1 Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3 For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains 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 hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
10 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.”
11 Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.” – Psalm 95:1-11 ESV
So, how's your worship today? Even as you read this, what's your view of God like? For many of us, worship has become a ritual we practice on Sundays. It is an activity we participate in one day a week, but even then, it may not be what the Bible refers to as worship. We may sing songs, pray together, listen to a message from God's Word, and even tithe, but never really worship God.
Worship is more about an attitude than an action. If we sing, praise, give, and listen to God's Word being taught with a wrong attitude or from misplaced motivation, our efforts are anything but worshipful. From God's perspective, worship begins in the heart. If we fail to give Him the attention and reverence He deserves, our worship ends up as little more than lip service designed to impress others, not honor God.
And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.” – Isaiah 29:13 NLT
The author of Psalm 95 understood the concept of worship as recognizing God's worth — His worthiness to receive our praise, attention, dependence, and expressions of love and thanksgiving. Worship is a viseral response to the greatness of God.
Come, let us sing to the LORD!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come to him with thanksgiving.
Let us sing psalms of praise to him.
For the LORD is a great God,
a great King above all gods. – Psalm 95:1-3 NLT
Yahweh is a great God and a great King. He is unique and the only true God. This is a recognition of what is often called God's transcendence or otherness. Yahweh is incomparable and without equal. He is not a slightly improved version of man. In fact, He is nothing like us at all. Yet, we often treat God with a sense of familiarity that borders on contempt. In our efforts to make Him approachable and comprehensible, we emphasize His goodness at the expense of His greatness. That is why the Psalmist tended to view God through the lens of nature. He saw Him in the thunder and lightning, the mountains, storms, and majestic splendor of creation. They were reminders of the majesty and power of God. The greatness of nature reminded him of the greatness of God, the one who created it all.
He holds in his hands the depths of the earth
and the mightiest mountains.
The sea belongs to him, for he made it.
His hands formed the dry land, too. – Psalm 95:4-5 NLT
The psalmist invites us to respond to God’s transcendence with awe and reverence.
Come, let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before the LORD our maker,
for he is our God. – Psalm 95:6-7 NLT
He reminds us that we have been created by the same God who formed the universe out of nothing. But not only is He our maker, He has chosen to be our Shepherd. He has made us His people, and we belong to Him.
We are the people he watches over,
the flock under his care.
If only you would listen to his voice today! – Psalm 95:7 NLT
Like the Israelites of the Old Testament, we as believers have been chosen by God and made His special people. We have His favor, protection, and His promise of eternal life. So why wouldn't we come before Him with thanksgiving, joy, praise, and a certain degree of respect and awe — every day of our lives?
Worship is a full-time job. It is something we need to practice every day. In fact, it has been said that anything we do that brings pleasure to God is an act of worship. When we live our daily lives in submission to His will, we worship Him. When we stop and thank Him for a meal, we worship Him. When we recognize His creative handiwork in a sunrise or sunset, we worship Him. When we gladly serve those He has placed in our lives, we worship Him.
Again, worship is more about attitude than anything else. The author of Psalm 97 picks up on this theme.
May all who are godly rejoice in the Lord
and praise his holy name! – Psalms 97:12 NLT
Do we find joy in the Lord? Does He satisfy us even when our circumstances are less than satisfactory? Even when we have little, can we recognize His hand of blessing and worship Him for His goodness and greatness? The psalmist warns against testing God by doubting His provision for all our needs. He references a place called Meribah, where the ancient Israelites replaced their worship of God with whining and complaining. The story is found in Exodus 17 and records what happened when the Israelites began to question God's goodness and diminish His greatness.
At the Lord’s command, the whole community of Israel left the wilderness of Sin and moved from place to place. Eventually they camped at Rephidim, but there was no water there for the people to drink. So once more the people complained against Moses. “Give us water to drink!” they demanded.
“Quiet!” Moses replied. “Why are you complaining against me? And why are you testing the LORD?”
But tormented by thirst, they continued to argue with Moses. “Why did you bring us out of Egypt? Are you trying to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?” – Exodus 17:1-3 NLT
While their displeasure was aimed at Moses, it was a direct assault on Yahweh’s providence and provision. The psalmist used this moment from Israel’s past to drive home a point about reverence for Yahweh.
The LORD says, “Don’t harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah,
as they did at Massah in the wilderness.
For there your ancestors tested and tried my patience,
even though they saw everything I did. – Psalm 95:8-9 NLT
They had been eyewitnesses to God’s power when He brought the ten plagues against their Egyptian overlords. They stood in amazement as Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea and followed his command to cross to the other side on dry ground. God had led them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. But when they arrived at Rephidim, the miracles of Egypt were replaced by the minor inconvenience of thirst. Suddenly, their great God, who had defeated the army of Egypt, was not powerful enough to quench their thirst.
But God didn't allow their doubts to diminish His glory. He stepped in and provided yet another miracle that revealed Himself as “the Rock of our salvation” (Psalm 95:1 NLT).
The LORD said to Moses, “Walk out in front of the people. Take your staff, the one you used when you struck the water of the Nile, and call some of the elders of Israel to join you. I will stand before you on the rock at Mount Sinai. Strike the rock, and water will come gushing out. Then the people will be able to drink.” So Moses struck the rock as he was told, and water gushed out as the elders looked on. – Exodus 17:5-6 NLT
Moses ended up renaming the spot at which this miracle occurred.
Moses named the place Massah (which means “test”) and Meribah (which means “arguing”) because the people of Israel argued with Moses and tested the Lord by saying, “Is the LORD here with us or not?” – Exodus 17:7 NLT
When faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, the people not only doubted God's power but also questioned His presence. They gave Him grief rather than glory. Yet, in response to their disrespectful and doubt-filled complaints, Yahweh responded by providing life-giving water from a rock. His means of provision should not be overlooked. His decision to use an inanimate, lifeless rock as the conduit of His blessing was not arbitrary. It was intended to convey a powerful message concerning His hard-hearted and ungrateful people. Rather than showering God with praise and honor for all His past acts of goodness, they had become spiritually dry and incapable of giving Him the glory He deserved.
Jesus used similar imagery when addressing the Jewish religious leaders who challenged Him to rebuke His followers for praising Him.
As he rode along, the crowds spread out their garments on the road ahead of him. When he reached the place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen.
“Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, and glory in highest heaven!”
But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, “Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that!”
He replied, “If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!” – Luke 19:36-40 NLT
On another occasion, Jesus told these pride-filled and self-absorbed religious leaders that God could produce more faithful and worshipful followers from ordinary, lifeless rocks.
“Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones.” – Matthew 3:9 NLT
The greatest form of worship is obedience — doing what God has told us to do in His Word. Do we obey Him? Do we listen to what He says and respond with joyful obedience? To come and sing praises on Sunday, then go our merry way and do our own will the rest of the week is not worship. True worship is about submission and obedience. It is acknowledging God's greatness and willingly listening to what He, as our creator, asks us to do. We show His worthiness by obeying Him.
If only you would listen to his voice today! – Psalm 95:7 NLT
Father, may I learn to worship You more. May I learn to recognize Your greatness in the world around me. Open my eyes so that I might see You more clearly and more often. And give me the strength and determination to obey You. because an obedient heart is a worshipful heart. Amen
English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
