Ways of Worship

“Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart, In the company of the upright and in the assembly. Great are the works of the Lord; They are studied by all who delight in them. Splendid and majestic is His work, And His righteousness endures forever. He has made His wonders to be remembered; The Lord is gracious and compassionate. He has given food to those who fear Him; He will remember His covenant forever. He has made known to His people the power of His works, In giving them the heritage of the nations.” Psalm 111

Psalm one eleven, verses one through six, outlines four types of worship, and how these types of worship are to be accomplished. Each of these types of worship are necessary for us to properly glorify God. In addition to what this psalm covers, we must also understand the impacts of us not worshiping Him properly. Lets start at the beginning. The first part of the psalm gives us two of the four types of worship.

Verse one starts out, “Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart...” We see two commandments in this part of verse one. The first, is to praise the Lord. The English definition of praise is to glorify, attribute perfection, or to render positive judgement on. The root of our English word prize and our word praise is the same. It is to hold God as perfect, to express our approval of, to value Him, and ultimately to glorify Him. Glory is what we will condense this entire passage to, but before that we have to look at the second commandment in this part of verse one.

It says “I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart...” This means in addition to praising Him we are to give thanks to Him. Now we must make a distinction between praise and thankfulness because we naturally tend to lump the two together. To praise is to express our approval, acceptance, and value of God. To thank Him we must be thankful for something He has done. This however begs a crucial question, thankful for what? This question points to something that has fallen out of modern worship services around the world. We praise God in a general generic way. We thank God but not for anything specifically new. Because of this tendency, society views worship as becoming dry and boring. It becomes the same thing every Sunday. Society will try to renew people's interest in worship by making it fun or exhilarating. Eventually however, the new instruments, musicians, and songs will all become dry and boring and the praise and gratitude is no longer genuine. The problem rests with the fact that we don't praise God for specific new things we've seen, we don't thank Him for new specific things He has done for us. If we praise God for the new beautiful landscape we've seen, if we thank God for the new job we have, if we do both of those with the same old music, worship will be suddenly become what it is meant to be.

Now the words may be the same, but the change takes place in your mind. Now, when I sing praises, I've most recently kept in mind the stunning Pacific ocean I witnessed in the early morning off the Californian coast. The sun coming up over the ridge behind me, long shafts of golden light highlighting aqua blue patches on the ocean span. Such a stunning view I cannot but help being moved each time I think about it. Before that I always thought about the expanse of the Grand canyon and the morning light pouring down onto the walls highlighting the reds, whites, oranges, and purples of the dirt and rock walls. These masterful pieces of God's art are what comes to my mind, specifically different each time I sing praise to God.

I'm never short of new specific things to be thankful for. Even if it is just the specific sins He has forgiven me of, I have never been found scratching my head wondering what did God do for me. These specific new things each time I raise my voice in thankfulness to God rush my mind and clamor for my emotions. That emotion makes the same songs different every time I sing them. The first part of verse one tells us that we should both praise and thank God in our worship. But, verse one goes on to say where and how that thankfulness and praise is to be accomplished.

Verse one continues in reference to our worship, “In the company of the upright and in the assembly.” We are to praise and thank God in the company of the upright, and in the assembly. The first thing to be noted is the difference between doing something with someone or in their company, and doing something before someone or before their assemblance. We are to praise and thank God with those who are upright, and we are to praise and thank God before the “assembly.” The assembly is a rather generic term for a collection of people, in contrast with just the upright. A modern digestion of terms would be we are to praise and thank God with the upright, in front of the public. First it indicates we are to praise and thank Him in groups, in a collection of other worshipers. Thats why the song goes, “with our voices raised we sing praise...” it is our voices that bring Him pleasure. Now that isn't to say we can't or shouldn't praise and thank Him individually, but it sets the predicate for the cooperate worship we have each Sunday morning. We do it, cause He says He enjoys it. In addition, this part of the verse says we are to worship in groups before the public. We are never to conceal our true praise and gratitude of God. To conceal our worship would be to communicate shame of God. When you hide your worship, the very specific things you say are God's great works, the very specific things you thank God for, if you conceal your worship you say you are ashamed of the public knowing about those specific things. That action demonstrates you are ashamed of God. If you are ashamed of God, then He naturally should be ashamed of you, and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to think of what a potter does when He is ashamed of one of His pots. He puts it in the fire to destroy it and to remake it. Now that is verse one.

Verse two outlines the third type of worship we are to practice. It says “Great are the works of the Lord; They are studied by all who delight in them.” Now this passage offers us an initial lead-in to the next verse and we will get to that momentarily, but what type of worship does it specify here. It first says God's works are great, but it says that those who delight in His works are to study His works. As to exactly what His works are is more fully explained in the next verse but for now it is anything He has done or created. Reference back to what I mentioned under our praise. I praise God for His gorgeous works of natural art. If I truly delight in them, then I will study them. I thank God for His acts of forgiveness, if I truly delight in His forgiveness I will study His forgiveness. Nothing more clearly says we are interested or enjoy something than when we study that something. I love guns, knives, weapons and warfare. I study guns, knives, weapons and warfare. I could spend hours shooting a gun or reading about the history of a particular knife. I could enjoy days of reading about battles and fights because I am delighted in those things. If I truly delight in God's works, then I must be willing to study those works. Few things bring more praise to God than for His creatures to spend hours studying what He has created with constant acknowledgement of His design. Scientists honor God when they study trees and insects praising God's unique and intricate design. We are all to honor God in similar way. However, some like me have next to zero interest or delight in science. What then are we to take delight in?

This is where verse three, four, and five gives us some direction. It says, “Splendid and majestic is His work, And His righteousness endures forever. He has made His wonders to be remembered; The LORD is gracious and compassionate. He has given food to those who fear Him; He will remember His covenant forever.” Taking it from the beginning we know that God's works are splendid and majestic. Natural creation is the product of God's work, and it is indeed splendid and majestic. Verse three also points to God's righteousness. Referencing back to the definition of praise, it is the act of attributing perfection. To study and dwell on God's perfection, His justice, His rightness, all of those things would be acts of worship that brings glory to God. Verse four says He has made His works to be remembered. Meaning His all works are not necessarily eternal, but that they will live on in memory. I remember very well both the grand canyon which I saw almost six years ago, and the ocean which I saw some weeks ago. They are forever burned into my memory, grand examples of God's artistic and creative nature. Verse four goes on to mention God's graciousness and compassion. These are, like righteousness, aspects of God's character. These attributes can and should be studied if we truly delight in God. With respect to gratitude verse five mentions His provision for His children. Just like we should study God's natural wonders, God's character attributes, we should study what He does for us and dwell on those things. The second part of verse five says He remember's His covenant, again an attribute of His character. He has made His works to be remembered, to forget is to dishonor what He has done. And again, a dishonorable creation will be destroyed to be rebuilt.

Verse six finally gives us the fourth and final form of worship that Psalm 111 points out. Verse six says, “He has made known to His people the power of His works, In giving them the heritage of the nations.” The first thing to be noted here is the fundamental context of this verse. This is in the context of a system of nations wherein the heritage was where one king, supreme authority, ruled and the people both loved and feared that king. The love and fear they held for their king is much akin to the love and fear we should hold for God. The way a king was supposed to protect and provide for the people out of love and loyalty is much the same way God does protect, provide, and love us. He demonstrated the relationship we are to have to Him through the heritage of the nations. He gave us an analogy of His power through the supreme power of a king. If that is one way God communicates His power to me, through my earthly authority, then that gives me an opportunity to express my love, fear, and loyalty to Him. I can express that love, fear, and loyalty to my earthly authority in an act of praise of God. This above all other forms of worship has been lost by modern society. Partly because of our governmental system, but primarily because of the rebellious nature of mankind. Few if any are interested in fearing our current government. The current attitude tends to be one of, as soon as the government steps outta line I'll blast 'em with my shot gun. However, it must be understood that our actions towards our earthly authority are representative of our works towards the Lord. I don't want to wave a gun or bill of succession in front of my authority any more than I want to wave a gun or bill of succession in front of God. I intend to seize the opportunity reflect my submission, love, fear, and loyalty of God through my actions to my government. This form of worship has become distasteful for my generation to swallow because of the engrained sense of independence from authority. However that sense is in direct contradiction to what God purposed and designed us to be. When we reflect independence from, disregard for, and dishonor to our earthy government, we reflect that towards God. He revealed His works through nations, we reveal our response through our response to those nations. Ephesians six clarifies this beyond question, “Slaves, be obedient to those who are you masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ...” As to Christ, we are to act towards our earthly authorities with sincere fear and with trembling. When we dishonor that government we dishonor our creator. When a pot is dishonorable to the potter, the potter destroys the pot to be rebuilt.

Now like I mentioned at the beginning, we need to reflect beyond what this psalm specifically references. We need to think about the impacts of not fully worshiping God. First we must ask why are we put here on this earth. The answer is found in chapter one of Ephesians where scripture says we were created and purposed for His good pleasure. In simple terms, we exist to please God through what ever means possible. How does God receive pleasure? Ephesians says through the glory we bring Him. How do we glorify God? Psalm one eleven references four specific ways. First, to praise Him. Second, to thank Him. Third, to study what He does and who He is. And fourth, to honor our earthly authorities in an analogy of our honor for Him. By doing this we fulfill our purpose as creations of His.

It is only by fulfilling our purpose that we can hope one day to hear His loving words, Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter into the happiness of thy master...