I'm going to have Drew out here,
second service. And you're back there. And I
think you might fall asleep. Yeah. It was me and Ashley. Oh, OK. Yeah. It is my motion,
though. OK. Oh, that's just what's going
on. What's his name? He's leaving
today. Oh, he is? Yeah, he's leaving
tomorrow, Tuesday. Oh, okay. Did you go to his house
before? Yeah, I went to his house. Did
you go to the piano show or anything? He helped me do my Christmas
show, I mentioned it. You were at the mall? Oh, yeah,
I was at the mall as well. It's really quite crowded. It's like back and forth. Yeah,
back and forth. Okay. Okay, brethren, we're going to
begin our morning study And we're going to be in Psalm 100. Psalm
100. And this Psalm, it's called a
Psalm of Praise or a Psalm of Thanksgiving. And it's the only
Psalm that has that title, a Psalm of Praise. Just for a quick outline, the
first and second verses, along with the fourth verse, these
are instructions, and some would say commandments, describing
our praise and our worship of God, our Father, and God, our
Savior. In verses three and five, While
a revelation for some and a reminder for others, these provide the
reason why we are thankful and why we praise our God. So I've titled this, A Reason
for Giving Thanks. A Reason for Giving Thanks. Now,
the majority of Psalms, if you've read them, you know that they're
full of praise and adoration of our God. We see that this
here in the first two verses, they describe our entrance into
God and praising him, our entrance onto God's presence. And we see
people here making a joyful noise. and we see them singing. They're
described as singing, and that's why we worship our God with song,
why we sing hymns, and why churches will sing the Psalms, because
they are songs by which we praise our God and thank him. Look at
verses one and two with me. Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness,
come before his presence, with singing. Now, I said that this
is throughout the scriptures, and I'll give you another psalm.
Look over at Psalm 95, and we see this pattern is repeated. Psalm 95, verses one and two. Say, O come, let us sing unto
the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence
with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. We're making a joyful noise to
the Lord with song. We're praising and declaring
His glory, His honor, His power. And so this Thanksgiving, this
praise is a theme with believers. It runs through us. We praise
and give thanks to our God. Now, this praise and thanksgiving
should be on the lips of all of the Lord's creation. It says
there, all ye lands. And since we're there in the
area, in Psalm 98 verse 4, it interprets that all ye lands
as all the earth. all the earth. And so all people
are to praise and glorify God as God. And we understand that
this has a view, a view for us to the Gentiles. This is a call
to the Gentiles throughout the world, scattered throughout the
world, who join to worship God. Now, in Psalm 95, as we were
reading that back there in verse 1, there was a phrase there that
I want to draw your attention to where it says, make a joyful
noise to the rock of our salvation. Make a joyful noise to the rock
of our salvation. And this is it's revealing to
us the foundation of our praise and the foundation of our thanksgiving
to the Lord. And so I want to show you over,
begin to show you this theme that the Lord weaves in his word
that reveals to us why we are thanking and praising him and
why we rejoice before our God in song. It's over in Revelation
14. Revelation 14 and go to verse three. And so here we see in Revelation
14, verse three, it's describing believers who are standing before
God and they're praising him. They're praising him in song
and they're praising him in thanksgiving. And it says, they sung as it
were. They sung, as it were, a new
song, as it were, because it really is the old, old song. Our joy and rejoicing, our foundation,
has always been founded upon the kindness, the grace, and
the mercy of God, who is our Savior, who saves His people.
But they sung, as it were, a new song before the throne, because
it was hidden. It was hidden from the creation
which fell in Adam. And they're seeing this before
the throne and before the four beasts and the elders. And no
man could learn that song. No flesh could learn that song
but the 144,000 which were redeemed from the earth. And that 144,000
is a picture, representative of all the elect, chosen, redeemed
children of God. Men and women, Jew and Gentile,
barbarian and and civilized man, if you will. It doesn't matter.
Those who are saved, they're all pictured in that 144,000. Now, they're singing a new song,
and it's because they are redeemed by God. They're purchased by
God. They're delivered from something. And that is the judgment which
is coming upon all men for their sins. Now, I want to show you
this, where the Lord we're praising God. We that believe Him, we
praise Him because He's shown us what we are, what we are in
the flesh, that we are sinners, all right? So, go back to Psalm
100 and look with me at verse two. Now, Psalm 100 verse two says,
serve the Lord with gladness. come before his presence with
singing. All right, now hold your place
there in Psalm 100 and go over to Psalm 2. Psalm 2, and we'll
pick up in verse 10, just to give you some context here, because
it's worded differently in verse 11, but we'll start in verse
10. Psalm 210 says, Be wise now therefore, O ye kings, be instructed,
ye judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice
with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry,
and ye perish from the way. When his wrath is kindled but
a little, blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
I want you to notice that difference from Psalm 100 verse 2 and Psalm
2 verse 11, right? They use different words. One
speaks of gladness, right? It says, serve the Lord with
gladness. And the other says, serve the
Lord with fear. And so there's a difference there
in those two verses. And that's because in Psalm 2,
if you're familiar with it, the Lord's speaking to a people that
are confident in themselves, that think highly of themselves. And it speaks of those who think
they understand and who think they rule the earth and what's
going on here. And so they're very puffed up
and they're vain in their dark imaginations. And so the Lord
is saying to them, you that are confident in self, he says, serve
the Lord with fear. And what the Lord is showing
man, what he's teaching all men, is that God is the creator of
all. None of us have created ourselves.
God is the creator of all. And many people know and understand
that there is a God and know him to be the creator, but in
their works, they despise him. In their works, they despise
the true and living God. And so the Lord is reminding
man of his supremacy, that he is God and there's none like
him, and that as their God and creator, he is the judge of all
men. This is revealed to us in scripture.
So in Acts 17, verse 31, We read, as Paul is preaching to the Greeks,
he says, God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge all
men or judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained. And we'll know who that ordained
man is in a moment. Whereof he hath given assurance
unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead. Now there's only one man raised
from the dead, never to die again, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the ordained man by whom
all men will be judged. And the other thing that it reveals
here is that there is a resurrection. That there is a resurrection,
meaning that when we finish our course here in the earth, in
the flesh, we shall all be raised again and stand before holy God
in the day of judgment. And so it's declaring to the
world, God is making known to the world, that there is coming
a judgment to all persons. In Hebrews 9, 27, it says, it
is appointed unto men once to die, and after that, the judgment. All right, the judgment. And
so man, we declare this because man doesn't like to think about
death, and he doesn't like to think about judgment. He doesn't
want to go there in his mind, and that's because when he considers
God and what he's heard about God, and he considers his own
works, He begins to think, well, are my works sufficient? Will
God accept me? Will God receive me based on
my works? And so he seeks to pacify or
mollify his fears by just not thinking of it or minimizing
what he's heard about the truth of God. But Proverbs says this
to us, and listen to what it says in Proverbs 1 verse 7. It tells us the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge, but, or only fools despise wisdom and instruction. In other words, the Lord is giving
us instruction. He's revealing the judgment to
us, not simply to burden us down with fear and to be trembling
till the day we die and go to that judgment. But he's telling
us, he's revealing to us that there is a judgment to cause
us to stop and to hear his word. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge. And there is a judgment, And
he's declaring to us in his word that our works, even our best
works, our good works, our righteous deeds, the things that we do
to help others or to be good, he tells us these are unrighteous
and insufficient to save us. Now, I covered all that. because
I want to compare that to the fact that believers do rejoice. There's a reason why we're rejoicing,
and there's a reason why we are glad, and that's what I want
to declare to you. Why? What's the foundation that
we should praise God in thankfulness? and enjoy and looking forward
to that day when He raises us from the dead. If there's a judgment,
what do I have to be thankful for or to praise God for and
to look forward to that day? Well, in Psalm 100 verse 3, which
we're coming to now, the Lord speaks of the propitiation, the
Savior that He's provided to or for His people. And it says
it there, In this way, verse three, know ye, this is the knowledge
of the Lord, know this, 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. Now, I think it's important that
we understand, we've been seeing this theme of God, our creator. And it's good for us to remember
that God is our creator. And barring some greater calamity,
I really do think that this is going to continue to be a key
point to the church, right? Every generation has its battleground. It has its battles that come
to the church and present to the church or come against the
hope that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this is
likely to be a major assault, believe it or not, upon the church.
It's not just evolution where man has tried to put down the
thought of God through the teaching that we've evolved or grown from
some single-celled organisms and became what we are. No, we
have a creator. and he describes how he created
man in the beginning as man forming him from the dust and he by his
spirit breathed life into man and he became a living soul. So God is our creator physically
and whether or not man is conscious of it Man is desperate to take
himself out from under what he considers bondage or what he
considers to be God, his creator. He wants to deliver himself from
God, his creator, so that the creator can't judge him. Some
of you, you create things, you build things or make things with
your hands or you design things. You're the creator of it, right?
And when you create it, you choose whether or not you're going to
preserve it, or use it, or keep it, or show it to others, or
if you just simply destroy it and no one else ever sees it,
right? You as the creator, you make a judgment upon that and
you determine what you're going to do with it. Same thing with
the Lord. He is the creator and he judges
all as it pleases him. And so man is desperate, the
next phase of his evolution, the next phase where he's going
is to recreate himself, to become something new so that he can
take himself out from under the bondage of that coming judgment. In Psalm 2, where we were, it
actually says in verse 3, let us break their bands asunder
and cast away their cords from us. That's the heart of man,
to remove himself out from the creation of God. And we see this,
actually, there's technologies now where man literally is at
the point where he's talking like, where we are now, man may
never have to die again. He can continue his life on for
hundreds of years. and of course they want that
because they want to avoid the judgment. They want to avoid
it, and so they have all these technologies and futurist ideas
which go beyond simply futurism and technology, but it's trespassing
against boundaries that man ought not to go. And the Lord tells
us in verse four of Psalm 2, he that sitteth in the heavens
shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. He'll put them in confusion.
Man's gonna do what man's gonna do. He has many inventions, but
the Lord determines what man can and can't do. And so he's
his creator, and we're not going to recreate ourselves and make
something different of ourselves to avoid the judgment of God,
our creator. And these are the fools who despise
wisdom and instruction. but the believer gladly confesses
the Lord he is God. It is he that hath made us and
not we ourselves. And so our God created all men. He's called the Lord our maker. He's the one who makes his people.
So that's not simply physical creation that we're rejoicing
in our God for, we're rejoicing in him for our spiritual creation. All right, we are born anew,
born again, new creatures in Christ. And so we sing of his
praise, of his glory and redemption. All right, so I wanna show you
this redemption and that this creation is speaking of our being
born again by Christ. We're born again, redeemed by
the blood of Christ. Turn over to Romans three, Romans
three. And I'll pick up in verse 18
because we're speaking of that difference between those who
are born again of God, created of Him anew by the Spirit of
Christ, versus those who have simply been created physically
but have no spiritual life, no fellowship or relation to God,
and so they fear that judgment. They fear death and they fear
that judgment. But, Romans 3.18 says there is
no fear of God before their eyes. That's every one of us naturally.
When we come forth, born of our parents, of our father's seed,
we come forth sinful, dead and separated from a spiritual knowledge,
a saving knowledge of our God. Now, verse 19, Paul says, we
know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law. Man, when he considers religion,
he often thinks of morality, he thinks of the law, which God
gave to a mediator, Moses, by the hands of a mediator, to reveal
this to man. And so he thinks, oh, well, I've
got to improve myself. I've got to do things differently
than what I've been doing, and then God will receive me if I
put myself under the law, for example. But the scriptures in
Christ are revealing to us that salvation is not found in the
things that we do. If you try to come before God
in your own works, you will fear death and you will fear that
judgment. but our God is showing us, he's teaching us and declaring
to us the truth that we should not continue in that false way,
but that we should stop and hear him and beg him for light and
mercy and this grace that he speaks of. He says, the law was
given that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may
become guilty before God. That's why the Lord's declaring
this to us. to cause us to stop while it's today, and to realize,
Lord, if I meet you today, in my own works, I'm a dead man. I fear that judgment, in my own
works. Therefore, he says, by the deeds
of the law, right? Why did the Lord give the law
then? Well, by the deeds of the law, there's no flesh which shall
be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of
sin. So that when you consider the
law, when you stand before the law and you begin to practice
it and look into the law, what it should do is it should shut
our mouths from boasting and thinking that this is going to
enable me to stand without shame before the true and living God. It's meant to shut our mouths.
It's meant to stop the boasting. It's meant to cause us to fear
and to realize I can't do this. I'm naked. I'm left without a
hope to stand before God. But we preach this and declare
this so that people will stop their own works and trusting
their own works, right? Now Romans 3.21 says, but now
the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. Here's
the point of rejoicing for the believer. Now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe. For there
is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. What the Lord is showing to us
is that none of us is good in ourselves. We don't have a hope
and a rejoicing and a confidence to stand before our God because
we ourselves are good or we've done something to earn God's
favor. There's another righteousness
that the Lord is declaring to us. And it's the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in verse 24, he tells
us being justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for
the remission of sins. Now, when it speaks of redemption,
that's the blood purchase, right? We are made the people of God
by the blood of Christ, which He shed in payment for their
sins." That's redemption. This propitiation that it speaks
of is speaking of what the Lord did to forgive us, that he provided
his own son, making him a propitiation, the means of our forgiveness,
so that we might know the remission of sins, which is to go free,
to be let go from the wrath of God. So there is coming a judgment. But the child of God, who is
made to look to Christ, to behold His righteousness, has no fear
of that judgment, because Christ bore that judgment in their room
instead. He went to the cross for His
people, bearing their sins, to put them away, that we should
go free, that we should know and experience the remission
of sins. The deliverance from the punishment
of sins. That's what remission means that
there's no punishment. There's no further punishment
for the believer. There's no judgment for the believer.
We've been judged already in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's already bore that for his
people. And so What we're describing
here is a new birth. In Adam, all died. In Adam, all
are sinners. In him, we can't work any righteousness. But in Christ, we are a new creation,
a new creature, born again, not of physical corrupt seed. like that which our father created
us from, but born of Christ's spiritual seed, which cannot
be corrupted, and is born of the spirit of God. And so we're
made righteous by the blood of Christ. And so in that sense,
God is our maker, not just physically, but he's the maker of his people
spiritually. We're born again in Christ. And
so that's what the psalmist declares to us in verse three of Psalm
100. 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. We didn't give ourselves righteousness. We didn't make ourselves righteous
before God. But our God has made us righteous.
So we don't seek out ways to recreate ourselves or to make
ourselves anew with some lies and technology of man thinking
that he's going to escape the judgment of God. We rejoice because
God himself has provided our salvation. He's provided the
means of our forgiveness in his son, Jesus Christ. So we don't
need to look for other ways. We don't fear that death. We
rejoice in our God and thank him for what he's accomplished
for us. Now in 1 Peter 2 verses 9 and 10, it reiterates this
very truth to us. He tells us, you who believe,
who are resting in the salvation God has provided in His Son,
He says, ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and holy
nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises
of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous
light. which in time past were not a
people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained
mercy, but now have obtained mercy." And so we sing this new
song of redemption. We sing this new song praising
God, not because we are righteous, not because we've done something
to save ourselves or to make right the wrongs that we've committed
in this flesh, but we rejoice and sing the praises of God and
give Him thanks for the salvation He's freely given in His Son,
Jesus Christ. All right, now let's look at
this view which is witnessed here in the Psalm 100 there,
verse four. Verse four there. Enter into
His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.
Be thankful unto Him and bless His name. He blesses us and we,
by His grace and spirit, bless Him and come before Him with
thanksgiving and remember to praise Him for what He's done
for us. Though we've not merited it,
though we've not earned His favor, yet Christ, in Christ, He's done
all that work for us and brought us near to God that we might
know Him and rest in Him and have peace with God, our Savior,
all right? So we give him thanks for it
because we're his people and the sheep, he says, of his pasture. All right, now verse five here,
we continue as a people thanking him for his providence and his
care and his kindness to us. Verse five, for the Lord is good,
his mercy is everlasting and his truth endureth to all generations. And so, We're praising him because
he himself keeps us, right? We praise him for his goodness,
as it says, for the Lord is good. We praise him because he's merciful
and will never cease to be merciful to us. It says his mercy is everlasting. And we give him thanks because
after 2,000 some odd years, the Lord has preserved his gospel. and revealed it to his people,
even after all this time, that he should maintain this gospel,
wherein our hope is not fixed in morality. It's not fixed in
our Bible study. It's not fixed in what we do
or don't do. Our hope and joy is fixed in
Christ and what he has accomplished for us by himself. And that's
what he says there, his truth endureth to all generations. So our God has preserved us and
he's kept this for his people. And so back in verse three, it
just says there in the beginning, no ye, that the Lord, he is God. And that's what the Lord reveals
to his people, that we should have knowledge of him, that we
should know what he has accomplished for us, that we should no longer
walk around in darkness and bouncing off religious walls and stumbling
over religious things, just dying and perishing in our sins. But
he's revealed this to us in the light of his son, Jesus Christ.
giving us his gospel, revealing his salvation, that we should
know our God and understand that it's his creation, this is his
work, that we may rejoice and be glad in him and give him all
the thanks and the praise for it and not boast of what we've
done and beat each other up over what we're doing or not doing,
right, and beating ourselves up about what we are not doing,
but looking to him and trusting him, being glad in him. and we
seek to serve him and to know him more and more and grow in
what he's accomplished for us, but it's all an understanding
that he's already accomplished all things necessary for us.
And so that's why we're told in Luke 24, 45, then opened Christ
their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. And so that's what the Lord's
revealing to us this morning is that he is the salvation of
his people. So look, look to him. I pray
that the Lord would bless your hearts and turn you from dead
works. And if you, if you do fear death
and fear the judgment, hear what he's declared in his son, Jesus
Christ, that he is the salvation of his people and all who are
given an ear by the spirit to hear this, this word of faith,
they shall look to Christ. They shall hear his voice and
be glad. in him. So that's why we thank him. That's why we've come before
him with Thanksgiving because of what he's accomplished. All right, brethren, let's close
in prayer and then we'll be dismissed for 15 minutes. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for your mercy and your grace, which
you freely provided in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, teach us. Make us to know you, make us
to know that you are our God and our creator. Lord, let us
not be found naked and ashamed in our own works, but let us
be found under the blood righteousness of Jesus Christ. Let us stand
before you, hoping and trusting in nothing but what your son
has accomplished in himself by the death of himself and his
resurrection. for our salvation, for our good,
for our hope and joy and rejoicing. Lord, help us to be a thankful
people. Lord, bless us to remember who
you are and what you've done and accomplished for us, that
we may declare this word to others. And Father, that you would deliver
sinners from darkness and perishing sinners from their sin and the
judgment coming to them. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks, amen. All right, so we'll start about
three minutes after the hour.