Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with
singing. Know ye that the Lord, He is
God. It is He that hath made us and
not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep
of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him, and bless
His name. For the Lord is good, His mercy
is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations." This could be called the happiest
psalm. It's titled a psalm of praise. a psalm of praise. It occurred
to me as I was studying this psalm that I think, if I'm not
mistaken, I think this is the very first scripture I ever read
publicly. I was about in the 8th or 9th
grade and I was in school and we were in the fellowship of
Christian athletes. And I don't have the slightest
notion what I was doing in that because I wasn't an athlete nor
was I a Christian. And I guess they just, I don't
even know why they asked me to read the scripture. And I think
probably the reason I chose Psalm 105 100 is because I didn't know
about Psalm 117. It was only two verses. I probably
would have picked Psalm 117. But verse 1 says, Make a joyful
noise unto the Lord all ye lands. In all lands, wherever God's
child dwells, when He's dwelling in the heart of His child, We
make a joyful noise. It's a joy that He creates in
the heart. And so it's a natural thing.
When He's created joy, it's a natural thing to make a joyful noise
to Him. You know, in Nehemiah's day,
it was a feast day. And this is a feast. When we
come to hear the Gospel preached, it's a feast. the Lord's provided. That's what it is. And it was
a feast day, and they read the law, and when they read it, the
people began to mourn. And Nehemiah said to them, Go
your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions
unto them for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy
unto our Lord. Neither be ye sorry, for the
joy of the Lord is your strength." The joy of the Lord. The joy
of the Lord is your strength. It's the joy He gives His people
in the heart to behold Christ, behold what Christ has done for
us, and behold His person. That's the strength. And it makes
you make a joyful noise to the Lord. And really, we have every
reason to be joyful to Him, and no reason not to be. No reason
not to be. Verse 2, He says, Serve the Lord
with gladness, Come before His presence with singing. You know,
the thought of serving is unhappy. It makes men unhappy who are
trying to earn a righteousness whereby they can come to God.
To serve sounds like work, and it makes men unhappy. They're
trying to earn a righteousness before God. Coming to His house
is a work. Oh, we have to go to his house. We have to go keep the holy day.
If we don't show up, we're going to fall out of grace. We have
to keep We're certain this one or that one. We have to go to
His house. We have to do this. We have to
do that. We have to do the other thing. But when God gives you
a new heart and makes you see what Christ has done for you,
it's a privilege of His grace to get to serve Him. That He's
made you willing. That He's given you a heart that
wants to serve Him because you want to. You get to come to His
house. You get to hear His gospel and
want to hear it. You get to serve Him and serve
your brethren. You get to do it and you want
to do it. It's a joy, it's a privilege
that He's given you. It's not a job to serve somebody
you love. And beholding Christ, beholding
what He's done, that's what makes His yoke light and easy, His
burden easy. So gearing down, look down at
verse 4. He says, Enter into His gates
with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful
unto Him, and bless His name. Now don't we have a lot to be
thankful for? We have a lot to be thankful
for. We don't have anything but what
He gave us. Every good and every perfect
gift cometh down from above. It came from Him. And we have
a lot to thank Him for. And that's why Paul said, in
everything, you're enriched by Him. And so he said, in all things,
give thanks. exalting His name with praise
and thanksgiving, giving His Son all the glory. And that's
the sacrifice God's pleased with. Hebrews 13, 15 says, By Him let
us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the
fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. Now, He gives five
reasons here. Five reasons here for joy and
gladness. Five reasons to be thankful unto
the Lord and to bless His name. And we'll look at these briefly
here. But first of all, let us be joyful
because He is God. because He is God. He says in
verse 3, Know ye that the Lord, He is God. Now that's reason
enough. He doesn't have to give these
other reasons and these other reasons only declare the fact
He is God. He is God. And this is our Lord
Jesus. It's speaking of Him, our Lord
Jesus. Our Lord Jesus is God in human
flesh. He's Emmanuel, God with us. He's
the Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us. He's God. In Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. And you know, the only cause
of unhappiness, the only cause for unhappiness, He's rejecting
God, having enmity in the heart toward God. He's really the only
cause of unhappiness in this world, refusing to believe on
Christ that a sinner might have life. Now, you think about the
Lord, and I don't think maybe I've ever thought about this,
but have you ever thought about God being happy? God being happy. First Timothy
1.11, the gospel is called the glorious gospel of the blessed
God. Blessed means happy. The glorious
gospel of the blessed God. The gospel is glad tidings of
good things. And it comes from the blessed
God. It comes from the blessed God. God is self-sufficient. He has need of nothing. He created
all things. He owns all things. Why wouldn't
He be the blessed God? He owns everything and every
blessing comes from Him. Everything comes from the Lord.
Everything. He is sovereign. He is doing
as He will in heaven and in earth. Nobody is able to question Him.
Nobody is able to resist Him. See why? He is the blessed God. He is God. He's God, and holy
God has chosen to bless His people, and He's going to make His people
happy. Every one of His people He shall
make happy. He shall make happy. He's the
fountain of all blessings to His people. That's why the gospel
is the message of glad tidings, because He makes us glad by the
great and precious promises He gives us about the things He
worked for us in His Son. It's the salvation He's accomplished,
our triune God in Christ. And all these blessings come
from the blessed God. So these sinners that He saves,
you and me, that have been born of the Living Word, are happy. We're happy. Even when You're cast down in this world.
You're happy. You're happy. You know, fasting
involved affliction, self-denial, mortification, some sorrows involved
in fasting. Remember what the Lord said?
He said, don't be as the hypocrites are and be of a sad countenance.
The Lord tells us, be joyful, be rejoicing in this blessed
Lord of ours. And it is a joyful thing to know
He is God. Now secondly, look here, serve
the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing,
because He created us. He created us. He said in verse
3, the second part, it's He that hath made us and not we ourselves. And this is so of all men in
the earth. Our Lord created this world and
He took dust. He took dust and He formed a
body and He breathed life into Adam. The first man Adam. And
all of us came from Him. Every one of us came from Him.
He created us. We didn't create ourselves. Just
think of the pride and the audacity of little sinners like we are. Trying to oppose God and trying
to act like we're God. He created us. We didn't make
ourselves. We haven't ever created anything. We've taken some things he created
and put them together only because he gave him the wisdom to put
things together. And he didn't do that except
in his time when it pleased him to give him the wisdom to put
things together. But He created us. He created
all things. But this is especially true of
His people. This is especially true of His
people. Every man ought to fall down
and worship Him. Because He made us, not we ourselves. But this is especially so of
His chosen people. God created us in eternity. before He made everything in
His purpose. It says, He chose us in Christ
and blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. He created His people. He determined the end from the
beginning when He chose His people in Christ and purposed to save
a people. That's why He created the world. That's why He created
the world. But we fell in Adam and we lost
the image of God. He made Adam in His image. He
said, come let us make man in our image. And He made man in
His image, but we lost it. We fell and we lost His image.
But that's according to His purpose, because He sent His Son for the
purpose of creating His people in His righteousness and His
holiness. His righteousness and His holiness.
When we get to glory, the new heavens and the new earth is
going to be made up of a people that our Lord created entirely
Himself by His doing and His dying as our head, as our representative. You just imagine, this won't
illustrate it, but imagine if Adam had never sinned. We'd have
all been born of Adam without a sin nature. That's how we'd
have been born. Well, this last Adam has come
and he came under a broken law in a sinful world with everything
and a host of sinners against him, all hell against him, the
devil and all his wicked hosts against him, unlike Adam. And
our Lord walked this earth and served God in perfection. in
representing His people, so that by His righteousness alone, He
made His people righteous. And every one of His people,
through this incorruptible seed, through this Word that lives
and abides forever, He will beget all His people again, and they
will be created in the righteousness and holiness of Christ, and it
has absolutely nothing to do with anything you and I do. Not
a thing. When He gets finished, just the
same as our raising our bodies out of this earth to be with
Him perfect, without sin, just the same as that won't have anything
to do with any work of our hand. That will be entirely the work
of Christ. When we get to glory, everything
about that new creation is going to be the work of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And right now, this is what gives
us the joy. This is what gives us the the joy in our heart and constrains
us to serve Him and thank Him and praise Him and give Him all
the glory is this right here. We didn't make ourselves. If
you're sitting here and you believe Him and you trust Him, and God
receives you, you're accepted of God, it's because Christ created
you. He created a new man in you,
and that new man is righteous in Him. Righteous in Him. And
that new man is born of His incorruptible seed and is holy, and in Him
is no sin, because it's the creation of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
can't see Him because His seed remaineth in Him. That's so. He created us. We didn't create
ourselves. So that makes us rejoice in Him.
That makes us rejoice in Him. The cause of all unhappiness
is rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. It's sinners either trying to
completely reject the Lord and just live for self with no thought
of God which is nothing but there's no happiness in that. Or it's
the unhappiness and never-ending torment and just constant fear
of bondage of trying to make oneself righteous and holy and
accept of God by his own works. That's unhappiness. There's no
joy in that. No joy in that. Here's the third
thing. Believers enter into His gates
with thanksgiving because we belong to our Great Shepherd.
We belong to our Great Shepherd. Look here in verse 3. He says, We are His people and the sheep
of His pasture. We are His people and the sheep
of His pasture. That just fills your heart with
joy. That fills your heart with thanksgiving
just to think about that. We are His people and the sheep
of His pasture. That's comforting. It's common
nowadays. You probably heard this. It's
common these days that, you know, with the COVID and all the different
things the government is saying. And there's folks that don't
want to submit to any of the powers that be in government.
And it's a common thing now to call people who want to obey
the powers that be, to slanderously call them sheep. Have you heard
this? Oh, they're just sheep. That's a title God's people delight
in. We'll take that any day. We'll
take that any day. It's our happiness being the
sheep of His pasture. We're His people. We're His people. By the gift of God the Father,
His Son, to His Son, God the Father gave us to Him. His people
by Christ purchasing us with His own blood. We saw this not
long ago when we looked at John 10. He said, I laid down my life
for the sheep. So by His blood, purchasing His
people, we are the sheep of His pasture. His purchased possession. He owns the pasture and He owns
the sheep. He owns it all. And by Christ
dwelling in us by faith. Here's what Spurgeon said on
this. This is really good. He said, God has not left us
and gone away. He's watching over us at every
hour even as a shepherd guards his flock. And that's true. That's
true. We rejoice with gladness. We
rejoice with thanksgiving. We serve him. We thank him. We
praise him. We exalt him because we're his
and we're the sheep of his pasture. This is our great shepherd. In
the midst of our enemies, He prepares a table for His people. That's right, He prepares this
gospel for us and keeps us supplied with this feast right here, but
He also supplies whatever food you have on your earthly table,
He's providing that feast too, right in the midst of your enemies.
David said, I've never seen the righteous forsaken, I've never
seen His seed begging bread. Our Lord's going to provide.
He's the shepherd of His sheep. We can't be more safe, we can't
be more secure than under the all-knowing, all-powerful care
of our Great Shepherd. It's just so. Here's the fourth
thing. We enter into His courts with
praise, verse 5 says, for the Lord is good. For the Lord is good. He's essentially
good. He is good. That's his nature. He's good. He's good. We talk
about, you know, that's good or, you know, that person's a
good boy or whatever. And we're talking about it in
a relative sense compared to us. He's good. He's good. Nothing but good. And he only
does good. Everything the Lord does for
the sheep of His pasture is good. Everything He's doing in Providence
is His hand doing it. Everything. And He's doing it
all for the good of His sheep, for His people. And He's working
it all for His glory. He's called the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd who laid down
His life for the sheep. He's the Good Samaritan. He's
the one that found us in the ditch. The religion passed us
by, the law passed us by, nobody would help, but he came. And
he put us on his own beast and brought us to the end. He pours
in the wine of his blood, he pours in, he binds up our wounds. He's the good Samaritan. And
on earth he went about doing good to men. Everywhere he went,
all he did, all the time, was good to men. And that's all he's
doing right now for his people. He's good. At all times, in everything,
he's doing good for us. He's doing good for us. But he
says of every sinner by nature, he says they are corrupt, they
have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. Now,
you know what unhappiness is as opposed to joy? You know what
discontent is instead of rejoicing in Him and being confident in
Him and knowing that He's doing all things well? The opposite
of it is it. Scripture says, it's saying,
know God. No God. You said there's none
good, but the unregenerate man, and especially unregenerate religious
man says, no God, I'm going to look to my flesh and trust that
I am doing good by my deeds. And he says there's none that
doeth good. When that rich young ruler came to him, he said, good
master, what must I do that I may inherit eternal life? And the
Lord said, why callest thou me good? There's none good but God. That's what he said to him. There's
none good but God. And he was saying to him, are
you saying I'm God? Because there's none good but
God. And it just went right over the rich young ruler's head.
He didn't even get what he was saying. But he is the only one
good and he works good for his people. And He teaches you and
me not to trust in any merit in us, in anything of our hand,
but to entrust His goodness by which we're saved. He promises
us, He says, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is
stayed on Thee because he trusteth in Thee. And that's where true
peace is. That's where true contentment,
true joy is. He said, I'll never leave thee
and I'll never forsake thee. We can be content with whatever
He gives us because He said, I'll never leave you nor forsake
you. Remember what He said of Mary? She chose that good part.
She chose that good part. That one thing needful that'll
never be taken from her. And that's what he's teaching
us in everything he's working in our lives. Is there's one
thing needful, one thing, one possession that'll never be taken
from his people. And that's him. That's him. That's him. Here's the last thing. We enter into His courts with
praise. We're thankful unto Him because,
verse 5, His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all
generations. This is good news. The good news
of the Gospel is salvation is free. Salvation is free. Now, it doesn't cost you and
I, the sinner, anything. We can't earn it whatsoever. But it cost our Redeemer. everything. Our Redeemer came and gave His
life, but it's by His everlasting mercy and His truth to all generations. This word truth is repeatedly
translated faithfulness and steadfastness. It's translated verily, as in
surely, verily. This good news is His mercy is
everlasting and His faithfulness is steadfast. You won't find
God looking at His people one way today and another way tomorrow. He is the Lord Jesus Christ the
same yesterday, today, and forever. There's no change in Him, no
variableness in Him. The gift and calling of God are
without repentance. They're without repentance. So
when we fell in Adam, that could not turn God away from His elect. That could not turn Him from
His everlasting mercy and showing us that mercy. That could turn
Him from His truth in doing so as to call us and teach us this
gospel. Christ promised to establish
righteousness by His faithfulness. That's what He promised. And
His Word, He is the truth and His Word is steadfast. Every
promise is great and precious in Him because it's in Him, yes,
and it's in Him, amen. And every promise that He promised
the Father, He shall fulfill. And every promise the Father
promised Him, He shall fulfill. That way His promise, His salvation
is everlasting. It's by everlasting mercy. It's
by His everlasting covenant. His truth is steadfast to all
generations. His mercy is everlasting. His
mercy, His love. He said, I have loved thee with
an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
thee. And this is what causes sinners
to be unhappy. To rage and just be full of hatred
toward God when they hear the gospel. It's because we're declaring,
well he's declaring by this, that pardon, forgiveness of sin,
righteousness, acceptance with God is free. It's free. It's by His mercy. It's by His
faithfulness. It's by His grace. It's by His
steadfastness. It's by simply believing on the
Lord Jesus Christ. That fills the self-righteous
Pharisee with envy at Christ. It fills him with rage because
he wants the glory that belongs to Christ. He wants the glory
that belongs to Christ. No conditions can be put on mercy
or it ceases to be mercy. You think about it. If you put
a condition on mercy that is conditioned on something the
sinner does, it ceases to be mercy and it certainly ceases
to be everlasting mercy. It certainly wouldn't be everlasting
mercy. But Psalm 36.5 says, Thy mercy,
O Lord, is in the heavens, and thy faithfulness reacheth unto
the clouds. That saying, His mercy and His
faithfulness, His truth, is higher than we can even imagine. It's
wider, it's deeper, it's broader than we can ever imagine. It's
that steadfast, it's that everlasting, it's that unchanging. You know
why that's good news? Nothing can change it. Nothing
can alter it. Nothing. Have you found anything
in this life that's everlasting? Have you found anything in this
life that's steadfast and unchanging? Anything? Nothing. Nothing. Our God, He is the everlasting
God who saves by everlasting mercy and truth that endures
to all generations. He's got a people in all generations,
starting with Adam, all the way throughout time until whoever
the last one is. And He has made mercy and truth
meet together in Christ so that it is by the faith of Christ
that the righteousness of God is manifest. And He is going
to everlastingly show mercy to His people. By his faithfulness, he's going
to bring the gospel to all his people, and he's going to keep
being merciful and keep being faithful to his people so that
he will present every one of his people to the Father faultless. It will all be of him, and when
he does that, there will not be one missing. We're talking
about perfect. We're talking about complete.
We're talking about each one individually being the righteousness
of God, the holiness of God, the wisdom of God, perfect by
Christ's work. And there won't be one missing.
They'll all be there, all perfect. And it'll be by His everlasting
mercy and His enduring faithfulness, His enduring truth. Now, if we're
forgiven, And God has made us to see that we're justified.
Justified. All our sins have been put away.
God forgives us. God says, I will by no means
remember your sins. That's what He said. Because
Christ put them away. If that's so, and you know that's
so, you'll be happy. You'll be happy. Why? Because the scripture says,
blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven. Blessed is man. Happy is the man whose transgression
is forgiven. This psalm begins and it says,
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. You probably remember me
saying this and you probably heard others say it too, but
how Brother Scott Richardson used to say that there haven't
been any bad news since I heard the good news. If you knew Scott,
Brother Scott, and you knew what that dear brother went through
in his life, That's a statement. That's a
statement. Haven't been any bad news since
I heard the good news. This is why His believing people
are so thankful. This is why we enter His courts
praising Him. This is why we serve Him in love
and gratitude. It's because His mercy is everlasting. His truth endures. His faithfulness
endures. It means He will not take no
for an answer. He will not take no from His
people. He will not take no from them. He's going to save us.
He's going to save us. And He keeps on, by this unchanging
love and grace and faithfulness to us, He keeps on keeping us
and showing us Him. He keeps showing us Him. He keeps
showing us Him. And He keeps growing us in the
knowledge that He is truly all and in all. And this makes you
more joyful, makes you more thankful, makes you want to serve Him more,
makes you serve Him more. Makes you come into His house
happy, happy, happy that you can worship Him by His grace.
And you give Him the praise, you give Him the glory. This
is it. This is what He's going to keep
doing, going to keep showing us. Alright, brethren, let's
go to Him in prayer. Father, thank You for this Word.
Thank You for today. This is a day You've made. Lord, we'll be glad, we'll be
thankful for what You've done in giving us this day and bringing
us here and giving us a Word from Your Scriptures. Lord, we
ask You, bless it to our hearts, ask You to make it effectual
to us Help us, Lord, to truly see how true it is, how real
it is. Make us truly worship You. Lord,
we ask you to be with your people everywhere today as you assemble
your people, as you make your presence known in their midst.
We ask, Lord, that you would truly walk among the candlesticks,
that you would bless the word that goes forth and apply it
to every heart as you know it needs to be. And Lord, work this
very same blessing we've seen here in this, work it in each
of our brethren around this globe. Lord, how we do thank You. We
thank You. And we pray, Lord, by Your will,
by Your grace, You would truly be exalted in our heart, truly
exalted in our life. that we would serve you with
all humility, knowing what we are, knowing what you've done
by your grace for us and in us. Thank you, Lord, for this great,
blessed gospel we have. Thank you for Christ himself,
this unspeakable gift. It's in his precious name we
pray. Amen.