Pray: that Jesus be exalted and that we would be filled with great joy before the marvelous things that He has done

[Psalm 98] Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things! 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 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.

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. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.

Tonight we’re bringing our “Sing to the Lord” series to a close as we look at Psalm 98. If I were to give you a short summary of these three Psalms I would say that in Psalm 96 we see the urgent and happy response before Christ’s coming, and in Psalm 97 we see the seriousness and power of Jesus over all enemies, creation, and religious systems in His coming, and then in Psalm 98 we see absolute gladness filling the world because He has come, and rules over the world. To summarize it in musical instruments I would say Psalm 96 is like a trumpet as it’s call goes throughout the world, Psalm 97 is like a tuba thundering low before the coming Storm of Jesus, and Psalm 98 is like a flute that is free and happy and almost playful in tone. There are songs of joy, seriousness, and pure gladness surrounding the scene of Christ’s return, and it is this kind of joy and seriousness that I’ve been praying the Holy Spirit would form in you through these passages because we’re not just simply to be observing these affections; the aim is that we would share in these affections. And I just want to spend a few minutes before we dive in to tonight’s text talking about these affections…

When we opened the series I led off with these words from C.S. Lewis, “There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious.” Would you not agree that to some degree you know what he’s talking about as we’ve studied these Psalms? Or if you haven’t experienced this, you can at least see where he’s coming from right? Now I think that this kind of happiness and wonder that makes one serious is the result of being a Christian, and it is something that we are to grow in. Christianity shapes and transforms every part one’s being. It is inevitable! As we walk with Christ we not only go where He goes, but we start to mimic His stride, copy His words, share His joy, feel His heart and live in a serious way. This means that the more we look to Jesus, the more we will have the emotional make-up of Jesus…and this is something we need. Now you may wonder why a serious happiness is something that is needed as Christians, or the result of being a Christian. Well, I would say that a serious happiness is needed because Jesus demands that we worship Him in “spirit and truth” which basically means we are to worship Him in a head-strong, heart-felt kind of way, and if we’re to do this then we need a different kind of happiness, one that keeps emotion and reality in check. It’s easy to have emotions that run away from truth and become light and meaningless, and it’s easy to have knowledge of the truth in our heads and no heart-felt joy in that truth. So, in order to worship Jesus in the way He demands, we need to be happy and we need to be serious. We need a happiness that makes us serious and we need a seriousness that aims for exclusive happiness in Jesus.

So this serious happiness is the result of being made into the image of Christ, which means that Jesus is both serious and happy perfectly. You see, I don’t just want us to be serious and happy so that we’re different from the world, I want us to grow in this so that we’re more like Jesus and therefore more human in the process. To see this glory of Jesus’ happiness and seriousness we need to see Him in the most serious moment in the history of the universe, the cross, and we need to see that in this moment He was set on joy. Hebrews 12:3 says, “…for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” It was joy that led Him there, the joy of glorifying the Father in the salvation of sinners, and it was joy that kept Him there in the midst of awful shame, the joy of destroying the curse, and sin and Satan. You see, Jesus’ happiness made Him serious, and He was serious about happiness and I don’t know about you, but this kind of emotional make-up is exceedingly attractive. I want this! I want to be have such a joy and happiness in Jesus that it makes me blood-earnest in all I do and I want to be serious about happiness in Him, not settling for cheap and passing pleasure and not letting you all settle either.

So by seeing Jesus both happy and serious, what God is doing is revealing the excellencies of His own nature, and through that, is attracting us to Him and transforming us to be like Him. I don’t know if you all know this, but seeing the glory of the Lord, is what changes us into the image of Jesus. That’s why it’s so important we gaze at His glory. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” The promise is this: if we at the serious and happy glory of Christ we’ll have it! We will have it! So when Lewis says, “There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious.” He’s saying, “The kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious is seen in Christ and if you look to Him you’ll have it.” And that is why David was the kind of worshipper he was, that’s why he sang and danced unashamedly…he was consumed with the glory of God and was transformed. In everything, his one desire was to behold Him in His glory and as a result David worshipped God head-strong and heart-felt.

We need to nail this down so let’s expand on this, follow closely here or you’ll get lost…Let’s look to God...

God is Serious and Happy
You don’t get a singing and joyful universe without a God who is both serious and happy. Psalm 98 doesn’t happen if God is not both serious and happy and as a result serious about happiness. Let me show you how this works…

First, everything is serious to God. Everything. And it is His seriousness that protects our happiness and works for it. For example, because God is serious about death and the removal of sin that ensures the greatest happiness imaginable will be realized. Where there is no sin there is pure happiness (which means God is the most happy being in the universe), which if you turn to Revelation 21:4 you’ll see how God’s seriousness ensures our happiness. John writes, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Do you see it? All the barriers to happiness are removed: death, mourning, crying, and pain. The former things pass away that the new may be ushered in and remain forever. So everything being serious to God means that He deals with things with the right force and perfect precision so that happiness in Him is secured.

Second, the happiness of God is forever. Now this is something we don’t understand very well because when we think of being with God forever we actually never get out of the initial arrival stage. Think about it: when we think of eternity with Christ we think of sin’s removal, death’s defeat, songs of joy, global worship, transformation into the image of Jesus, sensory overload, and in truth, that’s only as far as Scripture takes us so we don’t go any further. The Bible in many ways is simply an introduction filled with glimpses into the real Story that will last forever. So grasping this kind of forever happiness is hard, and we struggle with this kind of happiness because much of our kind of happiness is so short-lived. It is constantly being interrupted, to use our earlier term, by “former things” which unfortunately are now, present things. It always seems like we are planes who can never quite take off…the moment we’re ready to fly something breaks or a storm comes and so our happiness never reaches it’s glorious end or actually beginning, however you look at it. So to understand what it will be like in flight with Christ is something that we just don’t have the capacity for, but that doesn’t mean we settle for light happiness. We should seek a heavy, God-like happiness and we should seek it in Him!

Therefore We Must Take Happiness Seriously
Let me ask you a question: when was the last time that God Himself made you glad or just made you smile? When the joy you found in Him made you think that your face would be stuck in a permanent grin? When was the last time you read the Scriptures and laughed in the wonder of Christ? If these moments are few and far between it is not the Truth that is failing to make you happy, the issue is that you don’t trust the Truth to make you exclusively happy. And as a result of not trusting the truth of Jesus for lasting happiness you search out happiness in places and in things that will only satisfy for a few moments, and you’re never happy. So the issue for us in that condition is that we’re not taking happiness seriously. We have ignored the commands in Scripture to be glad and rejoice in God and we have as a result grieved the Holy Spirit. You see, a failure to be happy in God and to take happiness in Him seriously is sin. Now you might have never thought about this, the truth that God commands you to be happy, and to be happy in Him! He has exclusive rights to your joy. And amazingly and graciously He directs us to Himself where and only where we have true joy. Jesus is the source and end of all joy and to find it anywhere else (which you can’t) is sin and death.

Let me show you something in Deuteronomy 28...I want you to see that God promised punishment for Israel’s failure to be glad in Him. Pick up in Deuteronomy 28:45-48 “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and statutes that He commanded you. They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything.” You see that? Joyfulness and gladness of heart matter greatly to God, so to ignore your emotions and your affections for Christ and to not seek a serious happiness in God is great and grievous sin. Now, knowing that, don’t you think we should take happiness seriously? I do.

And to cultivate this kind of happiness, won’t come by trying to work it up through sad stories, repetitious music, or any other way of working up our emotions…it will come as we meditate and learn the truth of our great Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and with that let’s get into Psalm 98 where we see the result of ecstatic joy and worship before the truth of the reigning King!

The Future Setting of This Song
Now as we’ve done in the other Psalms, I’ve sought to give you a future setting of when these songs will be employed by connecting some of the images to future events and here I want to do the same. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t sing these songs now, but that we should sing them in view of the future reality and when that future reality comes then we will understand our songs more fully.

The future setting of this Psalm seems to be somewhere after the last battle with the kings of the earth, after the defeat of Satan, after the judgments, and before the new heavens and new earth is completely established. It’s almost as if this song is sung as the city of God comes down out of heaven, which is the picture at the beginning of Revelation 21 when we read, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared, (This a fulfillment of the promise of Jesus in John 14:2-3 when he says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” Well, this is Jesus coming good on His promise!) as a bride adorned for her husband.”

So this seems to be an appropriate scene for Psalm 98 and the reason why I say that, is the past-tense nature of the first 3 verses in this Psalm, the world-wide seeing of the salvation of God, the absence of idolatry like are present in the other 2 Psalms, the praise party of verses 4-6 and because of the joy of the created order in the last 3 verses, almost as if the world is again becoming what it once was, but now better because the curse of sin is being lifted, and Jesus is coming to rule over His people with righteousness and equity.

So here is the happy scene of this Psalm…I want you to picture yourself there in that moment and O how I pray you will be there with Jesus in joy and not in Hell weeping and gnashing your teeth looking to escape eternally from the fire but finding no relief. I pray there will be singing for you and not screaming! And so that means that this moment, this time, and what you do with Jesus now matters infinitely! And if you have Christ…this Psalm will be your song. Let’s look at it in three parts: 1) The Theme of Our Song 2) The Expression of Our Song 3) The Theater of Our Song

1. The Theme of Our Song (v.1-3) Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things! 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 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.

The reason why we’re singing is that He has done marvelous things. These are wonderful, astonishing, and extraordinary things. What He has done has no parallel, it is unprecedented. So what are these marvelous and wonderful things that have become the theme of our song? Let me ask you another question, what word is used the most in these three lines? It is the word “salvation.” Salvation is the marvelous thing and all that is included in it. Now the word here for “salvation” carries the idea of “victory” and this is significant for understanding what we’re singing about here because now we are singing about a completed victory. The Lord has won the battle! The sword that has come from His mouth and struck down the nations and all His enemies, has now been put in its sheath! The white horse that He rode upon with blood to its bridle has now been cleaned and put in the stall! The triumph over Satan and his hosts has been complete and now they are left only to grovel in defeat in the torment of hell forever and ever! But that is not all that is included in this salvation. No, the cross has not just secured the overthrow of Satan in the end, but it has also secured the complete overthrow of sin.

We talk about our deliverance from sin in 3 stages:

1) Deliverance From Sin’s Penalty: This victory has already been accomplished on the cross when Jesus became sin and a curse for us, the penalty of sin is death and Jesus died our death that we might live forever. We still die, but death is transformed for us is now as Paul says, “Gain!”

2) Deliverance From Sin’s Power: This victory has taken place and is continually taking place in us. The power of sin over us has been broken. We are no longer under it’s mastery, we have a new Master, and we have the power to say no to sin and yes to righteousness.

3) Deliverance From Sin’s Presence: Now in some degree we are now being freed by sin’s presence in our lives through a process called sanctification, but there is no way in this life that sin’s presence will be destroyed, we need resurrection, we need to see Christ, we need glorification, and that’s what is coming and that will be the last victory…the last victory is the victory over sin’s presence when it will be completely eradicated from our bodies, our minds, our words, our thoughts and our hearts! And this is marvelous isn’t it?

And this will be the theme of our worship! We will forever sing about the Lamb slain who has conquered through the shedding of His blood upon the cross! This theme will never wear out and we will never tire of singing of it!

So salvation and the marvelous things of God is the theme of our song, and next in verses 4-6 we see…

2. The Expression of Our Song (v.4-6) 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!

A) Our Song is Joyful: Our worship on that day will be pure joy. There will be a happiness there that we can scarcely imagine here. Joy is the expression of those who have seen a great salvation and it will be the forever expression of the people of God in Zion. In our Master’s joy there will be joy and it will be uncontainable.

B) Our Song is Loud: So not only will our songs be joyful but they will be loud! It is a joyful noise we will give with our lips and with instruments! It will be a noise unlike anything you can imagine! God is not a God who likes it quiet, there is always a noise around Him, whether it is the thunder of His voice or the unceasing worship of the angelic hosts, but here there will be a noise sounding out from all of the redeemed, as every tongue sings His praises with all that is in them!

C) Our Song is Beautiful: Our song there will be beautiful as well, melody and music will fill the earth. Can you imagine what the heavenly orchestra or band and choir will sound like? It will be beautiful! That is the only way to describe what will be there! The best song we have ever sung here will sound nothing like what we will give there. And the reason why it will be so different is this…

D) It is Before the King: There will be no distractions, there will be no pressing into His presence, we will live in His presence and we will be like David, before the King, the Lord! Now we’re scarcely ever exclusively before the Audience of One, we’re so distracted, but there distraction will be impossible, and even if it were possible we would only be distracted by other manifestations of His glory!

So salvation is the theme of our joyful, loud, and beautiful song, and now let’s look at, number 3…

3. The Theater of Our Song (v.7-9) 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. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.

The reason why I’m using the term “theater” is because it is the way that John Calvin would refer to the universe in the Institutes. He would say that it is the theater of the glory of God, because if you wanted to see the glory of God and be entertained by it then to do so you would need to go to the theater, which is the universe. Here in the last stanza of this song we see a joyful universe a universe breaking out in song with the world and all those who dwell in it! There is music and joy from the Pacific to the Atlantic, from South Asia to Northern Russia, to the South Pole and to the North Pole, on the tops of every mountain to the bottom of every valley, across every plain and in every river. There is nowhere that you can turn and not hear the voice of praise and singing to the Lord! We will see His glory and it will not be mistaken! The curse of sin will be completely reversed!

So here we see a sea that is roaring, but not with disaster. There are no Tsunamis, and storms and tidal waves that wipe out homes, and swallow ships and drown little children. The fallen sea that is frightening is no more…this sea roars with praise to God and makes its own music with the children of God before the Lord.

Next we see rivers that are no longer flooding their banks and flooding homes and killing crops and wiping out bridges, these rivers are not out of control like a runaway train but these rivers travel their course and when their waves splash along the banks or upon the rocks, they clap in beat to the majesty of Jesus! They move in response to the Lord!

Next we see the hills, and these are not mountains and hills that break in landslides or mudslides or send rocks hurling down their faces like awful tears, but these mountains are moving and swaying and singing with joy together before the Lord! It is if they are rising and falling like a great choir in song!

This is a picture that we can faintly see and comprehend! It is of a new world where righteousness dwells and where there is peace and where the glory of the Lord covers the earth as water covers the sea! In every direction the world is responding to the Lord, and with the joy of the children of God! I had read somewhere, I think by Spurgeon, that when we are happy everything else seems to be happy as well. The hills seem to be alive and we see everything with joy and nothing annoys us. When we’re happy we don’t run out of the rain, but sing in the rain and when the wind blows through the trees we hear music and are not scared and when we see grass blowing over we see it as if it is bending over and grabbing its belly in laughter. Well, when the reign of sin has been overthrown completely and the Righteous King is reigning in righteousness this is how we will see the world, and it won’t be in a passing way! Everything will be alive with joy and it won’t just seem that way…it will actually be that way!

The prophet Isaiah gives us a glimpse into this theater of our song, when Christ reigns in righteousness, when he writes in Isaiah 11:5-9 “Righteousness shall be the belt of His waist, and faithfulness the belt of His loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Do you notice something here? Do you notice the innocence of the created world? There is no memory of fallenness here. The wolf and the lamb don’t know they are enemies, but they dwell with one another. The wolf’s mouth doesn’t salivate at the sight of the lamb and the lamb doesn’t run at the sight of the wolf…they just dwell with one another. The same goes with the leopard and goat, and the cow and bear and we see that the lion isn’t eating meat, but eating straw side by side the ox. Also notice that the infant is playing over the hole of the cobra without fear, and without the child’s mother grabbing the child for it’s own safety, neither the mother nor the child have any fear of any animal. Mankind once again has dominion over all the animals of the earth. The world has been transformed…everything is new, there is not even a hint of the curse and our memory of the fallen world has been erased as we experience the Master’s joy and what’s the difference? The earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord! All of creation now lives and breathes the breath of God and walks in the light of the Lamb and knows nothing but the glory of God and all is right and all are joyful!

Most of you are familiar with Isaac Watts hymn “Joy to the World” but what you probably didn’t know is that it wasn’t written in view of Christmas, it was written out of Psalm 98 and I want to close with verse 3, and it says this…

“No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as the curse is found.”