I want to ask you a question, and the question is this: Why have you come to church tonight? And as I ask that question, there might be lots of different answers that you could give. Maybe it’s because you’re in church every Sunday, either here or somewhere else. It’s part of your regular routine. Or maybe you’re here because you were told that you had to come along tonight, whether you wanted to or not. Or you came because you wanted to see the Baptism, to be part of Harry’s special evening. So whether you’re here for some of those reasons or for some other reason, you are very welcome here tonight.
In each of our services we focus in on a particular reading from the Bible, and tonight our focus is on Psalm 100, which you’ll find on the service sheet. And in that Psalm, we find the answer to the question why we would want to come to church; why we would want to worship God.
But first, before we come to the ‘why’ of worship, we find the ‘what’ of worship. In verses 1-2 we are told what to do when we come to worship. Now, maybe you’re not used to the Church of Ireland, and you can’t get over how many times we stand up and sit down, but in those opening verses we’re told what to do:
‘Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.’ (1-2)
Do you see the active words? Shout! Worship! Come before him! Now, we haven’t had much shouting already - maybe that will come when Harry is baptised. But it’s meant to be loud - and also joyful. It’s shout... for joy; worship... with gladness; coming before him ... with joyful songs. Sometimes Christians are thought of as the frozen chosen, as people who are miserable, and dour, but that shouldn’t be the case. We should be singing with joy and gladness - this is the what of worship.
And it’s all directed toward ‘the LORD’. When you see the word LORD in capital letters, it’s speaking of God as the one who makes promises and keeps his promises, the God who is always the same. So that’s who we worship - but did you notice who is meant to be doing the worshipping? The what is to shout and worship and sing joyfully; but who should worship? Is it just for a few people? Only men or only women? Only rich or only poor? Only older people or only young people and then you grow out of it? Only people in the UK or only people in Africa? Well, look again at verse 1: ‘Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.’
The call to worship goes out to everybody, to all the earth. As the first hymn put it: ‘All people that on earth do dwell.’ So if you live on earth, if you are alive tonight, then you are called to worship the LORD. You’re called to shout and sing with joy and gladness. Will you answer the call?
And why should you worship? We see that in verse 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.’
Why should we worship? Because God is God (and we are not). But notice that there’s another something we’re to do there - ‘know.’ We come to worship God because we know that God is God. And as we come to him, and sing to him, and worship him, we are reminding ourselves of how great God is. And how is he so great? Because he made us.
Tonight that’s obvious as we celebrate the birth and safe arrival of Harry. In another Psalm, king David talks about how God ‘knit me together in my mother’s womb.’ And so we rejoice in God’s gift of life, in the person that Harry is already and is becoming every day. God made us, and we are his (or as the footnote suggests, God made us, and not we ourselves.
God made each of us, has given us life and breath and everything else, and so we are God’s people. We are the sheep of his pasture, under his care and keeping. The Lord is our shepherd.
Do you see why we should worship? Because God is God, and has made us, given us life. That should be reason enough - the very fact of our existence should cause us to worship. But the Psalm doesn’t stop there. Rather, the why of worship leads to even more worship, to the what of worship all over again. Look at verse 4:
‘Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.’
It tells us to ‘enter’ his gates and his courts. This Psalm was written when the temple was in Jerusalem - the place where people came to worship God. But the temple doesn’t stand there any more; there’s just the wailing wall left of it. So does that mean we all have to go to Jerusalem? Or how does that work if there’s no temple any more?
The thing is, though, that God still has a temple on the earth; he has a dwelling place, but it isn’t made of brick or stone. Rather, it’s made up of people - people who love Jesus, who worship him and follow him. The church is the temple of God, the place where God dwells - not this building, but the people who meet inside. So for us to enter God’s gates and his courts is to be with other Christians, to join together in worship, to give thanks to God and to praise his name. To worship is to say ‘thank you’ and to praise God’s name - his character.
Later on in the service, I’ll use Harry’s name when I baptise him. And from here on, Harry will be getting a name for himself - he’ll be building some kind of reputation as he goes to nursery, and school, and work and whatever else he does in life. And people will know him - that Harry Harper one - they’ll know his name, his reputation, his character.
And when I baptise Harry, I’ll also use God’s name. Harry will baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And what is God’s reputation? His character? Why do we praise his name?
We see that in the last verse of the Psalm. Here’s the why of worship: ‘For the LORD is good and his love endures for ever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.’
We worship God because of who he is and what he is like. The LORD is good. All of the time. He doesn’t change, he is always the same, and always good. But more than that, his love endures for ever - it never runs out, it never stops, it never comes to an end. His love is constant towards us, and even higher and wider and deeper than your love for little Harry. The love that you have for him is like nothing compared to God’s love for you.
In fact, God loved you so much that he gave you Jesus, who came into the world to die on the cross for you; he came to open up the gates so that we can come to God. You see, our sins were a barrier, separating us from God. God is good, but we aren’t. But Jesus came to take away our sins, to bring us to God, to bring us home. And he did it because he loves us so much; with this love that endures for ever.
And because God is good, and he loves us, he is also faithful - he keeps his promises; he doesn’t change his mind. And his faithfulness continues through all generations.
It’s because we know who God is and what God is like that we can come to him in worship. It’s the reason why we meet every Sunday morning and Sunday evening here, and why Christians around the world worship Jesus. The question is: will you join us as we worship? Will you give your life to follow the Jesus who gave his life for you?
That is our prayer for Harry tonight - that he will grow up to know the goodness, love and faithfulness of the Lord Jesus, and that he will follow him all his days. And it’s our prayer for each of us gathered here, and for everyone in all the world - that you and they and everyone will worship as we shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth; because of the why of worship - God’s Godness, his goodness, his love and his faithfulness.
This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday evening 25th August 2019.
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