Rest Rich Worship – Psalm 95

“O come, let us sing 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 the great God, and the great King above all gods.” Psalm 95:1-3

Yes, let us do it! Let us sing and shout joyfully in God’s presence with thanksgiving! Not just think about it, do it.

“I worship You Lord! I shout to You joyfully! You are GREAT! You are exalted above the seas, the earth and the heavens!”

For Christians, “the rock of our salvation” is Jesus Christ. He is our Redeemer. Through His death and resurrection, He became the foundation of our salvation and our eternal hope. The “Rock” symbolizes His invincibility and reliability.

“In His hand are the deep places of the earth. The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land.” Psalm 95:4-5

The phrase, “In His hand are the deep places of the earth” symbolizes His omnipresence. “The heights of the hills” symbolize His stature being above what common and ordinary. In Hebrew literature and in the ancient Near Eastern world, the “sea” frequently symbolizes chaos, danger, death, and opposition to divine order. God works all this for His glory.

“His hands formed the dry land.” In Genesis 1:9, “God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear,’ and it was so.” The dry land was God’s gracious provision for people and animals to have ground beneath their feet.

“O 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.” Psalm 95:6-7

We sing, shout joyfully, give thanks, bow and kneel before God. The kneeling may happen as we take communion or as we pray. God is our Maker, Provider and Shepherd. He loves us.

We come before God with confidence because He loves us, yet with humility because He is infinitely greater than we are. Bowing and kneeling reflect the reverence that is in our hearts for God. We don’t hide our feelings. We physically and verbally demonstrate our need for Him. [1]

The repeated phrase “Let us” reminds us to worship together with others who love God.

No earthly king, government, or false deity can compare with God. He is not merely Creator in a general sense. He is our Creator personally. Our lives, abilities, opportunities, and every breath come from His hand. [2]

Psalm 95:7 gives us one of Scripture’s most tender descriptions of God’s people. “He is our God. We are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.” God cares for us in a very personal way just as a loving shepherd cares for each sheep in his flock. [3]

Praising and blessing the Lord is a choice that God has given us the power to make. Just like we can say, “I WILL eat” or “I WILL not eat.” In Christ we can say in the words of Psalm 34:1, “I WILL bless the Lord at all times. His praise SHALL continually be in my mouth.”

“Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me. They tried Me, though they saw My work. For 40 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.’” Psalm 95:8-10

The latter portion of Psalm 95 is an exhortation not to neglect your relationship with God. The phrase, “Today, if you will hear His voice” emphasizes the urgency of the moment. Dive in! Be whole-hearted! Think of all that God means to you! Think of all He has done for You! Imagine enjoying an eternal paradise with God and His people forever!

In 1 Corinthians 2:9, Paul wrote, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

The heavenly Promised Land is going to be perfect in every way. God is inviting us there by His Spirit and His Word. We need not wait until we get there to begin the celebration.

“Harden not your heart...” A hard heart refuses to listen, trust, worship, praise and thank God.

In Exodus 17:1–7, the Israelites contended with Moses over water instead of trusting God to provide. God did provide water for them, but was grieved that they had questioned, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” God had been leading them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He brought them out of Egypt with many mighty miracles.

The Israelites experienced God’s miraculous intervention in their lives, but many complained and disowned God due to unfulfilled fleshly desires. Where was there love? For what were they living? Only themselves? If they had focused on loving God, loving one another, and being God’s ambassadors to the world, their souls would have been full and their hunger satisfied.

Let us seek God’s help not to sin as Israel sinned, but when we do, let us be quick to repent.

“So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’” Psalm 95:11

Unbelief prevents people from entering God’s rest. The Exodus 17 generation that is referenced in Psalm 95 complained against God. They failed to enter the Promised Land due to unbelief. In Hebrews 3-4, God applies the warning of Psalm 95 to us who follow Christ.

We enter God’s rest through faith in Christ. In Hebrews 4:3, we read, “We who have believed enter that rest.” We rest when we know that God is God. We lack rest when we doubt God. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus said, “Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

The greatest promise that Christ made unto us is the promise of eternal life with God. He verified this promise to us by resurrecting from the dead and by appearing to over 500 witnesses during a period of 40 days. They ate with Him. They walked with Him. They watched Him ascend into heaven. Then, 10 days after He ascended to heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to baptize His disciples with power, and they spoke with new tongues.

Knowing that God loves you and that He has given you eternal life in Christ is vital to entering “the rest.” You come to know that God loves you by listening to and believing His Word. Paul was horribly treated by many, but enjoyed rest in his soul due to his faith in Christ.

In Romans 5:6-9, Paul wrote, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”

In Romans 8:31-32, Paul wrote, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

In Romans 8:38-39, Paul wrote, “I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Such rest in the soul is a rich seedbed from which worship and shouts of joy spring forth to God!


[1-3] Material edited and developed from Matthew Henry’s Commentary