Psalm 98
Anybody who knows me at all knows that I love music.
Ever since I was a young boy at the ripe ole age of five I have been a
music lover to the core. Music has always played a vital role in my life. For most of my teenage and early 20’s years I
was involved in performing music in one sense or another. Even today I like to twiddle around on the
guitar a bit. I tell you this because
in today’s Psalm we are going to venture down the road of praising God through
music. Many times when we refer to
praise and worship in the church we are speaking of the music aspect of a
worship service.
Music has played a key role in the modern church service.
Why is that? I personally believe music
is a form of expression and a way of communicating in ways we can't naturally communicate. This is made
perfectly clear throughout the Psalms.
The word Psalm itself means “song”.
There are 150 songs in the middle of your Bible that are various forms of
expression and of praise and worship towards the Almighty God. Singing songs was and remains an
important part of the believer’s life both in the Old and New Testament. Time spent together
singing praises to God is a beautiful and holy gathering because this is the one
time where we can truly open our hearts to God and proclaim with an unadulterated
heart how great, mighty and awesome He is.
This
brings up the question then, if praise and worship (or the music aspect of a
church service) is such a vital part of the assembling of believers, then why has it been a point of contention in the church throughout the centuries? This seems like a silly question since
praise and worship is intended to unify the body of Christ but in more recent
years has been a major driving force in dividing the body. I will admit it is not necessarily the
act of praise and worship which is dividing but the root of the division falls
in the category of personal style and preference.
We all have a personal preference of style of music we enjoy and
prefer. I DO NOT like country and western music at all.
I am more of a product of the 80’s where I like my music a little
heavier and a lot less twangy. Does this mean
that I believe one cannot praise God in country and western music? Yes it does!
I am kidding of course. No, as
believers we can praise God with any style of music… even country and
western. I think the Bible (and the
Psalms in particular) is clear in setting up guidelines for praise and worship
and they are as followed
1)
It needs to be done with a joyful heart.
2)
It needs to be genuine and heartfelt.
3)
It needs to be done.
Unfortunately
in this day and age I am seeing less and less praise and worship done this
way. As a pastor and a participant in
the church setting I sometimes wonder if there is any joy in praising God at
all. Please don’t take that to be a
criticism in any way since I am not here to make anyone feel guilty at
all. If anything my goal is to help you
be free in praise and worship to God.
Today we will look at Psalm 98 and hopefully glean something from it
pertaining to our hearts and attitude towards praise and worship through song.
Psalm 98
Psalm 98 is one of
celebration of the Kingship of God through music. You may or may not know this particular
Psalm was the inspiration behind Sir Isaac Watts hymn “Joy To the World”. It is broken down into three parts
- God’s people singing praise to God for salvation
- Inviting the world to join in on the praise
- Creation joins in on praise for the righteous judgment of God.
Vs 1a: “Sing to the Lord a new song”… First off the Psalmist invites the people of
God to sing. In this passage we are not only
called to sing but we are called to sing a new song. This does not necessarily imply that the song
needs to be a fresh composition (so there is no need to write a new song every
week and it certainly doesn’t mean that we should always sing fresh new songs
all the time); but it may mean that we are to sing a song in response to an
experience of God’s grace. We are to
sing with a new heart.
Vs 1b “For he has done marvelous things…” The second part to this verse tells us why we
should sing this new song because God has done marvelous things. God always does marvelous (extraordinary, far
surpassing, great acts) things and should continually be praised for them.
In this particular song God is to be
praised for his right hand and holy arm.
This is symbolic for God’s salvation.
Right arm represents God’s strength and power and his holy arm
represents His intervention. Through
God’s almighty power and intervention salvation is attained.
In the OT salvation generally refers
to God intervening in battle and saving, delivering or bringing victory to the
Israelites. God saves them from their
enemies.
In the NT salvation means victory over
spiritual powers. God has wonderfully
intervened on our behalf through Jesus Christ and has given us victory over
death and evil. This is a great cause
for us to sing about and celebrate.
Salvation is not done by human means,
or in an ordinary way. Salvation is
through an unprecedented manner.
Vs. 2 -3: God has
revealed or uncovered his salvation for all to experience. He has done this for his righteous name
sake. He showed his power in salvation
to the Israelites and then He made his divine power of salvation known to the
gentiles. In God’s mercy (steadfast
love) He brought salvation to Israel. He
made a promise to the nation that He would be their God and they would be His
people and God remembers his promise.
As a result of God’s faithfulness the nations have seen this marvelous
work of salvation.
Vs. 4 – 6: The response
is an invitation for all of humanity to join in singing this song of
celebration. They are not called to joyfully make a noise to the
Lord. “Joyful noise” – shout, war cry, a
shout of triumph, to shout in applause - to the Lord.
The Psalmist encourages the use of
instruments to praise God. Play your
instruments with heartfelt joy and complete praise to God. The use of instruments in music is not
intended to be a time for the musician to show off his talents, but is
genuinely to play with all he has to the Lord with joy. Perform for an audience of ONE.
Vs. 7 – 9: Israel is
singing about Gods salvation, the human race is joyously making a noise because
of salvation and now creation joins in with the beautiful song of praise and
adoration to God. Creation is rejoicing
at the coming of God to righteously judge and rule the earth and set all things
right. Creation rejoices because God is
a fair and just judge and this time will be a wonderful time of renewal.
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