Praise Realization Psalm 100
8/8/10
Daniel Ivey
Psalm 100:1-5 NAS Psalm 100:1 A Psalm for Thanksgiving. Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing. 3 Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. 4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving, And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name. 5 For the LORD is good; His loving-kindness is everlasting, And His faithfulness to all generations.
I’ll never forget the great and loud shouts I heard in Athens, Georgia while I was in college at the University of Georgia, attending football games in Sanford Stadium, surrounded by 93,000 screaming fans. When our team would come into the stadium, there was a joyful shout that rang out that could be heard from a mile away! It’s an amazing thing to be part of such a crowd of people, all shouting out for the same thing.
But that is where this Psalm comes in. This is the situation that surrounds this Psalm of Thanksgiving. Just imagine, being front row at the Temple Gates, or maybe in the Temple courts…and a great throng of people are gathering to worship the Lord. Thousands upon thousands have gathered in the city of Jerusalem from all over the earth. They’ve all gathered for one purpose, and they all with one voice, shout out a cry of praise unto God most High. A joyful shout unto the Lord God, as they make their way to the Temple of the Lord, to worship Him all together.
But what really is different about this gathering here today, and their gathering back then? We are the people of God gathered here today, with one purpose, and with one voice. We are gathered here today to lift up our voices in thanksgiving, praise, and adoration unto the same God. The Lord God. But maybe we aren’t as used to shouting as they were back then. At least not in worship on a Sunday morning.
We have always been reminded all of our lives to use our inside voices, and to do all things decently and in order. We are more accustomed to gathering in the Lord’s house with reverence and awe. And I assure you that they were too, and that they too came before the Lord with reverence and awe. But they came before the Lord with such a joyful realization of who God is, and who they were in God, that it brought forth a joyful shout of praise unto God most high. It was their praise realization. I think we could stand a little more of that kind of spirit in our worship today. I want to have such a joyful realization of who God is in my heart, that I can’t help but let out a shout of praise.
“A shout?”, you may be asking. Here? Now?
Make no mistake about it. The writer of this Psalm meant to use this word shout. It is the same word that was used to describe the great shout that came out of the people of Israel when they marched around the city of Jericho and by the mighty hand of God, brought those walls tumbling down with a great shout.
But they aren’t here shouting just to make a loud noise. They are shouting for joy because of who God is, and because of His great goodness, faithfulness, and loving-kindness that God showed to them, the people of God, created and made by Him, the sheep of His pasture.
The Psalmist says, “Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth.” When is the last time that you let out a shout of praise to God? Has it been a while? And if you never have, know that the Bible is giving you permission.
While my wife Nicola grew up in a home where it was okay to shout and be loud, I didn’t grow up in an Italian family. I grew up in a family where we all kept our voices down. I grew up in a family where shouting was only okay on the baseball field, or out in the park. I most definitely did not grow up in a church where shouting was ever heard! There were deacons waiting in the back to escort you out if you were of the shouting persuasion.
But whether we are a church that literally shouts in worship or not, which would be fine with me and fine with God, I believe that what we need to take from this reading of Scripture, is that it is about the praise realization, of knowing God in His fullness that would ever bring about this joyful shout of praise. I believe that it is about knowing the Lord in such a way, and knowing the promises we have in Him as His special chosen people, the royal priesthood of believers, that we are not able to contain the joy within us due to this revelation of God’s love and God’s goodness.
Psalm 100:2 2 Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing.
As we serve and worship the Lord through our daily living, and as we come before Him to worship God in song, the Lord is wanting all of your efforts and all of your praise to be offered unto Him from a cheerful and joyful heart. God is not interested in mere lip-service in our singing. God is not interested in us just going through the motions, and doing our religious duty. God is interested in having a relationship with us, where He is our God and Savior, and we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.
God had to remind the people of Israel of this several times in the course of their history. And God has had to remind me of this far too often as well. Listen to the words that God spoke to Israel through the writer of Psalm 50 about this issue.
Psalm 50:7-15 7 "Hear, O My people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you; I am God, your God. 8 "I do not reprove you for your sacrifices, And your burnt offerings are continually before Me. 9 "I shall take no young bull out of your house, Nor male goats out of your folds. 10 "For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. 11 "I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine. 12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all it contains. 13 "Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of male goats? 14 "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, And pay your vows to the Most High; 15 And call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me."
Hear O MY PEOPLE! I am God Your GOD! Don’t you hear the relational words!? God wants you to serve Him and sing to Him out of the joy that the relationship brings! And God knows that He is that good, that loving, and that faithful, that if you really know Him and are in relationship with Him, that He can ask of you such things, and that He can get it from the bottom of your heart!
I know that my wife Nicola loves to receive flowers and gifts from me. But if she found out that I was only giving her the flowers and gifts simply out of duty, instead of from the joy of my heart, she wouldn’t want them. That’s because she loves me and wants my love in return, not just what gifts I could give to her.
God doesn’t need our shouts of acclamation, our service, or our singing in worship, but He wants it from us because He wants relationship.
And this relationship grows sweeter and sweeter the more that we know Him. God has already offered to us His best. God spared no expense when He gave His very best, the precious sacrifice of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, because He loved us so much. God has always realized His love for us, because He always has been, and always will be love. But we are the ones who are slow to realize His love for us. We are the ones who slow things down with our doubts about how great God’s love for us really is, and how great our God really is. We are the ones who hold things back when we believe the lie that our sin is greater than His amazing grace.
But there is a solution! There is a solution because there is an invitation! God is inviting us to know Him and be in relationship with Him. God has revealed Himself to us through His great demonstration of love, by sending His Son Jesus to die for us, even when we were still sinners.
Psalm 100:3 3 Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Know the Lord! God is inviting us to know Him. God is wanting to Ephesians 3:16-19 16 grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
When you get the chance to taste and see that the Lord is good, and begin to be filled with the love of God, you won’t be able to contain the shouts of praise that will arise from your heart. God’s limitless oceans of love will flood your heart. As Jesus said in John 7:38 38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'" God has more to give to us than we can contain, and He loves it that way. That way you can freely give to others what you have freely received. And that way you can worship and praise the Lord with joy, in the way that He desires.
When we grow in the experiential knowledge of God, then and only then do we begin to know ourselves. Until we know that the Lord God alone is God, and understand that it is He who created us, He who called us, He who loved us first, we won’t really know ourselves or what our created purpose is. Until we realize our full dependence on God for every breath that we breathe, and until we realize that we are His creation, created to be in relationship with Him, as His own special people, the sheep of His pasture, we won’t really know life.
But when you do begin to know God, and when you continue to increase in the knowledge of God, realizing that He alone is God, that He is your creator, and that you are His people, the sheep of His pasture, then you will really begin to worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth with a joyful heart,
Entering His gates with thanksgiving, and entering His courts with praise, giving thanks to God and blessing His name,
· Because the Lord is good and His loving-kindness is everlasting, and His faithfulness extends to all generations.
So I invite you now to sing joyfully to the Lord for all that He’s done, and for all that He is. Give thanks to the Lord, and bless His name!
Will you stand to your feet and sing to the Lord with a cheerful heart as we sing hymn #89, “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee”?
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