Psalm 100 • When Explanations Fail

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

We are turning to a summer psalm this morning. We've been in the book of Exodus. Let me tell you that most summers that I have been with you, we have paused from our series and turned to the psalms as we recognize the depth of feeling and emotion that comes out of that collection of hymns of ancient Israel. And we're not really breaking from our Exodus theme so much. After all, the book that we call the Psalms is really a collection of five groups of hymns that the nation of Israel pulled together into their hymnal as they were returning from slavery in Babylon.



 It was really relearning to sing their songs to their king who ruled over all. It was the second Exodus, a journey back to grace. And because I delight so much in our summer psalms, I didn't want summer to get past with at least preaching on one psalm. This is Psalm 100, and a lot of you will know it by heart. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands.



 Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, He is God. It's He that has made us and not we ourselves.



 We are His people. And the sheep of His pasture enter into His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name. For the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting. And His truth endures to all generations.



 Let's pray to this faithful God.



 Heavenly Father, thank You for Your goodness to this church.



 But we would recognize we are only a part of the great body of Christ that You are claiming through the ages and throughout the world. Help us as we praise You this day to be part of singing Your name with gladness and be a part of Your mission to claim all nations for the praising of our Savior. You have been good to us. And so we ask that You would lead us into Your pastures and into Your mission.



 Supply us for the work of Christ we ask, and so we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.



 Why don't you open your Bibles to Psalm 100? As I tell you a little bit why it became so meaningful to me, I don't believe that I have ever felt the power of Psalm 100 more than when I was with some of you in Cuba just a few weeks ago.



 In one worship service, I preached from Psalm 100.



 And as I did, even as I was preaching, I had this sense of something unusual happening. People were wrapped in attention. They were engaged. Their eyes virtually locked on my own. They seemed to be excited about the Word of God. And as much as I was thrilled by that, I could not quite connect in my mind. Why in this moment, why these people? So connecting to this Psalm 100. And then even as I was preaching, I began to understand.



 Psalm 100 is the apex of what are known as the King Psalms in the book of Psalms, where God Himself as Jehovah is being celebrated as a great King above all. And Psalm 100 is the apex of that. And as I recognize what God's people were doing when they collected the Psalms into their hymnal and had Psalm 100 as the apex, what they were doing in heart was saying, we have been ruled all our lives by a cruel despot who has tortured and murdered our people. And now finally, we are back in our own land to worship God. Praise Him, all nations. Why would pastors and leaders from churches in Cuba resonate with such a Psalm? Because all of their lives, most of them for almost 70 years lived under the cruelty of a dictator who by communist methodology was not only saying they could not worship as they desired, but would be punished if they did. And now, as they were in this worship service, knowing a few more freedoms, when they could say, "Praise God, for He created us and calls us His own and frees us from our guilt." They were resonating again with the ancient people and the freedom that they were experiencing. You would do the same. If you had been the Christians of Cuba who had watched your churches wither into husks as the people of God, fearing persecution, had stopped attending and stopped giving. If your pastors had been arrested or imprisoned or put before firing squads for preaching the gospel, if you had watched your children being raised in forced atheism being taught in their public schools, then if the moment came that even there were some few freedoms that you could sink from your heart, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, "Oh ye lands, serve the Lord with gladness because He has claimed us and we're the people of His pasture."



 Your heart would know the resonance. And that's not just for an ancient people. And it's not just for the people of Cuba. It's for each of us when the clouds of life sink low.



 And you wonder if the job will still be there.



 If the job you're going to will ever be joy to you because you don't know if your house here will sell.



 When it's not just you but your grandkids who are sick.



 When you don't know if the marriage that brought you joy can ever be healed, then you want to sing with gladness but you wonder where it will come from.



 How do you praise the King of heaven when earth hurts so much?



 Psalm 100 is all about that. You know it's intended to be a psalm of worship, praise, even that superscript, that title that's right at the beginning of the psalm says this, a psalm for giving thanks.



 We often don't pay much attention to those superscripts, but it's the language that is saying this is being identified as a psalm for a peace offering in the temple.



 People were to be coming to God and despite the fact that they had been idolatrous and sinful and rebellion, they were coming to make peace with God. And the fact that they could have peace with Him meant that they were to give thanks. Why? What does that king that they are worshiping actually expect of them? He says, "Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth." Some of your translations say, "Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth, to the Lord."



 You've lost the significance. In most of your Bibles, that word "Lord" is all capital letters. It's all capital letters to remind us the word that is being translated is the word Jehovah.



 God was the title, the nature of the ruler of Israel, but Jehovah was His name. And the reason that the psalmist is calling us to rejoice in Jehovah is because of who the people recognized Jehovah was. At the time of the Exodus when Moses was being sent back to the people to call them out of slavery, remember he said to God, "Whom shall I say is sending me when people ask me, who are you, Moses, and who is sending you?" And the Lord gave Moses this answer. Say to the people of Israel, "The Lord, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations." To be Jehovah, God is saying, "I remind you I knew your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and I made promises to them that will claim the nations, and this will remain true for all generations. I am a covenant-keeping God, and I am to be praised not because of your covenant-keeping, but because of my covenant-keeping. I am Jehovah."



 In her devotion, Julie Wieland wrote the significance of this. And by the way, it's little print in these devotions.



 She writes, "God's promise to Abraham to be a father of many nations was fulfilled in spite of Abraham's failures because the promises depended upon the one who would keep the covenant."



 God demonstrated great patience, grace, and forgiveness toward His people throughout the Old Testament, again and again, drawing them back to Himself. The names ascribed to Jesus are faithful and true, reminiscent of the great God, Jehovah, from whom we learn about from Genesis to Revelation, reminding us we have a God who keeps His promises.



 But what happens to the covenants when they are dependent on sinful man?



 God is there too, residing in believers and promises to continue to do the work that He began in us, which is another promise, dependent on God's faithfulness, not ours.



 This is grace, and we are to imitate Jehovah's example and extend grace even when one-sided



 more and more as His work is evidenced in our lives. I love it. What is a covenant?



 One-sided love. Where the other party may fail, where we may fail. But what God is saying is, "I will not fail. I'm a covenant-keeping God. My name is Jehovah.



 I made myself known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and not only did I make myself known in the past, I will make myself known to children's children for all generations. I am the God who keeps faithfulness beyond your unfaithfulness. And not as only is He to be praised because He is covenant-keeping, but because He is creation-making." This King of heaven, this Jehovah God, we are told about in Psalm 95, one of the King Psalms in these words, "The Lord is a great God.



 The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land."



 He's not only covenant-keeping, He's creation-making. He made all things. The sea and the land, He is powerful, vast, and great.



 And yet despite all of that, He is distance-reducing between us and Him. When you think of how great God is, how powerful He is, it blows you away. Psalm 96, another of the King Psalms, "Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness.



 Tremble before Him all the earth." We should tremble when we think this great and powerful God.



 And yet how does the Psalm begin who ascribes praise to Jehovah?



 "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness."



 We should be trembling. We should say, "No way can I approach this God." And yet He's saying, "Wait, come sing with joy. Serve with gladness." How can that be? Because this particular Psalm to be sung in the midst of that peace offering was a Psalm that was to be sung even as a meal was being given to God's people. The peace offering was one in which a portion was given to God, and God's saying, "There's peace between us now, not antagonism. You don't have to tremble now.



 You can have part of the meal too." And the people were expected to eat in the presence of God, and dare you say it, shout for joy. Some of you, as you think about kids or grandkids when they come to your dinner table and it's Thanksgiving or it's Christmas, and they just kind of lose themselves in gladness. Even when they're at the dinner table, when they're so comfortable, when they're so at ease, they shriek for joy.



 And here we are being told that even though you're in the presence of Jehovah, shout for joy. Rejoice in all that he has done because the antagonism is gone. You can be at peace with God. It said something to me when those people in Cuba who experienced so much horror and difficulty were singing. I've mentioned to you one of the services in an evening where in the rickety church that we were in, and I was up in a balcony, I began to wonder, "Should I be up here?" He was shaking with the exuberance of the singing and the music. And there was one song in particular that just seemed to capture the people, and they just sang at the top of their voices. It really was shouting for joy. And I said to my translator, "What are they singing?"



 And she said, "The words are, we have been set free."



 And I recognize it was this beautiful double entendre that it was the message for the people of Cuba that they had been set free from their sin, but it was also their prefiguring, their hope in Christ Jesus. Human dictators would one day no longer rule that the power of humanity and its brokenness and cruelty had been and would be broken, and they could not help but let the exuberance go. "You have been set free.



 Shout for joy.



 Claim the God of your gladness." And we recognize that's what's supposed to be happening to us as well. When we celebrate our freedom and worship, we celebrate what God is doing among us. And it's so made clear in the second verse, "Serve the Lord with gladness, come into His presence with singing." There you are coming, having a meal with the Lord, and you're shouting for gladness.



 But beyond that, serving the Lord with gladness. What is that serving about?



 I mean, we have a sense that serving could be feeding the poor, mowing the church lawn,



 running the technology of the tabernacle, all of that, good and appropriate.



 But what is this service about?



 You really begin to understand it when you recognize from where it comes. Verse 1 right at the end, "Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth.



 Serve the Lord with gladness." It's God's people who are being addressed, but it's the whole world that is in view. As we are to understand, our worship with gladness is setting the pitch and the passion for the nations. That what God intends to do by the worship that happens among His people is to be magnetizing nations to the mission that we have. You've seen it happen. I've seen it happen. I've experienced it. When I was in that room, in that church, in that rickety church with the people of Cuba just releasing faith and emotion and heart in worship, I had to ask, "What are they singing? I want to be a part of that. I want this gladness too. It's what our world yearns for. There are people all around us who just want some gladness. And when the people of God in their worship are rejoicing, whatever is true to their personality, to say with seriousness and sincerity and passion, "I believe this. This is food to my soul. This is peace to my heart. This is gladness." Then when that happens, it's worship that is mission at the same time. The theologians have a word for it. They say that when our worship is really resonating, not just with the truths, but with the passion of the gospel, then we experience what is known as doxological evangelism. Doxology?



 Praise God from whom all... Just means a word of praise.



 And when we have doxological evangelism, it means our praise has become filled with such gladness that what's happening is people desire it.



 Evangelism is not just witnessing to somebody on your block or in your dorm.



 It's worshiping God with sincerity and joy. It's when we experience something when the choir has engaged in such a way that our hearts are rising. When the worship team is leading us, not just in the words, when we watch their faces and we're magnetized to their enthusiasm, we want to feel it and experience it and be touched by it. And it's what God is doing in his worship. He recognizes that when worship is right and true, pitch and passion, both coming together in the church, that people say, "I want some of what you got. I want some of that. I want some of that gladness." And our worship is actually doing that. It's magnetic.



 It's communicative.



 It's infectious.



 I experienced it just in the oddest, simple way just yesterday. Coming back from the fishing trip in Canada, we were leaving early, early in the morning, and the hotel actually set up to service breakfast early. And so there was a man, poor guy, he was the one assigned to get up and get breakfast at 4.30 for us, and he did.



 But then as the men of this church gathered together before breakfast and took off their caps and bowed their heads and said a word of prayer, I watched out of the corner of my eye the man who was serving us. I don't know his faith. I don't know his background. But he stepped back and put his hands together, took off his cap, and he bowed in prayer with us.



 Worship became mission, infectious.



 As God's people in ways that were true and sincere began to say to somebody, "There's something special here. We're a long way from home. We're a long way from people who would recognize or even respect what we're doing. And we love our Lord, and we're praying to Him. And it touched another heart in a beautiful way. It can do it in ways that are not just beautiful, but even powerful.



 Kathy and I were just a few weeks ago in Ireland, a nation which has so little respect for the church anymore because of sectarian violence that has gone for decades and now because of the sexual scandals that have happened in the church that everybody knows, a nation that just 15 or 20 years ago would have had 90 percent of the people attending church every Sunday, now has less than 20 percent.



 The people are not just scandalized by the church. They are angry at the church.



 And yet in this one conference, which was in a tent in a small town, the believing Bible-committed Christians of Northern Ireland were getting together, trying together, as they gathered together to encourage one another. They began tentative singing. But the more they listened to one another, heard each other, shared thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, and praised God together, the worship just got more exuberant. It just got more passionate. It just got more enthralling. It got more loud. And we're in a tent so people across the town could hear us. And what that meant was that our worship became mission and some of the homeless people of the streets and some of the addicted people of the streets began to come. And some people of other faiths and other backgrounds began to come, which for a lot of the people in the tent was a little disturbing, a little difficult to handle, and sweet and wonderful at the same time as God was by worship bringing in the peoples, bringing in the nations. It's what happens when what is here is real because we are not just responding to the preacher saying, "You need to come to church more." I mean, if the only reason you come to church more is to alleviate guilt, I will assure you the guilt will grow remote.



 Something has to displace guilt as the reason you're… Why do we gather here? And the Psalmist is actually giving us the reason for this glad worship when he says, "You need to remember the wonder of God's grace toward you." It's in such wonderful wording. Verse 3, "Know that the Lord, He is God."



 How does Moses introduce God to the people of Israel?



 In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth. He created all things and yet says the Psalmist, "And it's He who made us. He made all things and He made us too." And that sense of how great He is and yet caring at the same moment is meant to move us. As we were up in Canada fishing, one of the lakes that we were on was a lake that had been volcanic formed at some point, which meant that on the edges of the lake at various points were these huge round boulders, black from the volcanic action, biggest bulldozers, and they had been rolled right down to the lake's edge. And I thought, you know, at the dawn of creation, I can almost imagine the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in some vast game of bocce ball, trying to get how close to the lake can we get, you know, and then somewhere in that game there's this pause, and let's make man



 in our own image.



 And the God of the vastness and the power and the wealth of this creation said, "Let's make somebody in our own image and then not make vassals or servants but claim them as our own. It is He who made us," middle of verse 3, "and we are His."



 He doesn't even have to notice us. Why would He notice us?



 And yet He made us and claims us. You think of the word of the psalmist in Psalm 8, "When I consider the moon and the stars,



 what is man that you are mindful of him and the Son of man that you consider him?" And yet God does just those things, not only creating us and claiming us, but ultimately caring for us. The end of verse 3, "We are His people and the sheep of His pasture." If we're His sheep, then He's our shepherd.



 The same one who is so vast in creation, so powerful, cares for us.



 You know, when we were flying to that fishing spot in Canada, so we're in one of the northern settlements and we've gone an hour and a half by pontoon plain beyond the last settlement. And so we're up in the air flying over this vast expanse of Canadian wilderness where you see nothing but lakes and trees and a few hills. And when you're out on the lakes, you see no one else, absolutely no one else but the ones who are in your party. And at some point, feeling the vastness of the wilderness that we were in, I was at one point impressed and then a little scared and then feeling quite insignificant.



 If God has made all of this, and this that I can see even up in the air is but a speck on the map of not just the world but the universe that He's... Who am I that God would care for me or think about me, even know what's going on in my life?



 And I confess that the wilderness experience which usually thrills my heart, at that point I was in a little bit of a thought spiral. What does God care? In all this, does He even notice?



 As I began to go into that spiral thinking about my life and my hurts and the difficulties and struggles, does God even care?



 Our boat drifted past a shoreline that had a thick pine forest which was broken at one point by a little pine tree arc.



 And in the arc was a little birch tree with a carpet of moss beneath it. And just as we were drifting past, the sun hit it.



 And I thought, "Here's this little forest sanctuary for my soul."



 As I'm thinking of the darkness of the forest and yet here is God saying, "Here is a place for your soul to settle in the sanctuary. My goodness on display." And I recognize it's not just this little chapel in the wilderness that is to be solving the ache of my soul.



 It was yet another tree in another place where God was not in the midst of a pine forest with its needles sheltering a white birch tree, but provided a bloodied tree and not pine needles, but nails in the hands and the feet of His Son.



 So that I, as I look to Him in faith and say, "Father, I confess though you have not forgotten me, I have forgotten you.



 In rebellion, in weakness, in distraction, I have forgotten you.



 Take my guilt and pardon me and there is sanctuary for my soul at a hill called Calvary." It's the beauty of what He is providing to me over and over again, not just the sanctuary of the forest, but the sanctuary of His Son that as dark as your life may be, you say,



 God has given me eternity and forgiveness and Himself.



 He created all things and still claims me and cares for me.



 Pastor and author John Gullet writes about 20 years ago in one of the Cuban resettlement camps that was in Key Largo, Florida, "There was a pattern that as the bus came in with the new wave of boat people and any given morning that there were close to a thousand people in the resettlement camp who would gather around the bus and they would cheer and they would shriek and they would welcome with all the exuberance they can the next group of Cuban refugees who were coming into the United States."



 But he says, "One morning as the bus came up, it wasn't a load that got off, just seven old men, each of them in wheelchairs.



 Three of them had been arrested decades previously in Cuba for street preaching in the major square for political activity in Havana.



 Some of us were there just weeks ago.



 The other four, after the three had been arrested, were themselves arrested and imprisoned just for carrying Bibles through the square because it was a signal to where the church meeting was going to be.



 Now old men, after decades of imprisonment and malnutrition and torture and broken bones, got off the bus in wheelchairs.



 And the crowd did not cheer, writes John Gullet, "They stood in reverent silence for those who had stood for their faith and never denied their Savior.



 By evening, those seven were leading a worship service." Why? You've known such hardship. You've known such difficulty. You've owned such hurt. Why?



 "Rights Gullet, these seven who had every right to be bitter were rejoicing that they had been counted among the body of Christ in a Christless land."



 I'm the Lord's.



 I'm His forever. He's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and this will be His name for all generations. And I will be among the elect. I will be among His people. I am part of the body of Christ, and I rejoice that He counted me worthy of testifying for Him in this place. And so I worship Him. My heart pours itself out in praise because when the world has no idea why I'm doing it, they begin to get some sense. Your gladness is not key to this world. It's not key to something in your possessions. It is key to your heart's claim upon a Savior who has claimed you.



 And when that gladness grips you, it will grip others too. After all, what we're ultimately called to do in this psalm is to simply live in thanksgiving, not to fail to recognize the hardship and difficulty of the world, but to recognize God has done something marvelous for us. Verse 4, "Enter His gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise." J.I. Packard says this, "The secular world never understands Christian motivation.



 Faced with a question of what makes Christians tick, unbelievers maintain Christianity as practice only for self-serving purposes. They see Christians as fearing the consequences of not being Christians. So faith is fire insurance.



 Or others feel the need for help and support to achieve their goals, religion as crutch.



 Or some will pursue religion to sustain a social identity, religion as a badge of respectability.



 Packard writes, "No doubt all of these motivations can be found among the members of our churches." It would be futile to deny that that is the motivation of some.



 But just as a horse brought into a house is not thereby made human.



 So a self-seeking motivation brought into the church is never Christian.



 What does motivate us? He writes, "The true driving force for authentic Christian living is and ever must be not the hope of gain but a heart of gratitude."



 God has been good to me. God has provided His Son. I may see none of this world's good. I may express and experience none of this world's pleasures.



 But I have eternity and pardon and Christ my Savior. And for that reason I can say the last verse, "The Lord is good.



 His steadfast love endures forever and is faithfulness to all generations.



 Give thanks to Him.



 Bless His name, O my soul. Bless His name." Why? Because the Lord has been good to me. We declare of God the last words of the Psalm, "The Lord is good." He's not defined by this world and it's brokenness and evil. He's something different.



 Not only is the Lord good not defined by this world, His steadfastness endures. He's not derailed by our sin.



 If He were derailed by our sin, then His steadfastness would not endure. His steadfast love would go away.



 But not only does His steadfast love not go away, His faithfulness is to all generations.



 He is not bound by our time.



 He will accomplish His work through the generations as He knows is right and best and beyond our doing.



 He's not defined by our world. He's not derailed by our sin. And ultimately we recognize He is not bound by our perceptions of time.



 What difference does that make? Means what I know I have failed. And I can't make sense when it seems like God has failed, when I'm struggling with all the thoughts of bitterness and anger, which I now need forgiveness for that. But I can't help it, God, because I don't understand what you're doing or how you're doing it or why you're doing it. Can't you help me? That God is saying, "I'm still good. I'm Jehovah. I'm covenant keeping.



 And I'm not derailed by your frustration. I'm not derailed by your sin. I'm not derailed by your rebellion. I am for you and my faithfulness endures for all generations."



 What does that mean to us?



 You know, one of the pastors that I enjoy listening to is Tony Evans. Do you like listening to Tony Evans with the passion of his experience? And I listened to him recently describing not the end of this psalm, but another psalm that ends very similarly.



 "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."



 And Tony was just kind of honest. He said, "You know, when we read those words, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me." We actually don't want God to follow us. We want God out ahead of us.



 But he said, "Why do you need God to follow you?



 Because he's willing to come after you and to clean up the mess for you.



 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, into his courts with praise."



 You know what the gates were of an ancient city? The place where there was a judgment seat. You don't go further until you've been judged able to go into the city or even into the temple. And God is saying, "Enter my gates with thanksgiving," but not just past the place of judgment.



 "Into my courts with praise."



 The gates are where justice was administered.



 The courts are where the king dwells.



 And God is saying, "Enter my gates with thanksgiving." There's peace between us now. We are made right by the work of Jesus. And into my courts with praise. Come into where I dwell. As though God from all creation is saying, "Come closer.



 Come closer. Closer. Oh Lord, I can't. You know me."



 There's peace between us now.



 Come closer.



 Lord, you know what I did.



 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me.



 God's coming after.



 Some of you I think of the experience in college in which you wandered far.



 Experience in the military in which there are things you can hardly imagine anymore were part of your life.



 Things you did in a career. Things you did to your spouse.



 Things that you failed to do for your children.



 And you think, "Surely the Lord will get me for that."



 And he says instead, "I am coming after you, but goodness and mercy are following after me all the days of my life."



 He's coming.



 He's coming after you with goodness and mercy.



 The one who created you cares for you. Give sanctuary to your soul. And as you look to him in faith, he cleans up the mess and calls you his own.



 Father, I pray your blessing upon these dear people that those who recognize there is no right for them to call you Jehovah, covenant-keeping, caring God. That nonetheless they have by faith looked to you. Not to their own works, not to their devices, not to their grasp on you. But to your grasp on them.



 You will keep faithfulness for generations. You're not bound by our time. You're not derailed by our deeds.



 You're the God who pardons and goodness and mercy shall follow all who trust in you.



 We trust in you.



 Forgive us, claim us, hold us, turn us from our sin.



 If there's rebellion in a life right now, help people to recognize that has not turned you away from them.



 Turn hearts to you.



 If there's one who has yet failed to see the mercy at the cross, turn that heart to you. Knowing that the nails in the hands and feet, the blood that was shed paid all the price for our sin. And knowing that it is paid, let us sing to you with thanksgiving.



 Songs of gladness.



 Sing, Father. Sing through us your son's praise. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.