Worshiping God

Worship is something we should engage in every day. Authentic churches are about worshiping God. Through worship we gain a focus on God—which in turn gives us the proper perspective on everything else.  When we worship God we experience God’s presence. When our hearts yearn to feel God’s presence; when our hearts AND our heads long for more of God’s truth and wisdom; when we are connected to God, much as our electronic devices require wireless or wired connectivity, we can experience worship, or experience the value of God.  Without being connected to God, our life essence is wasted on useless things.

While personal worship is important, it is also necessary to gather together to worship alongside other believers – to practice our beliefs with like-minded people.  As we gather with others in authentic worship, our prayers, singing, and reading of Scripture provide mutual encouragement to all of us.  God is honored, and we are strengthened together.

In Psalm 34:1-3, 8-10, and 15-18 we see that after David killed the Philistine giant Goliath, he became a hero to his people, however, King Saul became jealous and tried to kill David. Eventually David fled to Gath, one of the Philistine cities.  There David feared for his life and pretended to be insane. His pretense worked and he was sent away from Gath.  David wrote this psalm in response.

Let’s see what David has to say about worship.

Psalm 34:1-3

1 I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. 2 I will boast in the Lord; the humble will hear and be glad. 3 Proclaim the Lord’s greatness with me; let us exalt his name together.

David praised God for His greatness and for saving his life. David expressed worship concepts that serve well even our lifetime.  His words express:

• I will kneel before Yehovah ALWAYS.  
• I will speak in a way that brings praise to Yehovah ALWAYS.  
• I will be PROUD to be (lit. I will shine as) a child of Yehovah!  
• Earthly people will become aware of God  and can choose either God’s Joy or human misery.

Let’s look at the literal sense of the Hebrew word bless.  It described bending or kneeling as in worship. The Psalmist is calling upon himself to kneel before God at ALL times.  To speak in a way that brings praise to God at ALL times.  

The phrase the Lord is used throughout this psalm by David to express God’s personal name YHWH. He says that he will praise God always.  To praise someone is to proclaim the excellence of that person. Blessing and praising God should be a daily habit among believers for all that God does for them. More than just “God is great, God is good” kind of statements, ALL of our speech should be so moral, so wholesome, so helpful that just our everyday talking brings praise to God.   Are we always successful in that?  NO, but we can make the effort and learn from our failures in order to improve. 

David further says the he will boast in the Lord. The Hebrew word Halal means to boast; to rave; to shine; to celebrate. To boast is to praise. The term “hallelujah” comes from this word and literally means “praise Yah[weh].” But this is not bragging.  This is in the manner of “I can’t stop pointing out God’s goodness, for we see David note that the humble will hear and be glad. 

David had been oppressed when he was running from King Saul, David demonstrated a humble spirit as he praised God. He hoped that by sharing his testimony of how God had delivered him, that others like him—those being humble—would join him in worshiping the Lord. The humble will hear which is to listen in a way that leads to obedience. Those who heard David’s praise of what the Lord had done for him would realize God’s greatness and exalt Him.  We follow David’s encouragement as we meet with other believers to worship and praise God.  They will be glad which is to be joyful and leads one to rejoice or make merry.

With verse 3 David called for people to grow God’s reputation together and lift up the name of Yehovah together. The Hebrew word for proclaim was used in a physical sense of making something to grow.  He was calling for praising or extolling someone’s character or accomplishments. That is how David used this word here after God rescued him from his enemies. The Hebrew term for exalt means to lift up in the sense of proclaiming someone’s high status or qualities. In biblical times names were more than just titles and identifiers. They also pointed to the desired or actual character of a person. David’s desire was that others would join him in praising and exalting the Lord.

David invited people to to investigate Yehovah’s goodness.  He didn’t “command them”.  Too often our “invitation to others” sounds like a command “you ought to…”, or “you should…”.  David invited them to, as the old Alka Seltzer Commercial from the 70s promoted, “try it! you’ll LIKE it!”    

Psalm 34:8-10

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him! 9 You who are his holy ones, fear the Lord, for those who fear him lack nothing. 10 Young lions lack food and go hungry, but those who seek the Lord will not lack any good thing.

David calls upon us to just sample God’s goodness, to “try it you’ll like it”. Then you will want more and more!  David invited his audience to sample God’s goodness because he knew that when they had experienced God’s gracious provision, they would gain personal knowledge of (see) God’s gracious character and unlimited power. The Hebrew word for good was used in spiritual sense to describe what is morally right. Those who trust God would, from their experience, learn more about God’s good character. 

David basically says place your trust in God as a source of shelter, you’ll be happy you did! Those who trust (take refuge in) Him will experience His gracious and fully adequate provision. The basic idea of the Hebrew word holy used by David is to identify that which is uncommon or sacred (set apart). 

Because “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth” who is set apart from His creation, He is uniquely holy. However, God also makes people holy as He purifies them and calls them to His service. Service does not call attention to itself but concentrates instead on the needs and concerns of others. True service does not look for recognition but is born out of love taking on roles that are passed over and that do not call attention to ourselves; we steadfastly refuse to live for appearance and recognition, choosing instead to show kindness, courtesy, sensitivity, and concern for people who are often overlooked. God uses us to meet the needs of others.

Peter wrote that God has chosen believers to be “a royal priesthood, a holy nation”. Those who put their faith in Jesus become part of God’s “holy nation” by sharing in the righteousness Jesus provides and being adopted into God’s family. 

In addition to receiving this holy status, God also calls His family, his saints, to conduct themselves in a holy manner.  He calls them to fear Yehovah.  At first, seeing God’s display of power caused the Israelites to be afraid that He would use His power to destroy them. But when the people saw God’s power through the lens of faith, they were able to respond with reverence (fear), worship, trust, and obedience. 

God was both able and willing to take care of His people. However, David also knew that God’s people must believe in and trust God. Ever see a “disaster movie” where the one hanging off of a cliff has but to trust the main character and reach out to grab their hand, but fear prevents them?  Fear can be paralyzing, such as in that instance, or fear can be a strong motivator to strive harder to reach out for salvation.   Note how David urged the people to respond to what they already knew about God: “Taste and see”, take “refuge in him”, “fear the Lord”. When God’s people trust and obey Him, they will lack nothing that they truly need.

The most powerful animal that the people of David’s day knew was the lion.  This big cat preyed on just about everything.  But even though this big cat was capable of taking just about any size game, they still occasionally went hungry when they relied upon their own strength. David assured those who fear the Lord that they “will not lack any good thing”. Therefore, they can and should always be thanking, praising, and exalting God for His faithful care and for the good things that He provides. Truly something to worship God for.

Finally, we see some attributes of Yehovah.

Psalm 34:15-18

15 The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry for help. 16 The face of the Lord is set against those who do what is evil, to remove all memory of them from the earth. 17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles. 18 TheLord is near the broken hearted; he saves those crushed in spirit.

We know that “God is spirit” and has no physical body. The biblical writers used these human images to convey spiritual truths, such as the fact that the Lord sees our needs and hears us when we pray.  Scripture teaches that God is righteous in what He does. Stated another way, God always does the right thing.

In contrast, humanity when left to their own thoughts demonstrates GREAT inconsistencies in their concepts of what is just, what is right, and what is good.  Humanity has once again lost its way with these concepts in our own era.  

God has provided humanity with a number of concepts in history that codified “what is good.”  In Noah’s time, at least seven righteous principles of humanity have been codified.  OVERLY simplified these are: 

1. Don’t worship YOUR perceptions.

2. Don’t divorce the divine from your life.

3. Seek the heart, the core, of Justice.

4. Be merciful, even to the food you eat.

5. Don’t just think of YOURSELF.

6. Don’t be DEstructive.

7. Don’t seek to rob another of their pleasure.

And of course we have the Ten Commandments that Moses brought to us (again briefly paraphrased):

1. Love God, Love Others, Love Self

2. Live in reality

3. Be careful with what is real

4. Remember to rest

5. Respect your Elders

6. Build up more than you demolish

7. Don’t debase yourself by mixing purity with impurity.

8. Never steal

9. Never present unreality as reality, believing in unreality can lead to a nasty fall.

10. Never desire to destroy another’s reality.  While it may be necessary to “shake up”another’s reality, don’t maliciously seek to destroy their reality.

Those who sought to live in obedience to God’s law were referred to as being righteous. One of the themes of the book of Proverbs is that the wise will seek righteousness because God always takes care of those who are righteous. Ultimately, God sent Jesus to be the perfect fulfillment of His law and the complete, final sacrifice for sin.  David emphasized that God pays particular attention to and cares for the righteous.  He is always listening for their cry for help. 

When someone turns his face to us as we talk to him, we know that we have his full attention. When the righteous cry out to the Lord, they always have His full attention. Evil refers to that which causes adversity, affliction, calamity, misery, mischief, and grief. Just as God is aware of the prayers and actions of the righteous who obey (or seek to obey) His commands, so too He is aware of those who in their rebellion and arrogance follow their own evil ways. However, God is set against the unrighteous. 

Rather than receiving His blessing, they will ultimately receive a just result of their anti-Godly course of action. To remove means to cut off. Though God is the God of love  and mercy, He is also the God of justice. We all want to be remembered after we are gone. That is why we create tombstones. However, David pointed out that not only will God execute His justice against “those who do what is evil,” He will also erase all memory of them from the face of the earth. 

The phrase to cry out in the Hebrew literally means “to shriek.” God always sees and hears the cries of “the righteous”. Not only does the Lord see and hear, He acts in His limitless power to answer their prayers. This does NOT indicate that all OUR wishes will be granted.  One of the basic guidelines for correctly understanding the message of each Scripture passage is to clarify the context. If we fail to follow this guideline, we could assume that these words mean that faithful believers will never have to suffer, or at least not for very long. Some use passages like this to teach that we must simply believe and pray, and God will heal all our diseases, provide every material thing we want, and give us great success in every endeavor. The problem is that such a concept fails to take into account the context of such verses in light of other passages of Scripture. For example:

• Though Job was a righteous man (Job 1:1), he suffered greatly (chaps. 1–37). 
• Though Paul faithfully fulfilled his mission as the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul suffered greatly for the gospel (2 Cor. 11:24-29), and God even allowed Satan to attack him with a thorn in the flesh (12:6-9). 
• Though He is God in the flesh (John 1:14), Jesus was rejected by God’s chosen people (vv. 10-11) and suffered throughout His earthly ministry, eventually dying on a Roman cross (Matt. 27:33-50). 

The overall message of Scripture is not that our prayers are our ticket to getting all we want. Rather, the clear message of the Bible is that we are to love God with every part of our being, seek His will and His righteous ways, and trust Him to supply what He considers to be our true needs in ways that bring Him the most glory.  Those who stay focused on the Lord, who fear Him, and who consistently choose the way of righteous living can be confident that the Lord is always near and ready to answer when they cry out.

Jesus said, “But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Spirit refers to the essence of life itself.  Truth is being firm, solid, steadfast faith. Someday, Jesus tells us, true worshipers will worship God with a steadfast, firm, solid faith with their very essence of life.  

While we tend to think of “worship” as “ceremonial”, remember that worship is derived from the word worthy and is REALLY nothing more than finding God worthy of spending time with.  Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him, to find HIS way worthy. 

Ask yourself, “How can I be the kind of worshiper God seeks?”