Psalm 47: 1-2, 6-7 (NIV)
Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. For the Lord Most High is awesome, the great King over all the earth. Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise.
We tend to think of praise and worship as limited to the confines of our local church services each weekend, but today’s psalm points every Believer to more of a lifestyle approach. Is a few minutes every Sunday (or most of them) really enough to express what we should be thinking and feeling when it comes to the Savior of our Souls? Charles Spurgeon noted that, “What jubilation is here, when five times over the whole earth is called upon to sing to God! He is worthy, he is Creator, he is goodness itself. Sing praises, keep on with the glad work. Never let the music pause. He never ceases to be good, let us never cease to be grateful. Strange that we should need so much urging to attend to so heavenly an exercise.” A strange fact, indeed.
Who is to worship? Who do we worship? How do we worship? Why do we worship? Psalm 47 answers all of these important questions. Most of the verses in this psalm point to “all peoples” or “all nations.” In other words, and in context, the call is to every born again Christian…. every actual Child of God adopted through Christ. Eventually, every single human that has ever lived will bow the knee and call him Lord (Phil. 2:10-11).
Who do we worship? We worship God and God alone. Not man, not money, not accomplishment or possessions, not the pastor or the worship leader or the contemporary Christian music star. “God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne” (v. 8). If anything else is the focal point of our allegiance- including one’s nation – then we must call it what it is: Idolatry.
How we worship is a question that can cause much division in a church, but it is far more about attitude than process. The psalmist mentions joy (v. 1) and fear (v. 2). Joy is based on the everlasting truths that encompass what it means to be a Child of God. Fear is both acknowledging God’s overwhelming sovereignty and holiness as well the proper awe-filled response to his majesty and power and authority. One can worship in the depth of the psalter or the hymn or in the jubilation and energy of a modern worship song, but one can never properly worship out of habit or mundane repetition, nor can one properly worship without actually participating (v. 6-7).
Psalm 47 answers the “Why” in three ways: God is the King over Everything, God chooses us and our inheritance, and God adopts us as his children. The whole of scripture adds layer upon layer to the basis we find in today’s psalm as does the testimony of how God has moved in your life and in the lives of your friends and family and church. The beating of your heart…the breath in your lungs…the food in your fridge…the roof over your head…the dollars in your pocket… in fact, every good thing that comes down into your life is from the Father of Lights (Jas. 1:17). If you struggle with the “Why,” then you are struggling with the “Who.” The more you know Him, the more you will want to worship Him…and with that, it’s always the more, the merrier.
