I Will Praise Him IBS Deputation 24/25
Notes
Transcript
Preliminary Remarks:
Preliminary Remarks:
Thanks for letting us come
Share any personal memories
Peace Valley: The dead chipmunk in the flower pot on the piano.
Please turn with me to Psalm 100
Psalm 100 is the only hundredth chapter in the Bible.
It is the only Psalm with the title “A Psalm of Praise” or “Thanksgiving”
This Psalm was no doubt written to accompany the thank offering in the temple - This was the only offering the Rabbis believed would continue after the need for the sin offerings had ceased.
Psalm 100 was known for years in Latin as the “Jubilate.”
For many years Music Directors and Song leaders would say, “Let us sing the Old Hundredth” which was a paraphrase of this psalm.
It was first published in 1561 by William Kethe - later- Thomas Ken added the part we know as “The Doxology”
Issac Watts also wrote a paraphrase that is still sung in some churches yet today, “Before Jehovah’s awful throne”
The Wesley’s put it to poetry like this:
YE sons of men, lift up your voice,
Ye nations of the earth, rejoice,
In God rejoice with one accord!
Bow all your hearts before His face,
Adore Him for creating grace,
And shout and sing to Christ the Lord.
2 Know, that the Lord is God alone;
He made and claims us for His own,
His creatures for Himself design’d;
We are the sheep of Israel’s fold,
The flock He hath redeem’d of old;
His people now is all mankind.
3 O enter then His courts with praise,
Press to the channels of His grace,
With joyful thanks your God proclaim:
Give Him the glory of His love,
And praise Him, like the hosts above,
And bless His all-redeeming name.
4 Praise Him, the faithful Lord and good!
His mercy hath for ages stood;
His mercy stands for ever sure:
His steadfast truth shall never fail,
His word and oath unchangeable
Through all eternity endure.
John Wesley and Charles Wesley, The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, ed. G. Osborn, vol. 8 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), 185.
Now lets read the original - Psalm 100 -
Read: Psalm 100
Read: Psalm 100
A Psalm of praise.
1 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness: Come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, And into his courts with praise: Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; And his truth endureth to all generations.
Introduction:
Introduction:
Since the beginning of time almost - or at least since the concept of sacrifice and worship - people were never to come empty handed into the presence of God.
Our Psalm instructs us to “Come before his presence with singing (Psalm 100:2)
We are later told to “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise...” Psalm 100:4
The Psalmist is telling the People of God how to enter into the Presence of God.
Yes Praise has a way of bringing us into God’s presence
I don’t know about you - BUT I WILL PRAISE HIM!!!
Psalm 100 has an interesting structure I want to use as an outline: It’s a combination of Invitation and Affirmation. There are four main sections each with three subsections that teach us how to Praise Him!!!
First I want us to notice -
Psalm 100:1-2 A Threefold invitation to praise - we see it in three “verbs of increasing nearness” Praise ushering us into God’s holy presence.
Shout (Ps 100:1) - Make a joyful noise - Shouts were used often in the Old Testament as a means of Praising God.
I think of the Children of Israel under the Leadership of Joshua when they were at Jericho - they were to be quite while they marched around the walls - but on the last day they blew their horns and shouted - That shout was a shout of praise - and yes it played its part in bringing the walls down.
Do you have some walls in your life - is there a spiritual warfare? You might try praising - making a joyful noise shouting praise to God.
Praise and even shouting Praise to God has a way of bringing us into the Presence of God.
Worship (Service) (Ps 100:2) - serve the Lord with gladness: There is an intrinsic correlation between worship and service.
Service is the first worship response we owe God.
The word “serve” when used to talk about serving or laboring for the Lord it does not mean toilsome labor, but a joyful experience of liberation. Such as when it is used in Joshua 24:18
18 And the Lord drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore will we also serve the Lord; for he is our God.
How far it reaches is seen in Romans 12:1
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Nothing short of a living sacrifice counts as “worship”
Come (Ps 100:2) - To enter - to go before God or God’s presence with singing or “joyful song”. When is the last time you came to church ready to go? Came into His presence not tried to pull down His presence - but came into His presence?
So we have a threefold invitation to Praise but the Psalmist also gives us:
So we have a threefold invitation to Praise but the Psalmist also gives us:
Psalm 100:3 - A Threefold affirmation of identity: The Psalmist again wants to affirm some things - This is an affirmation of identity. He wants them to know who God is and who they are. This is has a huge impact on praise and worship - as in reality - Praise and Worship are a response to God.
God…The Psalmist makes it clear that the God we are Praising isn’t just any old god - but The God of gods. It is Jehovah!!! Yahweh! He is the one who spoke to Moses out in the wilderness, “I Am that I AM!”
Edward Bleiberg, who oversees the Brooklyn Museum’s Egyptian art shares the most common question from visitors to the museum, Why are the statues’ noses broken?
He was surprised the first few times he heard this question. He had taken for granted that the sculptures were damaged. Certainly, after thousands of years, an ancient artifact should show wear and tear. But the broken noses led Bleiberg to uncover a widespread pattern of deliberate destruction. He noted, “The consistency of the patterns … of damage found in sculpture suggests that it's purposeful.” A protruding nose on a three-dimensional statue is easily broken, he conceded, but the plot thickens when flat reliefs also have smashed noses.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the essence of a deity could inhabit an image of that deity. These campaigns of vandalism were therefore intended to "deactivate an image's strength." "The damaged part of the body is no longer able to do its job." Without a nose, the statue-spirit ceases to breathe, so that the vandal is effectively "killing" it. To hammer the ears off a statue of a god would make it unable to hear a prayer. Pharaohs regularly issued decrees with terrible punishments for anyone who would dare threaten their likeness.
Bleiberg noted the skill evidenced by the iconoclasts. "They were not vandals recklessly and randomly striking out works of art." In fact, the targeted precision of their chisels suggests that they were skilled laborers, trained and hired for this exact purpose.
We have a God whose nose cannot be broken - because he isn’t made of stone or wood - or created at all - HE IS GOD!!!
made us…This God made us - and not we ourselves. In reality - the most fundamental question we can ask is:
Are we created in God’s image or is God a work of our imagination?
The Psalmist is trying to answer that question - He has created us - made us - not we ourselves or a process of evolution.
his - The Psalmist affirms that this great God who is God, who created us - is involved in our lives. In Theology they talk about the transcendence of God which is a true attribute of our God - He is above and out of our reach as humanity - but then they also talk about God’s immanence that he is intimately involved in our lives -
Listen to how the Psalmist puts it - We are HIS!!! This is something we obviously can know - because the Psalmist does. He is identifying who we are and to whom we belong!!!
We talk about having a “know-so” salvation - I am so thankful we can KNOW WE ARE HIS!!!
We are the sheep of His pasture - he is not only near but is leading, guiding, and helping.
I will praise Him for His Transcendence - we couldn’t have a powerful mighty God without Him being Transcendent.
But I will also praise Him for His immanence - that HE IS VERY NEAR. That WE CAN COME INTO HIS PRESENCE. THAT IF WE DRAW NEAR TO GOD HE WILL DRAW NEAR TO US!!!!
Psalm 100:4 - A Threefold invitation of increasing intimacy
Enter…To go into - to go into the inner court - within reach if you will of God’s presence.
Give thanks… To praise - to offer thanks for God’s deed in the life of an individual or community.
The Hebrew word that is used in the Title of this Psalm and in Psalm 100:4 instructs us how to enter His gates.
We enter the Gates of God in thanksgiving or with tô·ḏā - (toe- daw) it means to give thanks. To offer thanks and praise - in the Old Testament it was usually accompanied by a sacrifice - the Thanksgiving Sacrifice.
I will tô·ḏā - (toe- daw) Him - I will praise Him - I will offer thanksgiving to Him.
But then the Psalmist continues into the next line and adds another Hebrew Praise Word -
We enter into his gates with tô·ḏā - (toe- daw) or thanksgiving: But we also enter his courts with PRAISE: tehil·lā (tay-he-la) to offer words of homage as acts of worship - or to speak positive words about the excellence of God.
Praise - to be thankful unto him, and bless his name - This can be done no matter the circumstances - and the Psalmist will talk about that in a moment - but as I read this a thought about a story I read recently:
Samuel-S. Scull a farmer who settled on a farm in the Arizona desert with his wife and children.
One night a fierce desert storm struck with rain, hail, and high wind. At daybreak, feeling sick and fearing what he might find, Samuel went to survey their loss.
The hail had beaten the garden and truck patch into the ground; the house was partially unroofed; the henhouse had blown away, and dead chickens were scattered about. Destruction and devastation were everywhere.
While standing dazed, evaluating the mess and wondering about the future, he heard a stirring in the lumber pile that was the remains of the henhouse. A rooster was climbing up through the debris, and he didn’t stop climbing until he had mounted the highest board in the pile. That old rooster was dripping wet, and most of his feathers were blown away. But as the sun came over the eastern horizon, he flapped his bony wings and proudly crowed.
That old, wet, bare rooster could still crow when he saw the morning sun. And like that rooster, our world may be falling apart, we may have lost everything, but if we trust in God, we’ll be able to see the light of God’s goodness, pick ourselves out of the rubble, and sing the Lord’s praise.
Praise & thanksgiving are not tied our circumstances - we can and should praise him everywhere and through all things -
While on a short-term missions trip, Pastor Jack Hinton was leading worship at a leper colony on the island of Tobago. A woman who had been facing away from the pulpit turned around.
"It was the most hideous face I had ever seen," Hinton said. "The woman's nose and ears were entirely gone. She lifted a fingerless hand in the air and asked, 'Can we sing "Count Your Many Blessings"?'"
Overcome with emotion, Hinton left the service. He was followed by a team member who said, "I guess you'll never be able to sing that song again."
"Yes I will," he replied, "but I'll never sing it the same way."[1]
Psalm 100:5 - A Threefold affirmation of God’s nature:
Good - That means he is deserving of honor and respect and praise.
Love - His “hesed” or loyal love is everlasting Paul tried to come up with everything he could that might separate us from God’s love and finally had to end with “Nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus”
Faithfulness - His truth or Faithfulness that what He is and Who He is is the same to every generation for all time and eternity.
After studying and looking at this passage - I see an amazing pattern of Praise and worship - I also see a stimulus to praise
I want to make a joyful noise
I want to serve the Lord with gladness
I want to come before his presence with singing
I want to know God better
I want to enter his gates with thanksgiving
I want to enter his courts with praise
I want to be thankful to Him
I want to bless His name
I WILL PRAISE HIM!!!
We at Independence Bible School have much to praise God over - He has been showing himself faithful for 75 years on the hill.
I heard recently of the story of how when Sis. Frankie Goins was teacher of the elementary a lady came that had the authority to either let the school continue or shut it down. She told Sis. Frankie - Mrs. Goins you don’t have all the equipment, books, and resources to have a school.
And to give a little context - this was when the elementary school was still in the old Childrens church building on the campground.
Sis. Frankie was told it was going to be shut down.
Well Sis. Frankie asked her to “give us just a little time so we can pray” And pray they did not only did God answer their prayers but now we have a real elementary school building on the school campus.
On top of that a short time later this woman’s daughter became extremely ill and passed away. This lady reached out to Sis. Goins and said, “My daughter died ready to go to heaven because you people prayed and she saw how He answered their prayer.”
God has blessed IBS over its 75 years
Last week Cecelia Douglass one of the school board members came to the school and went through the yearbooks and according to her calculations IBS by God’s help has had over 600 graduates. I believe her number was 602.
Many of those have either served in full time ministry, or been used by God in some other capacity.
One of those is your Pastor’s wife
Our General Superintendents Wife was a former graduate and is also on the school board.
God is still at work
Missions Week - Tell Sharon Teed’s story about the lady who she couldn’t talk to but God helped her
Revival is coming up - please pray for the spiritual needs of our school
Enrollment is down a few this year - but God is still being faithful
We have a new 5th & 6th Grade teacher
We have a much needed electives teacher in the High school
We have new maintenance man and dorm parents (we have 1 dorm student this year)
Fundraisers:
Some clean
Jrs are selling pies - if that is something that interests you we have a junior here
Seniors are doing cinammon rolls
Sophmores -
Daycare - Noah’s Arkademy is doing well they have several new teachers which has helped ease the load some. Laney Hamilton is now the assistant director which has been a boost to Jonna our director.
Yes God is still helping us at IBS
Please, please, please don’t give up on Independence Bible School - God has kept it going for 75 years he has a plan a purpose.
More than anything - we need your prayers
Pray for the students
Pray for the teachers
Pray for parents of the students.
We have one young man who is farily new to the school but has not been raised in a Christian home and he wants to just pick pieces out of all the religions and live by that. He’s not real sure he believes in God.
It is interesting to hear how the students talk to him and on a deep level and try to get him to see there is only one God. I’ve seen God deal with him and speak to him and it is my prayer that before his time at IBS he will be fully convinced in his mind and heart.
But these things are not accomplished by academics or the mind only - it is by the work of the Holy Spirit and often because someone or several someones is praying.
