This leads me to a whole list of biblical questions, some of which I would like to explore with you today, from the Bible.  One thing I love about the EPC, is that we have the standard we have with the Bible– we believe that the Bible is inerrant in the original autographs, and the only rule of faith and practice for us.  So let’s look at a few principles from the Scriptures which should and really must form our thinking and practice in this area of worship. 

Remember that we have started a new sermon series focused on the vision that God has given to us as a church.  The vision statement is ‘Advancing together to reconcile our community to Christ’; but we have recently talked about 5 fold statement of vision that fleshes this out for us.  The first statement is that God has called us to be whole-hearted in our commitment to Him.  The second statement is that we are to be worshipers, who worship the Lord in Spirit and Truth.  This is where we are today.  Last week we began speaking about worship as we focused on what Christ accomplished for us by the shedding of His blood at the cross.  This is where we pick up with our theme this morning: biblical worship is a choice to adore the Lord with every means He has given to us, so that He is exalted and we are blessed.

I. Choosing to worship.

Let’s simply recognize that everyone here today has personal preferences in music, in styles, in almost everything.  When you go home after church, you may turn on some music, and it will be music you enjoy.  When I married Ann, she loved classical music and I loved jazz.  I still love jazz, but I joke with Ann that she has cultured me, because I also enjoy classical music, and other styles of music.  Personally, I will never go home and listen to country music– I know some of you love country music, but not me– country music for me is in the same category as greens– I would eat them to stay alive, but that is about it.  I am telling you about a few of my personal preferences.  But I want us all to get past personal preferences by focusing on what the Psalmist urges us to focus upon.
The Psalmist in our passage today gives to God’s people a series of commands– all of these statements are in the imperative, which means they are commands.  What are we commanded by God to do?  We are commanded to sing praises to Him, to declare His glory among all nations, to ascribe or give to Him the honor due His Name.  These are all words which have to do with our will.  We choose to give God praise through song, through declaration, by giving to Him glory due His Name.  Can I withhold, with my will, ascribing or declaring or singing?  Yes, and in fact I do it all too often.

If you were to ask me what are the keys to walk with Christ, I would have to say: 1. I have spent much time studying and knowing the Word of God.  2. By God’s grace, God is teaching me to walk by His Spirit.  3. My personal worship life is fairly vibrant.  Let me pause on this last statement for a moment.  When my alarm goes off early in the morning, I feel tired.  I drag myself out of bed– I have forced myself to function early in the morning so I can connect with people before they go to work.  Before I meet with any of you, I choose to meet with the Lord.  I do what I can to wake up and I go to a certain room in our house we have set aside for devotions.  I get down on my knees, or sometimes I simply lift my hands and worship the Lord.  I want to be clear– I still don’t feel like worshiping anything but my pillow at this point.  I choose to turn my eyes off of how I feel and onto the Lord.  I choose, at times with no heart involvement, to praise the Lord for His goodness and blessing of the day, and begin to recount back to Him more and more of who He is.  I am not telling Him anything He does not already know, but this is for my benefit more than the Lord’s, although it is true that God delights in the praises of His children.  In time, my heart begins to be engaged in the adoration.  There is a growing delight inside of me as I connect with my God and joy follows these actions of adoration.

I could say a very similar thing about my experience in corporate worship.  I have the privilege, as your pastor, of visiting other EPC churches in our Presbytery 3 times a year.  Now, one of the beauties of this is that I get to see firsthand how other churches worship.  We have a very diverse Presbytery.  A few weeks ago, we were at Rivermont EPC in Lynchburg, VA.  This is the most formal EPC church in terms of worship styles in our Presbytery.  They have a huge pipe organ that blows the roof off of the building.  There is a majesty and awe of God which their style of worship enables you to experience as you worship the Lord there.  There is much liturgy.  It is the loudest place I have been in terms of sheer volume of that organ.  The Presbytery back in January was at Lake Forest EPC, on the north side of Charlotte.  This church would be the opposite end of the spectrum from Rivermont, in terms of worship styles.  The worship leader writes much of the music, and leads off of the electric guitar.  It is also pretty loud and they use multi-media because they have a young target audience.  I didn’t know many of the worship songs there, but as we began to worship, and I entered into worship– chose to participate as much as I was able– it was evident that God was present there.  This is the fastest growing EPC church in our Presbytery.  My point is this– if I enter into either of these churches with a heart which is expectant and ready to worship, I meet the Lord.  The styles are very different.  I may or may not know many of the songs, but there is an expectancy in my heart that God is going to meet us, and He always does! 
My main point here, which is exactly what the Bible teaches in this passage we are studying and in other places is that worship is a choice, first and foremost.  I have talked with people who don’t like that statement because it means that if they are not worshiping or if I am not worshiping, the fault is theirs or mine instead of the leaders.  Certainly, it is easier for me to worship in some services than it is other services.  It took me a little longer to engage my heart at a couple of these other churches than it does here.  If you know the songs and the worship leader effectively leads the people to a place where they can enter into worship, it does help.  But the bottom line biblical statement about worship is clear from the text this morning, simply from the fact that these are all commands–“Sing!  Give!  Declare!”– worship is a choice– you decide in your heart that you are going to worship, no matter what songs are played and no matter whether you like them or not, and you will worship.

Are there hindrances to worship?  Certainly!  Most of these are internal, although some may be external.  Unforgiveness, worry, and anger will greatly effect worship.  If you have broken relationships with other believers in the body, it will effect your ability to worship.  Externals which do effect worship include volume, leadership styles and distractions around you– babies crying behind you or children whose parents aren’t supervising them are a couple of these.  But none of these changes the truth of the first point– worship is a choice.  Our attitude is the key to our worship experience.
This kind of reminds me of the little boy, who, after attending church with his father one Sunday morning, before getting into bed that evening, kneeled to say his prayers and prayed, “Dear God, we had a good time at church today, but I wish you had been there.”

II. Patterns of Worship.

Every church has a liturgy of sorts– a general pattern they follow to help people engage in worship of God.  Even churches which have no bulletin and say they are only led by the Spirit have a pattern.  They do many of the same things each week.  I don’t think this is wrong, but is reality and in some ways helps people know what to expect as they come.  The greatest desire I have is that each person who attends on a given Sunday will have an encounter with the Lord. That is the most fervent desire I have.  Some Sundays, I have seen the Spirit of God fall at Trinity and many people simply weep through the service because of the manifest presence of God here.  This is fabulous, but we cannot manufacture the presence of God.  First, God is sovereign and shows up when and how He desires to show up.  Second, we can set the table for worship, seek to set up an environment which will be conducive for worship, but we cannot make anyone worship.  This is because of what we said in the first point—worship is a choice.

Since in our culture, and even here at Trinity, we have people in 3-4 groupings in terms of what they desire in worship, I would like to take a few moments to have us think together about how God views our worship.  I specifically asked the praise team to sing a hymn with 2 different styles this morning.  I confess that my motive was not so much to engage you in worship as it was to make a point.  Today, one can sing a traditional hymn, exactly as it was written long ago, and one can sing the same words with a different or much more upbeat tune.  Now, these 2 hymns have exactly the same words, so that is not the issue– they are biblical words which help engage our hearts in worship.  Do you think God looks down from heaven and says to the angels– now that tune I really like, because it brings me glory; but that tune I really don’t like as much...  Does God care about the tune?  It is an honest question.  One tune was softer and one was louder, perhaps.  One was easier to sing perhaps...  There are songs which Keith and I have pulled, not because they aren’t biblical and even excellent songs, but because they are too difficult for the average person to sing.  We want you to participate in worship, as much as you are able.  So whether or not the average person can sing a song is a consideration, to be sure.  And different instruments were used in the two tunes.  Is this an issue?  Does God look at one of these styles and rejoice more than the other?  I believe God doesn’t look at the tune at all, but looks at the heart of the worshipers.  He longs for His people to adore Him corporately and often powerfully meets us as we do.

With regard to the instruments, Psalm 150 tells us to praise the Lord with trumpets, the harp, the lyre, the tambourine and dancing, with string instruments and the flute, with clashing cymbals and gongs, and with your breath, your voice.  It doesn’t say anything about pianos or organs, but that is obviously irrelevant.  The point is that the Psalmist is telling us to use all the instruments available to us to praise Him.  You mean bagpipes?  Yep!  Saxophone?  Absolutely– I’d love to have a sax up here.  Bass guitar– it is a stringed instrument isn’t it?  Anything God has given to us, He has given so that we might use it to praise Him.  The issue is our hearts, not the instruments we use.  I have already spoken to the praise team more than once about making sure they are up here for the right reasons and to make sure there is nothing in their hearts which might inhibit them from leading others in worship–we never want that to be the case.  We want every instrument, every talent to be used to glorify God– choirs, sign language, interpretive dance, drama, visual arts, giving etc.  We love it all if it is used to glorify God; but we can’t do it all every week, so each week will be a little different.

Here is the other issue to ponder.  God is infinitely creative.  Just look at the sunset tonight and compare it to the one tomorrow night– they are all magnificent and all different.   God has given many different forms and styles to us to express praise to Him.  I have learned, partly from my wife, that I am a richer man because I have encountered God through classical music as well as other styles of music.  If the words glorify God, I can worship to country music!  There is a beauty and richness in classical music that is astoundingly powerful, and does reflect the beauty and bounty of God.  I was speaking with a teen one time and he was reflecting on the fact that his church still sang hymns, and some choruses.  He said no one would be singing hymns 25 years from now.  I stopped him and asked if he had ever pondered the theology in those hymns and let the words impact his heart– he hadn’t of course.  I challenged him to do so and gave him a few hymns to ponder and play on the piano, and asked him to meet with me again to discuss them.  This is what he found, he was richer in his worship and experience of God because he had encountered God in a different way through hymns.  The same challenge could be made about much of the newer praise music for those of you who prefer hymns.  There is a freshness in some newer music which resonates wonderfully with the character of God in the Bible.  Some repeat choruses many times.  I know this frustrates some of you, but listen, it is biblical.  We need repetition to get the truth into our spirits.  Psalm 136 repeats a refrain 26 times.  The only place I have repeated a refrain more than that is in Africa, where 40 times is more on the average.  Repetition at times is right and good, because it allows the truth to settle into our hearts.  There are times when I will stop singing for a moment so I can meditate on the truth of a refrain.  This is a good thing for us to do.  Don’t despise what God doesn’t despise.  Empty repetition isn’t good, but allowing words to deeply penetrate our spirits is a good thing.

And let me touch on one more thing while we are here– the Psalmist tells us to Sing to the Lord a new song.  What is a new song?  It is a song no one has ever sung before.  How do I do this?  There are moments when the instruments will be playing or when we are repeating a refrain for the 3rd or 4th time.  This is the opportunity to sing a new song– to make up your own words of adoration to the Lord.  “I worship you... you are worthy, mighty God...  Put your Spirit on my lips, in my heart, fill me up Lord...”  You speak your own words of adoration– try it some time, because I know this is a new concept for many of you.  But it can greatly increase your experience of worship.  Someone may be saying, I don’t want to do anything different– to that I would respond, then you are cheating yourself out of something which may bless your socks off and deepen your encounter with your Lord.  That is your choice, of course, but don’t be upset if people around you are choosing to worship by using a new song, because it is biblical, fresh and wonderful.

III. Created to worship.

The last thing I want to say this morning is that we were created to praise the Lord– the Psalms end (150) by declaring, “Let everything which has breathe praise the Lord!”  This is what you were created to do!  You were created by God to be in an eternal relationship with Him as your God and Father, and the main mark of this relationship is to be worship!  You will be worshiping the Lord forever! 

I asked the praise team to sing Matt Redmon’s song, “Blessed Be Your Name.”  It illustrates well this idea that we were both created to praise and can choose to praise the Lord in all circumstances.  Lord, blessed be Your Name when everything is going right– plentiful, abundance, the sun is shining on me and the world is all that it should be.  But at the same time, he declares, Lord, Blessed be Your Name when everything is going wrong– I am in a desert place, the wilderness, darkness closes in, the road is marked with suffering, and there is pain in the offering of praise to you.  It illustrates this biblical idea– that God is worthy of our praise in every circumstance of life– the good and the bad.  Our praise should come no matter what the circumstances are surrounding us.  Every blessing God pours out on me, I’ll turn it into praise, or even in darkness, I’m still going to praise Him.  There is a resolve to praise the Lord in any and every circumstance and situation.  When you praise the Lord like this, as the Psalmist firmly calls us to do today, then there is a change in our heart attitudes– my eyes are not on the difficulties, but on the Lord in adoration.  Something changes in the heavenly realms when we take on this attitude.  God gains glory for His Name when you praise Him instead of curse Him, when you declare adoration and get your eyes on the right place rather than focusing on self and what you want.  We want to be biblical Christians, because this is how we will experience the fullness of blessing from God, when we choose to praise Him in all circumstances, and thus fulfill part of the reason He has created us.

In 1636, amid the darkness of the Thirty Years’ War, a German pastor, Martin Rinkart, is said to have buried five thousand parishoners in one year– an average of 15 a day.  His parish and community was ravaged by war, death and economic disaster.  In the heart of that darkness, with cries of fear outside his window, he sat down and wrote this table grace for his children:
“Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices;
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom his world rejoices.
Who, from our mother’s arms