Psalm 100: Paradigm of Praise Richard C. Leonard, Ph.D. First Christian Church, Hamilton, Illinois, November 30, 2014

Transcription

1 Psalm 100: Paradigm of Praise Richard C. Leonard, Ph.D. First Christian Church, Hamilton, Illinois, November 30, 2014 We ve just observed the national holiday called Thanksgiving Day, and I hope you all had a pleasant time celebrating with friends and family, perhaps enjoying a festive meal. Of course, we all understand that the purpose of Thanksgiving Day isn t to stuff ourselves till we burst. The purpose of the day is to remember that all we have not only our material prosperity, but also the liberty we enjoy as a nation comes from God the Creator and not from our own efforts. It saddens me, though, to see Thanksgiving swallowed up by preparation for Christmas, because it deserves more recognition than it gets. Part of the reason for the neglect of Thanksgiving Day is that God isn t very real to most people. It s hard to give thanks to somebody you don t think is really there. Shirley Anne and I have dedicated our lives to helping people see that God is real, and that he ought to receive credit for all that we have and are. But it s tempting to think that we re the ones who deserve the credit for all of that. Moses warned the people of Israel about this, in Deuteronomy 8: Beware lest you say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth; that he may confirm his covenant which he swore to your fathers, as at this day. And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you this day that you shall surely perish (Deuteronomy 8:17-19). Observing a day of thanksgiving is important, but one day out of the year isn t enough, as Scripture makes clear. The Apostle Paul reminds us that our giving thanks to God isn t just an intermittent sort of thing, whenever we feel like it or have some special day for it. No, thanksgiving is a life style for the Christian. Rejoice always, he says, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). When we think of Thanksgiving, though, there s one Scripture that comes especially to mind, and today I m concentrating on it. Of course, I m thinking of Psalm 100. Psalms come in a number of categories, and Psalm 100 is what we would call a hymn of praise. Some of the greatest hymns of the church have been Psalm paraphrases, and Psalm 100 has been a favorite of many. Isaac Watts, for example, wrote Before Jehovah s Aweful Throne. Better known, I think, is William Kethe s All people that on Earth Do Dwell, No. 53 in your hymnal, sung to the same tune that we often call the Doxology. And there are contemporary settings of it, as well. Why is Psalm 100 so well known? Some of you may know it by heart. Because when it comes to giving proper worship to God Psalm 100 says, powerfully and concisely, exactly what needs to be said. It speaks of the reality and the goodness of God, and it invites us to respond to that reality with praise and worship and 1

2 thanksgiving. From Psalm 100 we learn the proper posture of praise and worship. We also learn the proper basis for our thanksgiving and praise. I like to call it a paradigm of praise. Psalm 100 has an interesting structure. It begins, in verses 1 and 2, with an invitation to praise. It follows, in verses 3 and 4, with the reasons for our worship. And then it turns around and repeats the same scheme starting with verse 4, another invitation to give thanks. Then, in verse 5, we find a restatement of the reasons for praise. So Psalm 100 is a double invitation to praise and thanksgiving. A lot of things in the Bible come in twos. You may have noticed how often the Bible repeats itself, because biblical poetry isn t built with rhyme but with a pattern in which the first line states an idea and the second line states the same idea in different words. That s what scholars call poetic parallelism, and it s what makes the Bible sound like the Bible. Take, for example, Psalm 33 verse 6: By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth. You see, the second line repeats the thought of the first, but in different words. Psalm 100 is really a grand parallelism in which you state the idea: We praise the Lord, and this is why, and then you state it all over again, We praise the Lord, and this is why. It s like the Apostle Paul, who said, Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I will say, Rejoice. (He knew he d have to tell some of us twice.) To start off, I d like to go through the Psalm with the Hebrew and a free English translation. Mizmor letodah. Hari u ladonai kol ha aretz. Ivdu et-adonai besimchah. Bo u lefanav birnanah. A Psalm of thanksgiving. Raise a shout to the Lord, all the land. Serve the Lord with abandon. Come into his presence with singing. Now the reason why we do this: De u ki-adonai hu Elohim. Hu - asanu velo anachnu, Ammo vetzon mar ito. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who has made us, and we are his, His people and the flock of his pasture. Then the invitation again: Bo u she arav betodah, Chatzerotav bitehillah. Hodu-lo, barkhu shemo. Enter his gates with thanksgiving And his courts with praise. Be thankful to him, bless his name. And the reason once again: Ki-tov Adonai, le olam chasdo, Ve- ad dor vedor emunato. 2

3 For the Lord is good, His covenant love is eternal, And his truth to all generations. So the psalm begins by describing the Biblical attitude or posture of praise. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord [the older translation say] all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness, come into his presence with singing. This is a reminder that biblical worship can be noisy worship! There are times where it s appropriate to keep silence before the Lord; we need to remember that, too. But there are times for noise, because ultimately the glory of God is nothing to keep silent about! Several Psalms display the great exuberance of biblical worship. I think, for example, of Psalm 150: Praise him with trumpet sound, harp and lyre, timbrel and dancing, string instruments and pipe, loud cymbals, loud clashing cymbals. (There must be a difference between just loud cymbals and loud clashing cymbals!) Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Halleluiah! 3 Why are we tempted to make our worship so solemn and restrained? Maybe so it won t offend anybody who doesn t want to be really committed to the praise of God! Or worse, so it won t really move us or touch us so that we ll not be caught up in a vision of the glory and majesty of God a vision that might motivate us to make some needed changes in our life! Can we begin to understand what the psalm means when it says, Make a joyful noise before the Lord? In Hebrew the word hari u, the opening word of the Psalm, is taken from a root rua, which means to raise a shout or to give a blast on the trumpet. It s not just any old noise, like the person who says, I can t sing, so I just make a noise. No, this joyful noise is like a shout of warfare: Make a joyful shout, raise a war shout, a war cry before the Lord. And then it says, Serve the Lord with gladness. This word gladness, simchah, means pleasure or unrestrained festivity. I like William Kethe s paraphrase, in the older wording: Serve him with mirth, his praise forth tell, come ye before him and rejoice. So Psalm 100 encourages us in an attitude of spontaneous and militant and determined praise. The attitude is expressed in Psalm 34: I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth. But now Psalm 100 moves quickly to its second point, the reason for our worship and our thanksgiving. Surely the blessings of God ought to move us to praise. Our Father has provided specific benefits, and we do well to count our many blessings, as the old song says, name them one by one the evidences of the Lord s care, his providence, in our life, our health, our family, our satisfactions, our nation, our freedom, our salvation in Christ. It s a scriptural exercise to recount the Lord s benefits, as we do in the 103rd Psalm: Bless the Lord, O my soul; forget none of his benefits, who pardons all your iniquities and heals all your diseases. But Psalm 100 transports us into another realm, the worship of God not for what he has done but the worship of God because he is God and because we know him and belong to him. Our motto ought to be, Thank God for God. Thank God for the fact that we are his. This is absolutely the first premise of any act of worship and thanksgiving. As I ve suggested, if there is no God there is no one to whom to be thankful. Think of the dilemma of people who live in a world without God. It s sad to hear them talk about Turkey Day. But how can you have a Thanksgiving if you don t recognize the reality of the One who has given us all things? I m reminded of Paul s observation in Romans, chapter 1, verse 20 following:

4 For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made. So that they are without excuse, for even though they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks... Notice how the very recognition of God is linked to the idea of giving thanks. But they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man... In contrast to this muddled thinking, Psalm 100 reminds us that worship and thanksgiving are a response to the reality and being of God: Know ye that the Lord, he is God. If you or I are not continuously thankful, or if we re not willing to give ourselves over to worship and praise, it may be because we don t know this. We may unconsciously or consciously suppose that something else is God. In our culture there are many substitutes for God. One famous theologian used to say, Religion or God is that which concerns us ultimately. There s a truth here. Whatever we devote ourselves to as our ultimate concern becomes our god, and that could be a number of things. Francis Schaffer used to say that the god that people seek in our culture is personal peace and affluence. That s the dominant concern of many: not being troubled by demands and responsibilities, and having plenty of money. In church, our god could be our traditions. Every church has its traditions even if it s the tradition of avoiding tradition! The seven last words of the church are, We never did it that way before. Tradition and heritage are good when they preserve biblical values. But when tradition dulls our senses to the touch of the living God, it becomes a faith-killer. Then there s a philosophy called secular humanism; it s the religion of our culture propagated through our media and educational system. People have a blind faith in science and man s ability to solve all problems through technology, based on an evolutionary theory that rules out the purpose or design of a supernatural God in the universe. That s not even good science, yet for many, it s a god. But the most important god-substitute is plain old No. 1: me, myself, and I, the unholy trinity. Our time has been called the me generation. Our emotions are king today: If it feels good, do it. People are focusing on themselves, how they can be more attractive or impressive. Sometimes you see people out jogging around town; they want to improve themselves physically. That s a good thing, until you get carried away with it. (Personally, I think it s the dumbest thing to run someplace if you re not going anywhere. I ll never forget how, driving to work one day in the Chicago area, I stopped at a traffic light and a fellow crossed in front of me wearing a only pair of shorts it was summer time. And I thought, Oh, that poor man! Not only is he late to work, but he has nothing to wear. ) But Psalm. 100 says, De u ki-adonai hu Elohim, Know ye that the Lord, he is God! And this reality alone brings us into the realm of praise and worship. It is he that has made us and not we ourselves, Hu asanu velo anachnu. There s a translation issue here. I won t bore you with the details, but the same Hebrew word can be taken in two ways, and probably the better translation is this: It is he who has made us, and we are his. But, really, both translations are true. It is he that has made us and not we ourselves; and it is he that has made us and we are his. We haven t made ourselves, as evolutionary theory would have it; the complexity of human design requires the mind of a designer. It s he who has made us. But it s also true that we are his people, his creation, the sheep of his pasture. 4

5 An artist creates a painting, a composer creates a symphony, a playwright writes a drama, a programmer creates a piece of computer software and we say that they are his or hers because they represent the idea and the conception and the mind of the designer. And so we are his because we represent the idea and the mind of the Creator. But we re his twice. We re his by virtue of creation, and we re his by virtue of redemption. God has made us, and when we turned away from his design in sin and rebellion he bought us back in the death of Christ. We don t belong to ourselves anymore. As Paul says, we ve been bought with a price (1 Corinthians 7:23). In worship, then, we say, Thank God for God, and thank God that we re his. Having established the attitude of thanksgiving, a free and a continuous praise, and having established the reality of God, our Creator, as the basis for thanksgiving, Psalm 100 concludes by repeating the whole process. It offers a renewed invitation to give praise and worship, and then restates the basis for that worship. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. The gates are the great doors of the holy city where the Temple is located, and the word chatzer, in Hebrew, means a court or an enclosure. It s not enough to raise the shout of praise, or to sing and be joyful, if we try to do those things by ourselves. If our worship is to be how the Bible describes it, we need to gather in the place set aside for the meeting of God s people. I know many Christians get blessed by watching Christian television, and in their personal devotions. But there s no substitute for joining with others in the place of prayer. Luke tells us, in the book of Acts, that the early Christians went daily to the Temple and were praying and worshiping there. We need to enter into his gates, to enter into his courts with praise. Why do we do that? Psalm 100, again, gives us the reason: Because the Lord is good, his mercy endures forever and his truth to all generations. These words, mercy and truth, remind us that God doesn t exist in spiritual isolation. He s bonded with his people in a treaty or covenant. We worship our God because he s related to us. These two Hebrew words make that point. The first, the word chesed in Hebrew, is translated mercy, or lovingkindness, or steadfast love. I prefer the translation covenant love, because it designates God s love for those who belong to his own family. It means his loyalty to those who are especially his. Frankly, it s not biblical to speak of God as the Father of all people. He has created all people, but he s the Father of those who have responded to his calling and have been adopted into his family through Christ. The second word here is the word emunah, usually translated truth. That s not intellectual or abstract truth; it s truth in the sense of reliability, loyalty, faithfulness to the God s covenant. He s faithful and true to those who belong to him, and he won t let them down. He won t close his ears to the prayers of his faithful ones. Therefore we may enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise, and be thankful to him and bless his name. Yes, because we re bound up in a covenant with God, he gets a blessing from our praise. He s pleased when his people recognize his greatness and his goodness. As Psalm 22 says, Thou art holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. When we praise the Lord we create a comfortable place on which he may reside or dwell in our lives. If we fail to praise him, it s like putting a tack on his chair. So Psalm 100 begins with the invitation to all the earth to worship the Lord, but in the end it recognizes that it s God s own family, his covenant people, with whom he s most comfortable and who are most comfortable with him. So we conclude our study of this paradigm of praise, Psalm 100, and we ve learned a couple of things. First, there s a Biblical posture of praise, audible and enthusiastic praise offered in the assembly of the faithful 5

6 ones. Secondly, there s a biblical motivation for worship in the very being of God our Creator, the One to whom we belong, the One with whom we are in a family bond through our membership in Jesus Christ. Perhaps you re thinking, Dr. Leonard, I know all this ready. I don t claim these are new thoughts, but sometimes we need to be reminded of what we already know. And just one final thought. We build the world we live in by the words we speak. If we complain about things, we ll only live in a world of complaints. If we pray our problems, we ll just continue to get problems. But if we pray our faith a faith we declare by praising and thanking our heavenly Father then we ll live in a world of thanksgiving and gratitude for the blessings we enjoy. Psalm 100 teaches us how to live in that world, rejoicing before the Lord and enjoying the many ways in which he is so faithful to those who belong to his family. All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. Him serve with mirth, his praise forth tell; Come ye before him and rejoice. Text 2014 Richard C. Leonard Images from Internet sources 6