Gladness, His, Baa

"Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!

Serve the LORD with gladness!

Come into His presence with singing!

Know that the LORD, He is God!

It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture." Psalm 100:1-3

Since the beginning of the year my church has been memorizing passages of Scripture together through a program called Fighter Verses.  This week's passage is Psalm 100:1-3 so my wife and I have been reciting this around the house trying to commit it to memory because we're a bit behind when we normally have a passage memorized.

Today we've said this passage a lot and Joshua (our 22 month old son) has been listening.  In fact, he has a knack for picking out a few words when someone talks.  This Sunday during the sermon he picked his three key words: "look", "God" and "hope".  Those words were a pretty decent summation of Pastor Jonathan's forty minute sermon.

Joshua's words he spoke aloud from Psalm 100:1-3 were: "gladness", "His" and, before you think he's a theological prodigy, "baa".  The first two words he likes to repeat are worth diving into.

Gladness

This word is a major theme of this short passage.  We are to "serve the LORD with gladness!"  We "make a joyful noise to the LORD" out of the gladness overflowing in our hearts at the thought of Him.  We are to "come into His presence with singing!"  We are to be people that delight in God and are full of gladness.  We are not to be singing robots.  We aren't to be serving out of a feeling of duty.  NO, we are to be full of gladness.  Christians are to be people full of happiness at the thought, the presence, the sight of the LORD.

His

What makes us glad?  I would argue that the whole earth can make a joyful noise at the thought of God simply because of who He is.  Simply the fact that "the LORD, He is God!" gives the world reason to rejoice.  Diving into the attributes of God should ignite our hearts to praise, but I don't think that is the ultimate source of gladness in this passage.  The reason why we sing and make noise and serve with gladness is that we are His.

We are His.  First, He created us.  He has creative ownership over our lives.  But there is something more than that.  We are His because "we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture."  God has adopted Christians into His fold, into His pasture, or to mix analogies, into His family.

Look at our Fighter Verses from a couple of weeks ago:

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Fathers hand.  I and the Father are one." John 10:27-30

We are overflowing with gladness and rejoice because we are His sheep.  The knowledge that the LORD (read Yahweh when you see all caps), the God of the universe, the personal, living God, the triune God has us as His.  This is what causes us to be glad.  If we are not His the thought of His existence and coming to us inspires screaming rather than a joyful noise.  But we are His and we can be glad because of it.

If you searching for joy.  If you are fighting the Winter blahs and feel as though you have no reason to be glad, remember what my God and my son say.  If you are an adopted child of God the Father through the death and resurrection of Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, then be glad.

Ponder this and be filled with overflowing gladness that you are His today.