Psalm 100 - Make Melody in it to the Lord

 Read Psalm 100

This morning we will be expository.  That is, we will look at our scripture line by line. 

You may wonder why.  We know the psalm.  We say it often, more often at this time of year. But let’s examine it verse by verse nonetheless.

I don’t use many commentaries.  Some extend metaphors well beyond what was likely intended.  Some go down rabbit trails.  Some state the obvious, but as we look at this psalm, I think Matthew Henry’s introductory notes hit the target.

It is with good reason that many sing this psalm very frequently in their religious assemblies, for it is very proper both to express and to excite pious and devout affections towards God in our approach to him in holy ordinances; and, if our hearts go along with the words, we shall make melody in it to the Lord. The Jews say it was penned to be sung with their thank-offerings; perhaps it was; but we say that as there is nothing in it peculiar to their economy so its beginning with a call to all lands to praise God plainly extends it to the gospel-church. Here. We are called upon to praise God and rejoice in him.

The first verse says, Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Everyone, everywhere should exude joy as their state of living. Even in our trials, we should have joy.

Paul wrote, rejoice in the Lord always.  Once wasn’t enough. He added again I say rejoice!

We remember This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Henry noted, if our hearts go along with the words, we shall make melody in it to the Lord. Think about it. If our hearts are in tune with the words, it’s music to the Lord.

The second verse says Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

I have a little difficulty sometimes discerning whether it is irony or paradox when people don’t want to come into God’s house with gladness in their hearts and a joyful song for the Lord, but they want him to hold their reservation in heaven.

Some come to worship in an Eeyore state of heart and mind.  Guess I’ve got to go. I want to get to heaven after all.  Could be doing something else.

If we are not excited about lifting up a joyful song to God, why do we want to spend eternity with him?  Some might have come to their salvation thinking I don’t want to burn in hell. 

For those who came to salvation knowing that God loves them and he loves us so much that he did everything required for us to spend eternity with him—even committing his Son to death on a cross—how could we come before God with anything but joy and gladness.

Now verse three.

Know that the Lord is God.

    It is he who made us, and we are his;

    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

God is sovereign.  He reigns. He was not elected and is not up for reelection.  He is sovereign.  There are none beside him. He reigns.

The sooner that we accept this, the sooner we can reconcile so much in our lives.  We are not the master of the universe. The world does not revolve around us.

There is a term for people who think the world revolves around them.  That term is teenager. It’s that unique period in a person’s life where they know everything about everything while knowing nothing about anything. Most grow out of it.

We never grow completely out of it.  Sometimes we relapse and think everything revolves around us, but the psalm reminds us that it’s all about God. He alone is sovereign.

Again, I will use part of Henry’s Commentaries.

It is he that has made us, and not we ourselves. I find that I am, but cannot say, I am that I am, and therefore must ask, Whence am I? Who made me? Where is God my Maker?

We know that we exist but we must ask how? Who? Why?  Those answers come only from God and not our own doing.

The pagans made their own gods from their own workmanship and by definition they are not eternal or infinite or even divine.

We belong to God. He made us. We are his.

We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.  In those few words, we find that God is not just all-powerful, but he is our Shepherd.  He cares for us.

Verse four gets us to thanksgiving.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving

    and his courts with praise;

    give thanks to him and praise his name.

Because God is sovereign and chose to make us, we should be thankful.  We might have never existed. We not only exist, we exist in God's image and live in God's love and grace.

Is that not enough to evoke thanksgiving in our lives, especially when we come to worship God.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving

    and his courts with praise;

    give thanks to him and praise his name.

Let’s wrap up with verse five.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

The Lord is good and the Lord does good. We know that God will take everything in our lives and use it for good. That is good news for us.

You know the mantra. God is good all the time and all the time God is good. These last two lines contain three powerful thoughts.

First, God is good.  God would still be God if he were just sovereign. But we are blessed that God is good.

Second, his love endures forever.  He loves us with an everlasting love.  It’s not love you today and kick you to the curb tomorrow.  He loves us now and will never stop loving us.

Third, his faithfulness continues to all generations as well. Even when we are not faithful, God is faithful. It’s just who he is.

He is good. He is loving. He is faithful.  That’s who he is.

Should that alone not evoke words and songs and lives of thanksgiving?

Let us wrap up this morning by saying Psalm 100 together.  This time let God know that we have joy in our hearts because of him and his love and we want him to not only hear but feel our praise.

Let our hearts be in tune with the words as we worship in this psalm of thanksgiving.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

    Worship the Lord with gladness;

    come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

    It is he who made us, and we are his;

    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving

    and his courts with praise;

    give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

 

Amen.

 

Profit and Loss

Read Philippians 3

Rejoice!

Have some joy in your life!

Our joy is not dependent upon our circumstances but is in the Lord.  Rain or shine, flood or drought, abundance or famine our joy is in the Lord.

Paul made and would continue to make a point of this many times in many letters.  Our joy is in the Lord.

While Philippi was in the continent of Europe, it was close to Asia and apparently those preaching Christ plus circumcision were trying to have some influence.  While not nearly the discourse that he took with the Galatians; Paul admonished these believers not to place any confidence in the flesh.

That included a sign in the flesh and the accomplishments of the flesh.  These are not the things that bring glory to God.  Those who are led by and live by the Spirit of God do not hedge their bet by the things of the flesh.

Paul used his own life as an example.  In what would have been a great PowerPoint presentation, Paul enumerated his standing according to the world.

·      Born into the people of Israel

·      Tribe of Benjamin

·      Circumcised on the 8^th day

·      Subtotal those three and you get a genuine Hebrew

·      A Pharisee—a doctorate in the law:  A lawyer

·      Enthusiasm—maxed out to the point of persecuting this rebellious church

·      Legalism—faultless

·      Subtotal these three and you get the best of the best, legally speaking.

·      Grand total all these and you have a man born into God’s people and who lived by God’s law to its very letter.

Paul said if there ever was a man to want to stick to the Law of Moses it is me; but everything that I once regarded as important is just rubbish to me now.

We must take Paul’s statements at face value.

Paul considered all of these things that afforded him some standing in the world, especially the Hebrew world, as dung—manure; yet these were valuable things.

When Paul visited a city, he entered the synagogue if there was one available.  He addressed the people.  Why not?  He was Hebrew and in fact he was a highly educated Hebrew who could speak from or to any of the scriptures.

When Paul received Christ as his Lord and Savior, he had incredible knowledge of the very scriptures that not only revealed the coming of the Christ but the grace contained in the heart of God as well.

Paul having come to follow Jesus had access to treasures old and new.

Especially as we come into the season of graduations, understand that these things were not bad.  Paul is not discounting education and training or even enthusiasm for what you do.

He is saying that as far as being right with God is concerned, there is only Jesus.

It’s not:

Accepted Christ, he’s right with God.

Accepted Christ, she’s right with God.

Oh!  Great resume, yeah that will work for being right with God.  Not! 

You can enjoy the fact that you are an Okie.  You can enjoy the fact that you graduated from high school or college or have half a dozen advanced degrees and certifications.  But you know that the only thing that makes you right with God is your relationship with Christ.

All of that other stuff is fantastic if you use it to the glory of God but it won’t bring you into right standing with God.

In that equation, it’s just manure, dung, worthless, rubbish, nothing of value.  These things are not profit.  They are loss when it comes to right standing with God.

Only Christ counts for right standing.

People ask for many things when planning a funeral.  As they sort through a lifetime of photos they also try to remember favorite songs.  One time a few family members asked me if they could play Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven.

I said, “Sure as long as you all know that’s not how it works.  You cannot buy a stairway to heaven.”  You can’t buy, you can’t earn, and you can’t manipulate right standing with God.

There’s Christ and there is everything else.

So is Paul saying that there is no point to getting an education or working hard at what you do?

No.  He is explicit in saying that those things do not bring you into right standing with God.  They are worth zero points on the righteousness scale; but please remember that you can use all of these things to bring glory to God as you work out—live out your salvation.

The things that we do can’t get us to our salvation, but everything that we do living out our salvation should bring glory to God.

So go ahead and get that diploma, get that degree, get that certification, be the most exuberant employee where you work but do it all not to attain right standing with God but to live out the right standing that he gave you, and bring him glory.

Paul next provides counsel that is for everyone in every age, and I would think especially in this time and place that we know today.

Quit living your lives looking backwards.  Just as our human birthrights and titles don’t bring us into right standing with God; neither does dragging our history around with us bring him glory or bring us joy.

Whether we carry around every mistake we ever made or we keep thinking back to those glory days, we are not fully living unless we are moving forward.  Paul said press on towards the goal, strain forward, take hold of what is before us.

What’s that?

Life!

Real, abundant, and eternal life is before us.

Press on, strain forward, take hold are all very strong action phrases.  They have some strong verbs here.  You can only use this sort of challenging language with people of purpose.

If you are looking to be content in your Christianity, then these words may be offensive to you.

Now Paul does what Paul does and his thing is to explain things in the God’s already done it but I’m still doing it mode.

God has already made us right with him, pure, holy, and blameless in his sight; but we are still moving towards realizing what it is to live that way.

We are citizens of heaven living in these bodies of flesh in a world that does not know God, but it is our citizenship that governs here. 

Paul writes, “Let us live up to what we have already attained.”  God granted us right standing with him through the blood of Jesus Christ.  Now let us live up to that right standing.

Paul understands that not everyone gets this concept:  God has already done it but we are pressing on to live as the people that God has already made us to be.  He simply notes that in time you will understand God’s incredible revelation to us.

In the mean time, quit looking back and lean forward. The author of Hebrews would add, “and keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.”

Paul noted that there were some in his time and we should consider that there are those in our time who seem to be working against us.  We take Christ to the world with eyes fixed on Jesus.  Those fighting against us answer to God.  They are not our burden.

We lean into our salvation and take love to the world.

We press on towards the goal of realizing who we have been made to be.

We strain forward—we grow in grace.

We might learn to be content in our circumstances but we should never be content in our growth.  We are constantly striving to be the people that God made us to be.

He has already done it but we must be on our way there.  We are always growing in God’s grace.

Paul loved this church at Philippi.  He wanted them to know the fullness of their salvation and really be the people that God made them to be.

Paul could have been writing to us.  We love the grace that we know in God and we need the occasional challenge not to become complacent but to press on to being the people that we have already been made to be.

One day we will give up these earthly bodies and get the new and improved version.  We can all look forward to that.  Most of us have some things from our past that keeping reminding us of the race that we have already run.  Some of those things hurt.

Pain—no matter how intense—is temporary.  We will have new life in new bodies—new glorious bodies.  But while we are on this earth in these bodies, we press on towards the goal of becoming the holy and blameless people that God made us to be.

We strain forward to be more like our Master.

We lean into our salvation to bring glory to God in all that we do.

Occasionally we share a story from our past to help someone going through a trial.  Occasionally we meet with old friends and celebrate the glory days of touchdowns, homeruns, medals, trophies, and homecoming queens.

But for the most part, we leave the past in the past and live going forward to the glory of God.  If we are following Jesus we profit from our past experience and grow in grace.

We discount—count as loss—trying to convince God to accept us as the people that we think we need to be and whatever pedigree comes with that.  We accept and embrace the people that God has already made us to be and press on to realizing what it is to live as those people.

So let’s lean into our salvation and press on towards the goal of being the very people that God has already made us to be.

Amen.