Psalm 96:1-13
Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth!
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts!
Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth!
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.”
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord, for he comes,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
and the peoples in his faithfulness.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The psalm for Sunday, October 22, is Psalm 96. Oh Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord bless his name. Tell him his salvation from day to day. declare His glory among the nations is marvelous works among all the peoples. For Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the people are worthless idols. But the Lord made the heavens, splendor and majesty are before him. strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the LORD or families of the peoples of Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength, Ascribe to the LORD the glory, do his name, bring an offering and come into His courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness trembled before him all the earth, say among the nations, The Lord reigns, yes, the world is established, it shall never be moved, he will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar and all that fills it. Let the field exalt, and everything in it, then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord for He comes, for He comes to judge the earth, He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness. Here ends the reading. The Zone begins, oh, Sing to the Lord, a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth. Now often when people see this in the Psalms, they see this passage Sing to the Lord a new song as a call to sing new kinds of worship songs. But if you look at the Bible, the places where it says Sing to the Lord, a new song, it does this when when God does a new kind of thing in his salvation history. And so we see this parallel being done in the book of Isaiah before our the reading that we had, for the Old Testament for this same Sunday is a couple of chapters before Isaiah 45. Isaiah says to sing to the Lord, a new song, about the salvation that God is going to deliver through Cyrus and we see coming up that Cyrus is going to save Israel. And that calls for a new song because it's a renewed salvation event, thing to the Lord, a new song. That means when God does something new, we sing in a new way about that. And that can be using the old songs, but also new using new songs, especially we can see that in the salvation we have through Jesus Christ is that all things become new. And we have come up with so many new songs and new ways of talking about Jesus since the day he ascended into heaven. It continues, Sing to the Lord bless his name, tell of His salvation from day to day, declare His glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. One of the great ideas about singing these new songs, these these new salvations is to share the message that God is truly the one who's in charge, that our God is God and not all the worthless idols as a talks about. One of the reasons Isaiah pointed us to Cyrus was to show Cyrus and the rest of the world, that it is truly God and God alone, the one the father of Jesus Christ and and the one with the Holy Spirit. He is the only one who has control who has power. Everything else is worthless. And so this the song that we're singing extols the majesty of the only God who has power to save. The next section begin to this Ascribe to the LORD or families of the peoples Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength, describe to the Lord the glory, do his name, bring an offering and come into His courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness, tremble before him, all the earth. When we sing our song, what do we do? We Ascribe to the LORD the glory to his name. Now, one of the ways that the Lutheran Church has always dealt with the praises of God is that we praise God not for his qualities, but for the things he does. And so if you Look through our hymnody we don't do so much like praising God for being all powerful or a mortal or wise or anything like that. Most of our praising comes by repeating the things he did does for us through Jesus. And so we praise the Father, we praise the sun was praised the spirit for the work they do, which not only gives us the ability to sing about what God has done for us, but it also norms our praise, so that it molded and reflects, and even teaches us why we love God so much. Because we don't love God because he's all powerful. We don't respond with joy to God, because he's mighty, or eternal. We respond with joy to God because He sent His Son Jesus Christ. And that's why we worship. That's why we praise. And so our praise in our singing is constantly about the work that God does for us. So that we can we can do our praise by reflecting what God has already given us. And that leads us into the next section where it says, say among the nations, The Lord reigns, yes, the world is established, it shall never be moved, he will judge the peoples with equity. The kingdom of God, is a big piece of what Jesus came to bring when he he comes in the Gospel of Matthew and Mark and Luke, after his baptism, he goes around preaching the kingdom of God is at hand. And that's what it means. The Lord reigns. Or if you're translating directly, Yahweh reigns. It means that God is in charge. He is the king over all creation. And we can rejoice in that, as it says, Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar, and all that fills it. Let the field exalt, and everything in it, then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord for he comes. For He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness. This, this closes with some prayer, prayer and praise. But it also talks about God's judgment. Earlier it says he judges the people with equity, and he judges in righteousness later and with faithfulness. What this means is that God judges with impartiality. One of the pain points of the prophets is that God blamed the judges and the kings, for judging people based on bribes is that the widows and the orphans were taken advantage of the wealthy got the justice because they could give money to the judges. And that was not equity, that was not faithfulness. We have to be careful that when we look at this we don't see is God has a preferential option for the poor because he doesn't do that either. He judges people based on his standards, and that alone, the rich, the poor, the wise, the foolish, all are equal before God and they are judged equally before he the standard of Him who is the King of all creation. And for us who are Christians, we rejoice that we are judged not based on what we have done, but on the faithfulness of Christ and His actions for us. That's the end of our reading for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai