Deo Gloria
Sermon for June 25, 2023
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Psalm 100
Theme: Psalm-things Never Change – The LORD is My Song!
- Because he made me part of his people
- Because of his goodness
- Because of his faithful love
According to an old legend, two angels leave heaven each morning with bags over their shoulders. One angel collects the praises that people offer to God during the day. The other collects the petitions and requests. As the story goes, the petition-collecting angel has to make several trips back to heaven during the course of the day and empty his bag because it gets so full; while the angel who collects the praises rarely returns by the end of the day with his bag even half full. Of course, the story is only a legend. Yet the point it makes is all too true. We are so eager to bring God our prayers and requests: “O Lord, help me.” “O Lord, give me strength.” O Lord, forgive me.” Yet when it comes to bringing God our worship and praise—well, that’s something we’re not quite as ready and eager to do.
This morning as we look at another one of those perpetual principles found in the book of Psalms, we are encouraged to give the Lord the worship and praise he deserves. After all, he not only is the recipient of our songs; he is our song. He and his love are what we sing about. And even though our circumstances in life may change, that is Psalm-thing that never changes.
When one examines Psalm 100 more closely, its outline becomes readily apparent. It consists of two invitations to worship, each followed by a couple of reasons to do so. The first invitation comes in verses 1+2: “Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.”
The first set of reasons follows in v. 3. “Know that the LORD is God,” he says. Know that the LORD is God. That’s reason enough, isn’t it? I mean, let’s be honest. Do we really need any other reason to worship the LORD? The LORD is God. He alone is God. There is no other. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the almighty Ruler of the universe. As such, he deserves our worship and praise. He doesn’t have to earn it. In a way it’s like asking if LeBron James really deserves to be in the basketball Hall-of-Fame someday or if Joe Mauer really deserves to be in the baseball Hall-of-Fame. Even raising the question is an insult. The LORD is God. That’s really all the reason we need to worship him and sing his praise.
Yet the psalmist gives us another: “It is he who made us,” he says, “and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture”(v. 3). Yes, the LORD is the one who made us. We did not descend from monkeys and we did evolve from some meaningless, primordial soup. No, God made us—uniquely, carefully, wonderfully. Psalm 139 talks about that in more detail. Be sure to read it sometime. Again, the fact that God made us is more than enough reason for us to sing his praises.
Yet, God did more than just make us. God also made us his. God has made us his people. “But aren’t we all his people?” you might ask. “Aren’t all the people in the world God’s people? After all, he made them all,” which is true. The sad reality, though, is that so many people around the world have chosen to follow some other god.
Millions around the globe follow a god named Allah. Millions more have chosen to follow a god named Buddha. Others have chosen to follow the god of money. Still others have chosen to follow the god of self. Those who have done so are not God’s people, for there is only one God, the LORD. Those who have chosen to follow some other god in reality belong to Satan. They may not realize it yet, but he is the one they are following and he is their lord.
So what about us then? How did we get to be his people? It was because we were better than all those other people, right? It was because we were so loving and kind and compassionate and forgiving, right? Because we were so good and kind and helpful to others, because we have been so faithful to our Lord and so careful to obey his commands, because we have always put him first and foremost in our lives, right? If only that were true, but we know it isn’t. Like the prophet Isaiah we have to confess, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way”(53:6). Because of our sinful and stubborn and rebellious ways, you and I don’t deserve to be God’s sheep. We don’t deserve to be members of his family. In fact, what we deserve is to be kicked out his family—for the rest of forever.
Yet, by the grace of God we are his people. We are his sheep. In his great mercy God has taken away our sin and guilt through his Son, Jesus Christ. Yes we, like sheep, have gone astray, but instead of laying those sins on us, God laid them on Jesus. He punished him for our sins so that we might be spared, so that we might be forgiven. Praise the Lord for his mercy and grace.
And on top of that, in his grace and mercy he has adopted us into his family through the waters of Holy Baptism. He has put his name on us and adopted us as his very own sons and daughters. He has made us his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
And the fact that we are his people is not a temporary arrangement either. It’s not like we are God’s people in this life, but when this life is over, our status as God’s people comes to an end too. Remember what Jesus said? “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand”(John 10:27,28). The fact that I belong to Jesus now is something that is good for the rest of eternity. He is mine and I am his—forever. What a wonderful reason to come to God’s house and sing his praises!
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.” Verse 4, of course, is the second invitation to worship. Like the first, it too is followed by a pair of reasons to do so. The first, the psalmist says, is that “the LORD is good.”
One thing we haven’t touched on yet is “Who is the LORD?” You probably noticed that the word “Lord” is used four times in this psalm and every time is it printed in all capital letters: LORD. Yes, this again is that very special name for God. The LORD is the great I Am, the God of all eternity, the God who has always existed and will always exist. He is the God who never changes and who always keeps his promises. He is the God of free and faithful grace, the God who promised a Savior to Adam and Eve after they fell into sin, the God who revealed himself to people like Abraham and David and gave them the promise that the Savior would come from their descendants. And he is the God who kept that promise and sent his own Son to be their Savior and our Savior, so that we might be his people and live with him forever in heaven. This is who the LORD is.
And yes, as the psalmist says, the LORD is good. Besides the gifts of forgiveness and peace and life and salvation, besides the blessing of being his dearly loved children, in his goodness God also gives us the sunshine and the rain, the water we drink and the air we breathe, the flowers and the trees, the birds and the fish, the puppies and the kittens. God gives us our food and our jobs and our homes and our families and our cars and our clothes. And the list goes on and on. As we will sing in the song a little later in our service, we can find 10,000 reasons, and more, to worship the LORD and sing his praises.
But if we needed another reason, one final reason to praise the LORD, the psalmist provides it for us at the very end: “His love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations”(v. 5) God’s love is not a fickle love. God’s love does not change with the wind. God doesn’t love us one day and then turn his back on us the next. God’s love endures forever. It never ends. God’s love is faithful love.
Boy, can we relate to that, huh? How many of us haven’t been hurt by someone who said they loved us only to find out later that they didn’t love us anymore? Thank God he isn’t like that! God’s love is faithful. He remains faithful in his love to us even when we don’t remain faithful to him. Even when we sin and go our own way and do our own thing, God doesn’t say, “All right, fine, if that’s the way you want it, then out! Get out! You’re not one of my people anymore. My children don’t act the way you’re acting. See ya’ later. Don’t call me; I’ll call you.” No, because he is faithful, God continues to love us as his children. If we wander away, he comes looking for us. He leads us back to his fold, washes away all of our sins and assures us of his love. And even though we haven’t always walked with him, he continues to walk with us, until he has brought us safely through this life to our eternal home in heaven.
How can we help but sing his praises? How can help but sing his song? One would think that people would have to tie us up and gag us to keep us from coming to church and singing the praises of such a good and gracious and loving and faithful God as this! “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”
Most of you probably do not know the name John Mentzer, but you probably know his song. John Mentzer was a man who experienced more than his share of misfortune in life. He endured numerous hardships and setbacks. He lived most of his life in poverty. Then at one point, when he finally seemed to be getting ahead in life, he lost everything when his home burned to the ground. The only thing he managed to save was his life and the clothes on his back.
How would you respond if that had happened to you? What would you say? This is what John Mentzer said: “The devil shall not say that he filled me with sorrow or discouragement!” And then he sat down and wrote the following words: “Oh, that I had a thousand voices to praise my God with thousand tongues! My heart, which in the Lord rejoices, would then proclaim in grateful songs to all, wherever I might be, what great things God has done for me”(CW 484:1).
Like John Mentzer, you and I have something to sing about even in the face of personal loss and misfortune. We have something to sing about because our happiness is not based on the circumstances in our lives. It’s based on something much more sure, much more permanent. It based on something that never changes. His name is the LORD. And he is our song. Amen.