“…Hallelujah!”

A sermon based upon Psalm 150 CSB17

By Rev. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 

September 1st, 2019

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise God all creatures here below!”

We sing this doxology over and over, but what does it mean, really?

Today we come to conclude this preaching series on 12 Psalms, which we’ve called, ‘Singing Through The Summer.’   Appropriately, the whole book of Psalms ends with this one single word: “Hallelujah!” It’s also the main theme of the last five chapters, making a five-fold hymn of praise to God a worshipful conclusion.

“Hallelujah!” is made from two different ancient Hebrew words ; Halal, meaning ‘praise’ and jah, which is short for Jehovah, God.  What many over-look, is that it’s also a plural form, which here in the south it should be rightly translated, Praise the Lord, Ya’ll!’  

Thus, the book of Psalms ends with a call for everybody to sing praises to God. Whether they were having a good day, or a bad day, the whole congregation of God’s people were called to come together and sing praises to their God.

Why was the ‘Hallelujah’ so vital to Israel’s faith, and also vital to our own?  Well, when the Christian writer from Great Britain, G. K. Chesterton, was at a particularly low point in his life, he said that he kept his faith by expressing gratitude toward God. He said, “I hung onto my religion by the thinnest thread of thanks.”

We should make special note, that when it comes to having faith, or to keep the faith; praise and thanksgiving to God belong, not to a particular day or a particular season, but they belong to the whole of life. Life belongs to God. God is the source of life; your life, my life, and all of life. 

Even secular science teaches us that life had its start in one point of energy and light---the Big Bang!  Faith tells us that this ‘point’ was personal, just as you are a person, specially created in the image and likeness of this creator-God.  And just as all living things need a life-source to stay alive, so do you, and so do we all.  For the human person, who has the capacity to think, love, or to have faith, just like we also have the capacity to lose faith, to hate, or to become thoughtless; the living God, Israel’s God, the Father of Jesus the Christ; this biblical understanding of the Judeo-Christian God, is our life-source.  It is through praise, worship and thanksgiving to him, and it is through the living “Hallelujah” that we remain connected and true to the source of the energy for our lives.

So, considering our human need for God, and our need to continually bring and offer praise to God, I want to answer four simple, most basic questions: Where is God to be praised? Why is God to be praised? How is God to be praised? And, by whom is God to be praised? All these questions are answered by the psalmist in the 150^th Psalm.

IN HIS SANCTUARY…IN THE SKY (v 1)

First, where is God to be praised? The psalmist answers that immediately: “Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in the mighty firmament of His power!”  

The answer to WHERE we are to praise the Lord is from sanctuary to sky.  More simply this means: everywhere!   As a late pastor has said:  “Praise God on the highway, in the byway, in waiting rooms and working rooms, through field and in the forest, in the city and the country-side. When I walk through the valleys of the shadows of death, I Praise the Lord. Praise God when you are healthy; praise God when you are sick” (J. Howard Olds).

When a baby is born, who cannot see what has just come to pass and say a word of praise to God?   And even on his death bed, John Wesley said to those around him, “Children, as soon as I am released, sing a Psalm of praise to God.”  Thus, everywhere we go, in everything we do, in whatever state we are, let us sing a song of praise to the One who made us, the One who sustains us, the One who will see us through.

PA Cline, my college Greek professor, ‘punned’ for us to feel sorry for people who are born in the ‘kick-a-tive case’ and the negative mood.’   He meant those people who major on pessimism, who only see the dark and gloomy side of life, who only feel the pain and stressors, seldom able to do much of anything but grumble and criticize; even with those they say they love.

It is certainly easy, in this physical world of limits, decline, and decay, to develop a critical spirit in our lives.  But we are not called to be critics, to be negative, or live in doom and gloom. We are people called live in praise, not just in the sanctuary, but also under the sky; to pray without ceasing, to be thankful in all things, and to constantly praise the Lord from whom all blessings flow.  Any development of a critical spirit is a true sign of the cessation of worship.  It is a sign that now, life is just about you, just about how you feel, what you want, or what is happening to you in that moment.   Now, because you can’t see beyond yourself, you have started to worship you, where the blessing now must flow! 

Indian spiritual teacher, Tony Demello, tells the story about two taxidermists who stopped before a window in which an owl was on display. Immediately they began to criticize the way it was mounted. Its eyes were not natural. Its wings were not in proportion to the head. The feathers were not neatly arranged and the feet could be improved. They looked at each other and said, “You know, whoever did this job didn’t do a very good one.” As they continued their critique, the old owl turned its head and winked at them.  The joke was on them.

When you take the throne of life, no one, and nothing can ever please you.  So, if you want to continue to find joy, appreciation and gratitude in your life, you must learn and continue to praise God, however you are and wherever you are.  We begin each week here - in the sanctuary – in designated place of worship.  After learning how to praise God here, with others around you, you can now go out into the larger world, out ‘under the sky’, seeing God around you in nature, in others, so that outside the sanctuary you will continue to praise God and find focus for your life.

It’s hard to find a person, when they are on an airplane way up in the sky who doesn’t have some thought of God.  When I’ve taken off, I’ve looked around and seen people making the sign of the cross, bowing in prayer, or looking straight ahead in fear and fright.  I’ve also seen people on planes forgotten where they are, as one comedian once said, after hearing complaining about their flight; ‘My Lord, don’t you realize your riding on a seat up in a cloud in the sky!” 

When you are up in the sky and you are sitting a window seat, you certainly can look out and feel a sense of awe and wonder.  You certainly are setting on a seat in a cloud!  You certainly can look with wonder what it looks like to see straight into or even to looked down upon the clouds.  If you are flying at night, you can look out and see the stars, or watch the sunrise.  It’s an unforgettable sight. 

It’s certainly an amazing thing, to be able to ‘wonder’ way up in the sky.  Even today, there are people who have money, who would spend thousands to get a chance to climb like an astronaut into orbit.  They’d pay all kinds of money just to go up, up, and up, and then to come right back down.  Are they just thrill seekers?  Perhaps.  Or are they human beings, seeking to feel some connection to what is ultimate or something that ‘transcends’ everything else. 

You certainly can get this feeling of ‘wonder’ and ‘transcendence’ if you look are brave enough to look out the window seat of a transatlantic flight.   If you are looking with all your heart, you can even find reasons to worship, either the maker of the plane, the inventor of flight, or the pilot who is keeping you alive until you arrive.  There certainly many reasons to be thankful way up in the sky, and when you arrive safely back down on the ground. Amen.  My most memorable moment of ‘thankfulness’ on an airplane, was when our Lufthansa Pilot landed us softly and safely when you couldn’t see the end of the wing in the fog.  I couldn’t believe it, when we walked off that plane, safe and sound, and I still couldn’t see where I was.  Amen. Amen.

So, to be sure we can find reasons to be thankful and even to worship and praise God outside, in the world, and under the great, big sky.  If you are looking, with the eye of your heart, you can find a reason to worship God most anywhere, and everywhere, and for all kinds of reasons and in all kinds of ways.  But I ask you, how do we learn who God is? How do we discover God’s claim upon our life? It’s here, right here, in this sanctuary, a place we set aside for corporate, weekly, and regular worship.  The kind of ‘regular’ coming together to worship, we are not to neglect, the Scripture says.

I recall going into a home, several homes, to visit delinquent church members, and to re-invite them to church.  There are more and more members these days who take the God given ‘freedom’ to worship also as a freedom not to worship.  I recall a pastor in Europe telling me he had a church of 2,000 members, where only about 60 were regular in worship.  He said when he went to visit to invite his members back, they would slam the door in his face, saying they never intended to worship ever again.

It’s certainly not that bad here, yet.  But, I do remember several times church members telling me that they had were worshipping by watching church on their TV, Robert Schuller, Charles Stanley, or Joel Osteen.  While I certainly encourage any kind of private devotion to God, whether reading your Bible daily, or watching a church in worship on TV, none of this replaces worshipping together as the people and community of God.  

I know of very few people who can maintain their faith for long, only by reading a book (even the Good Book), only listening to a radio, or only watching on TV or now, even by streaming a recorded video.  The true worship of a living God, who lives ‘in his people’, must somehow be ‘live’, either when you come together to share worship with God’s people, and if you are sick or shut-in, when the people come to be with you.  There may be a rare person whose faith in God or in life, survives without a faith community, but I don’t know a single one.

The ‘takeaway’ here is that there is no meaningful life as a Christian or, even as a non Christian, without some kind of community.  People must be connected, to stay connected.  So, the Psalms conclude with the Hallelujah that calls us to continue to gather together as the people of God so we have a place to belong, to become, and to believe.   We are to keep praising God, together, not only so that we can stay connected to God and others, but also so that others can stay connected to God and others too.   We come to worship because life is not just about us, it’s also about them.  And, most of all, worship is about him.  We come together in a common place, to celebrate a common faith, to recognize a common need - the need for God and the need for each other. 

This is how the Psalmist begins, by answering WHERE: “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord. Praise God in the sanctuary.  Praise God in or ‘under’ the sky.

WHY: PRAISE THE LORD FOR HIS MIGHTY DEEDS…HIS GREATNESS (v. 2).

The second question this Psalm answers is why; why is God to be praised? The psalmist answers, “Praise Him for His mighty deeds; praise Him according to His surpassing greatness.” Psalm 106 adds: Praise the LORD! Give thanks to the LORD because he is good, because his faithful love endures forever.   Who could possibly repeat all of the LORD's mighty acts or  recount all his praise?

Dr. David Bratton has been an Orthopedic Surgeon for 39 years and still runs a clinic in Franklin, Tennesee.  A few years ago life threw David a curve ball.  But as Dr. Bratton tells his patients, if you stay in there and keep batting, you might still hit a home run.

A few years ago the Doctor developed a tremor and it turned out to be Parkinson’s disease and he had to stop doing surgery. Everything was running on schedule and then the schedule kind of got eschewed. About a year later he was diagnosed with genetic kidney failure, which caused him to face quite a bit of uncertainty with regard to that, as well. This resulted in a kidney transplant which is not easy to come by.  There are 70,000 people in America waiting for a kidney, and only 18,000 are done per year.

There is, however a home-run, and a beautiful miracle that happened in David’s life.  He decided he had better start walking to prepare his body for the surgery, and during his walk,  he decided to praise God for His creation anyway. While the doctor was walking and looking at the trees and the sky, he began to paraphrase the “Lord’s Prayer.” One of his requests was for God to just give him his daily bread and the strength to accept whatever that might entail.

Soon he found out that a friend of his daughter had been praying, considering donating her kidney because she believed, without any test, that she might be a match.   The doctor wasn’t sure that he wanted someone he knew to sacrifice for him, but she insisted.  She went to be tested and they told her she would definitely be a perfect match.  The doctor was humbled, overwhelmed, and felt it unbelievable, even as the answer to many prayers. Later, when the doctors asked the girl how she came to think she might be she would be a perfect match, she simply replied, “It’s just a God thing.”

Today, David has her kidney, he feels great, and even the very scientific, skilled, medical doctor, trained in the healing arts, praises God for what He has done.  When you understand your life as gift, or when something big happens to you,  it certainly isn’t hard to ‘Praise the Lord.”

When the Psalmist says, ‘Praise the Lord for… his might deeds… for his greatness, these are clearly Hebrew expressions.  The little nation of Hebrews certainly like to think about having a ‘big God’ with ‘big’ power.   Strangely, however, when Jesus Christ came, he most often spoke of God’s power in little things: Jesus makes us think of God, not as growing the gigantic cedars of Lebanon, but as clothing the flowers. Not as ruling Leviathan, but as caring for the sparrow. Above all, He speaks in terms of the individual - one sinner, one sparrow.” (Rorke, In Search of Personal Creed pages 34-35, The Interpreter’s Bible. Volume IV page 761)

I recall my biology teacher inviting us, not to experience the wonders of life out there in the ‘big world’, but he told us that the life was even more wonderful in the very small world, under the microscope, in the normally invisible, ways and wonders of microscopic life.  You have to have pay attention to see such small things.  Sometimes, you even have to have an electron microscope.  If you don’t look there, in those very, very small elements and at microscopic life, you won’t know what is really going on.  The small is really the ‘big’ life, that if you are not careful, is very easy to miss.

Not long ago, Teresa and I took a Gift Card we’d received and went out to eat.  We were in a Restaurant Chain, that was reputable and sometimes notable for having really good food.  When our waiter brought our ‘water’ to us, he quickly grabbed to straws from his apron, unwrapped and unprotected, saying ‘Would you like to have one of these?’  He was holding those two straws like ‘six guns’ pointing directly toward us.  We looked at him in utter amazement, and fear!  He paused, and asked: “What?”  “Is there something wrong?”  “Well, we answered reluctantly, we normally get straws that are wrapped in plastic or paper!”  He was shocked our response.  We were shocked, that right in the middle of flu season, he didn’t have a clue that, according to the germ world, in the microscopic world, those were six guns pointing straight at us.  He laid those straws down.  We never, never dared pick them up.

I tell that story, not to complain about that waiter or the poor sanitary practice of the restaurant, but what was true in that eating establishment practice, can in our spiritual lives.  We too can get caught up in looking for God in the big and grand, that we miss seeing what God is doing in the small things of life.   We can miss the wonder of the God of the New Testament, the Father Jesus praises, who is not only high, mightly and holy, but Jesus calls us to find the wonder and worth of this Fatherly who God stoops down into the lowly, through the Son, to save the human soul from sin and death.

Back in 1975, the year I graduated high school, Lisa Green was pulled to safety from the flames that were engulfing her Brooklyn, New York home. The three-year old spent three months in the hospital recovering from burns and injuries. Through the years, her parents rehearsed that story to her. Fourteen years later as her high school graduation approached, Lisa was determined to do what she had long wanted to do: to locate the firefighter who had saved her life and with whom she felt a special closeness across the years, although they had never seen each other,

Lisa, with the help of the New York fire department, located Lt. Marvin Bunch at his retirement home in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lisa telephoned him and invited him to attend her commencement, telling him she would not be alive and going through graduation were it not for his saving her life from that fire, fourteen years earlier.  Moved by her sincerity and insistence, Lt. Bunch traveled to New York to share Lisa’s happy moment and achievement. It was an emotional reunion for both of them.  When Lisa would introduce her special guest to her family, to her teachers, to her friends and fellow students she would say, “He is the one who is responsible for my being here. He made it possible for me to graduate, to go to college and to have a future. I can’t thank him enough for what he did. He saved my life. So, I thank God for him every day!”

 (Donald Shelby, “When the Gift Obscures the Giver”, November 22, 1992).

We can imagine Lisa’s gratitude - literally saved from death by a brave fireman. But friends, how much more should our praise and gratitude be? We’ve been saved! Over and over we’ve been delivered. Over and over again we’ve been rescued from pursuits that would lead to death, snatched from destruction we did not design for ourselves, given another chance, forgiven, we’ve been saved for eternal life.  Can’t we see, feel, or understand the feelings that Lisa had?  Can’t we see that where it not for this or that, or for this person or that person, of if that had not happened, or if that had happened, we would not be here?  We would not be saved!

No wonder Charles Wesley, the day after his conversion, wrote down this hymn:

“How shall my wandering soul begin   How shall I all to heaven aspire

A soul redeemed from death and sin    A brand plucked from eternal fire

How shall I equal triumphs raise  Or sing my great Redeemer’s praise?”

Why is God to be praised - because of His mighty deeds, His surpassing greatness - because of His great love and His mighty salvation offered to each one of us?

HOW: ….WITH A BLAST…. WITH LOUD CLASHING CYMBALS (v. 5) 

The third question is, how is God to be praised? Here the psalmist opens all the stops and calls for praise to be offered with the sound of all the musical instruments available - with lute and harp and tambourine and strings and organs and cymbals - - loud, clashing cymbals. What an array of instruments. I wonder how they would all sound in this sanctuary?   Would we allow it?   And even more, would we allow that we could or should worship God with the ‘dance’  Imagine that!

When I returned from living in Europe, I accepted the pastorate of a struggling church outside of Greensboro.  One experienced, senior pastor had named the church “Schizophrenic”.  The man who recommended me there said, ‘you might not want this church!”  I took it anyway.  What was I thinking?

What was going on in that church something called ‘Worship Wars!”  The church was split into two different worship practices, not because the people outnumbered the space, but because people wouldn’t allow space for their differences.  We had an early service where the worship was upbeat, lead by a praise-team, using guitars and drums.  In the traditional 11:00 service, we had more traditional music lead by a choir, choir director with piano and organ.  But the problem was not the differences in the music, it was the differences in the people, who could not ‘worship’ except in the form of worship they wanted and it was tearing the church apart.   One thing I do recall, is that when I finally convinced them to come together with a more blended form, how they brought the drums in to the traditional worship, but this was only allowed, as long as the drums were put in a plastic, sound reducing cage.  As long as there was no ‘blast’ and no ‘clash’ the drums would be allowed.

While we can all understand how we might get used to certain style, certain tradition, or certain approach to worship, what the Psalmist describes here, is that we are too worship God with every style, and with everything we are or with everything we’ve got.  There’s not only one approach, even when we have a preferred approach.  God can be praised with every kind of musical instrument there is.

Erma Bombeck once wrote of being in church one Sunday morning when a little child on the row in front of her began turning around and smiling at everyone in the pews behind him. He was not gurgling or spitting or kicking, nor was he tearing the hymnal pages, nor was he rummaging through his mother’s purse. He was just smiling happily and spreading his warmth to those all around him. All of sudden, said Erma, his mother realized what he was doing and jerked him around angrily.

In a stage whisper that could be heard several pews away she said, “Stop that grinning! You’re in church!” And then she whacked him soundly on the bottom - when she did, of course, great tears began to roll down his cheeks and the little boy started to cry. And do you know what the mother said? “That’s better, now let’s start worshipping God again!”

Where did that woman ever get the idea that laughter, joy, sights, sounds, or movement, have no place in church?  Where did we ever get the idea that when we relate to God we must be somber and stern and stiff?  I guess it’s that text where it says “God was not in the fire or whirlwind, but in the ‘still, small voice’.  No doubt, that was where God was then and there, but doesn’t the text also say that God can be found anywhere?   On Mount Sinai, God was in the fire and in the thunder!  Moses found God in the Thunder.  Elijah, found God is the Quiet.  But they both also found God in other places too, didn’t they?  I can imagine that Elijah was certainly glad God was in the ‘fire’ on Mt Carmel, when he called down fire upon those 450 false prophets.

The great Baptist preacher, Dr. W. A. Criswell, once was on vacation in North Carolina. On Sunday morning he got us and went down to a particular church, and he said that church was dead, the preacher was dry, the people were cold, the service was boring, and nobody spoke to him.

After the church service was over, he said he went down to a restaurant to get some lunch. He said the building was bright, the people inside were happy, the waiters were friendly, the food was good, the service was excellent, they thanked him for coming, asked him to come again. Dr. Criswell said, "Neither place gave an invitation that day, but if they had, I would have joined the restaurant."

Maybe you’ve heard about a paramedic who was asked on a local TV talk show program, what was your most unusual and challenging 911 call?"

He said, "Well, recently we got a call from that big white church down on Main Street.

A frantic usher was very concerned that during the sermon an elderly man had passed out in a pew, and appeared to be dead. The usher could find no pulse and there was no noticeable breathing."

The interviewer said, "Well, what was so unusual and demanding about that particular call?"

The paramedic said, "Well, we had to carry out thirty-seven people before we found the one who was dead."

If any one thing lies at the heart of our Christian faith, it should be life, joy, and spiritual fire that brings spiritual warmth!  And the reason for that joy is God has done something for us that we could never do for ourselves. God has provided us salvation and eternal life. God has given Himself to us in Jesus Christ. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ is with us to comfort, to strengthen, to direct, to encourage, to give life and hope. That’s something to celebrate - and that’s the way God is to be praised - joyous celebration.

We need to be the kind of church that offers all sorts of opportunities for worship and for praise.   We should allow all sorts of music styles to be brought into our worship. If we had the talent, we could have an orchestra here.  If we had the youth, we could have more contemporary to be blended with the more traditional styles.   I believe we should use everything we can muster, in good taste of course, to praise God: processions, banners, flowers, beautiful liturgical colors in our altar hangings, choirs, solos, duets, quartets, praise teams; anything that will enhance our praise of God. That’s what the psalmist was calling for, and that has been the tradition of Christian worship at best through the ages.

But beyond this is an equally important that our ‘praise’ must be translated into daily life, by our loving obedience and care for all God’s people. There is a all the worshp we do in this sanctuary is empty and meaningless unless it leads us to celebrate and live our lives in good and faithful relationships with others.  This is what the prophet Amos warned about, when he quotes God saying: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.. .take away from me the noise of your song; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness as an ever flowing stream.” (Amos 5:21, 23-24)

It is a perversion of the Christian Gospel and Christian worship if what we do here on Sunday morning does not impact and shape how we live on Monday and the rest of the week. Our praise of God must be translated into daily life, by loving involvement with God’s people.   In a Poem, entitled “Coffee at Howard Johnson’s”, we can sum up what this means:

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Mr. Johnson,

I can’t bring myself to call you Howard.

But I don’t give a hoot about your twenty-eight flavors of ice cream,

Your Friday fish fry - All you can eat for $5.95,

It’s not your prompt service or your clever menu that brings me to your door,

 but I come Mr. Johnson because I do not come alone.

Your tables become an altar where the cup is shared.

Love absorbs spilled sins like thirsty napkins

and on your neutral ground, God becomes incarnate.

Without the flutter of angel wings.”

What this poem means is that our praise and worship of God, must be taken to the street – become real at the places where we work, where we live daily, and where we spend our time. Praise must be translated into daily life by love shared with God’s people beyond the music in here, where we too can make the ‘hills come alive’ with the sounds of God’s greatest music, the tune of God’s  ‘redeeming love’.

BY WHOM:  LET EVERYTHING THAT BREATHES…PRAISE THE LORD  (v. 6)

And now one final question put to this text: “by whom is God to be praised?”

The answer is obvious. It is the climax of the Psalm: “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!”

The business of praise is not professional business. It is not restricted to a chosen few the ordained, the privileged and the specially trained.  It’s the business of every person, every where. The psalmist put it in the most encompassing language as possible, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!”

Since we can’t add to that, I’ll close with this: A few years ago, a Brother in another religious order came to Mother Teresa, complaining about a superior whose rules he felt were interfering with his ministry.

“My vocation is to work with lepers,” he told Mother Teresa, “I want to spend myself for the lepers.”

She stared at him a moment then smiled. “Brother,” she said gently, “your vocation is not to work for lepers, your vocation is to belong to Jesus.”

(Catherine Spink, The Miracle of Love New York: Harper and Row, 1981, page 66, quoted by Colson, Loving God page 126)

That’s the vocation of every Christian - to belong to Jesus - and when we exercise that vocation, we live a life of praise to God, through Jesus Christ, who is our Lord.  Henri Nouwen, the great teacher and pastor left his professorship in New York to work with the mentally handicapped.   He found some remarkable people of faith in that institution.  He told of one fellow, named “Roy”, who had lived for 69 years in various institutions for the mentally handicapped.  He finally moved to the L’Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto, a place where the handicapped are treated with dignity and personal attention, and faith.

Many people thought Roy would not make the adjustment, but they were wrong. Within weeks this exuberant, warm-hearted man had friends eager to take him fishing or out for a cup of coffee. He delighted in the unlocked kitchen refrigerator, where he could have all he wanted to eat. Roy could have been bitter. Instead he found himself rejoicing in all that he discovered, becoming a delight to himself and others.

What’s the point of a life like Roy’s?  It’s right here, in the final word of the Psalms: “If you are breathing, you need to be praising and thanking God.”

Today, too many are too heavily involved in worshipping themselves, what they want, what they wish, or what they believe or want to be true about themselves.  While Jesus does allow for us to ‘love ourselves’, Jesus this is only rightly done after we love our neighbor, and can might seem impossible, unless we love God first.  It is by getting our priorities right, which is nothing less than getting our worship right, that we get our life right.  The right life, the best life, the only good and righteous life begins where this Psalm ends: “Let everything that breathes, praise the Lord!” 

One final word, before we get to the Benediction.  John Killinger, a famous pastor, who was a great writer too, once explained that the act of worship is like a drama.  It’s not a drama where you sit in a theater and observe, but like one of those Italian wedding extravaganzas where the whole audience becomes a part of the wedding party. Did you see the play or movie: Mama Mia?  Everybody sings!  Everybody Dances!  Everybody’s Happy, not just the bride or groom!

In real worship, the choir and the preacher are not the main actors, but they are only the prompters. The actors and actresses include the whole congregation, and the audience is God.  Killinger wasn’t original with this idea.  It came from the Great Dane (not a dog, but the Man, the greatest Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, who once wrote: “Worship isn’t God’s show. God is the audience. God’s watching. The congregation, they are the actors in this drama. Worship is their show. And the minister is just reminding the people of their forgotten lines.”   

The question is not what did you get out of worship, but what did you give to your worship? The question is, did our worship, does your worship, please God?

When I preach in this worship, it’s not a performance, its an offering.  I pray to myself: “Oh, God, may you be honored with what I have said and done."  Now, since I'm talking about me and what I should do, let me tell you what you should do: “If you come in late, leave early, or you half-heartedly participate in the service, you might rightfully ask yourself, “Was God really pleased with my worship today?"   For please understand this, the greatest part of worship is not what you ‘get’, but it’s about how much of yourself you give!.  Our level of participation in the ‘hallelujah’ proves how much of ourselves whe are giving, or not giving to God!

Mark Twain wrote that, “If heaven is one endless choir rehearsal, he didn't think he would bother to try out for it."  The talented Mr. Twain wasn’t concerned about living his life before God, but he may have been right that there’s a lot of singing going on in heaven.  Maybe it’s for good reason too: In heaven, there’s a whole lot of joy going around.   The movie, Places of the Heart, starring Sally Field, begins in a church with people singing, “This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior, all the day long." It ends in the same church with people singing the same song. In between Sally Field's husband has been killed, her hired man is beaten up and driven away, she nearly loses her farm—but in the end, they are all back in that little church singing, “Blessed Assurance Jesus is Mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine!" 

We can all be beaten up by life.  We can feel that we have nothing left to bring and offer to God in praise or thanksgiving.  I’ve been there.  I bet you’ve been there too. Maxie Dunnam, was doubled up in bed one night, feeling sorry for himself, with a digestive problems, making the thought of food he need unthinkable. In his pain, he lamented to his wife, Sandy, “This is hell."

She thought for a moment and in her kind way Sandy replied, “No, this is not hell; going through this without God and friends—that would be hell. But we have both!" With that, he was able, even in pain to come back to worship and to ‘thank God that his grace is sufficient’ for every problem, and ever need.

As the greatest hymn writer of all wrote and sung:

I'll praise my Maker while I've breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers.
My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.

Let everything that has breath, Praise the Lord!   Amen!