Let us look to the Lord for help in prayer.

“Our Father in heaven, we desire as we come again and open up Your Word to know You, to know Your truth. And again we pray and plead that You might through Your Spirit give us understanding, for by ourselves we are unable to understand spiritual truth. And we also pray that You’ll grant to us a heart of humility that will submit to Your Word. And so we pray that You’ll bless our time together as we open up Your Word, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Alright, Psalm 29. Now, this psalm is about worship. I’ve entitled the psalm as “Worship The LORD In The Beauty Of Holiness”, and you can see that I got that from verse 2. Now the Bible actually has much to say about worship, not just in these psalms but all over the Scripture. You know that God has much to say about worship, and I wonder if you have given much thought to this whole matter or this whole subject of worship. I believe we should because it’s such an important subject. It is the worship of the triune God. 

And what this text tells us about worship is this alright- there are three things highlight about worship, and these are important truths, important things that we ought to know about worship. And the first is this, that we are commanded to worship. I hope you realise that we are commanded to worship. And then we are also told about the object of our worship. And then finally, we are told as to the way or the manner we are to worship God. So we are commanded to worship, we are told concerning the object of our worship, and then the manner or the way we are to worship. So let us begin with the first. 

Now we are told first of all to worship. That is our duty. Look at verse 2 again. It says: “give”, or in some translation “ascribe” or “render unto the LORD the glory due to His name; And worship the LORD”. You see, all these are in the tone of command. We are told to ascribe, to give, to render glory due to His name, and to worship the LORD. And so that is what the psalm in the first place is urging us to do. And you might say: Oh, we are told to worship. But what exactly are we told to do?

We are all commanded to worship God, but do you know what exactly we are told to do? But what is worship? Well, it’s actually explained in this text. In fact, in the first two verses, the explanation is already given there. To worship is to give unto the LORD or is to ascribe to the LORD or to render to the LORD- render to the LORD or “give unto the LORD, O you mighty ones”.  Everyone, big or small. 

And here is a challenge to those perhaps who are mighty in their own eyes but they are small in the eyes of God. And so there is this command out to all the mighty ones of the earth to bow before the One and the true and living God. And perhaps some people said: Well, the mighty ones refer to the heavenly beings. It’s possible, but we are not exactly sure. But the literal is the mighty ones.

But if it is a reference to the heavenly beings (the angels), then all the more so we humans. If the angels were to worship God; if they are commanded to worship God, then we all should realise that every one of us has this duty to worship God, to come and give glory alright to God. So he says: “Give unto the LORD glory and strength”. Give unto the LORD, and that is what worship is about. It is to come and give to God glory that is due to His name, to render to Him. 

Now, what does that actually mean to come and ascribe or to render to God? Now if you will turn with me for a moment what Jesus said in the gospel of Matthew in Matthew chapter 22. Matthew 22, and here we have some Pharisees coming to Jesus and they wanted to set a trap to trick Jesus to properly give some wrong answers to their questions. And so here in chapter 22 of the gospel of Matthew and beginning in verse 17. 

Verse 17, now they came to Jesus and they said: “Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?  Show Me the tax money.” And so they brought Him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” And they said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Render. You give to Caesar what is due to Caesar’s. You give to people what is due to them. 

Now all the more so we give to God what is due to God. Like I said, the Bible has much to say about worship. But have we given much thought to this whole matter of worship? Have we given much thought to this question as to what is due to God as we come and bow before God and worship God? And like the psalmist cry out here, we have to ascribe or to give to the LORD what is due to Him. Have you ever thought about what is due to God? Now that is what Jesus is saying: Give to God what is due to God. And that is also what the psalmist is saying here. 

Or you think of another example. Now you work for a company and you are paid a salary. And you see because you are paid a salary, you have a duty to your company. Your company deserves alright something from you. In other words, you are to give to your company your time. You have to give to your company your energy. You are to give to your company your strength because those are the things due to your company, and you must give these to your company for they pay you a wage. It is only right that you do that even if you are working from home. You don’t sleep. You don’t do other things and not do your work.

Now that is what Jesus is saying here, and that is what the psalmist is saying in Psalm 29. Give to God what is due to God. Do you realise that it is your duty to worship God? It is a command. That is the first thing that psalmist is telling us here- God deserves our worship. And therefore if you are not worshipping God; if you are not giving to God what is due to God, you are sinning against the eternal God and you are deserving of the severest punishment. And that is what is hanging over our heads if we do not worship God or worship Him the way we ought to worship. Or we know that the world does not realise that. They do not worship the true and the living God. 

But the sad thing is that many Christians don’t realise that. Many Christians don’t realise that we are commanded to worship the true and the living God. Now that is the first thing here. We are commanded to worship God. And you see, we will never- we can never be truly worshipping Him. We can never come into His presence and give to Him and render to Him, ascribe to Him glory that is due to His name until- until we know something about Him.

Now listen to the psalmist again, Psalm 113. Psalm 113 (1 1 3), and listen to what the psalmist writes here in verse 1. Beginning in verse 1: “Praise the LORD! Praise, O servants of the LORD, Praise the name of the LORD! Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its going down the name of the LORD is to be praised.”. There is again a call here in the Scripture for us to come and praise the LORD. Praise.

Come and worship God. Come and ascribe glory due to His name. Come praise the LORD. Praise the LORD. Praise the LORD. From the rising of the sun till it is setting down, praise the LORD. The name of the LORD is to be praised. But why? But why? Why should you be here this morning and not in the shopping mall and not in the golf course, not in your bedroom sleeping and not doing other things? Why should you be here and worship God? Well the psalmist continues, verse 4: “for the LORD is high above all nations, His glory above the heavens. Who is like the LORD our God, Who dwells on high”.

You see, the psalmist calls us to worship God. He even us the reason because we are worshipping the almighty God, the Creator of the universe. Do you know why people do not worship or are not excited about worshipping Him, not earnest in their worship of God? Because they have not seen God the way the Bible describes sin; because the God that people believe are so small, are so insignificant. But the God that the Bible presents to us or reveals to us is higher above all the nations. He’s above the heavens. He’s the great and the almighty God.

You see, great thoughts of God will lead to true worship of God. If you have no great or accurate thoughts of God, you cannot worship God. And that’s why we have hymn writers that pens words like this: “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds Thy hand hath made, I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy pow’r throughout the Universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Saviour—God—to Thee, “How great Thou art! How great Thou art!” In all the world, there is no one like Thee, “How great Thou art! How great Thou art!””. 

Now that is what makes people worship God when they have high thoughts of God, when they have a high and lofty view of God; when they see their God as worthy, worthy! “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power; For You have created all things”, John writes in Revelations, “For by Your will they exist and were created”. It’s in the Bible. That is what we are told again and again about the true and the living God. 

Is that the God that you have come to know? Is that the God that you believe in? Is that the God that you are coming to worship this morning? Or it’s some other kind of God, a God that doesn’t deserve your attention, that doesn’t deserve your energy, that doesn’t deserve your time because you’ll rather spend time elsewhere. You rather do other things than come and worship the true and almighty Creator of the universe. The first thing the psalmist tells us here is that we are commanded to worship this God because He is the great God. He is the almighty God.

Secondly, we are also told whom we are the worship- the object of our worship in Psalm 29. In Psalm 29 alright, we are also told the object of our worship. I want to ask you this morning as you come: Do you know? Or let me ask you: Who are you worshipping this morning as you come to worship? What is the object of your worship? What is your focus? Well, the psalmist tells us again in Psalm 29. He says worship the LORD. Worship the LORD. Worship the LORD. And you might be thinking why is there a need to emphasise that? Why is there a need to emphasise the object of our worship? Who is it that you are worshipping this morning? Who is it?

It ought to be this, again Psalms- Psalm 63. Psalm 63:1, now this ought to be the object of your worship this morning as you come. Now listen to the psalmist here in Psalm 63:1- “O God, You are my God”. I’m not sure how many of you have actually paused when you read this verse. To us, have I ever been that personal with God?  Have you ever been that personal with God and you turn to God and say: “Oh God, the God of the universe, the Creator of heavens and earth, You are my God!”? You are my wife; you are my daughter; you are my husband. There is a personal relationship. Oh, God!

Is that what is happening this morning that you are coming to someone who is not unknown to you but someone with whom you have entered into a personal relationship? And you are saying something to that person. You are saying something to your husband, to your son, to your God. What is it that you are saying to God this morning? Or you said nothing to God. You don’t even think of Him? Then what are you thinking about when you come? What is your focus? And the psalmist turn to God and say: O God, You are mine, and there is something I want to say to You.

And what he wants to say is this: “Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; And my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.”. That is what I want to say to my God this morning. This is why I’m here. And I turn to Him, I say: O God, You are my God, and that is how I feel about You. I long for You. I thirst after You as in a dry and thirsty land. My longing is that your longing is as you come to worship this morning, you see the object. You see the focus of your worship. Worship the LORD, the psalmist says. He is the One that you are coming for, not any other thing- not any other thing. 

Or in Psalm 73. Psalm 73:25, again here the psalmist said. Psalm 73:25- “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.”. That is what the psalmist wants to say to God, and I want to ask you again: Have you at any point in your life say something to God and tell Him how you feel about Him? In fact, we ought to every week as we come together in worship, every time as you approach God and to worship Him, you are saying something to Him. And the question is: What is that? You are precious to me. You are what I really want in this life. There is nothing that I desire upon the earth besides You. 

You see, we come to seek after God. We come because of God. We come, you see, not because we are after God’s gifts. We come not because we are after His blessings. We come not because of religious activities. I say why are you here? You want to see someone in the church? You like the activities of the church? You like this music of the church? You like everything else, and God says: What about Me? What about Me? You see, that is how we look for a church. We love everything about that. It doesn’t matter if God is there. It doesn’t really matter at all because we cannot cry out like the psalmist: My soul thirst for You. My flesh long for You.

We cannot. We cannot do that. We cannot say that because perhaps you don’t have the heart. We don’t have a heart that is after God. That’s why David is called “a man after God’s heart”. Now that is what worship is about. That is what worship is about. And also we see elsewhere in the Scriptures telling us exactly this. Psalm 42:1-2, and here the sons of Korah cry out in a similar way and tells us what worship truly is: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?”.

Many of you have waited for this day. We were not able to gather and you wanted to come and you were longing to come. And now you are here- and now you are here. Can you say with the sons of Korah here, with the psalmist here: When shall I appear? When shall I come and appear before my God? Why? Because my soul thirsts for You. My soul thirsts for You. You know Paul has a motto alright where he tells the Philippians in his letter and it is this, he writes in Philippians 3:10- “that I may know Him”.

Everything else is by comparison downwards. They’re rubbish. They’re nothing. It’s only God that I pursue. Every time as he comes is that I may know You. So why are you here? Why are you tuning in online? Is it because you are bored at home? Is it because you want to see your friends? Is it because you want to see if church has anything interesting this morning? Is it because you love the music? If God is not the reason, you have no reason to be here. There’s no reason to be here if God is not a reason.

You see, we live in a culture or what we called “consumerism” where we have you know kind of institutions and even churches that are seeker-sensitive, and we know that many churches do surveys to find out what people want in worship, what people want in worship. And they plan- they plan their worship according to people’s desire and thereby make people think that worship is about them. The object of their worship is themselves. It’s not the Lord. The command here is to worship not yourself but to worship the LORD. 

Thirdly, the Bible tells here about worship. The passage tells us that we are to worship and we are to worship the LORD. Thirdly and finally, it also tells us about the manner or the way we are to do it. The manner or the way we are to do it. The Bible is not silent about how we come and worship God, the manner and the way we come to worship God. Again back to Psalm 29. Psalm 29, verse 2 there says: “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness”.

As I say, I use that as the title of this morning’s sermon is because I think this line in a sense sums up the essence of what this whole psalm is about- to worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. I know in your translation you’re using the ESV “in the splendour of holiness”. Or in other translations which is more literal, it will say “in His holy attire” (or something like that). But that is the literal thing that God is kind of dressed up in glory. That’s the picture- the beauty of His glory, His holy attire as it were.

But I think the point here is still this that we are to come to God in the beauty or in the splendour of holiness. But what does that mean? This is the way we are to worship God in the beauty of holiness, and it means this: It is about the way we come in Habakkuk. Habakkuk chapter 2- Habakkuk 2:20, and listen to what Habakkuk writes here. Habakkuk 2:20 says: “But the LORD is in His holy temple. Therefore let all the earth keep silence before Him.”.

Now I think that that is what is meant by the psalmist here that when we come and worship God, we must remember as in the Old Testament times alright. When they go to the temple and to worship God, they remember that the LORD is in His holy temple, where God is is a holy place (we have touched on that already last week). But that is the picture here. God is in His holy temple. And when we come and approach that place where God is, we must always remember that we are dealing with holy things. We are coming to a holy place, worshipping a holy God. And therefore the attitude is as Habakkuk here: “Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”

You know there must be the sense of reverence, the sense of awe. And then we go to a place. Now sometimes we go to a music hall, a grand architecture. And you walk in and a sense of awe as you look at the architecture of the building. And that is the picture here, coming with the sense of awe because we realise whom we are coming to. Again in Leviticus chapter 10. Leviticus chapter 10, this is also being impressed upon the worshipper in the Old Testament times in a very dramatic way.

Leviticus chapter 10 beginning in verse 1, we are told: “Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane (or strange) fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded. And so fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.”. It’s a very dramatic scene, and here are the two sons of Aaron as they were performing their religious duty in the temple but they were not doing it in a reverent manner, not in the fear of the LORD but as they like and do what they like.

And that is the meaning here. They offered something that’s not commanded by God, and they were struck dead in the temple of God. “And then (verse 3) Moses said to Aaron, you know what? “This is what the Lord spoke, saying: ‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy (or sanctified, which means the same, holy); And before all the people I must be glorified.’”. You must understand. You must understand when you come and worship God, you are worshipping God, and I must be regarded as holy. You don’t treat Me any way you like. And before all the people, I must be glorified.

There is a way of approach. There’s a manner in which we come. Or else, we face the judgment of God. And so I say here, there is in a very dramatic way this truth was being impressed upon the worshippers in the Old Testament. And so you don’t do as you like. You don’t do as you like as you come and approach God. So how should we approach God this morning? How should we approach God this morning?

Now Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 15. Matthew chapter 15, and here Jesus on the subject of worship said this. Matthew chapter 15, listen to verses 7 through 9, and Jesus said again to the Pharisees: “Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honour Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. You know what? In vain they worship Me”. In vain they worship Me. These people’s worship is useless. That’s what vain means- futile, of no use.

It’s a terrible thing if this morning God will say to you your worship is useless, it’s vain. It’s what God is saying to them. Why is it vain? Why is it useless? Because these people, Jesus said, draw near. They honour God with their lips, paying lip services to God, but their hearts are far from God. You know how common that is? It’s terrible just to think about it. How common, I’m not saying how common that is in the church but how common that is in my own heart? How common there is perhaps in your heart as well that you draw near and you’re paying lip service?

You are singing “how great Thou art”, but God is not very great in your life. You don’t live as if He is great. You say I love You, LORD, but you don’t really love Him as you ought. You don’t. We are sinning. We are falling into the exact sin that Jesus is pointing out here. We are only paying lip services to God. We only say, we only sing, but our lives do not match up. Our lives do not match up to all the truth that we sing about and all the words that we hear. There is a way, an acceptable way, a manner that is proper and that is right in the worship of the great and the almighty God. 

Let me end by drawing your attention to First Chronicles chapter 16. First Chronicles chapter 16, and I draw your attention to verses 28 and 29. Verses 28 and 29. Verse 28, First Chronicles 16: “Give (or ascribe) to the LORD, O families of the peoples, Give to the LORD glory and strength. Give to the LORD the glory due to His name”. You know that we seem to be reading this repeatedly this morning from the Scripture readings to the sermon text, and now here in First Chronicles. It’s repeated for emphasis in the Bible that we are to ascribe to the LORD, we are to ascribe to the LORD, we are to ascribe to the LORD glory due to His name.

Continuing on: “Bring an offering, and come before Him. Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!”. Come. Come and worship this God, this holy God, this majestic God, this great and almighty God. Come. But in the Old Testament, they are told “but bring an offering, and come”. Bring an offering and come because they dare not go without an offering. They never go to the temple without a goat or the lamb or some kind of offering because by themselves they will be struck dead. By themselves, they are unworthy- unworthy to approach this almighty and great and holy God.

So what does that mean? It means this: It means that we too are unworthy. We must be reminded of that, and we are unworthy to come to God by ourselves and on our own merits. But thank God that we don’t have to this morning to bring a duck or a chicken as we come and worship God because an offering has already been made on our behalf. Jesus said: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me.”. Now Jesus is that offering that you need if you were to come to God, to worship Him in a worthy manner. The only way is to come on the merit of Jesus Christ, to trust in Him, and to come through Him to God. Let us pray.

“Our Father in heaven, we know this morning we come together this morning, there is joy in our hearts. But we know that we have joy not simply because we are able to see our friends again, our brothers and sisters in Christ, we’re able to come together and sing praises, but we come with joy because there is joy coming before the true and the living God. There is joy to come before a God who is not only mighty and glorious and majesty, but God is merciful and gracious and compassionate, who has given to us His one and only Son.

O Lord, we pray that You’ll help us to grow in understanding of You, that our thoughts of You would be high and lofty, that we will know You more and more, that our worship might be more and more acceptable to You because of Your Son, for we pray all these in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.