The Lord, He is God, And We Are His

 Scripture Reading: Psalm 100 A Psalm of Thanksgiving Introduction: Psalm 100 is a psalm of praise or thanksgiving to God. It appears to have been written after David reestablishes his throne in Jerusalem following his son Absalom's attempted takeover of the throne. In all of the turmoil surrounding that period of time in David's life, there was one constant. The Lord, He is God; and we are His. David, knowing that He was possessed by God, was able to write Psalms 3 and 4 recounting the peace that he experienced in spite of the betrayal and upheaval. Now, having been restored, David gives thanks! And he commands the people to give thanks because the Lord, He is God; and we are his. This psalm points us to look at God and to confidently shout and sing His praises. A 1 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. -Universal call to praise the Lord B 2 Serve the LORD with gladness: -Commands with descriptions Come before his presence with singing. C 3 Know ye that the LORD he is God: -The knowledge upon which we find It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; our cause for praise/thanksgiving - We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. He made us, and we are His! (Show slide with the Hebrew on it) - If we take lō to be the possessive third person pronoun then a translation of this passage would read: "He hath made us, and we are His: His people, and the sheep of His pasture." B 4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, -Commands with descriptions And into his courts with praise: Be thankful unto him, and bless his name. A 5 For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; And his truth endureth to all generations. -Universal nature of God's goodness I. The Structure of Psalm 100 directs our attention to God and our relationship to God. A. Psalm 100 is a chiasm. 1. Verse 1 and 5 relate 2. Verse 2 and 4 relate 3. Verse 3 is the main message of the Psalm B. Within the verses there is parallelism 1. Verses 1-3 focus on serving God with verses 4-5 focusing on God's attributes a. The beginning phrases of each verse is a parallel Verse 1. "Make a joyful noise" Verse 2. "Serve the Lord" Verse 3. "Come before His presence" Verse 4. "Enter into His gates...and into His courts" b. The middle section of each sentence is another parallel which focuses in on the Lord being God and our proper response to that fact. Verse 1 "Unto the Lord" parallels with -Verse 3 "that the Lord He is God" which parallels with -Verse 5 "For the Lord" Verse 2. "With gladness" parallels with -Verse 2 "with singing" -Verse 4 "with thanksgiving" -"be thankful" -Verse 4 "with praise" -"bless His name" c. The last section of verse 1 and the last two sentences of verse 3 are parallel Verse 1. "All ye lands" Verse 3. "He hath made us...we are his" these parallels then culminate in God's continued goodness not just to us now but also Verse 5. "To all generations" 2. Verses 4-5 focus on God's love and faithfulness with the foundation of His identity in verse 3- Verse 3. "He is God" -The one and only God Verse 3. "He hath made us" -Creator Verse 5. "The Lord is good" -Source of good Verse 5. "His mercy is everlasting" -Merciful Verse 5. "His truth endureth" -Enduring Truth The structure of Psalm 100 points us to the fact that the LORD is God; and we are His. This is the foundation of the Psalm. The message of the Psalm is one of praise and thanksgiving. II. The Message of Psalm 100 directs us to praise God A. Make a joyful noise! - this noise is the sound of jubilation as a conquering king enters His city where His loyal subjects are - think of Matthew 21 where the crowds are dancing and shouting "Hosanna to the Son of David!" as Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey's colt. All of this is in keeping with what God foretold through His prophets, but the problem was the heart of the subjects. They had verse 1, but they were missing verses 2-5. Service to God had become a burden, a drudgery. They came into His presence out of obligation. They knew that God made them, but they lived as if they made themselves. They had forgotten that they were His. They did not enter into His gates with thanksgiving. Rather, they came in with boasts and pride looking for man's praise and adulation. Their jubilation over Jesus coming into Jerusalem was because they longed to be free from Rome and to have their own land! They had forgotten that it was because of their sin that they did not possess the land promised to Abraham. And they would not possess their land until they had repented. This message of repentance was what the prophets, John the Baptist, and Jesus preached. Jesus had mourned and condemned their lack of repentance in Luke 10:13 and again in Luke 11:32 when He compared them to Tyre, Sidon, and Nineveh who all repented when God's prophets spoke to them. So, while the Jews shouted in jubilation all that they were doing was making noise. When you and I sang this morning, did God hear the joyful noise of His people jubilantly proclaiming truths of God, or was it just noise coming from lips disconnected from a heart for God. I hope that the words you sang this morning were a reflection of your heart! Our service to God is to be done with gladness!! B. Serve with gladness! 1. Life as service: The very living of our lives is to be a service to God. We are to live with our Savior at the forefront of our hearts and minds guiding our thoughts, actions, and motives. 2. Worship as service: The word for serve here is also paralleled with the command to "come into His presence" with the emphasis that our acts of worship are genuine acts of service to the Lord. Have you thought of worship in that way? When you and I enter this building and come together as the body of Christ to worship God and hear His Word proclaimed, we are actually serving God. We owe Him our worship! He deserves our praise! Worship through giving, singing, playing instruments, preaching and hearing the preaching of God's Word are all acts of service that ought to be done with excellence knowing who our God is and what He has done for us. As we saw in James last week words that speak of faith with no action are dead. But faith coupled with works results in a vibrant life for God. Serve the Lord with gladness! C. Come before His presence with singing. Worship Him! The emphasis of the Hebrew word for singing here in the context of a joyful noise is that we are to sing without uncertainty! This is confident proclamation of who our God is and a jubilant rejoicing in that fact. An example of this is Isaiah's prophecy in Isaiah 51:11 - One day when God's people come to Zion rejoicing over His reign. There is no restraint to their rejoicing! They are ransomed! God is king! Here we come to verse 3, the foundation of Psalm 100. III. The Power of Psalm 100 is to know that the Lord is our God. The Comfort of Psalm 100 is to know that we are His (Psalm 100:3) A. Know that He is God. -He has made us- 1. This brings to mind the power of Creation 2. This brings to mind the purpose of Creation -His glory - as His people we bear His image and reflect His character -Our good - as His sheep He provides, protects, chastens, and cares for us. (Perhaps the Holy Spirit is bringing Psalm 23 to David's mind as he writes Psalm 100 - Psalm 23, written by David during the time of 1 Samuel 18 when Jonathan is helping him as Saul is trying to kill him. All throughout David's life He has been kept by God.) B. Know that we are His. -The point of Psalm 100 is that the Lord is our God, and we are His. -Are you His? This Psalm is addressed to all those in all nations, in all people groups, in all the earth who are God's people. Are you one of those? Are you one of God's people? In the Isaiah 51:11 passage regarding God's kingdom, God's people rejoice and come with singing into Zion, because they are redeemed! They've been bought with the blood of the Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! Are washed clean from your sin? Have you accepted God's gift of forgiveness and eternal life? You were made to shout jubilantly and to rejoice in your Creator, the God of Heaven. You were made to be in relationship with Him, but our sin, your sin has separated you from Him. He came to earth. He lived here. He suffered here. He experienced your pain and sorrow. He experienced your joys. He preached a message of repentance commanding people to confess their sin and submit to God. This is a message to be obeyed! But His own people crucified Him on the cross. They buried Him. And He rose again. The LORD, He is God! And He continues to call out to you to repent and believe. He is not dead. He is alive! He died to take your sins and rose to give you life. Will you obey His call to repent and be saved from your sin? The LORD, the One who made you, He is God, and He is to be obeyed and feared. And He is to be worshipped. All those who are His people, His sheep worship Him and rejoice without restraint in jubilation because the LORD is God! and we are His! We serve in our worship and in our day to day lives because the LORD is God! and we are His! We sing in His presence because the LORD is God! and we are His! - Our response then is to the fact of who God is and the fact that we are His is absolute trust in God and thanksgiving to Him. IV. Psalm 100 directs our response to God to be one of absolute trust and thanksgiving -The nature of Hebrew parallelism is to state something and then to elaborate on it. Praise, or thanksgiving so far has been a response and has been part of the commands of invitation into God's courts, but now we are going to see that God directly commands thanksgiving. So, thanksgiving is both a natural response of one who knows who God is and is possessed by God, and thanksgiving is a matter of obedience. A. Parallel 1 "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving...be thankful unto Him." Thankfulness should ever be the constant thread that runs through the believer's life in everything bringing you and me to remember the goodness of our God both now, in the past, and as we look to the future. A lack of thankfulness results in improper worship and ultimately wrong affections. Romans 1:18 esp. v 21 through 32. A lack of thankfulness is the heart of an unbeliever. It should never characterize the believer. Thankfulness is both a response and a command! B. Parallel 2 "Enter into His courts with praise...bless His name!" This praise is not just generic praise. It is focused, intent praise on One object - the LORD, for He is God! To bless His name is the exact opposite of taking His name in vain. Whereas taking His name in vain is to be empty or light in the use of God's name, the blessing of God's name is to add glory and honor to God's name. The idea of glory is the idea of weight or worth. There is a diligent to this in that we are engaging our heart, soul, mind, and strength to bless the name of our God. Deuteronomy 6:5 says, "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." An example of blessing God's name comes from 1 Chronicles 16:23-36; Psalm 8 C. Why? 1. These are His gates, His courts- the Temple was His, we are His, this church, this body of believers, we are His. Let us not commit the sin of viewing this lightly. God addresses His people in Isaiah 1:12 and compares them to Sodom and Gomorrah, for they have turned genuine worship into ritual and empty sacrifices which God calls the "treading of His courts" or the "trampling of His courts" referring to noise with no meaning. Our worship to God should have great meaning. We should be worshipping from the depths of our hearts, our souls, with all of our strength, because the LORD, He is God! And we are His. 2. For the Lord is: a. Good - in every way, morally, ethically, in the physical and spiritual creation that He made, God is good. There is not one moment in all of eternity nor in the timeline of history that God has ever done wrong, been tempted by evil, nor has He ever caused evil or wrong. He is good. b. Merciful in an everlasting way - for all of eternity past, for all time, for all eternity future the mercy of God, His favor that He showers upon man is without end. His mercy knows no end. It is boundless. Should you and I ever question the presence of mercy in this world, we can know without a doubt that God's mercy exists and is being shown. c. Truth that endures to all generations. There is not one generation to which God's truth does not apply or to which it changes. The same God that existed before creation, that created this world, that revealed Himself to man through the ages, Who promises salvation to all who will obey His call to repentance and faith, Who lives forever and will one day dwell for eternity with His people will never change. By His very nature, every word He speaks is true. And nothing that man says, does, imagines, or seeks to redefine can ever change the truth of God which continues to every generation. The LORD, He is God! Are you His? We, His people, those of every nation and people, who have repented and placed our faith in Him, we confidently and bold proclaim with the psalmist, King David, "The LORD, He is God! And we are His!" Invitation: as Ron comes to lead in our last song please consider two things. First, if you are not His, if you are not saved, then God himself calls you to salvation to be one of His. He created you. He died for you. He loves you. Second, if you are His, His people, then does your life reflect the jubilant, confident praise depicted in Psalm 100? Are you living thankfully? Are you living in such a way that God's courts ring with genuine praise, or is there just noise with no meaning? Christian, confess those things which keep you from genuine praise and enter into His courts with singing, with thankfulness, and bless His name.