“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully…Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving…For the Lord is the great God…Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker” (Psa. 95:1-6). These words describe the heart of the man whose heart was like the heart of God. David fully understood worship involved coming with hearts filled with joy to sing and shout joyfully and bow down “…before the Lord.”
While we are always before the Lord, the Bible uses the expression “before the Lord” so often in the Old Testament to describe those times where public worship was involved. To see this, note how many times this expression, “before the Lord,” appears after the Jews arrived at Mt. Sinai and for the first time there was public worship. The expression is found eighty-two times between Mt. Sinai in Exodus 20 and the new way of worship that is described in detail in Leviticus. God wanted His people to understand the importance of worship and used this expression more than eighty times in just the first year of Jewish public worship. They had to remember that in worship they were “coming before the Lord.”
To see this concept further, look at this emphasized in those yearly feasts of the Jews. “Three times in the year all of your males shall appear before the Lord God” (Ex. 23:17). Many devout men brought their wives with them. Hannah, the mother of Samuel accompanied her husband. It happened every year (1 Sam. 1:3, 7, 12). She was silently praying “before the Lord” when Samuel rebuked her, thinking she was drunk.
Joseph and Mary both went to Jerusalem every year at the Passover gathering (Luke 2:41). Never overlook that these trips did not involve just a small number. Acts chapter two describes the multitude who were there for the annual feast of Pentecost. Check your Bible maps. They were from Egypt, North Africa, all of Turkey, Arabia, Rome and even from far east of Babylon—they were there because they were devout men who gave so much of their time and money to get there!
Now make the application to your life. The Lord has a table and promised that He would be there to drink of the cup with members of the church, His kingdom (Matt. 26:29). The Bible shows that Jesus is not just at His table, but He is also in the midst of the church and joins in with us as we sing (Heb. 2:12). If the Jews came to that temple to “…worship and bow down…kneel before the Lord” (Psa. 95), how much more are we before the Lord every Sunday?
Have you ever invited someone to your house, and they did not come? Did you miss them? The Lord has invited us to His table every week—what could be more important?