Psalm 100 (NIV)
1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
The theologian, Leonard Sweet, underwent what he describes
as a "deconversion" when he was nineteen.
He writes, "What ignited my deconversion was the church’s funereal
spirit, its fussy, buttoned-upness. Christians’ stay-at-home-and-pickle-in-their-own-juices
personalities, their vinegary countenances drained me emotionally, incapacitated
me intellectually, and shut me down spiritually. The best I could say was
this: by and large, Christians were kind people in a bad mood."
What an incredible conclusion!
Isn’t it sad?
“…kind people in a bad mood.”
But, there is an impression out in our world that Christianity
seeks to make people miserable. It’s thought that following
Christ is about judging and condemning and wagging fingers
at others and ourselves. Many, who are seeking spiritual
truths or comfort don’t think about the Church because
they assume they won’t be accepted. They believe
our bad mood overcomes our kindness.
Now we know that’s not true.
We know that Christians aren’t meant to be uptight
purveyors of gloom.
We know that Christianity isn’t primarily about telling people they can’t
do what they enjoy doing and what is ok to enjoy should only be done in
moderation.
We know that vinegary countenances are few and far between.
But, sadly, it’s not easy to convince those who have
the wrong impression about all these things.
We are misunderstood.
Part of that is bad press.
Part of it is people seeing some Christians who are miserable and generalizing
from there.
Part of it is that we can be too shy and too private about what faith truly
means to us.
The image that we project to the world about our faith
begins here—at
Church—at worship. What we do here and the way we do it sets the
tone for how we go out from this place to live our lives.
There will certainly be times when our worship experience
is quiet, reflective perhaps even sombre. There will
be times when we’re challenged not to smile but to
steady ourselves and go out to confront the world and its
problems. There
will be times when, in dealing with the great issues
of life and death here, we will leave with thoughtful looks
rather
than laughter.
But these times aren’t to be the majority.
How we enter this sanctuary and how we worship has a lot
to say about how we leave and how we live our lives in full
view of our friends and neighbours.
And so we turn to Psalm 100 to remind us of some key components in worshipping
God.
Listen to some of the phrases the Psalmist uses to set
the tone for worship:
“Shout with joy”
“Worship…with gladness”
“joyful songs”
“Enter…with thanksgiving”
“[Enter] courts with praise”
“give thanks and praise”
This Psalm points to the fact that worship is to be a joyful
and enthusiastic experience. Worshippers are to bring happiness
and exuberance to their time with God. The atmosphere is
to be charged with a positive glow.
To get into the mood for such worship we need to prepare
ourselves. Worship isn’t something that begins
at 11:00 am on a Sunday morning. Like most things that
are important we can prepare ourselves ahead of time.
We can
set the atmosphere for our meeting with God before we arrive here.
Jack Snellgrove suggests one way:
“One way that I am finding helpful to view worship
is as 'play', joyful interaction and full participation with
God and each other. My favorite words as a child were, "Mom,
can I go out and play!"
Or standing at my neighbour Freddie's home, and yelling, "Hey,
Freddie! Come on out and play!"
Freddie would come bounding out, and we would discuss what
we wanted to play. What fun Freddie and I had. If we were
playing baseball, and one of us made a good play, the other
would yell "Good hit!" or "Good catch!"
Sometimes one of us would take off our gloves and applaud.
Play was invigorating. Often mother would come to the door
to call me in to eat. Sometimes I would be having so much
fun that I would cry out, "Aw Mom! Do I have to come
in? Can't I just play a little longer?"
(Jack Snellgrove, "God's My Playmate)
Imagine—going to Church to play—to have fun—to
bring a childlike joy and enthusiasm to the proceedings!
Imagine—looking forward to meeting a special friend
and spending time together!
Imagine thinking in these ways—preparing ourselves and our attitude
before we arrive.
So often we have more control over the way we see things
and the way we experience things than we think. Indeed
it has to do with thinking—deciding on
our perspective towards something ahead of time and viewing what happens
through the filter of our own choosing. We have that power to establish
our attitude rather than allowing circumstances to dictate
how we view things.
The Psalmist said “Enter with thanksgiving, enter with praise”.
Before we walk through those doors we can have our attitude
for worship set. All we need do is take some time to thoughtfully
prepare.
A young college student was worried about an upcoming exam. Her mother listened
as she complained, then offered some unasked for advice.
" Why don't you study instead of worry?"
The young student surprised both her mother and herself by taking the advice.
She hit the books with a vengeance for three solid days.
The next time she spoke to her mom on the phone, her mom asked, "How
did the test go?"
The daughter said, "Oh, Mom, I don't know what I was so worried about.
That was the easiest test I have ever taken."
Good things happen when we take time to prepare—prepare
for worship. We can prepare, linger over, think about our
Sunday morning Worship time early on Sunday morning or
Saturday evening or Thursday afternoon or Monday before we
go to bed…
It’s a process we can begin any time during the week
so that we find ourselves building up to the event.
Preparing to meet God.
Preparing to spend time with a friend.
Preparing to worship with joy and praise and thanksgiving.
The Psalm also points out that worship is to be focused upon God.
Now what I’m about to say next might surprise you—perhaps
even disturb you.
We aren’t to come to worship in order to see what
God has to give us.
Worship isn’t about how God will touch us so we
can function for another week.
It isn’t about being spiritually exhausted and
having God refuel us.
A lot of times we come to worship to see what we can get
out of it.
I’ve heard people say that a given worship experience
didn’t do anything for them or the sermon and music
and prayers didn’t touch them.
We can feel that worship hasn’t been productive when
we see it as something that is primarily for us—for
our needs—for our entertainment.
But worship really isn’t about us receiving.
It’s about us giving.
Worship is coming to give to God our joy, our praise and
our thanksgiving.
Worship comes from God’s people.
Worship concentrates upon God, who God is and what God has done.
As the Psalm points out, God’s people are God’s
creation. We are God’s own. God is our shepherd. God’s
care and love and faithfulness are beyond our imagination.
There’s a lot there to be thankful for.
As Christians we have the added expression of God’s
care, love and faithfulness given to us in Jesus Christ.
With Christ as our focus—with Christ at the centre
of our lives, we find we have lots and lots of reasons
to praise God. We understand that God has already given us
so
much. Worship offers us the opportunity to give back
to God.
To give our praise, our thanksgiving, our love, our attention,
our lives.
Worship, then, is a response to what we have received from
the God who loves us and has promised to develop a loving
relationship with us now and for all eternity.
“Worship Service” is a very important phrase.
We come to worship Christ. Worship.
We come to serve Christ. Service.
But, in the midst of that, we uncover a wonderful paradox.
The paradox is that in giving to God our focus, our attention,
our praise, our thanksgiving—we are touched by God’s
Spirit.
In giving, we receive. We don’t give to receive but
God offers us the blessing of being made ready to continue
to serve Christ in our daily walk. Our worship, focused
on God, spills over in ways that strengthen and inspire us
for
what lies ahead when we leave this place.
Our God is an utterly amazing God.
So often God works paradoxically in our lives.
In worship, in service, in discipleship, in stewardship,
in compassion, in so many things—God makes demands
of us and, when we meet them, we find ourselves better
off.
So we have even more reasons to prepare to worship with
joy, praise and thanksgiving. Our preparation for and
our worship itself, join together to form a very
special circle—a circle that feeds itself and strengthens us to
live our lives in ways that bring glory to the One we worship.
What an incredible God we worship!
What a marvellous God we serve!
And as for us: are we “kind people in a bad mood?”
No way!!
We are people who come here to concentrate on God and proclaim:
“1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness endures for all generations”
(1662)
©
The Rev. Dennis Cook, St. Timothy’s Presbyterian Church, Ajax, ON,
Canada
