The Heart of Worship

Anyway, hey there's a saying that goes all the way back to one of Aesop's fables. Remember Aesop's fables? And so I want to have a little fun with you this morning. I'm going to read that short little fable for you and I want to see if you can guess what this popular saying is that originated from it. You know it, it's quite common, but you're going to have to put your thinking caps on.

Okay, so I'm going to read this, see if you can figure out what is that popular saying that comes out of the fable. Here we go. The first time the fox saw the lion he was terribly frightened and ran away and hit himself in the wood, but the next time he came near the king of beasts the fox stopped at a safe distance and watched him pass by. The third time they came near one another the fox went straight up to the lion and passed the time with him asking him how his family were and when he should have the pleasure of seeing him again. Then turning his tail he parted from the lion without much ceremony.

Okay, that's the fable and to give you a little bit of help we're going to go ahead and put the board up where it's going to be kind of like Wheel of Fortune. Invited Vanna White to join us today. Three word phrase and I've got a little Starbucks gift card for anyone who thinks they know what that fable is. Oh, I see a hand right here. Okay, go ahead. Stand up. Stand up. Tell us your name. Neil. Neil, were you here last night? No, I was not. Good, good. All right, because I'd have to eject you from the game or something like that.

All right, Neil, just because you know I'm that kind of guy, I'm going to throw in a couple letters for you. Okay, so here we go. All right, you still feeling good about your answer? Yes. Okay, here you go, Neil. T. No, no, no, you got to tell me what the answer is. Familiarity breeds contempt. You got it. Familiarity breeds contempt. That's here, Eddie. Congratulations. Good job. Smart man sitting here in the front row.

All right. Familiarity breeds contempt. The more accustomed we become to something, the more likely we are to take it for granted. Even those things that previously inspired awe in us. For example, just think about where we live. One of the most beautiful, temperate places on the planet. And right now, spring is exploding. Have you taken time to notice? Good for you. Drink it in. It's amazing.

I remember spending about a week down in Burbank for a work-related thing. And sometimes when you're down in Burbank on a clear day, you can see the San Gabriel Mountains just rise up to the northeast of that city. And it is spectacular. But on the week that I happened to be there, like most weeks in Burbank, there was so much haze in the air, you would never even know that those mountains existed.

So as my flight is approaching San Jose, I was struck anew by the carpet of green that covers the Santa Cruz Mountains. And then when I'm driving over Highway 17, which can be so routine, I was struck again by the beauty of that drive and seeing all the redwoods that come right down to the side of the road. But then the topper came when I was going down that last stretch right before you get to Pasta Tiempo and you get that beautiful view of the ocean. You know what I'm talking about?

And I don't know if it was because I just spent a week surrounded by buildings and concrete and hazy air, but that crystal clear view of the land wrapping around the bay, it was just overcome with the beauty of it. I'm thinking to myself, "Holy moly, I get to live here." Totally just blown away. But you know what? I can also go days, sometimes weeks, and be completely oblivious to the beauty that surrounds us every day. Why? Familiarity breeds contempt.

And unfortunately, the same thing can be true in how we respond to God even. In His goodness, we can take that for granted. And so today, as we continue in our message series, Soul Food, we're going to feast on the wisdom of a psalm that tackles this issue head on. It's Psalm 95. So grab your notes as we take a look at the heart of worship.

Psalm 95 is a great psalm, but it's also a challenging psalm, because it serves as a wake-up call for whenever we become too familiar with all this, when it just becomes routine, just another day at church, where we stand at risk of becoming indifferent, perhaps even hardened to God's goodness and all that He is to us.

Now I'll warn you, this psalm comes at you like a Tim Lincecum curveball, because you think it's going one way and all of a sudden it breaks, it curves, and you're going, "Oh my goodness, I never saw that coming." Let me show you what I mean. Listen and follow along in your Bible or in your notes or on the screen as I read Psalm 95.

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song, for the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth and the mountain peaks belong to Him. The sea is His, for He made it and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care.

Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Maribah, as you did that day at Masah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did. For 40 years I was angry with that generation. I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray and they have not known my ways. So I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest." The end.

Wow. How's that for a curve ball? A shift in tone. I mean, everything was all sweetness and light until about halfway through verse seven, right? Then there's the curve. You know, they're all singing their worship songs. Hooray for God. Hooray for us. We're His people. Life is good. And it's a great day at church. Inspiring worship even. And then suddenly a voice breaks in. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.

Now why does the psalmist do this? You know, why the curve? I think it's to get our attention. To snap us out of our complacency. I think he does this because a hard heart is a serious thing. Now before we get into that, let's just see what Psalm 95 says about the intention for worship. How we should respond. I mean, have you ever asked yourself, "What's the point of worship?" Why do we do this? Why do we sing songs? What's it supposed to achieve? How is it supposed to impact my heart and your heart?

Well, let's take a look at this because I see four positive heart responses to worship in these verses. And the first one is joy. Might want to write that down. Joy. Worship is intended to give us joy. So it begins in verse one. "Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation." Now circle those phrases. "Sing for joy and shout aloud." In the Hebrew, the original language Psalm 95 was written in, "Sing for joy" is like a ringing cry, literally. It rings out. It gets your attention. And the word for "shout aloud" most often refers to a battle cry. In fact, it's the same word that's used when the Israelites shouted outside of the walls of Jerusalem. And what happened next? The walls came tumbling down.

In other words, this is not some kind of subtle, boring, stayed worship that's being described here. You know, "Sing for joy, shout aloud." Or I like how the message phrase puts this, "Let us raise the roof." That's a great translation. Now, that might not be comfortable for you. Perhaps you honestly just don't feel it. You're not accustomed to that kind of worship or you grew up in a church where it was more subtle, more formal. Or perhaps you're brand new to church and the idea of singing songs to God or praising Him with your mouth, that all just seems kind of strange to you.

Now, I would never, ever suggest that any one of us should, you know, pretend or put on a show or worship insincerely. But at the same time, we need to recognize that this kind of exuberant worship is thoroughly biblical. And because of that, the very least, we ought not disparage those who worship with a little bit more viv and verb. You know what I mean? For example, it's like when the Israelites brought the ark back into Jerusalem, and it was an occasion for a huge celebration. And King David, the Bible says, is leading this procession and he is dancing before the Lord with all his might, the Bible says. Man, he's just going for it. He's having a great time and his wife looks out her window and she sees him and the Bible says she despised him. She was disgusted by the display, thought that he was humiliating himself like he ought to act more dignified.

So when David meets up with her, he says, "Hey, the problem is yours, babe. Wasn't dancing for you. Wasn't dancing for anyone else. I was dancing for the Lord." So if you're like me and sometimes, you know, you find yourself lacking some enthusiasm or even joy in worship, ask God to renew your heart because that's one of the things that worship is about, a joyful, heartfelt response to God. I mean, let's face it. We get excited about all sorts of trivial things, don't we? We get excited when, you know, a ball goes through a hoop or running back breaks a couple tackles and we jump out of our seats and we yell and cheer. No one looks down their nose at that. So why we struggle to, you know, muster even an ounce of that kind of joy and energy over God? That's the subject of another sermon. But I pray that our worship would be filled, that it would increase with joy. Amen? Amen.

The second heart response to worship is awe. Once you spend a little bit of time just thinking about God, singing about God, after a while, you know, you start to, you're reminded, "Oh my goodness, this is God we're talking about, right? The creator of everything." That's why verse 4 says, "In His hand are the depths of the earth." And when I was reading that phrase earlier this week, I was reminded of that brand new cave they discovered in Vietnam. It's called San Dung. It's the largest known cave in the world. It's incredible. This is, in fact, a Vietnamese farmer discovered this a couple years ago, but last year there was the first expedition into this cave and these pictures have only been available for a couple months.

But there's a section in this cave that for a couple miles continuously, it's 500 feet high almost and 500 feet wide, if you can imagine it, for a couple miles. It has stalagmites over 23 stories high in it. One of the chambers in San Dung is so big that you could fit three Wembley stadiums. In London, Wembley Stadium has over 90,000 seats. It's the second largest stadium in Europe. You could put three of them inside of this chamber here. I mean, you can just see the headlight on the lower middle of that picture there as he's looking into this chamber. I mean, it is absolutely stunning. This amazing wonder that's just been sitting there for who knows how long, getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and suddenly we stumble upon it. We're just filled with awe.

I mean, that alone ought to remind us of God's greatness, the one who holds the depths like that in his hand. But the passage continues. "The mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it and his hands formed the dry land." I mean, the point is you throw in the entire universe and you are talking about an unimaginably awesome God. So again, if you ever find yourself kind of checking out during singing, you know, like maybe during that song, you know, indescribable, uncontainable. "How's it going? You place the stars in the sky and you know them by name. You are amazing God." Now give yourself a pinch or something, please. Or better yet, say, "God, open my heart, open my eyes to your majesty. Fill me with a renewed sense of awe over who you are."

In other words, don't be satisfied if or when familiarity breeds contempt. I mean, if anyone should be bored or unimpressed, it should be God, right? I mean, how long has he been watching our screw-ups down here? You know, like we ever offer anything new, you know? "Hey, God, check out my new iPad. It's awesome." Seriously. Want to see something that's awesome? Take this verse out, Zephaniah 3:17. It says, "The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing." We've been talking about singing and rejoicing, but incredibly, this amazing God rejoices over us with singing. And not only that, but this awesome and infinite God desires to know us in a personal way. Amazing.

That brings up this next response to worship communion. God wants to commune with you and I. He wants to spend time with us, quality time where we're aware of His goodness and His grace, His care, His love. It's picking up at verse 6. "Come, let us bow down in worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God and we are the people of His pastor, the flock under His care." You know, earlier we saw how worship is supposed to be big and loud and exuberant, but it's also intended to be quiet and intimate. We rejoice, but we are also reverent and mindful of who we are worshiping.

So the psalmist says, "Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." And I love the picture, the metaphor that's given, tenderness of a shepherd gathering his sheep to himself. Maybe you're here today and you feel like a, you're going on your own like a lost sheep where you're trying to carve out some kind of life and you have no confidence that your Maker, your shepherd is there for you. Boy, if that's you, I hope that today you hear His voice and that you want to draw near. In fact, in just a little bit, we're going to share in communion together the Lord's Supper, what is sometimes called the Eucharist. And wouldn't it be cool to make this day today a time of spiritual communion where you say, "I want Jesus, the good shepherd, to be my shepherd. I want the forgiveness that He achieved by His death on the cross that God offers to me freely. I want, I want to receive that. I want that to extend to me." And today you can, because this fourth heart response to worship is faith.

And this one is all important because without it, the first three just kind of end. There's something missing without a faith response. And that's why in this psalm, the invitation of faith comes with a warning because the people hearing this, they had no shortage of religion. But you can sing the songs and know the motions and listen to the sermons or whatever and still have a hard heart. So starting at the second half of verse 7, here's the curve ball. "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Maribah, as you did that day at Masai in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me." And this is amazing because God kind of like hijacks the psalm here. And now He's talking. "Though they had seen what I did, for 40 years I was angry with that generation. I said, 'They are a people whose hearts go astray and they have not known my ways.' So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'" Strong words.

What's going on there? What's this about? Well, first thing I want you to do is circle the phrase, "Though they had seen what I did," and then the phrase, "They have not known my ways," and then connect those two circles, those two phrases with a line because those two phrases really sum up the problem of a hard heart, of what was going on. And the psalmist refers to something back in Israel's history where they saw what God did, but they never responded with faith. They knew, they never knew His ways. And here's the backstory. You can read about this in Exodus 16 and 17, and Numbers 14. So if you want to jot that down in your margin, Exodus 16 and 17, Numbers 14. But I'll give you the cliff notes here.

After God had rescued the Israelites out of Egypt, after 400 years of slavery, He brings them through the Red Sea, after seeing His amazing works that God had performed right in front of their eyes, after seeing His glory displayed in front of them in a pillar of fire, after all of this and more, one day they say, "Hey, we're thirsty. God, did You just bring us out here into the desert so we can die?" Not a very polite way to ask for a drink, but God gives them water. "We're hungry!" They say next. God gives them manna, this stuff that fell like the morning dew, and they could make bread out of it. And He gave them quail every evening as much as they could eat, miracles every morning, every night, and yet a little while ago, the time goes by a few days later, and they say, "We need more water!" And what do you think they say again? Care to guess? "Did You bring us out here in the desert just so we can die, God? Is that the way this is going to work?"

Not only that, this time they get so worked up that they're on the verge of killing Moses, and so God gives them more water. But no matter what God does, it's never enough. They're like, "Yeah, we know You did all these amazing miracles. That was all cool and all, but hey, how about, you know, another one? You know, that parting of the the Red Sea that was so yesterday. I mean, what have you done lately for us, God? Here is a key symptom to a hard heart. It's a heart that's never satisfied enough to trust. Never satisfied. They're just standing, and they're saying, "Come on, God! Keep it going! Come on, God! Keep it going!" Like God is their genie, or worse, their servant, their slave.

Exodus 17:7 says, "And he, God, called the place Masah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled, and because they tested the Lord, saying, 'Is the Lord among us or not?'" Well, it gets even worse in Numbers 14, because some time goes by, and they're at the very edge, the border of the Promised Land, and they send spies in to kind of scope it out, and these spies come back, and all the two of them say, "Hey, man, sorry, folks, but the people that live there, they are way too gnarly for us. This whole journey into the Promised Land, it is one big, fat failure." And in response to this, and bear in mind, God's already promised them that they're going to be able to enter this land. He's already said, "You're going to rest here. It's going to be awesome," but it just kind of devolves into almost comic proportions, a sad comedy, because reacting to what the spies report, here's the brilliant ideas they come up with.

They decide to kill Moses, elect a new leader, and march right back to Egypt, right back into slavery. It's a total rejection of God and His plan for their lives. And by the way, the same thing invariably happens when you and I decide to fire God. It's not just some neutral thing. When we give up on God, what do we do? We march right back into the things that enslave us. "Oh, I'm done with God." So what happens? Worry, drink too much, get bitter, you name it, there's a whole laundry list of things that will enslave us. But the Israelites, in this case, God says, "Hm, enough's enough, guys. You keep telling me that you're going to die out in this desert over and over again. Okay, guess what? You get your wish. Everyone that's over 20 years old, you're going to stay out here. You're not going to go into the promised land. You will die out here." That's what you've been saying? That's what you got. That's why they spent 40 years in the desert, by the way. It was a three-day walk from Egypt to the promised land. Why did it take 40 years? Because of their rock hard hearts.

And so Numbers 14:11 says, God says to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?" And tragically, many of them miss out on the promised land, the rest, the comfort, the place where they would be free of harassment from their enemies. Now that might sound pretty harsh to you, but here's the thing. Even if God would have allowed them to enter the land, it wouldn't have changed anything. They would have brought their hard hearts with them. There never would have been enough milk and honey in the promised land. Never.

So God says, "I'll give it to your kids, but not to you, not to this hard-hearted generation." Like I said, a hard heart is a serious thing. It's like the worst thing that can happen to you to have a hard heart. And here's the reality. We can't make our hearts soft. We can't. We're not capable of that. Only God can soften the human heart. And every time he does, it's a gift, a gift of his grace. But you know what we can do? We can harden them. We can choose to shut God out. And that's why the psalmist says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart." Because a hard heart is resistant to faith. It is resistant to trust. It lacks joy. I mean, who wants to live there in a wilderness of cynicism and bitterness, never at rest, never at peace?

That's why I believe that the most important question in life is this. "Am I willing to trust God?" I believe that's the most important question in all of life. "Am I willing to trust God?" So if you hear his voice calling you this morning, I pray that you will respond. You probably won't hear him audibly, but you will know when Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart. You'll know.

In the New Testament, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews picks up this same episode in Israel's history when some of them missed out on God's rest, the Promised Land. And the point of Hebrews is that there's a much greater rest. Heaven, eternal life that God is calling us into. And so it says in Hebrews 4:1–2, "Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, it's still available, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us just as they did, but the message they heard was of no value to them because those who heard it did not combine it with faith." Did you get that? What that means is that coming to church is no guarantee of faith.

We can hear the sermons, we can sing the songs, we can talk the talk, but if it leaves us unchanged, that is a great time to say, "God, soften my heart. Increase my faith. Say what one guy said to Jesus one day, 'Lord, I believe. Help me in my unbelief.'" I mean, that was their problem in the desert. The message they heard was of no value to them. They had the information, but what happened? Those who heard it did not combine it with faith. Now this is sobering stuff. I'd much rather talk about just fun stuff, light stuff, but my job is to tell you what I think the Scripture says, not just tell you what I think people want to hear. And a hard heart is a serious thing.

You know, Jesus ran into his fair share of hard-hearted people. In John's Gospel, chapter 10, it says that he's talking with some folks, some descendants of these same people, and they say, "So tell us, Jesus, you know, we've seen the miracles that you perform, and we've heard what you've had to say, and that's all well and good, but why don't you just kind of tell us one more time, are you the Christ or what?" It says in verses 25 and 27, "Jesus answered, 'I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice. I know them, and they follow me.'" Maybe you're here today, and you're hearing his voice for the very first time. You can listen to that voice. You can trust that voice. You can follow that voice. That's the voice of your Creator, the voice of your God calling you to himself, the one who loves you so much, he calls you by name.

Or maybe like me, you've been in church the better part of your life, and yet at times you acknowledge that maybe you get a little bit cold to it all, indifferent. Perhaps even your heart has hardened because of some bitterness, some hurt that you've been nursing and harboring. So maybe today you need to respond to God's voice as well and say, "Lord, soften my heart. Suffen my heart." If you hear his voice today, I pray that's what you'll do.

I'd like to close this morning with a beautiful example of what we've been talking about. I think René used this little video clip last year, but it's worth seeing again. It's a story, true story of a little toddler named Jonathan who was born completely deaf, and yet he received what's called a cochlear implant. It's like a super hearing aid, and in the footage you're about to see, they turn that device on for the very first time. Watch the screen.

And he's back on again. See how he turned? Hi Jonathan. Stop the sucking. Hi. Could you hear that? Hi sweetie. Could you hear that? Hi. Hi. You got that dad, right? Hi Jonathan. Can I get a hug? Hi. We call that a late Christmas present. Hi. Good job buddy. That's really good. Wow. What a moment. To hear the voice of the one who loves you call you by name. Perhaps this morning you are hearing the voice of the one who loves you, calling you, calling you to himself.

I want to give you an opportunity right now, today, to respond in faith. Will you bow your heads with me as we pray? Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for this opportunity to come before you, to experience joy and awe as we worship you, Lord. To commune with you. We believe you are with us right now. And Father, it's my prayer that we would want to all respond in faith.

And for some of you listening right now, this is the first time you've ever heard that voice. You don't understand it all, but you believe that Jesus loves you. You believe he died on the cross, taking upon himself all of your sins. And you want to receive the forgiveness he offers. So if you want to indicate that you receive the grace and the life and the rest that God offers, you want to trust in the best that you know how, with every head bowed and every eye closed, I'm just going to ask you to slip up your hand as a way of indicating your response of faith. I want to pray for you. I want you to know that God sees you. Yes, you can just slip it up and just put it back down. God knows your heart. God knows what's in it.

And others, you've already trusted Christ at some point in your life, but you know your heart has gotten hard because of a hurt or resentment or maybe just familiarity of church. You've gotten bored. Like I said, only God can soften our hearts and you know that's what your heart needs. So in the privacy of your own thoughts, just ask God to soften your heart right now.

Father, we thank you for loving us. And so in the power of your Holy Spirit, Lord, we want to say, we love you back. You have done so many wonderful things for us. And Lord, I thank you for all who have heard your voice today. Lord, praise you. That's a gift of your grace. I pray that you will guide each one, that you will faithfully direct each one along the path that you've chosen for them. You draw them closer to your heart each day. Lord, we offer ourselves back to you. We ask that you would help us to trust you. And Lord, whatever we receive from your hand, may it always be enough. Pray this in the matchless name of Jesus Christ. Amen.