Date:   9/3/2006

Text:   Psalm 96

Title:   Worship and Witness

Theme: Since God has a big heart for all peoples, therefore we are to obey the mandate to proclaim his name near and far.

Introduction:

  In July, I was listening to a seminary course “Postmodernism and Mission” on my ipod. The professor called the students' attention to Psalm 96, the great Mission Psalm. Certainly mission includes both local and global. Several weeks after hearing this lecture, while I was by Lake Michigan , I was preparing for a Sunday school class on Romans 15. As I read different commentaries, one thought caught my attention. Paul associates worship with witness and mission. These two go hand in hand. Worship leads to witness which, in turn, leads more people to worship.

  On the eve of a teaching ministry in Asia for the next few weeks, I thought it would be good to share with you what I have learned in July. In today's Psalm, we want to learn a basic truth that is: Since God has a big heart for all peoples, therefore, we are to obey the mandate to proclaim his name far and near.

I.   God issues a call to worship Him.

  Vs.1-2a, “ 1 Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name;..” vs.7-8, “ 7 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength! 8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts!” Through the author of this Psalm, God issued a call to sing a new song, to praise him. It is a call to worship.

1.   A call to all peoples.

  Who was this call issued to? Foremost, it was issued to the Israelites, God's people. God's people are to come and worship Him. However, vs. 1b, ‘…sing to the Lord, all the earth.” Vs.7, “Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples…” It is also a call to all the earth, to families of the peoples. He has a big heart for all the peoples he created. It includes the Asian, Europeans, and Africans. From the very beginning, he has the whole world in his mind. He promised Abraham that he would become a great nation….and in him all the families of the earth shall be blessed. In today's language, it also includes the minority groups in China and Japan , plus different tribal groups spread throughout SE Asia and S. America . It is God's will and heart for all the people groups to come and worship Him. God has a big heart towards the people he created.

2.   Content of worship.

  This psalm also sheds light on the content of worship. In vs.1 we are to “ sing to the Lord a new song;..” This new song first surfaced in 1 Chronicles. It was to sing about a new thing that God had done. This new thing was the moving of the Ark to Jerusalem . This move symbolized God's presence among his people. Jerusalem is God's dwelling place. The new song is about God dwelling in the midst of his people.

  How about today? Revelation 5:9-10, “ 9 And they sang a new song, saying, “ Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” What is this new song about? It is about the Christ who died for his people. It is about atonement, his substitution death. Because of Christ's death on the cross, our sins are forgiven, removed and we are reconciled to God. This is the new song to be sung by God's redeemed. Praising him for his love and dying for us.

  Besides singing a new song, vs 8, “ 8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts!” What are we to bring when we come to worship him? Bring an offering. Offering includes gifts, first fruits or 10% of what they have. Offering is not seen as helping God to do His work, but as an expression of our worship. This is the reason we often say, monetary offering is an act of worship. We not only offer to God our praises and financial resources but our obedience as well. At the end of the sermon, there is always a time of response. It may be through a song or a prayer that we offer to God our obedience to his word.

  From these verses we learn that worship is always God centered. We are to sing a new song to God. We're to come into his courts to worship him with our offerings. It is said that when we worship God, we are here to give and not to receive. So often we hear individuals say that I didn't get anything out of today's worship. We say this because often we have come with the wrong attitude. We have come to receive. Instead, the proper attitude is to come to give. To give God the praise, to sing to him a new song and our obedience. Even at times when we feel we are not getting anything out of the message, we can always meditate and respond to the scripture read.

II.    God calls the world to worship him exclusively.

  God issues a call to worship Him. The psalmist also explains to us the reason. Why are we to give glory to God and to worship Him?

  Vs.4-5a, “ 4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,..” We worship him because he is great, he is above all gods. Moreover, we also note that in vs.5, the other gods are called worthless idols. Literally, worthless idols means “no-thing”, they are nothing. 1 Corinth 8:4, “ 4 Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” Why do we worship him? Because he is the only God; there is no God but one.

  Vs.9, “ 9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!” Why worship Him? Because he is holy.

  You see, we worship, because he is the only God. He is great, holy and almighty. He is the only God. This is very exclusive, isn't it? In today's culture, this is not popular at all. Our society and our schools want us and our children to be tolerant and inclusive. All roads lead to Rome . They say therefore, all religions are similar. However if we hold the conviction that the Bible is God's word, the absolute truth, then anything that contradicts it, cannot be truth. All religions are not the same. The God revealed in the Bible is the only true God.

  This God is great and holy, not because I have experienced it. For His existence and greatness is independent of my experience. On the other hand, because he is true and the only one God, therefore I can also experience him in a very special and personal way. We worship him because he alone is worthy of our worthy.

III.    God commands his people to proclaim His Name.

  We have read that God calls all the world to worship him exclusively. Now take a look at the following verses, 2b, “…tell of his salvation..” vs.3, “Declare his glory….”vs.10, “Say among the nations…” What do we see here? Yes, God calls the families of the peoples to worship him. But he also calls his people to proclaim his name. Yes, all the peoples of the world are to come and worship him. But he also commands his people, his church to go and proclaim his name. What we see here is a basic truth that must not be forgotten: Worship and Witness cannot be separated. Worship is never a private matter. Worship leads to telling people about God. In Matt.28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations….” Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria , and to the end of the earth.” You have come to worship me, now I will give you power to go and tell others about my name, my power and my glory. So they too, will come and worship.

  We are thankful that David and Alice are with us these few months. They had responded to God's call and went to China to proclaim his name there. After the baby is born, they will return to China . God will call some of us to go to another country, another culture to tell. God has called some to go to Asia, Spain and Mexico to tell about this creator God and his redeeming love. God has called many of us to stay right where we are, but to go and tell our school mates, friends, colleagues at work, family members, friends and strangers about the God we worship. So that they, too, will come and worship Him. As we worship, we will witness to those that God in his providence has brought into our lives. As a church, reaching out to others is an integral part of our existence. When we stop telling others the good news of Jesus Christ, then we have also stopped worshipping Him. True worship must lead to witness, both locally and globally.

IV.    God calls us to worship Him the King. 10-13

  We worship God because he is worthy of our worship. He is worthy to receive praise, offering and obedience from us. In vs. 10,13, we are told that we worship God because he is also our king. “ 10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.” …….. for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness.” There are two aspects of his reign. He reigns now. He is the King now. He will also come to reign in a future day..

1.   He is the King now. In the midst of such a broken and violent world, it is hard to see that God is king over us. however, it is important for us to know that God does rule by holding the evil in check and at times intervenes in history from time to time.

  For example, the fall of communism in eastern Europe in 1989. From the world's perspective, the collapse of the Berlin wall is strictly a political matter. Yet the true instrumental cause was the prayer of God's people. There was a prayer meeting in Germany , that grew from a small group of people in early 1980s to hundreds of thousands by 1989. On November 9, the Berlin wall was torn down and the East German government collapsed. Bud Bultman, a producer and writer for CNN, wrote, “We in the media watched in astonishment as the wall came crashing down……however, the story behind the story was overlooked. We trained our cameras on hundreds of thousands of people praying for freedom…..yet we missed the transcendent dimension, the explicitly spiritual and religious character of the story. We looked right at it and could not see it.” God intervened.

  Lately we see some major western news report on the Christian church in China . There is a Time article titled, “the fight for china's soul”. It is reported that in Wenzhou , known as ‘ China 's Jerusalem ', 15 to 20% of the population are Christians. In china, there had long been a ban of Sunday school teaching by local government. In 2002, a campaign of protests and appeals to Beijing led to the reversal of the ban on Sunday school teaching. Just 5 years ago, this is unthinkable, right?

  On Friday's newspaper, it was reported that in the new Chinese high school's history text book, Mao was mentioned in only one sentence. Marxism occupied one page. Unthinkable just two or 3 years ago. Why? Don't forget that for many years, countless Christians around the world had been praying for china. Even in the midst of injustice and oppression, we see evidences of God's rule on earth.

  Isn't this also true in our personal lives? Some of us have gone through great trials in recent years. At that moment, God will be the last thing in our minds. Yet, as we look back, we see how God's hand was in that situation, guiding and protecting us. In the midst of all those difficulties, he gently brought us back to his bosom. God reigns.

2.   He will be the king in future. God not only reigns now, this psalm also tells us that there will come a day when his rule will be complete and perfect. He will judge the world and rule with perfect righteousness. The word ‘judge' often brings fear to us. But in the ancient culture, where there are so many injustices, the people look forward to a day when God will rule, and make things right. There are also plenty of injustices in our world and may be in our personal lives as well. We, too, need to look forward to that day, when our King will make everything right.

  For us believers, we recognize our imperfections and failures in the present life. We are making every effort to become more Christ like, but human sinfulness is still evident. We also look towards that day when this king comes and will rule perfectly in our lives. On that day, we too can be truly like him.

Conclusion:

  There are many books and workshops on: How to increase your church's awareness in Mission ; How to make your church more missions-minded, Contagious evangelism, Just Walk across the room. These resources provide us with much needed step by step assistance in global and local missions. Some churches would have an annual 1 weekend mission conference to highlight the importance of overseas or cross cultural mission. I am certain leaders in this church have also tried different ways to help HCC be more missions and outreach minded. We have suggestions ranging from more preaching on mission, more pastors should go on more mission trips. I feel these are all good and important tools to help the congregation see the importance of reaching out to others, both globally and locally.

  However, from the psalm we study today, it appears that mission is not just something we do, but it is an integral part of our worship. If this or other churches want to highlight missions, it almost has to start with worship. As believers, we need to know that the God we worship is great, is the only God, who is very exclusive, he reigns now and will manifest his perfect reign one day in the future. When we worship him, we offer him our praises, our offerings/gifts, and our obedience.

  You see, when we worship him in this manner, we will also obey his command to go and tell others about him. It begins with worship, leads to witness, then right back to worship.