My wife Diana and I did something this weekend that we practically never do … something we only do when there is finally no other alternative than we must do it … something we have not done in over eight years. We bought a car.

If you are getting this devotional on the Monday that it is sent out and you read it in the earlier morning hours, you might pray for me that the car I’m trading in will indeed make it the last couple of miles to the dealership without conking out, as I go to take possession of our modest set of wheels.

We are not car people, but having said that, we also are very cautious about getting the very best deal for the dollars invested. A great deal of research went into this selection process, and the sales person did not likely do well in terms of commission per hour invested. We selected the best deal. That’s what we all do when we buy something.

When you got married – be it last month, last year, last decade, or last century – you did not settle for just anyone. You did not look to find the least attractive and lowest person imaginable for a spouse. No, you looked to get the very best.

If you own a business and need to promote a new person to a management position, do you look to find the individual with the fewest qualities and least talent, intelligence, and experience?  No, you look to discover and settle upon the very best and most capable person to fill the role.

Choosing the best … it is the natural way of doing things.

But it is not necessarily God’s pattern when it comes to displaying his glory and greatness. Over and over in the Scriptures we read of God’s glory and grace being made evident in his choosing of the least, the despised, the lowest, the poorest, the worst.

The prophet Isaiah wrote of how we as God’s creation are nothing more than the clay in the hands of a potter: “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”  (Isaiah 64:8)

Moses told the people of Israel that God had not chosen them to be his special people because of their awesome resume: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.” (Deuteronomy 7:6-7)

And of the salvation of those in the early church in the city of Corinth, Paul wrote to these early Christians that they were not chosen because they were the winners of life’s material lottery, “²⁶ Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him. ³⁰ It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” – 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

None of this is surprising if we reflect back to the very beginning of it all –  back to God’s creation and the pinnacle moment of it in the creation of man. One would expect something more magnificent than a human being to be placed by God on Planet Earth in order to rule over his creation. You would expect one of the previously-created heavenly beings like an angel to have the honor and achieve God’s highest personal affection.

Rather it is a lowly human, and a sinner on top of it all. The least. It is a story worthy of a song about how majestic is God’s name in all the earth.

Psalm 8

For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David.

¹ Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.
² Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.
³ When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

⁵ You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.
⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet:⁷ all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,⁸ the birds in the sky; and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

⁹ Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

If you’ve been in church for a while, you’re undoubtedly familiar with the concept of the “worship wars.”  As much as we’d prefer not to use the words “worship” and “war” in the same sentence, it’s hard to ignore the embattled positions over the relative merits of “traditional” or “contemporary” worship.  Talk about your First World Problems, right?

But even the categories of “traditional” and “contemporary” don’t really do justice to the wide variety of styles present in today’s American Church.  It used to be that you’d identify a church by its denomination—that is, by a set of doctrines or shared beliefs that distinguish one church from another.  Now, we live in an age that some are calling “postdenominational” (try saying that with your mouth full).  Worship styles define the identity of the worshipping community more than actual beliefs.

In this series, we’re defining worship as the means by which we express and form our love—and for Christians this means our love for God and His Kingdom.  We’ve already addressed the nature of “expression” and “formation;” today we examine the “means” by which we worship.  And we might as well start off with a bit of history.

REDEEMING FORMS

It was the fourteenth century B.C.  Though Israel had departed Egypt roughly 100 years earlier, Egyptian culture moved forward.  Pharaoh Amenhotep and his wife Nefertiti changed the face of Egyptian religion: they replaced the worship of many gods with the worship of one—the sun god Aton.  They even wrote hymns to this god, some of which were probably well-known to the people of Israel.

See for yourself: look at the following selections between the Song of Aton and Psalm 104:

What’s going on here?  Is it possible that Israel cribbed lines from the local radio station?  Well, kinda.  In his excellent study of the Jewish temple, G.K. Beale observes that many facets of Israelite religion strongly resembled those of other, neighboring religions.  A cynical observer might allow this to fuel his skepticism: “See?  There’s nothing unique about Israel’s religion; it was just adapted from the nations around them.”  Not to belabor the point, but I can actually attest that if you were to take an Old Testament or religions course in a University setting, you could probably expect your professor to hand you something like I’ve shown you above—in the hopes of dispelling any vision you may have had of Israel’s uniqueness.

But Beale goes further in his study to emphasize the sharp contrasts between Israel and her neighbors.  Sure, Israel borrowed from Egypt’s cultural forms—but not her content.  Beale suggests that Israel borrowed from others as a way of showing God’s superiority to the rival religions that surrounded Israel.  Or, he suggests, it could simply be that every human soul yearns to touch the face of God—other religions are simply failed attempts at connecting with man’s creator.

What does this have to do with worship?  It’s simple, really: the form of worship is less significant than the object of worship.  Believe it or not, there are churches that argue that certain styles or genres of music can never be used to worship God.  But even the Psalms reveal that certain cultural styles can be adapted to reflect God’s truth and character.  Even many of today’s traditional hymns are adaptations of popular tunes sung during the days of Martin Luther and—later—John Wesley.

This also means that there can be no real point in arguing the superiority of one style or another.  In truth, each style may impact different people in different ways.  Personally you’ll never, ever get me to listen to country music—but I don’t fault those who find value and meaning in country-based music.

SACRED AND THE SECULAR?

This also means that the line between “sacred” music and “secular” music isn’t always as clear as we’d like to think.  In some churches, worship leaders are strategically incorporating songs from non-Christian artists into their overall worship experience.  Why?  We can’t revise the artist’s original meaning—a love song is still a love song, after all—but surely some songs speak to a universal human longing, a longing that can only be fulfilled in God.  Obviously, this requires wisdom, discernment, and a clear communication of purpose, but there may be times when even the most secular artists reveal the most sacred of human longings.

LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI

But why all the “worship wars?”  Why do so many people in our churches end up “church-hopping” so regularly and so willingly?  Why are we so quick to grow bored with our worship?

I believe the answer to these questions is very simple: in these instances, it is not Christ we worship, but Christianity.  The difference is simple: our devotion is not to Christ alone, but to the actual means by which we worship Him.  Said another way, what we worship is worship itself.

Historically the church has expressed this through the Latin phrase: lex orandi, lex credendi.  Literally it means “the church believes as she prays,” but I prefer Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones’ modern paraphrase: “What you win them with, you win them to.”  In other words, if we “win” people to our church through impassioned, cutting edge worship experiences, then there’s a possibility that we have won them to those experiences rather than Jesus.  If people are won to the emotion that colors so much of today’s worship music, then they will always be looking for their next emotional “fix.”  And “worship wars” will always erupt between those more devoted to the style of worship than the object of worship. Cater to preferences, and you cultivate a generation of consumers.  Devote oneself to the gospel, and you cultivate a generation of disciples.

So what is to be done?  The answer, I believe, is to actively pursue the same attitude as the One we worship—who lowered Himself by becoming a human being and ascend to the agony of the cross.  If we abandon our often-selfish demands to worship the way we want, then we can enjoy the things that draw our brothers and sisters closer to God.  And in so doing, we lay a greater foundation for unity and lasting joy.

Ellen spends hours scanning through the images that populate her online Pinterest account.  In this virtual world, Ellen shares her favorite things with others and gathers new ideas for future projects, fashion tips—all the necessary ingredients for the “good life.”  Meanwhile her husband Rick is lost on his smart phone—scanning through his various apps to find the latest scores and stats of his favorite team.  In the background, Ellen can even hear him periodically break the silence to yell at the TV—though never really winning his argument with the umpire.

What’s happening here?  It’s simple, really.  It’s worship.  It may not look like a typical church service, but Ellen and Rick are entranced in desire—whether it be for the various images offered on Pinterest, or desire for vicarious greatness achieved by living for your favorite sports team.

The Germans have a word it, actually.  They call it sehnsucht, what we might call a “desire for desire itself,” a sense of longing that goes deeper than eye can see and imagination can fathom.  It’s addictive, because it’s hard-wired into each of our souls.  In an article for New York Times Magazine, Corina Chocano observed the way that technology offers a natural outlet for such longings:

…your average Pinterest board or inspiration Tumblr basically functions as a longing machine… Someone on Pinterest once posted a slide that read: “Pinterest: Where women go to plan imaginary weddings, dress children that don’t exist and decorate homes we can’t afford.” But to focus on the “aspirational” aspect is to miss the point. People don’t post stuff because they wish they owned it, but because they think they are it, and they long to be understood, which is different.

I love her phrase: “longing machine.”  But in truth, each of our hearts serves as a “longing machine,” or perhaps a “longing factory,” built to turn the things we love into a source of significance.  In short: we’re made to worship.

WHAT IS WORSHIP?

Throughout our series we’re relying on a simple yet specific definition of worship.  Worship is the means by which we express and form our love.  So yes, this could easily happen through Pinterest boards or in front of our TV sets, cultivating a sense of excitement and failure over the big game or the latest political event.

This means that even if you think you’ve no real “use” for “religion,” you can’t get away from the nature of worship.  Everybody worships something—this was the message of David Foster Wallace in his graduation speech to Kenyon College some years ago.  Though not remotely a “spiritual” person, Wallace argued that worship is a fundamental part of human reality:

“Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. …Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.”

How do we know what we worship?  It’s easier than we may think.  Paul Tillich—a writer and philosopher—once define “religion” as a society’s “ultimate concern.”  What sorts of things “concern” you?  You could look at this question in a number of ways:

• Where do I spend my money?
• Where do I spend most of my time?
• What do I get deeply passionate about?  What makes me angry?  What do I fear losing?
• What do I daydream about?  What do I consistently find myself thinking about—a new job promotion?  A relationship?  Sex?  These desires reflect the object of our worship.

THE RIDER AND THE ELEPHANT

For literally centuries, philosophers have struggled to understand the relationship between reason and desire.  I believe it was Plato who first used the analogy of the rider and the elephant.  The elephant represents desire.  The rider represents reason.  The reason so much of our lives is out of control is simple: I can’t use my brain alone to control the raging elephant of my desire.  I can’t “think” my way out of every temptation.  Not to be too pointed, but this is why sexual sin has such a high number of repeat offenders.  Biologically, we are hard wired for sexual desire.  It seems nearly impossible to “control” these natural impulses, and to most non-Christians, the suggestion that we try to do so is regressive, repressive, unhealthy.

Many religions teach the avoidance or repression of desire.  Buddhism, for example, argues that existence is suffering brought on by selfish desires.  The path to salvation is the elimination of desire.  Christianity says that’s preposterous.  God intends that humans experience God’s perfect design as pure joy.  Christianity says that our desires, our longings—that sehnsucht we spoke of above—reveals a deeper longing for something beyond ourselves.  It’s why C.S. Lewis so famously argued that hunger would seem preposterous if food were not real.  Romantic love would be an abnormality if not for the existence of the opposite sex.  So, he concludes, “if I find in myself nothing else on earth can satisfy, it must be that I was made for another world.”

Christian worship, then, is the means by which we express and form our love for God and His kingdom.  It’s not about trying to suppress desire.  Those who do usually fail—repeatedly.  The rider of my intellect cannot possibly control the elephant of my desires.  But Christianity isn’t about trying to “manage” our sins.  On the contrary; Christianity is about replacing my unhealthy desires with a desire for God and God alone.

This is why the Psalms are so beneficial, because they orient me towards God’s kingdom, and give me a bigger picture of God than I’d ever dare dream.  It’s no wonder, then, that the Psalms have been a vital part of Christian worship for centuries.

CALL TO WORSHIP

We can turn our attention to Psalm 95—one in a series of praise Psalms designed to orient Israel’s hearts toward God.

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!  ² Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!  ³ For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. (Psalm 95:1-3)

Other gods?  By that David—the writer of this Psalm—meant the other things Israel looked toward for comfort, security and protection.  But God is superior to all of these lesser substitutes:

⁴ In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.  ⁵ The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.  ⁶ Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!  ⁷ For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice,  ⁸ do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,  ⁹ when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.  ¹⁰ For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.”  ¹¹ Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.” (Psalm 95:1-11)

Meribah and Massah represent the time when Israel demanded water from God (Exodus 17)—in other words, wanting a relationship with God on their own terms.  God provided water, having Moses strike the rock with his staff, and water sprang forth (Exodus 17:6).

God’s answer to our desires is to give us more of Himself.  Roughly 1500 years later, God’s Son would be struck by another staff—a soldier’s spear—and blood and water sprang forth.  The gospel promises us the forgiveness of sins and new life in His name.  Though we are creatures of a thousand lesser loves and desires, God provides a way for us, through Jesus—the true and better rock of Moses—so that we might enter into God’s rest.

Those of you signed up for these devotionals are getting this delivered to your device early on Sunday morning of this, our opening day of the 2014 summer preaching series.

Over the next 13 weeks we will travel together through the book of Psalms. Often called “The Hymnal of the Scriptures,” the book of Psalms is indeed a playlist of tunes expressing a wide range of emotions by varied people of God in Old Testament times.

Their songs are still dearly loved and among the favorite passages of the Bible for so many of God’s people. This is because they are a sort of “playlist” of common emotions that run the spectrum of love, joy, praise, teaching, wisdom, despair, confusion, sadness, fear, and even anger and indignation. The emotions that soar out of these inspired lyrics do indeed reflect the timeless emotions of people wanting to live for God in a difficult and challengingly sinful world.

Bible scholars over the years have sought to categorize the Psalms into common themes that are expressed by the writers. Not every list is exactly the same. This is often because there are varied ways and angles of looking at and enjoying these songs. And many of them are able to be classified in several categories. For example, a Psalm may express praise to God, while also presenting wise teaching and themes about worshipping God.

As we have laid out the Psalms for this summer series, we don’t claim particular inspiration, but do present them in what we trust is a logical way of categorizing them. We also want to raise out of them practical teaching themes as to how they may be applied to 21^st Century life.

We will first begin with three weeks about “Praise” psalms that speak to the topic of worship and the active role of relationship we have with the Creator.

There will then be two weeks of “Lament” psalms where the writers present topics about the inevitable sorrows and pains of life – calling to God to help in times of need.

We will next have two weeks about “Trust” and “Thanksgiving” psalms – where the writers express their hope and confidence in God, even in spite of the challenges of life.

We know that all Scripture is given for our instruction in life, and we will at the end of July and beginning of August look at “Wisdom” and “Torah” psalms that primarily instruct and teach.

For one week, on Sunday 8/10 and following, we will give attention to a very unique category of “Imprecatory” psalms. These may seem odd to people as they even call upon God to move to judgment and retribution … and we may see them as a crying out to God to see justice prevail in a difficult and sinful world.

We’ll give two Sundays to psalms of the “King” … sometimes called “Messianic” or “Enthronement” or “Royal” psalms. These look forward to King and a Kingdom to come.

And finally we will enjoy and finish with “Ascent” psalms. These are those that were dear to the Old Testament saints as they sang them when on pilgrimages to Jerusalem to worship God in the Temple.

Hopefully some of these Psalms will find their way onto your personal playlist – not just of music and text, but of application to life.

I have a pastor friend who everyday puts on Facebook a post about what song is “playing on the internal jukebox,” as he puts it. I understand what he is talking about. Though I practically never actually listen to music intentionally, having been a musician and with a degree in music, I too have a song playing subconsciously in my head all the time. Do you? Do all people? If you stop and think about it, can you identify the song?

Well, as you read along with us in the book of Psalms, may it be that it triggers in you the playing of an internal jukebox playlist of life’s tunes that give you encouragement and guidance in life.

Chris starts today with the series by preaching on Psalm 96 …

1 Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.

2 Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.

3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

4 For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods.

5 For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

6 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary.

7 Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come into his courts.

9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.

10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.” The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.

11 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it.

12 Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.

13 Let all creation rejoice before the Lord, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.