12 Feb Healing Psalms: Restlessness

Psalm 95:1-11

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.”

Do you know that we live in a day and age where it is almost impossible for us to rest? Two reasons for it. The first reason is technology. There used to be a time when we clock off from work at 5 PM and we don’t touch it until the next day. But that day is long gone. Today, many of us work from home and have access to our work all the time. Even if we don’t, we always carry our smartphones. Our boss and our work colleagues are only one message away. And not only that but today we also have access to what everyone else in our profession around the world is doing. If before we only had to compete with people in the next office, now we must compete with the rest of the world. For example, in the past when you listened to my sermon, you might think, “Yosi is pretty smart. What he said makes sense and it is eye-opening.” But now, when you hear me preach, you think, “That sounds familiar. I think I heard Tim Keller say the same thing in his sermon podcasts. Wow. I didn’t know Tim Keller listened to RSI podcasts. This is great.” Okay, maybe it’s the other way around.

The second reason is that we live in a culture driven by accomplishment. In our culture, our identity is tied up to how well we perform. It is something that we must earn through hard work. All of us continue to measure ourselves by our productivity and accomplishment. We have been wired to do this from a very young age. Let me give you a personal example. If you don’t know, I was on Sabbatical in January. The idea is for me to take a break from preaching and rest in God. It’s a way for me to remind myself that God is God, and I am not God. This church is God’s church, and the church does not depend on me. God can use anybody anywhere at any time. Sabbatical is a way for me to embrace my irrelevancy and rest in God’s sovereignty. And let me tell you, if you think that it was easy for me to rest, you are very wrong. It was extremely hard. Do you know why? Because I struggled with not feeling productive. Subconsciously, I felt worthless if I am not productive. So, what I did was, I made a list of all the things I must do on my Sabbatical. And I tried to get as much done as possible on my first week of Sabbatical. I worked harder than before while I was supposed to be resting. Can you see the irony? The accomplishment might look different to different people. For some of us, it is accomplishments in our studies. For others, it is accomplishments in our work, our relationships, or our family. We tied our identity to how well we performed in those areas. No wonder we are restless.

Tonight, we are in the third sermon of our series, Healing Psalms. The idea behind this series is to explore some common problems people face in their walk with God and show how the Psalmist deals with those problems. And in this sermon, we will look at the problem of restlessness. So, how do we deal with restlessness? The answer is not simply to take some time off and rest. Because we can rest and still be restless. Rest is not simply a matter of taking a nap. Rest is about being at peace even though we are amid chaos. How do we get that? The answer is worship. If I can sum up my sermon in two sentences, it’s this. The Bible tells us that the reason we are restless is we worship the wrong thing. And the main way to deal with restlessness is through worship. So for this, we turn to Psalm 95. Psalm 95 is the classic text in the Bible on worship. It is the best single place in the Bible to understand what worship is about.

I have three points for my sermon. Three things we need to deal with restlessness: Corporate worship; Appraisal worship; Trustful worship.

Corporate worship

Psalm 95:1-2 – 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!

Notice the words used by the Psalmist. He says, “Sing to the Lord. Make a joyful noise. Come with thanksgiving. Make a joyful noise with songs of praise.” Do you know what he is saying? The Psalmist is saying that when we come to God’s presence, we should come with excitement. We should come with gladness and joy. In fact, in Hebrew, the word joyful noise is actually an invitation to shout aloud to God. So, the first thing we see in this psalm is our worship should be noisy. There are other ways to worship. There are times for laments and silence. But the most natural way to worship God is with joy and excitement. So, get this. When we come to worship, we do not come as spectators. We come as participants to celebrate God with joyful noise. It means that the praise and worship team is not a performing band where the worship leader is the lead vocalist. Kimberly Antonio is not Taylor Swift. Singing in the church is not a Coldplay concert. And I am not a TED talk performer. When I preach, I worship. When we sing, we worship. All of us are participants in worship. God is the sole audience.

And the reason we worship God is that He is the rock of our salvation. The picture is of God as a Divine Warrior who defends and delivers His people. Think about it. What would be our response if we were about to be killed and someone saved us from certain death? We would shout with joy. We would be filled with thanksgiving. And we can’t help but praise the person who saved us. This is what the Psalmist is calling us to do. Listen. Christianity is a feeling religion. We are to express our thanksgiving to God through our singing and shouting. So, it is okay to shout and give praise to God when we sing. It would be nice if we can do it on key. But even if we can’t, God welcomes it, though the person sitting next to you might not. That’s why we don’t let some of you use the mic when you sing. We don’t want to hurt anyone’s eardrum during worship. But we are welcome to sing as loud as we can from where we sit. God is the sole audience in our worship. And let me tell you, people next to us need to hear us sing to God. They might come to church with many doubts and struggles. So, when we sing to God, we also encourage them to remember who God is. We remind them, “This is who God is and we can trust Him with our lives.” And we can do this not just while singing, but also during the preaching of the Word of God. I want to encourage you to shout and make noise here and there. If I happen to say something you think is true and it resonates with your heart, then feel free to shout, “Amen. Praise the Lord. That’s right. Preach it.” Or simply “Hmmm.” No one is going to give you a death stare when you do that in this church. Even if they do, it should not bother you. Because you are not doing it for me. This is not about me. This is not about you. This is about God. We are shouting to God in worship.

And don’t miss one of the most obvious things about this Psalm. The whole Psalm is in the plural. It doesn’t say, “Let me sing to the Lord.” It says, “Let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise. Let us; let us; let us…” It’s all us. This is corporate worship. We are called to worship God in a community. Why is this important? Can’t we just worship God on our own? Yes, we can, and we must. Individual worship is crucial. Our personal time with God is irreplaceable. But listen. This is something that I learned after years of pastoral ministry. As important as individual worship is, it is a preparation for corporate worship. The real transforming experience happens mostly in corporate worship and not individual worship. How come? C.S. Lewis puts it this way. “In each of my friends, there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.” Let me explain to you what he means. This is very profound.

I have two close friends that I regularly hang out with. They are Edrick and Jejep. I love them and we enjoy each other company very much. But let’s say that Jejep died. Now, it’s just me and Edrick. The assumption is that when I lost Jejep, I will have more of Edrick. “Yes, no more Jejep. I will have Edrick for myself.” But Lewis argues otherwise. Lewis says that when I lost Jejep, I lost part of Edrick that only Jejep could bring out. I do not have more of Edrick after Jejep died. I have less of Edrick. Do you know what Lewis is saying? He is saying that we can only know an individual human being in a community. We can’t really know a person one-on-one, because we only see the part of that person we bring out. In other words, the more we share a friend with other friends, the more of the person we have. No one individual can draw out the entire personality. We can only know someone completely well in a community. Here is the point. If a finite individual human being cannot be fully known one-on-one, how much more true would that be of God? God is an infinite being. Don’t miss the implication. We will never really know God unless we corporately praise, corporately pray, and corporately study the Bible. We must do it with others, or we will not know Him well. We will only get a little of God unless we are willing to do it with others all the time. This is why corporate worship is absolutely crucial.

Now, let me connect it to restlessness. Do you know why we are restless? One of the main reasons why we are restless is that we only have a little of God. We see other things as bigger than God. And we need our brothers and sisters in Christ to help us have more of God. We need them to help us see different sides of God that we can’t see on our own. We cannot worship God rightly unless we know who He truly is. And we cannot truly know God on our own. That is why we are restless. Listen. Watching sermons on YouTube and live-streaming worship services are good. Praise God for technology. But they are no substitute for corporate worship. They are simply supplements to our spiritual health. The only way we are ever going to know God as He really is, the only way we are going to have an accurate vision of God, is through corporate worship. The one-on-one with God does not suffice. It does not give us all of God. We won’t be able to see all His beauty on our own. So, the first thing we need to deal with restlessness is corporate worship.

Appraisal worship

Psalm 95:3-7a – 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.

Look at what the Psalmist is doing here. He is not only telling us to worship God, but he also tells us why we should worship God. “For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” In those days, they believe that every nation has its own gods whose sovereignty is limited by the sphere of their rule. So, the God of America would rule over America and the God of Indonesia would rule over Indonesia. But the God of the Bible is different. His sphere of authority has no limit. From the depth of the earth to the height of the mountains, from the sea to the dry land, they are all His. Everything is His and He is the Creator of all. And this God not only created everything else out there, but He also created us. He is our Maker. The only reason we are alive today is that the God we worship is causing us to be alive. So, when we come to worship God, it is not just another thing we do on Sunday. We are invited to the presence of the Creator of the universe, our Maker. And when we realize who God is, we won’t come to His presence with a puffed-up chest. But we will worship and bow down. We will kneel before Him in humility.

And look at verse 7a. Psalm 95:7a – For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. This is a covenantal language. The Psalmist says that the God who created the universe is not a distant God. He is our God. And we are the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand. This means that God is personally committed to us and He Himself is our Shepherd. The picture is that God is not only the Creator of all, but God chose to enter a covenant relationship with us. He sovereignly elected us to be His and brought us to Himself. So for the people of God, God is both the Maker and the Owner of His people. He is more than just Creator. He is our Saviour who made us His dearly beloved people.

How is this related to restlessness? St. Augustine famously wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Augustine says that unless we worship God, our heart is restless. Why? Because the human heart is an instinctive worshipper. We must worship something. We must put an ultimate value on something or someone. Tim Keller describes worship this way. “Worship is ascribing ultimate value to an object in a way that energizes and engages your whole person, your whole being.” So, the question is not whether we worship or not. The question is, who or what do we worship? We either worship God or we worship the wrong things. In other words, our ultimate problem always lies with our worship. Our problem is our heart has already ascribed ultimate value to something. And the reason our heart is restless is we are afraid of losing that very thing. So, the way to deal with restlessness is to recognize where our worship already is and transfer our ultimate value to God.

So, how do we know what we worship? In the first Harry Potter movie, there is an object called the Mirror of Erised. By the way, if you don’t know, Erised is the word desire spelled backwards. This mirror shows the deepest desire of their heart. So, when Harry Potter comes upon the mirror, he looks at the mirror, and to his amazement, he sees his parents. The reason that’s so amazing to Harry is his parents are dead. He has never met them. It is his deepest desire to meet them. And in the mirror, he sees his parents loving him and embracing him. Harry gets so excited and he drags Ron Weasley to look in the mirror. Harry thinks that Ron would see his parents. Instead, Ron looks in the mirror and sees himself as a sports champion. He sees himself as the leader of the team. The mirror shows them the deepest desire of their heart. Every one of us has put our hope in something that we say, “If I have that, then I’ll be okay. If I have that, then I know I am somebody. Then my life is meaningful. Then I’ll be happy.” Everyone will see something in the mirror. The question is, what do we see? What is the deepest desire of our hearts? Whatever it is, that is the object of our worship. Whatever it is, that’s the root cause of our restlessness. All our problems come from what our heart is treasuring. If we want to change that, we have to change our worship. Here is what we must get. The cure to restlessness is a result of changes in what we worship. Only when we have God as the object of our worship that our heart finds rest.

So, how do we change what we worship? Look at what the Psalmist is doing. In verses 1 and 2 he tells us to worship God with joyful noise. And then in verse 3, he says, “For the Lord is a great God.” In verse 6 he tells us to bow down and kneel before God. And in verse 7, he says, “For he is our God, and we are his pasture.” The word “for” is a preposition. He is giving us reasons. Here is what the psalmist is doing. The psalmist is thinking, weighing, calculating, and treasuring God and His greatness. He is doing the work of appraisal. And that is the way we change our worship.

Let me illustrate it for you. Let’s say that my dad gave me a Rolex watch. My dad inherited this watch from his dad, and my dad’s dad from his dad. So, this is a family heirloom. And the watch is now in my possession. The watch is okay, but it looks very old. So, I never wear it and I keep it on my shelf. Then one day, Ps Achien comes to my house, sees the watch, and goes crazy. He starts yelling and screaming like a madman and he asks me, “Do you know what this is?” To my eyes, it’s just an ordinary, out-of-fashion old watch. But for Ps Achien who loves watches, the watch holds tremendous value. He then tells me about the watch. The watch that I inherited is not an ordinary Rolex. It is the very first Rolex watch invented. It has serial number 1. And I’m like, “So what?” I’m still clueless. He says, “Yos, you are more stupid than you ever dared to believe, but you are more rich than you ever dared imagine or hope.” He tells me that this watch is worth at least a few million dollars. Now it’s my turn to go crazy. Talk watch, I don’t understand. Talk money, I understand.

What do you think I would do next? One thing is for sure, my attitude toward the watch will never be the same. What was an old, out-of-fashion watch, suddenly becomes very precious. It becomes my treasure. I suddenly admire the watch. I want to know more about the watch. I have an interest in the watch. Not only that, but I begin to think of what it means to have the watch in my possession. I start to realize that my life is completely different now. The watch literally changes my life. I won’t throw the watch back on my shelf and pretend nothing happens. No way. I would buy a safety deposit box with the newest eye-scanner technology to keep it safe. I realized now I am a rich man. I do not need to worry about how to pay my mortgage. I don’t need to worry about a recession. I have a few million dollars watch. Can you see what happened? My whole life changed because of the watch. By the way, this is just an illustration. I don’t own a Rolex watch. The last time I used this illustration, someone asked me if he could see the watch.

This is what I mean by appraisal worship. And this is what we must do. Do you know why there are many people who believe in God, but their lives are just as messed up as anybody else? Because God is like that old watch. He is in their lives, but they have absolutely no sense of His value, His worth, and His beauty. It has never dawned on them. That is why we must learn to do what the psalmist does. It is one of the most important spiritual disciplines. If we don’t learn to do appraisal worship, we would be inconsistent people at best and hypocrites at worst. Because all of us are shaped by the object of our worship. That is why what we worship is critical. For example, parents, if you are constantly restless over your children, do you know why? Because you are looking at something besides God and say, “My children have to be this and that or my life isn’t worth anything.” You must have your children go to the best school, have the best career, marry the best person, or else you feel like you are a failure. The solution is not simply to trust God more with your children. Your problem is you have made your children your object of worship. That’s why you feel threatened and devastated when your children do not turn out the way you expected.

Singles, why are you constantly restless about your singleness? Why are you desperate for a relationship? Because you are looking at a relationship and say, “If only I have a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband, a wife, then I’m worth something.” There’s something you worship more than God. And that’s why you are devastated by your singleness. Your heart is treasuring a relationship. And until you change your object of worship, you are not going to change. Listen. If we want to change our lives, we have to change what we worship. We have to learn to think and weigh on God and His greatness. Don’t just say that we must worship God. But think, “If God is good and He is my treasure, why should I be restless about my singleness? Why should I be restless about my children? Why should I be restless about things not working out according to my expectation? God is infinitely wiser than me and He knows what’s best for me.” And when we do this, we begin to see life from the right perspective and we won’t be as restless anymore as the result. So, the second thing we need to deal with restlessness is appraisal worship.

Trustful worship

Psalm 95:7b-11 – 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.”

Let me explain what happens here. The Psalmist is giving us a history lesson. He reminds us how the people of Israel put God to the test and provoked God. So, the people of Israel had seen signs and wonders God performed in Egypt with their own eyes. They saw God created hail, darkness and ultimately how God killed every first-born son in Egypt but spared the Israelites. And then they saw the Red Sea split into two. And once they got to the other side, the Red Sea returned to normal and swallowed the Egyptian army. What a sight to behold. But three days later, they grumbled against Moses because they had no water to drink. But God turned bitter water into sweet water. Then a few days later they were hungry, and they grumbled again. And God graciously sent them quails in the evening and manna in the morning. We would think that they have witnessed more than enough for them to trust God. But then they were thirsty again and had nothing to drink. So, they quarrelled with Moses. But again, God made provision. God made water come out of rock. And it happened in Massah and Meribah.

So, the people of Israel who were in Massah and Meribah saw the wonderful things that God has done for them. Yet they continued to put God to the test. They continued to question God’s power and faithfulness. And God in his kindness continued to show them grace after grace, mercy after mercy. The kindness of God meant to lead them to repentance. Yet Israel never learned their lesson. After experiencing grace after grace, they continued to test God. And then the greatest tragedy happened. They refused to trust God and enter the Promised Land. Although the land was filled with milk and honey, there were also giants that inhabited the land. And they were afraid. Because of it, God was angry, and He promised that none of them would enter God’s rest, which mean that none of them would enter the Promised Land, except Joshua and Caleb. This is the history lesson the Psalmist is giving. And the psalm ends abruptly there.

What’s the lesson for us? The Psalmist is telling us not to repeat the same mistakes as the Israelites in the wilderness. They have seen God’s marvellous works, yet they grumbled, complained, and challenged God again and again. God wanted to bless Israel and yet Israel constantly rebelled against God. They never trusted God with their hearts, and they failed to enter the Promised Land because of it. Here are some questions we must ask ourselves. How often do we make the same mistake as them? How often do we question God after everything He has done for us? We might be in church today. We might be serving today. We might be singing, lifting our hands, shouting, and worshipping. But do we trust God and His word? Do we obey His commandments? Because if we don’t trust God and His word, we miss the point of worship. Get this. Trusting God will produce rest. Unbelief will produce restlessness. And we must make a choice. The reason this Psalm ends abruptly is for the listener to supply their own ending. Will we trust God and His word and enter His rest? Or will we not trust Him and experience restlessness?

But there is a deeper question that I want us to consider from this psalm. Why would the psalmist warn the people of Israel not to miss God’s rest when Joshua already got them into the Promised Land? By the time Psalm 95 is written, Israel has been living in the Promised Land for hundreds of years. If that’s the case, why is it that Psalm 95 warns worshippers not to miss out on God’s rest? Hebrews chapter 4 gives us the answer. Hebrews 4:8-11 – ⁸ For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. ⁹ So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, ¹⁰ for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. ¹¹ Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Let me put this in a nutshell. The author of Hebrews is saying that the physical rest the people of Israel experienced is pointing to a deeper rest that is still available for us. And we must not miss it. What rest is he talking about? He is talking about the gospel rest. Just like God rested from His works, we can also rest from our good works when we believe in the gospel. What is the gospel? The gospel is Jesus lived and died as our substitute. Jesus lived the life we should have lived, and he died the death we should have died. The gospel is the opposite of religion. Religion says, “If I work hard enough, if I do good enough, God will bless me. If I give God my perfect record, God will favour me. Then I will finally have rest.” But the gospel says, “No matter how hard I work, I will never be good enough for God. But Jesus is. And Jesus gives me his perfect record when I put my trust in him. Now I can rest.” The gospel is the exact opposite of religion.

What that means is we don’t have to prove ourselves anymore. We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to be in control. The reason we are restless is we still think that it is up to us to earn God’s blessing. That’s why we work hard and we never feel secure. Underneath all our restlessness is this deep insecurity saying, “If I work hard enough, if I can be good enough, then I’ll know that I am somebody.” And the gospel ends all that exhausting work. The gospel gives us deep and final rest. The gospel tells us that God already loves us. He already blesses us. He already accepts us in Jesus Christ. Jesus already paid the price of our sins at the cross and we have received Jesus’ perfect righteousness the moment we put our faith in him. Now, we can breathe. And this transforms the way we think about worship. If we don’t get the gospel, we are going to turn worship into a form of work for us to earn God’s blessing. It is going to be one more thing on our to-do list to please God. “If I come to worship, if I am not late to church, if I come every Sunday and not fall asleep during the sermon, then maybe God will bless me.” Instead of transforming our lives, worship makes us tired and restless. But if we trust the gospel, if we see what Jesus has done for us, then that great burden falls off our backs. We can finally rest. Only gospel-fueled worship can give us true rest and free us from restlessness.

Let me end with this important application. The author of Hebrews tells us to strive to enter God’s rest. To strive to enter God’s rest is to do everything we can to continue to trust in Jesus’ perfect work on our behalf. This is a very important reminder for us. Listen. Trust in the gospel is not automatic. We need to strive for it. The world that we live in has its own gravity. And its gravity does not propel us toward the gospel but pulls us away from the promise of the gospel. The world constantly bombards us with the message that it is all about our accomplishments and our ability to perform. That is why we need a regular healthy dose of the gospel. This is why every part of Sunday service is crucial. If we look at the structure of Psalm 95, there is a call to worship in the beginning, confession and submission in the middle, and listening to God’s word at the end. Call to worship, confession, and instruction. That’s how Christian worship liturgy works. That’s why when we come to RSI for corporate worship, we begin with a call to worship. There is a reminder of God’s greatness and an invitation to make a joyful noise to Him. Then there is a confession of sin, where we acknowledge that our hearts do not always treasure God. We remember our sins and we call to mind what God has done for us at the cross. This is the appraisal worship. And after that comes the sermon, instruction from God, where we are called to trust God. And we end with the holy communion as a confession that we belong to God, and then we are sent out from this place to be witnesses of Christ wherever we are. Every single part of the service is important to help our hearts treasure God more.

That is why you can’t come to the service 20 minutes late and say, “Fiuh, just right on time for Yosi’s sermon. I only missed the praise and worship.” and then run out right after the holy communion because you have an appointment with your friend. This is not a condemnation for those who come late to church or have to leave early now and then. Life happens. I understand. But if you are always coming late and leaving early, you don’t understand worship. You don’t really understand what you need. Listen. It is not information from sermons that changes us; It is gospel-fueled worship. It is like a fireplace in a very cold house. When we are close to the fire, we feel warm. But when we walk away from the fire, we feel cold. That’s the picture of the condition of our hearts. There are many areas in our hearts that are cold. The default mode of our hearts is to rely on our own works and our accomplishments. That’s why we need to keep coming back to the gospel to warm our hearts. And we do this again and again through corporate worship, appraisal worship, and trustful worship. When we do that, we are calibrating our hearts with the gospel. And the more we know we are accepted because of what Jesus has done for us, the more our hearts are at rest. This is how we deal with restlessness. Let’s pray.

Discussion questions:

1. What struck you the most from this sermon?
2. “The real transforming experience happens mostly in corporate worship and not individual worship.” Agree or disagree? Why?
3. What does it mean to do appraisal worship and why is it one of the most important spiritual disciplines? Give some personal examples.
4. “Trusting God will produce rest. Unbelief will produce restlessness.” What does it say about the restlessness we experienced?
5. What is the gospel rest and why do we need it?
6. What are the things that you can do to be a better participant in gospel-fuelled corporate worship?