Joyful Praise: Embracing Worship with Thanksgiving - Psalm 95:1-7

Good morning, and welcome to the preaching ministry of Dillingham Moravian Church.

My name is Pastor Simon, and we are grateful to God that you can worship Him

together with us as we study the Word of God.

One Saturday, I was in the kitchen of our house cleaning and cooking.

While I was doing my tasks, my two little boys were in the kitchen drawing and

playing. At the same time, I was loudly playing some fast Christian music with

a good beat to keep me motivated.

During a particular good Bible song, I turned around to see Jonathan moving

to the beat and singing the lyrics of the song, while Paul was dancing and spinning

and singing with joyful abandon.

In the Bible, we are commanded and exampled to joyfully sing to the Lord with

thanksgiving as part of our worship.

In Scripture, the directive to sing joyful praises unto the Lord is by far the

most numerous of God's commands to His people. Let us pray.

Oh, Heavenly Father, we come before You with gladness, with thankfulness.

You are our God, our Lord, and our Savior.

Thank You for Your Word that teaches us and guides us.

May you do so today. And may you bear fruit through your word in us this morning.

In your precious son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

Turn with me today to Psalm 95, verse 1 through 7. Psalm 95, verse 1 through 7.

Psalms 95:1–7 Psalms 95:1–7

O 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.

O 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, the sheep of His hand.

As we studied these verses this morning, there are three major truths that I

believe God wishes us to see.

The first truth we can learn in Psalm 95 is that as disciples of Christ,

we are called to make a joyful noise unto the Lord with thanksgiving.

A writer for World Help, the relief agency that works with the persecuted church.

This writer, when she was worshiping in a church in a persecuted country,

wrote about her experiencing the joy and thanksgiving that Christ believers had there.

Voices raised in song, hands clapping, the drum beating.

I was kneeling on the ground, worshiping with my brothers and sisters in Christ

in a language I barely knew.

I was living in a country where Christianity wasn't always welcome,

but these men and women were singing without a care in the world.

The joy of the Lord had transformed their lives. I sang along,

fumbling through unfamiliar words, grateful to simply be in this place.

And I heard it, the sound of angry voices shouting and rocks hitting the nearby metal gate.

The hatred rang out, contrasting sharply with the happy music inside the compound.

This terror, I felt, was just a small part of what persecuted Christians face every day.

And yet they rarely pray that their persecution will end.

They sometimes even view their trials as a blessing.

Although this illustration may be an unusual one.

Here in America, as we celebrate Thanksgiving.

I share this account with you because Christians in the persecuted regions of

the world do not express as much thankfulness for their material blessings,

but they are so grateful for God's saving presence and His purpose in their

lives and for the honor to be and to sacrifice their time, their material,

things that they have, even their lives, if need be, for their most treasured King, Jesus Christ.

In the Bible, most of the commands and examples to be joyful and thankful unto

the Lord are given in the context of extreme persecution and trial.

The psalmist joyfully prayed in Psalm 95, verse 1 through 2.

Psalms 95:1–2

O 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.

There are two principles that I want you to see in verses 1 through 2.

The first principle is that God's people are to joyfully sing to the Lord,

who is the rock of our salvation.

According to John MacArthur, the phrase rock of our salvation was a metaphor

for God and was especially appropriate in this psalm, which refers to the water

that came from the rock in the wilderness.

Let's look at Exodus chapter 17, verse 1 through 7, where Moses chronicled.

Exodus 17:1–7

All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of

sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim.

But there was no water for the people to drink.

Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water to drink.

And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me?

Why do you test the Lord? But the people thirsted there for water,

and the people grumbled against Moses and said, Why did you bring us up out

of Egypt to kill us, and our children and our livestock with thirst?

So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with this people?

They're almost ready to stone me.

And the Lord said to Moses, Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel.

Take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.

Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike

the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.

And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel, and he called the name

of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of

Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying,

Is the Lord among us or not?

The Lord had just rescued Israel from the power of the Egyptians by drowning

the entire Egyptian army in the Red Sea.

Then the Lord, through Moses, led Israel through the desert wilderness of Sin

or Sinai, where God provided water for them and gave them manna and quail to eat.

And this is where we come to Exodus chapter 17, verse 1.

Exodus 17:1

I want you to notice that when the people were thirsty, And even though they

have rebelled against God and very nearly killed Moses, God caused water to

come out of the rock and save their lives.

The author of Psalm 95 used the phrase, Rock of our salvation to remind the

people of God to sing joyfully and be joyful as a result of God's salvation.

Not only did God cause water to come from a rock and physically deliver his

people, but that He, the Lord God, is the rock from which our salvation flows.

It is God that we are to praise joyfully for, because it is from Him that we have salvation.

True, joyful worship is focused not just on salvation and what we have been

delivered from, or on our blessings, but on the very character and being of God.

The second principle that I want to bring to your attention is from Psalm 95,

Psalms 95:2

verse 2. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving.

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

This verse is one of the scripture's many prayers and commands to worship God

with other believers and to do so with joyful praise to the Lord God.

However, I wanted you to see that the psalmist's prayer commanded believers

to not only joyfully praise God for his salvation and for who he is as Yahweh,

the Most High God, But also,

they were instructed to enter into the presence of God to do it.

The word that the psalmist used for come into his presence meant to become or

be in front of God as worshipers.

For the Jews, where was the presence of God? In only one place on earth,

the tabernacle or later on in the temple of Jerusalem.

And thus the psalmist was praying that the people of God had to meet together

at the tabernacle or the temple in the presence of the Lord to worship God joyfully together.

This was not an instruction for believers to worship privately by themselves.

Though elsewhere in the Bible, there are commands to pray privately.

However, in this psalm, the instruction was for corporate worship.

And here's why I say this. The word that the psalmist used for Thanksgiving

referred to Thanksgiving in songs of liturgical worship.

Meaning that as believers, God calls us to worship God most high with thankful

songs of praise to God in the corporate worship service.

Now in Christ Jesus, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwells within us by

the Spirit's power as we are part of Christ's church.

We are in His presence all the time.

Yet we need to understand that God dwelling within us as individual Christians

does not erase all the commands and examples in God's word to joyfully and thankfully

worship God in corporate worship as part of Christ's large worship.

Or a universal church. It is before God in His presence that we are to be thankful.

It is God that we are to sing songs of joyful praise and thanksgiving about in two.

I want you to see the very character of worship in these two verses.

Worship is joyfulness and thankfulness in God's presence. Let me say that again.

Worship is joyfulness and thankfulness in God's presence.

The psalmist in Psalm 95 was calling for God's people to worship God joyfully

and thankfully in the presence of God.

So what can we learn from verses 1 through 2?

As Christ's disciples, the first truth we can learn is that as God's people,

we are to joyfully sing thankful praise to God, the rock of our salvation, in His presence.

Even though as individual Christians, God dwells in us, God's presence is with

us only as we are part of Christ's church, which is the true temple of God on earth.

Let me show you what the Apostle Paul taught on this in Ephesians 2, verse 19-22.

Ephesians 2:19–22

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens

with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation

of the apostles and prophets.

Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. Here's what I want you to see.

Verse 21, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

According to Ephesians chapter 2, each of us as believers together build the

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

temple of God on earth in which God dwells. and God's temple continues to grow

as more and more saints and members of God's household are added.

This is so important because during the COVID lockdowns, there was such a push

for online church, where Christians watch the church services online.

And I'm not totally against church services online. I use it as well.

But millions of Christians are still not fellowshipping with the local expression of God's church.

Exceptions to this are those who are genuinely sick, who cannot leave their houses.

However, with our culture's individualism, many Christians just do not want to go back to church.

And yet God still lives in His temple.

It's just not in one building anymore.

We, as Christians, are God's temple as we trust Christ and obey God's word together.

And one of the big ways that we, you and I, can obey God's word is to come together

and joyfully sing our thankful praise to God, who is the rock of our salvation.

So far we have learned that the psalmist called for believers to come together

in the presence of God to sing joyful and thankful praise to the Lord.

The question is, why do we need to worship God with songs of joyful praise and thanksgiving?

We sing our worship to God with joy and thanksgiving because we are designed to.

The psalmist continues to pray

that the believers are to worship the only true Lord, God our Creator.

The psalmist in Psalm 95, verse 3 through 6 wrote, For the Lord is a great God

Psalms 95:3–6

and a great King above all gods, and whose hands are the depths of the earth.

The peaks of the mountains are His also.

The sea is His, for it is He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land.

Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord God, our Maker.

The psalmist went on by praying that we come before God's presence with joyful

singing and thanks, because the Lord is the great God and a great King above all gods.

This phrase was a poetic way of denying the existence of other gods,

which existed only as statues, not persons.

The word the psalmist used for Lord is Yahweh, who is I am that I am,

the life giver, the creator, the one who is the absolute unchangeable one,

the ever existing and ever living who is completely self-consistent and who

is the only God of redemption.

We combine this understanding of all that Yahweh means and we fully can't understand

the word Yahweh and who Yahweh is just in these words.

But we combine it with God or El, which refers to the strong and mighty one

who is the God above all gods. We realize that Yahweh is the only existing gods.

There are no other gods besides him.

He is the creator. He is the life giver who is the absolute master of the universe,

and he's always consistent, always faithful!!

There is no one else that is.

And there is no redemption or salvation from anywhere else other than Yahweh.

This is why the Psalmist's prayer command was for believers to worship God with

thanksgiving and with joy.

Not only did the psalmist pray that Yahweh is the only true God of the universe,

from which all redemption comes from, but also that the Lord is our God, and we are His flock.

From a real story of a modern shepherd in Montana, this person wrote,

It was 2.38 a.m., only 18 degrees outside.

I was sleeping soundly in my warm, comfortable bed when I heard a deep growl

and loud barking in our yard.

Two large dogs were attacking our lambs and a three-month-old horse.

The nightmare scenario of every shepherd enfolded in front of my eyes. What could I do?

By the time I dressed and ran outside, the battle for survival had begun.

As a shepherd, I used the power at my disposal to dispatch one of the attacking

dogs and ran the other dog off.

This time, the shepherd won, and the animals were safe for another day of life.

But what about next time? Would I always be there for my little flock of sheep?

I'm sharing this true account with you because human shepherds cannot always

watch over their sheep and protect against every threat all the time.

A human shepherd cannot give his sheep rest all the time.

The Lord God Almighty, who personally is his people's all-powerful shepherd,

can give his people rest in him and the protection that we truly need.

Verse 7 reads, For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.

I want you to notice the psalmist started off this verse by using the same names for God as before.

Yahweh and El, the absolute master and faithful, only God of the universe who

has no physical reason to care for Israel.

You got to remember that the psalmist says that God is so large,

he is so colossal that he can hold the entire universe between his thumb and its index finger.

There is no reason for him to care for Israel. There's no reason for him to care for us.

And yet this impossibly huge and mighty creator and sustainer of the cosmos

is personally connected to his people and calls them his flock.

The psalmist wrote that we are his people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.

The flock or people belong to Yahweh in a corporate relationship with God.

But there's also a deeply personal relationship between God and His flock,

as God personally guides His flock with His hands.

He knows every single one of them.

Turn with me, please, to Psalm 23, verse 1 through 6.

Psalms 23 · chapter mention

Psalm 23, verse 1 through 6. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Psalms 23 · chapter mention

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul. He guides me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You have anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows.

Surely, goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. However, this psalm demonstrated

the great care that Yahweh takes with his people.

But I want you to see that this psalm is in the context of great tribulation,

of trial that David was going through.

And that by Yahweh's hand, his flock shall not want for their needs.

By his hand, Yahweh leads his flock to places of rest and quenches their spiritual

thirst for him, and which in turn restores their soul.

By Yahweh El's hand, he leads his people in paths of righteousness for Yahweh's name's sake.

Even though the flock of God may walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

we will not fear because he is with us.

And by Yahweh's hand, his rod and staff, they comfort us.

By his hand, he prepares a table for his flock and the enemies of God have to watch.

By Yahweh's hand, His people are welcomed with overflowing measure as Yahweh

anoints our head with oil.

By His hand, goodness and mercy will follow His people all their days,

and they will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

How do we apply this to us as Christians? The time we live in today can be characterized

by uncertainty and craziness.

With cancer, flus, and other illnesses going around, the conflict between Ukraine

and Russia, the conflict between Israel, Iran, and Palestine,

and now China has blockaded Taiwan again.

With the political uncertainties in our own country during our recent election,

and so many weather disasters that hit the U.S., Additionally,

suicides, mental illness, and drug addictions continue to skyrocket.

It may seem like we ourselves are wandering through the Sinai Desert around and around.

However, if you and I have responded to the grace of God in the death and resurrection

of Christ Jesus and have surrendered our lives to the Lordship of Christ,

the truth is that you and I now belong to Israel, His flock.

The promises of Psalm 95 and Psalm 23 are ours.

The Lord is our God. And we, as part of God's church, part of God's people, we are his flock.

And as the flock of God, we are so blessed, not just for the things God does

for us, not just for what he gives us, but rather for the loving,

faithful, and unchangeable character of our absolutely awesome God who is our shepherd.

What has God been teaching us today? The first truth that God has been teaching

us is that part of true worship is joyfully and thankfully singing our praises

to God as we worship God together as part of God's temple, the church.

The second truth that God has revealed to us is that as Christians we are to

joyfully sing our thankful praises to God because God is Yahweh our Creator,

the only true God of the universe from which all redemption comes from.

And lastly, we are to be thankful and joyful in God's presence because Yahweh

is our shepherd and we are his flock.

However, there is a warning in Psalm 95.

We are not to harden our hearts as Israel did in the desert of Meribah and Massah.

Israel was warned that if they cut off their hearts towards God and rebel against

him, they would not enter the promised land.

In Hebrews, we are warned not to reject God's salvation because if we do reject

him, we will not enter God's eternal rest in heaven for us.

Yet I wanna encourage us that if we are part of Christ's church,

as we live truly thankful and joyful lives in Yahweh's presence,

we are living lives of worship.

The Lord is our creator and our shepherd who personally guides us and cares

for us and redeems us in Jesus Christ as his flock.

And one day, if you and I have truly surrendered to Christ by faith,

and we are living in that faith, trusting him, we will enter into our Lord's

shepherd's rest for all eternity.

And that is worth thanking and joyfully praising God for, isn't it?

Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful for the privilege and honor it is to

come before you, to be able to enter into your presence boldly.

And that's all because of your Son, for his blood sacrifice on our behalf.

He was slaughtered so that we didn't have to be slaughtered,

that he took our place so that we didn't have to pay that blood debt that we

owed to you and couldn't pay. Thank you, Father.

Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for your son's sacrifice.

And thank you for your Holy Spirit teaching us today from your word.

You are so good. And Lord, as we continue our lives, for those who are listening,

for myself, for all believers, Lord, may we cling to you.

May you be our treasured God that we worship with thankfulness and praise always

as we walk obediently and trustly or entrusting in your word and in you.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

I'll leave you with this blessing from Psalm 67, verse 1 through 2.

Psalms 67:1–2

May God be gracious to us and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us,

that your way be known on the earth, your salvation amongst all the nations.

Amen. Have a wonderful Sunday. May the Lord bless you.