An Invitation to Worship

Well, good morning, church. Turn with me if you have a Bible, or you can follow along on the screen.

We'll be reading this morning from Psalm 95. We're doing a series on the Psalms this fall,

or I guess it's becoming winter. As we've said, the Psalms are a collection of songs and prayers

that were written over the course of several hundred years by several different people,

and they were gradually collected together and became a song book or a prayer book for the

ancient Israelites. And we've seen there are all kinds of different Psalms that teach us to pray

in all kinds of different circumstances. So we've looked at Psalms of lament, people crying out to

God in the middle of trouble. We've looked at Psalms of confession, people turning to God in the midst

of failure when they've messed up and finding God's mercy. We've seen Psalms of thanksgiving,

where people are just remembering the blessings that they've received from God. This is a Psalm

of worship, and in fact of coming together to worship as a community in particular.

We might call it a call to corporate worship. So let me read Psalm 95 for us this morning.

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of

praise, for the Lord is a great God. And a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of

the earth. The heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed

the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker, for he is

our God. And we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today if you hear his voice,

don't harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day at Massa in the wilderness, when your fathers put me

to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that

generation and said they are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.

Therefore I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Where is this world headed?

And where is my life going? I wonder if you've asked either of those questions lately.

Probably many of us have seen signs over the last few months saying something like,

we will get through this together. Right? And I think that expresses a good aspiration towards

solidarity and steadfastness in an age where there's a division and disillusionment.

But it leaves also an unanswered question. As a society, after we get through this,

where exactly are we headed? Or we might ask that question on a personal level.

You know, many people in the ancient world, in the modern world, secular people, religious people,

have spoken of life as a journey. The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote,

the journey of a thousand miles starts beneath one's feet, or with a single step.

Aerosmith sang, life's a journey, not a destination, and I just can't tell just what tomorrow brings.

Right? But if my life's a journey, here's the question. Is it just an endless wandering or meandering?

Or is there a final destination where we're headed?

Well, the psalm we're looking at today extends an invitation. An invitation to worship.

In other words, an invitation to join God's people on a journey towards God's presence.

And according to the Bible, that's what the human race was made to do from the very beginning,

to worship God and to draw near to Him and to live in His presence.

Now, we don't know for sure who first wrote this psalm, or when exactly it was written,

but a good possibility is that this psalm was written for Jewish pilgrims

journeying to one of the three annual festivals in Jerusalem.

Three times a year, many of the Jewish people would travel to Jerusalem,

and they would meet together in the temple.

In the fall, there was a feast called the Feast of Tabernacles.

So they would gather together, they would come together in the temple

and listen to God's word where God had promised to be present with them.

If you notice, verse 1 and verse 6 begin with the words,

O come, right? It's an invitation, come along.

So just imagine these pilgrims singing the words of this psalm

as they journeyed toward Jerusalem and finally entering in.

Ever since the early church, Christians have also looked to this psalm

and received this psalm as an invitation to corporate worship.

So in many liturgical churches or churches with sort of a set routine

for what is read each week,

this is often an invitation at the beginning of morning prayer

or other prayer gatherings.

So, you know, maybe you're here today exploring faith or spirituality

or maybe you're tuning in for the first time

and you're sort of wondering what Christianity is all about.

I hope this psalm for you could be an introduction

to the God who Christians worship,

as well as an invitation to consider orienting your life around him.

For those of us who are Christians,

I hope this psalm will be an encouragement for us,

an encouragement to worship God and to draw near to him

and also a guide for what it actually means,

what it looks like to do that.

This psalm actually points us to three aspects of worship.

And the first one I'll call rejoicing before God's greatness.

The second one I'll call reverence before God's kindness.

And the third we'll call responding to God's word.

So rejoicing, reverence, and response.

We'll see these as we go through the three sections of the psalm.

So first, rejoicing before God's greatness.

We see this in verses 1 through 5.

The psalm begins with a summons to rejoice.

Look at the verbs in verses 1 and 2.

Sing to the Lord.

It's a word that means give a ringing shout.

Make a joyful noise.

The word was used for a triumphant war cry or for a trumpet blast.

So we see a picture of God's people speaking to one another,

sort of urging each other on.

Let us sing.

Let us make a joyful noise.

Let us come before God with thanksgiving.

In one commentator's words, this is an exuberant opening,

an expression of unashamed enthusiasm,

an acclamation fit for a king.

And then in verses 3 of 5, we see the reason for this rejoicing.

For the Lord is a great God.

And a great king above all gods.

Now, as we've been going through the psalms,

if you've been coming or listening to these sermons,

you may have noticed a common pattern in the psalms.

And the pattern is this.

One line echoes or builds upon,

or sometimes contrasts, the prior line.

The technical or literary term for this is called parallelism.

Now, parallelism can almost seem redundant at times, right?

Here, we have the word great repeated twice.

The Lord is a great God, a great king above all gods.

But it's more than just repetition for emphasis.

The second line often takes the initial idea one step further,

or one step deeper.

So here, it says,

The Lord is a great God.

And then it goes on to say,

A great king above all gods.

You see, the God of the Bible is not just one among many gods out there.

He is the supreme Lord who reigns over every other power and authority

in heaven and on earth.

That's what the Bible claims.

Now, one of the fascinating things about the psalms

is that their primary distinguishing feature on a literary level

is what I've called this parallelism.

Now, many poems,

if you read different kinds of poetry in different languages,

some poems are distinguished by steady beats or beautiful rhythms.

But if you try to translate a poem with a steady beat

or a beautiful rhythm from one language into another language,

it's almost impossible to do that.

And you almost always lose a lot in the process

because there aren't always the same words that rhyme in another language.

But here's the thing.

The psalms can be translated into all kinds of languages

because their distinguishing feature is not a steady beat or a beautiful rhythm,

but these echoing or building ideas,

these images that build on each other.

You see, God designed the psalms not just for the ancient Israelites

and not just for modern scholars who can study Hebrew and appreciate Hebrew,

but for people of every nation, speakers of every language,

to take these prayers upon their lips

and draw near to the one true God with them.

You see, these psalms, even in the way they're constructed,

literarily are meant for the whole world.

The Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods.

It says the depths and the heights, the sea and the dry land,

the whole world belongs to this God.

Now in the ancient world, that was a revolutionary idea

because nearly everyone else in the ancient world believed

that the world was under the rule of various territorial deities.

So in Canaanite mythology,

Baal was the God of the heights, the mountains,

the God of fertility and prosperity.

So people gathered at mountaintop shrines to seek the favor of Baal.

On the other hand, there was a God named Molech,

who was the God of the depths.

And so people gathered in caves and dark places

and carried out actually some dark rituals to worship Molech.

In Babylonian mythology, there was a God of the sea named Tiamat, right?

The sea was this overpowering, right?

The sea could easily overpower you, right?

And so they worshiped this God of the sea,

the God of power and control and domination.

But you know, throughout the Hebrew Bible,

throughout the Old Testament,

we hear a very different idea.

There's a confident and consistent proclamation

that there's only one deity truly worth fearing.

There's only one living and true God

who rules over everything, everywhere, without any exceptions.

And so you don't have to worry.

You see, many people in the ancient world lived in fear

that there was some God of some place

that maybe they didn't quite know how to please that God.

Or maybe that God was having a battle with a nearby God, right?

So there was, you could never be totally secure

with all these territorial gods inhabiting different places,

the heights, the depths, the sea, the desert.

And so this would have been a liberating message

for people who had lived in constant fear

and constant efforts to please many, many different gods.

The Lord is a great king above all gods.

You see, no matter where you are on your journey of life,

whether you're on a highest mountaintop

or whether you're in the deepest, darkest valley,

the message of the Bible is that the Lord is God.

His hands formed it all and his hands hold it all.

He's the only one you really need

because he's the only God who's always there.

Now, some of you might say,

well, okay, I guess I can see how that was a revolutionary idea back then

when people thought the mountains and the valleys and the seas

were haunted by different spirits.

But, I mean, we live in the modern world.

I mean, nobody even recognizes those names of ancient gods anymore.

But I think modern people still worship gods like these.

Modern people still worship gods like Baal,

gods of fertility and prosperity and pleasure and success.

People go to great lengths,

spend huge amounts of money, huge amounts of time,

huge amounts of energy pursuing fertility, pleasure, success,

and material prosperity,

all those things that Baal was supposed to provide.

And yet that quest for pleasure and prosperity

can be brought to a screeching halt

when unwanted sickness or suffering or pain or loss intrudes.

When suffering strikes as it has in so many ways this year,

gods like Baal have nothing meaningful to say,

nothing helpful to say.

The only thing they can say is,

just wait until the next party.

Just wait until the bars and nightclubs open again.

Just wait until you can do what you used to be able to do.

And so some people turn to gods like Molech,

the gods of the depths,

the gods of darkness and despair and secrecy and shame.

Just think about how prevalent addictions of all kinds

have become in our society.

How many times people retreat into dark corners

and hide behind anonymous web browsers

and continue doing the same things

which they would even admit are self-destructive,

but they continue doing the same things over and over again.

Every year the number of deaths of despair,

suicides and overdoses,

keeps increasing.

Other people deal with the chaos and unpredictability of the world

by turning to gods like Tiamat,

the ancient god of the sea,

the god of power and control.

And we try to seize that power and control.

We try to obtain and maintain power and control,

whether it's through physical strength or emotional manipulation.

But the worship of power makes us hardened

and cynical and selfish,

and ultimately it dehumanizes us.

You see, these ancient gods are still very present

in the modern world, just in different forms.

But none of those false gods can give lasting joy.

Only the true God, the great king above all gods can do that.

He's the god of the heights,

the giver of every good gift.

He's the god of the depths who can meet us

and shine his light into our darkest, deepest valley

and who can walk with us through it.

And he's the god of the turbulent waters

who can abide with us

and bring us peace in the midst of the storm.

You know, if you turn to the New Testament,

if you read the gospels in the New Testament,

they show us that Jesus Christ is the lord of all these places.

One of his first miracles is

Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding.

He's better than Baal.

He's the god of joy and life and beauty.

But he's also the god who meets people

in their place of shame and despair and darkness,

who touches the lepers and befriends the outcasts

and heals people who have been sick

for years and years and years

and who have been shut out and abandoned.

And he welcomes them in.

And he walks on the troubled waters.

And bids the storm be still.

He's the great king above all gods.

You see, we have a reason to rejoice

before the greatness of our God and Savior.

That's the first aspect of worship

that this psalm invites us into

is rejoicing before the greatness of God.

But the second aspect of worship

that this psalm invites us into

is reverence before the kindness of God.

In verses 6 and 7,

O come, let us worship and bow down.

Let us kneel before the Lord,

our maker.

You see, here we're called to take a posture

of reverent humility,

of quiet submission before the Lord.

All these three verbs in verse 6

emphasize the idea of getting low before God,

accepting our own place and acknowledging his.

He is God.

We are not.

But this is not a distant,

formal kind of reverence.

You know, you might have noticed

that both verse 1 and verse 6

begin with the words,

O come.

But the Hebrew verbs are actually

slightly different.

The first one in verse 1

means something like,

come along.

Join us on this journey.

But the verb in verse 6

means something like,

come on in.

Enter in

to the presence of this God.

Come before him.

Kneel before him with reverence.

You see, it's not an idea

of shrinking back from God

or running away from God in terror.

It's the idea of drawing near

to God with reverence.

That's what this psalm

is inviting us to.

And verse 7 gives us the reason

for such reverence.

Because of the Lord's kindness.

He's our maker.

In other words,

he's made us who we are.

Just like he made the sea

in verse 5,

he made us to be

his very own people,

his children,

his inheritance,

whom he loves.

And he's not just a great God.

It says he's our God.

We can know him as ours.

We can know him as a shepherd.

We're the people of his pasture.

We're the sheep of his hand.

You know, in the ancient world,

a shepherd during the daytime

would lead his flock as a group

to a green pasture

where they all could feed.

But at nighttime,

he went one step further.

He would count them one by one.

Each one would pass under his hand

as they entered the fold.

You know, the Bible says

that Jesus Christ is a good shepherd.

And that he cares for his flock,

right, his church,

his people as a group,

but he also sees us

one by one.

Jesus said,

no one can snatch my sheep

out of my hand.

Now, before we move on

to the third point,

let's consider two implications

of these first two points.

First implication,

worship is a matter

of both rejoicing

and reverence.

Right?

Well, the first part

and the second part.

Making a joyful noise

without reverence

is not really worship.

It's, it just,

that just ends up being

superficial and self-indulgent.

But a kind of reverence

or fear of God

without any joy

is not the,

that's the attitude

of a frightened captive,

not of a beloved child.

See, neither of those

are true worship of God.

You see,

genuine biblical worship

lives at the intersection

of rejoicing and reverence.

There's a time

for singing songs of praise,

for clapping our hands

or raising our hands,

but there's also a time

for kneeling quietly

and confessing our sins

and reverently approaching

the throne of grace.

Now, rejoicing and reverence

can be expressed

in a variety of styles

and forms.

Different churches

do this in different ways.

Some worship services

are louder,

some are quieter,

some are shorter,

some are longer,

some are,

some use choirs,

some use bands,

some have no musical

instruments at all,

some use prescribed liturgy,

some avoid prescribed liturgies

as much as they possibly can.

But whatever styles

and forms it may take,

the heart of true worship

is rejoicing

and reverence

before the God

who is great

and who is kind.

That's what the Bible says

at the heart

of genuine worship,

no matter what

the precise styles

and forms it might take.

So that's the first point.

It's about rejoicing

and reverence.

Second implication,

notice the reasons

for rejoicing and reverence.

I think most of the time

we would assume

that the reason

we should rejoice

is because God's done

good stuff for us.

And the reason

that we should fear God

is because he's great

and strong

and higher than us.

But this psalm

actually flips that.

It says we should rejoice

because God is great.

And it says we should

fear God

because he's so kind.

Now think about that.

Why does this psalm

say that?

You see,

we don't rejoice

only because God's

been good to us,

only because God,

only because we like

the benefits that come

along with knowing God.

We also rejoice

because God is

the sovereign king

and there's no one

else like him

and he's greater

than all other gods

and that's a reason

to rejoice.

That is a good thing

that there is a God

like that.

And also,

we don't fear God

just because he's

more powerful

than we are.

You know,

the Bible is not

talking,

you see,

God is not

a cosmic bully

that we have

to live in

constantly be

intimidated by

just because he's

more powerful

than us.

No,

this psalm says

we should fear God

because of how

kind he is,

because of how

merciful he's been

to us even though

we don't deserve it

because he's been

our faithful shepherd

and we're the sheep

of his pasture

and the flock

under his care.

So corporate worship

involves rejoicing

before God's greatness,

reverence before

God's kindness

and third,

from verses 7 to 11,

we see that worship

involves responding

to God's word.

Today,

if you hear his voice,

don't harden

your hearts.

You see,

so far,

in the first two sections,

we've heard God's people

speaking to each other,

encouraging one another

to come before God

in worship.

But here,

starting at the end

of verse 7,

we hear God's voice

speaking to us.

Again,

that makes sense

if the psalm was written

for these Jewish pilgrims,

sort of the first half

is them on their journey

to the temple,

verse 6,

they enter into the temple

and then they hear

the word of God,

right?

You see that pattern.

And also,

if you think about

what we do

when we meet here

on Sundays,

guess what?

We're doing the same thing.

We begin with rejoicing

for the greatness of God.

That's almost always

the theme

of our first song

or hymn.

And then we draw near

with reverence,

right?

We come before God,

we confess our sins

and our need

for His mercy

and then we hear

a reading

that assures us

that God's mercy

and forgiveness

have been provided

and that we can be

assured of that.

And then often

we respond with a song

praising God

for His kindness.

And then we listen

to His voice,

we listen to the scriptures,

to God's voice

speaking to us

in His word.

You see,

when we meet for worship,

the pastors

are not just

making up stuff

that we can do together

that we think

sounds good

and feels good.

No,

we're following

the patterns

that have been

laid out for us

here in this psalm

and in other parts

of the Bible

that help us

to draw near to God.

You might also notice

that the tone changes

in section three

compared to sections

one and two.

Instead of rejoicing,

instead of exuberance

and enthusiasm,

the psalm concludes

with a stern warning.

One commentator said

the ending of this psalm

sacrifices literary grace

to moral urgency.

You see,

the point is

worshiping God

is not just a matter

of beautiful songs

and happy feelings.

Real worship

involves being confronted

by the message

of the real God

at a heart level.

And you know what?

That isn't always pretty

and it isn't always pleasant.

Here the warning is

don't harden your hearts.

Now you might say,

well what exactly

is that warning against?

Well, the psalmist

gives an example.

He says,

don't harden your hearts

like they did

back in the day

at Masa and Meribah.

Now we read the account

of Masa and Meribah

earlier in the service

from Exodus 17.

Now just as some context

for that story,

the people in that story,

they were the generation

of Israelites

who had been rescued

dramatically from slavery

in Egypt.

For generations,

they had been enslaved,

they had been oppressed,

it got worse and worse,

the Pharaoh was trying

to basically exterminate them,

and God sent them,

Moses,

as their leader,

to deliver them.

And God intervened

on their behalf,

and God had led them

out of slavery in Egypt

and they were on a journey

in the wilderness.

So verse 9 says,

these people had seen

my work,

they had seen my work,

these people had seen

miracles that most of us

have never even seen.

They had seen more miracles

than almost any other

generation in history

would ever see.

So they had seen

the ten plagues

coming upon Egypt,

one after the other,

the Red Sea parting,

the Egyptian army

pursuing them

that was intent

on devouring them,

instead perishing

in the sea,

God then giving them

a pillar of cloud

by day

and a pillar of fire

by night

to guide and lead them

through the desert,

making bitter water sweet,

providing manna

from heaven every morning.

God had demonstrated

his greatness

and his kindness

to them

in countless ways

already.

And then

they come

to Exodus 7,

that's what happens

in Exodus 1 through 16,

and then they come

to Exodus 17,

they come to a place

called Rephidim,

and there's not any water

to drink there.

And how do they respond?

Well, they start quarreling

with Moses.

It says they grumbled,

they said,

why did you bring us

up out of Egypt

to kill us

and our children

and our livestock

with thirst?

They start accusing Moses,

and by extension

accusing God,

because God's the one

who had appointed Moses

and God had used Moses

to deliver them.

And Moses cries out to God,

he says,

these people are ready

to stone me.

And I don't think

Moses was exaggerating

or overreacting.

The people were ready

to put Moses on trial,

declare him guilty,

and get rid of him

for good.

And the end of the story

says Moses called

the name of the place

Massah,

which is a word

that means testing,

and Meribah,

which is a word

that means quarreling

because of how

the people behaved there.

You see,

here's the picture.

God had proved himself

to them time and time again.

And then,

when his people

faced a test,

when they faced a struggle,

when they faced

an uncomfortable situation,

they very quickly

turned against God.

They hardened their hearts,

they start accusing Moses

and accusing God,

denying God's power,

denying God's goodness,

denying his presence

with them.

They said,

God, I won't trust you

until you prove yourself again.

I won't believe

that you love us

until you make

our lives easier.

I won't obey you

until you give me

what I want.

And they didn't

just do that once.

They did it over and over

for 40 years

in the wilderness.

If you read

through the book

of Numbers,

it shows seven

different times

when the people

hardened their hearts.

Same pattern,

over and over again

in the wilderness.

And in the end,

it says,

God got fed up with them

because they never learned.

And that generation

of Israelites

never entered in

to the promised land.

They perished

in the wilderness.

And so,

the psalmist here,

writing hundreds of years

after all that happened,

the psalmist says,

don't be like them.

Today,

if you hear God's voice,

don't harden your hearts.

In other words,

don't forget all the ways

that God has shown himself

to be great

and good.

That he's shown himself

and proved himself

to you

and to his people

in the past.

Don't forget all

that he's already done

for you

and all that he's already

brought you through.

If we were to

apply it to today,

don't stop trusting

and obeying God

just because it's 2020

and life is hard

and disappointing.

He's still the same God

yesterday,

today,

and forever.

He's still the great creator.

He's still the good shepherd.

He's still worthy

of our trust

and obedience.

This is a stern warning.

It's a bit like being

doused with ice cold water.

Right?

It doesn't feel very pleasant

to hear this.

But within this stern warning,

there's also

a standing invitation.

If you notice

in verse 11,

it says,

those people

back then

never entered

God's rest.

But that word

enter

is the same word

that's translated

O come

in verse 6.

It's a word

that means enter in.

You see,

the same psalm

that says

the wilderness generation

never entered in

to God's rest

also invites us

to enter

into God's rest.

And hundreds of years

after this psalm

was written,

the writer of the book

of Hebrews,

which is in the New Testament,

picked up on this detail.

And if you read

the book of Hebrews

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 and chapter 4,

it's basically

a mini sermon

on this psalm

that highlights

that point.

So Hebrews 4 verse 1

Hebrews 4:1

says,

the promise

of entering

God's rest

still stands.

It's a standing

invitation.

And he gives

some very

dense reasoning

to explain his point.

He says,

those who formerly

received the good news,

chapter 4 verse 6,

the Israelites

who perished

in the wilderness

in Moses' day

failed to enter,

right?

They didn't enter

because of disobedience.

But then,

hundreds of years later,

when this psalm

was written,

the psalm says,

come along,

enter in.

And so the writer

of Hebrews says,

the true rest

God was offering

wasn't just the promised

land that Joshua

conquered.

He says,

there remains

a Sabbath rest

for the people

of God.

For whoever

has entered

God's rest

has also rested

from his works

as God did

from his.

Let us therefore

strive to enter

that rest.

You see,

what the author

of Hebrews is saying

is that this

is a standing

invitation

to enter

into God's rest.

God's rest.

And the invitation

is given

not on the basis

of our own works

or our own efforts.

It's given

on the basis

of what Jesus Christ

himself

has done.

You see,

Jesus Christ

has made a way

for us

to enter in

to God's

very own presence

and to find rest

and peace

with God

that we couldn't

have otherwise.

You know,

there's even

a picture

of what Jesus

would do

in the story

of Masa

and Meribah.

Right?

The Israelites

were grumbling,

quarreling,

making all kinds

of false accusations

against Moses,

against God.

They were ready

to get rid of Moses,

find Moses guilty,

put him on trial,

and basically

sentence him to death

by stoning.

That's what they

were about to do.

And if you notice,

God says something

very strange

to Moses

in the middle

of that situation.

God said,

go on before

the people,

take your staff,

your big stick

in your hand,

behold,

I'll stand before

you on the rock

at Horeb,

and you shall

strike the rock

with your staff,

and water

shall come out

of it,

and the people

will drink.

Now,

if you paid attention

to that verse,

you might ask

the question,

what in the world

is going on there?

Because that's

a very strange

command.

God says,

take this big stick,

I'm going to stand

right in front of you

on this rock,

smack the rock.

Well,

guess what?

If God's standing

on the rock,

and God says to Moses,

smack the rock

with your stick,

guess who's going

to get smacked?

What is God

saying there?

You see,

God's saying to Moses,

look,

these people are ready

to stone you.

In other words,

they want to get

rid of me.

They're convinced

that I don't love them.

They're convinced

that I can't provide

for them.

They're convinced

that I've just brought

them out here

to kill them,

but the reality is

I'm willing to be

struck down and killed

for them,

so that they can live,

so that they can

be revived and rescued.

I'm willing to take

a punishment

that I don't deserve,

so that my people

can receive the life

that they so

desperately need.

You see,

that's what Jesus did

when he came

into the world.

He was the son of God,

and he lived

a perfectly obedient

and faithful life.

He didn't deserve

any punishment

from God,

and yet he was

willing to be crucified

and falsely accused

and put to death

and to receive

the punishment

that we deserved

for our sin

and for our rebellion

against God.

You see,

if you think

that God doesn't

love you,

or if you think

that God doesn't care,

or if you think

that God can't bring

good out of hard things,

look at the cross

of Jesus Christ.

Jesus came into

a world where people

wanted to get rid of him,

and he didn't just

immediately strike

them all down

in their foolishness

and in their pride

and in their rebellion.

And in their sin,

he was willing to be,

he was willing to die

as a sacrifice

for them,

for us,

so that we could drink

of the water of life,

so that our souls

could find eternal rest

in the presence of God.

Hebrews 10 says,

we now have confidence

to enter

the holy places,

that is,

the presence of God,

by the blood of Jesus,

by his sacrifice,

by the new and living way

that he opened for us

through his flesh,

so let us draw near

with a true heart

in full assurance

of faith.

Let us hold fast

the confession of our hope

without wavering,

because he who promised

is faithful.

And let's consider

how to stir up

one another toward love

and good works.

You see,

that's what it means

to worship.

is to join God's people

on a journey

towards God's presence,

a journey of faith

and hope

and love

in response

to what Jesus Christ

has done

for us,

to open up

that way for us.

That's what this psalm

calls us into,

to rejoice

before God's greatness,

to have reverence

before God's kindness,

and to receive

and respond to his word.

Augustine wrote,

our hearts are restless

until they find

their rest in you.

Isn't that true?

the invitation is,

come and find your rest

in Jesus Christ today.

Let's pray.

Father God,

thank you for this psalm.

Thank you for the

gracious invitation

that you extend to us.

Lord,

to people like us

who

are,

naturally,

tend to get ourselves lost,

and be wandering

in the wilderness

and not really knowing

where we're supposed to go.

Lord,

thank you for this

gracious invitation

to come

and enter

into your presence.

Thank you for Jesus

who paid the price

for our sins

and our failures

that we might come

before you

not on the basis

of our achievements

but on the basis

of what he has done

and being received

by your mercy

and grace.

Lord,

would you fill our hearts

with joy

and with reverence

and awe

before you.

In Jesus' name

we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

...