The Importance of Worship: Psalm 24

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Good morning, good morning, Wow, we talk through

good moaning.

Good morning. Do you Wow?

That's amazing. But we have to hurry today because you

got to go work out.

Uh, what you're gonna say that on TV? So don't

we have to hurry? Okay, well, at least explain it.

Because you're gonna go work out because you're buff. First

of all, you're getting so ripped that that is.

Not even close to being true.

I work out with physical therapy for old people.

So what is it? What is it?

What is your what is your trainer? What is her

specialty old people?

That's what you say, that's not true all you know

what though, I didn't have some like a bulging discs

and everything, and come and find out. My trainer is

somebody who was a physical therapist, which is such.

A rare commodation, That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, So what she does is she's able to actually

like help me both in physical therapy and also give

me exercises that are the perfect ones.

Yes, So Heritage Church, the church we work at, we

also have a gym.

A lot of people don't know that, right, but HFE

hundred people are so really engage with the gym. And

we have some really great trainers. And Mandy is your trainer,

and she is an expert in old people and stop

that in physical therapy.

Those two things.

If you need a gentle uh, a gentle trainer. If

you want to get fit, you want to go with

one of the other guys. But if you want somebody

to be gentle with you and tell you you're doing it, stop,

Pretty soon you're gonna start talking about prunes.

I'm telling you, Hey, by the way, fiber.

Gets so much.

And usually whenever you see me just wearing like a

T shirt, it's because I'm recording on a day.

But right afterwards I go and have a.

So here we are, we got a hustle, That's what

I'm saying.

No got a clock? The clock?

Well, I was thinking maybe go warm you up, get

you working into a good sweat before you go to

the work, you have to stretch. So hey, Chris, Yes, Tomorrow, Yes,

September twenty eighth, Yes, is National Chris.

Day, which I did not know.

By the way, Hey, I looked it up. By the way,

I looked up National Chris Day.

Did you really?

I did it because I was like, come on, are

you flipping serious? And it says Mark you canlnder is

because September twenty eighth is National Chris Day, a day

dedicated to celebrating all those with the name Chris. It

originated in two thousand and eight.

I wonder if there's a national jeff Dy, I'm sure

there is.

Well I doubt it.

So here's some ways. They even give ways to celebrate

National Chris Day. One host to Chris theine party. Oh,

it'd be great, right, invite all your friends named Chris

to a party.

And I say this, I gotta say this. So I'm Chris.

My daughter Sarah married Brandon, but his legal name is

Christopher Brandon Drew. So she married a Chris. And then

my daughter is almost engaged. Right, they're talking about engagement.

And his name is also Chris. It's Chris dos it

is his real name. They call him Chris. So I'm Chris,

He's Chris, and.

Chris is You guys could have a Chris themed party.

We could do it by ourselves.

You could send handwritten notes to all the Chris's you know, yes, right,

thanking them for being a part of your life, celebrating

their name. You could create a Chris themed playlist, Chris Stapleton,

Chris Brown, whatever, uh. You could attend a Chris themed event.

Maybe find a Chris named comedian. You could volunteer to

charity with Chris in a name. Should I think you should? Yeah?

Yeah?

And here's why we love National Chris Day. It's a

day to celebrate our friends and family members named Chris.

That's one.

There's so many other famous and influential people named Chris,

Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Martin, Chris Stapleton, That mean,

just you go on and on, lots of famous chris is.

And then Chris is a popular and timeless name, and

we just want to celebrate the fact that it has popularity,

enduring popularity and charm is what it says.

So the segment that Desire wrote is Chris because since

tomorrow it is all about you. If you could have

the perfect day, what would it look like?

Yes, And so I thought, that's what we want to know.

So here's here's what I thought.

Than anything, we want to know.

So the perfect day would be get up very early

from my castle in Orlando that I that I've rented

out as an airbnb, and then to go to all

four Disney parks with a Disney Park park passer or

you know what i mean, sorry hopper pass one day.

Yeah, well you've never done that. Oh yeah, it's great.

I've want have been to Disney twice.

Okay, and I've only been to the main theme park.

Okay, okay, just stop talking. Okay, go ahead, let the

big boys talk about this. So so, anyway, so if

you buy a park hopper pass, you can, like you know,

spend a couple hours in one and then take the

ferry over, take the bus or whatever, and.

Then at each Disney park.

The major theme park, because there's four of them, I

would choose my four celebrities to hang out with my family.

So in other words, it's just my favorite celebrity and

he would meet me at the theme park and we'd

hang out for maybe three hours, four hours, well no,

not maybe perhaps why not because it's that But they

didn't say Chris Strong day. It just said what is

your perfect day? So I wouldn't be limited to the crisis'.

I would just say, whoever I want to hang out with.

We would just choose one and then they would just

join us and we would just hang out. Okay, And

I don't know who those four celebrities would be id

at this, I think.

About listeners know who those celebrities.

No, they wouldn't know. They do not, And by the way,

you'd be wrong. You'd be wrong.

They would not make my top. But but I would

think long and hard, and I would choose four celebrities

and they would hang out with my whole fan.

That's your day, well, I mean, and eat well and

eat well.

Right, So in other words, like the Disney the worst

thing about Disney is there they have terrible food, but

they do have like one or two restaurants like the

be Our Guest Restaurant that is like fine dining. So

I would say every meal would have to be in

a fine dining type restaurant.

That sounds, uh, you should pay something, you should pay something.

That's your perfect day.

Well, I mean it's one of them.

Okay, Well, all right, if.

I'm talking about you just a well of incredible information

and ideas, Yes, well, I don't know. So we just

keep peeling back the onion. We keep peeling back layers

of the onion, discovering who you really are.

Truth be told. I don't think too many of the

people would agree with that day.

No, I wouldn't.

Yes, I know this sounds like hell, like like I've died,

I've been sent the purgatory.

But the celebrity part you like you, No.

I wouldn't. I don't talk to celebrities when I see them.

Oh yeah, well do I. You probably don't get the chances.

I just don't do it.

If you had a real down to earth sent.

It right next to celebrity one time at a restaurant

he owned, and I didn't say boot, literally right next

to my.

Well, if you said boot, you get arrested.

B Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. Yeah, I just don't

do it.

Hey, I've talked to plenty of celebrities, probably a couple dozen.

Oh look at me, I hang out with celebrity.

No, I just find reason to be near them, and

almost everyone was completely, like, completely nice.

Yeah.

Yeah. The worst one was Kid Rock in terms of, like,

you know, being rude. Sorry about that, Kid Rock.

Oops.

Oops, I just said that out loud. Yes he did.

I didn't.

Now he's gunning for you. He's going to send his

posse to come and get you.

Uh.

And probably one of the nicest ones was she's not

quite a celebrity, but I would say Ammy Grant.

Okay, sat right.

Next to Amy Grant, talked to her like celebrity thirty

minutes at Christmas time.

Yeah, okay, wow, Chris, Yeah, what a day. There you

go there? Well hey, uh talking about celebrities. King David, yep,

there you go. The good about how much he left

God where.

To go, buddy clever.

So we're David at this point is the king of Judah.

We already established that, and he's trying to figure out

to establish his kingdom.

There's some struggles, and we've.

Already established the fact that while he was a great

warrior and a great king and leader, he also was

an artist and he had this other side. And there's

something to celebrate about being a renaissance kind of a

person where you have a breadth to you, not just

a one trick pony, but have some real skill and depth.

And so he's writing out his prayers and putting them

to songs. And the theme behind Psalm chapter twenty four

is that everything belongs to God, right, and.

So here's what he says.

He says, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it,

the world and all its people belong to him, For

He laid the Earth's foundation on the seas and built

it on the ocean. Depths who may climb the mountain

of the Lord, who may stand in his holy place.

Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do

not worship idols and never tell lies. They will receive

the Lord's blessing and have a right relationship with God,

their savior. Such people may seek you and worship in

your press.

And so, God of.

Jacob, open the gates, or open up ancient gates. Open

up ancient doors, and let the King of Glory enter,

who is the King of Glory, the Lord strong and mighty,

the Lord invincible in battle. Open up ancient gates, open

up ancient doors, and let the King of Glory enter,

Who is the King of Glory, the Lord of Heaven's armies.

He is the King of Glory.

And that reminds me of a worship song that was

quite popular.

Yes, King Glory, Yeah.

Yeah, so yeah.

So it is a great thing I think to spend

time proclaiming God's greatness, declaring God's greatness and that is

exactly what this psalm does. In fact, I don't know

if you read this already, because I was reading ahead

on some of these notes. But one of the subtitles says,

everything belongs to God, the glorious eternal King. Let us

worship him and welcome his glorious reign.

Right And did you read that already?

I didn't read it out loud, okay, so I read

it quietly to myself.

So you know what this reminds me of, which is

very relevant for our lives, and that is, at one

time heard a pastor teach on the Lord's Prayer, and

we did a series that was sort of based on that,

right where we sort of walked through the Lord's Prayer

ad heritage, remember, and it was yes, you were there,

you taught at it actually.

But basically.

A lot of people I grew up learning how to

recite the Lord's Prayer.

You know.

The Catholics would say they call it our father right where,

you know, and sometimes you would get assigned, you know,

to say a certain number of our fathers, you know,

depending on your penance and everything else. You go in

and say, you know, anyway, it didn't matter. The point

is is that people have grown up being taught to

recite it and then also to use it as a

formulated prayer. And by the way, I think that's a

good thing. I think reciting prayers is a good thing.

Quoting psalms which were prayers is a good thing. So

there's nothing wrong with that. However, on the flip side

of that coin, I do not think that the Lord's

Prayer was given to us as something to memorize and

recite always as our main prayer.

Do you believe that as well?

Yes, I don't believe that he gave it to us

as our main prayer, but as a model.

So as a model. So what would a model mean.

He would establish these are the typical elements that would

be in an effective prayer.

Right, And so anyway, all that to say would be.

The very first line in that prayer is declaring God's greatness. Right,

So he says, our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed

be thy name, and a more modern version would say

great is your name, and that's what it means. And so,

and here's the part that I'm trying to get at

when thinking about Psalm twenty four, which is all about

declaring God's majesty and his rule.

Is Jesus himself.

When he taught us to pray, the very first thing

that he suggested that we do is declaring God's greatness,

our Father, who are in heaven. Great is your name.

And one of the things that I heard was I

think perhaps one of the reasons why he did that

is to remind us just who it is we're praying to.

Because most of the time, what do we do. We say,

Dear God, Okay, let me get right to my needs,

wants and wishes right And what he's saying is like, hey, listen,

I know you have needs and wants and wishes, but

before you get to that, spend just a little bit

of time in declaring and recognizing just who it is

you're praying to. Because when you posture your heart and

say God, you are God and I am not, then

maybe by the time you get to your needs and

wants and wishes, you'll have a lot less anxiety over them.

Maybe you'll have a lot more confidence in believing that

God can take care of them things. Or we're trusting

that God will do what he's going to do and

it's going to be best regardless of how he answers,

So just spend time. And the answer is, well, how long?

How long should I spend there? Yeah? Because Jesus's prayer

to our Father only takes thirty seconds to pray, right,

Like you could run through the our Father in thirty

seconds or less, right, So how long should I pray?

Does that mean my prayers should only be thirty seconds?

And honestly, my answer has always been as long as

it takes, like, as long as it takes for your

heart to get there, you know, Oh Lord, you know

how it would be your name, Like, as long as

it takes for your heart to wrestle and get there

in your posture to take rest and refuge in the

fact that God's in control, that he's great, that you're

going to the King of the universe with your needs,

wants and wishes, declaring his greatness like Psalm twenty four

is doing, declaring his majesty and just announcing that he

is God. There's a lot of comfort in that, and

it's also comforting knowing that we should always start our

prayers with things like this.

Yeah, I think that's really powerful. The remembering that these

were songs sung to the temple. It's interesting there's two

pieces to this song. There's the first part just declaring

that God is the ruler over everything, and then there's

this interlude, and then there's open up ancient gates, right,

and one of the cool things. I don't know if

you saw this, but in the Notes of Life Application

Study Bible, it says this psalm, often set to music,

was probably used in corporate worship. It may have been

re enacted many times at the temple. The people outside

would call out to the temple gates to open up

and let the King of Glory in from inside, the

priests or another group would ask who is the King

of Glory outside? The people would respond in unison, the

Lord strong and mighty, the Lord invincible in battle, claiming

his great power and strength, and the exchange.

Me be repeated. You know, that's what happens.

It's repeated twice there and then it says, and the

temple gates would swing open, symbolizing the people's desire to

have God's presence among them. And this would have been

a great important lesson for the children who were participating.

Right.

So this was a common thing within tradition that the

people would be outside calling and the tradition is that

this was probably the first worship song of the week

in the temple, by the way, so it's kind of

neat that this would be a thing. They would call out,

who's the strong, who's the Lord's strong and mighty? Right,

they go back and forth. So I love that that

this is corporate worship, corporate singing. And the Bible talks

a lot about worship. So I spent fifteen years as

a worship leader. I have a degree in music, particularly

focused on worship. And the Bible says that we're supposed

to worship Him with our songs. We're supposed to sing

new songs to the Lord, supposed to use all the

instruments and all the voices, all those things. And God

delights in our individual worship. He delights in our corporate

group worship. It's one of the great benefits of the

gathered church. It's one of the things that you can't

do privately, is worship in a large group. Right, So

that's there, But then he says to worship him in

psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. There are worship songs,

there are praise songs, there are testimony songs, right, and

so this one, the earth is the Lord's and everything that.

This is a worship song. God, You're big, You're God,

and I'm not. That's that's a worship song.

Right.

Most of the songs we sing lately on Sunday mornings,

it seems like in a lot of churches are more

praise songs. God, You're just really good, right, You're the

way maker. You're the one who who solves my problems.

You're the one who takes care of me when I

was afraid, I didn't know where to go, You're the one.

Those are praise songs, right, So those are are those

So if you're thinking psalms, psalms are thought of as prayers,

typically worship hymns oftentimes are praise. They're the ones that

are saying praise God from whom all blessings flow. Kind

of a song, right, God, you are the one that

provides for me. And then spiritual songs are usually testimony

kind of songs. I was lost and you found me.

I didn't know what to turn and you and you

showed me the way. I was broken and you fixed

me right. Amazing grace is kind of a mix of

those two things.

So testimony songs have a way of what like telling

your story, identifying my story, humanity, right, journey, my.

Story was resolved by God. Whereas a worship song is

God's God. Wow, we're going to worship you because you're God.

A praise song is God, you do good things and

that you're powerful, you can do anything you make the way.

And then.

Spiritual songs are going to be those things that either

are talking about biblical things. You know, Father Abraham had

many sons, right, so it's going to be that it's

just a biblical idea of biblical literacy kind of songs,

or they're testimony songs saying this is this was my

life and this is what God did my life.

Right, My life is.

Only because of Him, and so I think it's important.

Then Paul highlights those three You see all of those

in the Book of Psalms, along with confession. Right, that's

the other one that's not mentioned that Paul mentions. But

David also confesses sin in there. So those would be

maybe the four major areas. And we all tend to go,

we tend to gravitate if we're not careful towards look

what God did for me, or I'm trusting God to

do good things for me. But before we ever get

to the praise side, I think we should spend more

time in the worship side.

God's God and I'm not. He's just right.

Yeah.

And this is what David is doing in this one.

There's not a lot of praise in here. There's not

a lot of testimony in here. It's just God, You're God,

and You're worth worshiping because of who you are.

Yeah.

And by the way, name can you can you name

a song off the top of your head, whether current

or super old, that sticks out in your mind as

a true worship song. It just says God, Your God.

Yeah, man, I'm put on the spot there. I bet

our listeners could.

Yeah. I just thought that maybe, you know.

I think I remember the Phillips Kraigndeine worship song you

Are God Alone. Oh yeah, yeah, I remember that that

went back in the day. That was probably what fifteen

years ago, twenty years ago? Yeah, Yeah, that's the one

that's been in my mind ever since we've been reading this.

Okay, this thing.

But a current worship song, there are many, There are

many that go there as opposed to the the praise.

Songs are.

You know remember the song by Chris you are so good.

Remember Chris Tomlin you are amazing God, like that one

when he says, you know, the author of creation and God,

how great is our God. These are the types of songs, right,

just talking about how God is great?

Right?

God is God?

Right?

Then praise songs are man, you take good care of me. Right,

so your God is worship, you take good care of me,

pray what you provide everything I need? And then the

testimony stuff is you've changed me, right, this is this

is how You've changed me?

Or biblical literacy kind of stuff.

So the praise songs could be that praise is the

water that my enemy's drowning.

Yeah, what song is that? That's an elevation?

Yeah, yeah, so I I brought that. I brought that

up to poke fun because because sometimes there are lyrics

that just come.

Out of the blue every once in a while that

you look and go what.

Yeah, well it's a biblical literacy.

It's a teaching moment, yeah, right, to be able to

come back and go, hey, by the way, that's referencing

when the Egyptians drowned. You know, the Israelites passed through

on dry land and then the Red Sea flooded off

the Egyptians.

But that that has nothing to do with praise though.

Well you praise in the fact that God delivered me. Okay,

that that's that's what that.

That's what it's supposed to be. Yeah, but it says,

praise is the water that my enemy's drying.

I know. Sometimes their lyrics.

Yeah symbolic, Yeah, oh that that's I give a reason

to praise the Lord.

Mus So that's what that song is. Okay. So that's interesting.

So wow, what a what a great what a great?

Uh little course there? What do I want to say,

master masterclass on worship, which is pretty cool.

And so having balance in those areas, right, I've been

talking with the worship leaders a little bit at our

church here about Hey, okay.

We're doing really good in this area.

What about what about some of these other things let's

not let's not miss them and different you know, songwriters

and different people that everybody else is listening to. They

put out their songs what's going on in their life

at the time. But it's important for us to also remember, hey,

we have to have our own song, and we have

to have our own our own ability to sing a

new song to the Lord and what's missing? So if

everything lately has been praise, then hey, we should get

back to worship, or or what about a testimony song,

or what about a biblical literacy type of a song.

You know, Martin Luther when he was kicking off the Reformation,

during his ministry, he wrote over five thousand songs. Did

you know that a thousand songs? He wrote more songs

than he did pages on doctrine? Real, right, Yeah, it's

pretty pretty incredible. And he felt like music was the

best conveyance for teaching doctrine to his people.

So if you think of.

You know, Almighty Fortresses our God, think of the doctrine

that is in that song. He's really building it out

of the Book of Psalms, the concept, but there's so

much doctrine. And he would take popular tunes from the

from the taverns. He would take popular tunes that everybody knew,

and he would put theological depth to it to teach

people the words of God. And it's amazing how much

of our doctrine is developed by songs. And we have

to be careful if we start wondering, why do our

children only think that God is our good luck charm

and he provides everything we want.

It might be because we're.

Only singing praise songs, right right, we need more breadth

to our worship. That's great because you remember that you

remember a song way longer than you remember a message,

right right, I.

Agree with that. I agree with that.

Okay, well, hey, that is our time. And what a great,

great unpacking of Psalm chapter twenty four. And there's so

many different types of Psalms, and I'm sure we'll be

touching on many more of it along the life of

David as we continue our series now that David is king,

as we walk through the Old Testament.

Hopefully we'll see you Monday on the Bible guys,