"More a matter of faith than music"

Psalm 95

March 4, 2001

Introduction: Abraham Lincoln stood on the front porch of his little country store in Illinois alongside his partner, Berry. Business had pretty much dried up and Berry asked, “How much longer can we keep this going?”
Lincoln answered, “It looks as if our business has just about winked out. You know, I wouldn’t mind so much if I could just do what I want to do. I want to study law. I wouldn’t mind so much if we could sell everything we’ve got, pay all our bills, and have just enough left over to buy one book – Blackstone’s Commentary on English Law, but I guess I can’t.”
Lincoln and Berry turned at that point to notice a strange-looking wagon coming up the road. The driver angled it up close to the store porch, looked at Lincoln, and said, “I’m trying to move my family out west, and I’m out of money. I’ve got a good barrel here that I could sell for 50 cents.”
Abraham Lincoln’s eyes went along the wagon and came to the wife looking at him pleadingly, face thin and emaciated. Lincoln ran his hand into his pocket and took out, according to him, “the last fifty cents I had” and said, “I reckon I could use a good barrel.”
All day long the barrel sat on the porch of their store. Berry kept chiding Lincoln about it, until late in the afternoon, Lincoln walked out and looked down into the barrel. He saw something there he hadn’t noticed before, papers on the bottom. He stuck a long arm down into the barrel to pull the papers out, and in the process, his hand hit something solid.
That something solid was a book, and as he pulled it out, he was petrified: it was Blackstone’s Commentary on English Law. Mr. Lincoln would later write, “I stood there holding the book and looking up toward the heavens. There came a deep impression on me that God had something for me to do, and He was showing me now that I had to get ready for it. Why this miracle otherwise?”
The man widely recognized as being our greatest President worshiped God that day – according to our Biblical definition of worship. He got down low before God, accepting his place before the Creator, and acknowledging God’s place over him.
And we could safely say that Abraham Lincoln had also worshiped God in another way that day. In humility he had given away the ‘last fifty cents he had’. He had worshiped God when he met the need of the family in the wagon on the move.
In accepting his place before God, he had shown humility in sacrificial giving. In honoring God for His miraculous provision of a book of law, he acknowledged God’s place over him.
I tell you Mr. Lincoln’s story to make this point: worshipping God is so much more than what happens here in this place on a Sunday morning. Worship is a lifestyle, worship is a way of living, worship is a celebration of God in all of life. Every act of obedience is a performance of worship, every positive response to the revelation of God is worship.
With those thoughts in mind, let’s return to Psalm 95 where we find the psalmist making the very same points. As we prepare to read this text once again, let’s review briefly what we’ve learned so far.
We saw that worship is the sole privilege of those who know God. The encounter that Jesus had with the woman at the well reveals this truth to us along with the idea that worship is the treasure of heaven. Worship is what God actively seeks.
We’ve also seen that Biblical worship is defined as coming to the point of accepting our place before God and acknowledging His place over us. The psalmist had invited us last week to “Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.” We noticed last week two implications of this kind of worship: We said that worship is dangerous, for the work of God in our lost world may take us into risky situations. Those of us who worship Him may receive those kinds of calls. We also drew the conclusion that worship calls us to sacrifice, for acknowledging God over us means we have to surrender our wills, our desires, our learned patterns of our culture and world. The process of becoming conformed to the image of the Son of God calls for sacrifice on our part. We related sacrifice last week to some issues of music -- styles, varieties, and preferences.
Let’s read Psalm 95 together again.
“O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land.
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.
Today, if you would hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
When your fathers tested Me,
They tried Me, though they had seen My work.
For forty years I loathed that generation,
And said they are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not know My ways.
Therefore I swore in My anger,
Truly they shall not enter into My rest.”
As we focus this morning on the first part of the psalm, let’s seek to answer the question: “How do we come to the point of accepting our place before God and acknowledging His place over us?” If worship is “getting down low” before the great and awesome God of creation, what is it that moves us there? And if worship is indeed a way of life, what is it that will bring us often to this posture of humility?
Notice that the psalmist’s invitation to ‘come and let us worship and bow down’ is preceded by another invitation: “O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.”
Now, be honest with me. When was the last time we shouted joyfully to God with a psalm? When did we last shout joyfully to the Rock of our Salvation? Has it been a while because no one invited us to join him/her? Has it been too long because we had nothing to shout about? Have our emotions been too strained with the worries of too many other things? Have our feelings been too stressed with much busyness, many distractions, and serious disappointments? Our feelings and our emotions are a very real part of us. And music is one of the languages of our emotions. Donald Hustad of Moody has said: “When words fail us, we sing.”
But if we find ourselves in the depths of deep disappointment, it is sure hard to sing! In fact, the wisdom of the Proverbs says, “Like one who takes off (of someone else) a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar on soda, is he who sings songs to a troubled heart.” (Proverbs 25:20) It is cruel and heartless.
And yet, when Job was in the vice-like grip of grief at all his losses, the text tells us that he worshiped. “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped.” (Job 1:20)
So, yes, music is a part of our worship of our God, but surely, worship is more than music. Job was worshipping, but he wasn’t singing. Mr. Lincoln was worshipping, but we have no record that he burst into song.
But the psalmist certainly understood some huge connections between worship and music. For the writer of Psalm 95 put these two issues back-to-back. So, what is the place of music in our worship? And what kind of music should we sing? Do we have to have a certain kind of music in order to feel like we have worshipped God acceptably? And in light of the ‘worship wars’ that are dividing churches and denominations everywhere, what should we do? We are not blind to the issue of traditional music versus contemporary music that is alive here in our own church. What are we to do?
Let’s do some exploring this morning.
What we see immediately in Psalm 95 is that the invitation to sing doesn’t define the music for us. When the psalmist utters his invitation, “O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms,” he doesn’t tell us what kind of songs to sing. What is important from the perspective of worship is that we sing.
Now the Scriptures do provide us some direction in the kinds of songs we should sing. If we turn to the New Testament, we can find some definition. In Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 we read these words: “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Eph 5:18–19). “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16)
The psalms are the songs of the Scriptures. We are familiar with “The Lord is My Light” and “How Beautiful upon the Mountains” that are taken for the most part right from the psalms. Hymns are songs that have been composed by men and women out of their personal experiences with God. There are many passages in the Word of God which exhort us to sing unto the Lord “a new song.” Thus, hymns are new songs for new experiences, new songs for new victories, new songs with each new awareness of God’s goodness and blessings upon us.
Then there are the spiritual songs. It has been suggested that these are the extremely personal and emotional expressions that find their way into song. These are the subjective hymns that have been a part of “each era of the Christian age, and they include the best examples of what we today call ‘the gospel song’” or choruses.
Now, we all know what psalms are. Chase Ketcham sent me this illustration of the differences between hymns and choruses.
An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was. “Well,” said the farmer, “it was good. They did something different, however. They sang praise choruses instead of regular songs, you know, hymns.”
“Praise choruses,” said his wife. “What are those?”
“Oh they're okay,” said the farmer, “they're kind of like hymns, only different.”
“What's the difference?” asked his wife.
“Well,” the farmer said, “it's like this. If I were to say to you, ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn,’ well, that would be a hymn. If on the other hand, I were to say to you, ‘Martha, Martha, Martha, Oh, Martha, Martha, Martha, the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the white cows, the cows, cows, cows are in the corn, in the corn, in the corn, in the corn, the corn, corn, corn.’ Then if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well, that would be praise chorus.”
As luck would have it, the exact same Sunday, a young, new Christian from the city church attended the small town church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.
“Well,” said the young man, “it was pretty cool. They did something different, though. They sang hymns instead of regular songs.”
“Hymns,” said his wife. “What are those?”
“Oh, they’re okay. They're sort of like regular songs, only different,” said the young man.
“Well, what's the difference?” asked his wife.
“Well,” the young man said, “it’s like this. If I were to say to you: ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn,’ well, that would be a regular song. If, on the other hand, I were to say to you:
‘Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my cry.
Inclinest thine ear to the words of my mouth.
Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear by and by to the righteous inimitable, glorious truth.
For the way of animals, who can explain, there in their heads is no shadow of sense,
harkenest they in God’s sun or His rain unless from the mild, tempting corn they are fenced.
Yea, those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight have torn free from their shackles, their warm pens eschewed.
Then goaded by minions of darkness and night, they all my mild sweet corn have chewed.
So look to that bright shining day by and by,
Where no foul corruptions of earth are reborn, where no vicious animal maketh my soul cry, and I no longer see those foul cows in the corn.’
Then, if I do only verse one, three and four and do a key change on the last verse, well, that would be a hymn.”
Well, hymns and choruses may be different like this, but…
Coming back to our text in Psalm 95, understanding now that the songs we sing may be different kinds of music, different styles of tunes and melodies, we still wonder what it is that moves us to accept the invitation? The psalm writer gives us a partial explanation in the two times he uses the word ‘for’.
“O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord… For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land.
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.”
One dimension of worship, our singing for joy, takes place easily and automatically when we see God as He is. When we catch a glimpse of God, as Abraham Lincoln did that day on the porch of his store, we respond with worship. When we catch a glimpse of something marvelous that God has done, we respond with worship. When we see ourselves as His people, the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand, then we sing!
And the song of the young person may be different than the song of the elderly. And for sure the songs of the older folks will be poles apart from those of the younger generation. Some will sing psalms, some will use hymns, and some will sing the spiritual songs of choruses.
I’m sure you are sensing where I’m going. Worship, with all kinds of songs, takes place when God is our focus, when God has been our experience, and when God has been seen to move on our behalf. If we haven’t seen Him, then we understand why we don’t want to sing. If He hasn’t acted on our behalf, then we understand why we have no motivation to shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
And if we together are His people, the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand, then our music, in all of its variations, has a corporate purpose. We are reminded that we are not our own. How dare we say that choruses are mostly repetitions of lightweight thoughts! How dare we say that hymns are stodgy and out of date!
One writer has said, “Our worship improves as we deepen our sense of the community of God.” We do need each other. We are more likely to worship God together when we have first shown our interest in and love for each other!
So the tune and wording of a chorus doesn’t move us emotionally. We can rejoice that some of us are moved because we have an interest in and a love for each other. Bob Kauflin tells of attending a Bible conference several years ago in England. “One seminar began with group worship led by a lone guitar player. He was an average singer and had trouble flowing from song to song. His verbal contributions wandered aimlessly across the spiritual landscape. As the singing ended, I thought, ‘Oh well, maybe I’ll get something out of the teaching.’ Then, in a remarkable demonstration of grace, God spoke to me through the older gentleman on my right. He leaned over, looked at me with a radiant face, and said reverently, ‘That was simply lovely, wasn’t it?’ Simply lovely?? ‘Uh, yeah’
I’d like to say that his innocent comment convicted me of pride, arrogance, and a critical spirit. But most likely, I simply felt pity for this elderly fellow who obviously didn’t know as much about ‘true worship’ as I did. I’ve since become convinced that, of the two of us, only one had been worshiping God… during that meeting. And it wasn’t me.”
Well, here’s the bottom line, friends. The psalm writer calls us (1) to worship in song. His invitation is to sing. The apostle Paul, in his letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians, calls us (2) to worship in all kinds of songs – psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. The psalmist tells us (3) our motivation for singing is knowing God, seeing Him as He is, and being acquainted with His works. We see this final element most clearly in the last segment of the psalm that we’ll look at next week.
And here is where the sermon title takes on meaning. If we haven’t been able to sing, if we haven’t been able to shout joyfully to the Lord with a psalm, it may be that we haven’t had any recent experiences with God. It is a step of faith on our part that leads to the responses on God’s part. It seems to me Mr. Lincoln’s encounter with God grew out of his sacrificial giving of his ‘last fifty cents.’
So, what may be lacking in our worship, in our ability to sing, may have started farther back when we quit taking steps of faith. When we have trusted God from Monday through Saturday and have seen Him at work in our lives, then Sunday’s worship together in this place takes on new meaning and significance. Let me conclude this morning with the story of the can man. Perhaps you’ve heard it.
“I work in a major US factory. We make refrigerators. Four thousand five hundred new refrigerators every day. This story is about one man who works in that huge factory. I've seen him around for years but never paid much attention. He always seemed just a little odd. A little short. A little dirty. Always the same old red ball cap. And always a garbage bag in one hand. He walked around that big old factory on his breaks and his lunchtime collecting aluminum cans. Day after day, month after month, for years. Hot days, cold days. Over the years I've followed him as he walked to his old pickup truck at quitting time. He'd toss a 40-gallon garbage bag full of aluminum cans into the back of his truck and jump in and I'd reach my car and jump in
and we'd all race to the exit of this big half empty parking lot.
Today I was working on a broken machine in this factory and the can man came by with his bag, picking up cans. Our manager was standing there because the machine I was working on had been "down" for a couple of hours and he was getting worried that we might run one of the assembly lines out of parts. I was finishing and I stood up just as the manager asked the can man what he did with all those cans. I'd never thought to ask him that question because I always just assumed he cashed them in at the recycle center.
The can man said, ‘I give them to my neighbor, he's epileptic and can't hold a job’. I blurted out, ‘You mean you've been collecting all those cans for all these years to give to your neighbor??’ ‘It ain't much,’ he said, ‘but I give them to him. He can't hold a job, he has too many seizures.’
Right then and there in that factory I found myself looking smack at the face of Jesus. He was wearing a T-shirt and an old red ball cap, and he had a garbage bag full of aluminum cans in his hand, and it WAS Jesus! It was one of the most humbling moments of my entire life.”
It’s not hard to worship God when we have seen Him.
Friends, let’s worship God when we sing. And let’s use all kinds of songs with all kinds of words and all kinds of styles. And let’s let our motivation for singing in worship be our experiences of faith. And let’s not let music that may not be our favorite style keep us from focusing on God, on Who He is and what He has done. For we are the family of God in this place, and we do need each other as we come before His throne.
“O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord… For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land.
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.”


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