“Praise Songs” – Psalm 95

Thanksgiving is just around the corner.  How many of you have nothing for which to be thankful?  How many of you have lots of things for which to be thankful?  How many of you just wish Thanksgiving was over and done so we could get on with Christmas because you need some more stuff?  I don’t know about you but I don’t need any more stuff and I love the Thanksgiving holiday.  And if you can’t think of anything for which to be thankful, you and I seriously need to talk! I’m thankful for this time and this place.  I’m thankful for this group of people who consistently prove themselves to be loving and generous even to people who are not members here or to people who can’t repay you.  I’m thankful for the freedom we have to meet and the health we all have that allows us to be here.  I’m thankful for my family.  I watched a Billy Graham special on TV the other night and afterward heard several people talk about his integrity and how he never had any kind of sexual or financial scandal and I was reminded of my dad.

Pop rarely had stadiums full of people to preach to but he was always faithful to do and say what God wanted him to do and say and never a hint of anything inappropriate.  And he did that for something like 50 years!  That’s pretty incredible to me.  And I say all that just to say how thankful I am for him and my family for modeling how a Christian is supposed to act.  And while very few of them are perfect, I am very thankful for them.  😊 I’m thankful for my dogs. I’m thankful for my house and a reliable car; for my health, for friends, for history, for all kinds of blessings that God has given me.  And did you catch that last one?  Did you hear me say I was thankful for history?  Is anybody else here thankful for history?  Do we have any history teachers here today?  I figure they are pretty thankful for history but maybe for reasons that differ from mine.

I haven’t always been thankful for history.  I remember history class in school, trying to memorize all those dates and places and wars and generals.  I understand that those who don't study the past will repeat its errors.  But I’m pretty sure that those who do study it will find other ways to mess up.  But today I’m thankful for history because it proves God’s goodness, His mercy, His forgiveness, love, generosity and power.  That’s why we have this little jar of pebbles up here.  This is a reminder of our history that shows God’s provision and protection over this church when we are obedient.  If you don’t know what it is, I would love to tell you about it later. And while there are blessings for obedience, history also reminds us of what happens when we rebel against all-powerful God.  It is quite the motivation for us to stay true to what He wants us to do when we remember the consequences of disobedience.  We don’t want to dwell on the past and be drawn into joy-sucking guilt that comes from remembering all the bad things we might have done.  But a healthy remembrance of the consequences will certainly keep us from repeating them.

And that is exactly what our psalm is all about this morning.  We can be thankful for history because it reminds us of the good things God has done and it helps us stay obedient as well.  Let’s look at Psalm 95.  There are only 11 verses but they are packed full of good, rich, life-giving words for us to live by.  And it is believed to have been written by my favorite psalmist, David.  So that’s good too.  And we know that David was the author, not because it says so in the psalm but because the Holy Spirit revealed it to the author of Hebrews who quotes it in Hebrews 4:7 and gives the credit to David. So, let’s read Psalm 95.  You should have a Bible there in front of you if you didn’t bring one.  I believe it to be very important that you see what God’s Word says and not to just hear it read.  Psalm 95 says:

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;     let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
² Let us come before him with thanksgiving  and extol him with music and song. ³ For the Lord is the great God,
    the great King above all gods. ⁴ In his hand are the depths of the earth,
    and the mountain peaks belong to him. ⁵ The sea is his, for he made it,
    and his hands formed the dry land. ⁶ Come, let us bow down in worship,
    let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
⁷ for he is our God     and we are the people of his pasture,
    the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice,
⁸ “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
    as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
⁹ where your ancestors tested me;
    they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
¹⁰ For forty years I was angry with that generation;
    I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
    and they have not known my ways.’
¹¹ So I declared on oath in my anger,
    ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

I only have two real points today.  I want us to look at praising God and how and why we are to do that.  And I want us to look at provoking God and how and why we should not do that.  Everybody likes to be praised.  Everybody needs to be praised.  You can tell people that didn’t grow up with nurturing parents because they are the ones who praise themselves and then hope that you will join in.  I heard the story about the little boy that said, “Daddy, let’s play darts.  I’ll throw and you say, Wonderful!” But we don’t praise God because He is a needy youngster.  We praise God because, according to the psalmist, we have joy!  That’s what he says in verse 1 and for some of you that may be quite the assumption.  I stand up here and watch how you sing and some of you look like, instead of singing, “Just A Closer Walk With Thee”, you ought to be singing, “Just A Little Closer To Getting Out Of Here”.  It ought not to be that way.  We ought to have joy in our lives if anybody does and it ought to show in our worship.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was a member of the U.S. Supreme Court for 30 years. His mind, wit and work earned him the unofficial title of "the greatest justice since John Marshall." At one point in his life, Justice Holmes explained his choice of a career by saying: "I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like undertakers." (http://www.sermonillustrations.com/)

Ouch!  That stings.  That’s awful.  But it makes me wonder how many people visit a church and never go back because of the attitudes and actions (or lack of) of the people in the church.  We learned a while back that part of the fruit of the Spirit is joy.  And you get that joy, not by trying to get joy, but by focusing on being closer to and more like Jesus.  Do you know that Jesus wants you to have joy?  John 16:24 says, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”  He wants you to be full of joy and we should.  James 1 says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds” because in the end you will not lack anything.

And do you know what people who don’t lack anything do?  They shout!  David says to shout out loud to the Rock of our salvation!  Let me tell you something.  I went to a football game the other day.  I don’t even like football but I went because I like the people I see there.  I’m a social footballer.  But do you know what I did there?  Some guy was running somewhere and he did it pretty well, I thought, and so I shouted. I shouted because some kid I didn’t know outran some other kids I don’t know in a game that I don’t remember who won and matters very little in the scheme of things.  How much more should I get excited and shout when I think about the Rock of my salvation.  When I think of God’s unfailing strength as a fortress and refuge for me, I get excited.  Who do I call when I need help?  I call on God and He answers me and he protects me and He provides for me.  He is my deliverer from Hell and from guilt and shame.  

David knew this as well as anybody since he literally had to hide in caves and buildings to keep Saul from killing him.  And David would cry out to God and God answered him and protected and provided for him.  So, David says to shout.  Get excited.  Now, I know, I understand that not everybody is vocal in their worship.  I’m not saying you should fake it or be dramatic about it.  I won’t judge you in your worship.  In fact, I’ll make a deal with you.  If you want to worship with your hands up and jumping up and down or crying and laughing, that’s just fine.  I won’t pay much attention to you because your worship is not about me.  And if you want to worship quietly, that’s fine too because your worship is not about me.

But let me tell you about the average unbeliever (and probably too many believers).  Their life pretty much consists of going to work, taking the kids to soccer practice and watching TV where they can vicariously have some excitement through a movie star.  And they save up all year so they can take a vacation to go have some excitement somewhere so they don’t go crazy the other 51 weeks of the year. And if they come to church and see us looking and acting like undertakers, as Justice Holmes said, then what’s the attraction?  There is a good movie on.  I might as well go play some golf.  At least there is some excitement to it.  Folks, we have been bought with a price and redeemed from Hell and to Heaven!  That’s kind of a big deal.  We have a Rock of salvation that we can count on today and every day.

Come before Him with thanksgiving and with music and song.  That’s how we are to praise God.  Now let’s look at why we are to praise God.  The reason is not just because He is our Rock.  In fact, our worship of God is not all about any of us.  It’s about Who He is and what He has done, not just in our lives but in all of creation.  The fact that we are to approach Him with joy does not mean that we are to be flippant or irreverent.  We should always remember His majesty as is described in verses 3-5.  The ancient pagan world had different gods for every aspect of life and for every corner of the world but the psalmist describes everything as fitting in God’s hands.  The One Who created all things holds all things and controls all things.  That is the definition of majesty.

A couple of months ago, I traveled up through new Mexico and Colorado through the most beautiful country I have ever seen.  The mountains were majestic.  The rivers were majestic.  The valleys covered in flowers and wildlife…were majestic.  And I use that word “majestic” today because that was the word that kept coming to me as I went along.  And it’s surprising because until then I don’t think I had ever actually used the word before.  “Majestic” just didn’t fit into my vocabulary.

But it is the perfect word to use to describe the creation of the King.  It is appropriate to use that word when it is the King that created, sustains and controls all of that.  Now I want you to look at verses 6 and 7 again.  It says to “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; ⁷ for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”  

Do you notice what it doesn’t say to do?  It says nothing about speaking.  The psalmist says we are to come, bow down and kneel.  There is a time for coming with loud shouts and singing for joy and there is a time to just be still and know that He is God, submitting yourself to Him and His Kingdom knowing that we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care.  How do we praise Him?  With loud shouts and with silent submission.  Why do we praise Him?  Because He tells us to and because he is worthy and because we have joy in that knowledge.

The end of verse 7 starts a transition from encouraging us to praise to discouraging us from provoking.  I’m quite sure that nobody here this morning would say they have ever tried to provoke God.  We would never do that.  We know better, right?  So, we can just skip over this part since it surely doesn’t apply to us at Christ Fellowship. The nation of Israel was God’s chosen people.  It still is.  They are special to him and only He knows why He chose them but He did.  And they knew it.  He told them over and over from Genesis and Exodus on.  And so surely because they were special He would overlook a small amount of provoking.  It wasn’t really a big deal.  When the psalmist mentions Meribah and Massah he is reminding them of the time in the desert when they didn’t know where they were going to get water and they were ready to stone Moses.

It was just a short lapse of faith.  They weren’t trying to provoke God.  They were just starting to get thirsty and uncomfortable and things looked bad so they complained a little bit.  That’s all.  How did they provoke God?  It says they hardened their hearts.  They forgot Him.  They shut Him out of their situation and relied on their own knowledge and ability.

God’s special people temporarily hardened their hearts in forgetfulness and look what God said in verses 9 and 10. “…though they had seen what I did.  ¹⁰ For forty years I was angry with that generation.”  By just being forgetful of God, they suffered His wrath for 40 years.  If God’s chosen, special people can suffer for that, who are we to think that the United States should be any different?  Who are we to think that we as individuals or even as a church will not suffer God’s wrath if we harden our hearts in forgetfulness.

But do you know what the worst of it is?  You know how we provoke God; by forgetting Him and not acknowledging Him but the reason why we should not provoke God comes in the very last verse.  “They shall never enter my rest.”  Can you imagine God’s special people wandering around in circles out in the desert just waiting to die?  Can you imagine the futility of life?  How difficult it must have been to struggle through life day in and day out only so at the end you can die?

But that is the price we pay even today when we disobey.  When we harden our hearts in forgetfulness of all that God has done or we lack the faith He requires of us, do you know what happens?  We miss out on His rest.  We miss out on His peace and joy and the ability to just let our hands hang down and know that He is God and that he is in control and that he loves us.

How much is that worth?  How much would you pay to have that kind of peace?  If you knew that in the end everything was going to be ok; that everything was going to work out for your good and the good of God’s Kingdom, would you pay $1000?  A million?  Everything you have?

Let me tell you a secret.  That’s what God wants.  He wants all that you have.  He wants your effort, yes.  And, yes, I’ll even tell you He wants your money.  But He also wants your sin.  He wants your guilt.  He wants your pain and your fear and your doubts and your regrets and He will trade you all of that for all that He has.

He says, give me your worries and I will give you rest.  Give me your regrets and I will give you joy.  Give me your life and I will give you the life of my Son Jesus.  I will give you a full life here on earth plus all the riches and glory of Heaven when you die; co-heirs with Jesus to everything that the Creator, Sustainer and Controller can give. That’s what happens when you trust Jesus to be your Sacrifice and your Savior.