Rejoice in the Stable Joy of the Lord

Context

We should note that Psalm 98 is closely parallel to Psalm 96 . Both are considered royal psalms because they emphasize the kingship of God.

In some ways, the Lord is pictured as the divine warrior who brings victory to His people (v. 1). He is righteous and He remembers His love and faithfulness to Israel, but this Psalm also makes clear that He rules over the whole world. This will be evident when He comes to judge the earth in righteousness.

This Psalm issues a call to praise God. It is one that calls on God’s people to rejoice. Joy and the reason to rejoice is a theme we will take up today.

Psalm 98 ESV

A Psalm. 1 Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. 2 The Lord has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. 3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. 4 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises! 5 Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody! 6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord! 7 Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it! 8 Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together 9 before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.

Introduction

I realize for many of us the fact that Christmas is behind us is a relief. It’s not that we don’t like Christmas, and what we celebrate as we reflect on the advent of our Lord, but it is a busy time.

For me, each Christmas brings up childhood memories. What stands our to me is the level of anticipation I had for Dec. 25. We count down the days with advent calendars.

I read a couple of articles on the history of advent calendars. You may know that the Advent calendar is of German origin. From the early nineteenth century, at the latest, German Protestants began to mark the days of Advent either by burning a candle for the day or, more simply, marking walls or doors with a line of chalk each day. A new practice of hanging a devotional image every day ultimately led to the creation of the first known handmade, wooden, Advent calendar in 1851.

Of course, some of what we see in stores today that are called advent calendars are not as much meant to help us reflect on the advent of our Lord as it is to provide us with a daily piece of chocolate.

But the anticipation I experienced as a kid during the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas day was significant. Yes, my anticipation was fueled by what presents I might be opening Christmas morning, but it was the festive nature of the season as well.

But I also remember Dec. 26, 27 28…. New Years was fine, but fell short in consoling the let down I felt as our family started packing up the lights and bringing the tree to the curb to be hauled off by the trash man.

My childhood Christmas joy was a temporary, short-lived, fragile joy. Maybe you can’t relate to how I experienced Christmas as a kid, but do you know that kind of joy? Having joy in one season of life, one moment in life, but then despondency or even despair in the next.

Of course, the object of our joy is crucial here. An annual holiday is not going to provide lasting joy. As much as we cherish the people in our lives, family, friends etc., those relationships are not stable enough to provide stable joy. I think we know this, and some times what ends up happening is we conclude that joy is not real. And some of us become frustrated because we know we should have joy as a result of a relationship with God, but we don’t. We could spend a long time thinking through why that might be, but let me suggest that

FCF

When we do not embrace God as He has revealed Himself, our joy in Him will be unstable.

Our relationship with God must be one that is based on truth. It’s easy for us to have certain expectations of God that we have no justification for. Just recently in our advent series, we reflected on the misplaced expectations the people of Israel had of Messiah. They wanted a particular Messiah, and the reason their joy was short-lived was because their expectations were not informed by the truth.

Main Idea

Our joy in God is stable only when we embrace Him as He has revealed Himself.

How has God revealed Himself?

As Savior (1-3)

The first stanza runs from verse 1 to verse 3.

Notice the exhortation in verse 1: “Oh sing to the Lord a new song.”

In the Christmas Eve service, we considered three psalms that connected to three responses to the birth of Christ. I briefly worked through this particular Psalm and its connection to how Simeon responded to the Christ child in the temple in Luke 2. Simeon rejoiced as he had been waiting virtually his entire life to see the promised Messiah. This is how he responded:

Luke 2:28–32 ESV

28 he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, 29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation 31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

Perhaps I’m taking some liberties here, but this was Simeon’s song. It was a song that was like other songs we see through redemption’s history:

Exodus 15:1–2 ESV

1 Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. 2 The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

Luke 1:46–47 ESV

46 And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

Acts 16:25 ESV

25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them,

a song that will continue to be sung among the heavenly community:

Revelation 15:3–4 ESV

3 And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! 4 Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

These are the songs of salvation. The songs that celebrate what God has done. The songs that celebrate the coming and work of our Savior.

You and I are called to join in singing this song anew every day.

what are we celebrating?

Relief from spiritual blindness (2)

Notice the second half of verse 2: He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations.

revealed means uncovered. God has uncovered His righteousness that was once hidden from people.

Christopher Ash: When Simeon said, my eyes have seen your salvation, he grasps that he is God’s victory made known on the earth.

God was fulfilling His covenant promises.

And we know now that God’s righteousness has been revealed through Christ’s salvific work. The cross of Christ demonstrated the righteousness of God as sin was condemned and its penalty paid. The resurrection of Christ proclaimed God’s righteousness in the vindication of the Son to the Father’s side.

The gospel is the righteousness of God

The righteousness was revealed to Israel and to the nations. The cross of Christ was, of course a public act that was made known in ever widening circles. We preach the gospel… Christ crucified, risen from the dead and ascended to heaven until He returns This is our new song… the song of salvation

We are celebrating

Hope (3)

The subject of hope comes up in the fact that God keeps His promises. Verse 3:

Psalm 98:3 ESV

3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

These are covenant words that are fulfilled in Christ.

Psalm 89:2 ESV

2 For I said, “Steadfast love will be built up forever; in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness.”

Psalm 89:33 ESV

33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness.

Psalm 92:2 ESV

2 to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night,

That God’s love is steadfast is the sources of our hope. It is steadfast because God has kept, is keeping His promise.

The immediate audience of the psalmist were being exhorted have faith and hope in the coming incarnation of Christ. In His first advent.

As Luther said: celebrate all your festivals and sing praise, since, behold, He will come to you, the Son of God is promised you for salvation.

Chris has come, and He has saved His people from their sins. Now we wait for Christ to come… His second advent. For our promised final salvation. As we sing this new song, our joy is stable, because we celebrate something that will not change: Christ is our Savior.

And God has also revealed Himself as

King (4-6)

Now we move to the second stanza found in verses 4-6. Another exhortation in verse 4: Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth…

When we focus on God as king, His rule becomes our focus.

What about God’s rule should stabilize our joy?

The breadth of His reign (4a)

The movement of the psalm shows the nations observing the steadfast love of the Lord to the house of Israel, and the ends of the earth seeing the salvation of our God to now in verse 4-6, all the earth is called to participate. To make a joyful noise to the Lord.

Our God’s rule is a global rule under which all people everywhere are called to worship Him.

Our worship of Jesus as King is not separate from His atonement. Consider

Revelation 5:9 ESV

9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,

The new song is one that will be sung among the people of God in response to Christ’s return.

Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals. Why?

for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God…

Jesus our king has won for us salvation. This is part of what His royalty emphasizes. He was victorious in His death and resurrection over our sin. He will return and will be victorious again.

The global breadth of God’s reign is

Praiseworthy (4-6a)

second half of verse 4: break forth into joyous song and sing praises.

Christopher Ash again. He observes the phrase break forth always appears with the verb sing joyfully. In Isaiah, this combination of phrases is often used to prophesy about the return from exile:

Isaiah 55:12 ESV

12 “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

The worship was joyful. The lyre (stringed instrument), trumpets, horns…. all were used to make this joyful noise.

You know what worship often was in the temple? Loud. Now, don’t get me wrong. Our primary concern when it comes to singing is not the volume… but there is an exuberance that should accompany our worship. Even when the music is somber and we are reflecting on a somber aspect of the works of God, we still celebrate because we are under the rule of God.

Passion. This idea may help some. Our worship should be fueled by a passion that comes from the glorious truth that Christ is King, He was won us victory over our sin and our king is coming back for us. Passion… joy… celebration. This is our breaking forth into joyous song and praises.

We have stable joy as we embrace God as He has revealed Himself. He is our Savior… He is our King… and He is our

Judge (7-9)

On the surface, the fact that God has revealed Himself as our Judge is not a fact that we link to joy.

But notice the flow of the psalm:

In versed 1-3, the call to praise is issued to the church

The call is expanded to all of mankind in verses 4-6

And in verses 7-9 the whole created order is called to praise.

The sea is to give its roaring, the rivers are to clap their hands and the hills are to sing for joy together before the Lord.

A question we could ask to help us make to the connection between our joy and the fact that God is our judge is what do the judgements of God accomplish that brings joy?

Restoration (7-8)

Verse 7: the world and those who dwell in it. All the creation will praise God. The creation is awaiting its restoration, and what is proclaimed here is that God will restore it:

Romans 8:19–21 ESV

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

The creation eagerly awaits restoration, and God as judge will bring this about.

Psalm 96 addresses this same issue

Psalm 96:13 ESV

13 before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness.

So Psalm 96:13 and Psalm 98:9 both speak of the fulfillment of this promise. This promise is explicitly stated in the New Testament. Consider Acts 17:30-31.

Acts 17:30–31 ESV

30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

There is urgency here. People are commanded to repent. Why? Because God will judge the earth in righteousness…. Jesus, who is risen from the dead, our Messiah will be the Judge. Only He can do this.

So why the fanfare of the sea, the rivers, the hills and all who dwell in the world? Because Jesus will return to judge the world. The total fulfillment of what He came to do in His first advent, He will accomplish in His second advent, and this is reason to rejoice.

What do the judgements of God accomplish that brings joy?

Perfection (9)

Carl Sagan, the late astronomer famously said:

The cosmos is all that is or that ever was or that ever will be.

No! The cosmos, that is, the creation is not all that there is. God transcends what we experience now, all that was and all that will be. before the world, I AM, God says.

Verse 9 provides the reason for the creation’s exhortation to worship God: for He comes to judge the earth.

And why is this good news? Because He will judge the world with righteousness, and the people’s with equity.

This act of judgement is the act only the sovereign ruler can execute. God will judge according to His own character - righteous equitable

His justice will make just all the inequities that exist in the world today.

Conclusion

The text was written by Isaac Watts (1674–1748) in 1719. Watts penned the lyrics originally as a poem first published in his collection The Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament and Applied to the Christian State and Worship. Watts based the language and ideas of this poem from Psalms 96 and 98, as well as Genesis 3.

We know that the serpent deceived Adam and Eve. The rebelled against God. Let’s pause to remind ourselves of these tragic events:

Genesis 3:6–15 ESV

6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heal. Here is the message of joy. Devastating loss. Catastrophic consequences. But not defeat. Not total loss. Jesus would come to redeem His people, He would go to the cross, He would rise again and He would ascend to His Father’s right hand. And He will return to judge the world with righteousness, and all the people’s with equity. Jesus will come and restore all that was lost on this tragic day described in Gen. 3.

Watts wrote Joy to the World to focus us on the second advent of our Lord. But, the reality of Jesus’ first coming—what we celebrate at Advent and Christmas as believers—should powerfully call our attention the glorious promise of Christ’s final advent. So, “Joy to the World” reminds us to keep our eyes on the glorious and imminent return of Christ both at Christmas and all year long.