Psalm 95 | "Worshiping the Great God"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Psalm 95.

Psalm 95, if you have your Bibles.

You know, the last year and a half has just been weird.

COVID and everything makes us have to be on our toes in unique ways.

Not every Sunday seems to be different.

Every week seems to be different.

At some point during that time, our organ completely stopped working.

Wasn't making sound.

But uh Connie, I think you're you're now out in the limelight.

So thank you.

Appreciate that.

You can't get away from hiding and not playing now.

Glad to have that organ sound back.

Psalm 95.

I love the the worship team that we normally have up here with all of the varying instruments.

I love that.

It's also great to be able to hear just the sound of the organ and the voices.

We've had times uh just just last Sunday night we had uh at our at our quarterly business meeting, we had uh just guitar and piano.

Sometimes we just have guitar.

Sometimes we just have piano.

All of those those ways of adding instruments to the instruments that God has created in human voices is just a way to provide variety to our worship.

Because the instruments themselves are not the worship.

And there are different ways to generate worship, there are different styles of worship.

All of those kinds of ideas are prevalent here in Psalm 95 that speaks in large part about worshiping our God.

But it's a strange kind of psalm because for quite a few years, especially in the Middle Ages, scholars wondered if this psalm really should be one psalm or two songs.

Because it takes a dramatic shift in the song that makes us think, really?

Is that what you meant?

What do you mean?

How does this all fit together?

And I thought as I looked back through my sermon record and found that we have not been fed through the Psalms in nearly 10 months, it might be good before returning to Matthew for a few months that we hear from an unnamed psalmist in Psalm 95 and seek to put this together and see what the Lord would have us to learn from it.

Psalm 95, if you have your Bible, I'll be reading these eleven verses if you'd like to follow along.

It says, Oh, come, let us sing to Yahweh.

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 Yahweh is a great God and a great king above all gods, and his hand are the depths of the earth, the heights of the mountains are also his.

The sea is his, because he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down.

Let us kneel before Yahweh 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, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day at Masah 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 was disgusted by 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.

Amen.

What a joyful song on this Labor Day.

Good psalm to consider, though, on Labor Day weekend, a song that speaks about rest.

Right?

God's rest.

God's intended rest.

And yet here is a group of people that did not enter God's rest.

I told my wife last night that I really need to have about three sermons on this song.

Don't worry, I'm not going to do that.

Someday I will.

Someday I will follow through on that.

This has an Old Testament context that is really quite broad.

So we could spend one Sunday simply looking at the Old Testament context, then moving to this Psalm, but it also has a New Testament context that could be an entirely separate time of study together.

We're going to try to put all of those together very briefly.

And it'll be up to you then to look at more depth about those contexts.

Someone has written that all churches have something to learn about worship from this particular psalm.

Those who prefer to have a more reverent liturgical style of worship have something to learn.

And those who are freer and more emotive in their style of worship have something to learn from this psalm as well as everyone at every place in between.

I think there's something to that.

Because there are varying styles of worship mentioned here.

There are styles of loud, exuberant kind of worship, and more reverent, quiet kind of worship.

But that, looking at this passage from that perspective, lends itself more to application.

And even then, application of this passage to styles of worship is not the application intended by the songwriter.

Instead, the application intended by the writer of this song is not about an organ or a band, not about a piano or a guitar, not about liturgy or free styles of worship, or even whether we should clap and raise our hands.

The application intended by God, the composer of this song, is a question.

Is your worship motivated by humble trust in the Lord Jesus Christ?

That's the application of this passage.

That's the primary point that God intends for you and for me to evaluate in the depths of our soul when we hear this song.

Now, there are three major divisions that I think our verse divisions in your Bible make a little unclear.

Remember that the verse markers there, the little numbers, even the big numbers, were put there by scribes.

They were not original to the songwriter himself.

So they're not inspired.

Sometimes they they maybe made some mistakes there.

But notice how this psalm is structured.

Verse 1, O come, let us sing.

Why?

Because Yahweh is a great God, right?

Verse 1, verse 3.

There's a command there to worship, followed by a reason.

We see the same thing in verses 6 and 7.

O come, why?

Because he is our God.

But then it shifts a little bit.

The end of verse 7.

Today, this day, this Sunday, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.

So there's two commands, followed by what we might call an expectation.

And we don't know who wrote this psalm.

It's an unknown author.

You'll notice at the top of the psalm, there's no tiny print there that you need a magnifying glass to read.

So we don't know if David wrote it.

Maybe he did.

Maybe somebody else wrote it.

It's left unattributed.

And it's in a series of connected psalms.

These connected psalms all have some similarity.

So you notice here in Psalm 95 that, oh come, let us sing, O come, let us worship.

Look down at Psalm 96.

O sing to Yahweh a new song.

Psalm 97, Yahweh reigns.

Well, that's connected back to Psalm 95 because there he's mentioned as a king.

Psalm 98, O sing.

Psalm 99, Yahweh reigns.

Psalm 100, make a joyful noise.

Know that Yahweh, he is God.

Psalm 101, I will sing.

So there's several psalms commanding, ordering, singing.

Then Psalm 101 is that personal commitment after several commands to actually do that.

Here's the follow-through of it.

So this psalm serves as a beginning description, a beginning picture of worship.

And that description, that picture is given to us in two commands and an expectation.

Let's look at those briefly.

First of all, the first command is a command to offer praise for the greatness of God.

Oh, come let us sing to Yahweh.

Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, make a joyful noise with songs of praise.

Why?

Because Yahweh is a great God.

That's all you need to know.

That's all you need to know.

But this almost gives us more.

Why is he a great God?

Why is he a great king?

Because in his hand are the depths of the earth, the heights of the mountains are also his, the sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

So he's going vertically first.

He's saying the highest of the mountains and the lowest point.

And then he's going horizontally, the sea is his, and all the dry land is his.

No matter where you go, it belongs to God.

But this all begins with parallel commands.

Oh, come, let us sing, let us make a joyful noise, let us come into his presence.

Those two words translated come are different words.

They're different words in the psalmist language.

The first is a command that says, you just need to move, all right?

Move.

Come into the sanctuary, come right now.

The second word has a little bit different sense that kind of indicates a volition, a desire is there to come into something.

So it's as though all of us were out in the four-year area, and Webb, as he would normally do, would be standing here to begin our worship time together, and he would be issuing a command.

Get on in here.

Right?

We're going to start.

There's a command to come.

But the second come is hearing that command and saying, Yeah, I want to go.

I want to go.

Our modern ears, though, can tend to hear this as an invitation by God.

I want you to come over to my house.

Come to my house to worship.

Which gives us the implication that, yeah, that's it's optional.

I could go or I could choose to not go.

But that's not here at all.

We need to strip that from our thinking because this is simply a command that God's people desire to obey.

And it's intended to be heard by those who have experienced the rock of their salvation.

Those who know that God is the rock of their salvation hear this command and are moved to awe and respond by coming to offer praise and thanksgiving.

Now, for the Jewish worshiper, that would have meant going to the tabernacle while they were wandering in the desert or going to the temple.

They were established in the land of Palestine, land of Canaan, God's promised land.

But the intention is to go together.

It's to go together.

Notice the intention of corporate worship.

Six times here in this psalm is the plural pronoun we.

We do this together.

The command is to come together to offer praise.

No, it's not sinful to praise God alone.

Sometimes that has to happen.

But God's intention has always been that his people come together to give praise to him.

And then it tells us how we are to come to him, what we're to do.

He says, first of all, that we are to come with thanksgiving in verse 2.

This is parallel over in Psalm 100.

Psalm 100 is very, very similar to Psalm 95.

Psalm 100, verse 4, enter his gates.

Psalms 100:4

How?

With thanksgiving.

Enter his gates.

This is how we come.

We obey the command to come by coming with thankful hearts.

And we know this as God's people, right?

Especially as a New Testament church.

We're familiar with this from Philippians chapter 4, verse 6.

Philippians 4:6

Don't be anxious about anything.

How do you combat anxiety?

With thanksgiving, with prayer.

Don't be anxious in anything, but in everything, whatever you're doing, with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Colossians chapter 2, verses 6 and 7.

Colossians 2:6

Therefore, as you have received Christ the Lord, so walk in him.

How do you walk in Christ?

By being rooted and built up in him, established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding in thanksgiving.

Is this us?

The serious question is, is this you?

Is it me?

It's so easy to wake up on a Sunday morning grumpy.

Right?

Irritated that, okay, it's Sunday.

It has to be the day that I get to go to church.

Or we start getting ready on Sunday morning and we're late.

And we're irritated and frustrated because we're late, and we get to the building, and the church starts to gather, and we hear the command to come, and our spirits are wrestling and tied up inside.

Is this us?

Do we do we come with thanksgiving?

Notice he says to come with songs of praise.

Literally in verse 2, with songs of shouting.

Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of shouting.

That is, we are so joyful that we want to shout.

This comes from all over the scriptures.

One passage is Isaiah 24, verse 14.

Isaiah 24:14

Another is Psalm 47, verse 2.

Psalms 47:2

Shout to God with songs of joy.

Psalm 66, 1.

Shout for joy to God all the earth.

This is singing with enthusiasm, singing with exuberance.

Not just loud that's in an obnoxious way, but with a strength of soul and purpose that doesn't care what the person next to me is thinking.

The common pattern for is for singing in scripture to be loud.

I know, I know, especially those of you who sit back there under the balcony, that's really hard to get the sound right.

It's just too loud in here.

I get that loudness.

Sometimes it hurts your ears and you can't hear, and you get frustrated about that.

You have a hard time aligning that complaint with scripture.

God's people, when they come together, are so enthusiastic about their God that they don't care about the volume.

It's loud, it's exuberant.

And I'm not just getting after those of you who complain about volume.

That's that's not what my intention there.

My intention is to say, what is our heart?

Is our heart so caught up, is our spirit so caught up with the greatness of our God that everything else is oblivious to us except making our voices known to our God?

What would it communicate about our God if we sang, coming into his presence with thanksgiving, with shouts and songs of joy, making a joyful noise.

What would it communicate about our God?

And this is not talking about screaming incoherently at all.

It's talking about projecting loud praise with heartfelt awe of our God.

Notice, let us sing to the Lord.

Literally, let us shout to the Lord.

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving.

Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of shouting.

Isaiah 24, 14, referring to his people singing for joy.

Over the majesty of Yahweh, they shout.

They're so enraptured with the majesty of God that they are moved to shout.

Jeremiah 31, verse 7 says, Sing aloud with gladness, raise shouts, proclaim, give praise, and say, Lord, save your people.

Jeremiah 31:7

Again, it's not just making noise.

It's the strength of singing that is connected with the joy expressed of who our God is.

It's about volume that's driven by awe.

See, the sing, the one singing, the worshiper, is one who is so moved to awe of God's greatness that you belt it out.

It says, make a joyful noise.

Yes, some of you make joyful noises.

That's okay.

As long as it comes from a heart that is moved to awe.

Remember, it's not about the instrument.

It's not just about the volume, it's about the heart being awed by our God.

The Latin Vulgate, the translation used for hundreds of years in the Middle Ages, translated this word joyful as jubilant.

I think it's a good word.

And a command tells us who we are to come and to worship, the one who is the rock of our salvation.

This is primarily from Deuteronomy 32.

If you want to look there, excuse me, you can.

Deuteronomy 32.

Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak.

Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb.

For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh, ascribing greatness to our God, the rock, his way is perfect, all his ways are justice, a God of faithfulness and without equity, just and upright is he.

It's a figurative reference to God pointing to him as this solid, immovable God who just fills us with awe.

Do you remember the first time you saw the Rocky Mountains?

Hopefully, not just the first time, but every time you just kind of sit there and think, wow, that is so neat.

It's a reference of God that's used 33 times in the Old Testament.

Among them, Psalm 62.

God alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress, that immovable surrounding that enables us to not be shaken.

Later on in the same chapter, it says, God, God is the place that I rest my soul.

He's my salvation.

And I can rest there because he's my glory, he's my mighty rock, he's my refuge.

There's this picture of a firm, unshakable, steady, solid, protective, immovable God.

And you know him and you have a relationship with him such that when you enter into the place where his people are, you are motivated to belt out his praises.

Why?

Because he's a great God.

He's a great king above all kings.

It's not simply speaking about a spot that he holds that's higher in space than others.

It's talking about the magnitude of his greatness.

This God, Yahweh, is the king.

Not just any king, but a great king.

Not simply a great king, but one who is greater than anything else that might be called a God.

He's greater than angels, holy and evil.

He is greater than any human ruler, righteous or sinful.

How great is this God?

He encompasses everything.

In his hand are the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountain.

The highest point on this ball of dirt is Mount Everest at twenty nine thousand thirty-two feet above sea level.

Now we're at about just under a thousand feet in elevation here, I think.

So that's nearly five and a half miles taller than we are.

That's the highest point on earth.

Actually, that's that's not exactly true.

Um since since the uh professor is here in the front row, probably should clarify that Mount Chimborazzo in Ecuador is the highest point from the center of the earth.

Because the earth has a bulge.

Isn't exactly circular, isn't exactly round, and it sits on the bulge, and so it is 1.3 miles further from the center of the earth than Mount Everest is.

The lowest level is the Dead Sea at 1,400 feet below sea level, so 2,000 feet lower than we are.

The lowest point is Challenger Point in the Mariana Trench, 36,201 feet below sea level.

That's six and three-quarters miles lower than we are.

And it says that your God is so great that he holds these things in his hands.

The highest point and the lowest point are in his hands.

Not just that, but the sea is his.

He made it.

His hands formed.

That's craftsmanship.

It's taking dirt and molding it, and God did that with his hands.

How great, how big is your God.

He's so big that Isaiah writes in Isaiah 40, who has measured the waters and the hollow of his hand?

Whenever I read that, I imagine my friend Dan went backpacking with my dad and I as a kid.

Way up in the Rocky Mountains, the outlet of a lake, an outlet that's about 15 feet across, and water just pouring out of this lake, and we always take ice cream buckets, empty ice cream buckets, to be our wash basins.

My friend Dan there with his electronic calculator 30 years ago on his on his watch, you know, his watch calculator, trying to calculate how fast the bucket filled up.

So he could calculate how many gallons per minute are coming out of the lake.

That's my friend Dan.

He couldn't figure it out.

And that's just one lake.

And this is talking about all the waters on the earth are in the hollow of your God's hand.

Who has marked off the heavens with a tape measure?

It's kind of hard since they're telling us it keeps expanding.

In other words, the answer is nobody.

But God.

Who has weighed the mountains in a scale and the hills in a balance?

Turn over to Psalm 104.

Psalm 104.

Verse 5.

He set the earth on its foundations so that it should never be moved.

You covered it with the deep, that is with the waters, as with a garment, so that they stood above the mountains.

That's the Noahic flood.

At your rebuke they fled.

At the sound of your thunder, they took flight.

The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.

You set a boundary that they might not pass, that they might not ever again cover the earth.

This is the greatness of your God that you have come to worship.

Of course, there are those who resist that truth.

There are those who don't want to hear that God is that great, that he is that majestic.

And God says to them in Psalm 139, even if you were to take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there is God's hand.

Even there.

Even there.

God is present in the darkness, God is present in the light.

God forms us in our inward being.

Perhaps more descriptive is Amos 9, 2, or some might say, Oh, God, God, I know where to go to get away from you.

Happens when I die.

God says, Yeah, even if you dig into Sheol, that's the realm of the dead.

Hebrew way of thinking.

Even when you die, you can't get away from me.

I'm there.

This is your God.

So the psalmist commands God's people to come together.

Come, let us sing, let us go in, let us make joyful noise, jubilant praise, because there is no one greater.

Your worship begins with your understanding of your greatness of your God.

But there's a second command.

That is to offer praise for God's grace.

Verse 6, O come.

Let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before Yahweh, our Maker.

For He is our God.

We're the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand.

So there's this, again, progressive repetition.

Oh, come, let us come.

Well, what are we coming to do?

To worship, to bow down, and to kneel.

This is a typical Hebrew pattern of thinking and writing, using various words that essentially mean the same thing to express an action.

And these three verbs here of action, worship, bow down, and kneel, all have the same general sense of coming to get down on your knees, to make yourself small, as if coming to present yourself before royalty.

So there's this sense of reverence, of respect, of awe, of honor, of humility, of submission, trust.

These are all terms that show a response to a grand, glorious sovereign, to a ruler, to one who is greater.

That's why it follows that first section of helping us understand how great is your God.

Now that you know how great he is, come into his presence, and as you come into his presence, he gets bigger and you get smaller.

That's worship.

When you have that sense of he is so great and I am so small.

But notice the connection to grace in verse 7.

This God, our Maker God, is our God.

Now, first in verse 1, we saw that He is the rock of our salvation.

The one who is the rock of our salvation is our God.

This is not a distant God who is far off and uninvolved.

This is a great God who is a personal shepherd.

He has sheep, he has pasture, he has sheep that belong to him, the sheep of his hand.

It's a term of caring, of enduring tenderness.

And note the direction.

The emphasis is not on God being my shepherd.

That's Psalm 23, right?

Psalm 23 is the perspective of the sheep.

Psalm 95 is the perspective of the shepherd.

It's not telling us, look at what he does for you.

It's telling us, look at who he is.

He is our shepherd.

He is our shepherd.

We belong to him.

The implication, of course, is that there are other pastures.

There are other places where the grass may look greener.

There are other sheep who are not his.

There are other sheep who are not in his pasture.

But we are.

So the psalmist expresses praise and commands Israel to give praise to God for choosing them, saying, You are my sheep.

I'm putting you in my pasture.

And of course, that points forward to Jesus being our shepherd, doesn't it?

If you're familiar with the Gospel of John, you know that John chapter 10 is the chapter about the good shepherd, the chapter that tells us that Jesus' own sheep hear his voice, that he calls out to them.

John 10 · chapter mention

He calls out to us, not just in general, hey sheep, come and follow me.

No, he calls us by name.

He knows us and he leads us out.

Peter describes the overall picture in 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

He says, For you were straying like sheep, but you have now returned, you become back to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

The reason to come and to worship and to bow down is because the great shepherd has graciously called us to be his sheep, if indeed you've heard his voice calling you.

So don't miss the intention of this psalm.

He commands us to take note of God's greatness, of his magnificence, of his power, and to be moved to awe by it.

It commands us to be moved by the expression of that gracious greatness, such that this great and awesome God is my God, is my shepherd, and has called me to his pasture, to be his sheep.

Knowing and understanding and experiencing the greatness and the grace of the mighty God is intended to move us, to push us, to empower us to loud praise, to songs of joy and exuberation and jubilation.

So we come then to the end of verse seven, to this expectation to hear God's word and to obey.

Today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as at Meribah.

What a downer to the loud praise.

What?

We've been jubilant about our God.

Now he's saying, straighten up, get on with it, get be obedient.

What's going on here?

How do we make sense of this?

Well, it makes sense if we put the big picture together.

Because these these instances have a very real historical reference, especially to the people of Israel.

It goes back to Exodus chapter 17 and Numbers chapter 20.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention Numbers 20 · chapter mention

And those are important, that mention that importance here in a minute.

Exodus chapter 17 is the Meribah reference.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

That's where Israel had come out of Egypt.

Remember God's powerful deliverance of his people out of Egypt.

He led them across the Red Sea.

And what did they immediately do?

Complain.

God, that's great and all, but we're thirsty.

What'd you bring us out here for?

To make us die of thirst?

They complain.

So they tested God, Meribah.

They quarreled with Moses and with God.

They disputed with him because there's no water.

They immediately come out of Egypt and boom, they complain.

Numbers 20 is the Masa incident.

Masa means testing.

Comes from Deuteronomy 6.16, you shall not put Yahweh your God to the test as you tested him at the place of testing.

The important thing to notice here is that the Numbers 20 incident is at the end of 40 years of wandering.

So the psalmist is purposely putting these two instances together to encompass the 40 years of wandering in the desert.

And he's saying, Listen, you are God's sheep.

And all you ended up doing was complaining.

You're God's sheep, and all you ended up doing was testing him.

And debating what words he chose.

Debating what he meant.

Hold your finger here at Psalm 95 and turn back to Psalm 78.

We get a clear picture of this.

Psalm 78.

Verse 18.

Well, let's start in verse 17.

So previous to this, it references God splitting rocks in the wilderness to give them water.

That's from the deep.

He made streams come out of the water.

Verse 17 of Psalm 78, yet they sinned still more against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert.

They tested God in their hearts by demanding the food they craved.

They spoke against God, saying, Can God spread a table in the wilderness?

He struck the walk rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed.

Look down in verse 41 of the same chapter.

They tested God again and again, and they provoked the Holy One of Israel, because they did not remember his power or the day he redeemed them.

Verse 56, yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God and did not keep his testimonies, but turned away and acted treacherously like their fathers.

They provoked God to anger.

And so we read in Psalm 95, verse 9, don't harden your hearts, as when your fathers put me to the test.

Psalms 95:9

When they put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

This is reminiscent of the Pharisees and the scribes that we've been looking at in the Gospel of Matthew, who said to Jesus, Yeah, healing a blind man is nice and all, but what else can you do?

You make a lame man walk, what else can you do?

Jesus, you you you take somebody who can't hear and can't talk, and you instantly make him able to hear and talk.

What else can you do?

Demanding more proofs.

And God, that's good and all, but it's not good enough.

So the psalmist here is taking people back in history and saying, look at everything that God did in your life.

Look at everything God did in your history.

Look at everything God did.

And don't do what they did.

Numbers 14, 22 says that they saw God's miracles on behalf of those people.

And so God decided that none of those who had seen his glory and had seen his power that he did in Egypt and in the wilderness and put him to the test would enter God's rest.

You remember when Israel went through that 40 years of wandering in the desert and they they finally got to go in.

There were only two guys that got to go in that had been wandering for 40 years.

Joshua and Caleb.

Why Joshua and Caleb?

Well, it's because 40 years earlier they'd gotten to that same point and they were sent along with 10 other spies into the land.

And those 12 spies came back and said, Yeah, hey, you know what?

It's a great place to live.

It's a wonderful place to inherit by God's providence and power.

And ten of them said, But yeah, you know what?

They have big walled cities and there are giants there.

Sorry, can't do it.

Joshua and Caleb said, No, we believe God.

There are giants there, yes, but God is bigger.

So God said, Those other ten, you're not gonna go in.

And everybody who agreed with him, you're not gonna go in.

Only two would receive God's rest.

They received God's power.

They understood his greatness, they heard God's word, but they didn't follow through.

This isn't about conforming to some kind of law code.

Verse 10 tells us that they really misunderstood their God.

They said, God says, they are a people who go astray in their heart, they have not known my ways.

That's interesting.

40 years of following Moses through the desert, 40 years of seeing God supply their needs day in and day out, 40 years of their sandals not wearing out.

My shoes fall apart all the time.

God made their sandals last for 40 years.

They didn't need new clothes.

40 years of that.

It was because they did not truly know their God.

So that helps us understand at the end of verse 7 when God says today, if you hear his voice, that's a kind of hearing that has to be done with humility, with soft, receptive hearts.

It's a hearing that must be received with a recognition of what God has done for you.

It's a hearing that has to be done with faith.

It's a hearing that has to be done with reverence.

The result is that those who didn't hear that way, God loathed.

I didn't read the word loathed, I read the word disgusted.

Particular translator has suggested that might be a better word to translate with in our in our present English.

God was disgusted with them.

Refers to a deep emotional reaction, this repulsion.

Seems like an odd way to end a song about worship, doesn't it?

Psalmist had a reason, though.

We don't know exactly who heard this song sung by the worship choir for the very first time.

Was it the people in the desert with Moses?

Some think that this was written and composed to be sung in front of the tabernacle as people were gathering together for worship at the tabernacle out in the desert.

Maybe it was written for the first time.

To be sung at David's bringing the tabernacle into Jerusalem.

Maybe it was written by Solomon and sung for the first time at the grand and glorious gold-covered temple as it sparkled in the sunlight on a Sabbath morning, reflecting the glory of God's presence on the inside.

We don't know.

We don't have those details.

But at the very least, whoever the first people hearing this sung by the choir were, they needed a warning.

They needed a warning about being in danger of missing out on God's ultimate rest.

They needed a warning of being people who came to worship every single opportunity, but not really knowing their God.

See, worship is first and foremost knowing the greatness and the grace of an incomparable God.

But that cannot happen without first hearing his word and becoming obedient to it.

And you can't do that if there first isn't a function of faith that takes place.

What does the New Testament tell us?

Faith comes by hearing.

You hear what God says.

And there's a response of faith that God gives.

And that faithful hearing goes hand in hand to motivate a proper response.

Do not harden your hearts.

That is when God speaks, do not tune him out.

Hear him.

Now that will result in some kind of obedience.

That will be an outward kind of ritual if you do not know Christ by faith.

It will be a ritual that does not lead to God's promised rest.

See, that generation of people who listened to Moses that first Passover ended up not reaching the promised land, not reaching that promised rest, because they hardened their hearts and would not listen to God.

There was no faith to enable them to truly hear.

And because there was no faith, there was no spirit-powered enablement to follow that through.

And so the psalmist says through the choir today, today, if you have the faith to hear his words, don't harden your heart.

You know that hearing is a primary act of worship.

It's part of why when we come together on Sunday mornings, oftentimes you'll hear somebody say, let's worship through prayer together, or let's worship through the preaching of God's word.

Hearing is an act of worship.

It's an act of worship that leads to obedience.

But it's clear, though, that simply hearing is not sufficient.

Israel heard and Israel died without rest.

Because those who died didn't trust.

They were without faith in God as the rock of their salvation.

My time is up, but I can't finish.

Because we have to go to the New Testament.

Go to Hebrews chapter 3 with me quickly.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

Hebrews chapter 3.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

Words matter.

In the interpretation of Scripture, even the details of words will matter.

There's an argument in the book of Galatians that hangs on whether or not a single word is singular or plural.

Here, in Hebrews chapter 3, the writer to the book of Hebrews places his argument on the force of a word.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

Hebrews chapter 3, verse 7, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, that word says is in the present tense, and the form of the word indicates that he's saying it right then and there.

Hebrews 3:7

As the writer to the Hebrews is writing it, it's as though the Holy Spirit is speaking in that moment.

And it's intended to say to the church, whenever the church reads this, the Holy Spirit is speaking now through his word.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, hey, wait a minute.

That sounds like Psalm 95.

It's because it is.

The writer of the Hebrews is bringing it into the New Testament church.

And he's saying, listen, the psalmist, the psalmist wrote that for particular people at a particular time.

But the Holy Spirit is the true author, and the Holy Spirit intends that to be heard today.

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.

Therefore I was provoked with that generation and said, They always go astray in their hearts, they have not known my ways, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to rebel against the living God.

But instead exhort one another every day, as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

For we have come to share in Christ.

If indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end, as it said, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

As in the rebellion, for who were those who heard and yet rebelled?

Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?

And with whom was he provoked for forty years?

Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?

So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

The writer to the Hebrews interprets Psalm 95 for us.

He says, There were some who were gathering in the congregation of God's people who are not really God's sheep.

They were there hearing words said, hearing the word of God proclaimed.

They were there, adding their voices to the throngs.

But the writer of the Hebrews says they didn't really believe.

They didn't really believe.

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us, the congregation of God's people, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

Verse 8 of chapter 4, for if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.

So then 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 so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Friends, the exhortation of Psalm 95 must be heard by us, by the 21st century church.

Because the warning is real.

The warning is real.

It is possible for us to be like those people in the nation of Israel who saw God's power in Egypt, who experienced his provision in the desert, and yet still rebelled against him because they did not believe.

Now the writer, the Hebrews, puts this in the context of gathered worship, just like Psalm 95 does.

Same kind of context, same meaning, same implications.

He's saying, listen, gathered worship is an opportunity to use our voices.

And as we use our voices together, we exhort one another to hear God's word and to obey and to avoid sin.

Gathered worship reminds us of God's promised rest.

That God has promises yet unfulfilled, that we will get to participate in.

For Israel, it was Canaan and an eternity then with God.

For us it is heaven and an eternity with Christ Himself.

That's why he says in chapter 4, verse 9, there remains a Sabbath rest for God's people.

And worship together reminds us that we must strive to enter God's rest.

But that cannot mean that we work our way to heaven, because he says in chapter 4, everybody who comes to Christ has rested from his own works.

Then how do we do it?

You rest in Christ's works.

Because Jesus did it.

Jesus did what you could not do.

It reminds us to begin with faith, chapter 4, verse 2, for good news, salvation, the gospel came to us just as to them.

But the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith.

Get this?

With those who listened.

So the hearing today, if you hear his voice in Psalm 95 and in Hebrews 3 and 4, starts with faith that comes by hearing.

That's the beginning of worship.

He reminds us to strive to listen, and as we listen, God's Spirit empowers us to obey so that we do not rebel against God and so prove that He's not our shepherd, and we don't belong to Him.

But it all is centered on hearing God speak.

Centered on hearing God speak.

Look at what the writer of the Hebrews ends this section with.

Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12.

Hebrews 4:12

Strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience, for because the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow and of discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

No creature is hidden from his sight.

Why?

Because he owns everything.

From the highest high to the lowest low, all the seas, all the land.

He formed it all.

You can't get away.

But all of us are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give.

An account, the author, ends this section by reminding us of the power and the effectiveness of hearing the word of God, just as Psalm 95 ended with a reminder to listen to God.

We cannot properly appreciate and praise God's greatness and his grace if we do not listen and hear with faith and obey.

If you hear with faith, believing, if you hear the word of God, that Christ came to rescue sinners like you and like me.

And if that word draws a response in you that says, yes, I want that rock for my salvation, you will change.

Notice that I didn't say must.

You will.

Not you must, because it is not your power that makes you change.

It's God who is at work in you.

Both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

God is the one who begins to change you.

See, the message of Psalm 95 is the same today as when it was written 3,000, 3,500 years ago.

God's people must hear his word.

They must trust in him through faith.

So that we can know him, so that we can know his greatness, his grandness, his glory.

And when we know that through faith, through eyes of faith, we are motivated, we are driven to respond with jubilant praise and believing obedience.

See, those three verbs of kneeling in Psalm 95, verse 6 are pictures of our own souls making themselves smaller and smaller and smaller as we get closer and closer and closer to the great grand glory of our God.

Psalms 95:6

It's those who make themselves small before him by faith in his power to save, who then come into his presence with jubilant praise and ultimately into his very presence with thanksgiving, receiving the promised rest.

But there's always a warning, isn't there?

Israel stubbornly refused to see God's hand of provision and care for them.

Year after year, day after day, moment after moment.

But this isn't talking to us about food and water.

It's not talking to us about clothes wearing out.

It teaches us about God's greatest provision for us, about the gift of living water, about the bread of life through the shepherd of your soul, the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's about hearing his word and turning to him in praise for his greatness and his grace, and not stubbornly turning our hearts and our minds and our lives in another direction.

Yes, Psalm 95, the ending is blunt.

It appears to be about worshiping the great God who is our creator and king, but the ending surprises us, as it should.

Because a significant number of those who celebrated God's rescuing them from Egypt as they're loaded down with the goods and the provisions of Egypt, those who shouted praises at the top of their lungs had no inward change of heart through faith in the redeeming God.

And of all those who left Egypt and saw God's powerful deliverance again and again of all those people, only Joshua and Caleb received the promised rest.

And the warning from Hebrews is that the same can be true of the church.

There are many paths of participation and church activities that include celebrating the truth of what God has done, celebrating his power and his greatness.

But that doesn't include necessarily a heart change.

That comes through through faith in the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ.

We must humbly look at the basis for our worship.

Why did you come today?

Did it begin because of Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, who laid down his life for you?

Or did it begin because of trust in him alone, driven by his enabling grace?

If it did, then you ought to be jubilant.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, forgive us of our sin.

So often we come to you failing to see you, to see you as you truly are in your greatness and your grace.

Thank you for this reminder.

Give life to our souls.

Whether that be for the first time by granting someone the faith to see you truly as you are and to trust in you, or through a renewing grace today, to be set back on a right path with you.

Lord, we need your grace, we need your mercy, we need your enabling power, and by that to walk as your sheep.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.