I mean Psalm 100. I was just
reading Psalm 130 sitting there. Turn back to Psalm 100. This is a short psalm, especially
for me. I like a lot of verses when I
pray. But as I said earlier, it's not
the length of a message, it's the content of it. I'd rather
say something five minutes that meant something than thirty minutes
of just air time. And this psalm here, it blessed
me today in studying it. If you'll notice there, it says,
a psalm of praise or thanksgiving. It is said that this is the only
psalm that has that name as a psalm of praise. I thought as I sat
in the study today, and I thought sometimes we ought to thank God
for all His tender mercies toward us in Christ and just leave it
there. Just leave it there. Sometimes
we ought to thank and praise God for who He is. For who He is and for what He
has done for us in Christ and just leave it there. Not making
any requests. Just thank Him. Just give thanks
unto the Lord and praise unto His name for who He is and what
He's done for us. Look over in Psalm 103. Psalm
103. I was just reading this while
I was sitting over here. It says, Bless the Lord, O my
soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth
all thine inequities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth
thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness
and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so
that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." Sometimes we just
have to remember His mercies and just mention His mercies.
He says here in verse 1, make a joyful noise unto the Lord,
make a loud noise, a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. God is to be praised with joyful
hearts first. God is to be praised with a joyful
heart first. The Scripture says, out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. The mouth speaketh. Our praise and our thanksgiving
is a joyful one. It's a joyful one. If it's not,
if it's not, then it's just pretense. It's just pretense. If it doesn't
come from a joyful heart, if it doesn't come from a heart
that's thankful unto God for His mercies and His kindness
and His benefits, then it's just a pretense. But I tell you this,
a sinner who has tasted and found the Lord to be gracious, if he's
done that, he'll praise God. He'll praise God and he'll sing
praises unto God with a joyful heart. I mean a joyful heart.
And this joyful noise, it says, is for all lands, all the earth. This is not for one part of society.
This is not for one part of the earth. God has made all things. All things belong to Him. All
things are to praise Him. All things are to praise God.
And this is for all lands, all people. I don't care what race
it is, what ethnic group it is. I don't care what part of the
earth it is. All are to praise God Almighty. God is to be praised
from one end of the earth to the other. And one day, I thought
about this sitting there today. One day, there's going to come
a time when every tongue and tribe and nation is going to
praise God. They're going to praise God far
reaching. Far-reaching is the grace of
God to sinners. To sinners like me and you. Far-reaching
is the grace of God. And then it says in verse 2,
serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with
singing. Serve Him with gladness. Our
Lord is to be served by us. He's to be served by us. We are
His servants. We're glad to be His servants.
And He's to be served by us. We have been bought with a price.
That's what it says over in Corinthians. We have been bought with a price.
Paul said, you're not your own. You've been bought with a price.
We've been bought with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm
not my own. I don't belong to myself. I belong
to Him who purchased me. Serve the Lord, he says here.
Serve the Lord with gladness. Here's the attitude that we are
to serve Him with. Here's the attitude that we serve
the Lord with, gladness. We don't have a morbid religion. We do not have a morbid religion. This is not a funeral service.
This is a worship service, and God is to be worshipped. He's
to be worshipped with gladness, gladness. And we do not serve
him with a slavish fear, scared to death, if we don't, he's going
to do something to me. We don't worship God like that.
Not at all. We worship Him. We serve God
with gladness. I mean, glad that He had even
let me be in His service. I'm glad that He would even look
my way and allow me to even serve Him. Glad. Glad to serve Him. I'll tell you this, there's no
other way to serve Him. There is no other way to serve
God but with gladness. and rejoicing and praise. That's the only way. Any other
way, any other way is nothing but a pretense. True worship,
true worship of God involves a glad heart. It involves a glad
heart, glad to worship Him, glad to be here. Those who have been
born of God are glad to serve God. It's not a burden to serve
God. You know, those Jews of old,
they served under that law and all those ceremonies. I tell
you, it became a burden to them. But I tell you this, it is not
a burden to serve our Lord. It's not a burden. Not at all. Glad to be where the Gospel is
preached. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad
to be where the Gospel is preached. Today I listened to two different
messages preached. I was glad to listen to them.
I sat there and I tell you, I rejoiced. I fed on those messages. I was
glad. Glad to be where the gospel is
preached. Glad to be used of God. Glad to be used of God. Glad
to be where God has placed me. You glad where God placed you?
He's put us all in the body as it's pleased Him. He's put us
where we work, what we do. Glad. glad to serve Him, content
with our God, content with the Lord Jesus Christ. Of all the
people on the earth, we ought to be the most glad. We ought
to be the most rejoicing people on this earth. We've been redeemed
by the blood of Christ. We've been washed from our sins.
We ought to be the most glad people on this earth. And then
it says this, Come before His presence with singing. Come into
His presence, into God's presence with singing. I tell you, the
singing was exceptional, I thought this evening. It was exceptional. If you can come before His presence
with singing, if you can do that, it's evident you're glad to be
there. You're glad to be there. A people
who can come before the Lord with singing and a merry heart,
they're glad to be there. Glad to be there. And notice
it says, come before His presence with singing, not sighing, singing. Singing. And here's the reason,
here's the reason for the gladness and the singing. Know ye that
the Lord, He is God. He is God. It is He that hath
made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep
of His pasture. That verse is loaded. It's loaded. I wish I had the mental capacity
to bring it out, but it's loaded. Our worship and praise and singing
in His presence is to be with intelligence. It's not to be
with just any old racket and any old song. We just pick any
old song and sing it. No, we look at the words of the
song. We pay attention to the words. We sing in His presence
with intelligence. Spiritual intelligence. Not intellectualism,
but spiritual intelligence. Our Lord said to that woman at
the well, He said, we worship that we do know. You worship,
you don't know what you're worshiping. Our Lord said, we know what we
worship. We know. He said, salvation of the Jews.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they knew God. They knew the one they
worshipped. Christ knew. He said, but you?
He's talking about that woman there at the well. She said,
you? You don't know what you're doing. You don't know what you
worship. You're just going through the
motions. You're worshiping an idol. We know it's intellect,
spiritual intelligence. Real faith begins with a true
knowledge of God Almighty. It begins with a knowledge of
God that He is, and that He is as He revealed Himself in the
Scriptures. You cannot worship God if you don't know Him. You can't worship a God you don't
know. You can't do it. And to know Him, He must reveal
Himself to you out of His Word. This is where we find out who
God is, in His Word. We find out through the Word
of God who God is. And that's how we worship Him,
according to His Word, as He's revealed Himself in His Word.
That's how you do it. And if He does this, if God reveals
Himself to us out of His Word, If we find out who God is, if
we are given a knowledge of God, here's what you're going to learn,
that the Lord is God. Here's one of the first things
I learned when I heard the Gospel several years ago, that the Lord
Jesus Christ is God. The Lord Jesus Christ is Emmanuel. The Lord Jesus Christ is God
with us. That's who He is. He is God Almighty. That man of sorrows, that man
that was rejected, that man that was spit on, that man that was
despised is none other than God Almighty. That's who He is. Know ye that the Lord, the Lord
Jehovah, the Lord Jesus Christ is God. He's God. Know ye that the Lord,
He is the Sovereign Potentate. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Sovereign of heaven and earth. He said, I give life to whom
I will. He gives life. The Son gives
life to whom He will. He's the Sovereign. He is the
God of salvation. That's who He is. That man from
Nazareth. That man that they made nothing
of is the God of my salvation. That's my God, and I'm not ashamed
to let it be known. I'm not ashamed to say to this
world that that man, Jesus Christ, is my God. He's my God. The Lord is God. Now, secondly,
here's a reason for singing and praising and coming into His
presence with this kind of an attitude and heart It is He that
hath made us, and not we ourselves. I'm so thankful for that. I'm
so thankful. As God, He made all things. All things were made by Him and
for Him. Nothing exists apart from Jesus
Christ. Nothing exists that He did not
make. He made all things. But now listen. In a special way, He hath made
us. He hath made us. He's made, as
I read over to you in Ephesians 2, we, the believer, are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. We are
His workmanship. He made us new creatures, or
a new creation, in Christ Jesus. Our first creation was from the
dust. When God made Adam, he made him
from the dust of the ground. He was earthy. That's what he
was made from. But not that second creation.
It was made of the Spirit of God. That which is born of the
flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit
is Spirit. Is Spirit. And just as I had
no part by way of helping, or advising in my first birth, I
had no way of helping or advising in my second one. I didn't tell
God how I wanted to be made. God did as He will. He was sovereign
in it. Look over here in Gospel of John
chapter 1. Look down here in verse 13. which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God." Born of God. He hath made us. He made us believers. He made us believers. I've said
this before several times. I didn't make myself a believer.
Although I believe the gospel, but he made me a believer. Faith,
as I read to you earlier, is the gift of God. Not of works,
lest any man should boast. It's the gift of God. And it
says there in that psalm, we did not make ourselves. In no
way, shape, or form did I make myself alive in Christ. This
branch did not put itself in the vine. He made me. He made me. I tell you this,
if He made me, He's not going to lose me. He's not going to
lose that which He made from Himself. Because of Him and in
Him we live and move and have our being. We live in Christ. That new man,
he lives and moves and has his being in Christ. The greatest
thief in the world, the greatest thief in the world is the man
who takes honor for something he did not do. That's the greatest thief in
the world, who takes to himself honor for something he had nothing
to do with. This is of God. Salvation from
first to last is all of God, from every ounce of it, every
bit of it. From the beginning of it to the
end of it, it's all of God. And then it says, we are His
people and the sheep of His pasture. As I said, this verse is loaded.
We are His people by creation. As I said, He made us. We did
not make ourselves, that's what it says. We are His by covenant
grace. We are His by purchase. He bought
us. He not only created us, He bought
us. He purchased us. We are His by
grace. We are His by love. We are His
people. This is my people. God Almighty
has a people on this earth. We are His people. And we are
the sheep of His pasture. He didn't take a goat and turn
it into a sheep. I used to think that's the way
it happened. He turned this goat into a sheep. He didn't do that.
He did not turn a goat into a sheep. We are His sheep who were lost
but now are found. If I'm His sheep, I've always
been His sheep. I can't explain that. That's
just all over my head. But we are his sheep. This is
not a goat turning into a sheep. We've always been his sheep. We are his sheep and he is our
shepherd. He's our shepherd. He's the one
who leads and guides us. The shepherd. He's our shepherd.
He leads and he guides his sheep. Sometimes we can't detect it.
Sometimes we can't really put a hand on it. Sometimes we really
can't see it or notice it, but I'm telling you, He always, always
guides His sheep. What kind of shepherd would not
guide His sheep? Our shepherd guides His sheep. And He feeds us in the green
pastures. I could read Psalm 23 to you.
He feeds us in His Word. Right here is the green pastures
of the sheep. Right here. The Word of God is
the sheep's pasture. Now, he says, verse 4, enter
into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him, bless his
name. What a glorious sound! Oh, if
God would enable us to just rise to this occasion and hear this.
Enter in. There's going to be some He's
going to say, depart. But to His sheep, to those who believe
God, He's going to say, enter in. Welcome. Welcome into God's
presence. That's why He's going to say,
welcome. Enter into His gates of mercy. Enter into His gates
of Zion, the church. Enter in. Sinners, sinners are
welcome through this gate. And only sinners, only sinners,
a sinner like me is welcomed into His presence. Isn't that
something? That's amazing. That's something to sing about.
That's something to rise up in the morning and praise God about,
that a sinner like me can enter into His gates. Lift up your head and your heart
and praise Him from whom all blessings flow. Welcome and enter
in. And be thankful unto Him. Let
me tell you this. You can write this down. A thankless
man is a graceless man. That man has never tasted the
grace of God. A man who is not thankful, he
has ingratitude, has never tasted the Lord's grace. A thankless
man is a graceless man. But a man saved by grace is a
mighty thankful man. You can't help but be thankful.
I'm telling you, when God plucks a man from that pit of corruption,
when He plucks you like a brand out of the fire, you cannot help but be thankful.
You can't help but praise Him. You can't help it. A man who
has been washed in the blood of the Lamb is thankful for it,
truly thankful for it. And you can tell it in his conduct,
in his attitude, in his walk through life. He'll have a thankful
attitude. Oh, he'll get upset from time
to time, but the tenor of his life will be thankful. Praise
to God. And it says here, and bless His
name. Listen. He continually blesses us. Daily,
it says, He loads us with benefits. Daily. Daily. He loads us with
benefits. And we ought to return the blessing
by giving unto Him the glory due unto His name. We ought to
give the glory that's due unto His name. Bless His name. Then
here's the reason for the praise and thanksgiving. And I'll wind
this down. Three things here. There's three
things here. For the Lord is good. Here is
much reason for the praise and the thanksgiving. Here's reason
to enter into His gates with thanksgiving and praise. The
Lord is good. He's good. He is all that is
good. Our Lord said to that young man,
there's none good but God. You don't understand what good
is. God, it says, the Lord is good. He's good. He's a stronghold to them who
trust in Him. His goodness is over all His
works. I tell you this, His providence
is good. It's not good and bad and good
and bad His providence is good. It's for our eternal good. It's
fulfilling His eternal purpose. It's good. I may have a bad day,
but that doesn't make God less than good. God's good no matter
what kind of day I have. That's the nature of God. He's
good. His sun shines on the just and
the unjust. The Lord is good. That's why
we're sitting here tonight. That's why we believe the gospel.
That's why we can give thanks and praise unto Him, because
He's good. He's shown mercy to us. He's done something for us.
He's done something for us. He's good. He's the Good Shepherd.
He's called the Good Shepherd of the sheep. He's the Good Samaritan. God is good. The Lord is good. And His mercy is His. Here's
the second reason. His mercy is everlasting. His
mercy is everlasting. Look how long this world has
stood. Look at all the filth and the stuff that's gone on.
Look at all the... Even among His people, look at
all the... His mercy is everlasting. He's
never taken it away from His people. Deep is the ocean of God's mercy. Drink large. Drink large. You cannot drain that ocean.
Deep is the mercy of God. His mercy was on us before the
world was. It is on us now and it will follow
us home. Yeah, it will lead us home. It
will lead us home. I thought there this evening,
this afternoon, I thought we were right home in the chariot
of His mercy. That's right. We'll ride home
in the chariot of God's mercy. Everlasting mercy. His mercy,
it says, is everlasting. And His truth, here's the third
reason. Here's the third reason for this gladness and praise
and thanksgiving. His truth endureth to all generations. What is true today, I guarantee
you, will be true tomorrow. What's true today will be true
tomorrow. It will not change. Truth never
changes. If you're going to lie, write
it down because you'll never remember how you told it. Truth
never changes. It never changes. That's why
the gospel never changes. The gospel never changes because
truth never changes. And truth never changes because
God Almighty is the embodiment of truth and He never changes.
He never changes. He's immutable. Everything we
see will wear out, but not truth. Not truth. God would have to
cease to exist for truth to cease to exist. Aren't you glad that
truth is in His hands? That's why it'll endure to the
next generation and the next generation. When you and I, when
you and I are gone from here, when we die and the Lord takes
us out, truth will still be here. It'll endure. It'll endure until
time shall be no more. He puts a time and end to this. The greatest blessing, I thought the greatest blessing
God can give us, is His truth. The greatest blessing God can
give us is the truth. And the greatest blessing we
can leave to our children is the truth. The gospel. The gospel of truth. That's the
greatest blessing that we can leave to our children is the
gospel of truth. Let me read that psalm one more
time. 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.