Psalm 98 - Stir Us Up

So most of you are aware this coming uh Thursday is uh Thanksgiving.

Some of you are delighted, uh some of you are traveling, some of you are staying, some of you are welcoming people, some of you are nervous about that.

Uh some of you are going somewhere and you're nervous about that.

Um we uh uh do well, I think, to think through a little bit what's going to happen over the next few weeks as we move into Advent, going through Thanksgiving.

I it hasn't I haven't missed this.

I always believe that joy follows gratitude.

I never think it's the other way around.

You know, Lord, make me joyful and I'll be grateful.

No, no.

It's be grateful and watch gratitude just rise in your heart.

It's kind of a byproduct of your rejoicing in God and your turning to Him and offering Him your thanksgiving as we have done.

Um I think it's it's with the realignment of our souls into a trajectory of gratitude that we can travel from the bitterness of our darkness in this world, and it's bitter.

And by bitterness, I don't I don't just mean you're angry at something.

It's it's a bitter taste to know that four college students were killed, to know that five others were killed.

This was all needless.

This is terrible.

And into a world like that, as well as a world where a lot of folks are just struggling with two or three years of isolation, um, disconnected, disoriented, and in many ways uh wandering a lot of ways, in just a lot of ways.

Where can we find true north?

How can we get back to the place of being grateful in spite of all of that darkness?

And I think we need the trajectory of gratitude to lead us to the sweetness of light that we find in Christ.

And so we're gonna focus in on that.

First, let me pray for us as we get ready to look at Psalm 98.

And uh, do you do anybody does anybody need a copy?

We do study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.

I'd be fired if I didn't say that.

So we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, all right?

Um we're just not doing a book study right now.

We're departing for stirrup Sunday to anybody need a copy?

Raise your hand.

And somebody's okay, great.

And you can also, there's one over here that's needed, and we have uh we have up on the web up on the screen there uh the network, I believe, is up there, as well as the uh password.

So let me pray uh before we take a look at uh Psalm 98.

Lord, you never go away from us, yet we drift, or sometimes even walk away from you, sometimes run away.

And sometimes we have difficulty returning to you.

Come, Lord, stir us, uh call us back to you, to yourself.

As we study your word, may bring light to our darkness, may give us a clearer vision of your truth, a greater faith in your power, and a more confident assurance of your love for us in Jesus' name.

Amen and amen.

So, yeah, and in uh, as has been said already, in some streams of the church today is called Stir Up Sunday.

Uh other streams of the church call it uh Christ the King Sunday.

And so I kind of combine them together.

There's there's yet one other um uh group, the uh it's actually the uh Lutheran Church of Sweden until about 18 or about 1983 uh called it the Sunday of doom.

And and uh, you know, I mean we've talked about it before, but I mean that that Jesus is the righteous judge we've always needed and wanted.

I mean, they I can see where they were going, you know, if you kind of, but just on the surface of it, we're gonna stick with uh we're gonna we're we're gonna stick with the stir up Sunday and Christ the King, joyful Christ the King Sunday.

All right, there like I say, there's some good reasons to be joyful about the fact that God's gonna set everything right.

Because that's what it means when we say he's the righteous judge.

It doesn't mean he just can't wait to shame you and punish you.

No, what it means is he's coming to set everything right.

And yes, that means he's gonna do away with everything wrong, every disease, death itself.

No more tears of sorrow.

Might be tears of joy, but no more tears of sorrow.

No more hearts, chronically longing, sagging souls because of the weight of darkness and despair in the world.

No, no more of that, because he's coming to set things right.

So I I rejoice in that he is planning to do that.

But we look often, uh, when I do anyway, when I'm when I'm trying to sort through the way the world is in reality and what I read about in the Bible and and what I'm longing for.

See, we're even for people who who are naturalistic atheists and don't believe that Christ is the Son of God who came to die on the cross for our sins and to save us, to pay atonement for our sins, to save us, to bring us God's salvation.

Even if you don't believe all that stuff, um, you know, the the twinkling lights of Christmas.

How many, raise your hand if you if your lights are up at your house, please?

Anybody?

I'm proud of you.

Thank you for doing that.

It's good.

We don't have ours up yet, but it's it's soon.

Um uh we we around here at the village chapel, we love all of the celebrations, all the symbols of the holiday season.

All that's fine.

Uh as I've said so many times before, we're not upset that if you unscramble uh Santa, you can spell Satan.

That doesn't bother us.

We're not we're not trying to shine the light on that kind of stuff and be the church curmudgeons that are saying, you can't have fun.

No, what's great for us here at the village chapel, we we love all of that stuff.

I I love the lights and the gift giving, all that stuff.

Um but there's even better news than that.

There's there's news that goes beyond sentimentality and nostalgia.

And I'm, listen, I if you look up sentimentality and nostalgia in the dictionary, my picture's probably there.

You know, I'm I'm that guy.

But I need more than that if my faith is to endure the incursion of what happened this week in the news and what has happened over and over and over again so many times in this world to prove that there is a darkness that needs to be dispelled, to prove that indeed we need outside help.

And the great thing about Christmas from a Christian perspective and from a biblical perspective is that all we need to do if we want to stir ourselves up is look to Christ.

Look to the one who in Luke 24, 44 said, even the Psalms are they find their greatest fulfillment in Him.

And so when we read Psalm 98, we'll be keeping that in mind.

The Psalms are great.

They're songs of Revelation, 150 of them, um, and they are a variety of different types of psalms.

This is this one in particular is could be categorized as a hymn of praise.

It could also be called a royal psalm because it talks about the Lord being the king.

And uh and that's really wonderful because there's such a huge uh gap in leadership in this world in which we live.

And what we really need is a righteous king who's both righteous and king.

You know, and and we just don't we don't have that.

So I love I love the psalms, I love what they do to us.

They stir the emotions, they inform the mind, they direct the will, um, they stimulate the imagination and inspire worship.

All of that in these 15, you know, 3,000-year-old songs.

Um, you songwriters, if your song lasted this long, wouldn't you be so happy?

Wouldn't you be delighted?

Psalm 98 is one that has done through the history of the church and all it just inspired uh so many of us as we just take a look at this really simple song.

And I'd love to have you read it through with me aloud once.

I'll tell you what, do you do you mind standing for just the reading of the word?

And we'll we'll read the whole thing, and then I'm gonna go back and just pick it apart a little bit.

Okay, let's read together with some level of gusto.

Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things.

His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.

The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations.

He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel.

All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of God.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music.

Make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram's horn.

Shout for joy before the Lord the King.

Let the sea roar and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.

Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy, let them sing before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.

All right, you may be seated.

Great job reading.

Thank you so much for that.

What's that?

Yeah, no, I'm good.

I'm gonna go back now and look this over if you don't mind.

We have we have three sections, and I really just want to take this uh in three sections.

It's so easy to do.

This is also called cantate domino.

It means sing to the Lord.

It just picks up on those first few words.

And uh Psalm 97 is the other cantate that's so uh popular down through church music, anyway, in the history of church music.

Look up on the screen now.

Do you do you notice what I have uh uh just just just two things I want to point out?

Reflecting back on God's faithfulness in the past tense, all right?

He has done, right?

Um they have worked, he has made, he has remembered, okay?

Uh his faithfulness of the house, I love this.

And the ends of the earth have seen, okay, all kind of past tense stuff going on there, right?

But two things, reflect back on God's faithfulness in the past tense.

There really are six reasons, and I'm not gonna put a slide together on this, I'm just gonna show them to you on the screen.

You'll just you'll see these.

Look at the six reasons.

See the Lord, he has done marvelous things.

Number one.

Second, his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.

Third, he's made his salvation known.

I mean, how would we know about it if he didn't make it known?

And he and he's revealed his righteousness to the nations.

That's another thing.

He's made it known not only to you as an individual, but to the nations.

It's put on public display.

He's remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel, to the his people.

He remembers his covenant love.

He's faithful to his people.

You are one of his people if you've placed your faith, your hope, and your confidence in Christ.

You belong to him.

You no longer belong to yourself, you no longer belong to the news, you no longer belong to the culture flow.

You belong to him.

You have returned to him that which he gave to you, which is your very life, your very soul, your mind, your applause.

He gave you this.

See?

He gave you the kind of capacity to sense there's more to this world than this world is showing us.

He gave that to you.

He gave you a longing for him.

He gave you a longing for righteousness.

That you would love justice and rightness.

He gave you that.

You got all of that from him.

And then uh all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of God.

So this is just really powerful.

This is these are the reasons we should praise him.

What else is important about that first three verses?

I don't know if you notice this.

In all three verses, there's a common word.

The word is salvation.

You may have a different English translation.

You in verse one, it might say he has gained the victory.

And that's fine, but I want you to know it's the same root word, same root concept.

God's victory is your salvation.

He calls it a win that he has saved you or offered you his salvation.

And that's something to rejoice over.

And so we are to sing, and of course, uh singing, sing to the Lord, cantate domino.

Um, that is one of the most often repeated commands throughout the Bible.

Um, I think, I still think the most often repeated command in the Bible is do not fear.

But that's a negative command.

The most often repeated positive command is sing to the Lord.

And so here we have in the Psalm this song of revelation and response.

God revealing himself and then showing us how to respond to him, as Athanasius, the ancient church father, would say.

The Psalms speak to us, but they also speak for us.

And so when we respond to him, he's calling us to sing.

We're commanded to sing, we're created to sing, we're compelled to sing.

If you have the Getty's book called Sing Exclamation Mark, they make that really clear.

It's a really wonderful read, and I encourage you to read it.

But I like section number two, um, verses four through six.

See, if you were um if you began looking at what this, what the imperative is here.

The first one was sing to the Lord.

This one is shout to the Lord.

So we aren't uh only about ginning up emotion here.

There are reasons to shout to the Lord.

I I love the way our friend uh Sam Aubrey says that he says, if we wouldn't keep our hands in our pockets at a football game, it seems incongruous to do so at church.

In other words, why would we go?

Yeah, I mean, how many of you, just yesterday, you watch college ball?

Raise your hand.

Okay.

All right.

There's a lot of screaming and hollering that goes on in college ball, right?

I mean, the fans, you almost can't, you know, the noise level.

And even in Pro Bowl, it's the same way.

Um but with college, I like we we aren't big sports followers, Kim and I.

Um, most of the time on Sundays we go home, turn on the TV, and snore through most of you know, a golf match or whatever it is.

What do they call that?

Golf tournament, I think it's called.

Yeah, that's right.

Um, see, we know those sports really well, don't we?

Um but with football, I love to watch these people and they paint their face one color, one color over here.

They got wild hair, they got icicles hanging, a big cheese thing up here, whatever it is.

They are into it, man.

They're giving their heart and soul to the celebration of this game.

And they are compl they're completely despairing if if they get a bad call.

They're angry, they're upset.

They call the referee all kinds of names.

Um and and and they and they sometimes on the way out of the of the uh, what do they call that thing, the stadium, they all the way home, you know, the flags are flying and everything.

Vanderbilt won yesterday, I heard, is that right?

A couple of you, woo-woo, okay, that's good, yeah.

I'm glad we got a few people that understand this.

So, verse four, for all of you who know what it means to be a sports fan of any kind, verse four shouldn't offend you at all.

But if you were raised in the frozen chosen, you know, the frozen chosen, I mean, I was kind of raised in that.

You check your emotions at the door when you come into church, you set those over there, and then you come in here and you fold your hands nicely and you pray and you act properly.

According to somebody.

But you act properly.

Usually it's according to somebody older who's a little more curmudgeon like me, you know.

It's kind of the proper thing.

But I remember uh as a kid anyway, that I occasionally would see something like this shout for joy to the Lord all the earth, and I would go, maybe A.

W.

Jackson was my pastor growing up.

I'd go to him and I'd say, Hey, Pastor Jackson, why does it say shout in the Bible and why don't we do it?

And he, that's exactly what he did, just what you all did.

He kind of went like that.

He didn't really know how to respond.

I mean, if we would give our whole heart, if we would give our claps to uh sports, uh to somebody whose birthday just occurred, and we're applauding them, uh, to some uh achievement or accomplishment of a corporation or whatever that we happen to be a part of.

If we would do that, why in the world are we quiet and so still and so silent when it comes to talking about the God of the universe, our creator, who actually has exercised his right arm, these anthropomorphisms are great, his right arm and his his hand, his right hand and his mighty arm to save us.

Why is that not cause for shout to the Lord?

Read that slide with me one more time.

Ready?

Shout for the Lord.

All the earth burst into jubilant song with music, make music with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram's horn.

Shout for joy for the Lord.

Okay, it's pretty good.

That was that was at, I'd call that not Pentecostal, it's not quite there, but it it it was stirred up Presbyterian, okay?

That's and that's all I'm gonna ask for.

I'm not going any further.

I'm I'm I'm not gonna try for more than that.

I'm just I'm I'm really excited about the last section, the sea roars.

Uh some of your translations will say the sea resounds.

That's okay too.

I mean that that word could mean that.

And what it means is that all of creation.

See, we move from part one, which is sort of a challenge, an exhortation to the individual to praise the Lord, to sing to the Lord for the salvation that he has brought to us.

And then the second section is sort of this this uh now where we start to actually shout, and it gets bigger and louder and broader in reach as well.

Nations, uh, the ends of the earth, all that's included.

Here, it's like even the inanimate parts of creation, um, the unconscious parts of creation, the nonsentient, if you prefer, whatever word you like.

The idea is that the sea roars, that the rivers clap their hands.

I love these anthropomorphisms, this poetic.

The mountains sing together for joy.

And they sing before the Lord.

Um we're welcoming our king.

We're welcoming the arrival.

The word advent means arrival.

We're welcoming our king.

Why would we do that like toe hummers?

Why would we be so indifferent, so passive, so insipid in our praises?

Wooden.

What happened to us that we got stuck that way?

Psalm 98 is one of those psalms where the songwriter is not just talking to themselves, but to every nation, every person, all of creation, intentionally addressing his own soul and everyone else's soul or her own soul and everyone else's soul.

We have we have unfortunately fallen into sort of this cavern of getting caught up in the culture of expressive individualism and where we're we're all about us.

And that's part of the reason why we're also all up covered over in despair.

See, the more I am a human being curved in on myself, I keep finding out how empty and inconsistent and sinful life can be.

Why?

Because I'm just curved in on myself.

Martin Luther talked about this.

We that's what sin is.

It's humanity curving in on itself all the time.

We've got to lift our eyes up to him, to the one who is transcendent, who is greater than us.

Um and the joy that we're looking for.

And and I I love this uh uh psalm because it inspired Isaac Watts uh somewhere over 300 years ago to write Joy to the World, which we'll sing in a few minutes.

But but the joy that we're looking for is for most of for a lot of people is like a greased watermelon in a swimming pool.

You just can't get a hold of it.

You'd like to, you'd like to have a slice of watermelon, but you can't.

You keep trying to, and it's greased, and so it's got Crisco all over it, and you got you'll never get it.

And that's because we think it's about pursuing joy itself when really it's about praising God.

Doing that for which we were actually designed and created.

And so that's why we come to the village chapel.

That's what we're actually going to encourage you to do is not to look to ourselves, not look to what we're getting out of the worship service, not to look to how people treat us in the worship service.

None of that.

Get your eyes off of you, get your eyes even off of the person in front of you or beside you.

Because I mean, read screw tape letters.

One of the devil's favorite things to do in a worship service is get you to notice someone else's bad voice when they sing.

Or to get you to notice someone else's hair or their smell.

You know, that's the work of the devil here among us when we gather for worship.

Screw tape letters, such a great read.

You've got to read that around Christmas time.

But anyway, here's my uh brief uh outline.

Here's a call for God's people to uh sing to the Lord because he's done wonderful things.

So he's a wonderful Savior.

Salvation is mentioned in those first three verses at least one time.

He's a mighty king.

Here's a call for all people, all nations, to receive the Lord, to welcome the Lord as King, to recognize his royal and sovereign right to his creation.

And we don't talk about that enough either.

If indeed you believe, Genesis 1.1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, if you believe that God created everything that exists, which I still argue is probably the most offensive verse in the entire Bible, if you're a naturalistic atheist, you do not want to admit creator, creature, distinction.

But if you do, and I think most people actually, even some people who are not necessarily even Christians or Bible believers, if you do believe that all of this was created somehow, then this changes everything for you.

Because the real freedom that you're looking for, the real joy that you're looking for, the real peace that you're looking for, the real hope that you're looking for will be found in turning back to the one who made you and knowing him and honoring him and looking at how he designed and created you, he created you to worship him.

Righteous judge, as I said, a call for all creation to roar, clap their hands.

I love that.

And you you've heard that when you when you've been near a river and you hear the water rolling over the rocks, it does sound like applause.

Have you noticed that?

And the mountains singing when the wind goes between the mountains, and you hear that.

It's like the mountains are saying, He made us.

We belong to him.

You might look at the mountains and see how majestic they are, but oh man, they're pointing to their creator.

Here we see in this psalm the scope of his kingdom, all of creation, every nation, the ends of the earth.

Here we see the right that God has to be king as creator, not by seizure.

He didn't come and he didn't come afterwards, it's not an afterthought for him to come.

He actually, this has been his from the beginning.

So he's not somebody who came and conquered us.

No, he created us.

And so by right of being our creator, he has uh he owns all of us and all of this, and it's for his glory.

So he didn't come and seize it by violence.

The nature of his uh kingdom is here in Psalm 98 as well.

It's wonderful.

It's victorious, he's victorious.

Um, his kingship, he's victorious in everything, all of his all of his purposes, all of his plans will be accomplished.

And you notice that that first three verses about the past, it's past tense.

That second three verses in the present tense.

Sing now, shout now.

And then that last section, that last verse especially, talks about the future, what he intends to do one day as the righteous judge to come back.

So there's the nature of his kingship, wonderful, victorious, holy, saving, steadfast in his love, he's righteous and justice.

What a beautiful kingship.

The duration of his kingship and reign.

Past, present, and future for all eternity.

I tell you, folks, one glimpse of this king, as Lucato says, you are consumed by a desire to see more of him and to say more about him.

Pew warming, no longer an option.

Junk religion no longer suffices.

Sensation seeking is needless.

Once you've seen his face, you'll forever long to see it again and again and again and closer and closer and closer.

Amen.

Amen.

This is so true.

He's that beautiful.

Tish Harrison Warren has written a book a lot of us have read and enjoyed.

Um she says, the tenacity of glory and goodness, even in this shadowed world of tears, trains my eyes to pay attention to stalert, not only to the darkness of our story, we don't deny the darkness that's all around us, right?

But to the light as well.

Psalm 98 makes it clear.

That if ever there was anything that should that should succeed to stir us up, to arouse not just emotion, but actual hope.

Actual joy that goes beyond emotion.

Happiness depends on happenings.

Joy is deeper than that.

Joy can endure the incursion of suffering.

And I know that because I, as a pastor for twenty-some years now, I've walked with people all the way up to the thin veil.

And as their physical bodies faded, their souls became more fascinated with the one they were going home to.

More drawn to see him more clearly.

And it's it doesn't make it easy.

It doesn't remove my tears.

Doesn't remove the longing I have for those who have gone on.

But it sure gives me a promise that I can pass to others.

And that's why we do this here at the village chapel when we turn to the word.

Calvin said we should ask God to increase our hope when it's small, awaken it when it's dormant, confirm it when it's wavering, strengthen it when it's weak, and raise it up when it's overthrown.

He is wonderful Savior.

He is the mighty King.

He is the righteous judge.

An Advent, which will start next week, is going to be a reflection looking back on his first arrival, but at the same time, it's an anticipation looking forward to his second coming.

And it's fascinating to me that the one who began this whole thing, with his first arrival, he came and inaugurated the kingdom.

And we call it the already but not yet kingdom because it started, it's started to unfold.

You're part of that, so am I.

I'm excited about that.

But there is yet more to come when he brings it in its fullness, the consummation of his kingdom when he returns in the second Advent.

Because in no other person but the historic Jesus Christ of Nazareth, as God became a man, lived a human life on earth, died to bear the penalty of sins, and been raised from death and exalted to glory, there's no other Savior.

For there's no other person who's qualified to save.

This is one of the reasons we rejoice in the Son of God as our Savior.

And as he brings human history to a close, whenever he does decide to return again on his second advent, the joy of Christ will have proved to be something completely different from temporal warm fuzzies.

It will be much deeper than that.

It'll be much more than a mood because it won't be fleeting.

It will be forever.

Joy is the disposition of heart, mind, and will that has a tenacious trust in the God who is indeed a wonderful Savior, a mighty king, and a righteous judge who intends one day to set all things right.

As I said, it's been 300 years since Isaac Watts, the father of English hymnity, wrote what we call Joy to the World, and it was actually written originally about the Second Coming, not about Christmas, but it's become probably the most beloved Christmas carol in uh certainly in North American history.

Anyway, he was 18th-century English pastor, author of 60 theological and philosophical books and some 700 hymns.

We're going to sing that song in just a moment.

He wrote also When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.

I mean, this guy is just really beautiful, the songs that he has given to us.

But Joy of the World, first published in 1719, has been one that looks ahead to the fullness of salvation yet to come.

And we look forward to the day when people from every tribe and every tongue, every nation will experience the wonders of God's love and the glories of God's righteousness.

And it's in that hope that we sing, that we shout, and that some of us occasionally roar.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for your word that it's living and active.

Thank you for 3,000-year-old songs that remain relevant because they speak of you and of timeless truths, like Psalm 98 does.

As we head into this Advent season, Lord, I pray that we'd enjoy all of the stuff, all of the stuff that humans make, but that we would look beyond all of that as well.

And that in your presence we would find fullness of joy.

Pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen.

And amen.