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Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord\u2026 For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. \u2026 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; 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, \u201cDo not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness\u2026 (Psalm 95:1a, 3, 6-8)

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In these days of pondering and playing witness to what it has been and will be to have a monarch over the nation of Canada, we perhaps have some footing on which to reckon with these psalms that speak of God as King.\xa0

The Israelites lived in a land where the nations each had their own gods that they believed to be sovereign over the land or the sea.\xa0 But Israel\u2019s claim was unique.\xa0 Whereas for other nations, their gods\u2019 power tended to end at their own national borders, the Israelites claimed that their God was God over the whole of creation.\xa0 It\u2019s true that the Israelites were monotheists.\xa0 The Lord was God and there was no other\u2014but there were different ways of saying so amidst the nations and this was one of them.\xa0 In the assembly of deities, for Israel only one ruled supreme: the great King above all gods: The Lord.\xa0

The psalm goes on to declare how the Lord is God over not just the other gods but all of creation.\xa0 How then should God\u2019s people respond\u2014this flock under his own care?\xa0 By coming to bow their own knees before his majestic throne, that\u2019s how.\xa0 \u201cCome, let us bow down in worship,\u201d declares the psalmist, \u201clet us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God.\u201d

But God is not a withdrawn, benevolent servant in cahoots with the national interest or the people\u2019s parliament as it is in Canada.\xa0 We do not merely genuflect or nod to his majesty and comment to one another how cool it is that our God is the best of them all.\xa0 No: this sovereign is the living God, and in every today in history that ever has or ever will be known as \u201ctoday,\u201d he has something new to say to his people.\xa0 Always, even today he is speaking, if only you would hear his voice.\xa0

As the people assemble, God\u2019s voice all of a sudden speaks out in this psalm: \u201cdo not harden your hearts like you did that day in the wilderness\u2026\u201d\xa0

As God\u2019s people we are not merely invited to participate in the pageantry of worship or submission.\xa0 We are not merely to go through the motions.\xa0 When we come to worship and bow the knee to our God, Lord of all the Universe, we are also to bow our hearts and lives, submitting and bending our wills and living to the voice and call of our God.

No further command comes in the psalm.\xa0 Simply the command to keep not just our knees, but also our hearts, lives, and obedience supple and at the ready to hear and respond to God\u2019s call.\xa0

It was just such a situation that Jesus found himself in when tempted in the wilderness by another spiritual being who would\u2019ve sought to usurp the throne of the God of gods.\xa0 But Jesus\u2019 heart was not hard, and his ears remained attentive and responsive to the voice and calling of God His Father.\xa0 Where we failed, he prevailed, enabling our willing obedience in his steps, even as he continues to soften our hearts.\xa0 Take heart: we remain the flock under his care.

For a fun, minor, acoustic musical setting of this Psalm, you can find a cover of the Sons of Korah\u2019s version of Psalm 95 by the group Half a Mile on Spotify by clicking here.