Sing Songs of Praise
One-Off Thanksgiving • Sermon • Submitted
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It is as always an honor and a privilege to share the Word of God together as a church.
I hope that everyone has had a good time of Thanksgiving, celebrating with friends and family. My wife and I would like to express a hearty thank you to everyone who came and helped with the baby shower yesterday. We know that we are loved and supported by this church and many others.
Its not a revolutionary concept to say that this is a busy time of the year. We are busy coordinating with loved ones on the times to get together. Who is going to be there to pick them up at the airport? How are we going to spend the morning at home and then go to grandma’s for dinner? Who’s going to cook the turkey? There are an innumerable amount of decisions that need to be made. All for the sake of holiday celebrations.
I want to take just a brief moment to talk about all these decisions being for the sake of the holiday celebrations. Last week, we talked about keeping focus amidst a bunch of voices vying for your attention and enjoying the peace of God amidst a chaotic world. That most definitely includes the hub but of the holiday season, amongst all the other constant distractions of our time.
Today, I want to talk more specifically about the holidays. While Christmas is the next holiday coming up, what I’m going to touch on isn’t limited to just Christmas, rather it extends to all celebrations. This morning we had a Thanksgiving breakfast. We spent time in fellowship. We ate great food. Over the next few weeks we have various Sunday School and ministry celebrations lined up all around the church along with the celebrations you are bound to have with your families. Throughout the year we celebrate national holidays like the 4th of July and personal holidays like birthdays. There’s a birthday I’m looking forward to quite a bit that could happen any day now!
But when you look across the Christian landscape, there isn’t a consensus If we should celebrate holidays, and if we do, which ones exactly should we celebrate?
I would suggest to you from Scripture that we are given the ability to participate in cultural celebrations and holidays with one major caveat: What we should be ultimately celebrating is the God from whom all blessings flow. Birthdays are celebrated in light of God’s grace to give us another year. Weddings are celebrated in light of the ultimate union between Christ and His Church. Memorial Day and Veterans Day are celebrated in light of those who fought to defend our freedom to openly worship and gather together in a place such as this. I hope that as you celebrated Thanksgiving this week your ultimate focus was giving thanks to the God from whom all blessings flow.
Our culture may not celebrate these days for the same reasons, but we can redeem the days for the glory of God by giving Him all the glory on those days.
Colossians 3 says, “In whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” If your participation in a celebration can be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, then go for it! However, if you would be embarrassed to participate in something in the name of the Lord Jesus, that is a clear sign to refrain from participating in that way. We’re talking about Christian liberty here. We are allowed to participate in cultural norms, so long as those cultural norms do not violate or denigrate the glory of God.
In 1 Corinthians Paul says that he would behave and participate in the cultural customs of those he was around. To the Jews he became a Jew, to those out side the law he became as one outside the law, while still not violating the law of Christ. To the weak he became weak, he became all things to all people. There was a shift in the cultural customs and operations that he would adjust to depending on who he was around. But this wasn’t so that people would like him or so that he would blend in for the sake of anonymity. He did it so that he could point others to Christ! Look at what he says in verse 23 of chapter 9.
I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
As you are preparing to participate in a multitude of holiday celebrations, feel free to make plans and enjoy the gatherings. But don’t do this for the sake of the holiday. Do this for the sake of the gospel! Keep a laser focus on the God from whom all blessings flow!
Throughout Scripture, you will see a plethora of celebrations. Jesus’ first miracle was even preformed at a wedding feast! But whatever we do, we do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him!
And this leads us in to what we are going to see in the beginning of our text this morning. If you would, open your Bibles to Psalm 95.
As you are turning there, this is a psalm of David in which it is believed would have been presented during a time of religious celebration for the Israelite people. This could have been the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles. This celebration, sukkot, was a yearly celebration around the time of the harvest. It was a feast marked by great joy! In this way, it is similar to our celebration of Thanksgiving. There are some who suggest that the original Thanksgiving was even modeled after this Old Testament celebration.
Whether they are directly related or not, as we read what the Lord has spoken to His People through King David, we can gain a greater understanding of how to glorify the God in times of celebration. Today we will see three things that our attention is drawn to in a God centered celebration and then we will be given a warning.
Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
The first thing our attention is drawn to is Joy!
Joy!
Now this is a season in our culture that is marked by much joy! You’ll notice in most of the Christmas episodes of the television programs you watch that there is an emphasis given to Joy. And there is a direct connection shown in this section of Scripture to joy and making a joyful noise. The first verse talks about singing. We can all make that connection between singing and Joy. Some of the best Christmas movies are musicals. I grew up watching, and last year my wife I watched the classic White Christmas. Who doesn’t get a smile on their face when Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby lip sync a little “Sisters, Sisters, There were never such devoted sisters.”
There are many example of these joyous songs in holiday movies, and even throughout the rest of the year Screaming out the Happy Birthday song to David Wilkerson in the middle of the Legends Ball game, brings joy!
There is an unarguable link between singing and joy.
So if we can sing about the joy of familial relationships and we can sing about the joy of another year of life, how much more can we and should we be singing about the Joy of our Lord!
In this Psalm, David is imploring the people to sing with Joy! But look at the direction of that joy!
He says,
Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
The ultimate Joy is found no where else but in the Lord! So if we are going to sing, let us sing to Him! Frosty the snowman is a really cute song, but spoiler alert, Frosty melts! I’d rather sing to the God who is the ever steady rock of my salvation!
But some people are intimidated by the greatness of God. You might say, “Brad, when I think about God and how holy He is, that doesn’t make me joyful, that makes me upset at how unholy I am.”
That’s what happened in the book of Nehemiah. The city of Jerusalem had been destroyed and the Word of God had been lost from His people for sometime. But God providentially gathered together His people and the priests to rebuild the city and reintroduce them to the Law of God. The priest read the Law to the people and the people were driven to tears as the priests explained what it meant. Look at what Nehemiah tells the mourning people.
And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law.
They were seeing their sinful condition and brought low by the Word of God. Nehemiah goes on to say this:
Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength. One commentary said, “The joy of the Lord is found on the road to restoration. God convicts us of sin, and often our first reaction is guilt and shame.” God convicts us, but our shame is our own because when we know Jesus as our Savior and Lord, there is no shame:
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
When we believe in the heart and confess with the mouth that Jesus is Savior and Lord, we will not be put to shame. The joy of the Lord is our strength. I’m working on getting together some new praise music to introduce to the church at the turn of the year and one of the songs SHOUTS, There’s Joy in the House of the Lord, there’s joy in the house of the Lord today! And we won’t be quiet, we shout out Your praise!
I can tell you that there is Joy in the house of the Lord today! It’s in the heart of this sinner saved by grace, and I pray its in yours as well.
Church, this sermon has been titles Sing Songs of Praise because the Joy of the rock of our salvation is so pervasive that it brings out joyful shouts of praise.
In your gatherings and celebrations praise the God from whom all blessings flow! God centered celebrations are marked by songs of joy from His people.
From the Joy of the Lord our attention is next drawn to the worthiness of the Lord to receive such praise.
For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
The Lord is most definitely the rock of our salvation and His salvation refutes shame and breeds joy in our lives. But God’s greatness extends beyond just salvation. In this portion of Scripture, David shows us the worthiness of God.
God stands above all other idols. In the time that this was written there were many idols and false gods that people would give their praise. Now in our time and culture, polytheism, that is the worship of many gods with various roles, is no longer the popular thought. At least not explicitly. But, I would argue that the little gods of the harvest and gods of the sun and moon and fertility have been replaced by the little gods of science and individual experience. People may not worship a carved image on their mantle, but it sure seems that many are worshiping the digital image of pundits and politicians on the TV’s hung above the mantle. Modern culture thinks that it is so evolved but its the same In that people are devoting their worship to lesser things all the time. Just as God’s people in the Old Testament were often prone to worship false gods, I worry that many professing Christians are prone to worship false gods and ideologies. I can tell you this, politics have their place in God’s design for humanity. We see in Scripture that God works through governments, but that does not mean that we worship these systems. Where does your hope lie? I can tell you that I have a lot more hope in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ than I do in the second presidency of either Joe Biden OR Donald Trump.
God is the great king above all the little g gods that humans are quick to create. He is great and above all.
Verse 4 says in His hands are the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountains are His also. Really try to dwell on the vastness of this statement. The God who is the rock of your salvation holds the whole earth in His hands! No one and nothing else can say that! I was floored this week as I was studying this section of Scripture and I came across “depths of the earth.” The word for depth carries the connotation of being unexplored. According to National Geographic in 2019, more than 80 percent of the oceans are unexplored. Humans, much like those at the Tower of Babel, have such hubris to think that we are in control of this creation when even with all of the technological advances we have made we still know next to nothing about the depths of the earth. And yet the great God of creation holds it in His hand. He knows every creature. He’s numbered every grain of sand.
This world is truly His and we’re just living it.
Verse 5 says that the see is His. His hands formed the dry land.
God is worthy to be praised because He is the rock and source of our salvation and He is the universal Creator and Ruler of this earth that He has blessed us to enjoy. Any celebration we participate in must be marked by celebrating the God who has allowed us to enjoy it. If we plant a tree on Arbor Day, may we do so for the glory of the God who created the seed and gives it the growth. This is God’s world.
So our celebrations are marked with Joy to the Lord and we recognize His worthiness to be praised. In the next section of Psalm 95, we see that we celebrate from a point of humility.
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
After reminding the people of the focus of joy and the greatness of God, David exhorts the people with gentle invitation to respond accordingly before the greatness of God. He says, “Oh come.”
Come and join me in worship.
What if at our celebrations we gently extended a similar exhortation to our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Come. Let us worship and bow down, kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
The boisterous joy proclaimed earlier in this section of Scripture is not contradicted here, rather it is complimented. We are reminded that in our Joy we are also humbled. Do not mistake humility for ashamed. We have discussed that when we are saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ we will not be put to shame. But we are humbled. And that humility is the right response to the understanding that God is our Maker.
We are to be reminded in everything we do that we are the people of HIS pasture, sheep of HIS hand.
How does this apply to us in our celebrations? It is most easily explained by returning to the verse I’ve mentioned often lately from Colossians
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Humbly do whatever you in the name of the Lord Jesus. I know I mentioned this earlier, but if you cannot do something in the name of the Lord Jesus, don’t do it! Understand that in all of the excitedness of the particular event you are at, that you are still an ambassador for Christ. This might mean when everyone gathers around the table and it turns into a gossip session about the one who is not there, you refrain from participating or better yet you explain from a place of love and not self-righteousness that this isn’t honoring to God. It might mean that you ask to lead the family in prayer for the meal maybe that’s not ever been a part of the celebration but you do it anyways and you saturate that prayer with thankfulness to the God from whom all blessings flow.
What David is drawing our attention to is remembering in the midst of the celebration that we are still God’s people. Saturate any celebration you have with the goodness of God and remember He must increase and I must decrease.
So in Psalm 95 we see three focuses in a God centered celebration: Joy, the Worthiness of God, and Humility. From there, there is an interesting change in tone and even a change the voice that is speaking. It starts at the end of verse 7.
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
Here we have a warning amidst the worship.
In some ways this is what we do every Sunday. We worship the Lord through the study of the Word and then provide a warning for sinners to repent. This is the fullness of presenting the gospel as well. We are told to plead with others that they would be reconciled unto God. We are told to warn others of their need to repent. If a gospel presentation lacks a call to repentance, then it is just a story with no purpose. Christ came to give life and life abundant and that comes through believing in Him as Savior and Lord. Another word for Lord is Master. That means your life is now lived in humbled submission to Jesus Christ. People need to know that the wages of sin is death and that the unrepentant are headed to eternal lake of fire. Today, if you hear His voice, know that if Christ is not your Lord, you shall not enter His rest. Let me tell you His rest is much more comfortable than His wrath.
The reference to Meriba and Massah in this verse is talking about when the people of Israel had just been released from being slaves in Israel. They were on their way to the promised land. God had already provided for them in massive and miraculous ways. And then they got thirsty and its like they forgot everything they’d already seen. They tested God and quarreled with one another. The location after that was referred to as Meribah Massah. Meribah meaning rebellion or quarrel and Massah meaning testing. It is there where God laid down the Judgment upon the people that the current generation would not enter the promised land. For forty years they would wander in the desert. They rejected God and faced punishment.
Our psalm says Today if you hear His voice, and then the speaker changes. The Psalm says do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test. Who is this me? It can’t be David. This is talking about an event that happened roughly 400 years before David was born.
We’re told who this “me” is in the Book of Hebrews when it quotes this exact section of Scripture.
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.
Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
they have not known my ways.’
As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
This is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity, speaking through David and when He says putting ME to test, He is speaking in the First Person. Just as those who hardened their hearts against God in the wilderness did not receive rest in the promise land, those who continue to harden their hearts against God will not see rest in eternity.
The writer of Hebrews, after quoting these verses, gives us the direct interpretation we need for this section of Scripture.
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
The ending of Psalm 95 is used as a warning. It is a reminder that if our hearts are hardened to God, if we do not believe in God and specifically, if we do not believe in salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, then our hearts are evil and we too will receive judgment, just as they did in the wilderness.
Church, there is rest and there is wrath and there is no in between. Even in times of celebration, we must remember this essential truth. If you are enjoying a celebration in a way that gives thanks to God the Father by doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, then remember the importance of the gospel. Remember that everyone around you has a soul that spend eternity somewhere and remember that you know the only path to eternal salvation. Some will here the words and reject them. It is a reality as this world that many people reject submission to the Lord every single day. But we can’t let that stop us.
Charles Spurgeon wrote one of the most poignant statements on the need for us who know the gospel to share it with those who don’t.
“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.”
Remember that at any and every holiday or celebration you participate in.
And for anyone here who has never submitted to Jesus as Lord. Look back on the words of our psalm as quoted in Hebrews 3:7
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
Today, if you hear his voice, come. Do not wait. Do not live one more minute enslaved to sin. Do not harden your heart. We’ve seen where that road goes. But when we understand that Jesus died to pay the price of our sin, we repent from that sin and run to Him, we are given rest. Come today.
Pray.