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
chapter 3 and chapter 4,
it's basically
a mini sermon
on this psalm
that highlights
that point.
So Hebrews 4 verse 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.
...