Serve Yahweh with Gladness

Sermon transcript

Well, please remain standing for the reading of God’s word as we continue our consideration of various select psalms this evening. We’re going to consider a brief yet well-known psalm, Psalm 100. Psalm 100. Here are the word of God, this is entitled, A Psalm for Thanksgiving. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord himself is God. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. For the Lord is good. His loving kindness is everlasting. and his faithfulness to all generations. Dear ones, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

Let’s pray for the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of his word. Our dear Lord and Father in heaven, we ask that by your Holy Spirit you would work through the word this evening. We thank you, Lord, that you do communicate to us through your God-breathed, inerrant, infallible word We ask that by your Holy Spirit, you would cause the hearts of each and every one of us to be good soil to receive the seed of your word. And we ask that by your spirit, the seed of your word would not only take deep root in our hearts, but would also produce much in the way of spiritual fruit. We ask Heavenly Father that you would fill us with joy and comfort and that you would challenge us as well by your word and spirit this evening.

Grant me grace, Lord, to declare your word with power and clarity. Clothe me with power from on high by your Holy Spirit. And Lord, we ask that you would get me out of the way that Jesus would be exalted in the proclamation of your word tonight. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. As you see in your bulletin, the title of my sermon this evening is, Serve Yahweh with Greatness. And there’s four key words to be listening for this evening. The words kingship, covenant, praise, and thanksgiving. God is great. God is good. Thank you, thank you for our food. Or perhaps you’ve heard the prayer go this way. God is great. God is good. Now we thank him for our food. This was a simple prayer that I was taught as a child and which we would sometimes pray together at family gatherings.

I think I’ve shared that with you before and perhaps you’ve prayed similar prayers in your family gatherings as well. The post-meal version of the prayer which we would sometimes pray if we got ahead of ourselves and ended up eating before praying was something like, God is good, God is great, thank you for the food we ate. But in any case, while this was a simple, short, childlike prayer, when you think about it, the prayer itself, the content of that prayer itself, summarizes and expresses some incredibly deep, profound theology. God is great and God is good. Yes, indeed, God is great. The Bible teaches that God is infinitely, boundlessly, eternally great. As our shorter catechism so eloquently states it, God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. God is omnipotent, almighty in His power.

He is absolute in His sovereignty. He is majestic in His holiness. He is unsearchable in His wisdom. He is high and lifted up, worthy of never-ending praise and adoration. The contemplations of His triune majesty and glorious being could easily occupy multiple lifetimes. In fact, if God were to grant us a thousand lifetimes to spend our entire lives contemplating His majestic triune being, we would only begin to scratch the surface. For He is incomprehensible in His greatness and glory. But our God, who is so incredibly great, unfathomably great, is also profoundly good. While he is indeed infinitely holy and righteous and just, he is a just God who will bring his holy judgments to bear against the unrepentant wicked. He is also a God of infinite grace, mercy, and kindness, a God who is revealed to be one who is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and covenant faithfulness, a God who in Jesus Christ has redeemed a world of wretched sinners like me and like you, simply out of pure, sovereign, undiluted grace.

Indeed, God is great, but praise be to His name, He is also wonderfully good.” Well, friends, like that childhood prayer, short and simple yet profound, Our psalm for this Lord’s Day evening is also short and, at one level at least, simple. And yet it is also deeply profound in the theological truths that it summarizes and expresses. This psalm, which we sang at the beginning of our service this evening using the old hundredth tune, reveals both the greatness and the goodness of our God. And friends, it summons us to worship and serve Yahweh the Lord, our God, with gladness and joy. When it comes to classifying this psalm in terms of its psalm type, Psalm 100 is often classified as a kingship psalm, a psalm that highlights the sovereign reign of God over all the nations, indeed over all creation.

It is a psalm that appears to conclude a series of psalms that run from Psalm 95 through Psalm 100 and which share the common theme of Yahweh’s divine kingship. The Lord, Yahweh, is extolled in these Psalms as the sovereign and supreme ruler over all creation and over all the nations, but He is also extolled as the covenant Lord of His people, Israel. Psalm 100 serves as a fitting conclusion and thematic recap to this celebratory section of the Psalter that runs from Psalm 95 through Psalm 100. It is entitled simply, A Psalm of Thanksgiving. And this title has led some Bible scholars to suggest that this psalm may have been sung in the temple when the thank offering was presented on the altar to the Lord. And that is indeed a possibility. There is language in this psalm that indicates that it may very well have been used in the context of temple worship under the Old Covenant.

And while there are no certain clues regarding its historical setting or regarding its author, its human author, some suggest that it is a post-exilic psalm. Some suggest that this psalm may have been written after the Jews had returned from their exile in Babylon. What is the redemptive historical significance of this psalm? Well, very profound, actually. Like the other kingship psalms that preceded, Psalm 100 anticipates the Messianic New Covenant age in Christ, the age in which we now live, when Gentile nations will join with believing Israel in worshiping Yahweh as their covenant Lord, Savior, and King. And there are basically two major themes or lessons that we can glean from this psalm. And we first of all read in this psalm a summons to praise and thanksgiving. This psalm is a joyful, exuberant summons for God’s people to praise and thank Him.

And not only for God’s people to praise and thank Him, but indeed for all of the earth. all of the lands, all of the nations of mankind to join with the covenant people in worshiping and serving Yahweh the Lord. We see this summons to praise and thanksgiving in the opening verses, verses one and two, and we also see the psalmist returning to this summons to praise and thanksgiving in verse four. So let’s dive in and take a look. In verses one and two, read again the following. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before Him with joyful singing. What is the opening mood of this psalm, the mood that pervades the entirety of this brief psalm. It is a mood of joy. It is a mood of thanksgiving, a mood of praise.

Notice the language. In verse 1, we are exhorted to do what? To shout joyfully. And then there is language in verse 2 that speaks of serving and worshiping God with gladness and joyful singing. Friends, what does that tell us about our God? It tells us that God, our sovereign King and covenant Lord, delights in receiving the joyful worship and service of His people. He doesn’t need our worship. It’s not like we come to worship God because poor God, he needs an ego boost, so he needs for us to come together and sing his praises. No, he doesn’t need us, but nonetheless, he condescends to us, he feeds us, he encourages us, he builds us up through the word, and he delights to hear our response in prayer and praise and adoration. Now, as the Psalter itself testifies elsewhere, There is certainly a place in our worship of God for things such as reverent lamentation and sorrowful repentance.

So those more somber moods of worship are also appropriate at times. But nevertheless, it is important for us to remember, beloved, that scripture nowhere equates reverence in worship with a gloomy, morose spirit. A countenance and demeanor in worship that makes the worshiper look like he or she is sucking on sour lemons is not necessarily an evidence of reverent piety or a pious heart. On the contrary, the Word of God indicates in places like this very psalm that our loving Heavenly Father desires for us, His people, to find joy and gladness in His holy presence and to express that joy in our prayers and praises. Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful singing.” This is one of the reasons why we place such a premium on the importance of worship song.

This is why we set aside time in our services, especially the evening service when you get to choose favorite psalms or hymns to sing. That’s why we view that as being so important. God delights in hearing the praises of His people.” Indeed, the Scriptures indicate to us that He inhabits the praises of His people. And again, notice who is summoned to such joyful worship. Shout joyfully to the Lord. Notice the word Lord there in your translations is probably in all capital letters. That indicates the covenant name of God, Yahweh, and contemplates God in His special covenant bond, His relationship with His people, shout joyfully to Yahweh, the faithful, redeeming, covenant God, all the earth. Some translations say all the lands. This is a theme in all of the kingship Psalms. like the other kingship psalms, all the nations of humanity are invited and summoned to worship, to praise, and to serve Yahweh with gladness, not with gloominess, but with gladness.

And this anticipates the new covenant age when the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ will go beyond the boundaries of national Israel and through the missionary labors of the church in fulfillment of the great commission will go out into the Gentile nations, inviting believing Gentiles to join with their believing Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ in the one covenant people of God. to worship and serve the One Covenant Lord and Sovereign over all together. And so this psalm anticipates the Gentile mission, the great commission to the nations. And then if we skip down to verse 4, We see again the psalmist repeating this summons to worship and verse four again has more of a focus on the temple. Enter his gates with thanksgiving. This is no doubt very likely the gates of the temple that the psalmist is speaking of.

Enter into his courts with praise. These are the temple courts. Now, of course, we don’t have the temple in Jerusalem is no more, but as Scripture makes abundantly clear in many different places, that temple imagery and typology is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the living temple. And in union with Jesus Christ, we brothers and sisters are a temple of God in the Spirit. We are built together as living stones in Christ, the living temple. So we no longer need to enter the gates of a temple in the Middle East, in Jerusalem, no. We can enter the gates of the heavenly temple by faith and through the Holy Spirit as we gather together to worship the Lord in union with Jesus Christ. Enter His gates with what? Again, what is the mood here?

Enter His gates with thanksgiving. And then to reinforce what he is saying, using different words to describe basically the same thing, enter into his courts with praise, give thanks to him, bless his name. Thanksgiving and praise, blessing his name, giving thanks to him. These are ideas, these are practices that involve and are connected and intertwined one with another. Here again, the psalmist issues another call to thanksgiving and praise using the language, as I mentioned, of temple worship. And so, dear listener, we are summoned to worship God in spirit and in truth with joy and gladness. Dear listener, does your faith fill you with joy? Now, God has given us different personalities. Not everybody is giddy and exuberant. Some of us are more reserved, and that’s okay. We express our joy in different ways. But if we know Christ as our Savior, how can we help but be filled with a spirit of joy, knowing that in Christ our sins are forgiven, in Christ we are accepted, we are adopted as God’s children, and the Lord is at work in us, and he is conforming us more and more into the image of Christ.

So are you? Is your faith a faith that fills you with joy? Not giddiness necessarily, but joy. Do you worship and serve the Lord with gladness and joy? Of course you can’t have the gladness and joy of the Lord unless you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior. Do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin? by God’s grace have you repented of sin and looked to Christ as the way, the truth, and the life, the only mediator between God and the sinful humanity? Do you look to Christ alone for your salvation from sin? God in the gospel calls you, dear listener, to put away your sin, to turn from your sin to Christ, trusting him, resting upon him alone, receiving him alone as your righteousness, your redemption, your sanctification and wisdom. For Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin and rose from the dead so that all who believe in him might not perish but have everlasting life.

And it is the gospel, it is believing and embracing the gospel that fuels the joy of our worship. We worship the Lord and serve the Lord with gladness and joy because we know that we have been beloved of God, that we have been loved with an everlasting love, that we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, that God in mercy has come to us, rescued us, redeemed us, forgiven us for all of our sins, and accepted us, justified us in Christ. all by His grace and grace alone. Knowing your identity in Christ, knowing that you are a forgiven, beloved child of God, how can you not feel joy in your heart knowing these things to be so? So by the grace of God, let us worship and serve the Lord. with gladness, whatever circumstances we find.

Yes, we believers, we live in a fallen, sin-cursed world. And sometimes we, too, grieve. Sometimes we, too, lament and mourn. And there is a place for that in the Christian life. It’s not that it’s wrong or sinful for Christians to grieve. At the same time, we grieve not like the world does, for the joy of the Lord sustains us even in the midst of our grief as we look to Jesus and know that He will pull us through. And so again, we see in this psalm a simple yet powerful summons to praise and thanksgiving. But we also see in this psalm a confession of Yahweh’s covenant faithfulness to His people. This is my second main point, a confession of Yahweh’s covenant faithfulness to His people. We find this confession in verses 3 and 5. The first two verses, the psalmist opens the psalm summoning God’s people and indeed all the earth to shout joyfully before the Lord, to worship and serve Him in gladness.

And then in verse three, we are given the reason why we are to do so. And this reason is also a confession of the faith of God’s people. Know that the Lord, know that Yahweh Himself is God. He is God, the one true and living God. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. We know our identity. We are his sheep. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. And then also verse five confesses the covenant faithfulness and the goodness of our Lord. It says, for the Lord, for Yahweh is good, His loving kindness, I believe in the Hebrew it is His hesed, His covenant love is everlasting, His faithfulness to all generations. Reflecting on verse 3, one commentator writes the following as verse 3 speaks of the foundation of our joy and of joyful worship.

It says, this commentator says, that God’s threefold claim to possess His people is registered first because of creation, for He made us, secondly because of election, for we are His people, thirdly because of providence, for as shepherd, He presides over and guides the sheep of His pasture. We can praise God because he is our creator. We can praise God and ought to praise God because in mercy he has chosen us to be his people. We can praise God because in Christ, the good shepherd, he shepherds us, the sheep of his pasture. Now there is a translational question here in verse 3. If you’re following along in the New American Standard Version it says, it is He who has made us and not we ourselves. Well that certainly is true. We didn’t make ourselves. We’re not self-sovereign God is sovereign over us.

We are creatures. He is our Creator. But is that really how we are to understand this? Another suggested translation which was found, for example, in the English Standard Version is, and we are His. We are His people, it is He who made us, and we are His. If that’s the correct way to understand this passage, then this passage highlights the fact that God, in sovereign mercy, has taken us, sinners and wretches though we be, to be His sheep, His people, the sheep of His pasture. And again, there’s arguments that could be made for either view. I believe the ESV’s translation is probably to be preferred, that we are His, whatever the case may be. The Lord indeed made us, He created us, He redeemed us, He has chosen us in Christ, He has taken us to be the sheep of His pasture, and He mercifully, graciously shepherds us.

And then verse five again closes this psalm, verse five closes this psalm with another reflection on Yahweh’s covenant faithfulness to his people, which we as his people confess and which serves as a foundation for our joyful worship. For the Lord is good. Remember I shared that child’s prayer. God is good. God is great. God is good. That’s a biblical truth. The Lord is good. He is superlatively good. And then to flesh this out and express that goodness, how do we see the goodness of God? His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations. God promises to be God to us and to our children after us. God’s covenant mercies are not just for one generation or several generations. His covenant mercies are everlasting. His faithfulness to all generations. We need not fear that the church of Jesus Christ will perish, for God will always maintain a people for His name. throughout human history until the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Why? Because He is a God of covenant faithfulness. His loving kindness is everlasting, His faithfulness to all generations. The goodness of Yahweh is expressed in His steadfast love and His faithfulness to His people, a steadfast love and faithfulness that finds their ultimate climax and fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the covenant of grace that He has secured. This is the ultimate reason. why we redeemed sinners should worship and serve our covenant Lord with joy and with gladness. Dear ones, God is indeed great and God is indeed good. The saving work accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate proof of both the greatness and the goodness of our God. What better reason to serve the Lord with gladness? What better reason to serve the Lord who has graciously loved us, redeemed us, renewed us, and drawn us with the cords of love unto himself?

Again, shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth, serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful singing. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you that you delight in your people as they delight in you, as they rejoice in you. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would remove from us the world’s sadness, and that you would fill us with that hope-filled, joy-filled exuberance that comes from knowing that we are your sheep and that you are indeed good to us in union with Christ. We do pray that by your Spirit you would take these truths and plant them deeply within our souls, and enable us, O God, to be a joy-filled people. And we pray, Heavenly Father, that those outside of our fellowship would see in us the joy of the Lord.

We pray these things in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, amen. Well, dear ones, speaking of rejoicing in the Lord, let’s rise and we’ll sing together our closing hymn, Number 528, rejoice ye pure in heart, 528.

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