The Lord is God

Psalm 100 NIV

A psalm. For giving grateful praise. 1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 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. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

I know for many of you what I’m about to share will come as a complete surprise to you. And the reason I say that is this because I’m going to show you a commercial that I remember vividly watching when I was a very young boy, around 5 or 6 years old. And some of you will be completely surprised at finding out how old I am.....I know I hardly look a day over 45 but when you see this commercial you’ll realize Andrew must be at least 55 or more! It’s a shock, I know.

Many of you here this morning around my age will remember this commercial very well. And I’m showing it as an inroad to the glorious psalm that we are listening to this morning…let me play it for you.

[PLAY VIDEO]

[restate Psalm 100 using some of the language from the Coca-cola psalm]

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In the language of Psalm 100...

“I’d like to teach the world to know that the Lord alone is God.

I’d like the world to sing praises to Him in perfect harmony believing that he alone is the Real Thing. He is GOOD. His loving kindness endures forever, his faithfulness is unending.

He is the Real Thing!”

In the ancient culture of Israel no one asked the question “is there a god?”…the only question was “Who is god?”

In our culture today of course that is not true....there are people who firmly believe that there is no god.

but that is certainly not true for all people

and quite frankly there is a shift taking place in our culture and its a shift that people much smarter than I and much more culturally astute than I are noticing. And the shift is this, people are leaving atheism and finding faith or reclaiming faith.

over the last 20years or so there has been a growing popularity of what is called the New Atheism....Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett.....

but many are observing that this popularity of the new atheism has been declining.

in fact, many are finding faith and turning towards believe in God

many reasons for that

atheism has no meaning…no ultimate purpose

science itself is telling us there is a God

Behe, Lennox, Meyer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXexaVsvhCM&ab_channel=HooverInstitution

[Show Thumbnail of Hoover video]

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Perhaps in some sense more and more people are also not so much asking the question IS there a god? But Who is God?

Structure of Psalm

3 imperatives first

CENTRE imperative

Know that the Lord is GOD

3 imperatives

And two elaborations - one at centre and one at end.

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“Know that the Lord is GOD”

OT - God revealed himself in power encounters --- 10 plagues, Mt. Carmel

Pagan gods are really no gods.... they may seem to provide some benefit in the short term, but the Bible shows us again and again that these false gods will keeping demanding from you and ultimately consume you.

Psalm 115:8 NIV

8 Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.

Galatians 4:8 NIV

8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

Pagan gods always demanded sacrifices from its worshipers.

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But the LORD, the one true God is decidedly different.

Two elaborations

Psalm 100:3 (NIV)

“It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

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Remarkably, it the strong language of intimacy....notice the piling up of personal pronouns.

And surprise of OT is God is KIND. hesed and emunah

1 Corinthians 6:19–20 NIV

19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Ephesians 2:3–5 NIV

3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

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In an issue of CT Magazine, singer-songwriter Kira Fontana shares how she was delivered from a new-age mindset to a life-changing relationship with Christ:

From the outside, my life looked great. I was enjoying a fantastic job as one of the top vocal coaches in Los Angeles. I had worked with major-label and top-40 artists, as well as hit TV shows like The Voice and Glee. Clients regularly flew in from around the world. Though I had moved to LA to pursue a career creating my own music, somewhere along the way that dream got lost. Throughout this dry time, I managed to find temporary peace and joy through an LA megachurch for “spiritual but not religious” seekers. The church was transdenominational, which appealed to me. I adopted Eastern beliefs about God and practices like meditation. After almost 20 years of spiritual seeking, I truly believed I had attained higher levels of consciousness than most people. I believed there were many roads to God, and my thoughts were awash with “love and light” and other positive-thinking mantras. However, when I really looked at my life, I knew something was missing. Around this time, several members of my family became born-again Christians and started talking about Jesus. I remember one of my brothers calling my spiritual center “satanic.” What could be so horrible about channeling love and light, attaining higher consciousness, and finding inner healing? When my brother asked me, “Who do you think Jesus is?” I answered, “He was a great spiritual teacher, and one of the most enlightened people who ever lived.” He said, “How can you live like Jesus when you have no idea who he really is? You’ve never read the one book that would tell you who he is.” I spent a solid year praying and reading the Bible. Scripture confronted me with many ideas my new-age mindset simply couldn’t process. As I did this, God began revealing his truth in ways that radically transformed my mind. In time, I came to see that my most cherished beliefs had all been focused on myself. Even though they were framed in spiritual ways, they were oriented toward self-realization and self-help. But discovering the Bible’s definition of good shattered this confidence. I finally saw that I wasn’t capable of being a good person on my own. And I sensed my need for a Savior. Meanwhile, God gradually opened my eyes to the reality of evil in the world. But day by day, God revealed to me the real state of the world—pulling back a veil and showing me depths of darkness, I had never fathomed. I began attending a local church in Santa Monica, asking God to reveal himself and praying he would bring me out of the darkness. I asked a ton of questions, and I read multiple books on apologetics. Eventually, I was ready to finally surrender my life to Christ. As a new Christian, I prayed that God would show me how to use my musical gifts for the sake of his kingdom. I soon realized I no longer belonged in the secular music industry. The lyrics of most pop songs disturbed me, and I was concerned about the destructive impact these songs were having on young people. After only a couple of weeks of praying, I felt God clearly call me to leave LA and move to San Diego County. Alone one night in my new home, I felt I had truly reached the end of myself. I cried out to God with a desperation and sadness I had never felt before, asking, “Why did you even make me?” I felt I had completely failed in so many areas of life, including my own music. That very night, I woke up from a dream at 3 a.m. In the dream I heard an amazing song. I got up, rushed down to the piano, and recorded the chorus for “Refuge.” It was my first worship song. From that day forward, I experienced a complete revival of musical creativity. God was saying, “I made you to worship me.” Since I put my faith in Christ, God has redeemed everything that was lost in my life. He has freed me from the prison of my selfishness, rescued me from darkness, and brought me into his glorious light. He has given my life new purpose, equipping me to serve his kingdom and glorify his name with music. There is no greater joy.

Source: Kira Fontana, “Singing a New Song to God,” CT magazine (September, 2021), pp. 87-88

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Towards end:

But the call of Psalm 100 does connect us to the real thing, to the real deal, to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who can and will in the end help us all shout to the Lord in perfect harmony as we enter his gates with thanksgiving.

[conclude with a call to Father’s - this is their principle task and calling....]