Serve the Lord with Gladness

Psalm 100. We'll do the whole chapter, all five

verses. Psalm 100. The superscription labels

this as a psalm of thanksgiving or perhaps a

psalm of praise is another way that the word

for thanksgiving could be interpreted there.

Psalm 100. Let's read through the text and then

we will pray and get started. Shout triumphantly

to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with

gladness. Come before him with joyful songs.

Acknowledge that Yahweh is God. He made us and

we are his. 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 Yahweh is good. And his love is eternal.

His faithfulness endures through all generations.

Let's pray. God, we come to you and we thank

you for these words. We thank you for these good

songs that we get to sing. And I pray, dear Lord,

that we would praise you. And that we would thank

you. That we would not ever forget your eternal

love and your enduring faithfulness, dear Lord.

I pray, God, that you just... be with us in these

few minutes, that your Holy Spirit would be among

us, that you would help me to preach and teach

in a way that brings glory to you, that we can

leave here tonight rejoicing in you, dear Lord,

just as the song we just sung, the psalm we just

read, dear Lord, that we would be those who rejoice

in you in that way. And I ask these things in

Jesus' name. Amen. Now, as you could tell from

the last song that we just sang, it's pulled

very closely from Psalm 100. You see a lot of

that same language. Serve the Lord with gladness.

Enter his courts with praise. It's just a psalm

of thanksgiving and praise. But there's also

a call to action there. And that call to action

is not just to praise the Lord, but to serve

the Lord. And this is something that we see in

Scripture that God calls us to as he calls us

to serve him. Well, how do we serve the Lord?

Well, I think that the way that we serve the

Lord is by serving others. It's not that there

are things that God is right before us and we

do things. but we do things for God by doing

things for others, and Jesus is our example of

that. Now, it's getting close to the Easter season,

and maybe with Easter approaching, you're reading

some of those stories and some of those chapters

about Jesus in that last little bit of time,

and if you do, you'll remember right before Jesus

went and was nailed on the cross that he had

that last supper with his disciples. And you

may remember that he began to wash their feet,

that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, knelt down

and did the job of a servant. A servant is one

who serves others. A servant is one who considers

others as more important than themselves. Now

that's a pretty crazy thing for us to think about.

that a servant is one who considers others more

important than themselves, and that Jesus Christ

said, I did not come to be served, but to be

a servant of all. Now, he is the Son of God,

but he considered it more important to serve

us by giving his life on the cross so that our

sins could be forgiven than for him to live in

comfort. and to live pain -free, and to live

free of suffering. Instead, he subjected himself

to the suffering and the pain, and even doing

the dirtiest work. Jesus always did the dirty

work, so to speak. Jesus did not just sit on

a gold throne in the middle of Jerusalem and

bark out orders. Jesus was always boots on the

ground. It ain't no telling how many miles that

Jesus and the disciples that followed him and

all those that came after. There's no telling

how many miles that they covered day after day.

Jesus didn't just say, here's how you need to

do it. Jesus actively went out into the community

among the people and he fed them and he healed

them and he had compassion on them and he even

washed their feet. And this is our example. So

when we see calls like this in Scripture to serve

the Lord with gladness, one, are we serving the

Lord at all? And two, are we doing it with gladness?

Sometimes we can do the right thing but do it

with the wrong heart. I think it's possible for

that to be the case. And it's always better to

do the right thing than to not do the right thing.

But even better than that is to do the right

thing with the right heart. And to serve the

Lord with gladness. And not begrudgingly. Not

like oh I feel like this is what I need to do.

But I don't really want to do it. Well I would

never say just don't do it. I would say. Ask

God to help your heart to change so that you

would be one who serves the Lord with gladness.

And so maybe this call to serve the Lord with

gladness today as we come and as we sing these

songs and we look at his word and we praise him,

maybe this call of service today is something

we need to reflect on and we need to ask ourselves

and examine our life and say, am I serving the

Lord? Am I willing to do the dirty work? Am I

willing to go and reach the people that that

nobody else wants to have anything to do with.

That's what we see in Scripture, that Jesus associates

with the sinners and the people that the other

religious people didn't want to have anything

to do with. And they even call Jesus out. How

dare you associate with the sinners and the tax

collectors, those evil people. How dare you do

that dirty work. Jesus, you shouldn't be washing

my feet. But yet Jesus said, I have to do this.

And Jesus was showing us an example of what it

means to serve. And he continued that example

until he died on the cross. And that's the example

that we are called to follow. So what of us today?

Do we look more like Jesus or do we look more

like the people who nailed Jesus to the cross?

Because the people who nailed Jesus to the cross

were not really those who were interested in

serving the Lord with gladness. They were not

interested in doing the dirty work. They were

interested in doing the things that they wanted

to do. They were interested in being put on a

pedestal. They were interested in people looking

at them and saying, oh, you are so holy. But

what Jesus says, it's not about people looking

to you. It's not about you looking as though

you are above other people. It is about you humbling

yourself to become a servant of all. And so many

times there may be people in our life that God

puts in our path. That we could serve them in

some way. That we could help them in some way.

And it might not always be easy. It might be

scary. And we might have to get our hands dirty.

It might be out of our comfort zone. But this

is what Jesus calls us to. I suspect that it

was a little out of Jesus' comfort zone to be

beaten and to be mocked and to be nailed to a

cross. And yet he did it because of his love

for us. That's our example of service. So next

time we have that opportunity to serve and we

say, man, God, I'm too scared or man, this is

going to be too hard for me or this is going

to put me out of my comfort zone or whatever

excuse we come up with, let us turn our eyes

to Jesus so that we can see what it means to

serve. Let us ask God to show us the opportunities

that we have to serve and the people that we

encounter. And when we see those opportunities,

let us be those who serve the Lord. with gladness.

Let's pray. God, we thank you for this beautiful

psalm, just this beautiful psalm and the beautiful

song that we sang, dear Lord, that just shows

us and helps us to see that heart of praise,

dear Lord, to praise you with song. And we pray

that you would help us to be those who serve

you with gladness, that we would always keep

our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of

our faith, dear Lord. That like him, that we

would not be those who seek to be served, but

that we would be those who seek to serve others,

dear Lord. So I pray that you would help us to

see areas of service in our life. Let us not

come up with excuses as to why we're too good

to serve or somebody's too bad for us to serve

or it's too hard or whatever the excuse is, dear

Lord. We can come up with them, but none are

sufficient. If you give us an opportunity to

serve somebody, then I pray that you help us

to follow Jesus and do just that. We thank you

for Jesus and who he is. We thank you for the

love that he has shown for us. I pray that if

there are any that are here tonight or listening

online that do not know Jesus, I pray tonight,

God, that they know that he is a Savior who loves

them, who came to bring that compassion and healing

and deliverance to love on us and to serve us.

And he has done that. in the most perfect way

by giving his life on the cross. And I pray that

we would come to that realization, accept it,

and repent of our sins tonight. And I ask these

things in Jesus' name. Amen.