For our first Sunday of the new year we return to our devotions on the Psalms (see Nov.2012 for the last devotions on the Psalms), considering Psalm 100, one of the most simple and well-known psalms but also one of the most beautiful and precious. It is one our children commit to memory early in their lives, and it is good for all of us to hold in our minds and hearts. Let’s put it before us before making a few comments on it:
Psalm 100
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3Know 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.
4Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him,and bless his name.
5For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
We will also notice immediately its appropriateness for worship. Its title is a “psalm of praise” (or thanksgiving) and Psalm 100 is in fact a joyful summons to worship the Lord. That call to worship the one, true and living God goes out to all nations and peoples: “all ye lands”, states v.1. For as the previous “royal psalms” (93-99) have declared, God is King of the entire world, not only the church. His absolute sovereignty stretches to all lands and embraces all peoples of the world. Though only His elect people, saved by grace in Christ, respond to this call to worship, yet all peoples owe the divine King praise and thanks (see Romans 1:18ff. too).
Note too according to Psalm 100 that our worship is to be joyful and glad (vss,1-2). Praise to the Lord is our duty but it is also to be our delight. We need that reminder, as often we come to the worship services half-heartedly (or less!) and with reluctance instead of rejoicing. We look for ways to avoid God’s courts instead of entering with gladness. And rather than having a joyful song in our hearts, we often have mouths filled with grumbling. Let us read slowly and carefully what the inspired psalmist calls us to do in our worship in vss.1-2.
And we will worship with joy and gladness when our hearts are filled with thankfulness (v.4). Our worship has to be rooted in a grateful spirit, such that we remember all that God is to us and all that He has done for us, and with thanks in our souls we praise and bless Him! The psalmist even helps us by setting the basic grounds of thanksgiving before us in v.5. Have we forgotten that the Lord is good? That His mercy is everlasting? That his truth (faithfulness) endures to all generations? Then let us reflect on that, be thankful for that, and enter God’s house today with glad and grateful service to Him!
The kind of worship God desires from us is so simple and clear. And yet it is so difficult for us. May we enter God’s gates of praise with conscious faith in Christ and in humble dependence on God’s grace this day.
If you desire to meditate further on this psalm by listening to a versification of it, you may find three (3) such versions on the Psalter page of the PRC website. Below is #268, the much-loved song set to “Old Hundredth” and taken from the Genevan Psalter. Click on the title below to hear a piano accompaniment.
268. Thanksgiving and Praise. Psalm 100. L.M.
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell,
Come ye before Him and rejoice.
Know that the Lord is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make;
We are His flock, He doth us feed,
And for His sheep He doth us take.
O enter then His gates with joy,
Within His courts His praise proclaim;
Let thankful songs your tongues employ,
O bless and magnify His Name.
Because the Lord our God is good,
His mercy is forever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure.
And if you wish to listen to a more majestic version, listen to this video of the Choir of King’s College Cambridge accompanied by organ and trumpet.
