Come For Worship Today
Psalm 95
Welcome to our 5th Sunday Sing. In this special worship service we invite you to worship our great God and Savior Jesus Christ in spirit and in truth. I want to begin our worship today with a brief look at Psalm 95. This Psalm is about worship. There’s nothing more important in the Christian life than worship. God has created us to be worshipping creatures. And Christ has redeemed us to be a worshipping people. Jesus said, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24). There’s nothing more important that we do than worship.
Ligon Duncan gives a very helpful outline of Psalm 95 in four words: “Come – For – Worship – Today.”[1]
“COME” – Psalm 95:1-2 give us a call to worship. “Come FOR….” – Psalm 95:3-5 give us the reasons why we are to worship God. “Come for WORSHIP…” – Psalm 95:6-7a gives us what we do when we worship God. “Come for worship TODAY…” – Finally Psalm 95:7b-11 give us a warning about neglecting worship through unbelief.
Keeping those words in mind, let’s listen to God’s word and let it teach us to worship. Psalm 95
1 Oh come, let us sing to the LORD!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
3 For the LORD is the great God,
And the great King above all gods.
4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The heights of the hills are His also.
5 The sea is His, for He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
7 For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice:
8 “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion,
As in the day of trial in the wilderness,
9 When your fathers tested Me;
They tried Me, though they saw My work.
10 For forty years I was grieved with that generation,
And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts,
And they do not know My ways.’
11 So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’”
1. Come – our invitation to worship
The first half of this Psalm is framed by two calls to worship, both with the inviting word, COME. Psalm 95:1—Oh come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation; and Psalm 95:6—Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
“Come” is a command in both of these verses although they are two different words in the Hebrew. “Come” in Psalm 95:1 is literally to walk or carry yourselves. “Come” in Psalm 95:6 is to enter in. Both are in the plural. Do you see the picture? The psalmist is saying, “stop what you’re doing, leave what you’re doing behind, and come to God.” This is a call for us to come together with the people of God, to bring ourselves and enter into the presence of God. Psalm 95:2, “Let us come before His presence.” “Come” in this verse means to meet. Meet with God. Praise Him. Thank Him. Fellowship with Him. Commune with Him. Stop what you’re doing and leave it behind, and come.
How do we come?
With joyful thanksgiving! “Oh come, let us sing to the LORD!” There is no room in this verse for apathetically mumbling through a few songs while your mind is elsewhere! “Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.” In this psalm, which refers to Israel in the wilderness, the rock that literally saved the nation was the rock that Moses struck, which then flowed with water (Exod. 17:1-7). Paul tells us that that rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). This is a gospel call. Come to Christ for salvation, for forgiveness of sins.
If Christ is the rock of your salvation, who has given you living water for your soul, shouldn’t you come before Him with great joy and thanks?[2] “Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.” (Ps. 95:2).
Then in Psalm 95:3-5 we see why we ought to come to worship:
2. For – why we ought to come
Psalm 95:3 begins with that word “For”: “For the LORD is the great God, And the great King above all gods.” Why should we come to worship?
God is sovereign. His majesty is over all. He’s greater than any claimed god, any false god.
Psalm 95:4-5:
4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The heights of the hills are His also.
5 The sea is His, for He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.
God is the creator. He created everything and He rules the world. But even more importantly Psalm 95:6 urges us to “kneel before the LORD our Maker.” He not only made the world, He made me. And Psalm 95:7 says, “For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand.” God cares for us as a shepherd cares for his sheep.
Why should I worship God? Because He’s sovereign over all, because He made the whole universe, because He made me, and because He cares for me.
“Come” – our invitation to worship.
“For” – our reason for worship.
3. Worship – what we are to do when we come
What is it exactly that we’re called to do? What does it mean to worship God?
In Psalm 95:6 you see three similar verbs that tell us how we are to come. “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.” The command in this verse is “come,” enter into the presence of God. The other three verbs, “worship,” “bow down,” and “kneel” describe what it looks like to come into the presence of God. All three convey the picture of us humbling ourselves before God. “Worship” means to fall flat before God. “Bow down” means to bend low or crouch down before God. “Kneel” means get down on your knees to give blessing to God.
The point is that our God is so mighty, so awesome, that we need to acknowledge that by joyfully, thankfully, humbly bowing down before Him. Worship…bow down with joy before your mighty Maker and your tender Shepherd.
4. Today – A warning for worshippers
So far this has been an uplifting Psalm encouraging us to come in humble worship to our great God. Then suddenly the mood changes in the middle of Psalm 95:7 and the psalmist warns “Today, if you will hear His voice: Do not harden your hearts.” What’s going on here?
The psalmist is referring to Israel’s experience in the wilderness when they tested the Lord in Exodus 17 at the waters of Meribah (rebellion, Ps. 95:8), and it refers to Moses’ own unfaithfulness at the waters of Massah (trial, Ps. 95:8) in Numbers 20. God’s people were not joyfully singing to Him, or thanking him, or worshipping Him! Just the opposite! They grumbled, complained, and quarreled. And you remember what happened as a result of their unbelief. Neither the generation of the children of Israel from Meribah nor Moses entered into the Promised Land.
The New Testament author of Hebrews cites this whole second part of Psalm 95 (7b-11) in Hebrews 3:7-11. He again quotes Psalm 95:11 in Hebrews 4:3, and verse 7b in Hebrews 4:7. Derek Kidner comments that the New Testament “forbids us to confine its thrust to Israel.” He adds, “The ‘Today’ of which it speaks is this very moment; the ‘you’ is none other than ourselves, and the promised ‘rest’ is not Canaan but salvation.”[3]
The message is you cannot worship God with an unbelieving heart. You cannot worship God if you do not take Him at His word. You cannot worship God if you do not believe on Christ, the Rock of our Salvation, as He is offered in the gospel. True worship is by faith, and unbelief is inconsistent with it.
We cannot live between Sundays unbelieving in God’s word, untrusting of Jesus Christ, unresponsive to the gospel of grace, and then come in and manufacture worship. It cannot happen. Worship must be by the Spirit, by grace, by faith in Jesus Christ, believing in God’s word, submitting our will to Him and following Christ as Lord. All of this is a part of true worship.
Come For Worship Today.
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[1] Duncan, Ligon. Come, Let Us Worship, https://ligonduncan.com/come-let-us-worship-716/. Duncan’s gives an excellent treatment of this psalm and I relied heavily on his outline and exposition.
[2] Cole, Steven. Psalm 95: Worship—or Else!. https://bible.org/seriespage/psalm-95-worship%E2%80%94or-else
[3] Kidner, Derek. (Psalms 73-150 [IVP], p. 343). Quoted by Cole.
