THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR
"Worshiping God in the Light of His Goodness”
Rev. Carl Haak
(e-mail: Rev. Carl Haak) August 6, 2006; No. 3318
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Dear radio friends,
In our study of the book of Nehemiah, we
saw last week that upon the completion of the walls of
Today we come to chapter 9 of Nehemiah that
tells us of the further worship services that were held at that time. The question that is confronting us today in
the Word of God is this: What is the
most spiritually significant activity that you perform on the earth? What is the most desired of God from
you? What is the most crucial for your
spiritual life? Think about that.
Is it what you do in your home? Is it, perhaps, what you do in your society
or in your workplace? Is it, perhaps,
your own private time of prayer?
The answer of God is this: Congregational worship. The worship of the church is the most
significant activity performed by the child of God on earth. That makes sense, Reformed sense, biblical sense. The
great work of God in time is the gathering of the church in Jesus Christ that
shall eternally worship and praise Him.
The most significant activity on earth, therefore, is when the church,
though it be in principle, worships God. The body of Jesus Christ is God’s
church. And this is the work of
Christ: to gather that church. God, in a special way, delights in the
gathering of His people to praise and to worship Him.
What is most pleasing to God? Handel’s Messiah – a
beautiful choral piece? Mountain splendor?
No. The Lord loves the praises of
His people.
As I said, the people of God, under
Nehemiah’s leadership, are now gathered in the worship of the living God in our text,
Nehemiah 9:1-31.
They have come
under the Word of God as it has been sounded from a pulpit of wood. They have come humbled and burdened under
their sin. They have desired to separate
themselves from a world of sin. We read,
“They separated themselves from all strangers,” that is, they would not join
the world in what they were doing – for we cannot worship God if our heart is
joined and our life is compromised with the sin worshiped in this world.
We learn in chapter 9 what took place in
their worship, namely, that God’s goodness was proclaimed to them. In the light of that goodness, they saw what
they were as sinners. And, finally, they
were renewed in that conviction of their need of the mercy of God. Reading
Nehemiah 9:1-31,
we are taught that
in worship God’s goodness must be shown in order to show our sin, so that we
might be directed to His mercy and renewed to praise and serve Him all our
days.
The sermon that day in
Nehemiah’s time centered in declaring the goodness of God. The people who came were deeply troubled over
their sins. They had spent a week
struggling. Further, they lived in
poverty. They had stress on the job. They suffered under sins committed against
them and opposition directed toward them and temptations were many to be
discouraged. And the
message that they heard? What was
it that they needed to hear? We read in verses 5 and 6 of
Nehemiah 9:
“Stand up
and bless the Lord your God for
ever and ever: and blessed be thy
glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou, even thou, art Lord alone.”
Now, we need to stop in our thoughts. Their minds might have been running with
their problems and their needs and their difficulties and their hard
situation. And the very first word
was: Stop! God is God.
He is in His holy temple. Let all
the earth keep silence before Him!
You see, in true worship, we must first be
confronted with God. We read, “Enter
into his presence. Come
ye before him.” When you go to church,
do you think about everything and everyone and all types of things except
God? Do you think only of yourself? Worship is coming into His presence. God is good in Himself.
We read again in verse 5: “Blessed be thy
glorious name.” This was the first thing
they heard in church, that God’s name was exalted above all blessing and
praise. So good, so glorious, is God, so
filled with things to praise, that He is above praise. That is, He is even more glorious than we can
think or say. You praise someone for
pulling you out of a burning car, or helping you study
for an exam. You try to express your
thanks and the person says, “Enough, enough!
You flatter me. You go beyond.” But not so in praising God. The reality of how good and glorious God is is exalted above praise.
You may take the song of Miriam and Aaron at the Red Sea, you may add
David’s leaping with joy when he takes the ark to Jerusalem, then you may
combine the glorious chorus of heaven right now before the throne of God: Hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth – you may take it all together, and the reality of
how glorious God is is above it. It is above all that. You would have to say, after listening to
heaven’s worship: “It’s been
understated. The glory of God is
understated.” The who
you worship in church is God.
Thou art God alone.
In the Belgic
Confession, one of the Reformed, biblical creeds of the church, we confess in
Article 1 that we believe with the heart and confess with the mouth that there
is only one simple spiritual being called God.
And He is eternal, incomprehensible, and glorious. Are you aware of that when you worship? Worship can be a dangerous place for you and
me. Imagine being in the presence of
that person who pulled you out of the burning car and acting slovenly,
indifferent, apathetic, and thinking only about yourself and your schedule and
where you need to be and thinking of tomorrow and your plans. Imagine doing that to a human being! God is, in the worship of His church, to be
greatly praised. He is to be had in
reverence among all the assembly of the saints.
He is good.
He is not only good in Himself, but He is good in His works. We read in verse 6, “Thou hast made heaven,
the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth,
and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.”
Now the point here is not for me to expound on the beautiful truths of
creation and providence, except for me to add that if you deny those truths of
creation in six twenty-four hour days and of providence – that God upholds all
things by His hand – then you cannot worship God in His works. But the point is not to go into that right
now, but the remembrance of these things is utterly necessary for proper
worship, to put us in awe, to place us before God as He is.
What are the first words of a minister when
he starts the service? Historically, in the Dutch Reformed churches, it is this (taken from
Psalm 124),
and it is
intentional: “Beloved in the Lord Jesus
Christ, our help standeth in the name of the Lord who
made heaven and earth.” The
contemplation of God’s mighty work in creation and His ongoing providence
places us in the proper state of awe before God. “Come before his presence with singing; know
ye that the Lord he is God. It is he
that hath made us and not we ourselves” (
Ps. 100).
You and I, in worship, are in the
presence of Him who has made and holds us right now in His hand and who in
Christ has revealed to us His love. Bow
down in worship!
The entire sermon that day dealt with the
goodness of God as it is shown toward His church and people.
Now we can only glance a little bit at what
is said. I cannot bring out the
details. But it is the cumulative weight
of all that God did that is the point of this passage. Read it for yourself today (Neh. 9). We could
look at each incident that is mentioned of what Jehovah has done and say, “Oh,
how good He is.” But the intended effect
comes from a look at their combined testimony.
When you add them all up, then you see who He is and what He did. How good God is to His people. How indisputably and immeasurably good! We are not very good, you know, at spiritual
arithmetic – in adding things up. We can
count dollars into the millions. But we
cannot count past five or ten in listing what God has done. But the sermon there gave a list of some of
the good works of God.
Look at it just briefly.
There was, first of all, God’s goodness in
the call of Abraham, out of an eternal election, to inherit the
There was the deliverance of
There was the giving to
Then followed judges and
saviors to help them and prophets to bring them the Word of God.
Now let me put that all in the language of
fulfillment. Here is the skimming of the
top, a superficial account of God’s goodness to you, His child. He elected you eternally and called you out
of the world of sin to which you belonged, thus deserving its judgments. He established unconditionally a covenant
with you and said, “I will be your friend, I will delight in you. I will show you glorious things.” He ransomed you from the bondage and guilt of
sin by making a sea of blood in His own Son.
He has led you ten, twenty, thirty-five, forty-one, forty-nine, seventy
years. There has never been one day or
one night when He took His eye from you.
He gave you angels’ food and water that quenches thirst – the Lord Jesus
Christ and faith in Him that does not wear out.
He laid up for you
Now, as you are met in the place of worship
on the Lord’s day, this is the God in whose presence
you stand. You have come through a week,
all right. You have come through a week
of many trials and many troubles. But
now you stand in the
And seeing the truth of the goodness of
God, the people were led to see the truth about themselves.
The sermon on the goodness of God that day
produced an effect. As the light of
heaven shone down around them and the glory of the Lord filtered upon mortal
men and women as they stood in the light of God, they saw themselves. They saw things they would never have seen in
the darkness of their pride.
So to us. We journey to God’s house on this spiritual
day. There is darkness all around us and
there is darkness within. There are
secret sins and self-delusions within us.
The Word of God is opened. The
Holy Spirit brings the countenance of God glorious and shining before our
spiritual eyes. And I look at
myself. I learn about myself. The result of true worship is the right
understanding of yourself as a sinner in need of
covering.
Have you ever worshiped God? I am not asking if you have ever gone to church
– and then come home and you could tell me what everybody is wearing and who
has a gripe with whom. I am asking you, Have you ever worshiped God?
In the worship have you ever seen yourself?
Ask the prophet Isaiah. Ask the publican of whom Jesus spoke. Talk with them as they exit the worship
service. Ask them: “Isaiah, publican, how was church today? We hear that you had a vision of the throne
of God, God in His perfection and glory.
Tell us about it. What was the
result? How do you feel?” Isaiah responds: “I am undone.
I am a man of unclean lips.” And
you turn to the publican, and he is smiting his breast and saying, “God, be
merciful to me.” For when they
worshiped, they stood before God in His goodness and glory. And that goodness and glory shone down upon
them. The light of His goodness exposed
the working of their hearts to them in a way that they would otherwise not have
known.
That is worship. Worship is to stand before God.
Children, the Word of
God, because it proclaims the glory of the Lord, is like an X-ray. You cannot see what is inside of me. You cannot see my bones and that I have an
artificial hip and maybe a lump of cancer.
But before an X-ray, the inside is shown. Now, God’s glory is the X-ray. And it will show you the truth about
yourself.
We read that, in the light of God’s
goodness, they saw the inexcusable sins that
What did they see about themselves? They saw that they were proud, arrogant,
hard-hearted, rebellious, idolatrous sinners.
They were resentful of the Word of God and those who brought it to
them. They were insensitive toward the
need of repentance. They tried to use
God for their own self-serving motives.
Knowing the Word of God, they politely bowed to it in the presence of
others, but they went out and lived according to their own dictates.
What do you see about your life, not
somebody else’s, but about your life, in the light of the breathtaking goodness
of God?
Their confession was sincere. They saw their sin.
That is the crucial element of
worship. True worship is the fellowship
of those who have been humbled before God’s infinite goodness to them in Jesus
Christ. It is more. It is of course thanks, it is praise, it is
rejoicing in God for His goodness to me in Christ. But, you see, all of the activities of
worship, the joy and the praise, can be like hollow clanging on a drum. Have you ever heard someone hit an empty oil
barrel? Worship can be like that hollow
clanking, if there is not a heart humbled in the knowledge of ourselves as
sinners before God. You can make a lot
of noise. You can clang, and there is a
lot of empty chatter. But when you are
filled with God and with humility before yourself as a sinner, there will be
deep, resonant, soothing praise of God.
We worship God through the Psalms. We sing those Psalms, and we use those Psalms
in our prayers, because they proceed from an awareness of who God is and who I
am before Him.
That worship service that day brought a
great blessing. Oh, a wonderful
blessing! It brought the wonder of God’s
mercy shining upon their hearts. We
cannot miss that as we read through the chapter. Throughout the chapter we read of God’s
mercy. We read the words “but,” and
“yet.” “Yet,” we read in verse 19, “thou
in thy manifold mercy forsookest them not….” Verse 30, “Yet many years didst thou forbear them….” Verse
31, “Nevertheless for thy great mercies’ sake….” It is like the composition of good music,
when the composer returns to the comforting victorious theme. So is worship. It always returns to this, the brilliant
aspect of God’s mercy – God’s mercy, His compassion on those who are miserable
and ugly, and His commitment to do them good.
Why did not God forsake
You see, when you stand before God and see
yourself as a sinner, you hear the testimony of the cross of Jesus Christ and
you are awed at the mercy of God. He has
willed in Himself, from all eternity, to be gracious to His church and to save
His church in the blood of His own dear Son, washing us from our sins and
creating in us a new obedience, a new heart, and a right spirit, that we might
live before Him and love Him. Why? For He is good and His
mercies are everlasting.
Are you ready to worship God? Are you ready to be lost in wonder and praise
for His mercy? Do you see His mercy?
Let me use an example. Imagine with me a great door, like a garage
door. Behind that great door is a vast
land filled with exquisite beauty – a land that is brilliant, breathtaking, and
wondrous. There is only a little crack
at the bottom of the door. And you stand
next to someone who has seen that land and told you all about that land and
says to you, “Can you see that land?”
You say, “No.” And he says to
you, “Stoop down and look. Can you see
it now? There is a little crack down
there on the bottom, can you see that?”
And you say, “No.” And he says,
“Well, get on your hands and knees. Can
you see it now?” You say, “No.” And he says, “Put your face to the ground. Press your eye to the gravel. Can you see now?” And you say, “Yes! Oh, I see it dimly, but, oh, what a land,
what a beauty.”
Only when in the light of God’s goodness
you are humbled in the dust can you catch a glimpse of His mercy. And one glimpse is breathtaking.
God has to do that. You can bow your head on a prayer rug with
your face to the ground and be pressed to the ground – and see nothing. You are still proud, still working your way,
you think, to your God. No, God must
humble the heart. He must address the
pride. But when He humbles, it is in
order that He might give a vision, a glimpse of His mercy in the face of Jesus
Christ His Son. He has given His Son in
order that we might bask one day in the light of His glory. He gives us to see His mercy by showing us
our sinful selves.
And then we leave worship.
Shall I give you a riddle? The true worshiper leaves church empty and
yet full – empty of self and filled with wonder at God’s mercy.
Let us pray.
Eternal and glorious God of heaven and
earth, we praise and thank Thee for Thy infinite mercy in Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.