What am I living for? Worship of God (Psalm 100) — Marcus Cain

Let's read Psalm 100, please. Psalm 100, well-known psalm, I think, as is Psalm 19, a psalm of praise. 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 is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.

Be thankful unto him and bless his name, for the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. And we know that God will bless the reading of his word. So we're not going to do a review of where we were earlier, but I just want to mention that what we were looking at this morning was God's great provision for you and for me, one of God's great provisions for you and for me as believers, is very evident when we open the word of God and see that what we need for daily Christian living we have in these 66 books.

Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with reading other books besides that, but this is where we find exactly what we need, what God has provided for us, and it's very evident that throughout the long ages of Christian testimony, it has been enough.

The Purpose of Christian Living: Worshiping God

The question that we had this morning was this, what are you looking at? Now as I said, I could change the emphasis and be offensive, but the big question is where is my focus? How focused am I in my Christian experience?

Or we could word the question this way, what profit am I getting for my own self from what God has provided for me in the holy scripture? So we thought a little bit this morning about the word of God, but this afternoon I want to think about worship for a little while.

And what we have in Psalm 100 really is the eminent position of God above all things, above all people. And perhaps the question isn't so much now what am I looking at, the question is what am I living for?

Because when I read through the Bible, I come to this conclusion from the Old Testament and from the New, that one of the main purposes for which God saved me and saved you was so that we might be worshipers.

We find that quite clearly in John 4, we may get back there in a little while. So we thought about the word of God and we want to think for a little while about worship of God. Now obviously there is a a close connection between these two things because it is impossible to be a worshiper, a true worshiper of the true God, if we don't know what the truth is.

So God has given us the truth and the response of my heart is that I might become a worshiper of him. This is what what theologians might call a theocentric psalm. In other words, it has to do with God.

It doesn't have an awful lot to do with us, although we are there as well, but the psalmist wants us to think about God and that really is the the loftiest thing that we can possibly do in our life's experience.

Worship in Genesis and John 4

The first time that we find the the truth of worship is way back in the book of Genesis chapter number 18. Although the word is not translated this way in our King James Bible, it's when Abraham bows himself toward the ground.

He was worshiping. That's Genesis 18 verses 1 and 2. But as I mentioned, the longest perhaps teaching about worship is what we'll find from the mouth of the Lord Jesus and it isn't to his disciples. It's not to the apostles, but it's in John's gospel chapter 4 when he's when he's seated beside a well and he's talking to the woman of Samaria.

And it's rather amazing to me to think that the Lord Jesus takes the time not only to point out her her sin and to indicate that he is the one who will take care of that issue of her sin, but he teaches her about worship and she thought that they could worship up there in a certain mountain Gerizim or Gerizim or however I'm supposed to say it.

Once I learned Spanish and came back to English, I get all confused about my pronunciation. Maybe it's not right in English or Spanish or any other language, but you know the mountains I'm talking about.

And she says you you are are worshiping in the mount called Jerusalem and the Lord Jesus is going to teach her these truths about worshiping in spirit and in truth. So it isn't so much the physical place, but it is the attitude of our heart.

Individual and Corporate Worship

So when you and I think about worship today, the big question is this, how am I doing in my worship of God? Now obviously Psalm 100 is especially corporate worship I would suggest to you, but obviously corporate worship is made up of individual worship.

So the challenge in this section of the meeting is this, how am I as a worshiper of the one true God? We all worship. God made us to worship and we all worship. And really we we live for who or what we worship.

So what we worship or who we worship is of utmost importance. That's why I'm linking the word purpose. If we are looking at God and realizing that he is worthy of my worship, that will be my purpose in life to to live in a way that will show my appreciation for him, my thanks to him, my adoration of him.

I I'm awestruck when I think about his person and the response to my heart and oftentimes my lips is what we can call worship. So we all worship, but the big question is what do we worship? We can we can think about misplaced worship in the Old Testament.

Guarding Against Idolatry and Creature Worship

We can find in the New Testament in first John chapter 5 verse 21 that the apostle John is writing to believers and he says little children keep yourselves from idols. So he knew, now you can get into all the intricacies of first John chapter 5 verse 21, but what he knew was this, that we have a desire in our hearts to worship.

So we need to make sure that what we are worshiping or who we are worshiping is the right person. So there's lots of examples when you go through the Old Testament especially about misplaced or erroneous worship, but we find it again as I mentioned in the New Testament.

When you turn to the book of Romans chapter 1 and read verse 25, it says that they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. I'm not waiting for you to say amen, although were I in Mexico everybody would have said amen already. It's just an automatic response which is fine, but they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped the creature instead of the creator.

Now I think, I think that that describes today's society. My brother mentioned this already. I had no idea where he was going from Nehemiah to Esther. I had no idea that he was going to speak if you were, if you were with us physically and mentally when he spoke about, when he spoke about the woman who was being prepared six months of this, six months of that.

Well is there, is there any way in which we can see in today's society a tremendous emphasis on the body? Now I am not anti-exercise, okay. You look at me, I'm the specimen of, of an athlete. Now this is the first laugh I've heard all weekend.

Okay, I'm not. I confess. I, I, I told you already sports interest me this much. No interest whatsoever. I walk every day, a fast walk. I get my heart going. The Bible tells me it's important to look after our body.

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, but the problem is when we cross a certain line, and I'm not going to tell you where the line is or what the line is, but the problem is when we cross a certain line and we begin to worship the creature instead of the creator, when we think too much of our body instead of the right amount about our body.

Now I, I'm, I'm going to have to leave that and, and move on. So the body is obviously of tremendous importance. When we come to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and we've heard a reference again today to the judgment seat of Christ, we are going to be judged for the things done in the body, whether they be good or bad.

So the body is important, and our body is going to be changed from this state of humiliation. Now that maybe doesn't apply so much to some of you younger folks. You don't know what I'm talking about, but some of us who are a bit older, we know, we know what Paul was talking about in Philippians chapter 3, but it's going to be changed from this state of humiliation to this state of, of glory.

That's what we're waiting for, and there is continuity between what we are now in our body and what we will eternally be, because the seed that is planted, you folks are farmers, I am not, the seed that is planted has an awful lot to do with what comes out of the ground.

So that's what the Bible tells me. The body is important, but let's not idolize the body. I have to move on. That wasn't really even what I wanted to say today, but here's one last question. I wanted to say something about it, but not this much, but one last question.

This links Psalm 19 and my message this morning with what I have now. Where do we spend more time when we're thinking about getting ready for meeting on a Lord's Day morning? How much time do we... I'm not, I'm not, again, I'm not painting any line.

I'm not telling you where the line is or anything like that, but are we more concerned about what we look like when we arrive at 10 a .m. or 5 to 10 or whatever the time might be? Are we more concerned about the physical aspect of our body, or have we spent more time getting our spirit ready to come and worship?

Now, I know I don't want anybody showing up tomorrow morning at 10 o 'clock just like they got out of bed at whatever time they got out of bed, and they haven't, they haven't combed their hair properly.

I don't have a whole lot of struggle with that. They haven't combed their hair properly, and, and they haven't straightened themselves up, and that, I'm not saying that either, but what I am saying is that the preparation of the spirit ought to be more important than the preparation of the body.

So, don't come slovenly, obviously. I'm not suggesting that at all either. So, here's the question. Am I living to worship God? Is that the purpose that I have in my life? Do I want to be a worshiper in spirit and in truth?

Psalm 100 as a Crescendo of Praise

Now, when we come to Psalm 100, and we are here now, when we come to Psalm 100, this is kind of the, the end of a series, series of Psalm that, that, that started, let's say, at the very least, back in Psalm 93, maybe a bit further back yet, and there's this crescendo of praise.

I, I would love to take the time, so I'm going to do it. I just look at a couple scattered verses with me starting in Psalm, let's go to Psalm 95, because you'll see that there is some repetition through these psalms, and he's building up to Psalm 100, whoever he might be, and he says in Psalm 95, verse 1, O come, let us sing unto the Lord.

Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods.

Look at Psalm 96, O sing unto the Lord a new song. Sing unto the Lord all the earth. Sing unto the Lord. Bless his name. Show forth his salvation from day to day, and he continues, verse 9, O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Fear before him all the earth. Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth. Look at Psalm 97, the Lord reigneth. Let the earth rejoice. Let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. Verse 10, ye that love the Lord, hate evil.

He preserved the souls of his saints. He delivered them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous. Gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous. Give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.

Psalm 98, O sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things. Look at Psalm 99, the Lord reigneth. Let the people tremble. Look at verse 2, the Lord is great in Zion. Verse 3, let them praise thy great and terrible name, for it is holy.

Look at verse 9, exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy. And then he says in this crescendo, make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. So I think, I think he's emphasizing something.

I could be wrong, but I think he's emphasizing that we're supposed to be a glad and happy people that open our mouths and express our worship, our thanksgiving, and our praise. Now I'm not telling you that we need to measure decibels.

I was somewhere recently, and I, I was trying to think where it was when I was sitting down there. I was sitting somewhere recently, and it was a meeting. I remember now, it just suddenly came to me. It was the sing last Saturday night in the Halifax Gospel Hall, and my watch kept telling me, you're over 90 decibels.

You're over 90 decibels. You're going to go deaf. Okay, I'm not sure exactly what it says, but something along those lines. So this is what it's saying. This is what the psalmist tells us, to make a joyful noise.

The Seven Imperatives of Psalm 100

Now we have to, we have to get into the psalm itself. There are imperatives. I don't know whether you like imperatives or not in the Bible. Now somebody is going to say to me, be very careful with what you're going to tell us here in, in Iowa about, about praising the Lord and about worship.

I'm not telling you that we go back to the Old Testament to get all of our instruction about worship. I just want to see a few principles from here. I'm not going to go to Psalm 150, for example, and tell you you need to get out your drums and your cymbals.

I'm not going to do that. Don't get in a fluster. That's not going to happen. Okay, but, but there are some things that we learn here from Psalm 100, and there are some imperatives. There are actually seven in this very short psalm.

The psalm is easily divided into two sections. We have a call to praise, and then we have the cause, and then we have a call to praise, and then we have the cause. So it's very simple the way the psalmist has set out this particular psalm for us.

The Call to Praise: Joyful Noise and Glad Service

So let's look at verse number one, the precept, or a commandment, if you prefer. He says, make a joyful noise. You could translate this like raise a shout, a glad shout, exuberant praise. Mr. Darby, whose translation I quite like, says this, shout aloud unto Jehovah all the earth.

That's pretty good. Shout aloud. Now again, I'm not saying that we need to shout in the meeting, okay, before, during, or after, but the psalmist is saying we need to have this sense of, of the importance of God, and there ought to be some response in my heart.

Shouting is a common word when you read back in the book of Joshua chapter six. You remember the story? I will not go into it, but they're going around and around Jericho, and, and finally they have to shout with a great shout, and the walls come down because God has given a great victory.

So they shout. Well, that's, that's good. First Samuel chapter 10. Samuel said to the people, see ye him, this is speaking about Saul, whom the Lord hath chosen, and there is none like him among all the people.

And all the people shouted and said, God save the king. There's a few of us here that say the same thing, okay, not about Saul, but about Charles. God save the king, because we have, we have some Canadian or UK blood in us, but that's not who he was talking about.

But they shouted, God save the king. Zechariah 9. A coming day, behold thy king cometh unto thee. So what was going to be the response to that? Well, it says, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem.

So again, I don't want you to say that I'm taking this literally, and I want you all to shout out. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that obviously in the Old Testament, they were a glad people, and they expressed their gladness as they worshipped the one true God.

And this verse tells me that this wasn't only for the Jewish people, because it says, all ye lands, or if you prefer to look at the margin, it is all the earth. So this call to go, to go praising God, to worship God, it goes out to all the earth, not just to the nation of the Israelites.

It is a psalm of praise, but better yet, a psalm of thanksgiving, a very unique one. But he says, we need to, we need to extend this message to all the earth. So I said, I'm not measuring decibels when you sing here.

I will tell you, it hasn't given me the 90 warning yet. Okay, so we need to work a bit harder yet, Brother Baker. You'll say, well, you know, we're very reserved people here in the Midwest. Is that what you say?

I'm not sure. Maybe you'll say that, you know, I've wandered around the Midwest for a few years off and on, and maybe you're right. Maybe you're all reserved people. My guess, and I have no idea whether any of you like, like hockey, I kind of doubt that you do, but I reminded you this morning that I found out that they're playing hockey tonight.

I say, hockey in June? Reminds me of when I see, when I see this about football in January. It's like, well, what is this? You know, you have to be outside playing football in January. It seems crazy, but what I know is those games are pretty noisy, and I know Christians who like sports.

I know Christians who shout when there's a touchdown or there's a goal. In, in real, in real football, as in soccer, foot, real football, when there's a goal, I don't know whether if you've ever watched soccer, football before, but there's, there's a shout, a shout, and I get, I would guess that that probably happens in the Midwest as well, but I'll leave that, okay?

I'll leave that before somebody gets annoyed. Precept, verse 1. Presence, verse number 2. So he says, serve the Lord with fear. What does this word serve mean? It means two things. It means we need to work, and it means we need to worship.

The word actually means both things. So it means service in, in, in the sense of worshiping God. So he says, serve the Lord with gladness. Now you remember that Psalms 1 and 2 are kind of the introduction to the whole Psalter, and back in Psalm 2, it's going to tell us that we need to serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.

Very good. So now he's telling us we need to serve the Lord with gladness. You go way back to the book of Exodus, and you'll find this word serve when Moses is on the scene. We'll find it, for example, in Exodus 3.

Let my people go that they may serve me. What was he saying? I want my people to leave, to leave this land so they can serve me, means to worship me. God wanted his people to be able to worship him in freedom.

We have, and I include myself in Canada still, we still have the freedom that in many places they do not have. So he says, serve the Lord, worship the Lord. We find it in Moses' day. We find it again in Joshua's day.

At the very end of his life, he's going to speak about his own example, and he's going to speak as well and give them an exhortation and a warning too. I don't have the time to go back and look at this in any detail at all, but the example he gives is his own family.

He says to them, choose ye this day whom ye will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Now that service would include obviously worship and work. Two things are included in this very same word.

And all the people said unto Joshua in Joshua 24, 24, the Lord our God, we will serve, and his voice we will obey. But sadly, they failed, just like you and I can fail from time to time. They failed as well.

So our service, he says here, is with gladness. Now you can serve, you can come along and do something amongst the people of God. You can serve without gladness. I think it's pretty hard to worship without gladness.

You can serve without worshiping in a certain sense. In other words, you're doing it just out of duty, not out of devotion. There's no sense of delight in your heart. We do it with a bit of dryness in our soul, perhaps.

Maybe you've never been there. Maybe I'm speaking too honestly. But this can happen, that we can become a bit dry, but we still can serve. Well, he's saying this, serve the Lord, worship the Lord with gladness, a sense of delight in what he has done for us.

Now, when he says here in verse number two, come before his presence with singing, it's a marvelous thing that you and I as believers can actually come right into the presence of a holy God. Again, you go back to the Old Testament and see the obstacles, the barriers that were placed between the, shall we say, the common people and the very holy of holies.

They couldn't go into the holy of holies. But you and I as believers, this is what he says, come before his presence with singing. Now, the idea of singing there, you're going to get annoyed with me, perhaps.

But it actually means this, a shout of jubilation. Well, that's pretty good now, isn't it? We find this way back in Leviticus chapter nine, there came a fire out from the Lord and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat, which when all the people saw, they shouted.

Same word, they sang, they shouted, and they fell on their faces. They were worshiping. They understood something of the holiness of God. You and I as believers, let me change that. I fear that I as a believer sometimes can lose sight of the holiness of God.

Now, when we go back to Psalm 99, there's actually three verses that tell us about the holiness of God. Look at verse three, let them praise thy great and terrible name, for it is holy. Verse five, exalt ye the Lord our God and worship at his footstool.

We're small, he is great, for he is holy. Verse number nine, exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy heel, for the Lord our God is holy. So the psalmist doesn't want us to forget that the God that we worship is holy, but he wants to remind us that we can indeed, based on now I'm applying New Testament truth to the psalm obviously at this moment, but based on what Christ has done for us and the fact that we are in Christ, we actually can come into the very presence of God and worship him with gladness, with jubilation, and sing and raise our voices.

I'm not going to use the word shout again. So that's the call that we find in verses one and two. Look at verse number three where we find the cause. He's going to speak to us about the preeminence of this person who is God.

Knowing God as Creator, Redeemer, and Shepherd

He says, know ye that the Lord he is God. So he has said, make a joyful noise, serve the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing. Three imperatives. Now we come to imperative number four.

There are seven, which is the middle. Know ye. Oftentimes, oftentimes in the Psalms, we'll find that the way to emphasize something is to put it in the very middle because they didn't have caps lock and they didn't have bold or italic or anything like that, but they could put something right in the very center.

So the very center of this psalm that the middle imperative, shall we say, is this. Know ye that the Lord he is God. This is both cognition, what we understand, and recognition of his greatness. It's the central command of the psalm.

Now knowing, knowing God will lead us to doing something. It's difficult to know God well and just sit with our arms folded. Now if you're sitting here this afternoon during the meeting and you have arms folded, that's fine.

I'm not talking about that, but I'm just talking about the activity level of our life. If we think we know God well and how great he is and all that he has done for us and we can sit with our arms folded and not have that worship come from our heart, there's something wrong with our knowledge of God.

So he says, know ye that the Lord he is God. This is our strong foundation because God wants us to worship him intelligently. I think that's part of what we find in John chapter 4 when the Lord Jesus is teaching the Samaritan woman.

We must worship in spirit and in truth. What we know from the word of God will lead us, will help us in regards to our worship. So when I speak about worship, it's not the idea that might be out there in the world in which we live.

This worship is intelligent. It's based on what we know of God, how we know God, how much we know God. It's not really a funny or a fuzzy feeling. I'm not talking about some emotional experience. This is based on what we know about God.

Now as we've read through a few of these psalms and a few of these verses, I remind you what I said this morning. One of the reasons that I love the psalms is because it keeps me in my proper place. It helps me to understand.

I mentioned, I think it was the other night in Ontario, if it wasn't there, it was elsewhere, that if you want a great book on theology, read the book of the psalms. We find out so much about God, who he is and how he acts and his attributes.

It's all here in the book of the psalms. We don't have to go buy some great big volume of 542 pages for $49 .95 on amazon .com or whatever the case might be. We have a great book of theology right here.

So this book tells me how small I am and how much God merits my praise and my worship. So what are the causes that he gives us here? Well he's going to speak to us about who he is and what he has done.

He says he is God. Remember way back in the book of Exodus we find these words, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Remember what happens in the days of Elijah when there are the prophets of Baal and they're worshiping their Baals and many of the people are and then when Elijah offers before God and God sends fire down, what is the response of the heart of the people?

They say this, the Lord he is the God. The Lord he is the God. I expect they were shouting. I don't think they said the Lord he is God. I don't think that's what happened. I think they were duly impressed with the greatness of God and therefore responded in their heart and and with their mouths as well.

So the first thing we learn here as far as reasons for which we worship is the Lord he is God. The second thing is that he is the one who has made us. He is our creator. We found that back in Psalm 95 in verse number six and seven.

He says let us kneel before the Lord our maker and then he says he is our God. We are the people of his pasture. So the next two phrases have an awful lot in an awful lot of likeness to Psalm 95 verses six and seven.

He is our creator, our maker. It's a good thing to remember in the world in which we live when people are trying to say that we we are not really we are not made in the image of God. Well we are made in the image of God and that gives to you and to me a value that as much as a person may or may not love animals it gives us a value that no animal possibly has.

So the fact that God is our maker and we are made in his image is part of what the psalmist is saying here in verse number three and then he says it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves which the marginal reading is his we are we belong to him.

I expect that this probably has something to do with the fact that he has actually not only made us but he has redeemed us. He has bought us back. He has purchased us with a price and then he says in this verse number three we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

So the Lord he is God. He is creator. He is the redeemer and he is the shepherd. Now you can you can think back to Psalm 23 obviously and learn some lessons here as well but when we understand that he is he is our shepherd and we are the sheep of his pasture we have provision and we have protection from him.

He gives us direction. He delivers us from danger. He is our shepherd and therefore from our heart rises this worship of him because of how great he is. So the question is who am I following today? Who am I worshiping?

What am I living for? What is the purpose of my life? Again when I see the greatness of God it ought to cause worship in my heart. Look at verse number four. Enter enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.

Be thankful unto him and bless his name. So we want to think for a moment about our privilege to offer up praise to God. Now we've mentioned this already the fact that we can come into his presence. We saw that back in verse number two.

This word that we find here in verse four enter is the very same word as the word come in verse number two. So he's saying the same thing. The middle is the center section. What is it? Know ye that the Lord he is God and on either side he says you can actually come into the very presence of God and the way that he describes it is this.

They are his gates and his courts. So you can do a little bit of homework and and you can use your bible or you can use a bible app or you can use whatever you happen to use and you'll find something about his gates and his courts as you go through the psalms.

But I'm not going to take the time to do that this afternoon. But again the marvel is the wonderful thing is that we can come into his presence, his gates, his courts. Now I in no way want to make anybody think today that I'm talking especially or only about the meeting of the Lord's people to break bread on a Lord's day morning.