Psalm 98:1-9
Something to Sing About
Woodlawn Baptist Church
August 26, 2007
Read Psalm 98:1-9
What an amazing psalm of worship! From beginning to end this is a psalm of praise and adoration! It is a psalm of joy…a psalm of gladness and excitement for the great God we serve!
Today I’ll be concluding this month’s series of sermons about worship, but I pray that what we’ve learned about worship will forever be etched on our hearts. And what have we learned? We learned last week that God is on the throne! He is the sovereign King! The Lord reigns! He is Lord of all the earth! We learned two weeks ago that you and I are to be declaring the glory of God. We are to give to the Lord the glory due His name! And we learned the week before that that our lives are to be joyful expressions of worship: not just our words, our songs, our prayers…not just what we do here, but every part of our lives are to be joyful expressions of worship!
I have enjoyed immensely preparing and preaching these messages. I have enjoyed seeing God the way I have through this time in His Word and meditating on these psalms. I have enjoyed God’s work in my life as I’ve tried to apply what I’m preaching to you to my own life. It’s made me ask some hard questions of my life.
Do we serve a great God or what? Is God worthy of our praise or not? Has He done anything for you to celebrate? God certainly is a God to be praised! And not just in here! He’s worthy of our praise and adoration on Monday! On Tuesday! On Wednesday! On Thursday! On Friday! And on Saturday!
He’s a God to celebrate at school tomorrow. He’s worthy of your worship at work this week. He wants to be praised at your dinner table, in your living room, in your bedroom and on your front porch! God wants to be recognized when you write your checks, when you pick your boyfriends and girlfriends, when you make moral decisions, when you get behind the wheel or when you’re pushing the shopping cart, when you take a job and when you work that job. God wants every part of your life to honor and exalt His presence in your life – He wants the world to know you have a God and His name is not dollar. His name is not Kathy or George or Trevor. His name is not whatever feels good or right. He wants the world to know you have a God, and that He is the Lord of hosts! The Lord God Almighty! The Maker of heaven and earth! He wants the world to know through your life…through your affections that He alone is God.
He is a great God, but the reality is that you and I still have trouble recognizing that. We come together and get excited. In fact, I know that when I am excited up here you get excited and leave here excited, but before you know it things are back to normal. Then you start looking forward to coming back to church so the preacher can pump you up, so he can jump start you and hopefully give you something else to be excited about. I hope that’s not the kind of faith you have. I hope and pray that you’re not using me that way. That’s a selfish reason to come to church. We’re here to celebrate God! You have just as much reason to be excited on Monday as you do today and it has everything to do with you and me learning to get up and see God for who He is, for all He is, and to rejoice and magnify Him each day for that goodness.
The psalmist has said so in Psalm 98. Of all the psalms we’ve studied this month, this one is the noisiest. You thought Psalm 95 was loud with all the joyful singing and shouting, but it pales in comparison to this one! Psalm 98 is one of the loudest, most joyful, happy psalms in the Bible.
He says in verses 1-3 that we’re to “Sing to the Lord a new song.” This is the singing that means to take a stroll. Remember, the idea here is to have a song in our hearts while we go about our daily business, and not the same old song. God doesn’t want you singing my song or his song or her song, but a fresh, new song from your heart! Each day we ought to be discovering or recognizing something new and fresh about God. We could spend every day from now till death praising God for all He is and does and find something new every day! He is…
• The Mighty God
• The Everlasting God
• The True God
• My Lord and my God
• God my Savior
• The God of the whole earth
• Emanuel, God with us
• The Highest
• Jehovah
• The Lord Jehovah
• Lord of hosts
• God of hosts
• The Strong and Mighty
• The Lord, mighty in battle
• The Lord our righteousness
• The Lord of glory
• The great I AM
• The Almighty who is, and was and is to come
• The Creator of all things
• The Upholder of all things
• The Everlasting Father
• The Beginning and the End
• The Alpha and the Omega
• The First and the Last
• The Way, the Truth, and the Life
• The Word
The psalmist gives us some reasons we ought to have a new song in our hearts each day. Verse 1 says He has done marvelous things, great and mighty things, difficult and hard things, wonderful and miraculous things! What are some of the great things the Lord has done in the pages of history?
How did God do those things? With His right hand and His holy arm. The idea is that He did them by His strength and by virtue of His holiness. Remember Psalm 97:2? His kingdom is founded on those things and without them it would fall. By God’s might and by His holiness He has gotten the victory. Some of your Bibles say He has gotten salvation for Himself. That is the victory! That’s why Paul could write what he did in 1 Corinthians 15,
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”
And how did Jesus secure that victory? Through the salvation He purchased on the cross of Calvary! Look at verse 2, “God made known His salvation: His righteousness He has openly showed, proclaimed and made known in the sight of all the nations!”
The writer originally had in mind some act of salvation where God delivered His people from bondage to another nation. They were in Egyptian bondage and God saved them. They were in Babylonian captivity and God delivered them. And when He did He made sure all the world knew He alone did it. It is no different with Christ. Jesus was lifted up on that old rugged cross for all the world to see. His sinless sacrifice was on display, His righteousness for our unrighteousness. The perfect, sinless Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world in plain sight of all the nations.
Notice verse 3, “all the ends of the earth have seen (not shall be seen) the salvation of our God.” Now you make sure you get the weight of that. Peter said that “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Jesus said that “God so loved all the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”
That’s cause for celebration! It’s cause for praise! God made salvation available for all of us no matter who we are or where we’ve been or what we’ve done. And praise God no one will be able to stand before Him and say they didn’t know – for God in His own wisdom has made sure that all the nations know about the salvation He offers. Praise God for being the great Savior He is!
Then the psalmist launches into a great celebration with great noise. “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord!” It’s the Hebrew word “ooh-rah” again! If that’s not convincing enough he says, “make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.” Verses 5-6 tell us to break out the band – get out the instruments and sing a joyful, triumphant, victorious song to God.
And who are we doing all this for? Who are we singing and shouting to? The Lord, the King! Why? Because He reigns! He’s still on the throne! He’s in control! It’s the same stuff I said last week. The devil’s not in charge, President Bush isn’t in charge, the Democrats and Republicans aren’t in charge. The NAACP doesn’t control things. The communists don’t run the world. Our future isn’t left to fate – there is a King on the throne and He is our God!
So, “let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof; the world, and all who live in it. Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together before the Lord.” When I read these verses I don’t picture a church singing there happy little songs, but I see a 100,00 seat stadium, filled to capacity, sitting on the edge of their seats as their favorite team is about to win the game, the winning run is sprinting down the field, defenders close on his heals. He high steps here, dodges there, stiff arms next and just when they think he’s going down he crosses the inzone and the crowd jumps to their feet and erupts with joy! You’ll see it every Sunday for the next few months, only it won’t be in the Lord’s churches where it ought to be unless you and I choose to celebrate God for all He really is!
Now look at this last part in verse 9. Why should the whole earth erupt with praise? “Because God comes to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity, or fairness.” He is the coming judge! I’ve read to you many times the words of Revelation 19 which says,
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”
That’s going to be a terrible day for the nations and people of earth who refused to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the sinless Son of God. It’s going to be a day of judgment and wrath against all who rejected God’s offer of salvation – those who follow the antichrist and the spirit of antichrist. But it’s going to be a day of rejoicing for all those who have called on the name of the Lord! Our righteous and holy King is coming again to make things right and establish His kingdom here on earth!
But let me tell you something – we don’t have to wait until that day! We ought to celebrate it now! So what if Christians are frowned upon? So what if people mock and laugh and reject you? So what if your friends think you a fool? So what if you suffer a little for the name of Jesus? He sees it all and one day there’ll be a day of reckoning for you and all who suffer for His holy name!
So what do you do with all this? First you make sure that He’s not just the Savior and King and Judge, but that He’s your Savior and King and Judge. By His own mighty hand God has secured salvation for all men. He suffered and bled and died for you. Have you ever repented of your sin and trusted Christ to save you? Have you ever made Him the Lord of your life? That’s the first issue you have to settle today.
Secondly, is God getting the attention He deserves from you? When you leave this place and return to work or school, will God still be the object of your affections? Will you rejoice over Him tomorrow and the next day? Will you celebrate His goodness and His presence with a new song in your hearts each day? Will you unashamedly exalt Him in all you are and do?
Sometimes that’s a simple as praising Him for something you see or recognize about Him. Other times it may be by readjusting your life around what He shows you. You may come face to face with His holiness this week, realizing that you have not been holy in your dealings with others. God doesn’t want a song then, He wants repentance and life change. That’s the worship He longs for. Will you give it to Him?
I told you the first Sunday of this month that as much as I long for exciting and dynamic services, what I want most for us is for people to know that God is moving here: for the world to enter this place and leave, not praising us for our friendliness, but to leave and be able to say they experienced the Spirit of God moving and working among us. I long for the day when we are so hungry for the presence of God that we crave His Word and can’t get enough of it, when we live in continual prayer and communion with God, and when our faces are shining with the shekanah glory of God!
Nothing is stopping all of that from being a reality except us. What is God speaking to you today? To come out from behind your inhibitions about worship? To trust Him as your Savior? To follow Him in some place of service? To love someone that you’ve been mean to? To simply celebrate His goodness with a new song each day? Whatever it is, you do it today.
