Restlessness
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Series Materials
Good morning Chapel family! We’re taking this summer to walk through the book of Psalms—the longest book of the Bible, and the original song book of Israel. John Calvin once said the Psalms are “an anatomy of all parts of the soul.” Because pretty much any human emotion you can think of, there’s a Psalm that puts that emotion into words and reminds us we’re normal for feeling that way. And then in some way, the Psalm uses that emotion or that life experience to lead us into a deeper knowledge of God.
So today we come to Psalm 95, which deals with the emotion of restlessness. Do you know that feeling? In its most basic sense, it means you can’t rest. You feel a lack of calm and peace. You might have a hard time sleeping, or focusing. You find yourself mindlessly scrolling on your phone or changing the channels. I’m really going to date myself with this, but Simon and Garfunkel had a song called “America,” about a guy and his girlfriend who don’t have any direction, so they decide to wander across America. And in one of the verses they’re riding in a Greyhound bus on the Jersey Turnpike, and the lyrics go like this:
"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping “I'm empty and aching and I don't know why.”
That’s what I mean by “restlessness.” “Empty and aching.” Like there’s something missing, but you don’t know what it is. And maybe on the surface, people would look at your life and say, “He’s very successful! She’s a happy person!” But deep inside, you’re not. You’re restless. I think it’s more common now than it’s ever been. And Psalm 95 gives us a powerful solution to restlessness.
So let’s read the Psalm together. I invite you now to hear the Word of God…
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
3 For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; 7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice, 8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did. 10 For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’ 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” This is the Word of the Lord.
So the Psalm starts with the words: Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Historically, this Psalm has been known as the Venite, which is Latin for “O come,” because it’s an invitation to come together and worship God. But the more I studied it, the more I realized it’s not just a generic call to worship. It tells us something about why we need to worship. Did you notice that it ends on kind of a negative note? Look at the very last line: They shall never enter my rest. So it ends with a serious warning about a group of people who didn’t worship in the way this Psalm is calling us to, and as a result they never experienced the kind of rest that God offers. They were restless.
So here’s the way I’d say it—here’s the main idea of Psalm 95: The solution to restlessness is a life of worshiping God. The solution to restlessness is a life of worshiping God. And the Psalm shows us that the kind of worship that brings rest to our souls comes out in three different ways. If you’re missing any of these ways, your worship will be incomplete and your soul won’t be at rest. So—three kinds of worship we need if we want rest for our souls.
First, Worship Him with Exuberance. If we want our souls to be at rest, we have to learn how to worship God with exuberance. And we find that in the first two verses—listen again:
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
Everything about that is exuberant! It’s big; it’s loud; it’s passionate; it’s jump-out-of-your seat celebratory. And notice—it’s very communal, too, right? Let us sing for joy to the Lord! Let us come before him. So this is a group of people, spurring each other on—encouraging each other to come to the temple and show unashamed enthusiasm for the greatness of God. And you find this kind of worship all through the Psalms.
So here’s the question—very straightforward: When we worship God, are there times that we allow ourselves to be exuberant? I know some of you are thinking, “That’s just not my personality. I don’t do exuberant.” And I get it—I’ve got Scandinavian blood in my veins. But I need to challenge that thinking.
Many of us go to sporting events, and we see this big, unified surge of people swelling across the stadium, and when it’s our turn we jump out of our seats. The wave! And when Aaron Judge hits a home run for the Yankees, or Daniel Jones throws a touchdown pass for the Giants (if that actually happens), we’re on our feet, high fiving, cheering. Right? I mean, how many of you, if you’re a sports fan, you go to a game, and your team does something great, and you just sit there? No one, right? You express your appreciation, somehow, outwardly. In other words, you get exuberant.
Or maybe you’re not a sports fan, but you’re a music fan. And when you’re at a concert, you express your love for the music and the joy the music gives you in some kind of outward way.
But then we get to church. And we feel like the rules change! Somebody says, “Jesus is risen from the dead!” And we go, “Mmm.” What is that? Have we convinced ourselves it’s just not dignified to get too excited in church? OR, could it be that God hasn’t actually captivated our hearts as much as the Giants or the Bon Jovi reunion tour? (Ouch! Someone had to say it).
One of the things I love about this Psalm is that it doesn’t just show us these different aspects of worship that bring rest to our soul; it tells us why we should worship God in these different ways. So why should we worship God with exuberance? The answer is in verses 3-5:
3 For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Did you know that in pagan cultures—in polytheistic cultures—they believed there were different gods who ruled over different regions? There’s a story in the book of 1 Kings where the Arameans attack Israel, and Israel prevails—they win the battle. And the Arameans say, “We know what happened! The gods of Israel are gods of the hills. We fought them in the hills, and that’s where their gods are. Next time, let’s fight them on the valley—their gods have no power there.” That was a common way of thinking: if you have a problem in Lincoln Park, pray to the gods of Lincoln Park. If you need help in Pequannock, pray to the gods of Pequannock. So the Arameans thought they had it all figured out. And then a prophet of God came to the King of Israel, and he said this in 1 Kings 20:28… “This is what the Lord says: ‘Because the Arameans think the Lord is a god of the hills and not a god of the valleys, I will deliver this vast army into your hands, and you will know that I am the Lord.’” And the Israelites went out in the valley and annihilated the enemy army. Because our God is a God of the hills, and the valleys. Amen? He is not limited by any geography whatsoever.
Look at Psalm 95 again: in his hands are the depths of the earth; the mountain peaks belong to him; the sea is his; he formed the dry land. You cannot get away from the presence and the power of this great king. And knowing that should move us to worship out loud.
But more than that. We should worship exuberantly not just because God rules every part of creation, but also because he made it all. So when we experience and behold creation, that should stir something in us that we have to let out!
I’m not a scientist; I have no expertise in astronomy. But I was enthralled with the photos that were released about two weeks ago. Did you see this? The James Webb Space Telescope was launched last Christmas Day, and it’s the most powerful telescope in space—remember, it used to be the Hubble Telescope? This is way better. And on July 11, they started releasing photos—you have to see these.
This is called the “Southern Ring Nebula.” It’s actually a dying star, and it’s located about 2,500 light years away from earth. Isn’t it spectacular?
This is called the “Cosmic Cliffs,” and it’s located in the Carina Nebula, which is 7,500 light years from here. That’s far.
And this is a group of galaxies called “Stephan’s Quintet.” It’s the first compact galaxy group ever discovered, and it’s located 290 million light years away. Utterly mind-blowing, and beautiful beyond words, right?
And guys, listen: the God of the oceans and the mountains and the valleys is the God of that. He did that! John Glenn, the astronaut, didn’t see nearly that level of detail back in the 1960s, but he said, “To look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God is to me impossible.” Jennifer Wiseman is a NASA astronomer with a PhD from Harvard, and she said this: “The exploration of the universe continually tells us about the majestic nature of God.” And then, going from the hugeness of the galaxies to the microscopic smallness of human genes, Francis Collins—the geneticist who led the human genome project—said, “For me the experience of sequencing the human genome…was both a stunning scientific achievement and an occasion of…what? Of worship.”
Listen: Lord God—Yahweh—is the God of the hills and the valleys and the oceans and the galaxies and the genome; he’s the God of Lincoln Park and Pequannock; he is the great King above all Gods! And therefore, Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation! How can we not?? And as we do that—as we worship God exuberantly, our restlessness will become rest. Because this is what our souls were designed for.
But worship is more than that. Here’s the second way it should look: Worship Him with Reverence. Look with me at verse 6:
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
Do you feel how different that is? The Hebrew word for “worship” literally means to physically lower yourself—to bow down or lay prostrate before God. So instead of rising up in loud exuberance, this invites us to bow down in quiet reverence. There should be times in our relationship with God when we lower ourselves in his presence—both in our attitude and in our physical posture. Times when we stop talking and even stop singing, and just bow before him.
Lamin Sanneh is an author who grew up in a Muslim community in the African country of Gambia. And he made the very unlikely decision to become a Christian when he was a teenager. But he often reflects back on his Muslim upbringing, and he talks about some of the good things he learned. And one of those things was watching grown-ups worshiping in the mosque. Listen to this quote: “As a child it impressed me greatly that worship reduced adults to bending, kneeling, crouching, and prostrating, with the act of worship setting aside their lofty standing for the moment.” I think sometimes we miss that in the way we express our faith.
When Peter was fishing with Jesus, and Jesus brought in a miraculous net full of fish, Peter was so struck by who this was in the boat with him, he fell at Jesus’ feet in awe.
When Jesus healed the ten lepers, one of them was so overcome with gratitude that he came back and fell at Jesus’ feet, thanking him.
In Revelation 7, it gives us a glimpse of what’s going on in heaven, and it says there’s a throne where God sits. And everyone around the throne falls on their faces, and worships God.
Part of true worship is bowing down in reverence before God.
But here’s the thing: it’s not groveling; and it’s not terror. It’s not a like a slave cowering before his master. Listen to the reason Psalm 95 tells us we should worship God with reverence—verse 7:
for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.
See, God is not just the powerful Creator; he’s the tender Shepherd who knows his sheep by name, and cares for each one individually. So this is a kind of reverence that’s intimate and loving, like a father with his kids. Does your worship include moments like that?
Not long ago, Norma Jean and I were up in Newport, Rhode Island. One morning I got up early and I went out for a walk. And I saw this beautiful, historic church—turned out to be an Anglican church, I think. And I decided to go up and check the door, and it was open. So I walked in—nobody else there—completely silent. It had this beautiful, ornate architecture. Stained glass, with the sun just starting to rise and filter through the windows. And I noticed there were kneelers on the pews. So I folded one down, and I just knelt there, in silence. And I prayed for a while. And then I actually sang a hymn—all alone.
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art Thou my best thought, by day or by night Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
I sang a couple more verses. And then I knelt in silence for a while longer, and just enjoyed the presence of God. No loudness; no exuberance. It was reverence. And when I walked out of there and went on with my day, my soul really felt at rest. I encourage you: find ways to express reverence to God—in church…outside of church. Your restless soul needs it.
Worship him with exuberance; worship him with reverence. And then the Psalm takes an unexpected turn. Let’s talk about this final thing: Worship Him with Obedience. Pick it up from the end of verse 7:
Today, if only you would hear his voice, 8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
So this reminds us of an event early in the history of Israel. Moses was leading the people toward the promised land, and the people had a horrible attitude. They were whining and complaining to Moses because they didn’t have enough water, and they were questioning whether God was even with them. So after Moses miraculously provided water for everybody to drink, he actually named that location with two names: he called it “Meribah,” which means quarreling, and “Massah,” which means “testing.” This is the place where the people quarreled with their leader and put God to the test. It was not a good moment for the people of Israel.
So a short time later, they actually reached the edge of the promised land. But instead of going in and taking the land, they lost their nerve. They got intimidated. And guess what they did next? They started to grumble against Moses and doubt the presence of God. It was Meribah and Massah all over again. Grumbling and testing. And that’s when God said, “These people shall never enter my rest.” So there was a whole generation of people who had a chance to go into the promised land—but they never got to. God sentenced them to 40 more years of restless wandering in the desert until that generation died out, before they finally went into the land.
Okay—interesting story from the history of Israel. But why would the writer of this Psalm bring that up now? Well, because the Bible takes that event of failing to enter God’s rest in the promised land, and uses that as a picture of a deeper kind of rest. So here’s the point: if we want to have rest for our souls, it’s not enough to worship God with exuberance and reverence; we have to also worship him
with obedience. The reason that whole generation missed out on God’s rest is they refused to obey. God said “Go in and take the land.” And they refused to simply do what God said.
So here’s the warning for us: you can come to church and have the most beautiful time of worship: exuberant—“We praise you Lord!”; reverent—“We love you Lord?”…and then walk out of church and fall right into Meribah and Massah. Are you with me? To go out into our lives, and start grumbling against people, complaining about everything, doubting God. And when God tells us to do something, we say, “I don’t think so. Forgive my enemies? You don’t realize what he did to me. Give generously to the poor? Have you seen the price of gas? Love my wife sacrificially? After the way she treated me? That’s not reasonable.” And when we live like that, our souls will remain restless. So I don’t care how passionately we worship God in church; the biggest test of our worship starts when we walk out those doors. You want rest for you soul? Worship God with obedience.
Let’s make this really practical. Paul Tripp said this: “If you are willingly submitting to God, you do it right away and without delay. You don't say, ‘I'll start obeying God tomorrow.’ Delay is just one of many ways we seek to retain our autonomy and self-sovereignty…Delay is really just disobedience in a tuxedo.” So whatever God is calling you to do, just do it. Don’t put it off. Clare de Graaf wrote a book called The Ten Second Rule, and here’s his advice: “Just do the next thing you're reasonably certain Jesus wants you to do (and do it within the next ten seconds before you change your mind!).” That’s good advice!
Is God leading you to reach out to someone? Do it. Is God leading you to ask forgiveness of someone? Do it. Is God leading you to challenge or confront someone in love? Do it. Do you feel like you should invite that person to church—don’t micro-analyze it; just do it. Get in the habit of obedience. As you hear the voice of God—through Scripture; through biblical preaching; through the Holy Spirit—get in the habit of doing what God leads you to do. There’s such freedom in that.
We don’t usually think of that as worship, right? We don’t look at obedience as worship…but it is! Because it honors God and takes Him at his Word. And that’s worship! And it brings rest to our souls. Am I saying we have to obey perfectly in order to receive God’s rest? Of course not! Nobody obeys perfectly. And that’s why Jesus went to the cross—to forgive us when we fail. So I’m not talking about perfection; I’m talking about a heart that delights in obeying God. It’s such a great way to live.
We are living in really restless times. So many people feel so unsettled, and empty, and we’re not immune from that. Right? But there’s a solution to restlessness. St. Augustine famously said, “You have made us for yourselves, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” That is brilliant! The solution to restlessness is a life of worshiping God. So worship him with exuberance; worship him with reverence; and worship him with obedience. It’s how God designed us to live. And it’s the only way to find rest for you soul.