What do you do that grieves God the most? Is there some sin that you're just sure drives Him nuts as He sits in Heaven? Is there something you've not overcome that you imagine wets His eyes as He watches you struggle with it? What frustrates God, if that's an emotion we can attribute to the Almighty?
Take time to look at Psalm 95. It's a wonderful psalm and only eleven verses, but it's got so much going on and you'll find yourself flipping your Bible both forward and back.
Psalm 95 begins with a call to worship. The psalmist tells us to worship because God is the creator and owner of all things. The song, "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" will likely pop into your mind as you read these first five verses:
"Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!
For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
In His hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are His also.
The seas is His, for He made it,
and His hands formed the dry land." Psalm 95:1-5
God is the creator, owner and sustainer of all things! He is greater than all "gods" and He is worth singing about even if you can't carry a tune in a bucket.
The psalm then dials the microscope in from the hugeness of the universe and focuses in on us and our Heavenly Father's care for us. He wants us to understand that this God who holds the whole earth in His hands cares for us. He wants us to comprehend that the God who made the Rocky Mountains made us and loves us.
"Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker.
For He is our God,
and we are the people of His pasture,
and the sheep of His hand." Psalm 95:6-7a
Do you believe that? Are you someone that believes... truly believes... that God cares for you like a good shepherd? Do you read Psalm 23 and know that your God cares for you? Do you believe that the God that wove you in your mother's womb loves you? Do you know this is the Good Shepherd that will leave the ninety-nine to get the one?
It's hugely important that God's people know and believe this. If we fail to believe this we besmirch the character of God and I can think of few things that could possibly grieve God and even anger God, the God who is jealous for His fame and glory, worse that sullying His character when He's done nothing but love and shepherd us.
Look at the next verses of the psalm:
"Today, if you hear His voice,
do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work." Psalm 95:7b-9
These verses point back to the story of the Exodus. The people of Israel had seen the plagues in Egypt. They had walked across the Red Sea on dry ground. They had eaten the bread of Heaven six days a week. They had watched suicidal quail land at their feet for supper. Yet when they were thirsty they doubted God's love, care and provision. Moses then smote the rock and brought out water, yet the people still doubted.
These same Israelites who had seen miracle after miracle sent spies into the Promised Land. The spies testified that the land was amazing but ten of the twelve, all but Joshua and Caleb, spread fear about the peoples living in the land. The same Israelites who had watched God destroy the greatest superpower in the ancient world at the time, without them raising a sword, doubted that God could and would do it again with a lesser foe. They doubted God's love, care and provision for them.
"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.'
Therefore I swore in my wrath,
'They shall not enter my rest.'" Psalm 95:10-11
The entire generation of Israelites, except for Joshua and Caleb, missed the Promised Land. They disbelieved God's love and care for them. They died in the desert and missed their rest.
In Hebrews 3 and 4 the author picks up on Psalm 95. The writer says that Jesus is the Redeemer greater than Moses and Joshua and that the New Heaven and New Earth is far beyond the Holy Land. The writer of Hebrews even warns that our eternal security is at stake: "Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it." Hebrews 4:1
Jesus has done greater things than Moses. Jesus died on the cross for your sins and was raised on the third day. Jesus defeated sin and death for you. Jesus, in the great exchange as Augustine calls it, took our sin and failures and gave us His righteousness and all its benefits.
How then can we besmirch God's character and doubt His love and care for us? How then can we assault the very character of God by accusing Him of being an absent father? What gives us the thought that we can look at any command of God for us and wonder if it's in our best interest or not? For the believer isn't all sin rooted in our misunderstanding and misapplication of God's incalculable love for us or, even worse, a direct disbelief in His love and Good Shepherd care for us?
What grieves God most? I think it has to be those who have tasted and seen His goodness and then rejected it like Judas. It's those who look at the cross and then disbelieve the Triune God's deep love and affection for them.
The Puritan pastor and author John Owen said this in his book Communion with the Triune God:
"The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to Him, is not to believe that He loves you."
Let me leave you with this famous quote from pastor Brennan Manning:
"The Lord Jesus is going to ask each of us one question and only one question: 'Do you believe that I loved you? That I desired you? That I waited for you day after day? That I longed to hear the sound of your voice?'
The real believers there will answer, 'Yes, Jesus. I believed in your love and I tried to shape my life as a response to it."
Whether you're comfortable with some of the sappy language Pastor Manning uses or not, the question remains. Do you believe Jesus loves you and how does that affect how you'll live today? Or will you see the difficulties of life, the tasty looking temptations along the roadside of life or listen to the voices that naysay and decide to believe that God is holding out on you and that He either doesn't love you at all or just not enough for your liking? Will you believe and trust in the love of God for you or will you assault His character and grieve His heart today?
