noted that

 

God has given affections to man for the same purpose that He has given all the faculties of the human soul, namely that they might serve ‘man’s chief end,’ which is the business of religion. Yet we find that people exercise the affections in everything else but religion!

 

Here I cannot help but think of how many people who have said to me over the last few months, “If we Christians could only get as excited about God as fans do about the Red Sox or the Patriots!” Well, times may change, but the make-up of human beings hasn’t! And Edwards was right when he said: “If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart.” [v]

 

And so it is that when we move from appreciation to adoration in worship, we will also find the heart affected in earnest worship.

 

 

IV

WORSHIP INCLUDES REVERENT SUBMISSION TO GOD.

 

The Psalmist calls us to “worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.” Some versions, like the New International Version, translate this as, “in the splendor of His holiness.” “His” obviously refers to God. But the word “His” isn’t in the Hebrew.

 

Other versions translate this verse with the phrase “in holy array” or “holy attire.” The best meaning of this verse, then, is that we are to worship the Lord with a purity of heart and mind. It’s similar to what Jesus meant when He told the woman at the well that the Father seeks worshippers who will worship Him “in spirit and in truth.” A pure, holy, spiritual worship is the kind God wants, actually seeks, and certainly deserves, whereas a worship of lips without love, or duty without devotion, will never do.

 

Charles Spurgeon had a humble heart before God in worship. This great English pastor not only had a congregation for which to care, but he also had his own Pastors’ College to train future ministers. One night, at a prayer meeting, one of these students stood up and prayed: “O Thou that art encinctured with an auriferous zodiac!” (I’m not sure I know what this means, and I’m not sure Spurgeon knew either!)

 

How different the worship of Spurgeon was expressed in prayer. Spurgeon was such a great preacher, and yet many said that they were even more moved by his praying than his preaching. For example, after his first visit to England, D.L. Moody, the Billy Graham of his day, was asked upon his return to the States if he’d heard Spurgeon preach. “Yes,” he replied, “but better still, I heard him pray.”

 

Spurgeon’s heart for God in worship was reflected in the way he prayed – earnestly, sincerely, truthfully, forthrightly – and this should be true of all of us, as well.

 

*

 

Dear friends, let us hear anew David’s call for us to worship. Let there truly be in all of our worship:  Appreciation … Adoration … Affection and a reverent Submission.

 

Let us ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name. Let us worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness!