Praising God

       Psalm 100

¹Make a joyful noise to the Lord,

     all the earth.

²Worship the Lord with gladness;

come into his presence

with singing.

³Know that the Lord is God.

It is he that made us,

and we are his;

we are his people,

and the sheep of his pasture.

⁴Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him, bless his name.

⁵For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.

Today, we have Psalm of Thanksgiving or Hymn of Praise.  As you might imagine, many of our psalms fit this category, and Psalm 100 is a short, elegant poem steeped in theological implications as it informs us the essentials of praise.

First, please note that the psalmist uses seven verbs to begin the phrases that invite us to praise the Lord.  Seven is one of those magic numbers in the Bible.  We talk about the seven days of creation.  Seven denotes completeness.  If this is a psalm that tells us how to praise God, by using exactly seven verbs, the psalmist is trying to tell us this is what you have to do, this explains it all, this is what it means to praise God—do these seven things, leave nothing out, then you will get it right.

A Make

B Worship

C Come

D Know

c Enter

b Give thanks

a Bless

Make a joyful noise: jubilant cry of celebration, acknowledging God as sovereign, as Lord; note that God claims all the earth, not just Israel.

Worship the Lord with gladness: in Hebrew, the word worship, literally means to serve, or be a slave to; to worship God means to serve God; again to acknowledge Lord as master, sovereign

Come into his presence with singing: come into his sanctuary

Know God.  By placing “know God” in the center of the Psalm, the writer adds emphasis.  This is focus of the psalm and what it means to praise.  To know someone, in the Biblical sense, is to know them intimately, and the word often is connected with sexual intercourse.  So knowing God is about intimacy, about a personal relationship, about love.  To know God is to know that God made us; we are the Lord’s—we are God’s children; we belong to the Lord, like sheep belong to a shepherd.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise: enter sanctuary again—this is where God’s business is conducted, God’s justice, where the Lord is worshiped and served

Give thanks to him: not only an act of gratitude but a public acknowledgement of loyalty—you are showing who your heart belongs to

Bless his name: an act of assigning God the capacity for well-being.  We do something similar every time we say Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done.”

Note the processional quality of the hymn

Note the connections between A and a, B and b, C and c (similar verbs)

The last verse of the psalm sums up the reasons for praise:

God is good

God offers steadfast love (hesed, sometimes translated mercy)

God is faithful

This is who God is.

So what does this say to us?

First off, you have to worship God.  God wants us to worship him.  Do you think the psalmist thinks you can be Christian by simply praying or getting away to nature?  “I don’t need the church; I can be Christian without going to church.”  Absolutely not.  As followers of God, we must gather to praise him—worship is very important.

To praise God is to worship him, to serve him, to know him.  All that we do, all that we are, must testify to the glory of God.

At the heart of this psalm is that to praise God means to have that intimate, personal relationship with your savior.  The psalm talks of having a complete dependence on God, but also a complete trust.

Ron Trimmer is pastor of Hope United, a new church in Georgetown, Texas.  Click here to visit Hope United’s website.