A Song of Invitation

Psalm 98 When you get to book four of the Psalms, you've approached the nature of the Psalms, the lowest point of the Psalms at the very end of book three and so when you come to book four, it is God's stepping back in.
It is God's kingship that rules and reigns and so it is in many ways the story of Psalm 90 through 100 106, the renewed story of Israel.
You have the poetic retelling of Israel's journey.
In Psalm 90, you have Moses's intercession, just like Israel needed Moses's intercession when they were in slavery to Egypt.
In 91, you have the proclamation of the future king of David from David's line in 92.
You have a review of Psalm 1:2.
and Scots in Psalm 92 recalling retelling calling Israel back to obedience to the Lord and a thirst for his word.
In 93 you have the Lord being exalted on a throne that is mightier than any other throne.
95 you have the admonition for us to do better than the wilderness generation did in Psalm 96 You have the Israel and all the nations are called to praise him.
In other words, book four is just a recapitulation of all the story of the Old Testament.
Psalm 97, as you heard Brent preach last week, you have in some ways in 97 you have Sinai retold.
And in 98, you have the command to sing a new song, a song of praise.
And we'll look at what that means.
If you'd be willing to stand with me for the reading of God's word, if you're willing and able from Psalm 98, a Psalm.
Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things, his right right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.
The Lord has made known his salvation.
He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth.
Break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody with trumpets and the sound of the horn.
Make a joyful noise before the king, the Lord.
Let the sea roar and all that fills it.
The world and all those who dwell in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands.
Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but God's word stands forever.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God, you may be seated.
Please, Father, would you take these words, these precious words from Psalm 98 and would you massage them into our heart?
For the children in the room, Lord, would you help the Bible to come alive to help them learn what it means to sing a new song, to understand what that means and to joyfully see these moments of grace in their life.
And Turn to you in stunned praise.
We pray all these things in Jesus name.
Amen.
How many of you have been watching the World Cup?
I see some hands.
This week, did you see that Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick?
You see that one of you, that means somebody scored three goals in a single game.
That's what a hat-trick means.
So, the FIFA World Cup is in the US and it's a big deal.
They're meeting in Kansas Texas City and Dallas and San Francisco Bay.
There will be all over the US they're playing these games.
And the nations are coming to the US.
And when when Lionel Messi scored his third goal, somebody texted me and they said, "Did you see that?" And I could, you know, I imagine this person who was texting me was sitting there on the couch and they just had to share the news.
Did you see that?
And so I got to have this moment of what sociologists Call collective effervescence.
It's a big 50 cent word that means like a shared sense of harmony.
It's the thing that you experience when you shell out all of that money to go to concerts or to go to the football games or to go to the World Cup.
It's when the whole crowd like strangers who don't know each other are like hugging each other and kissing each other on the cheek and high-fiving each other.
It's like this this collective effervescence.
And that is something of what Psalm 98 is trying to get into our hearts.
Because when the psalmist says, "Sing a new song." He's not saying we'll write a new lyric as though it's novel or something that is fresh or contemporary.
He is saying, "Sing of the moments of God's grace in your life, when they come afresh as often as they do.
Because the truth of the matter is, we long for this kind of sense of shared joy in the world.
We long to sing new songs.
And it's not that you're necessarily depressed.
It's just that so often you're pretty flat.
You are very joyful.
And And our lack of joy in the Christian life is not a lack of hearing, it's a lack of seeing.
It's a lack of seeing.
What is the new song?
How are we to sing the new song?
Why should we sing a new song?
And where are we to sing it?
And so this song breaks down this idea of a new song in these four ways.
It tells us what it is in verse one, it tells us why we are to sing it in verses two to three.
It tells us how to sing it in verses four to six and then it tells tells us where to sing it.
In verses 7-9.
So, would you join me wherever you are, oh fathers, even if you feel relatively flat on this day, would you allow the beauty of your savior to break in by his spirit and to show you that you have a reason to sing a new song, but to get there, you have to first see what is it.
First one, what is a new song?
Sing to the Lord a new song for he has done marvelous things.
First of all, a new song is a response to life's encounter with grace.
A new song as a response to life's encounter with grace.
In the Bible, new songs are not fresh ideas or new lyrics or contemporary tunes.
A new song is re-articulating eternal truths in light of a fresh experience of God's grace.
A new song is a response to life's encounter with grace.
The ancients understood this.
The Greeks had Hymns to Apollo.
The Romans had panegyrics, these formal speeches in praises to others, often to emperors.
The Egyptians had these hymns and hieroglyphics in praise of the created order.
What is that?
It is like a It is not just a religious thing, it is a human thing to have a longing for this collective effervescence, this shared sense of singing something that's new and fresh in light of what God has done for us.
A new song as a response to life's encounters with grace.
In Psalm 98, the newness is not novelty.
It is a new awareness.
It is not hearing.
It is seen the work of grace in your life afresh.
But it's not just an encounter with grace.
A new song is a freedom song.
The language of verse one is an echo of the Exodus, which is where you read of the first new song.
Remember in Exodus chapter 15, way back when they come out through the Red Sea, Miriam, they take the they take the instruments, they take from the Egyptians when they plundered them.
And Miriam sings a new song and you can hear the similarities.
His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation.
That is Exodus language.
Exodus 15 says, "The floods covered them.
They went down into the depths like a stone.
But your your right hand, oh Lord, glorious and power, your right hand, oh Lord, shatters the enemies." When the psalmist is saying in Psalm 98, you know what God did back then that some of you say, "Oh, I wish he would do that again.
I wish that he would take me through the Red Sea.
I wish that he would show me a miracle that was just so impossible to ignore that I would see how much he loves me." And you know what?
He has.
He's done it through the finished work of his son on the cross.
And when we walk into worship every week in this building, will see little waves that are in the wainscoting in the north ex.
Little waves that you walk through into this room through the waves to remind ourselves that you are new Israel.
You are the one who can say, yes, yes, some of you have been healed from cancer.
Some of you have been saved from an extraordinarily difficult family's life, family life.
But every single one of us have been liberated from something far deeper.
Sin and ultimately death through the work of Christ.
Hallelujah.
I wonder if you know that song.
Some of you here are skeptics.
We are so glad you're here.
And you sing songs of career advancement, you sing songs of good families, you sing songs of all the suburban hymns that just get so hackneyed and boring and old.
And you've grown dull also in your joy.
And here in Psalm 98, I know it just seems like words on a page, but by his spirit, he is showing you a new song.
It's not just about hearing.
Don't just hear my words.
See the beauty of what Jesus has done because he took on upon himself our judgment on the cross.
And we as a result by faith in him are covered in his righteousness.
So that when our father Looks at us, our heavenly father, doesn't see us in all of our sin.
He sees the righteousness of his own son because we are covered in we are in Christ to use Paul's language in the New Testament.
And that is worth singing about.
A new song is a response to life's encounter with grace and it is also a freedom song.
It is echoing the Exodus because God has brought you through the red sea and I wonder if you have up.
eyes to see it.
Our chorus is the king has come, the king has won, and the king will come again.
You know, there was one of us who read Psalm 98 one time, and he did write a new song.
His name is Isaac Watts, and we sing his song at Christmas, and we're going to sing it at the very end of the service.
He read Psalm 98 and it inspired him to write joy to the world.
The Lord is come.
Let Earth receive her king.
Let every heart prepare him room, not just us, but let heaven and It's not just a Christmas song, friends.
It is a Psalm 98 song.
It is a new song to sing when you experience a fresh encounter with grace and it is your liberation song because it is true.
I wonder if you have ears to hear it and eyes to see it.
Secondly, why should we sing a new song?
Verses two and three, the Lord has made known his salvation.
He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nation.
Worship is a response not to some encounter.
Worship is not a response into lathering yourself up into some emotional state.
Worship is a response to objective revelation.
God has revealed himself to us.
It says, look at these in in Hebrew, these are present verbs with past action with continuing effect.
His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.
The Lord has made known his salvation.
He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nation.
He has remembered when you think you're forgotten.
He He has remembered his hessed, loyal, faithful, love to the house of Israel and not only Christians, not only his covenant people, but all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Why should you sing a new song?
Because friends, he didn't have to.
But he reveals himself himself to us.
And you see that chiefly in the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you see him precious as he is?
Do you see that Christ, about whom Psalm 98 speaks, was the one who was revealed in flesh for us.
Who lived a perfect life that we could not live and he died a sinner's death that we deserve to die though he himself was without sin.
That he stood in our place And he died for you, not for the person next to you.
He died for you.
He knew your name.
And he loves you so much that if you had been the only person that has elected in time or space, he would have come just for you.
That's how much he loves you.
Sing a new song.
A new song is a fresh encounter with his grace.
It is a liberation song.
Why should we sing it?
Because God in his grace has revealed shield himself to you if you have eyes to see it and believe it.
See it in the finished work of Jesus.
How should we sing a new song?
Well, it says twice.
It says, "Make a joyful noise." Do you see where it says that twice?
Once in verse four, lower your eyes to the text and look.
And then again, in 6B, the second part of verse 6, make a joyful noise.
That means literally to cause a shout.
To shout, make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth.
You know what that really means?
I can practical terms, it means you should throw more parties.
There is an article that I read this week by a woman, her name is Ellen Cushing.
And And she writes an article entitled Americans need to party more.
We're not doing it as much as we used to and you can be the change we need.
And she says that the in-person socializing has dropped sharply in the last decade and anxiety and hopelessness have climbed.
Many of us report that we have no close friends and many others say that they have friends, but they never see them.
And you can see how this happens.
She writes the logistics of modern life feel impossible.
online, uh, the, the, the article captures the moment.
She says, could you just imagine like what it would do for you if you could show up on a Sunday and find a few hundred of your friends in the same building.
Written by a non-believer and she articulates the beauty of the church.
Don't you know that every Sunday we have 52 parties in this church.
Where we sing a new song to the finished work of Jesus.
And we want our children when they're older to say, I don't know if I want to go to a church and you say, "Would you want to go to a party?" Yes, I want to go to a party.
And he teaches them that we are throwing a party because we are singing a new song for the finished work of Jesus.
Hallelujah.
This is what makes church.
Church.
It is not all the whatever it is that you're going to fill in the blank in that sentence.
It is the fact that you come to celebrate his finished work for you and some of you it it's okay if you don't feel like celebrating.
We're not going to manipulate your emotions in this church.
We are going to invite you to party with us.
Because no matter how you feel deep, there's a deep joy that goes beyond your your circumstances, beyond where whatever goal you may have failed to meet stands, there is the joy of the Lord that Christ died on the cross for our sins and he rose again on the third day.
And we are going to preach that week after week after week after week until you don't just hear it, but you begin to see it.
And seeing it, it begins to change your life and it begins to bring the joy, the deep sense of joy, as Louis says, the joy beneath all the happiness.
The reverberating joy into the whole of your life because we're called to sing a new song.
It's a fresh moment of grace.
It's a liberation song.
We sing because God has revealed himself to us verses two and three.
And how do we sing it?
We make a joyful noise.
The first way we sing this new song as we throw parties.
I would encourage you in your community group this summer.
Some of you aren't meeting and that's okay, but if you are, don't you don't need to have an agenda.
Just throw a party.
Some of you are quite good at throwing parties and sometimes you need to rest from throwing parties, but others of us need to grow in the skill of throwing parties.
And so we need to be able to just celebrate, open your doors, and invite people in to be normal in your house.
That may sound like a very secular non-churchy thing to say throw a parties, but I mean throw the right kind of parties.
Where you are just overwhelmed with God's goodness and grace to you.
I mean, do you recognize?
I know you spend so much of your time comparing yourselves to others, but do you recognize that you are in the top percent of the world in terms of resources and materials?
Do you recognize that?
Let me invite you to go over to Juarez, Mexico.
Let me invite invite you to go to Erie and Jaya.
Let me invite you to go across the world so that you can recognize how much the Lord has given you.
Throw a party and sing.
I shared this article with someone who was quite young and they would go, "That article was for the boomers and for the Gen Xers because we Gen Zers can't even afford to buy a house.
How do we throw parties?
You'll figure it out.
And also we are here to help.
you.
And I recognize that the generations that are coming up may not have the same material gifts that those who were older might have.
But you know what?
The church is still the church.
And we provide and care and long for each other and by the way, just a shameless plug for all the deacons in the room to remind you that there are resources in this church to help you when you need it.
All you need to do is ask.
And it is our joy.
Some people give faithfully give the deacons fund, so that you can be able to provide for the needs of your family and we do so with joy.
It's a picture of the book of Acts coming back together again.
So you should throw parties.
And the second the second way that you can learn how to sing a new song is you can be thankful.
I was reading the old Puritan Thomas Watson's book, a godly man's picture this week as a way to think about training our elders and our deacons in the future and Watson wrote this book in 1666 and there is a portion of his book where he's describing what the godly man looks like and when he gets to a godly man is thankful.
It's like he just couldn't put down his pen.
He says that if we are prizers of Christ, we are thankful that we prefer him and our judgments before all other things.
If we are prizers of Christ, if we hold him up as our prize, then we will not complain about any pains it takes to get him grateful for what he has given to us.
If we are prizes of of Christ, and we will take great pleasure in him and his finished work for us above all the pleasures of the world.
If we are prize of Christ then we will part with our dearest pleasures for his sake.
If we are prize of Christ and we will think that we cannot have him at too dear a cost.
If we are prize of Christ and with gratitude, we would be willing to help others to do whatever it takes to get a part of him and hear the gospel.
If we are prizes of Christ, then we will prize him in our health and in our sickness.
And I wonder if you if Watson were here, I wonder if he would look at you and say, "Are you Yes, you.
You're a prizer of Jesus." Because a new song is a response to a fresh moment of his grace and new song is our liberation song.
We should sing it because he has revealed himself to us.
How do we sing these new songs?
We make a joyful noise.
We celebrate.
We invite people into our homes.
We throw parties.
We are incredibly grateful people.
And where do you sing a new song Glasly verses 7 to 9?
It says, let the sea roar and all that fills it.
The world and those who dwell in it, let the rivers clap their hands.
Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord for he comes to judge the Earth.
Where are we to sing it?
We are to sing it to the People ought to think of this church and think that's a church of all the ways they describe us.
That's a church that knows the joy of the gospel.
There's such levity.
Yes, they know their theology, but they don't show that theology.
They show their love.
There's a levity and a joy, the way that they disciple men to send them out to be church planters.
The way that they continue to resource and equip people in Tulsa to have a gospel world view.
There's a sense of joy about them that captivates.
us, so we want to be a part of that.
Where should you sing it?
You should also sing it right into the face of judgment.
What do you mean sing it into the face of judgment?
We are to sing this new song into the face of judgment.
Because for those of you who are not in Christ, judgment is a very fearful thing and it should be for you will be judged for your sin.
But if you are in Christ, we can sing it into the face of judgment because Jesus Christ was the one, the perfect one, who is the judge and yet he was judged on the cross for us.
Jesus took upon himself our judgment.
So that now when we see the term judgment, we can sing into judgment.
We can say, "Lord, you are the The only one that can satisfy my deepest affections because you are the one who was judged in my place.
And we can sing into judgment because some of you who have been so deeply hurt are able to sing into judgment because he will come to make everything right.
It says he will judge with what's the English word he says at the very end of the Psalm equity.
Total objective fairness.
And that the only way that he can do that is because he himself who did not deserve to be judged, took the crushing judgment upon himself for you.
And so if you're here today and you think of God's judgment with fear and dread, I want to invite you to sing a new song because there is a liberation song for you through a fresh moment of grace.
That in God's providence he is called you here in this very place to hear the gospel through Psalm 98 pointing us to the one who was the new song to the world in flesh and who sang the new song through judgment on the cross to liberate us so that we who were doled by the world's beating and treachery might be able to say, "Shout, sing to the Lord for he has done it." Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
So, joy to the world indeed.
The Lord has come.
Let Earth receive her king.
Let every heart as you come to this table prepare him him room and let heaven and nature sing.
Let's pray.
Father, would you help us to see the beauty of your son and to be reminded again in the joys of a shared sense of belonging that we in your church might find our deepest needs met through the finished work of Christ who took upon himself our our judgment.
May we see in the beauties of general revelation, of your beauty in nature, our longing for the special revelation of the revealing truth that you came to live a life, Lord Christ, that we could not live and die a death that we deserve to die.
And as you come to this table, we pray that you would help us to do so along with all of heaven and earth.
All of nature, we sing and celebrate and join in this party.
We pray these things in Jesus name.
Amen.

Sermon transcript is computer generated.