Last week, we were challenged to expand our mindset and view of worship.  We were challenged to see it as God sees it; not just a genre of music, but a lifestyle of laying down ourselves to exalt God. 

It’s kind of like looking at an acorn not seeing it not just for what it is, but for the potential within it.  Worship is not a silly-hatted little nut, it’s a vast, dense forest of mighty oaks producing acorns and other oak trees until Jesus returns!  Worship is so, so much more than a song!

This morning, we’re continuing to allow God to stretch our perspective and understanding by listening to His voice and not hardening our hearts. 

We begin again with worship by turning to a Psalm written by David:

Psalm 95:6-11

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 (which means quarreling),

    as you did that day at Massah (which means testing) 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.’”

Paul quoted this same scripture emphasizing what the Holy Spirit spoke here through David and went on to say:

Hebrews 3:12-13

12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

We do not want to be like the generation that Moses lead out of Egypt to the promised land!  They were never able to enter into God’s promises because of their sinful, hardened hearts.  They grumbled and complained and quarreled and pretty much did everything but what God desired them to do. 

They covered their ears and didn’t want to hear God’s voice.  Instead of drawing near to God’s Presence in awe and worship, they stayed away at a distance and hardened their hearts against God.  Instead of bowing down their lives to be filled with God’s Presence, they bowed out and left God’s Presence.

Exodus 20:18-21

18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

21 The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

No, we don’t want to be like them!  We want to instead be like the Joshua generation that took hold of all of God’s promises and defeated everything that stood between them and their promised land!  They listened to God’s voice and allowed it to lead them in fullness of trust.

How do we know if we are suffering from hardness of heart?  After all, sin is deceitful.  The deceitful thing about deceit is that we’re deceived and truthfully, honestly believe that we are not being deceived by deceit.  

We can’t know on our own if sin’s deceit has hardened our hearts.  It often takes one of our brothers or sisters in Christ coming alongside of us to show us where our hearts have become hardened by sin’s deceit. 

Why?  Because when our hearts are hardened, we’re not usually hearing God’s voice on our own.  Or, if we are hearing it, our fingers are in our ears ignoring it.

Several times, David wrote this prayer:

Psalm 26:2

Test me, Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind

So today, if you