Sing for Joy to the Lord
Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. – Psalm 95:1-2
Many of us like to sing. Even if we are hesitant to sing publicly, when we are alone in the car or at home, often we sing along when we hear our favorite songs.
We love to sing for a lot of reasons—joy, love, sorrow, even fear sometimes.
Our best reason to sing is given in the Bible verse: “Let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.”
We live in changing times. Change means uncertainty. Culture, the future, security, economy, jobs, politics, family—these are life’s experiences that bring us more change that we are sometimes comfortable with. In this sea of change, we can always depend on the unchanging Rock of our salvation.
Salvation is the Bible’s word for God rescuing us from the consequences we should receive for all of our sins. We don’t give God the respect he is worthy of. We second guess how God deals with us and this world. We don’t give God the love he deserves. He comes in second or third or four hundred fortieth on our love list. Our actions and attitude pile up a boatload of trouble for us. God should reject and punish us.
But instead of dishing out what we deserve, the Rock of our salvation rescued us. In his great love, God chose to rescue us by sending his Son to suffer sin’s consequences for us. God will never punish us for our sins because he already punished Jesus for them. God’s choices and actions are unchangeable history. Our Rock of salvation will not shift his position or change his mind. He has rescued us from our sins. This fact will outlast the universe!
So we sing to the Rock of our salvation. We sing for joy because God has forgiven us. We sing songs about his sure promises to chase away our fears and heal our wounded hearts. We sing to express our love to God who will never stop loving us.
Go ahead and sing to the Rock of our salvation. If you aren’t sure what to sing, or would like company singing to the Lord, come and worship with us. We have found real comfort and genuine joy in singing together the praises of our Lord.