The Incomparably Awesome Judge

 I haven't written on this blog in a while.  I wrote for my brothers and I have been working on a sermon.  I was given the honor of team preaching this morning with a great man named Dan Bolin.  Below is the manuscript of that sermon.

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The last time you were thrilled with God in a worshipful moment, what thrilled your soul? Maybe this was on your own, or at Grace group, or at camp, or hopefully right here in this room. But what stirred your heart into a glowing fire? 

 When did you really enjoy worship in this room? Perhaps the singing or the prayers or the silence that you could hardly contain, or the preaching... what was it that made you so excited? I mean, have you busted out “How Can I Keep from Singing Your Praise?!” 

 And, why do we sing and play music at all? It's not for our entertainment, it's for the worship of God, but why do we do this? Why when I got to the edge of the Grand Canyon did I want to be silent and then burst out in a verse of How Great Thou Art? Why when I first held Gideon did I get the chorus “God is so Good” stuck in my head? Why when the great athletes at the Tokyo Games run or swim faster than we’ve ever seen do we shout “Did you see that?” or “Wow, that’s amazing!” or why do we ascribe the greatness of a local American Ninja Warrior on Facebook? 

 Today we'll look at Psalm 96. Psalm 96 is the middle of a set of psalms that celebrate the kingship of God. Psalm 93 through 99 invite us to focus on God as King and to sing and praise. Let's read it together, because we are promised that there is power in the reading of God's Word. 

(Read Psalm 96) 

 If I were to put this psalm into one sentence it would be this: Yahweh is the incomparably awesome Judge of the universe so we happily praise Him and implore all nations to join us.” 

 Later Dan is going to help us look at what we do and how we do it, but I want to ask, “According to this psalm why is God worthy of our worship?” There are two answers I want to share from the text. 1) God is incomparably awesome. And 2) Christ will come to judge the world. 1) God is incomparably awesome.

(Read verse 4-6)  

Yahweh is great and greatly to be praised. He is awesome and worthy of our praise. This fact is juxtaposed with the other gods. The psalmist uses a clever pun to help us see this. He writes, “the Elohim are elilim”. In Hebrew Elohim is the more generic word for god; while elilim is the word that means “worthless, useless, futile.” The psalmist is saying all the “gods” are “ungods”. But Yahweh made the heavens. 

Our God created the heavens. He is the infinite creator. Everything you can see and everything you can’t see was made by His Word. All other gods are ideas or objects made by objects of creation. The other gods are ultimately pointless whether they are made of wood, stone, bronze, silver, gold or paper. 

 Why does this matter? Everyone not worshipping the one true God is wasting their time. Don’t get me wrong, as far as our government is concerned, I am all for religious freedom. I want all religions to be treated fairly under the law and I want freedom of religious expression, but that does not make all faiths equal. All objects of worship outside of the worship of our God is at best, at best, a pure waste of time. Muslims, Buddhist, Hindus, Taoist, and pagans of all kinds need to know: great is the LORD and greatly to be praised. 

 But Matt, I don’t have much interaction with people who are of other faiths. Humans all worship something, whether or not they call it worship. Here are some other worthless gods: academic success, athletic success, economic success, sexual conquest, political power for our party, fun, and the like. Think about it. You see people all around you sacrificing to these gods. Sacrificing time, money, energy and relationships to these idols that the writer of Ecclesiastes labels “meaningless”. These are all worthless in comparison to Yahweh and we know scores of people bowing down to these empty idols daily. 

 The world is searching for something absolutely wonderful and we know what it is. 

In comparison to the ungods all around us, our God is worthy, not worthless. In contrast to all the other things to which we ascribe glory, our God is most glorious and awesome. I found myself worshiping at the sight of the Grand Canyon. God made the Grand Canyon. I remember standing there and the words I uttered when seeing the tiny looking Colorado River was, and Christine can attest to this, “They think that made this?” The world sees majesty and worships the power of erosion! Even if it were erosion from that blip of a river that did that, and that may very well be, who gave erosion its power?: God. The idols of the nations are pieces of wood or stone. Our God made the Grand Canyon with the power of His Word. 

In verse 6 the psalmist personifies Splendor and Majesty to walk into the courts before Him and Strength and Beauty themselves to worship Him in His sanctuary. Yahweh is powerful. 

Think of Isaiah chapter 6 when he sees the vision of Yahweh in His glory. Woe to me, I am a man of unclean lips and I live amongst people of unclean lips. Think of the flying creatures and the elders and their unending worship of Yahweh. 

God is incomparably awesome and worthy of all praise. Throw away all the impotent gods and run to praise the omnipotent God. 

 2) Christ will come to judge the world 

(Read verses 10-13)  

Judgement Day is coming! 

Does that thrill you or scare you? I’ll venture to guess it sounds scary. 

Well, the psalmist sings that judgement is good. Judgement, in this sense of the word, is God coming to set the world right. My kids have The King Jesus Storybible. The book tells the story-arch of the whole Bible to kids in one sitting. It’s wonderful and I recommend it. But the way this children’s book says it is: Jesus comes to make the world right and good again. 

Is the world right and good now? Listen to the news, read the headlines. This world isn’t right and good.

What are some of the world’s problems that worry those in our communities whether or not they believe in Jesus? Violence? Fascism? Communism? Tornados? General chaos? Evil seemingly getting its way? Climate change? Racial inequity? 

The list of the things that we look at and scream, “This ain’t right!” is long. You have to wait on test results to find out if there’s cancer in you. That ain’t right! Steve was in a car crash and was banged up. That ain’t right. Amara has to use a walker as a child. That ain’t right. We had to go to the basement to hide from a tornado. That ain’t right. Some of you have buried spouse and children. That ain’t right. My baby won’t let Christine sleep at night. That ain’t right. Some of you have family members with diabetes. That ain’t right. Too many of you have fractured families. That ain’t right. Let’s go beyond our congregation. The Uyghurs are in concentration camps in China. That ain’t right. A pandemic has disrupted the whole world. That ain’t right. Drug dealers exploit addicted people. That ain’t right. Girls are being sold around the world as sex slaves. That ain’t right. Black and White, Left and Right, Men and Women can’t live in peace. That ain’t right. 

There’s a lot that just ain’t right. 

But friends, we have the good news! 

Christ the righteous Judge is coming! He is coming to make the world right and good again. The earth and all that is in it will be perfect. 

When Jesus comes back cancer goes into the lake of fire and the Devil goes with it. Steve, there’s no car crashes on the New Earth. Amara will run and skip any time she wants. Diabetes won’t exist. Families will not be separated by lack of love. Children won’t need foster care. Tornadoes won’t destroy. Death itself will be dead. People won’t be sold or tortured and every race, tribe and tongue will live as brothers and sisters and sing praises to the King of kings. And I expect babies will sleep through the night. 

 That’s why we sing my favorite 2nd Coming song Joy to the World! 

 “Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King.” 

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns! Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy."

And my favorite verse that is sadly skipped often:

"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."  

Christ is the King who will come back to judge the earth. Romans 8:22 says the whole creation groans as it waits for the culmination of the Gospel. In this psalm we see the heavens themselves being glad. The earth itself is personified as rejoicing. The sea is roaring with praise. This is significant because to an ancient middleastern person the sea represented chaos and everything wrong, yet here it is in line praising its creator and judge. The fields are celebrating. Even the trees of the forest are singing. This makes me think about how Jesus said if the people didn’t praise Him the rocks would. 

The universe can’t wait to stop its groaning. Jesus is coming to make His creation what it should be. 

(Read Isaiah 11:3-9)  

(Read Revelation 21:1-5)  

This is reason to celebrate. But why now, when the world is still ugly? 

Our faith requires us to find joy in this future hope. For who hopes for what they already have? 

Let me tell you about my grandma. My Mimi lived a rough life. She was orphaned. As a young girl she was raped by a midnight intruder. Her adoptive parents divorced. She married an abusive alcoholic who cheated on her constantly and beat her and her daughters. She raised foster kids from broken homes. She died a relatively young woman. She had many reasons to be as bitter as Naomi in the book of Ruth. But throughout her life she sang and whistled hymns. She knew nearly every verse to every hymn in our Baptist hymnal. 

You have to wonder, what kept her singing? What keeps a person who lived a hard life praising? She picked one song for her funeral in the notes she had made for a day she knew would come. It was Bill and Gloria Gaither’s classic “The King is Coming”. The knowledge that the King is Coming can keep us praising our coming King even when life hurts. 

The LORD is incomparably awesome and worthy of our praise. And Christ, the perfect King, is coming back to set this place back in order. Does that thrill your soul? Does that make you want to sing, declare, ascribe and shout? 

Let me read you some more lyrics and ask you a question? 

Do you feel the world is broken? I do. 

Is all creation groaning? It is. 

Is a new creation coming? It is. 

 See, the psalmist is going to tell us some things that we must do and Dan is going to help us see what that is in a bit. But Grace family, I have a very important question for you before we get on to looking at what this psalm commands of us. 

 Is He worthy? 

 Is He worthy of this?