Oct-07-0528-The purpose of worship
528_The purpose of worship Psalm 95 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.” There is a story of a weary traveler who had been walking all day in the desert heat. Finally, he stumbled upon a well in the desert. A signboard showed a securely covered hole dug deep into the sand. Removing the cover, he found a tightly closed jug of water in the hole. Eager to drink, he was restrained by the words on the signboard. They warned: “ If you want to draw water from this well, first prime it with this jugful of water. Don’t drink it! Use it to prime the hand-pump. Then you will have more than enough water to drink. And when you’re done, fill it and put it back so that the next traveler may also find water for his need.” In some ways, this story reflects the reason for worship. God encourages us to worship him, not because his emotional needs have to be met. Rather, our halting and limited worship primes the pump of faith, whereby his living water can be poured out freely and abundantly into our hearts. For heartfelt worship is the fruit of faith, the faith that believes that God is worthy of absolute trust and obedience. Psalm 95 calls God’s people to worship. It is quoted extensively in Hebrews 3 and 4, where the writer attributes it to David. Behind the beauty of its poetry, it not only calls us to worship, but clearly warns against the dangers of a heart that refuses to worship. The opening words are: “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!” Worship is not a grudging duty but a glad response. We were