The Worship God Wants
(Psalm 100)
Good morning! Please open your Bibles to Psalm 100. When I gave Mike a road map for this sermon series on the Psalms, I circled this day and this theme and said, Mike, this Psalm is all about worship. Today, I want to just worship our brains out! And I’m so blessed to work with Mike, because, man—he delivered this morning! We have indeed worshiped this morning, to the point that the sermon today is just dessert. Our time of worship has been the main course.
Earlier this week, I put up a Facebook poll to answer a deep, theological question that has been nagging at me for years. When I was an editor of Sunday school material at LifeWay, it was a question we literally spent hours on in meetings. Arguing. Debating. Emailing back and forth. All in the name of trying to answer one burning question about worship. Are you ready for it?
How do you spell “worshiped?”
[slide: WORSHIPED or WORSHIPPED]
I’ll be honest. My Facebook poll was inconclusive. Our Wednesday night bible study crowd was split right down the middle. And here’s why: If you look up the word in the KJV, it is spelled with two P’s. In every other English translation, it is spelled with one P. So if you are ever unsure whether or not you have a King James bible, look up Genesis 24:26. When I worked at LifeWay, we had a style manual that required us to spell worshiped with one P. However, since I was the editor for the King James version of our Sunday school material, I was the only one in the entire building that had permission to spell it with 2 P’s.
But our point this morning isn’t to argue whether we are going to be a worshipping church or a worshiping church. Our point is to worship! And so I want us to begin our teaching time by reading—together—out loud—with enthusiasm, Psalm 100. So if you are physically able, please stand in honor of God’s word, and let’s read together Psalm 100:
[slides—each verse of 100 on a separate slide]
Pray
Psalm 100 is ging to answer two questions: Why God is to be worshiped, and How God is to be worshiped. But before we really dig in to Psalm 100, it’s helpful to know how 100 fits into the rest of the book of Psalms. You remember that last week we talked about how Psalms 126-128 were part of a collection within Psalms called the Songs of Ascent? Well, there’s another kind of mini-EP within the Psalter called the enthronement Psalms. Generally, Psalms 24, 47, 93, and 95-100 are considered the enthronement Psalms. And they have several things in common:
1. They all start with some kind of royal proclamation.
2. They all emphasize God’s reign over the entire world
3. Almost all of them contain an element of the Coming judgment on the nations
So, take together, they are going to help us answer these questions about Why God is to be worshiped:
1. BECAUSE HE’S GOD (V. 3)
Know that the LORD, he is God! (V. 3)
• Psalm 24:7: “Who is the king of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty”
• Psalm 47:2: For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth
• Psalm 93:1: The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty;
• Psalm 95:3: For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
• Psalm 96:4: For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods.
• Psalm 97:1: The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!
The consistent message of the enthronement Psalms is that God is worthy to be praised simply because he is God.
2. Because We’re His (v. 3)
How many of you have labeled something this year as you’ve gotten ready for school? What do you get to put your name on?
• Things you made
• Things you bought
• Things you’ll use.
With that in mind, God has put his name on you for all three of these reasons. He made you
It is he who made us, and we are his; (100:3)
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand. (95:6-7)
He bought you:
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! (95:1)
Sing to the LORD, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day. (96:2)
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. (98:1-2)
He will use you:
Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples!
Say among the nations, the Lord reigns! (Psalm 96:3,10)
3. Because He’s Good (v. 5)
For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
It would be enough to worship God simply because he made us. Simply because he is in charge. It would be like the space aliens in Toy Story. You remember what they worshiped?
(The Claw).
The aliens worshiped the Claw, but they knew nothing about the character of the claw. They were deceived. But unlike that, we know about God’s character. Again, you don’t have to look beyond these brilliant enthronement Psalms to see what they saw about God’s character.
[slide—each one fades in]
• He’s trustworthy (Psalm 93:5)
• He’s strong and beautiful (96:5)
• He’s righteous (96:13)
• He’s faithful (96:13)
• He’s just (96:13, 99:4)
• He has steadfast love (98:3)
• He is fair (98:9; 99:4)
• He forgives (99:8)
Now, allow me to make a quick side note to say that a lot of times, we don’t pray like we know we should because we say we don’t know how to pray. We know we’re supposed to praise God, but we aren’t sure what to say. If that’s ever you, just open up the book of Psalms. Make these sermon notes a bookmark at Psalm 95. And when you sit down to pray, read one of the Enthronement Psalms. You will never ever run out of things to pray for if you just pray God’s Word back to Him!
Now that we’ve looked at Why God is worthy of worship, let’s look at How God is to be worshipped:
1. With Noise (v. 1; see also Psalm 29:3-9; 150:3-6; Isaiah 55:12;Luke 19:40)
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! (100:1)
Psalm 95: Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!
Psalm 98:
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
I know some people who, when you ask them about their religion say, “That’s a private thing.”
Not according to the One who made religion. He wants us to shout about him. He doesn’t want us to be quiet, he likes it when we’re loud.
I know some people that think that music in church should always be soft and meditative. That’s one volume. But another is loud, and God likes them both.
Psalm 29 says, “The God of glory thunders!”
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the people shouted “hosanna” at him. When the religious leaders told him to quiet his followers, he said, “If I did that, the rocks would shout.”
Here’s an assignment for you all to complete sometime this week. Pick a day, and whatever you normally listen to in the car, listen to some praise and worship instead. If you normally listen to an audiobook or NPR, listen to praise and worship. Instead of Rick and Bubba, praise and worship. John Boy and Billy? No. Praise and worship. Maybe its Squire Parsons, or the Gaithers. Maybe its LeCrae, Tedashii, Mineo, Crowder, Tomlin, Redman. I don’t care. But When you get in your car, dial in some worship music, and then crank it up.
• If you’re single, you can crank it up and sing as loud as you can. People will think your nuts, and God will get glory.
• If you’re married, crank it up loud enough that both of you can sing loudly and not have to worry about the other one being off-key.
• If you have kids, shock them by cranking it up and singing louder than they can.
You do that on the way home today, I guarantee your children will know that you love God and that you’re a little bit crazy, and they’ll remember this day the rest of their lives. Worship God loudly.
2. With Service (v. 2)
verse 2 says, “Serve the Lord, with gladness.” This word translated “serve” is abad. Everybody say, “abad.”
Abad means to work, to serve, to till, to keep in bondage. This is an active word about serving the Lord.
And maybe you’re wondering why a verse about service God got into a Psalm about worshipping God. And the answer is, there’s no difference. We worship God when we serve Him, and vice versa.
Brother Lawrence was an unschooled peasant who was born in France in 1614. He was injured in the Thirty Years War so could never do anything more than serve as a valet. Later he was a servant to the treasurer of the King of France, but he was let go from that job because he was a “great awkward fellow he broke everything.” He entered a monastery as a lay brother, which means he didn’t take the vows of a monk, and he spent the rest of his life as a cook and sandal repairer. His book The Practice of the Presence of God has been a classic of devotional literature for 400 years. He wrote:
We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before Him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king.
If you’re going to serve, how are you going to do it? “Serve the LORD with gladness.” Personally, I have never served in any ministry where I didn’t feel like I got more out of it than I put into it. I strongly encourage you to talk to someone about serving.
3. With Others (v. 4; see also Hebrews 10:24-25)
There’s a reason verse 4 says “make a joyful noise, all the earth.” Because sometimes we forget that our worship of God is to be corporate. Together. Our worship of God is personal, and I praise God that I can worship God anywhere, at any place, whether I’m at church or not, or with others or by myself. But I’m afraid some people have taken this to mean they never have to come worship with others.
If we’re honest, sometimes we don’t really like the people we go to church with. Someone put it this way…
To worship above with the saints we love,
Oh, that will be glory!
To worship below with the saints we know—
That’s a different story.
Our worship here is a dress rehearsal for our worship there. In heaven, we are going to be gathered at the throne with saints from every tribe and tongue and nation. Don’t you think we should start practicing now?
4. With Preparation (v. 2, 4)
Notice that verse 2 says come into His presence with singing. Verse 4 says enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. So if you are supposed to enter that way, when does worship begin?
For people who don’t think much about it ahead of time, here’s what can happen to your Sunday morning: You stay up late watching a movie. Or you stay out late partying with friends. Either way, when the alarm goes off Sunday morning, you wake up tired, maybe resentful, and possibly a little bit cranky.
For parents, often Sunday mornings are like running a gauntlet. Your daughter wants to wear her favorite dress, but her favorite dress is in the wash, so you either have to wash it and leave late for church, or argue her into wearing something she doesn’t want to wear. Your son is starving and yells at you to fix his breakfast, but you need to jump in the shower. So he’s mad at you and has to wolf down cereal before being dragged out the door. On the drive over, the family gets into an argument.
By the time you get to the church’s doors, nobody feels great. You can’t enter his gates with thanksgiving, because you’re biting your lip not to say what you’re really feeling to your son or your spouse or your friend.
I want to suggest a better way to prepare for worship. According to Leviticus 23:32, the Sabbath goes from sunset to sunset. So if Sunday is our sabbath, how would things be different if we started Saturday night?
• What if you went to bed at a decent hour on Saturday night?
• What if you got a full night’s sleep, so you came rested to worship?
• What if, to save time and stress, every member of the family, picked out the clothes they were going to wear the night before?
• What if, to save more stress, you set the breakfast table and put the cereal boxes out the night before?
• What if you left home fifteen minutes early, so if the baby threw up on the way, you’d have time to clean up and still make it in for the first song? Or if you just got here fifteen minutes early and enjoyed relaxing for a few minutes?
• What if you prepared for worship like God prepared for your coming to worship?
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving,” he says. The easiest way to make sure that happens is to do some advance planning. You do advance planning three or four weeks in a row, and it’ll become a habit, and church will become a more joyful experience.
Get in here for the first song. Ready to worship.
Then, as you get here prepared:
5. With Knowledge (v. 3; see also Mark 12:28-29): Our worship of God begins with knowledge of who God is. Verse 3 says Know that the Lord is God. At our church, we are always, always going to start with a hunger for knowing God better. So we are going to dig into his word. We’re going to be students of his word. Notice that we’ve changed the format of the study notes. You now have more room to write and take notes. In the next month or so we are going to make binders available so you can keep track of sermon notes.
6. With Thanksgiving (v. 4)
Our parents taught us to say please first and thank you second. But God wants us to say, thank you first and please second because God is always doing things for us.
So we’ve set up our worship services to thank first, and then, after the worship time and usually after the sermon, we have a time when you can come for prayer and say, “Please Lord,” do this for me. Or, “Please Lord,” answer that for me.
7. With Transformation (Ezekiel 46:9)
Psalm 100 has a lot to say about how we enter God’s presence. But there is an amazing detail in God’s word about how we leave worship. In Ezekiel 46:9, God says this to the people about worship: “When the people of the land come before the LORD at the appointed festivals, whoever enters by the north gate to worship is to go out the south gate; and whoever enters by the south gate is to go out the north gate. No one is to return through the gate by which they entered, but each is to go out the opposite gate.”
Why would God say this? Why leave out a different door? After all, you probably parked your camel or donkey outside the door you came in. Why leave through a different door?
Scholars believe God said this because what he’s trying to communicate is that nobody ought to leave worship the way they came in.
• If you came in mildly committed to your marriage, you ought to leave completely committed to your marriage.
• If you came in slightly in love with God, you ought to leave definitely in love with God.
• If you came in not knowing God personally, you ought to leave knowing him as your Lord and Savior.
Everybody ought to leave changed.
Invitation
