Why do we worship? After all, worship can seem like an odd idea. To some it may seem like an antiquated idea and practice. Worship should be something savage people do in remote parts of the world, not intelligent and educated people like us. And yet, here we are. We’ve gathered on this Sunday morning to worship God corporately. And not only that, but we would claim that we’ve lived the other six days this week as an act of worship before God as well. So, why is worship such a big deal for the Christian? Why is it so important that we praise, honor, and draw attention to the greatness and worth of our God? Why do we worship?

Psalm 47 is a psalm that gives us much to answer this question. It is a psalm about worship. It is a psalm dedicated to the worship of the great God and King over all the earth. Therefore, in looking at the psalm, which calls us to worship and explains why God should be worshiped, it should prove helpful in answering the question we’ve asked, namely, “Why should (or do) we worship?”

Therefore, what I want to do this morning is first of all to point out from Israel’s perspective what they would have heard from this psalm as to why God is to be worshiped. Then, I want to look at the realities that Israel (the original hearers of the psalm) would have seen and then see how they relate to us as Christians so that we might answer this question for ourselves: Why do (or why should) we worship?

We worship God because God commands it (vv. 1, 6)

The psalm begins with the declaration in verse 1, “Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!” and continues with the declaration in verse 6, “Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!” The author calls out for all peoples on the face of the earth to worship, to praise, to shout, and to sing to God. He commands it. And because God is the ultimate author of Scripture, God himself commands it.

John Piper has declared rightly in saying, “God is no idolater.” Just as we commit idolatry if we put anything above God and exercise allegiance toward it, God refuses to put anything above himself. He cries out to the world that he is to be worshiped and he alone is to be worshiped. He has declared in Isaiah 45:18-23, “For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): ‘I am the Lord and there is no other. … Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear allegiance [or, according to the Septuagint, “every tongue shall confess to God”].”

God knows that he alone is God. He knows that he has no rivals. He knows that he would be foolish to exalt anything above himself. And he commands our worship. Therefore, the first reason why we worship, even today corporately, is because God has commanded it.

As believers, our hope is that we do all that we do and teach all that we teach because it is commanded in God’s Word. Worship is no exception here. It is not our idea; it is God’s. He commands it, and so we worship. Yet the Psalmist also gives us reasons why God should be worshiped.

We worship God because he is the King over all the earth (vv. 2, 7-8)

We live in a day when the socially correct thing to advocate is that all religions and all gods (or objects of worship) are equally worthy of worship. It is said that we cannot say that the God we worship is better or more worthy of worship than the god another worships. There are many problems with that statement, but one of them is that our God will not allow anyone or anything equality with him. He alone is God. And verses 2 and 7-8 tell us that God alone is King.

Immediately after commanding his hearers to praise God the psalmist writes, “For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. … For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm! God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne” (2, 7-8). That is to say, he tells us why God is to reign, and the answer is that God is King, the Most High, the one who reigns from heaven and reigns over all the nations.

In a world in which it was believed that each nation had a god and sometimes multiple gods, it is quite a statement for the psalmist to declare that Yahweh is the King over all the earth, the Most High, and the one who reigns over the nations. This leaves no room for any to claim to be above him.

I grew up in the western part of Kentucky and for the first 8-10 years of my life I had a great uncle living whose name was Ray. He was my dad’s uncle, and at least one source of his income came in selling boots. He had this small trailer out of which he sold his boots, and while he waited for customers to come to him, he would practice with my dad observing drawing a fun from a holster he would wear. Being a quick-draw artist was more appreciated then and there than it is here and now, and so he wanted to be good at it. And my dad tells a story one day of a man coming to see my uncle Ray to get some boots, but this wasn’t just any man. At a contest in the eastern part of the state he had been declared the quickest draw in Kentucky. Therefore, when my uncle met him the first thing he asked is if they could have a contest. He agreed. My dad held the handkerchief, dropped it, and the men drew. And my dad tells me that on the first time my uncle Ray had drawn on the man before the man’s gun had even cleared the holster. Therefore, after some excuses from the man they did squared off again, and the story goes that without exception my uncle Ray outdrew this man whom some had declared “the fastest draw in the state.” Now, my uncle Ray might not have been as famous as this man was, but one thing was true, this man had been mislabeled, for there was at least one man faster than him in the state, and he just sold boots for a living!

Such is the scene when other nations declare their gods equal to our God. The Lord does not simply declare that he is the God over Israel, but he is the God over all the nations. And if there is any doubt, consider the plagues, where everything the Egyptians worshiped God punished. He alone is God; he alone is King; and, therefore, he alone is worthy of worship. Thus, we worship God because he alone is worthy of worship. He is above all kings and all gods.

Now, let’s pause for a second and put our first two observations in this psalm together, namely, that God commands that we worship him and he is the only one worthy of worship. Let’s put them together because we need to hold then together. See, for many, the first of these causes a problem. We find it unsettling that God commands that we worship him. He commands that we direct our praise and adoration to him alone. He will share his glory with no man. We have a problem with that because we feel that somehow that’s wrong and wrongfully binding on us. We might ask, “Why would God be that way, and why will he not allow us to delight ourselves and worship something else?”

And the answer is our second observation. It is because there is no one and no thing greater than God. Therefore, in “binding” us to the worship of him alone God is inviting (indeed, commanding) us to find our delight in the greatest source of delight in the world. Just as a fish might feel bound by water, but then realizes he had simply deceived himself with the delight of land once he gets out of the water, so God commands us to worship him, and in doing so commands us to do that which is our greatest good. He is commanding us to delight in the one who is infinitely more delightful than anything else in the world. He is commanding us to pursue our joy in the one who provides infinitely more joy than anything else in the world. In this way God’s pursuit of his own glory and his command to us to join him in that is the most loving thing God can do for us. Thus, he commands us to worship him and allows us to know that there is no one and no thing greater than him.

And yet the psalmist gives us more reason for why we should worship God. He commands it, he is the King over all the earth, and …

We worship God because he has saved his people, delivering them and giving them an inheritance (vv. 3-5)

The author continues giving support for why God is worthy of all the peoples’ praise and worship, writing in verses 3-5, “He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet. He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves. God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet.”

The scene of verses 3-5 is Israel looking back on the conquest that God had brought about for them. They had been slaves in Egypt and yet God had subdued the Egyptians under their feet, as he had done with the Philistines and many other of Israel’s enemies. In addition, he had chosen for them a heritage, an inheritance. It was the pride of Jacob, the land of Israel. They had been delivered, their enemies conquered, and had received an inheritance. Therefore, the psalmist envisions, so it seems, in verse 6 Israel bringing the ark to Jerusalem after victory in battle as God’s presence has come to his victorious people with shouts and the noise of a trumpet.

Many times we think of salvation simply as being saved from something or to something. We were saved from wrath, hell, and the penalty for our sins or we are saved to eternity, to heaven, and to blessings through Christ. The psalmist will not allow his readers to see God as having saved them from something or to something, but rather he forces them to see both. God had delivered Israel from her enemies, and he had given them a heritage, an inheritance in bringing them into the land. God deserves to be worshiped because he had saved his people. And the author ends with one more reason.

We worship God because the goal of human history is the worship of God (v. 9)

That is to say there is coming a day when Isaiah 45:23 will be a reality, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is God. Some will do this in rejoicing, and others as they will receive their just punishment, being cast into hell. But nonetheless, all peoples will declare God’s worship. That is the goal of human history. Thus, the psalmist declares in verse 9, “The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; he is highly exalted.”

The psalmist declares that because God owns all the kings and their defenses, all people will gather as the people of the God of Abraham and declare he alone is God. He will be exalted. Therefore, we worship him now for we know in the end every knee will bow and every tongue confess the God of Abraham is indeed God.

If Israel wanted to know why God was to be worshiped, the psalmist had reminded them: God had commanded it, he is worthy of worship as the great King, he had saved them, and one day all mankind will worship him, declaring that he alone is God. Therefore, any Jew who loved the Old Testament should be able to sit here and say, “Amen” to that. Yet something has happened after the writing of this psalm. God has revealed himself to us by sending to us his Son, and one who is himself God of very God, God, the Son. And we have come to profess that he is indeed the promised Son of David, the Messiah, and our Savior. So, what do we say of the things we have said this morning? We say this: everything we have said this morning is focused on Jesus Christ, as God is summing up all things in him (Ephesians 1:7-10).

We declare with the psalmist, “Yes, God has commanded us to worship him by worshiping and exalting his Son Jesus Christ.”

It is true that the chief end of man is to glorify God, but it is also true that God is glorified through the exaltation of his Son, Jesus of Nazareth. He has given him the name alone whereby men must be saved (Acts 4:12). He has given him the name that is above every name (Philippians 2:5-11). John 3:35-36 says that the Father has given all things into the Son’s hand and that only those who believe in the Son have everlasting life. And Hebrews 1:6 declares that when Psalm 97:7 calls for all the gods to worship him it is a declaration for all the angels to worship his Son, Jesus.

Yes, our focus is the glory of God, but as Christians we glorify God by exalting his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus himself declared, “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:22-23).

And we declare with the psalmist, “Yes, God has expressed his reign over all the earth by exalting his Son as the King, as both Lord and Christ.”

Just as God declared that he reigned over all nations, that he had authority over all, after God raised Jesus from the dead declaring him to be both Lord and Christ, Jesus spoke to his disciples in Matthew 28:18, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” God has declared his Son as the great King of Kings. He has declared his Son to be over all the nations. He has declared his Kingdom to be to the ends of the earth. He has raised him from the dead first so that “in everything he might be preeminent” (Colossians 1:18).

And we declare with the psalmist, “Yes, God has saved his people, delivering them and giving them and inheritance by uniting them with Jesus Christ who paid for their sins and through whom they will receive the inheritance.”

God has delivered us from the enemies of Satan, sin, and death through his Son paying our penalty in his death on the cross, his burial, and his resurrection. And just as God had given all things into the Son’s hands, so as we believe in Christ and are united by faith with him, Paul writes in Romans 8:17 that if we are sons of God then we are fellow heirs with Christ. Therefore, even Abraham is not simply an heir of a strip of land but of the whole world (Romans 4:13), for he is in Christ for whom all things were created.

And finally, we declare with the psalmist, “Yes, all of human history is leading to the day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess to God that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:5-11).”

All of history is heading to the day when every knee will confess that God alone is to be exalted as they declare that Jesus is the Lord of all creation, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, Psalm 47 is a joyful psalm for those who originally heard it, but for us it is even sweeter, for we know how God has chosen to honor himself and save his people, through the death, burial, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus Christ.

So, may our response to this psalm be that we will live lives of sacrifice and worship unto our God by seeking the glory and exaltation of Jesus Christ in all things. And may we do so this morning by remembering his work for us as we come to the table. Amen.

THE GOD WHO IS WORTHY OF WORSHIP