More Than Lip Service

In the late 300’s there lived a bishop named John who was such a great speaker that he is still known to this day as John Chrysostom, or John the golden mouth. Even though he never wanted to go into pastoral ministry and instead wanted to live a quiet life alone as a monk, he was forced into the ministry and became a bishop. When he began preaching, his ministry exploded with scores of people flocking to hear his sermons. It is said that his preaching was so great that his sermon were frequently interrupted with the crowds clapping at what he’d say. As a matter of fact, he spoke so beautifully that even when he was trying to encourage people not to clap, even that was so beautiful that the crowds clapped at that too. One day, John expressed that he didn’t want people to show their approval of his preaching with their hands, but to show their acceptance of the word with godly living and that’s what leads us to Psalm 95 today.

Have you ever found yourself doing lip service to someone by saying something that you didn’t really mean or at least saying it with no real affection behind it? On a deeper note, have you ever found yourself sitting in a pew here at Beacon with your mouth singing about sovereign grace while your heart is somewhere else dreaming about something else? Does God really care about that, or is He just happy that we show up on Sunday? The question I want us to ask ourselves today is this:

Is my worship more than words?

Today in Psalm 95, we will notice a beautiful psalm that is shockingly changed from joyful invitation to worship to a sober warning. The shift is so shocking that some scholars wrongly think that maybe these are two different psalms instead of one. This shift is set here to shock us into realizing that true worship is characterized by real obedience.

The first thing I want us to notice in this psalm is in verses 1-5, there we will find that we should:

Rejoice in Your Great God

Psalm 95:1–5 NKJV

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.

In verses 1-2, the psalmist is inviting us to have a conscious attitude of joy in our worship. Just notice the actions taking place that describe this kind of worship. “Let us sing, let us shout joyfully, let us come with thanksgiving, let us shout joyfully.” It is impossible to read through these verses without getting a whiff of the excitement that the psalmist has as he gets ready to go worship the Lord and he wants us to ensure that as we prepare ourselves for worship, that we understand that it is a joyful thing to rightly worship God. When you think of worshipping here on Sundays as you’re getting dressed on Sunday mornings, do you ever think about our worship services as being “joyful?” The psalmist thinks that we should!

But why? Well, he explains the reason to us in verse 3. Remember, when you see words like, “For” or “Therefore” it’s always good to pay attention because it usually means the writer is about to explain or apply what he just previously said. So why should we rejoice in worship? Because our God is great! How is He great? Well, a few ways are listed here for us to think on.

First, our God is THE great God. That word “the” there is singular. There are no other God’s like ours. He is the great God and He is our God. He is the King above all gods, which should remind us of that wild discussion we had last month on demons. Our God is ruler over all things, and, as Paul teaches us in Colossians 1:16, that means the things we can’t see too.

Colossians 1:16 NKJV

16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

Second, He upholds and hand made the world. I think there may be something more to be seen in that bit about the sea because in the mind of ancient pagans, the sea was an untamed power. But, according to the Psalmist, our God made it, controls it, and holds it in His hand.

So, why should we be excited about worshipping our God? Because there is absolutely nothing in existence that comes remotely close to how great He is and that same God invites us to come worship Him with joy.

Have Reverence for Your Great Shepherd

In Psalm 95:6-7, we go a little further and are called to worship God with reverence. It reads,

Psalm 95:6–7 NKJV

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:

In verse 6, we are called to position ourselves in a way that acknowledges the greatness of God. He isn’t an object of entertainment for entertainments sake, right? He is the high and mighty God of all the universe and that should produce a sense of reverence in our worship. That sense of reverence is produced in many different ways, but two are given to us right here:

First, we will find reverence produced in our hearts when we think of the power of God as our Maker.

Second, we will find reverence produced in our hearts when we think of God as our Shepherd. Not only is God a King and Creator, but He is also intimately tied to us as His people. He is faithful because He is OUR God, He is sufficient because He has put us in HIS pasture, and He is personal because we are the sheep of His hand. God isn’t some disconnected and disinterested worker. He’s great and mighty and He cares for His people.

How could we not want to rejoice and show reverence to that kind of God? This leads us to a seriously change of tone as we look at our next point which shows us that if He is our great God and Shepherd then we should:

Respond to His Word

Psalm 95:7–11 NKJV

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.’ ”

By making such a drastic change in tone, the psalmist is making a sobering connection between worship and obedience which is built on what we’ve seen already. It’s as though the Psalmist stops the records and says, “Well, if you say He’s that great and that caring, then why don’t you do what He says?”

Now, it’s not captured by the NKJV unfortunately, but in verse 8, the rebellion and trial are talking about the place known as Meribah and Massah. The ESV gets it right here as it reads

Psalm 95:8 ESV

8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,

But what in the world is he talking about? Well, in Exodus, we find that God has delivered the people of Israel from Egypt, but they’re wandering in the wilderness. The issue now is that they have needs and they’ve began complaining about how they’re starving, so what does God do? He meets their needs! But guess what? Virtually no time passes before they’re doubting and complaining again in Exodus 17:7

Exodus 17:7 NKJV

7 So he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

These people had seen such amazing miracles by their God, but instead of having tender and trusting hearts, they forgot everything they’d seen and hardened their hearts against the Lord and became complainers and doubters. This is why verse 10 describes them as astray and not knowing the ways of God which is a contrast with the people of verse 7 which are kept in God’s pasture. What God is doing here is describing these unfaithful and doubting Israelites as sheep rebelling against the Shepherd and because of their refusal of the Shepherd’s care, they lose the pasture land too in verse 11.

So, the Psalmist warns us not to go in the way of the folks in the wilderness. Don’t doubt the Lord, don’t harden your heart towards the promises and words of God. Why? Because that rest is still available today which is what is seen in verse 7 as it says, “TODAY.” The writer of Hebrews 3-4 picks up on this and shows us that Jesus is the greater Joshua who leads us to true eternal rest, but we must realize that we are His sheep and that means we must be led by our shepherd.

Jesus has come to lead a true Exodus and has risen into the true promised land and He promises us that He would be with us as we journey through the wilderness, but, His word reminds us of the failures and temptations of those in Exodus and tells us to look for those same tendencies in our own souls. Do you doubt God’s faithfulness, do you ignore God’s word? Do you worship Him with your mouth, but your heart is a million miles away from Him? The Psalmist gives us a sober wake up call today. Is our worship more than lip service?

The question of this Psalm isn’t so much, “Do you sing God’s praise?” as it is, “Do you seek to obey God’s commands?”