Psalm 100. We'll do the whole chapter, all five
verses. Psalm 100. The superscription labels
this as a psalm of thanksgiving or perhaps a
psalm of praise is another way that the word
for thanksgiving could be interpreted there.
Psalm 100. Let's read through the text and then
we will pray and get started. Shout triumphantly
to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with
gladness. Come before him with joyful songs.
Acknowledge that Yahweh is God. He made us and
we are his. His people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts
with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his
name. For Yahweh is good. And his love is eternal.
His faithfulness endures through all generations.
Let's pray. God, we come to you and we thank
you for these words. We thank you for these good
songs that we get to sing. And I pray, dear Lord,
that we would praise you. And that we would thank
you. That we would not ever forget your eternal
love and your enduring faithfulness, dear Lord.
I pray, God, that you just... be with us in these
few minutes, that your Holy Spirit would be among
us, that you would help me to preach and teach
in a way that brings glory to you, that we can
leave here tonight rejoicing in you, dear Lord,
just as the song we just sung, the psalm we just
read, dear Lord, that we would be those who rejoice
in you in that way. And I ask these things in
Jesus' name. Amen. Now, as you could tell from
the last song that we just sang, it's pulled
very closely from Psalm 100. You see a lot of
that same language. Serve the Lord with gladness.
Enter his courts with praise. It's just a psalm
of thanksgiving and praise. But there's also
a call to action there. And that call to action
is not just to praise the Lord, but to serve
the Lord. And this is something that we see in
Scripture that God calls us to as he calls us
to serve him. Well, how do we serve the Lord?
Well, I think that the way that we serve the
Lord is by serving others. It's not that there
are things that God is right before us and we
do things. but we do things for God by doing
things for others, and Jesus is our example of
that. Now, it's getting close to the Easter season,
and maybe with Easter approaching, you're reading
some of those stories and some of those chapters
about Jesus in that last little bit of time,
and if you do, you'll remember right before Jesus
went and was nailed on the cross that he had
that last supper with his disciples. And you
may remember that he began to wash their feet,
that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, knelt down
and did the job of a servant. A servant is one
who serves others. A servant is one who considers
others as more important than themselves. Now
that's a pretty crazy thing for us to think about.
that a servant is one who considers others more
important than themselves, and that Jesus Christ
said, I did not come to be served, but to be
a servant of all. Now, he is the Son of God,
but he considered it more important to serve
us by giving his life on the cross so that our
sins could be forgiven than for him to live in
comfort. and to live pain -free, and to live
free of suffering. Instead, he subjected himself
to the suffering and the pain, and even doing
the dirtiest work. Jesus always did the dirty
work, so to speak. Jesus did not just sit on
a gold throne in the middle of Jerusalem and
bark out orders. Jesus was always boots on the
ground. It ain't no telling how many miles that
Jesus and the disciples that followed him and
all those that came after. There's no telling
how many miles that they covered day after day.
Jesus didn't just say, here's how you need to
do it. Jesus actively went out into the community
among the people and he fed them and he healed
them and he had compassion on them and he even
washed their feet. And this is our example. So
when we see calls like this in Scripture to serve
the Lord with gladness, one, are we serving the
Lord at all? And two, are we doing it with gladness?
Sometimes we can do the right thing but do it
with the wrong heart. I think it's possible for
that to be the case. And it's always better to
do the right thing than to not do the right thing.
But even better than that is to do the right
thing with the right heart. And to serve the
Lord with gladness. And not begrudgingly. Not
like oh I feel like this is what I need to do.
But I don't really want to do it. Well I would
never say just don't do it. I would say. Ask
God to help your heart to change so that you
would be one who serves the Lord with gladness.
And so maybe this call to serve the Lord with
gladness today as we come and as we sing these
songs and we look at his word and we praise him,
maybe this call of service today is something
we need to reflect on and we need to ask ourselves
and examine our life and say, am I serving the
Lord? Am I willing to do the dirty work? Am I
willing to go and reach the people that that
nobody else wants to have anything to do with.
That's what we see in Scripture, that Jesus associates
with the sinners and the people that the other
religious people didn't want to have anything
to do with. And they even call Jesus out. How
dare you associate with the sinners and the tax
collectors, those evil people. How dare you do
that dirty work. Jesus, you shouldn't be washing
my feet. But yet Jesus said, I have to do this.
And Jesus was showing us an example of what it
means to serve. And he continued that example
until he died on the cross. And that's the example
that we are called to follow. So what of us today?
Do we look more like Jesus or do we look more
like the people who nailed Jesus to the cross?
Because the people who nailed Jesus to the cross
were not really those who were interested in
serving the Lord with gladness. They were not
interested in doing the dirty work. They were
interested in doing the things that they wanted
to do. They were interested in being put on a
pedestal. They were interested in people looking
at them and saying, oh, you are so holy. But
what Jesus says, it's not about people looking
to you. It's not about you looking as though
you are above other people. It is about you humbling
yourself to become a servant of all. And so many
times there may be people in our life that God
puts in our path. That we could serve them in
some way. That we could help them in some way.
And it might not always be easy. It might be
scary. And we might have to get our hands dirty.
It might be out of our comfort zone. But this
is what Jesus calls us to. I suspect that it
was a little out of Jesus' comfort zone to be
beaten and to be mocked and to be nailed to a
cross. And yet he did it because of his love
for us. That's our example of service. So next
time we have that opportunity to serve and we
say, man, God, I'm too scared or man, this is
going to be too hard for me or this is going
to put me out of my comfort zone or whatever
excuse we come up with, let us turn our eyes
to Jesus so that we can see what it means to
serve. Let us ask God to show us the opportunities
that we have to serve and the people that we
encounter. And when we see those opportunities,
let us be those who serve the Lord. with gladness.
Let's pray. God, we thank you for this beautiful
psalm, just this beautiful psalm and the beautiful
song that we sang, dear Lord, that just shows
us and helps us to see that heart of praise,
dear Lord, to praise you with song. And we pray
that you would help us to be those who serve
you with gladness, that we would always keep
our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of
our faith, dear Lord. That like him, that we
would not be those who seek to be served, but
that we would be those who seek to serve others,
dear Lord. So I pray that you would help us to
see areas of service in our life. Let us not
come up with excuses as to why we're too good
to serve or somebody's too bad for us to serve
or it's too hard or whatever the excuse is, dear
Lord. We can come up with them, but none are
sufficient. If you give us an opportunity to
serve somebody, then I pray that you help us
to follow Jesus and do just that. We thank you
for Jesus and who he is. We thank you for the
love that he has shown for us. I pray that if
there are any that are here tonight or listening
online that do not know Jesus, I pray tonight,
God, that they know that he is a Savior who loves
them, who came to bring that compassion and healing
and deliverance to love on us and to serve us.
And he has done that. in the most perfect way
by giving his life on the cross. And I pray that
we would come to that realization, accept it,
and repent of our sins tonight. And I ask these
things in Jesus' name. Amen.