Let Us Worship the Lord for He Is Worthy to Be Praised
What puts a big smile on your face? What makes you very happy? Perhaps it is getting a very good grade on a test you studied hard for. Or receiving a nice text from that boy, that girl that you really like is what makes your face glow. Maybe getting an offer for your dream job, or receiving a YES after you proposed to the love of your life… What makes you feel really joyful, and so ecstatic that you want to sing, and jump and shout?
During this summer we are going through a series based on the book of Psalms. We have gone through a variety of them already. Some Psalms call us to get reoriented in our lives. Other psalms express disorientation, struggle and despair. Last week we read Psalm 51, a psalm that called us to humble repentance before God.
Today we are going to read Psalm 96, a psalm that calls us to sing to the LORD day after day, to declare his glory, to speak of his greatness, to worship him and tremble before him. This Psalm not only calls the people of God to praise him, but it calls all the nations, all the earth and all creation to proclaim that the LORD, Yahweh, sovereignly reigns and rules.
In one sentence, Psalm 96 calls us to worship the LORD because he is unequivocally and absolutely worthy to be praised.
Let us read this Psalm. Please open your bibles and follow as I read Psalm 96:
1 Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! 4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. 6 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
7 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength! 8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts! 9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!
10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.”
11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; 12 let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy 13 before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness.
Let us pray
Just a quick note to the ones who love taking notes. This message has no points. The Psalm is not long, so we are just going to walk through it, camping briefly in a few places.
As background, this song was written and sung by king David. God had granted David victory after victory against his enemies. Saul had died and David was proclaimed as the new king of Israel. At this point David enters Jerusalem to take possession of his throne and he is bringing with him the Ark of the Covenant back into the royal city, with a large procession of people, marching, dancing and singing in celebration, worshiping God for his favor, his kindness, his greatness. David is very happy and he wants to share with everyone his joy, as he sings, dances and heralds the greatness of the LORD, his God, inviting everyone to join him in his joy.
The Psalm starts:
1 Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
Sing, sing, sing to the LORD, he tells three times.
Songs are poems composed with vivid language put into music. When you sing your emotions are awakened. When you sing you express with words the way you feel. Singing engages your feelings, your creativity, your logic, your passions. You sing with your heart, you sing with your soul, you also sing with your mind as your brain processes the lyrics your mouth articulates. When you sing several of your senses are involved, your ears, your mouth, your eyes. There is nothing like songs to express your deepest, most intimate feelings.
And this Psalm is calling you to sing, sing, sing. Sing to the LORD.
And what do we sing? We sing to the LORD a new, fresh song. This speaks of the importance of having musicians and composers who regularly write new songs to worship the LORD. We sing old, profound, timeless songs, but we also sing new songs composed and written by young people who have a fresh desire and passion to honor, and exalt the LORD with the gifts and skills God has granted them.
That is why I am so grateful for Ben and the members of the band, because they have this passion. So a special message of encouragement for you guys: keep working, keep creating new songs. Go deeper in your theological, biblical understanding of God, so that you compose hundreds of songs that exalt and proclaim and tell about his glory, his majesty, his splendor, his worth, his power…
But it is not the musicians or the members of the band only who are called to sing.
Sing to the LORD, all the earth!, says the second sentence of verse 1. That is everyone in the whole world! Singing to God is not confined to a group of people or to a geographic region. We should sing in Gaithersburg, and in Maryland, but also in California, Texas and Michigan. Songs must resound in South America, Europe and Africa and Asia and all the way to the end of the earth. Sing to the LORD, all the earth!
Also, praise to God is not confined to humans, as we will see later. However, human beings have a special ability to speak, to communicate through words, to organize ideas and thoughts into powerful expressions of worship put into music that move our emotions and affections, and that is one important way to worship God, we sing to the LORD!
Verse 2: “Sing to the LORD, bless his name”. That means we praise his name, we kneel down bending our knees in adoration as we bless his name. Verse 8 calls us: “Ascribe to the LORD, the glory due his name”
Notice in the first 3 sentences of the Psalm, the name LORD is written with all caps. LORD is the divine proper name of God. It is literally Yahweh or Yehovah. That name is what is known as the Tetragrammaton, the four consonants of the ancient Hebrew name for God. The Jews considered it too sacred to be spoken aloud. That name is translated in our bibles as LORD.
That is the name we praise, He is the god we sing to. It is not a generic god, it is not a general superior force. We sing to Yahweh, we sing to the LORD, we sing to a specific, majestic, omnipotent, singular, unique, unparalleled being, we sing to the only true God, Yahweh, the LORD.
And what should we sing about? Second sentence of verse 2: “Tell of his salvation, from day to day”
We proclaim the good news of his redemption. We herald, announce how he saves, how he delivers, how he frees the captive, the slaves, the oppressed.
3 Declare his glory among the nations his marvelous works among all the peoples
If you read this Psalm as an Israelite there are some keywords, some key expressions here that would bring to mind the day that Israel obtained its independence from the Egyptian yoke. They recall God’s salvation, the glorious way God saved them. They remember the marvelous works and signs of Yahweh, and how he defeated the powerful Egyptian king, Pharaoh, who kept them captive and oppressed. The liberation is so epic, the event is so significant that it is remembered and written about for centuries. In fact, the LORD’s salvation from Egypt is strongly fused with the identity and the history of Israel forever.
Now let’s think about that for a moment. Today is August 6. In my home country, Bolivia, August 6 is Independence Day. Just like in the US, we celebrate the 4th of July, in Bolivia they celebrate August 6 as the day of independence.
Long ago, the Spaniards had crossed the ocean and had dominated by force and conquered a big part of Central and South America. They exploited, abused and oppressed the locals, and took away silver and gold and many other riches. With time a revolution arose in South America led by Simón Bolívar. After many battles and the sacrifice of many lives, finally the songs of freedom started resounding one country at a time. August 6 is when Bolivia declared its independence, and it was named in honor of the Liberator, Bolívar.
Now, can you imagine how much relief, joy, hope and celebration the citizens of these countries experienced, as they proclaimed their independence after centuries of oppression? Oh picture the happiness and ecstasy these people felt when they were finally free. Imagine how grateful they were to Bolívar and all the leaders who had fiercely fought for their freedom.
Back to Psalm 96, when David and the Israelites sing to the LORD, they look back in time, they read their Bibles, they remember, they tell their children and they recount the marvelous, glorious works of salvation of Yahweh, their savior, their champion, their deliverer, their LORD, and they celebrate him as their LORD and savior with joy, with gratitude, with passion.
And they do that among whom?
3 Declare his glory among the nations His marvelous works among all the peoples
Declare and proclaim and shout about his glory among the nations, tell about his saving acts among all the peoples.
You and I did not experience the marvelous works of liberation from Egypt. But that salvation was just anticipating a much larger event, a cosmic, universal, extraordinary act of deliverance, the salvation of the world, the deliverance from sin.
You and I have been joined, grafted into God’s people. We, who believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have been saved from slavery to sin, we have been freed out of darkness and given a new life to worship him. So we now can join David and the people of Yahweh in their worship and their call to tell, proclaim, herald and announce his glory and his marvelous works of salvation. Just like them, we get together and sing, and shout and rejoice in his salvation. We get together and recount and remind each other of the glory and the works of our LORD. And we also are called to tell the nations and all the peoples about who he is and how he saves.
We are called to tell Americans, and Bolivians, Peruvians, Brazilians, Canadians, French and Russians, Indians, and Chinese. We declare to everyone, every nation and every people about his glory, about his marvelous, powerful, redeeming act of salvation. Not only among Christians, but also among Muslims, Buddhists and atheists. All the earth needs to hear about God’s marvelous work of salvation through faith in his Son.
When?
2 Tell of his salvation from day to day!
We cannot keep silent. We do not religiously meet every Sunday and do our duty for 90 minutes, and forget about it the rest of the week. Oh no! What the LORD has done and his glory is to be told every day, day by day, day after day. We sing on Sunday with all our hearts and then we wake up on Monday, and jump out of bed and say: “wow! Today! Tell of his salvation today, declare his glory today! Speak of his marvelous works today!” And we do that on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, Saturday, and on Sunday, oh glorious Sunday, we get together again and we sing together again
Why?
4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
6 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
The whole world, including you and me, need to hear day by day: GREAT is the LORD! He is surrounded by splendor and majesty. Power, omnipotence, strength and beauty are in his sanctuary where he dwells.
He is awesome, majestic, infinite, glorious, extraordinary, he is GREAT, he is GREAT! And he is greatly, abundantly worthy to be praised, adored and worshiped.
4 He is to be feared above all gods!
9 tremble before him, all the earth!
When we sing to our LORD, we sing with joy and gratitude, with reverence, fear and terror! What a combination!
Oh yes, we should not fear those who can kill and destroy our bodies, we should fear the one who can destroy our bodies and our souls in hell, we should fear and tremble before him. He is loving and kind, merciful and gracious, but he is also holy and just, righteous, omnipotent and strong, and by no means will he clear the guilty and the sinner. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31).
He is to be feared above all gods. Do not fear the gods of the Egyptians, do not fear the gods of the peoples, do not fear the gods of the Babylonians, the Greek, or the Romans. Do not fear curses of witchcraft, do not fear voodoo dolls, do not fear Buddha, the stock market or fanatic terrorists, they may touch your body, they may even kill your body, but as soon as you die you will be with your savior, while they will have to give an account of every single evil act they did, and they will pay for each of them. Fear the LORD, for he is to be feared above all gods
5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.
Buddha cannot hear you, Allah, Ra, or Mother Earth, they cannot act or do anything to save you. They are worthless idols, who do not have ears, or eyes, or hands. They are man-made false idols who cannot save. When you are in big trouble or need or chronically sick, money, politicians, science and technology have limitations, self-esteem and positive thinking can take you only so far.
But there is one who created the heavens and the earth, there is the one who made galaxies, planets, the black holes and the stars. And he is the one who sustains them today by the word of his power. He is the one who granted you breath today, he made your heart have the strength to pump through the night, he gave you the ability to come to church today and he can take any of those privileges at any point. He is omnipotent, glorious, strong and great, he can save and condemn, he made the heavens and the universe out of nothing and sustains the world every single microsecond of its existence.
10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.”
We are called to tell all the nations that he is the one who truly reigns, he is the sovereign one who rules the universe.
The world is established, not because the world has accumulated so much wisdom through time, and has evolved to the point of knowing how to behave, conduct and preserve itself. It is not that inanimate cosmic dust randomly exploded and all resulted in magical self-created wisdom, oh no! The world is established and shall never be moved because God sovereignly created and sustains it.
Young and old people, do not buy into the deceitful, empty and false belief that the universe made itself with no intervention of a supreme, intelligent, omnipotent being. The fool says in his heart: “there is no God”. Secular science with no God in view is just another worthless idol made by proud, foolish men who resist God, not realizing that it is God who gives them life and the neuronal power to develop scientific myths that deny him. But he is coming to judge them and us all with equity.
While we have the noble call to sing to the LORD, who made the heavens, who established the world, and who preserves it. The LORD who reigns and who will judge the peoples with equity.
But we are not the only ones who worship the LORD, it is the whole creation that is glad and rejoices, that roars and exults in their creator:
11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; 12 let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
The sun, the planets, the stars, the galaxies and the comets, black, dark, invisible matter, they all are glad in the LORD, the whole planet earth rejoices. The oceans roar, the waves break with unstoppable power singing their song to the King, all that fills the sea also joins in adoration, the whales, the sharks and the dolphins, the manta rays, the jellyfish and unknown creatures that dwell in the depths of the waters, they all hail the king, the fields with colorful flowers and beautiful, green fields, they all exult in their creator, all the trees in the forest join the symphony, and sing for joy.
Why? What are they so happy about, why are they so excited?
13 for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness.
They rejoice, they are glad, they sing for joy, because the Lord is coming, he is coming to judge the world with equity, righteousness and faithfulness. Not like human kings, politicians and presidents. The Lord will bring to earth his kingdom of justice, equity, righteousness, faithfulness.
King Jesus came to inaugurate the advent of his Kingdom, and he died and rose again, and will come back to consummate and establish his kingdom on earth forever. And while we patiently wait for his return, we sing, tell, proclaim, announce and herald his greatness, his glory, his worth, his salvation and his righteous judgment until he comes back.
A few weeks ago I got food poisoning. I got very sick for a few days. For two nights I spent more time in the bathroom than in my bed, while my body was violently fighting to get rid of the demonic microorganism that was causing my misery. I think I lost 8 pounds during that week. Looking back, the event was not that dramatic. I never had to go to the Emergency Room, although I thought I could end up there. I also thought: “I’d rather die in my bathroom than wait to be treated at the ER”. You know, under those circumstances, your brain starts losing the ability to reason with clarity. For instance I also felt that I was at the gates of hell. I am not kidding you. Just the next day after the worst was over, tears rolled over my cheeks in gratitude to God, for saving me, not only from the sickness, but more acutely from hell.
I just felt I had this momentary illustration of how horrible hell will be. It will be orders of magnitude worse, it will be miserable and hopeless and will never come to an end. The experience gave me renewed urgency to tell others that rejecting Jesus will have extremely tragic and irreversible consequences. So, if you have not put your trust in Jesus as your savior and Lord, please consider my plea, humble yourself before God, and accept his gracious offer of salvation through faith in his Son. If you have questions, please talk with someone today. Today is the day of salvation!
At the same time, my heart was filled with gratitude for Jesus, who gave his life and suffered in my place so that I never will have to experience the horror of the reality of hell. I never was worthy of his gift, and I will never be, but how sweet was the day that I heard his voice calling me by name and when he opened my understanding of my desperate need for him. He saved me, he freed me, he rescued me, he loved me, he died for me.
As I survey the wondrous cross where the king of glory died in my place, my heart is filled with gratitude, with awe, with joy and a desire to sing, sing, sing to my LORD, to tell of his salvation from day to day, to shout and declare his glory, to say GREAT, oh how GREAT are you, LORD, you who were slain in my place are worthy to be praised, are worthy of honor, adoration, reverence and praise forever and ever.
It is my prayer that while God gives me breath, while he makes blood flow in my veins, I will have the desire and strength and joy to bless his holy name and praise him until he comes back to judge the world with equity, righteousness and faithfulness.
Let us now stand and worship our LORD, for he is worthy to be praised