Good morning! I’m glad to be with you on this Tuesday in the Pastor’s Workshop. And I’m sorry I missed being with you yesterday. It was a busy, busy day.
This week we’re beginning a new series, “Rise Again!” It builds on our last series, “Ready to Reopen?” In that series we talked about “Recovering our Confidence”, “Reassuring our Doubts” and “Rallying to our Call”. As we recover, are reassured and rally, rising again is a next step. Rising again relies on the resurrection of the Christ and builds that uplifting grace into our lives.
As we “Rise Again” we’ll structure this series around the four focal points at the heart of our ministry at Spring Valley. These four key areas are “Creating Compelling Worship”, “Raising Up the Next Generation in Faith”, “Building Bridges of Harmony and Care with our Community and World”, and “Growing Deeper in Discipleship”.
We start our series with a message on “compelling worship”. It’s entitled “Rising Again with a New Song”. The Scripture for this message is Psalm 96, “O sing to the Lord a new song!”
On Tuesdays we look at the structure of the text. We experience the “flow” of the passage. We seek to discern how the main idea develops through the verses.
So how does Psalm 96 invite us to “sing a new song”? Here’s my interpretation.
· Sing to the Lord a new song, join together with everyone on earth. Sing and bless God’s name! (vs. 1-2a)
· Shout for the Lord, celebrate God’s salvation and praise God in front of everyone! (vs. 2b-3)
· Because God is great, above all gods. All the rest are “knock offs” made by human hands, but our God is our Creator not of our creation. (vs.4-5)
· God’s sanctuary is honor and majesty, strength and beauty. That’s where God “resides”. (vs.6)
· So when we come to church, (when we “come into his courts”) we bring our offering of worship. We focus on God and bring our heartfelt praise to the Lord in song, prayer and by embracing God’s Word as our way. By honoring and revering God in worship we open ourselves to the uplifting blessing of God grace. (vs. 7-9)
· Worship is the way I say, ‘The Lord is in charge of my life’. (vs.10a)
· God’s in charge of my life, because God is in charge of all. God sets the foundation for life. God makes the rules of life. (vs. 10b)
· In God’s rule of right all people are embraced with “equity”. There is no partiality. The God who created all in God’s image (the “imago dei” in us all), is at work upholding the inherent dignity of our “God created”, common humanity. (vs. 10b)
· So all the universe is singing, the heavens and the earth, the seas and the fields…singing beautiful praise of God’s glory. (vs. 11-12)
· And worship in this Spirit and Truth, awakens us to the hope that the Lord is coming! Worship opens our eyes to a “Preferred Future”, a future where God makes all things right and a future where all people live in the light of God’s truth. (vs. 13)
· As we come to church with this intent, to actively worship with this spirit of glorifying God, and with this hope, that in God’s world God’s right is supreme and human dignity is upheld, then we will find ourselves “singing a new song”.
· Our “new song” will make each day a “new day” in God’s love in Jesus Christ.
That’s how I paraphrase this Scripture. That’s how I trace the call to “sing to the Lord a new song” through our text. That’s the truth I’ll seek to encompass as I write, “Rise Again with a New Song”.
I’d invite you to paraphrase this beautiful Psalm for yourself. See how the Spirit would speak in a special way to you through this Scripture.
As I conclude today I want to take a moment of personal privilege.
I ‘m so grateful to all of you who have been with me in the Pastor’s Workshop day in and day out throughout the entire Covid season. It has been a journey for sure. I’m so thankful we have been partners throughout this season.
Sometimes people wonder how the pastor writes a sermon. Now you know – at least how I “make the sausage”. And I’m thankful that along the way I could encourage you to do some of your “own cooking”.
I’m hopeful as we did this that the blog helped you to prepare for worship. If you’re like me getting a preview of what’s to come helps me to better focus. My prayer is that the blog helped make your time of worship more meaningful.
As we emerge from the Covid season and get “Ready to Reopen” I’m finding myself caught up again in all the fullness of ministry. As I said in my opening, it has been busy, busy, busy.
Because of this development I’m going to be “dialing back” my blogging. I will be posting probably two days a week – I’m hoping Tuesday and Thursday. I’m also hoping that this new schedule will accomplish the same purposes of staying connected, studying the Scripture, and preparing for worship that we sought for in our five day a week schedule.
Again, I’m thankful to you and to God for all the good time we’ve spent together. I look forward to developing many more good messages with you In the years to come.
With that I’ll sign off and see you on Thursday in the Pastor’s Workshop.
Prayer: Gracious God, thank You for the blessing of worship. Thank You for the ways it “tunes my heart to sing your grace”. Thank You for how You Spirit teaches me a “new song”. Thank You also for time together in the Pastor’s Workshop. It has been a blessing. In these gifts of Your grace, we lift up our praise in Jesus’ name. Amen