BaptistWay: Let us worship, let us obey

• The BaptistWay Bible Study lesson for May 19 focuses on Psalm 95.

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• The BaptistWay Bible Study lesson for May 19 focuses on Psalm 95.

 • Download a powerpoint resource for this lesson here.

Halford Luccock, former Methodist minister and Yale professor, once said: “I was impressed several years ago that Eugene Ormandy dislocated a shoulder while leading the Philadelphia orchestra. I don’t know what they were playing. Certainly not Mozart—perhaps Stravinsky. But at any rate, he was giving all of himself to it. And I’ve asked myself, sadly, did I ever dislocate anything—even a necktie?”

In our culture, we often connect passivity with maturity and unbridled enthusiasm with childishness. This perspective can infiltrate our worship, with the result that our services seem bland and lifeless. To be sure, there are occasions in church that call for great solemnity and respectful silence, but there also are times of worship that demand a Eugene-Ormandy-kind-of-enthusiasm, where we give all our selves to praising God. The author of Psalm 95 understood this need, for the text is full of unrestrained enthusiasm and energy in its praise for God.

Sing for joy

Psalm 95 invites worshippers to “sing for joy … shout aloud … and extol him with music and song” (vv. 1-2). This energetic praise is focused on God who is “the Rock of our salvation” and “the great God, the great King above all gods” (vv. 1, 3). This last phrase may sound perplexing to modern readers. In the context of a polytheistic ancient world, the psalmist makes the claim that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is “above all gods” in the sense of being the one true God and incomparably superior to the various deities worshipped by other peoples of the ancient Near East. Israelites, too, faced the temptation to turn to the false gods of their neighbors, but the psalm calls for a devotion to the Lord that is completely unmixed, confessing Yahweh alone is “our God” (v. 7).

Psalm 95 gives two reasons for singular devotion to God. First, Yahweh is the Creator, who has made the mountains and seas and who is so vast he can hold “the depths of the earth” in his hand (v. 4). The second reason for exclusive devotion and unrestrained praise to the Lord is Yahweh is the shepherd of his people. The Creator also is the caregiver for a humble, needy flock, who may look to him for leadership, protection and provision (v. 7).

Hear his voice

The only appropriate response for the people of God is “today … hear his voice” (v. 7). The Hebrew word translated “hear” implies the sort of listening that results in acts of faithful service, for the word can be rendered as either “hear” or “obey,” depending on the context. In some cases, as in this psalm, both meanings—hearing and obeying—seem to be implied.


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Having invited worshippers to praise and hear/obey the Lord, the psalm concludes with a warning about hearts that can “go astray” (v. 10). Drawing on a negative historical example, in verses 8-9, the psalmist recalls the Old Testament wilderness period when the Hebrews hardened their hearts at Meribah and Massah, places where they “tested and tried” the Lord (Exodus 17:1-7; Numbers 20:1-13). Exodus 17 recounts how the people demanded water and asked cynically, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

James Mays comments that in those days the people were putting God to the test, “. . . as though the signs and wonders of God’s creation and salvation were not enough reason to trust him, and him alone” (Psalms, Interpretation, John Knox Press, 1994, p. 307). The psalm concludes with heartbroken words from the Lord: “‘they have not known my ways. . . . They shall never enter my rest’” (verses 10-11).

These ancient words were sung by Israelite worshippers at the temple. Tragically, some of them, though they were present physically in the land of promise, actually failed to experience the “rest” of the Lord because their hearts refused to “hear his voice” and to acknowledge his ways.

Encourage one another

The message of Psalm 95 finds an echo in Jesus’ temptation experience in the wilderness. Our Lord refused the devil’s invitation to coerce the father into working a miracle by sending angels to rescue him. Instead, Jesus put his trust in the word that warns against putting God to the test (Matthew 4:5-7). Hebrews 3:7-4:3 employs the last part of Psalm 95 in an extended text that exhorts the church to “encourage one another daily” and avoid “a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” The passage promises that those who are faithful will discover that “the promise of entering his rest still stands.”

Psalm 95 continues to warn and encourage the people of God. In today’s world, some within the church are tempted to “go astray” after the gods of our age, such as power, possessions and prestige, as Richard Rohr names them.

Others are tempted to test the Lord by coercive attitudes that demand miracles as if they were entitlements, while at the same time failing to live as a community committed to hearing and obeying the Lord. Such people condemn themselves to wandering in a wilderness of spiritual dissatisfaction. Along with its call to faithfulness, the psalm also serves the church as a powerful summons to exuberant, full-throttled worship that sings and shouts with joy to the Rock of our salvation, to the Creator and Shepherd, who alone is worthy of our ultimate devotion.

 


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