Worship Is a Verb: Psalm 100

Please turn in your Bibles to Psalm one hundred.

We are looking at our promise of the month in November.

And the promise of the month is Psalm 100.

And what we're praying is that we will pray in the promises of God and live out the promises of God.

I hope you're off to a good start this fall.

We started in 2 Peter chapter 1, and then Pastor Josh preached last month on Psalm 23.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

I've heard so many conversations about Psalm 23.

People talking about it at covenant fellowship groups, people talking about it in other women's ministries, men's ministries, children's ministries, teens.

It's a good psalm to memorize, isn't it?

And this is another one.

This is short, five verses, and we're going to read it and dive into it.

The title is a psalm for giving thanks.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with gladness.

Come into his presence with singing.

Know that the Lord, He is God.

It is He who made us, and we are His.

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.

Give thanks to Him.

Bless His name.

For the Lord is good.

His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.

This is the reading of God's precious and holy word.

Let's pray.

Father, we do thank you that you make promises to your people.

Lord, that we would be the sheep of your pasture.

It's hard to take all of that in, that you make such promises to us.

Now help us, Lord, to live as we learn these promises.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Psalm 23, we've been camping out in the last month.

Powerful message in Psalm about sheep, but it's more focused individually, we've seen.

Psalm 100 naturally now sees us not just as a sheep, but as a flock.

This is a psalm about worship.

This is a psalm about corporate worship.

This is a psalm about the family of God coming together, literally coming together to worship.

It paints the picture of that flock relating to the shepherd and worship, the flock of sheep gathered together, worshiping together, serving together.

What marks God's sheep?

Well, as the title suggest, people who live thankful lives.

This is a focus on living thankful lives this month.

Of the 150 Psalms, this is the only psalm that actually has a title specifically talking about thanks.

It's not the only psalm that does.

But this short psalm, five verses, is chock full of commands that tell us what we are called to do in worship and why we are called to do the things we do in worship.

Twice in this short text, we're told that.

How do we express our thanks?

What does a life of thanks actually look like?

The scriptures tell us.

The first command is shout, make a joyful noise.

Now, some translations, the new the NIV actually says shout.

ESV says make a joyful noise.

So let me ask you, what gets you excited?

What gets you shouting in life?

College football on a Saturday?

Didn't somebody World Series game last night?

A concert?

What is it that gets you excited, that gets you emotionally engaged, that you express outwardly?

Here's something to ponder.

Why is it that far too often it seems like all the shouting is outside the church?

Where maybe we just kind of express ourselves more fully.

And I know some of us, and I was one of them growing up.

I think it was our understanding in my church that you just did it more reverently, more quietly.

And I think we missed something.

I think we missed a lot of what Scripture has to say, like in a Psalm 100.

Three words are used: joy, gladness, joyful songs.

Praise is God-centered.

Thanks is God-centered.

It's not circumstances-centered.

We need to learn that, friends.

When we put our joy in the Lord, when we see what we are truly thankful for, our joy and our thanks doesn't just go up and down like a roller coaster.

If we put it in circumstances, it will.

Because that's life.

Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down, depending on what's going on in your life.

The psalmist says, no, no.

I've learned, the psalmist says, I've learned to put my joy in the Lord, and when I do that, I see I have so much to be thankful for.

And so when we worship, and we we we must ask ourselves, does this psalm reflect my worship?

And I would have to say to you candidly, for many years of my life it didn't.

For many years of my life, I struggled with this.

But then God started doing a deeper work in my heart.

And I understood, I began to understand that a lot of this, why are we so locked up emotionally?

In life, but also it carries on sometimes into the worship.

Why are we so locked up?

Well, we don't have time for that sermon.

It's about our stories.

By the way, it's much more than personality.

The scriptures aren't personality driven.

So if you think, well, that's just not who I am, that's not my personality, you know.

No, that's not it.

It's not that we will all express ourselves in exactly the same way.

That's not the point.

Uniformity.

But for many of us, our stories have left us confused, have left us wondering why things happen, and I don't understand what God's doing in my life, and that follows us into the sanctuary.

You see, what we want to understand is what the Bible says that is normative, regardless of your personality, regardless of your ethnic background, regardless of your culture, although there's freedom for those things to be expressed differently, there's freedom.

But the scriptures say bring your heart, bring your mind, bring your, yes, your emotions into worship.

The Hebrew word for heart encompasses all of those.

The mind, the body, the will.

All of me.

God's people have every reason to shout gladly because of the message of the gospel.

Do you know Handel wrote the great, composed the great music, the Hallelujah chorus, when he was in very, very poor physical health and he was financially broken.

Remember that the next time you hear, we're going to hear that soon, right?

It's coming soon.

Remember that next time you hear the hallelujah chorus.

He could not have written that chorus if he was focused on his circumstances.

But he was focused on his Lord.

And that made the difference.

Every worship service is a retelling of the greatest story ever told, the gospel.

That's what the word gospel means, good news.

How a perfect God who created a perfect world came to rescue the very people who rebelled against him.

That's you.

That's me.

We've all sinned against him.

In order to rescue us, he had to place our sin on his only son, the one who died in our place.

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, but God made him who knew no sin, Jesus, to become a sin offering for us, so that in him, Christ, we might become the righteousness of God.

This is the gospel.

Every service, every worship service is a retelling of the greatest story ever told.

Our worship team, Ben and Josh and Bailey and myself, every week we spend hours just saying, God, how do you want us to construct this worship service?

The songs that we're going to choose, the other liturgy, the prayers, the sermon, the reading.

It's a conversation with God.

I find a lot of people don't understand that who worship.

They think it doesn't really matter.

You have to do this, you have to do that, it doesn't really matter when you do it.

Well, it does.

Because it's important.

So let me ask you.

Do you have a more important meeting on your calendar this week?

I know this is DC.

People have a lot of important meetings with important people.

I get that.

Is that meeting more important than this meeting?

Sunday morning?

To come into the presence of God Almighty.

We must think deeply about these things.

God does.

Is the good news still good news?

Why is it that for far too many Christians, the good news loses its luster over years and time?

Well, I remember when I came to Christ, I was so excited.

But then why does it become ho-hum?

Why does it become less than exhilarating to us?

That's not good.

Because we've lost sight of the gospel.

I'll tell you this.

It ought to be getting better.

The longer you live as a Christian, it ought to be getting more exciting.

Why?

Because we're seeing more of our sin.

What did we sing a few minutes ago?

His mercy?

What riches of kindness he lavished on us?

His blood was the payment, his life was the cost.

We stood neath a debt we could never afford.

Our sins, they are many.

His mercy is more.

Are you seeing that?

Are you seeing more and more the longer you walk with Christ, how great your debt of sin was?

Is it becoming more precious?

I can testify, it is.

It is.

I'm so much more excited about the gospel the older I get.

God, don't stop showing me my sin.

Don't stop showing me your grace.

That your grace is greater than my sin.

That's a beautiful way to live.

This is what the scriptures tell us.

Is it getting better?

Why would it?

Because we're seeing more of our sin, but we're seeing more of His grace.

The diamond always shines brighter against the dark background.

It does.

That's the way it should be.

In case nobody else told you, I'm telling you.

That's the way it should be.

Why don't we shout?

Again, maybe we get locked up emotionally.

Maybe we're man conscious.

We're self-conscious.

Do you struggle with that?

A lot of us do.

Do you struggle with just being self-conscious in worship?

Well, I don't have the best voice.

Maybe I ought to do him a favor and keep it down.

No.

God gave you that voice.

God gave you your voice, and God loves your voice.

It would be good for you to come to grips with that.

God is honored and glorified.

When you sing with your voice from your heart, that's a sweet sacrifice to God.

We can be self-conscious, we can be other person conscious.

Worship is about being God conscious.

We don't care.

Okay?

Let's get over that.

We don't care.

We're not singing for each other.

We're singing for him.

And that's what matters.

All the earth, all the earth, God is calling all the nations to worship him like this, to give thanks like this.

To make a joyful noise.

Second command, serve the Lord with gladness.

That's what that Hebrew word means literally is serve.

So, in other words, worship leads to service.

This is the first response we owe him.

How far it reaches is seen in Romans chapter 12, verse 1.

Romans 12:1

But by the mercies of God, I beseech you, I command you, look at the mercies of God and then offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to that God, to your God.

That is your spiritual act of worship.

That's where praise leads.

Praise leads to service.

We read in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 15, through Christ, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.

Hebrews 13:15

That is the fruit of our lips.

The fruit of our lips.

In worship and outside of worship.

Don't neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

This is taking in a lot.

Thankful, grateful, joyful hearts lead to serving other people.

That's what Hebrews 13 and 15 is saying is.

Be generous with other people.

Share your gifts with other people.

That they too will come and enter into this worship assembly.

This is what we need to think about, friends.

Nothing less than a living sacrifice counts as worship.

A man by the name of George Bowen many years ago wrote this.

Can you bear to be waited upon by a moping, dejected servant?

Now, we don't really have servants, but you have people that maybe work for you or work with you.

You've got people that come alongside to help you in your work.

Like, do I have to do this?

Do I have to serve you?

How long would you put up with that before you would uh hire somebody else?

Can you bear to be waited upon by a moping, dejected servant?

You would rather have no servant than one who evidently finds your service cheerless and irksome.

That convicts me.

How many times in my life have I served him?

Moby.

Without joy.

I'm so thankful.

I'm so thankful.

He's been patient with me.

And he didn't say, get me another servant.

This one won't do.

Where would we be if he was quick, as quick to fire as we may be?

He wants us to do this with joy.

He wants us to do with a spirit of thanks for who he is, the greatest story ever told, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

His mercy is more.

The third command, come into his presence.

The Hebrew word there is pani, which actually which means face.

I find that helpful to appear before his face in adoration.

Face to face.

Those are the best conversations, aren't they?

Those are the best conversations.

It's not a great conversation when you're you're actually with somebody and they're looking away or they're looking down.

The best conversations, you're just looking into each other's eyes.

Into each other's faces.

You know it's like that with God.

He wants us to look into his face.

He wants us to see his face.

You know, the ironic blessing in Numbers chapter 6.

Numbers 6 · chapter mention

His face, may his glory, may his face shine upon you.

That's the way he wants us to live.

Come.

And oh, by the way, when he says come, he means come.

You actually have to get up on Sunday.

You gotta get up in time.

I mean, you guys have it easy at 11, right?

But get up and come.

But you gotta get here.

I was just struck.

We have people that walk here, not just Sharon and me.

We have other people that walk here.

We have people that bike here.

We have people that take Metro here.

We have people that Uber here.

It doesn't matter how you get here, just get here.

But don't stay home.

Don't just blow it off.

Come.

What would happen to the sheep who don't come to be fed?

They would quickly become sickly, malnourished, and so are many Christians today.

There are many Christians today who are sickly and malnourished because they're not eating.

Come and eat from the Word of God, Sunday after Sunday.

Don't let other people do your praising for you.

Worship is a verb.

That was the title of a book I read many years ago by an author, Bob Weber, who used to teach worship at Wheaton College.

Worship, it is a verb, isn't it?

It's a noun and a verb.

But it requires action.

It requires a response.

No, don't let other people do your praising for you.

It's not something done to us or for us, but by us.

This is the command of God.

The fourth command.

Know that the Lord, He is God.

Do we really know that?

How well do we know that?

The Hebrew uses two different words for God.

Is Elohim.

Yahweh is the most personal of the Hebrew names.

The personal, I am your God and you are my people name.

Yahweh is your mind.

Elohim is more general.

We find Elohim more in the Old Testament.

God created the heavens and the earth.

Elohim created the heavens and the earth.

The one, maybe this is what he's saying.

The one who created you is the one who redeemed you.

The one who created you is the one who loves you and is in relationship with you.

We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Let's take this in.

No one should be more thankful to God than the sheep who are called and cared for by the Good Shepherd.

No one should be more thankful to God than the very sheep he cares for that can call him Good Shepherd.

We are his.

Whatever may happen to us in life, we are still his.

Can I repeat that?

Because I look, I have a lot of hard conversations every week.

There's a lot of sheep here.

Whatever happens to us, we're still his.

I find that very comforting.

Because sometimes hard things happen to us.

We're still his.

The fifth command.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise.

Enter.

Again, come in.

Come into this room.

We spend a lot of time and a lot of money thinking about this room.

It's not about worshiping the room at all, no.

But we wanted a space that would speak about the imminence of God, that He's with us, He's close.

But we wanted a space that also would speak about the transcendence of God.

And so the ceilings and the lighting and the natural light that comes in and the seating more closer together than our last building.

We can't make it happen.

But we can do what we can to set the conditions so that the Lord will make it happen.

That's what we pray for as we enter his gates with thanksgiving.

So here's a question.

Do we enter the sanctuary with a heart of thanks?

Notice that's what the Bible says.

So therefore, this is not what the Bible says.

The Bible does not say, come in with your grumpy spirit, come in with your critical self.

And then it's Ben's job in the worship team's job to get you going.

The Bible doesn't say that.

The Bible says, enter, come in with a thankful heart.

So let's talk about that for a minute, right?

What does that mean?

That means I need to prepare my heart Monday through Saturday.

You look, if we're grumpy, if we're down all week, don't expect a happy, thankful, joyful heart on Sunday.

Prepare your heart before you come in.

Think about how good God has been to you.

For me, I listen to a lot of Christian music on Saturday and Sunday morning.

I just want to be, I want to fill my mind with gospel, truth.

I read a lot of scripture on the weekend.

I try to tune my heart so that when I come in on Sunday, I can actually come in with a joyful, thankful heart.

We can do that.

But we have to think about it.

Spurgeon said, so as long as we are receivers of his mercy, we must be givers of thanks.

Don't let other people do your praising for you.

God wants to hear from you.

We're going to have a Thanksgiving service coming up in a couple weeks on Sunday night.

It's one of the favorite services of the year for many people.

You can start thinking about that now.

How has God been good to you this past year?

There are going to be a lot of people that are going to stand up front and share a testimony of how good God has been.

But also your encouragement will be a blessing to other people.

There will be other people who will hear your testimony of thanks that will say, Boy, God, you are good.

And God, you've been like that to me.

And it's just kind of a chain reaction sometimes, in a good way.

The sixth command, specifically, give thanks, enter his courts with thanksgiving.

Again, do we enter the sanctuary with a heart of thanks?

Not only in the outer courts, outside the sanctuary, but the Holy of Holies, or today we would say the sanctuary, because we have access to the Father in heaven through the blood of Jesus.

What do we do to prepare our hearts?

And then the seventh command is bless.

Bless the Lord.

Bless his name.

And as I think about this this week in my own life, whose name do I bless for the week?

Whose name do I spend the most time thinking about?

My name or his name?

I'm not called to bless my name.

I am a blessed man because he's blessed me.

I'm called to bless his name.

And the way that we spend our days during the week has a lot to do with what we can do on Sunday mornings.

Don't live for your name.

Don't live to bless your name.

Live to bless his name.

And you will see and you will experience the joy of God in your life in a different way.

Bless his name.

Praise his name.

We are learning how to worship in this church.

I did not grow up in a Psalm 100 kind of church.

Oh, we we we read it.

We read it.

I learned it in many ways.

And in some ways I didn't until later in life.

In some ways I had to learn that God wanted me to bring all of myself.

I knew how to bring my mind.

I was really good at that.

I really knew how to bring my body.

I never missed worship.

I was a pastor's kid.

I was in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, any other night.

I always brought my body.

I usually brought my mind.

I had to learn how to bring my emotions.

How about you?

I had to learn that.

And I had to learn that it's not personality driven, it's not culturally driven, it's biblically driven.

I had to learn that.

And God had to free my soul so that I could express, that I could pour out what God pours in.

Isn't that worship?

If you're looking for a definition of worship, that's pretty good.

In worship, we pour out.

In the verb pour.

Not, you know, a little drop.

In worship, we pour out what God pours in.

And that's a beautiful thing to God.

And it's a beautiful thing to us.

We were just reminded over the retreat, we've had 25 professions of faith in the last year.

Last week we baptized a sister from a culture where you don't get baptized.

Big penalty for that.

God is doing a good work here.

God is doing a good work not only in this church, but God is doing a good work in the lives of many people.

Let's be thankful.

Let's be thankful.

Let's be joyful.

Many, many people have come to Christ since we've come into this building three years ago.

Many people have become Christians.

And a lot of them will say it has something to do with the way they worship.

You know, the Apostle Paul said that in 1 Corinthians chapter 14.

1 Corinthians 14 · chapter mention

When people who are not Christians come into the presence of Christians who are praising God, who have the joy of Christ, will they not fall down on their knees and say, God is surely among these people?

That's what the Bible says happens.

In lively gospel worship.

Good worship saves people into the kingdom of God.

Good worship awakens sleepy Christians.

I've seen a number of sleepy Christians in this church wake up by the power of the Holy Spirit, giving them more joy, giving them more thanks.

That's a really awesome thing.

That's why we're here.

As we close, just very quickly, I've got the five, I list the five I've given before over the years, but you know, if it works, use it.

Come.

Come early, number one.

Come early.

I love the response.

Actually, you guys need to hear it too, okay?

Love and service.

You know, the nine o'clock service.

We need to hear it too at the 11.

Come on time.

If you're downstairs fellowshipping, great, but be aware of your watch.

If you're coming in late, come on time.

I know for Sharon and I, we love to go to concerts where I love to go to sports events.

I'm never late if I can help it.

I want to be there.

I'll usually be there 20, 30 minutes early.

Because I'm excited about what I'm going to do.

How do we explain that we have a different expectation for worship?

Let's get this right.

We're going to come.

We're going to come not only on time, but maybe come a little early so you can greet your friends, meet people, and then when you hear the prelude, that's time to tune our hearts to prepare even further to meet God.

Let's do this.

Come early.

Secondly, come often.

Come often.

This is where the this is there's a lot of good green pasture here, Psalm 23.

Come and feed in this pasture with us together.

Number three, come together.

Come together.

Let's kind of, yeah, sit closer to each other.

Sanctuary, the second service is filling up.

It's starting to more.

But don't be, you know, an outlier all by yourself where you can't hear anybody else sing.

It's good for them to hear your voice.

It's good for you to hear their voice.

That's good.

Number four, come prepared.

We've touched on that.

How will we warm our hearts so that when we come into the sanctuary, we will come with joyful hearts, thankful hearts.

Lastly, come expecting.

This may be the hardest one.

I don't know.

Come expecting to meet a real God who really loves you.

Who is waiting to meet with you.

He's been waiting all week to meet with you.

Because he loves you.

He's there.

Come expecting for the Holy Spirit to do something in your heart, to do something in your life.

So that it's not just worship as a routine or as a tradition in your life.

There's a verse in the Old Testament, Hosea chapter 14, that verse 5.

Hosea 14 · chapter mention

God says, I will be like the dew, you know, the dew on the grass.

I will be like the dew to Israel.

He will blossom like a lily.

We've all witnessed dew in the early morning.

How it settles on the grass, how it settles on plants.

It takes time for the dew to do that.

You can't rush it.

I will be like the dew.

By using this metaphor, God is saying that he will be like the dew to us when we learn to sit in his presence.

Like the dew that settles quietly in the night and coats the ground by morning.

The dew doesn't happen or form when the conditions are too hot or the wind is too strong or when we're too busy running around.

It doesn't happen.

We have to learn how to linger.

I find for myself that to be true many times.

Many times.

You know what?

I'm just be honest with you.

I used to think for years as a pastor, my job was to get to the door first.

So I could greet people.

I thought that, I just thought assumed that was my job.

And then the Holy Spirit showed me, no, Tom, that's not your job.

Your job is to just sit and listen to the Spirit.

Is the conversation over?

And many times I'll sit right there and I'll just trust God that other people will greet.

I think it's a good thing that we just don't make it our automatic knee-jerk reaction that when the service is over, we get up and we go for fellowship, or we skit up, or we go home, or we get up and whatever.

Let's learn how to linger.

Sometimes God is not done talking to us in a worship service.

That's what I've learned.

Sometimes he has more to say to me.

A word, something that the Holy Spirit has taken from the worship service.

The Holy Spirit has taken, and he's saying, Tom, no, no, don't get up and leave me.

I mean, we would never do that with, well, yeah, I hope we wouldn't do it with other people.

You're having a conversation with somebody, and they're, you know, mid-sentence, and you just turn around and walk away.

That's not cool.

I think we do that to God sometimes.

I do.

I think there are times in worship where God meets with his people, where God says, I have more to say to you about whatever it is that the Spirit is saying to you.

And I'm not done.

I just want you to listen.

I have found that to be a beautiful thing in my life.

I wish it for you.

It can change your life.

To let the conversation continue, what the Lord might have to say.

And there's nothing routine about this.

Many weeks I will go back to the door if I feel like that's what the Spirit wants me to do.

But I'm not going to do it just because it's my routine.

You get this, right?

This is how we're asking him to teach us how to live.

We're teaching him how to asking him to teach us how to worship.

Like Psalm 100.

And it'll change our lives.

Ben, would you come and play in the team?

We're going to just take a moment.

I don't know what the Spirit has to say to you this morning.

Would you just take a moment of silence and ask him?

Lord, are we done talking?

And I'm just going to pray right now for you.

And just, Lord, we're asking.

Do you have more to say to us in this service?

Before we get up and before we go home?

Because if you do, we want to hear.

When God Almighty has a word for us, we should listen.

Forgive us for so much time not doing that.

Forgive me, Lord.

Forgive me for too much long in my life.

Not really hearing, finishing the conversation that you had for me.

And whenever that happens, it's not good.

It's not good for me, and it's not good for the people around me when I walk away from you in the mid-sentence.

So Lord, whatever it is, this morning, Holy Spirit, whatever you have to say through your word, say it, Lord.

We want to be like Samuel.

Speak, O Lord, for your servant listens.

So speak, Lord.

Give us the grace to listen.

Make us joyful, thankful Christians.

And we will be blessed.

And the more that we are blessed, the better we are at blessing you.

Thank you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.