I. Invitation to Celebration, v. 1-5

“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.”

David starts by encouraging God’s people to sing, to shout, to extol the Lord with music.
- Though there are so many ways we can express our worship to the Lord, it’s interesting that music is still the primary means thru which we can express our praise to God.
o We “extol him with music” for 35-40 minutes b/c it seems to be the most profound way for us to tell God how we feel.
o Carol Wimber once said, “Worship is not a vehicle to warm up the congregation for the preacher, or to soften the people up for the offering. Worship comes from Jesus and goes back to Jesus from us. Everything He gives to us… but worship belongs to Him.”

But the singing isn’t the only expression the service gives us to worship… from the praise, to the Word; coming up during ministry time to our tithes… it’s all worship.
o From the act of kindness on the streets, to our forgiving our friend for hurting us;
o from opening up God’s Word in the middle of the week when you’d rather veg in front of the TV to when you choose to put your wife’s needs above your own… it’s all worship!
o Because anything that comes from a surrendered heart to our loving King is true, authentic worship.

You don’t have to read this passage too carefully to see that it is loaded with verbs…
- come, sing, shout, extol, worship, bow down, kneel.
- while worship begins in our hearts, there will often by a physical response where who we are on the outside reflects what we feel on the inside.
o That is why, if your new, you’ll see hand up in the air… expressing both the adoration of a child to her father… and our surrendering to God.
o While at a Russian Baptist church in the former Soviet Union, an older man walked up to me after worship and gave me a big smooch on the lips.
§ Thinking that I would probably leave a bad impression if I decked this guy in public, I thought I’d just ask if this sort of thing was done… all the time!
o Any outward expression that authentically expresses what is genuinely going on in the inside… is ok… as long as you don’t injure the person sitting next to you!
o What is bad is when there is something going on on the outside without anything going on in the inside. WORSHIP starts with the heart.

In John 4:19-24, when Jesus met a woman at the well in Samaria, she looked at Him and said, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
- Jesus declared, “Believe me… a time is coming and has now come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”
- What does this mean? It doesn’t matter where we worship (this mountain or Jerusalem), what kind of building you worship in, or whether we wear a tie or shorts. GOD IS NOT FOOLED by outward appearances.
o We can sing songs, stand up with our hands outstretched, teach Sunday School, or whatever… BUT, if our worship is external without emanating from your heart, then we’re just going thru the motions.
o Singing songs with indifference in your heart is what I call spiritual lip-synching. It looks real, it sounds real… but its not real!
o “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Is. 29:13.
o If God doesn’t have your heart, then nothing else you do in our out of church matters.

Now let me tell you that there are many times during worship when I’ve felt distracted or disconnected from Him. When the words are coming from your lungs to your throat through your mouth… but not from your heart?
- We have all experienced that… but the issue is, how will we respond.
- a few weeks ago, for ex., we were into the second song before I realized that I could hardly remember singing the first song… like driving down the highway in that auto-pilot mode!
- What God asks of us is that we choose never to be passive… that is, if your heart seems distant, ask the Lord what’s wrong
o Always ask Him for help
o Ask him if there is any unforgiveness or bitterness
o Or here’s a hard one… make sure you are interacting with the Lord and His Word during the week.

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