As a dream when one awakes . . .
Series: Becoming a True Worshipper #1
Psalm 73

I knew that our vacation must be nearing an end when I had this dream a few days before we were due to leave Canada. It is actually a recurring dream, and not at all hard to interpret. In my dream I come down the stairs from my office on the second floor, and I open the door into the hall and it is filled with people -- all of you -- arriving for church. And I smile and greet you all pleasantly. But I know something that you don't know. I know that in a few moments I will be standing up in front of you, and I have absolutely nothing to say. And the worrying thing about this dream is that it is so plausible. I often half wake up with my heart pounding and a dreadful feeling that it is Sunday morning and that the dream is not really a dream at all, but reality. And it takes me a minute or two to clear my head and remember that it is only Tuesday.

I'd like to fix in your minds that image of waking from a dream -- a very plausible, real dream. You've all experienced that in between place between dream and waking when you are not quite sure what is reality and what is dream. It is such a relief to fully wake up and realize that your worst fears have not come true -- that you are not really standing in your underwear in front of 300 people, not really fleeing for your life, not really falling down a deep well.

I want to fix that image in your mind, because it helps us to understand what happens -- or what should happen -- when we worship.

One of the characteristics of true worship is that it is like waking up. It awakens us from the nightmare of a world without God to the reality and centrality of God's presence. Worship is a wake up call, an alarm, that calls us from our dream worlds and wakes us up so that we can see the world as it really is, and our lives as they really are. And if we come out of a worship -- whether private or corporate -- and no awakening has taken place, no alarms have gone off -- then we have NOT worshiped. I may sing my lungs out, read scripture with feeling, pray eloquently but if I leave without awakening to the presence of God then none of it has been worship. Singing, scripture, prayer -- these are the building blocks, the tools, the means of coming into God's presence, but they are not, in themselves worship -- nor are they necessary for worship.

The heading of Psalm 73 says that it is a Psalm of Asaph. Here's how I imagine Asaph: Asaph is the pastor of a small store-front church in Washington, D.C. His church is two doors down from a crack-house. Asaph and with his wife and 4 children live a couple of blocks away, on the fourth floor of a four story walk-up apartment. There's no air-conditioning, and it is HOT in D.C. at this time of year. Asaph is a bivocational pastor. He works 40 hours a week for a painting contractor. His congregation is about 30 adults, few of them wage earners and they can't afford to pay him much. He spends another 40 hours a week in ministry. Every day he faces broken families, drug addiction, abused children, alcoholism, poverty. His elderly parishioners are in constant danger of being robbed and harrassed.

And as Asaph drives around D.C. in his 86 Dodge that has no air-conditioning, He looks hout his window and he sees drug dealers driving Cadillacs, and he passes hotels hosting $1000 a plate fundraising dinners packed with sleek movie stars and sly politicians, and if he drives by the Capitol building he sees well-fed lobbyists in Armani suits and Italian shoes taking corrupt politicians out for lobster dinners. And the worst of it is that Asaph knows some of them -- they were his classmates at Amherst -- and they were the most obnoxious and agressive and hard-hearted students he knew, and now they are earning $200 thousand a year.
And as Asaph looks out the window of his rusty, unairconditioned car at the world of the sleek and rich and powerful, envy starts to grow in his heart.

Why? Why do the wicked prosper, while the righteous prayer warriors are trapped in their apartments, fearful for their lives?

And he cries out the words of this Psalm:

verse 4: They have no struggles. Their bodies are sleek and strong. Of course they are. They have health club memberships and personal trainers to help them hide the effects of all of those lobster dinners.

They are free from the burdens of the common man. These people have lived their entire lives in airconditioned offices, cars and homes. They don't even know what 105 degrees feels like, except in the Sauna or on the beach.

Therefore pride is their necklace . They have the world by the tail, and they know it.

They clothe themselves with violence. Form their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no limits. They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.
They do whatever they want and get away with it. They know no moral boundaries.

And are they despised for this? No! They are worshiped. v. 10: Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance . They are worshiped for their success. They lie, they are adulterous, they murder -- always keeping their own hands clean of course -- and yet their faces are on the cover of People, and Newsweek and T.V. guide -- and they are sought out by Oprah and hosted by David Letterman.

And in verse 13 Asaph's envy turns to despair: His life is a failure and a waste. Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. What has he earned by seeking God? What does he get for his good intentions? He lives in a drug and gun infested neighborhood, fearing for the safety of his family, struggling to put food on the table: 14. All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.

This poor, inner-city pastor looks at the reality around him and he is overcome by envy, by despair and by bitterness.

And then the alarm goes off. He jerks awake, and realizes he's been dreaming. (vs. 16)

And what is the alarm? Worship! When I tried to understand this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; THEN I understood. He comes back to his tiny, hot, store-front church and he enters the sanctuary and falls down at the foot of the cross. Awareness of the presence of God overwhelms him, and he wakes up to the reality of God.

Worship is our alarm clock. It jolts us out of our Godless night-mare world where evil prevails, and the righteous suffer in vain, and it awakens us to the presence of God and the power of God and the goodness of God. [And just as an aside, that is why it is crazy to think of worship as just a once a week deal. Worship needs to be every day. And more than once every day, because we are constantly falling back to sleep, going back into our dream world and we need the wakeup.]

And after the alarm goes off, after we awake to the presence of God, then we look back out at the world with different eyes. The world looks different from inside the sanctuary -- even if it is a store-front church, or a gymnasium, or your private place of prayer. And there are several ways that reality looks different from a position of worship:

1. Worship awakens us to the slipperiness of sin.

vs. 18. Surely you place them on slippery ground;
We see that sin does not go unpunished. That those who we were tempted to envy are in grave danger. You know those terrible carnival rides, where you spin around and around until you are flattened against the wall, and then the floor falls out from underneath you. And you are fine for the time being -- so long as the floor comes back before the ride stops. Otherwise down you would slide.

But there is another, even more important way that worship awakens us to the slipperiness of sin -- worship exposes our own sin. vs. 21: When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. It was sin -- envy to be precise -- that blinded Asaph to the reality of God. Worship exposed his sin and his blindness.

Envy of the wicked was Asaph's sin -- it may not be yours. You may suffer from fear or anxiety, covetousness, pride or unrighteous anger. But whatever the sin, the remedy is the same: Coming before God in true worship will expose your sin and show you your blindness. If you come before God in worship, you cannot help but recognize that he is both good, and all-powerful. And then what becomes of your fear -- it is senseless.

2. Worship awakens us to the precariousness of prosperity.

vs. 19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. When we look from out through the windows of the sanctuary, we still see evil, and we still see the wicked dancing. But we also see that the dance floor is suspended by threads, above an abyss. The prosperous wicked are not to be envied, but to be pitied and pleaded with. They are dancing their way to death and they have no idea of their danger.

3. Worship awakens us to the grip of God.

When we worship we see that we are not alone, and we are not without protection, and our lives are not wasted or meaningless. vs. 23: Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.

We are gripped by God -- you hold me by my right hand.
We are guided by God -- you guide me with your counsel
And our destiny is Glory -- and afterward you will take me into Glory

Gripped, Guided, Glorified. Our past, our present and our future are encompassed by the loving, guiding hand of God.

4. Finally, the culmination of our worship comes when we awaken to the all-surpassing worth of knowing God.

vs. 25: Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart my fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

No one who knows God will ever be a loser by him. Knowing God, feeling the joy of being in his presence, recognizing his beauty is a reward so great that all that all the jewels the world can offer will be exposed as plastic trinkets and costume jewelry.

And if we do have a true experience of worship, if we do awaken to the presence of God, what will our response be?

Twofold:

1. vs. 28: But as for me, it is good to be near God. True worship arouses a desire for more worship. We find a contentment and a satisfaction in the presence of God that draws us back.

2. I will tell of all your deeds. True worship leads spontaneously into testimony and praise. True worshipers can't keep quiet.


Here's my challenge to you for this week: Do an experiment. Each day this week, put aside time for worship. In your mind, and heart, enter the sanctuary of God. You may need to physically go to a sanctuary -- a set apart place. But if you are unable to, simply move into conscious awareness of God's presence in your mind. And in that sanctuary, allow the reality of God's being to overwhelm your spirit.

Then, look back out at your world from that place. Look through the window of the sanctuary, so to speak, and see if your world does not look different. Allow God to awaken you to the slipperiness of sin -- especially your own sin, and to the Grip of God on your life, and to the all-surpassing worth of knowing Christ.

Don't stop there. If you are awakened by worship, tell someone about it.

But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge, I will tell of all your deeds.