Let's go ahead and pray. Father, we come before you, Lord, and we thank you for this morning. Father, I thank you again for the youth that are standing here. Lord, I pray that the church sees the excitement, too. Lord, again, that young men are bold to stand up and praise you, Father. So, Father, we ask that now that you would interact with us through your word, Father, that we would hear it, we would receive it, and then we would apply it. We love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I think they got a little excited and they started hitting the space bar, right? So they're jumping ahead. Also, can you guys get me the TV too? I don't see it. But again, he got a little excited. That was my fault because I called it an audible. So I always forget I have notes in mine that I don't put in the other one, right? So again, the youth are running it, so he's probably like, what are you doing, right? Stay on script. But again, guys, I'm excited, right? Because I want us, again, to just rediscover the weight of the God that we're worshiping this morning. Right. And we all if we're not careful, we're tempted to forget this. Right. And this is not intentional. Like I said before. Right. I think it just kind of happens. How easy is it? Right. When somebody comes up here and they say, let's let's pray. Right. And everybody bows their head and they close their eyes and you start to pray and then random thoughts start going through your mind. Right. Am I the only one that happens to. Right? Start thinking like, I forgot, did I check this? Did I check that? Man, I'm hungry. Is pastor going to ever stop talking? Right? All these things start kind of flowing through your mind. Right? Don't say amen because he's going to keep going. But again, if we're not careful, we allow these thoughts to kind of slow us down. Right? And the danger falls into, then we just fall into the exercise of prayer. It's not true prayer, it's the exercise of prayer. And like we read earlier, you have to imagine that all angels are looking down and saying, do you guys realize the one that you're praying to? Do you guys realize the one that you're standing before in worship? And he's listening to all of us here. Look around you, how many people are here? And we close our eyes and you start to pray and God hears you all. And at the same time, he's holding up the earth He's keeping our hearts beating, our lungs beating. So don't let your hearts wander. Don't let your minds wander when we come here and lose sight of the One who we're here to worship this morning. So I want you to look at these verses with me. And look at all the different ways the descriptions of God is in Psalms. He says, O 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 song and praise, for the Lord is great, is a great God, the king of kings above all. He in his hands are the depths of the earth. The heights of the mountains are there also. The sea is his, for he made it. And in his hands, he formed dry land. Oh, come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before our maker, exclamation point, for he is our God and we are here as people in his pasture and the sheep His hand so real quick psalm 95 tells us that God is the self-existing God, right? They'll catch up to us right PowerPoint number 10, by the way. All right, so God is the self-existing God and how do we know that look at verse 1? He says oh come let us sing to the Lord right and how the Lord spelled Our capital right don't be afraid to interact here people And we know, because the pastor has taught us over and over again, that when we see all caps, he is referring to the Hebrew word Yahweh, which was how God revealed himself back to Moses in Exodus 3, means I am the I am. It's in reference to how God exists. He's always existed. How do we know he always existed? Because he always exists, right? It's like the question, like a kid, well, who made God? Nobody made God. God made God. God always existed, right? It also reminds us, Psalm 95, that God is the supreme king above all, right? Verse 3, again, for the Lord is great and a great king above all gods. He is the king of kings who reigns over the world and he rules them, right? Psalm 95 also reminds us that God is the creator of all things, verse 4 and 5. In his hands is the depths of the earth. The heights of the mountains are there also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. It's almost like you can see that the world is built to fit in God's hands, right? He formed everything around it, right? You get that imagery. And it also tells us that God is the owner of all things. It says all things belong to him, right? The mountains, the seas, he owns it all. How many of you guys own a house? Now, you don't know nothing. God owns it all. You don't own the land. You don't own the house. The bank thinks they own it, but God owns all things. All right. So it also tells us that God is our maker. It gets more personal as you get down to verse six. He says, Oh, come, let us bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker. Exclamation point. The psalmist He's not only in awe that God creates all things, that he spoke mountains into existence, that the earth was made just by God, but also that God had formed him. He's my maker. He formed me together in my mother's womb, we know from the Psalms. God is what's controlling the breath in your lungs right now. Have you guys ever tried to think about breathing? Yeah, you know what happens when you start to think about breathing? You're like, oh, I can't breathe. Right. God is sustaining your breath. He's sustaining your heart. Right. And if God were to stop, so would you. So God is our maker. It also tells us that God is our shepherd. Verse seven, for he is our God and we are his people, the pasture, the sheep of his hand. Right. So we got this self-existent God. Nobody created God. God has always been. He is the supreme king of over all things. He's the creator of all things. And not only that, he is our shepherd. Right. God is protecting. He's the one providing for us. Right. Which should then draw your attention. Then how is this possible. We are all sinners who rebelled against God. Right. We've hidden ourselves from him. Right. And his holiness. How can God in his holiness look at sinful people. Right. How can we be sheep in his pasture. And that's the question that leads us back to some. I'm sorry. Verse chapter one. Oh come let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise for the rock of our salvation. God is the rock who delivers us and saves us. You remember this picture of Exodus? God saves his people, right? They were slaves in Egypt and he rescues them from slavery. And yes, we were not slaves in Egypt, but we are slaves to our sin. And it is God in his goodness that rescued us. It's our sin that has separated us from God and from destiny. And so God comes in the flesh, right? You know the story of Jesus and And he pays our price. He died the perfect death. And this is the real beauty of Psalm 95. So if you're not a Christian this morning I invite you to listen closely to what we're looking at here in Psalm 95 is not distant from us. God has come in the person of Jesus in the New Testament. Right. were introduced to God in the flesh. John 8 58. He said Jesus is the I am. He is the existing God. The existing Lord over all things. Right. Later John writes in Revelation 19 16 Revelation. Right. Pastor Noah's at the end that Jesus is the supreme king above all. His robe is written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We have Colossians 1 16 that says Jesus is the creator, right? He owns the universe all things were created from him and by him and The next verse he says that he is the maker that forms and sustains all things right in him all things hold together John 11 tells us that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for us He died on the cross for our sins. He was risen and victory over the grave and now you and I surrendering our life to Him, we have the privilege to come together to worship Him. It's a privilege that we get to come. So we look at this and we see that we have the privilege to be called His sheep and His pasture. And I ask you, do you see the weight and the wonder of that? All over the Bible is shouting to us, do you understand who you're worshiping? Do you remember who you're worshiping? So coming here on a Sunday morning can feel routine. But we have to remember that we gather before God, the self-existent Supreme King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I confess as I was studying this, I realized how many times I come, and I'm usually standing in the back, serving in the back, that my routine is to just come, serve, and forget the purpose that I'm standing here. It's easy to show up and forget. I'm here for an audience of one, and that's it. Psalms also reminds us that we need to realize how we should worship, right? The psalm not only reminds us who we're worshiping, but it also calls us to remember how to worship, right? How do we respond to God? So you look at verse one, it says, come, let us sing to the Lord, right? And side note, if you want to circle in your Bible or take, Monique, take pastor's Bible and you circle in his, since he's always telling people to circle in everybody else's, right? And Monique, circle every time you see us, okay? So every time you see us, it's six times there in the first word. It says, let us, right? Let us sing. Let us make a joyful noise. Let us come into his presence. Let us make a joyful noise. Let us worship. Let us bow down and kneel before our Lord. Right. One commentator writes behind us, singing expresses human thought emotionally. And Christianity is the feeling religion. Christianity is a feeling religion. More particularly, singing expresses joy and the Bible's religion, a pure, joyful heart. According to the Bible, worship is not a spectator sport. It's a participation activity. There you go. I'm going to get to that part too, so don't jump ahead of me. But again, it's easy to sit in these chairs and you look at somebody up on stage and think, I'm here to watch them perform. I'm here to watch the kids perform. I'm not a great performer, guys. There's nothing really to watch here. But I'm just here to lead us through our worship, right? So because it is not an expectator sport, that means that it's okay to engage in God's Word, right? So the only spectator that's here this morning really are non-Christians. Because non-Christians, they're not here with the same mindset as ours, right? So what they're observing is, how do Christians worship their God? That's the only spectator, right? And again, it's easy to look and say, okay, so what is this, a bunch of adults playing sing-along? Yeah, right? We're here to sing and worship to our God. When the youth were up here, it's not so you guys can sit back and say, oh man, this is a good show, right? It's to participate, to get involved, right? So we shout to the Lord. And this is where kind of the ESV, I feel like it drops the, words just a little and listen here the ESV says let us make a joyful noise to the Lord right but some of your translations say let us shout joyfully to the Lord which is more of kind of the thrust of the original language here right one Hebrew scholar says let us sing is way too tame for this text the Psalms talking about making a lot of noise in worship right and we see that in other Psalms too in Psalm 66 it says shout for joy to God all the earth Psalms 47, shout to God with loud songs of joy. And the picture in the Old Testament is almost like a war cry to our God. Right. It's like the strengthening of the army. And we're bringing fear to the enemy by how we worship and serve our God. Right. So and of course, you have people to say, like, well, can can you abuse that? Well, yeah, you can abuse anything in Scripture. Right. Can you get carried away? Of course. But it also brings a question, is it OK to shout for joy for the Lord? Yes. Right. Right. Like what in our church settings. Right. It shouldn't be only Miss Rachel to say like, well, right. Or that's the word. Right. If the message is leading you, then it's OK to shout. Amen. Right. It's a it's OK to shout praise or as we're singing. Hallelujah. I can promise you guys, the more times you say it is not going to make me pray longer or talk longer. I promise. I promise. All right. Sorry. Hello. So so again, Is it OK to interact with God's word? Yes. Yes. Right. The psalm also reminds us that we bow down before God. It says we kneel before him. Do you know that that word in Hebrew, literal translation means to prostate oneself before God. And that's the picture of just bowing down before God, whether it be in song or just in worship in general. And I know sometimes it's hard, right, in seats like this to kind of stop in your seats and bow down, but we see it all throughout scripture. People interacting with God and falling to their face and bow down. And that's what we say, like the altar is available. Make your altar there at your seat, but it's okay in actual worship to stop and bow down before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It also reminds us that we thank God for all he does and praise him for who he is. Verse two says, let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise To him, the songs of praise, both praise and thanksgiving are involved in worship. We exalt God for his attributes. We thank you for his actions throughout history and all around the world in our lives. Next, we listen to God. This is where a lot of people, when they're reading Psalm 95, they kind of stop there. But if we do that, we miss the whole point of the Psalms. And what God is saying, that in the middle of shouting, in the middle of praising, in the middle of worshiping, stop to listen. We need to stop and listen, right? Not only do we hear God, right? In the original, the Old Testament, right, we talked about there was thunder, there was loud noise, and they humbly bowed down to worship Him. And what we're studying right now is God's Word. We're not hearing it from thunder, though we're hearing thunder outside, right? But we're hearing it from God's Word as we interact with God's Word. He, again, is the creator of all things, the self-existing God. So when he speaks, we listen, we dive into his word and we expect to receive it humbly. Right. We receive God's word humbly. And next, we listen to God's word immediately. I'm sorry. We obey God's word immediately. And this is the warning from the Psalms. Psalm 95 addresses. And it's weighty. And then I want you to listen to the beginning of verse seven. Right. So if you want to look at verse seven today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as that mirror book. As on the day of Masa in the wilderness when your father put them to the test and put me to proof though they had seen my work for 40 years I loathed that generation and said they are a people who go astray in their hearts. They have not known my ways. Therefore I swore my wrath. They shall not enter rest. That's how the call to worship ends in Psalm 95 with a warning against God's wrath for any of those who ignore God's word. And this is what happened in Mirabeau, right? And back in Massa, the exodus and numbers of God's people, they complained, right? And ultimately, what happened? An entire generation to fall away, right? And ultimately, they disobeyed God. And you got that picture there. Spurgeon writes, there can be no rest to an unbelieving heart. If manna and miracles could not satisfy Israel, neither would they have been content with the land which was flowing with milk and honey. And their sin was summed up in this phrase here, they harden their hearts. Right. And if we had more time, we'd study Hebrew. So I challenge you guys to go back and look through Hebrews chapters three through five in the New Testament, where the Bible urges Christians based on Psalm 95, not harden your hearts towards God's word, right. To come to God's word with soft hearts, right. To receive it humbly and obey it immediately. This is huge when we come to worship like this, because we can sing all day long. We can sing, we can pray, we can read, but we walk out forgetting what we heard, and it's pointless. So yes, we want to come. Yes, we want to sing. Yes, we want to kneel. But we also want to receive God's Word humbly and apply it. And this is why I mentioned that it's not just the wonder of worship, but it's also the weight of worship. What we're doing right now is extremely serious. We're opening God's Word to hear what God is saying, knowing that we will be accountable to God for hearing his word and obeying his word, right? And if we're not careful, we come week after week listening to God's word and we walk out and forget what it says. We talked about this before, like how many times have we come to study, right? Because we don't study one verse, we study chapters. You're studying God's Word, you're interacting with God's Word. The pastor is teaching us, he's giving us notes, and you get to lunch and you forgot most about what you read. Monday comes around, more of a forgot. Tuesday morning comes, I can call you and say, what pastor preach on? And you totally forget. Because you're not taking time to memorize God's Word. You're not taking time to apply God's Word. And that is where it becomes dangerous. So we don't just come here to sing, to praise, we come here to worship God through remembering His word. And this is where Psalm 95 shows us a recipe for wrath, right? And Jesus warns us about this too in Matthew 15, 8 and 9. The people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me. And I pray that's not said about our church here. So the question is, what is Jesus talking about in Matthew 15? And what is the sin that's so unique to our services, because we can gather for a long time. We can worship, we can read, we can pray. We leave and we don't apply and our hearts are hardened before God. So I want to make sure we grasp this part here. And I want to urge you based on God's word is what he's saying is don't do this. Don't come before God and harden your hearts. You come before God, you receive his word humbly. And I urge everyone this week to make sure they That's what they're doing. You open up your hearts to receive God's word humbly. Next, it says, we rest in God completely. In worship, we humbly listen to Him. We obey Him immediately. And then we rest in Him completely. And that's the picture we have here in the Old Testament. That's the picture that God has promised in the land abundant flowing with milk and honey. Again, the entire generation missed that. They missed coming in and resting in God completely. So then when you turn to the pages of the New Testament, again, Hebrews 3-5, particularly in Hebrews, the rest of the Old Testament becomes symbolic for the way that we worship God. This abundant life in Christ for now, all of eternity. For those who hear God's Word, they receive God's Word humbly, they apply it, they surrender their hearts to the Lord, and then we rest in Him completely. And this is the experience that we read in Psalm 95 when he says, He is our Maker, our Shepherd, our Rock, our Savior, who designed this for us. We realize that, then we realize what true worship is. We look around the world, and we talk about it all the time, that the world is full of pain and suffering and death and turmoil, and in the middle of all that, we get to rest in God. We don't shelter our eyes from it. Right. But do you see what true worship is that as we look around and we feel the pain of what the outside world or the sin from a fallen world causes that we get to rest completely into God. But this only comes when we obey God. Then we can rely on him completely. And lastly we rejoice in God wholeheartedly. We rejoice in God wholeheartedly. This is The whole tone of Psalm 95, that we come to rejoice in him wholeheartedly. And it says it in almost every verse you read in there. And how does this come together? Don't want you to miss it here, right? Come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Why? Because God is a great king. God is the king of all kings. He is our God. We are his people and we rejoice in God. Why? Because he's supreme. And because you exalt His supremacy, you have the experience in His satisfaction. So may God come to help us to rediscover the weight and wonder of our worship. I don't think it's appropriate for us to just come and stand and sing and worship and shout. We fall down on our face, but that we realize the One who we're doing all this for. He is the rock of our salvation. He is the One who saves us. So if you're not a Christian this morning, then I want to invite you to go from a spectator to a participant. I want to invite you to worship with us as we cry out to our King. I told you guys that the only ones who are not a participant are non-believers. So how do non-believers look at Christians? How do you represent the God that you say you serve? Do they see you studying His Word? Do they see the practical implication? Do they see the peace knowing that everything around you is falling apart? But what is that? What is that that's so different? And it's because we understand who we worship. We understand who we fall down. So I am going to pray. I hope I gave you guys enough to grab you to then stand with us as we sing All right, so we got a couple more things to go. I'm going to pray and then I'm going to invite the youth to come back up here. Let us pray. Father, we come before you, Lord. Lord, I pray that you're glorified this morning, Father, as we come to worship you, not because of what I said, because your people stopped to interact with you, Father. Father, that they interacted you through your word, they interacted you through worship, through prayer, through song, Father, that they would seek you in a mighty way. Father, I pray for those who are here this morning who don't know you, Father. Father, maybe there are some here this morning who grew up going to church. Father, that they have played the game, Lord, because their parents made them come. Father, maybe there's a husband or a wife who is here only because their spouse makes them come. Father, would you open their eyes for them, maybe the first time today. Lord, that they would fall on their face knowing that they have sinned against a holy God. But Father, the story doesn't stop there because you came down in the flesh. Father, you rescued us by taking the penalty of our sin, Lord, on the cross. Lord, you took the full wrath of the Father. Father, and then died, and three days later you rose over victory of sin. Father, and because of that, Lord, we get to surrender our hearts to you and then participate in the worship of you as thousands of angels surround you, creating holy, holy, holy. Father, I ask now that the church would stand, they will rise, and they would worship the one who is deserving of all of our worship. We love you and we praise you. In your precious name we pray. Amen.