"Hearing His voice and doing His will"

Psalm 95

March 11, 2001

Introduction: Wang Lung is a key character in Pearl Buck’s classic story, The Good Earth. He and his wife Olan are farmer peasants who eke out a bare subsistence working a landowner’s soil. Wife Olan is not a beautiful woman, but she is a faithful partner, working alongside her husband in the field as hard as any man. She never complains, and it is her pleasure to wait on her husband and children. Wang Lung knows he has a rare treasure in this wife of his youth.
In the course of time, through a handful of fateful circumstances, the lot of Wang Lung and Olan changed dramatically. Olan’s quick thinking and ingenuity one spring enabled them to buy their own small plot of land.
After years of careful cultivation, good weather, and good crop prices, Wang Lung became a wealthy landowner himself and was able to purchase the labor of others. His life was now filled with days of leisure and self-satisfaction, and his eyes began to turn elsewhere. Olan, the wife of his youth, no longer aroused his affections, still less his desire.
Gradually his regular trips to visit a young woman whose fingernails were stained with lotus petals wore a path between his house and hers. Each evening he made a foray of pleasure to her place; each morning he emerged more determined to return.
After months of such trips, Wang Lung reasoned that as a wealthy man with servants of his own, he could have a special room built onto his own house so that this lover and her maid could be under his own roof. Olan refused to feed her husband’s mistress or to even acknowledge her presence.
The Chinese have a saying that no house is large enough for two wives, and Wang Lung’s home was never the same again.
Now hang onto that story for a moment. As we continue in our Sunday morning series on worship, we come today to the end of Psalm 95. When the psalmist comes to this third and final segment of his song, he addresses the issue of worship with regard to the heart. What is it that is so important in worship as it relates to the heart? And the psalm writer has two hearts in mind -- the heart of the worshiper and the heart of God.
Too often our hearts are too much like Wang Lung’s remodeled house. And the reality is, there is just not enough room in a heart for more than one real loyalty and one true love when worship of the Lord of Creation is the issue.
As we consider the Word together this morning as we have come to worship, we ought to ask ourselves, “What is the one true love of my heart?” Are there competing loyalties at odds with each other in my heart? Perhaps some of us have come to church this morning needing warm fuzzies because the focus of our heart is ourselves. I can imagine that some of us have come from a terrible week in the world that could best be described as grim or maybe brutal.
Maybe some of us are just looking for the depression and discouragement to be lifted. But if the issue is worship, then the focus has to be God. Ever so subtly we slipped into the pattern of believing that church was for us and our needs, and we forgot that church is for God and worshiping Him. If God is not pleased with what we are about here together on Sunday mornings, then we pastors need to find other work, and we need to turn these facilities back over to the denomination.
What we are going to discover the psalmist communicating as he winds up his song is that God has expectations concerning our worship. What God needs from us on Sunday mornings is a soft heart that is interested in communion with Him. What God is looking for in these worship services are hearts that are loyal, that have no mistresses, that have no room-additions for other passions.
Let’s read Psalm 95 together again, and watch with me for references to the heart, and see if relationship and communion surface as well.
“O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land.
Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers tested Me, they tried Me, though they had seen My work.
For forty years I loathed that generation, and said they are a people who err in their heart, and they do not know My ways.
Therefore I swore in My anger, truly they shall not enter into My rest.”
Notice with me how the psalmist raises the issue of relationship and communion. He gives us two key words that unlock the idea that becomes the conclusion of his work. And these two words ‘bookend’ this final segment of his message. It is out of our understanding of ‘voice’ at the end of verse 7 and ‘rest’ in verse 11 that we come to grips with how seriously God takes His relationship with His children. These two words, ‘voice’ and ‘rest,’ also unlock for us how God’s expectations rise with the hope of communion with us.
You see, friends, the writer of the psalm wanted his readers to understand what he meant by worship. When we worship according to the Biblical pattern, we accept our place before God and we acknowledge His place over us. And out of that worship will come songs of celebration, all kinds of songs in all kinds of styles and all kinds of forms, for our God is such an awesome God! But finally, the writer of the psalm wanted his readers to fully understand what God’s expectations might be from our worship. The first two parts of Psalm 95 were focused upon us. This last one brings the heart of God more fully into the picture of worship.
So, what is the significance of our two key words, ‘voice’ and ‘rest’?
‘Voice’ pulls our attention back to the truths stated earlier in verse 7. “For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.” If I had been writing these words, I would have said, “…and we are the sheep of His pasture and the people of His hand.” But the psalmist didn’t say it that way. To be the people of His pasture and to be the sheep of His hand means there is a personal connection and a personal relationship in view.
In that light, when we think of God’s voice, He being the shepherd and we being the sheep, we can’t help but think of Psalm 23.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures (because we are the people of His pasture); He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me (because we are the sheep of His hand). You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
It is His voice that calls us to green pastures, the places and circumstances where our needs are met. It is His voice that directs us to the still waters, the places where we find refreshment and restoration. It is His voice that points us to the right paths and away from the wrong ones. It is His voice that reminds us that He walks there beside us in the dark valleys. It is His voice that invites us to the table He has prepared for us in dangerous circumstances. It is His voice that assures us of His goodness and mercy to us every day. It is His voice that will finally call us home to dwell in His house forever.
One of our friends lost her dad this past Thursday evening to cancer. In her note, she quoted a familiar part of Psalm 23, but she stated it this way: “Surely goodness and mercy followed him all the days of his life and NOW he dwells in the house of the Lord forever.” (Ps 23:6)
As we think further into the New Testament about voice and sheep and shepherd, we can’t help but be drawn in our minds to the great passage of John 10 with its truths of sheep and a shepherd. The Lord Jesus speaks these words.
“…he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.
All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture… I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
He who is a hired hand (and not the hand of the Shepherd), and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me… and I lay down My life for the sheep.”
We can’t read that great passage and not come face to face with the idea of personal relationship. When the psalm writer states that ‘He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand’, we understand the connection we have with God, the One Who is concerned about us, the One Who laid down His life for us, the One Who knows us and calls us by name, the One Who has a voice we recognize, the One Who calls us out into the pastures and leads us there Himself.
Linda Sebastyn stopped by my office this week and asked me to read a verse into her tape recorder. She teaches the first graders here in our Sunday School ministry, and she wanted to see if her first graders could identify my voice. I haven’t checked with her yet, but I’ll be surprised if the little sheep of this flock, if they’ve come for any time at all, don’t know my voice as their shepherd.
The voice of God, friends, is sweetness. It’s security. It’s safety. It’s the evidence of a relationship, and it’s the expression of a desire for communion.
The second poetic reference to this same reality is the word ‘rest’. ‘Rest’ speaks of the legitimate delight we experience in celebrating the accomplishments of work. Rest symbolizes refreshment. Exodus 31:17 reminds us that God “ceased from His labors of creation and was refreshed.” Rest, especially the 7th day, suggests a time for worship of God. It pictures a reorientation of values and perspectives. It portrays a freedom from anxiety, a trust in God, a giving up of self-assertion, and a letting go of human control.
Entering into God’s rest paints a picture for us of a relationship taken seriously. When Moses comes down from the mountain after the children of Israel had sinned with the golden calf, he pleads with God to continue on with them to the Promised Land. And God says, Ex. 33:14, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” Rest is a factor of life lived in the presence of God.
When Moses, again, is ready to depart this life, he calls the nation of Israel together and states blessings and cursings for them in Deut. 28. He reminds them that if they do not take their relationship with the Lord seriously, they will be dispersed among the nations.
“Among those nations you shall find no rest, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul. So your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you will be in dread night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, ‘Would that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Would that it were morning!’ because of the dread of your heart which you dread, and for the sight of your eyes which you will see.
The Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships… and there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”
The rest of God – what a terrible picture of life without it!
The rest of God and the voice of God invite us to worship, and God’s expectations of our worship is communion with Him and the delight of a relationship taken seriously.
But notice what the bulk of verses 7-11 portray, the part in-between the bookends! Some of God’s people let their hearts grow hard. Some constantly tested Him. Others tried Him. They ignored the evidence of all His marvelous work on their behalf. In Exodus 17, where these references to Meribah and Massah occur in Psalm 95, we find Moses writing, “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?’”
God’s accusation is that these people are always going astray in their hearts. They have never grasped His ways. They have been going through their religious motions, but their hearts are cold!
The ‘heart’ for the Hebrew was where his thinking was done. It was the source of the flow of his emotions. The heart was the seat of his desires. It was in his heart that he chose a course of action.
When the heart becomes hard, when it goes astray, it chooses options opposed to the will of God. It refuses to listen to His voice. It sets out on a course of rebellious disobedience, determined to refuse to do just what the commands of God have instructed.
A heart becomes hard in any number of ways. In fact, how a heart becomes hard could be a whole sermon series…, but note this comment from David in Psalm 101. “I will sing of lovingkindness and justice, to You, O Lord, I will sing praises. I will give heed to the blameless way. I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. I will set no worthless thing before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not fasten its grip on me.”
David recognized that sin and evil have a way of fastening their grip upon us. If we give evil an inch, it will take a mile! If it gets a toe in the door, it has the potential to worm its way right on in.
David Anderson will be finishing up one of our Equipping Center classes tonight on the subject of “Demolishing Strongholds.” Those who have been attending have learned there are concrete steps we can take to break up the fortresses or strongholds that evil has established in our hearts. If we don’t deal seriously with sin, before long our hearts have become hard, we can’t hear the voice of God, and the consequences become painful—we cannot find the very rest that the Good Shepherd intends for us to know.
We’ve heard recently that Jeffrey Wetherill was upset by our letter to him telling of church discipline enacted against him. Jeffrey got involved in marital infidelity, and because he was unwilling to deal with his sin, our only recourse as a church was to place him under church discipline. Jeffrey let sin get a grip on him, and in refusing to confess it, he hardened his heart and the devil established a stronghold in his life. Until Jeffrey comes to his senses, he will continue to forfeit the grace that God wants to flood into his heart. The stronghold will continue to influence his decisions, and God will be locked out.
A hard heart is a clear trumpet, blaring to the world that a relationship with God is not being taken seriously! The voice of God is not heard, and the rest of God is forfeited… all because of a hard, divided heart.
You see, friends, in the psalm writer’s world, it was good to bow down and worship, to kneel before the Lord, our Maker. That worship would find expression in songs – psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And the One being worshiped, our Great God, would enjoy and take great delight in the communion of precious relationships. That communion afforded all the blessings of His presence and His rest. Too bad, too often the ones with the privilege of that kind of communion had turned away to pursue worthless things. And how sad, that the ire and anger of God was provoked to the point that He loathed an entire generation of His chosen people! For forty years…
Well, that’s Psalm 95 as I understand it. Let’s draw some implications out of this last segment for our own consideration and application. We have time for two.
First, worship that pleases God requires a soft heart. The analogy of a soft heart pictures for us a willingness to be enlightened by truth. When the Samaritan woman was asked to bring her husband back to the well, she denied having a husband. Technically, she was right. She’d divorced 5 husbands already and was just living with the sixth, so technically, legally, she didn’t have a husband. But when Jesus revealed that He knew the reality of her desperate, sad, sordid situation, she responded. Her heart was soft toward the Savior.
When we hear God speak to us in our worship services or Sunday school or our small group or our personal devotions, we respond because our hearts are soft. We come to grips with some particular sin; we change our minds about one of our traditions because we now see truth; we take a step of faith that we’ve been holding back on; we surrender some desire that has come to assume the wrong place in our life.
A soft heart projects the image of one compliant with the will of God. We, with Mary and Isaiah, say, “Here I am Lord, use me, send me.” A soft heart will not support foundations for evil fortresses. A soft heart sees no need to test the Lord by asking such questions as “Is He with us or not?” It made God so angry in Psalm 78 where the children of Israel “tested God in their heart by asking for the food of their fancy. Yes, they spoke against God: they said, "Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?” If He can prepare a table for us in the presence of our enemies, ala Psalm 23, He can surely prepare a table anywhere, no matter how ‘wilderness’ is defined.
You see, friends, it is a foolish thing we do to come into this place to worship God with our friends when our hearts have become hard. If we harbor bitterness or we’re angry behind our mask of pleasantness, our attempts at worship will only stir up the wrath of our God. Worship is the context where God anticipates communion with us and where He seeks to enjoy a relationship with us. It’s a hard verse that says God loathed a whole generation of people for 40 years!
Today may be the day we destroy evil strongholds and begin to bring softness back to our hearts by confessing sin and turning in a new direction.
Secondly, worship that communes with God keeps us from forgetting His work. What a terrible shame that Israel saw all the incredible things that God did on her behalf, and then she forgot them! The children of Israel saw the Red Sea part, and they crossed over on dry ground, then a few days out, on the way to the Promised Land, they are already grumbling and asking, “Is He with us or not?”
When we worship God with the right kind of heart and He enjoys His relationship with us, it is easy to recall the good and helpful things He’s done on our behalf. We become insulated from the accusations that “they do not know My ways.”
When we remember, He blesses. He draws us into His rest, He takes us into His confidence, He tells us the way we should go, and we live with a great sense of well-being.
(Conclusion) Friends, we must take God seriously, and we must take our relationship with Him seriously. He does. We worship with an attitude that accepts our place before Him and acknowledges His place over us. We sing songs of celebration that exalt Him for Who He is and what He has done. And God brings to our worship of Him an anticipation of sweet fellowship, of refreshment, of precious relationship.
Worship, my friends, is really not so much about us and what we like of music, liturgy, lighting, video, sound, preaching, etc. Worship is experiencing God and enjoying what He brings of His sweet voice and His blessed rest. For we are the people of His pasture, and we are the sheep of His hand.


DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!