Psalm 24:1-10

Worship is the purpose for which we were made.  All men everywhere always worship.  It is how God made us.  We can no more stop worshiping than we can stop breathing.  Unfortunately, we do not always worship the Lord as He intended.  Instead, we worship ourselves, the creation, other people, comfort and any other number of idols that our heart churns out in order that we might worship.  Today’s passage answers three very important questions about worshiping the Lord.

WHY WE WORSHIP THE LORD: David answers this question in a very clear and concise manner.  We worship the Lord because He is the owner of all the earth.  Everything and everybody on the earth belongs to the Lord.  He created the earth and He reigns over the earth.  As the sovereign of the universe there is nobody above Him.  There is nobody who is deserving of our worship besides Him.  When we worship the idols of our hearts we are settling for a far inferior form of worship that can never satisfy our hearts and will lead us into eternal condemnation.  We must dedicate ourselves fully and solely to worship God and God alone.

WHO CAN WORSHIP THE LORD: We are not afforded the luxury of worshiping the Lord on our own terms and according to our own desires.  As we would expect, the worshiped determines how the worshiper will come before Him.  The text gives us four conditions to our being able to worship the Lord.  We must have clean hands, a pure heart, exclusive worship and honest mouth.  God is not willing to share our worship with other gods and He does not except the worship of men who are living in sin.  The only way that we can truly worship the Lord is through the cleansing of our sin in the blood of Christ.  When we worship the Lord in this way we are blessed by Him with righteousness and salvation.  We must seek the Lord with all of our hearts and worship Him with everything that we have and are.


HOW WE WORSHIP THE LORD: We worship the Lord by declaring His greatness.  We show Him honor and respect and we revere His holy name.  We recognize His presence with us and raise our voices to proclaim His glory to all who can hear.  God is strong, powerful and mighty.  He defends us in battle and can defeat any foe.  He is our glorious King and we live in His presence.  We must not take being in the presence of God lightly.  We worship God by living in light of being in the presence of greatness.  When we meet a celebrity or a powerful government official we stand in awe of these people.  That sense of awe should not come close to our amazement at living in the presence of God the King of glory.

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