1 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.
Ps 95:1-7
In times of chaos like our current ones, it’s good to reflect on the greatness of our God. Psalm 95 is a good psalm for us in these times. Like many churches, we frequently read this Psalm for our call to worship, because fundamentally, this is a Psalm about worship. The image in this Psalm is of a group of people going to the temple, exhorting each other to rise to the occasion and get ready for the event. What event? The worship of our great God and King! As Derek Kidner says, the people are making sure “none of them drift into the service preoccupied or apathetic.”
But, why is the Psalmist so eager to worship? Because the Psalmist knows the greatness of his God (v 3). He is the “Mega God!” JI Packer, who just went home to be with our great God, once said it this way, “Our faith is so feeble. Our worship so flabby because we’ve lost the sense of the sheer greatness of God.”
The Psalmist knows a God who is great, a great king above all. The final authority over all authority. The mega ruler over all rulers. The mega CEO over all CEOs. And, the way the Psalmist drives home the point is in verses 4-5. He notes the depths, the heights and the sea. Why? Those places were the places of other gods in the surrounding pagan religions. But, the Lord holds those places in his hands. He even made all those places, even all things! (Look at the above picture of the earth and recognize that the earth, weighing some 1.3×1025 pounds (best guess), was made by our Mega God.) The point the Psalmist is ultimately making is that there is nothing to fear. Our Mega God holds everything in his hands. Even the sea is in his hands. The sea represents chaos in Scripture, yet even the chaos must answer to God. God controls it all, even that which is out of our control.
Therefore, we can make a joyful noise! We can come! We can worship and bow down and kneel before the Lord, because chaos does not have the last word. Evil does not have the last word. Addiction does not have the last word. This pandemic does not have the last word. Even the greatest chaos in our lives, death, does not have the last word. He does! Our Mega God has the last word! He is our rock, unmovable and unshakable. He holds it all in his hands. Even when everything around us seems to be falling apart, like it feels right now, we can trust that it is all falling into his hands. He is the Mega God! That is the mega-greatness of our God! Amen.