In one electrifying moment a hush would fall over the congregants. It was the moment for which they had prepared themselves. The priest would meet them at the entrance to the temple, motion for the people to stand and call them to worship.
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
His faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100
And, with that call to worship they would break forth with a “joyful noise.”
Festivals always have an energizing effect on the people. It iss like going to a race track and feeling the intensity build until finally you hear the words, “Gentlemen, start your engines.” Or it is like a football team who is 12 and 0, going into tightly packed stands for the game that will move them one step closer to the state championship--people are excited, as the players of the home team are introduced, the thunderous roar becomes almost unbearable!
A pastor told about an experience where their church had run out of space. A neighboring church deeded the property and building, agreeing to join with them. A man not a part of their church, agreed to give them an organ if they would pay for an appraisal needed for a tax exemption. It appraised for more than $40,000.
People were excited! They gathered in full force for a thorough cleaning of their new facility, the day before the first Sunday in their new facility they sang and talked as they worked. The energy was building; there was a sense of joy and wonderment.
The pastor kept saying things like, “I can’t wait for Sunday! I’m just so glad to be a part of this and to see it happening before my eyes!”
Sunday came. The people came. The sanctuary was packed. “The atmosphere was electric. I’ve never found it so easy or so much fun to lead people in worship.” Joy was abundant in the place.
Afterwards an elder, Bryan Jones said, “I never in my life heard singing like that before. Barry, there was so much noise! You know I can’t sing for anything. . . but it was so loud, I knew they’d never hear me. So,--and he was laughing--I just shouted too!”
One of the most beautiful experiences of life occurs when the average, the routine, and the sometimes monotonous are surprised by serendipitous praise. I have often asked, why do our attempts for orchestrating praise often fall short of our expectations? In bringing this question to our text, I found myself asking the text several questions.
Does his entreaty to “Shout for joy“ imply there should always be a laud, an acclamation, and building toward a crescendo of faith expressed in joyful noise? Is he referring to worship that flows from lived experience or is the Psalmist pressing praise as discipline? Or both?
The kind of praise to which the Psalmist speaks incorporates both; it involves maintaining a sensitivity to God’s mercy and grace and then employing the discipline of praise. To put it in simple language: we are to practice Thanks-living. Thanks-living means we approach life from a perspective of hope.
When we have an appreciation love for God and a disposition of hope, we, too, will join the Psalmist in worship of the Lord. “Enter to Worship” will elicit reverberating songs of praise.
I. JOY IS AN INTENSE EMOTION WAITING TO BE EXPRESSED TO THE LORD (:1)
The language of emotions reflects the intensity of our lives; our emotions are linked to the very essence of life. When we grieve, we cry; when we are happy, we laugh; when we feel all is well, we want to celebrate.
We should not keep our emotions bottled up.
One Monday morning, on my way to Monroe, Louisiana, I stopped at the Post Office in Ball. I noticed a man walking--not really, it was more like supercharged frolicking. He didn’t look dangerous, in fact, the corners of his mouth were stretched across his face. He seemed to be daring someone to push his button. When I returned to the parking lot, I understood the reason for his exuberant excitement. A friend, or maybe an innocent passerby, had given him occasion to erupt into cheer. They were looking at something in the back of his pickup truck--there I saw the head of a beautiful eight point buck. It did not bother him to know that he had created a traffic block--he had intense joy, an emotion he could not contain. If you go through Ball, he’s probably still driving around showing that deer. And, if not, you can at least recognize him by his grin.
The Bible is full of visible signs that reflect the intensity of emotions surrounding the worship of God (e.g., bowing the head in reverent submission, standing in reverence, with lifted hands, falling prostrate before the Lord, kneeling, etc.). Davidic praise is one’s expression of joy, with responses like clapping, shouting, raising the hands, and dancing.
Barry Liesch makes a good statement about responses of joy.
We cannot charge the Hebrew people with irreverence because they did this. These actions were an appropriate human response to the great things God had done for His people . . . These postures are modeled not mandated, suggestive not required and should be permitted not coerced. (People In The Presence of God, p. 168)
There are many illustrations of spontaneous praise. In California, during a Billy Graham Crusade, tens of thousands in the crowd began to applaud as people came forward to profess salvation. Billy Graham was taken back; he attempted to stop them but could not. At a church in Santiago, Chile, 15,000 people concluded their congregational praise by standing and crying out “Glory to God” three times in a mighty “thunder of praise.” Handel’s Messiah – Glory to God captures the spirit of that moment.
The Psalmist records God speaking from His sanctuary,
Moab is my washbasin, upon Edom I toss my sandal; over Philistia I shout in triumph. (Ps. 108:7-9
The kind of worship the Psalmist describes happens when we sing from our hearts, not from the hymn book; when we lift our voices from a posture of rightness, not slouching in defeat; when we sing from the depth of the reservoir of God’s grace and mercy, not as if we are about to run out of life.
II. GLADNESS IS BEST EXPRESSED IN WORSHIP OF THE LORD (:2)
Expressing our joy in worship is a natural response to a loving God. It is no coincidence that there are 16 nouns and pronouns referencing God in this one short Psalm.
This past week I, like you, have been keenly aware of the disappointments, hurts, and major health—we know what they are. These represent only a sampling of the hurt, confusion and loneliness that people experience daily.
As I prepared for this sermon, I said, “Ok, God, you and I know that Sunday morning there will be wounded people present.” Joseph Parker reminds us of this when he says, “There is a broken heart in every pew.”2 This challenged me to ask, “Lord, is it right to suggest everyone should give thanks, even those who are wounded in spirit? Can they express authentic gladness in worship?”
Confidently, I say to you, “Yes!” We can, if we put the focus on Christ. Those who have eyes fixed on self, use praise as a mirror to see themselves. Those who have their eyes of faith fixed upon Him praise regardless of their circumstance.
Confronted with news of dreaded cancer, Mark Sutton’s (Brookwood Baptist Church in Shreveport, LA) wife said, “I will praise him if he heals me and I will praise Him even if he doesn’t heal me.”
A poor homeless lady, living in a cardboard shanty on the street, when asked, “How you doing today?” replied.
“Well, I’m blessed. I feel blessed every day that I wake up, to be able to see that I have woke up to see another day. Some people are not blessed to wake up and see another day . . . If it’s hard, it doesn’t make a difference if it’s hard or easy, you’re still blessed because you’re walking the earth.”
Catherine, a volunteer, says, “If this is what blessing is, that they have a little bite to eat, that they have the sun shining on them, that they have a pair of shoes that they got in the mission, and these simple, simple things, well then, what does that say about someone who is always trying to get the big stuff?....It leaves me wondering what they have in their life that I don’t have in mine.”3
What do they have in their hearts? The words of the Psalmist echoes in our ears, “the Lord” They have their attention focused unashamedly upon the Lord.
The key to praise, for developing a temperament for thanks-living, is appreciation love. Ravi Zacharias (“Cries of the Heart: The Inner Ache of Loneliness”) dialogues with C. S. Lewis’ discussion of love and pleasure:
Two Kinds of Love:
1. Need Love
2. Gift Love
Two Kinds of Pleasure:
1. Need Pleasure
2. Appreciation Pleasure
A unique moment of appreciation pleasure happened one day while driving down the interstate. Following a thunderstorm I saw an incredible rainbow; the bottom of it appeared in the road. I wondered, will I find the pot of gold? Will I magically drive into it and have all of the colors coming through my windshield. Neither happened; however, it was a neat experience. Ravi Zacherias said,
“In the struggle for existence, something is missing in this quadrant. I suddenly realized what I needed was an appreciation love, because need pleasure is momentary, need love is selfish, gift love can be given and be momentary and you can move on, and even appreciation pleasure can be like a flash of moment and it’s gone.
What I need is a posture in my life, a life of appreciation love which forever lives with gratitude. That is the missing element and loneliness can be effectively dealt with only when a life understands what appreciation love is and that appreciation loves comes only in worship.”
In contemporary Christianity “audience anonymity” is the term used to describe those who focus mostly on the here-and-now--a “what’s in it for me” perspective of life. Calvin Miller says this by passes the altar--where the focus is placed upon the eternal God.
III. KNOWING THE LORD IS GOD IS A KEY FOR UNDERSTANDING LIFE (:3)
The Psalmist introduces a key to authentic worship: Worship involves the intellect. This is the discipline dimension of praise. Charles Spurgeon said that we “ought to know whom we worship and why.”
This is why Paul, realizing the difficulties Timothy would face, challenged him to study, to know that which he had been taught.
You, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings . . . and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. (II Tim.3:10-15)
Paul could say with confidence, even when his feelings didn’t match his thinking, “God’s grace is sufficient for me.”
When the storms of life blow cold, when we stand alone in the loneliness of shattered dreams, we can sing “It is Well With My Soul.” We will face times in our life when we will need a friend, a friend like Jesus--”Know that the Lord is God.”
Curt Iles, a former manager of the Dry Creek Baptist Camp in Louisiana shared what he calls “Peeking through Heaven’s Door” experiences.
On a beautiful starlit night, more than 100 senior adults were gathered around a campfire. Some stood in the shadows of grief. Many were lonely. Others were struggling with health issues. Joe Bartlett, eighty plus years of age, stood and began singing in his sturdy baritone voice:
I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses . . .
100 voices blended together, a beautiful glow appeared on their faces as they sang. “They sang with a special joy that came from their hearts:”
And He walks with me and He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known
Awe! To know God. To know he made us! To know we are his, his people! To know that he cares for our needs! When we know this in our head and get it into our hearts, thanksgiving-praise flows sweetly and abundantly from our lips.
IV. THERE IS JUST CAUSE FOR HAVING A THANKFUL HEART (:4-5)
The early worshipers brought their atoning offerings to the Temple. The people knew their very existence depended upon God’s mercy and grace. Though we no longer make expiatory sacrifices, thanks offerings made out of gratitude will never become outdated.
Our appreciation for Jesus’ sacrificial love should heighten our desire to worship God. His mercy, not our lived experiences, permits us to enter his gates filled with praise. By his very nature, God becomes the initiator of thanksliving-praise.
How can we approach life with confidence, knowing that every time we turn our thoughts toward him spontaneous praise will flow from our hearts? Is such a vitality-enriched life possible? The Psalmist prescribes the foundation for developing a disposition of Thanks-Living.
Artur Weiser says, “the believers’ joy in God is the motive power of faith and it lifts our hearts”.5 There is an educational dimension to this kind of faith. Psalm 100 holds an objective reality before us:
Take heart, you can live a vitality-enriched life because:
1. THE LORD IS GOOD
He is honest, just, moral, and pure. He is truth. He will not set you up for failure.
2. HIS LOVE ENDURES FOREVER
We can never live beyond his love; it is a redeeming kind of love. Our future is bound up in his eternal nature, it is ageless, timeless.
3. HIS FAITHFULNESS CONTINUES THROUGH ALL GENERATIONS
God’s devotion to his people will never change, through thick or thin He will be constant.
Worship of God draws us into His presence. There we experience His transcendent and immanent nature. God is distinct from this world; yet, he permeates the world in His “creative power, shaping and steering it in a way that keeps it on its planned course.”6
In worship, we are lifted above the circumstances of life that seek to pull us down. We can join with the Psalmist as he has a little chat with himself,
Be at rest, once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord . . . (Ps. 116:7-9)
Conclusion
Thanks-living, living a vitality enriched life is possible. There is a recognizable pattern in the Psalms:
• An opening introduction in which the singer praises God for deliverance from suffering and distress.
• The body of the psalm tells the story of how the singer had cried out for help or protection and had been heard and delivered.
• The conclusion returns to the wording and theme of the introduction, praise.
When we follow this practice, we too, regardless of our circumstance, can join in praise.
It is around this threefold theme that we seek to worship this morning. We started our worship with praise, now we come to a time where we respond to God’s request that we make our needs known to Him and then we will return to the theme of giving thanks to Him and praising His name. Following is an example of praise that flows from the heart.
The second Sunday of Advent, during our welcome time, I made my way down the right aisle, greeting people and turned to go around the last pew; I saw Ramona O’Neal. It was her first Sunday back; she had been out of church for about four Sundays recovering from surgery. She is a small lady in her sixties.
Ramona, literally ran toward me, and, much like a small child leaping into your arms, left the floor when she was approximately three feet from me and threw her arms around me. As she hung from my neck, she expressed her excitement about being in church and able to worship.
I then made my way into the opposite aisle, greeting people and attempting to return to the front of the church. Richard Bell met me, shook my hand and requested to speak to the church. Richard is a big man. His head is bald because of brain surgery and subsequent treatments for cancer. He wanted to simply express, from where he was seated, his appreciation for the prayers offered on his behalf. I asked him to come to the front of the church, saying something about people being better able to hear. He reluctantly agreed to come to the front of the church. I then made my way to the platform.
Following the call to worship, the congregants were expecting me to step forward and lead in the invocation. I moved to the pulpit, paused, and began to speak, unrehearsed: “One of the neat things about being a minister is that I often get hugs from people, hugs that are intended for God.” I shared with them how Ramona hugged me in her excitement to worship, after being out of church for an extended time for recovery.
I then said, “There is another person here this morning that wants to give God a big hug and he wants to share it with you. In fact, it deserves that you remain standing in reverence of God as you hear his story.” I then asked Richard to share with the church.
Because of his illness, Richard attended church prior to this only once or twice a month. I didn’t know him very well and realized many would consider it risky to give him the freedom to speak. I didn’t hesitate and was not worried. Richard’s comments were very brief. He thanked the church and told us about a recent visit to the doctor. The doctor had told him, after experimental treatments and though he couldn’t fully understand it, they had found no sign of the cancer.
When Richard finished, I heard someone to my right begin to applaud, checked herself and stopped. I placed my hand on Richard’s shoulder, as he was preparing to return to his seat. He stopped and I said, “I noticed someone almost applauded. I would think that others of you would like to express your appreciation.” Before I finished, the congregation broke out in spontaneous applause, it rocked me back. After the service one of the deacons, Mark Newton, told me he almost joined the person, Dodi Long, who started to applaud yet when she stopped, he elected to wait.
Later in the service, Jim Fitzhugh came to read Scripture and lead in a prayer. He told us how he had often stood in the exact same spot, praying for Richard and others. He told us that the words he had heard would allow him to pray with more boldness.
When we stand to sing the invitation, let’s make it a time of celebration; let’s accept his beckoning call with joy. Let us sing “Just As I Am” as a new song which God has placed in our hearts. Let us sing in such a manner that those desiring to make their need known will be lifted up, as if borne on the wings of angels.
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to service. (I Tim. 1:12)
