Sunday School Lesson: “Make A Joyful Noise” Psalm 95:1-7a New Living Translation Psalm 95:1 Come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him. 3 For the LORD is a great God, a great King above all gods. 4 He holds in his hands the depths of the earth and the mightiest mountains. 5 The sea belongs to him, for he made it. His hands formed the dry land, too. 6 Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the LORD our maker, 7a for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care. The People, Places, and Times Gods. These were idols worshiped by other nations and sometimes the Israelite people. In the ancient Near East, different nations worshiped a variety of gods. The Israelite worship of Yahweh was unique in that the people were commanded to worship only one God as opposed to the surrounding nations, who worshiped a roster of different deities dedicated to different aspects of life. Although the Israelites did not worship these deities, they often declared their one God to be supreme over the many other gods of the nations. Rock of Our Salvation. Many times the Bible refers to God as a Rock or the Rock of our salvation. This may have been because during their trek in the wilderness God gave Israel water from a rock (Numbers 20:1–13). It also could have been due to the benefits of a rock as a shade during the heat (Isaiah 32:2) and the safety of a rock when hiding from or fighting an enemy (Psalm 31:2, 3; 104:18). Pasture. Shepherds would keep their sheep in a pen during the night and let them out into the pasture during the day. These were areas where they could find grass and vegetation to eat freely. In ancient Palestine, pasture was not necessarily an abundant field of greenery but the rocky bare hills. The shepherd led the sheep to eat just what they needed for that day. The best pasture was usually on the plateaus east of the Jordan and the mountains of Palestine and Syria. Backstage Psalm 95 is an invitation to worship. Perhaps the crowd or congregation had grown weary. It seemed that they‘d stopped believing, and were no longing expecting God to fulfill His promises. The author who tired of their passivity essentially said, ―Don‘t just stand there; do something!‖ Through the psalm, the psalmist exhorted the people to serve God. One cannot worship God with a hardened heart, as this psalm warns. In verse 8 of the same psalm, the psalmist used the testing at Meribah (also known as Massah) as an example. At Meribah, the Israelites sinned against God (Exodus 17:1–7). ―Is the Lord among us or not?‖ they complained. Not trusting God in the wilderness kept them out of the Promised Land. In our text, the psalmist admonished the congregation to not let the same happen to them. ―Come, let us sing to the one who‘ll save us,‖ he urged. The same testing is referenced in Hebrews 3:7 and 4:7 as a warning to believers. Combing Through 1. Praise Him (Psalm 95:1–2) Praising God was as natural to the psalmist as breathing. Psalms is full of praises, adoration, and worship to God. Even when things were bad, the psalmist poured out his heart to the Rock of his salvation. The ―Rock‖ is a recurrent metaphor for God in Psalms, used over 20 times. The psalmist sees the worship of God as something to be done corporately. He exhorts the congregation with the words ―Come, let us sing together.‖ It is an invitation to praise the Rock of our salvation, but at the same time the psalmist is also leading the way by including himself in the invitation. He says ―us‖ so that the call is personal as well as corporate. The psalmist says, ―Let‘s shout joyfully.‖ Praising God should be joyful and exuberant, not a solemn and sad occasion. Our deepest joy is to be found in God, and this joy must have full expression. Shouting joyfully was a way of celebrating God and all that He had done for His people. The tools that the psalmist prescribes to be used in worship are thanksgiving and psalms of praise. Our worship of God is to be permeated by thanksgiving. We have received nothing outside of what God has given us. This is enough motivation for thanks. Psalms of praise were songs written for the express purpose of praising and adoring God in small and large settings. 2. Adore Him (vv. 3–5) As if the people had asked why they should praise the Lord, the psalmist answered. ―Because He is great.‖ Then, he gave evidence of God‘s greatness by recalling that He held the deep places of the earth in His hand. Essentially he challenged, ―If things that are out of sight and out of reach are in His hands, how much more so are your problems?‖ Scripture often used Creation as evidence of God‘s power. The Lord made the sea and dry land, and both are under His control. No matter how much an angry sea rages, it can go no farther than the boundary the Lord sets. It‘s as if the psalmist set a challenge: ―If the Lord set an end to something seemingly uncontrollable, would He not have an end to this?‖ 3. Worship Him (vv. 6–7) The psalmist recognized pride can hinder our relationship with God. The antidote to pridefulness is worship. By showing God how much He is worth to us, we realize our true worth in relationship to Him. This is a surefire cure for pride: ―Bow down and worship the Lord who made us.‖ Psalm 100:3 also points to God as our Creator, saying, ―… it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.‖ Who tells the maker what to do? Isaiah 45:9 echoes, ―Does the clay say to the potter, ‗What are you making?‖‘ (NIV). Further, in verse 7, the psalmist challenged the reader to know that He is their God, not the other way around. We are His sheep, in His pasture, and cannot be plucked out of His hand. Jesus further illustrated the sheep-shepherd relationship when He proclaimed Himself the Good Shepherd (John 10). There, Jesus confronted the Pharisees who had set themselves up as shepherds of the people. Lesson Learned Our society promotes pridefulness, often concealing it as self-confidence. Bestseller lists sell titles that reveal seven or ten steps to self-promotion. The Bible shows us that promotion comes from the Lord (Psalm 75:6). Our text reminds us that one must come before the Lord humbly and with thanksgiving—certainly not positions of pride, especially while on bended knee. Sometimes we can become arrogant and think that we are entitled to come to the thrown of grace. It is no goodness of our own that we are allowed but because of Jesus Christ alone we have access to have sweet communion with Him. The songwriter said, when I come into His presence, I humble myself, lift up both my hands and I begin to worship Him. We owe God everything!!! Make It Happen This week, practice joyfulness. No matter how challenging your days get, sing songs of praise to God. Remember that you belong to God, not the other way around. Instead of standing, complaining, and prolonging your pain, get on your knees and worship. Bow down and thank Him for the things that are good and right. youtu.be/yb0MgohZXKo
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 07:03:33 +0000
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