We continue with celebratory psalms…
There is a LOT of content here today, so I’m actually only going to talk about Psalms 96 and 100.
PSALM 96
This is another one of the “Enthronement Psalms” along with 47, 93, and 97-99.
I grew up singing “Sing unto the Lord a new song” in that fun, Jewish-sounding, minor key worship. It sounded like something from a Jewish wedding celebration. And yes, we danced to it.
This psalm is not just about Israel. It is global in scope.
- All the earth v1, 9, 13
- All people v3
- All gods v4-5
- All nations v7, 10 , 13
- All creation v11-12
The punch of it is at the end. That’s when we find out the “occasion” for all this international celebrating. And it’s kind of counter-intuitive. People’s from all nations and Creation itself is singing praise…
“before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness.”
Psalm 96:13 ESV
FINALLY there will be righteous judgment in the world. And that is something to sing about.
PSALM 100
Here’s another “blast from the past.”
Isn’t this the psalm quoted by all of the people who sing outa tune?
“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!” Psalm 100:1 ESV
Yes. I’ve heard that more times than I care to think about. But there are some powerful principles tucked into these 5 verses – a kind of outline that will put rocket fuel into your relationship with the LORD (if you let it).
Ready to launch?
Here we go…
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!” Psalm 100:4 ESV
There is a progression in relationships. Or, there is supposed to be. The world has hookup culture where two people meet at a bar then jump immediately to the bedroom. This is a horrible idea.
In God’s way for relationship there is a progression.
Level ONE – Thanksgiving
“Enter His gates with thanksgiving…”
Showing appreciation is one of the first things parents teach their children.
“What do you say?”
“Thank you.”
Giving thanks releases Truth into your circumstances – because you didn’t wake up and function today without the mercy of God. That is a most fundamental truth. Thanksgiving is the first step out of world-think. The world (and the Devil) says “Pat yourself on the back. YOU did that.” Which also implies when you don’t make it that you failed and now you have the weight of the world to perform on your shoulders but hey – let’s not talk about that. Putting it all on you places you at the center. That’s why you feel like the world is spinning.
When you thank the Lord, you step out of the center of the universe. HE did that for you. Not you. Not your boss. Not your spouse. Not your company or your political party. GOD did it. And we’re going to put that message on repeat.
Thanksgiving puts the LORD back in place as the axis around which the universe revolves. We – and nothing or no one else – is meant to be there.
Now, for as wonderful as thanks-giving is, it’s honestly still pretty ME-centered. It’s all about what the Lord has done for me. It’s only one step away from being the center. And that’s fine and that’s where we start but it’s not where we’re meant to stay. It’s only how we enter.
Level TWO – PRAISE
“…into His courts with praise,”
The court of the Temple is where ceremonially clean Israelites could gather to celebrate Yahweh. They could observe their sacrifices going up in smoke and exult in the fact that their sins were removed and their God is the greatest in all the earth. The court is where offerings were given and the trumpets sounded and the songs were sung.
If thanksgiving is acknowledging that Yahweh did it, praise is having a party about it.
Imagine opening your local paper to see how your high school football game went and you read something like this:
“The varsity boys played their hearts out against their undefeated opponents but not enough praise could be heaped on our star quarterback who led the team to a winning touchdown in the final seconds of a riveting, nail-biter of a game.”
What does praise mean?
In my mental thesaurus I find…
🤨 “Mental thesaurus?” You’re kidding right? You have a book of synonyms and antonyms in your head?
Well, not like I memorized it but… well… I like words. There are worse things to collect.
🤨 Yeah. Like bottle caps and rubber bands. Whatever. Go on.
(Ahem) my personal synonyms for praise: celebration, credit, affirmation, acknowledgment, admiration, laudation…
🤨 Laudation? Is that even a word? I think you made that one up.
Did not. Look it up. Means “the act of lauding,” “commendation.”
With Thanksgiving it’s me and Him.
With praise, it’s just Him.
It’s “Turn your eyes upon Jesus.”
And praise is both personal (like thanksgiving) and corporate. In fact, it’s usually more levels of awesomeness with a crowd. When you have a whole group of people taking eyes off ourselves and admiring the Lord, it’s just amazing.
And lots of people think that it’s the ultimate and they stop there but there is another level. And it requires more vulnerability than a lot of people are comfortable with.
Level THREE – BLESS HIS NAME
In thanksgiving my heart is aware of me and Him.
In praise my heart is aware of us and Him.
When I bless His Name, my heart forgets me and everyone else and I call Him by Name.
Worship is the couple that needs to “get a room.” Eyes only for each other. No one else in the world. It’s just “You.”
You can do praise with others, but worship… no one else can really enter that with you. It’s like the high priest going alone behind the veil filling the room with incense.
When the Bible talks about the Lord’s “Name” it is talking about His presence; all that He is.
The word “bless” means to kneel in adoration. It includes and pulls together all of the previous ideas of thanking and admiration and it expresses them to the other person. It’s not singing ABOUT the Lord, it is singing TO Him. It’s not dancing BEFORE the Lord, it’s dancing WITH Him.
Blessing His Name = Adoring Him.
It is being captivated by this Glorious God knowing that…
- I am not the center of the universe.
- He has done all the good things
- He is the source of my life
To worship something is to acknowledge it as your source.
To illustrate I’m bringing back Jeb and Ethel from Deuteronomy 11.
👨🏽🦳 Jeb: We shore do need rain, Ethel.
👵🏼 Ethel: Did you give an offering at the Asherah shrine?
👨🏽🦳 Jeb: No.
👵🏼 Ethel: Why not? We have a couple extry chickens.
👨🏽🦳 Jeb: I don’t think…
👵🏼 Ethel: That’s the problem, Jeb. You don’t think. Who makes it rain? Baal. And what’s the best way to get to man? His woman, that’s how. We give Asherah an offering, she snuggles up to Baal and we get rain. What’s so hard about that?
👨🏽🦳 Jeb: It’s not the rain, it’s where it comes from that I don’t like.
Idol worship is all about taking a legitimate need to the wrong source.
The needs for love, significance, and security are legitimate needs – just like rain. But where – to what source – are we going to see those needs met? Work? Career? Possessions? Relationships? Children? Wealth? Prestige?
All of those are idols.
When you worship the LORD you acknowledge Him alone as your source.
“Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” Psalms 100:3 NASB2020
Worship, (blessing His Name), is knowing that we belong to our God – not only by virtue of having been made by Him, but also because we submit ourselves to Him as our Shepherd.
Just as the wife belongs to her husband and the husband belongs to his wife, so the true worshiper belongs to Yahweh completely.
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NASB2020
You are not your source.
Your spouse or friend or family or job is not your source.
If you’re struggling today, ask yourself: “What is my source? No really… What am I honestly believing will satisfy me if I just had it?”
Be brutally honest. The answer will show you what well (source) you are attempting to draw water from. But, like the Samaritan woman in John 4, you will have to keep coming back to that well but it will never truly satisfy. You will be thirsty until you receive the water that Jesus gives that becomes a spring inside that completely satisfies and takes away thirst. 💦
Thirst in your life – dissatisfaction – is an indicator that you are spiritually dehydrated. You think you just need “more” but you really just need to switch sources.
“for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:13 ESV
All of the other sources are broken cisterns. They LEAK. They may seem to hold a little water for a while, but they will go dry. Let us examine ourselves deeply and leave the broken cisterns and return to the Lord, the Fountain of Living Water.
Y’all, whether you realize it or not, this content right here is pure GOLD. I know because it was mined in dark places and purified in fiery furnaces. Please don’t just read it. Work your way through it – for years if need be. I doubt I’m the only person who spent years sipping from a long string of cracked cisterns.
I know whereof I speak on this.
Don’t stand around on the outside.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving.
Come into His courts with praise.
And go into the very Holy of Holies to Bless His Name.
To The Reader 