Psalm 95

Psalm 95

Worthy of All Worship

I. God alone is worthy of all worship, so we must raise up praise to Him (Vv. 1-5)

a. This psalm opens with a call to come into God’s presence and lift up praises to Him. The message here is that coming into the presence of God should move us to thankfulness and celebration of Him. We’re called to “sing for joy” and “shout joyfully” to “Jehovah” the great covenant making and promise keeping God, who alone is the only source of salvation and our firm foundation in life. The psalmist speaks of an eruption of praise happening spontaneously and energetically. (Vv. 1-2; Ps. 9:2; 43:4; 57:9; 81:1-2; 47:1; 150:5; Matt. 21:8-9)

b. Now the psalmist tells us why we should praise God, because God is great! The psalmist then describes why God is great, as compared to the false gods of the polytheistic world around the Hebrew people. In the cultures around Israel, the people worshiped gods and goddesses for each aspect of the created order. There was a god of the sea, gods associated with the land, mountains, and crops, god of the sun, god of the moon, god of the stars, and we’re even told that much later in the first century as Paul was waiting for his friends to catch up to him in Athens, he found a statue there honoring an “unknown god”, just in case the Athenians missed one. But God alone is the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all things. All the things we observe in the heavens and in nature, all the other things we’ve yet to observe in those realms, and even the spiritual realm which we can’t see, are all His and His hand holds it all. There is no other as great as God, and no other worthy of praise like God! (Vv. 3-5; Gen. 1:1; Exod. 18:11; Ps. 92:8; 93:4; 96:4; 103:19; 113:3-5; 145:3; Acts 17:16, 22-28; Rom. 11:33-36; Eph. 1:19-23; Col. 1:15-18)

II. God alone is worthy of all worship, so we must bow down in worship of Him (Vv. 6-7a)

True and joyful praise should produce a corresponding worship, which is to literally “prostrate” ourselves, “Come, let us worship and bow down…let us kneel”. The result of the fervor of praise, the response to the greatness of God, must be to increase our awareness of His greatness to an even greater degree, which must also move us to reverence, awe, and true humble bowing down before Him. This realization and motivation to prostrate ourselves, bow down, and kneel before Him isn’t because we’re moved by fear of him in retribution, but because we realize in our praise that the great God who made us, also sustains us, and did so in order that He might restore us to relationship with Him through His Son. “We are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.” We sacrifice our whole lives in worship of the Good Shepherd, because we know that He sacrificed His life to redeem us to Himself, and He continually walks with us throughout life. (Vv. 6-7a; Ps. 23; John 3:16; 10:11-18, 27-30; Rom. 12:1-2; Heb. 12:28)

III. God alone is worthy of all worship, so we must hear and obey Him (Vv. 7b-11)

a. The abrupt warning and history of Israel in this last section speak to what is happening and finally happens when we don’t grow worshipful hearts for God. that very question through the history of Israel. If all we ever do is shout loudly to the Lord, and we’re never moved to quiet, reverent, and humble worship, we’ll never hear His voice and our shouts will grow selfish and vain. When we’re quieted by His amazing nature, and hear His voice we must heed His voice and obey His Word to grow in lives of true worship. The psalmist draws attention the Hebrew exodus and the people’s refusal to trust God and do His will, even in light of all His glory they had seen. So He judged them and cut them off from their “rest”, or their inheritance in the promised land. The Israelites proved during the exodus that raising up voices in praise, and even seeing the power of God manifest in person, aren’t enough to keep our hearts from growing hard, and eventually searing over, if we don’t hear the Word of God, obey the Word of God, and continue to praise Him and worship Him for it. The writer of Hebrews pulls this waring into the current context, and shows that the “rest” of the inheritance of the promised land for the Israelites and Moses, from which they were cut off, is indictive of the salvation rest and eternal inheritance we’re promised through Christ. And so the writer of Hebrews echoes the exhortation of the psalmist, who begins this warning passage with the term “Today”, which indicates a continual contemporariness to his call to praise, worship, and obey. It also communicates the inescapable accountability in which we’re all called to worship God. (Vv. 7b-11; Exod. 17:1-7; Numb. 13-14; 20:1-13; Prov. 4:23; Matt. 13:13-17; 15:8-9; 23:25-28; Mark 4:23; 7:21-22; Luke 8:18; Rom. 10:17; 1 Cor. 10:5-14; 2 Cor. 6:2; Phil. 2:9-11; 1 Tim. 4:1-2; Tit. 1:15-16; Heb. 1:2; 3:7-4:13)