Summer Psalms 2026 – Week 1

Welcome to the Grove Bible Chapel. We are so glad that you're here today. My name is Randy, and I am one of the elders here at the Grove. And today, I get to bring you some truth from God's word. But before we get started, I want to join in what Pastor Scott was talking about earlier. I want to pause and reflect on what happened yesterday, a July 4th marking 250 years of American independence. Thank you. And as Scott said, our nation was founded on Christian ideas, and there are a lot of people that are going to try to tell you it wasn't, but just go look at the historical documents.

It's unmistakable. It's undeniable. And our country was founded on the blessing of liberty. If you go up to Pennsylvania, take a look at the Liberty Bell. You're going to see Leviticus 25:10 inscribed on it. It says, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." And our nation's journey is deeply intertwined with a reliance on divine providence. Check out this movie, "The American Miracle: Our Nation is No Accident," and you're going to see just a few of the many examples.

Our country was founded on, and it continues to be built on, the service of patriots. Freedom is never free, and there are many who paid the price. So we would like to acknowledge and thank those who have served to give us this freedom. So please stand if you have served in any of our armed forces. Please also stand if you have lost a loved one that was serving our country. Thank you. Today, we're going to dive into Psalm 100. This psalm is only five verses, but it moves us from a loud command to serve and worship, to the rock-solid foundation of truth, to the overflow of gratitude and praise.

We're going to see how knowing Yahweh drives serving Yahweh. Because when we know Him, we serve Him with joyful obedience and genuine gladness. And everything about our daily walk, including our prayer time, our service, our Bible study, and even witnessing to others, becomes a true joy and not something that we have to do. So please stand with me as we read Psalm 100. "Make a loud shout to Yahweh, all the earth. Serve Yahweh with gladness. Come before Him with joyful songs.

Know that Yahweh, He is God. It is He who made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him. Bless His name. For Yahweh is good. His loving kindness endures forever, and His faithfulness generation unto generation." And so let's go to our Father in prayer. Father, we thank you for giving us your Word so that we might know you better. I pray and I ask that you would give us understanding as we read your Word, as we study your Word.

And I pray that our time here together will give all of us a higher appreciation of you and the Word that you have given us. Father, I ask that you work in every life here, in every heart. Reveal to us anything that doesn't belong there, any thought, any attitude, any desire that doesn't honor you. Father, we want to come to you today. We want to praise you. We want to honor you. We want to glorify you. And we can't do that unless our hearts are clean.

So, Father, I ask that you wash us and you make us clean. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Our big idea for today: true praise and service to Yahweh flow from a clear knowledge of who He is as Creator and Shepherd. When we know Him, we serve Him with gladness, and we praise Him like David did, without inhibitions. Today's first point, our command, serve Yahweh with gladness. Our text begins, "Make a loud shout to Yahweh, all the earth. Serve Yahweh with gladness.

Come before Him with joyful songs." So who makes the loud shout? What's it say? All the earth. So that includes all of us, right? And who serves Yahweh? Well, that also includes all of us. And how does it say that we serve? With gladness. With gladness and joyful songs. Yahweh's not looking for grumpy obedience. And speaking of serving, here's a great quote that I've heard recently. It says, "Every single one of you who are a Christian, God has given you specific gifts from the Holy Spirit, specific ministries that the Spirit of God has designed for you to carry out within the framework of God's master plan."

But here's the deal. It is only when you are available to the Lord that those things come to fruition. Let me see. Where did I hear that one? I heard that one some-- Oh, that was here. That was Pastor Jason. That was last week's sermon. So if you missed that one, check it out. It's on our website. It was a good one. So I don't know how our regular pastors can prepare a sermon in less than a week. Me, takes me a little bit longer. So I told the elders back in February that I wanted to do Psalm 100, and I started working on it in March because the fact is this isn't easy for me.

It's not natural, it's not my vocation, it's not what I do. But when I remember who God is, it does indeed become a true joy, and I serve with gladness. But trust me, nothing I say here is possible without the Holy Spirit. In fact, I was looking over some of my notes, and I look like, "That's brilliant." It's like, I didn't write that. I don't know where it came from. So how do we serve Yahweh? Well, first, I need to tell you that church is not a spectator event.

And so let me rephrase that. Church is not a spectator event. So a lot of people today are concerned only about what interests them. They only pursue self-fulfillment. We expect to see that out in the world of the unsaved, but unfortunately, that's even creeping into the church, and it shouldn't be that way. Because the truth is we are all ministers. Since the church began, starting with Jesus's disciples, it has flourished because people were serving.

The church is a living organism where each one of us has a role to play and a part to fill. So we're going to look at four things that should motivate us all to serve. Number one, we serve because of the source of our gift. We've all received a gift, and the source of that gift is Christ himself. So we should therefore use our gift to serve his body. Let me show you what I mean. Ephesians 4:7, Paul tells us, "But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift."

When you became a Christian, you received the gift of salvation. But you also received another gift that's individually portioned out, and it is in accordance with the measure of Christ's gift. And scripture tells us how we are to use these gifts. 1 Peter 4, "As each one of us has received a gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." In Galatians 5, "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another."

The Bible's very clear. We are to use our gifts to serve one another. In Colossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men." So we are to use our gifts to serve one another, and we are to do it heartily, as for the Lord. So we serve because of the source of our gift. We also serve because of the cost of our gift. The price that Jesus paid was a brutal death on the cross, and even harder than that, separation from God when he took all of our sins upon himself.

It is the ultimate cost. So this is the cost that bought our salvation, and it's also the cost that paid for the gifts that we are to use to serve Him. So if the price of a gift that you receive is infinite, what level of importance should it take in your life? We serve because of the source, we serve because of the cost, and we serve because of the impact that our service has. When you use your gifts to serve, it builds up the body of Christ. Later in Ephesians 4 in verse 15, it says, "We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is Christ."

So this is telling us that everybody should be participating. You know Christ, when someone comes in here, they want people to see Him when they look at his church. And how does that happen? Well, it happens when all of the saints are doing the work of the ministry. We grow up into the unity of the faith. We grow up into the likeness of Christ. Now I want to show you something that's really amazing. I never really saw this before, but it kind of jumped out at me.

So are you ready to see this? So if you're ready, say I'm ready. I'm ready. All right. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 3:9. It says, "For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building." So did you catch that? Do you see it? We are God's fellow workers. We don't work for God, we work with God. And that's our fourth motivation. We serve because we are God's fellow workers. And these are just four of many reasons that we serve Yahweh with gladness.

So let me ask you something. What are you doing with the gifts that Christ has given you? Are you serving Yahweh? And if you're serving, is your service a true joy or is it drudgery? Use your gifts to serve the body of Christ. And our text says we need to serve with gladness. So in your daily walk, how can gladness change the way that you serve at home and at work and in the church? Gladness, it's actually a superpower, and it comes from remembering God's goodness, his faithfulness, and his steadfast love.

This is how our service stays joyful even when life is hard. And this isn't talking about circumstantial gladness. This is theological gladness because He makes us glad regardless of our circumstances. But we can't manufacture gladness on our own. So how do we get it? Well, it begins with knowledge of the true and living God, and this brings us to our second point. Our foundation. Know that it is Yahweh who made us. So back to Psalm 100, the first part of verse three.

"Know that Yahweh, He is God. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves." So let's take a minute. Let's look at that word know. The Hebrew here is yada, and it does mean to know, but it's not like the English concept of just knowing a fact. Yada implies a much deeper understanding. Yada also implies intimacy. This is the word that the Bible often uses to describe marital intimacy. So yada is relational, heart deep recognition. So when our text says, "Know that Yahweh, He is God.

It is He who made us," here's what it's telling us. Have a deep, intimate knowledge that He is God and He created us. There are many that are going to tell you that we are just a product of evolution, a random chance process that just happened to build something that's very complex. But as Romans 1 tells us, they do see the design in the world because it's evident and it's clearly seen, but they suppress the truth and they claim that we're just a product of a cosmic accident.

If that's true, if they are correct, then the Bible is wrong here when it says that Yahweh made us. So which one is true? Are we the result of a blind random process or did Yahweh indeed make us? Did He design us? So I'm an engineer by vocation, and I can tell you that I really love good design when I see it. And one place we see incredible design is in automatic watches. These are watches that don't have a battery. They actually use a spring to drive gears, and that spring winds automatically by movement in your wrist as you wear it.

Now, all of my watches have batteries, and this one that I wear most of the time, the manufacturer says, "Yeah, it's disposable when the battery won't last a full day." But here's an example of an automatic watch with some great design. The Patek Philippe Grand Master Chime. This watch has 20 separate functions other than just displaying the time, and they're all running by a spring that's moving gears. It has 1,580 parts, and it took over 100,000 hours to design and produce.

And it's expensive. It starts at three and a half million and can climb well past five million. It's very impressive. We're not giving one of those away at the end of the service. So I don't think that anyone would argue because when we see a design like this, we know it's very obvious there was a designer. There's no way it was some cosmic accident or random chance. But here's the thing. When you look into it, the design that we see throughout the human body is orders of magnitude more amazing and more complex than the design of any watch.

And it's the same when we see creation. When we see creation, we know there was a creator. And when we see information, we know that somebody created the information. So think about the last book that you read. Somebody had to put all of those words onto the pages in an order that made sense. So there was an information giver. It's the same thing with DNA. The information that is in DNA is just one of many examples that doesn't fit the everything came from random chance mantra So I'm just going to scratch the surface here, and then you will know that it is Yahweh who made us.

DNA is the codebook for life. It's what determines if you're a dog, or a cat, or a human, or even a plant. Bill Gates famously said about DNA, he said, "DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software ever created." He was speaking of how it operates much like the digital code in a software program. So DNA includes a set of instructions of how to build a specific biological life form one protein at a time, and it contains all of the instructions that are needed to maintain that life form throughout its life.

DNA is actually an information system. So what is that exactly? Well, to answer, who can tell me what this means? SOS. SOS. This is the international distress call, and it's spelled out in Morse code. How do you know what it means? Well, first you have to know the symbols, you have to know the syntax, and then you've got to be able to interpret those symbols into letters and words. Morse code is an information system. We use it to transmit information.

It has three elements: a dot, a dash, and a space. And those elements are arranged to represent letters, which can then form words, which can then form books. You could write the entire Bible in Morse code, and anyone that could read Morse code could read that Bible. But here's the question: where's the information? Is it in the dots or the dashes? If we just had random dots and dashes up there, would it mean anything to anybody? My point, what you see on the slide here is only carrying the information.

It is not the information itself. Because all language systems, all information systems are useless unless someone arranges the dots, the dashes, and the spaces in an order that can communicate specific information. It's kind of like Bill Gates' computer program. It's not the ones and zeros on the drive that make the code. It's the information that is contained in the specific arrangement of those ones and zeros by the programmer that makes the software work.

What we've observed, it takes intelligence to both create and to use an information system. It's the same with DNA. It's not the chemicals themselves that contain the information. It's the code and the sequence that's recorded in the arrangement of the chemicals. DNA is an information system. It's a programming language. And like Morse code, you can create books of information with DNA, but in this case, the book contains the instructions for a particular biological life form.

And if you look in the world around us, you can see that God has written many kinds of books in DNA. So DNA contains the instructions of how to build proteins. But here's a catch: proteins are required to assemble the DNA. So in the evolution model, which one of those came first? Well, they don't have answers, but we know that it is Yahweh who made us. So keep in mind, in the evolution story, you have to have the complete DNA information system in place, and you have to have other systems that can read that information, and yet more systems that can act on that information and do the building.

And then you have to somehow write the program for that first life form. You have to put the information into the DNA. So how did that first information get there? Well, the evolution in this, what they will tell you, we have no idea. We don't know where or how the information in DNA originally came from. And many scientists call this one of the biggest puzzles in science. Because the truth is, there is no known process that can cause information to originate by itself.

And they spend loads of research dollars and untold amounts of time to look for this answer. But the answer's staring us in the face. Yahweh made us. And how complex is this DNA code? Well, scientists estimate that there are 10 trillion proteins in each and every cell of your body. And DNA has to have the instructions to assemble all 10 trillion proteins in the correct order, and it has to do that for every single cell in your body. And all of that came about by random chance.

So here's an analogy of what they're trying to tell us. So you probably think that all of the applications that you use on your smartphone and all of the applications in your computer were written by programmers. Maybe you think they were actually designed. Well, what if I tell you that you are wrong? What you see on the screen here is the simplest application that I know of. It just prints the words "Hello, world" on the screen This application suddenly appeared one day when all of the ones and zeros just randomly arranged themselves onto the drive.

But it gets better. This actually had the ability to make copies of itself. But here's the problem. Every once in a while, that copy process, it made some mistakes. It scrambled some ones and zeros. But as it turns out, that's actually a good thing, because over a long period of time, those random mistakes in the program started adding new functions and started adding new applications, and eventually we get all of the great applications that we use today.

So there's no programmer needed. The only thing we need is time, because the random mistakes in the programs will eventually write all of the code that's needed. So what do you think? Plausible? No. What do we observe? If we scramble any of the bits in a computer program, we're going to get something that doesn't work right. And it's the same thing we observe in DNA. When we see copy mistakes, things don't work right. And by the way, the simplest living cell that we know of has about 580,000 base pairs of DNA.

So that's how big the information set is for the simple bacteria. And humans have about three billion base pairs of DNA. That's the instruction set that builds our body. So that's a lot of information to start with and a huge amount of information to get to humans, and it all has to be in the right order. That doesn't come about by random chance. From everything we've ever observed, information comes from an intelligent source. Here's what does fit the evidence.

Know that it is Yahweh who made us, the same God who designed the human genome with amazing complexity, the same God whose historical record is verifiable, says, "I made you." No random process, no cosmic accident. So the people in here that know me know that I could talk all day on this topic, but we do have to move on. So let me just say that there are a lot of textbooks, there are a lot of secular scientists that will make some pretty strong claims about evolution.

So here's my challenge to you. Look behind the curtain for the evidence that they're basing their claims on. Because the reality is you're not going to find it. They don't have the evidence. It's not there. The evidence that we do see leaves no doubt that Yahweh made us. And if you would like to dig deeper, we do have resources, so please feel free to reach out. So moving on. At the end of verse three, our text says, "We are his people and the sheep of his pasture."

This brings point three, our identity. We are his people. So there's one thing that is certain in our culture today. Any thoughts of the word I'm thinking of? What's certain in our culture today? So I'm going to say instability. We're searching for identity. We're searching for purpose. We're searching for meaning. And we look everywhere except the one place where these things can be found. The world's going to tell you, "You need to look within."

The Bible tells us, "Look to Christ." During one of our youth camps a couple years back, we had a time when the students were calling out things that they were struggling with, and I heard one of the students say, "I am struggling to fit in at school." And I have to tell you, this broke my heart because it's Satan that wants us to fit in with the in crowd and do what they do. He wants us to find our identity in the world. But our identity, our hope, it's not in our friends.

It's not in our performance. It's not in our reputation. It's not even in our success. Our identity is Christ alone. He is our foundation. So if you are a Christian, who are you? What is your identity? Well, first, you are accepted. You are chosen. Romans 15:7 says, "Therefore accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God." In fact, you were accepted, and you were chosen before the world even began. Even if you feel like you don't fit in at school or at home or in the church, even if you're not part of that inner circle, God accepts you.

He accepts all of us, even with all of our quirks. As we saw before, He made you. You are His precious child. If you're a Christian, you are a conqueror. Romans 8:37, "But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us." So if you're struggling with your identity, if you're hurting, if you are down on yourself, read Romans 8. This is where we will learn things like there is no condemnation for us We are God's children, and in fact, we are fellow heirs with Christ.

The Spirit himself intercedes for us, and all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. I encourage you to read Romans 8. If you're a Christian, you are loved. Later in Romans 8, we read, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

So do you think Paul missed anything in his list there? I think he covered it pretty well. Nothing is going to separate you from God's love. And in fact, you are loved by God even more than you can possibly imagine. Isaiah 49 tells us that his eyes are always on us, and Luke 12 tells us he numbers the hairs on our head, and Psalm 59 tells us he saves our tears in a bottle. If you are a Christian, you are accepted, you are a conqueror, and you are loved.

That's why we end our service here at the Grove Bible Chapel with "You are loved." It's who you are. So here's the question: Are you building your identity on this rock? Because every other foundation is going to crumble. But the Christian life is strong when we start to look entirely to Jesus. But here's the challenge. We know this intellectually, but do we live it practically? We say Jesus is enough, but does our worth come from Him or our popularity or our success?

We'll say Jesus is enough, but does our security come from Him or our bank account or our 401 ? We say Jesus is enough, but does our peace come from Him or do we look at our circumstances? I can tell you from firsthand experience that it's easy for us to take our eyes off Christ and look for our worth, our security, and our peace elsewhere, and this will always cause anxiety. And church, the enemy is going to poke you here and try to make you believe you can't fully trust God.

So when that happens, how do we get back to Christ? Well, there are two things that we can do. One, we focus on Him. We remember what God has done for us. If you've been a Christian for any amount of time, you know that God has been faithful to you again and again, and you can name the times. Remembering is a discipline. That's why scripture repeatedly calls us to remember because we are prone to forget. We are prone to wander. So one, we remember, and two, we praise Him.

True praise and worship of God cannot coexist with anxiety. One of them is going to rule. That's why the gospel always calls us back to the foundation of Christ because Christ is enough. He's not partially enough. He's completely enough. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. He created us and we belong to Him. So again, let me ask you, what foundation are you building your life on? In other words, what are you trusting more than you are trusting Christ?

If you're a Christian, you are accepted, you are a conqueror, and you are loved. But there may be some in here today who have never accepted the free gift of salvation. If that's you, I want you to know that the author of the universe loved you so much that He came down to Earth to die on the cross and pay a penalty for sin that we could not pay, and He proved that He is God by raising from the dead three days later. So if you have never put your faith in Jesus, now is the time, and we would love to talk with you more about that and we'll be available after the service.

When knowledge produces gladness, gratitude and praise will naturally follow. This leads to point four, our overflow. Enter with thanksgiving and praise. Back to our text. Let's look at verse four. "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name." So it was October 12, 1988. My wife Kim and I were doing what we often did on fall Saturdays back in the '80s. We were at the Citrus Bowl watching the UCF football game and cheering for our home team.

But this was no ordinary game. We were playing number one ranked Troy State. We had drawn a then record crowd of 32,000 people, and we were loud We made a lot of noise, so much that the referees had stopped the game seven times because the Troy State quarterback kept complaining he couldn't call the plays. So now it's late in the game. It's third down for Troy State. What do you think? Is it going to get loud? It sure did. So we watched as the play clock went down to zero, and then it happened.

Penalty flag thrown on the play, delay of game. It's about time. We've been waiting for this all game. But the penalty was not charged to the offense, Troy State. It was charged to the UCF home crowd for excessive noise. By the way, if you want to make a home team crowd even louder, throw a penalty flag on them for excessive noise. UCF went on to win the game 26-18, and the next home game every attendee got a nice noise napkin, a reminder of what we had helped accomplish.

So what were we actually doing? We were ascribing worth to something that is outside of ourselves. We were surrounded by people who shared our enthusiasm, and that amplified our enthusiasm. We were letting go of our inhibitions. We were willing to look fanatical or even foolish to outsiders, and we were magnifying and acknowledging excellence. Don't we do something similar when we praise God? Look at how David praised God. In order to bring the Ark of the Covenant back, he gathered together the nation's best musicians, the best dancers, the best singers, and they played, and they sung, and they danced with everything they had.

And before his fall, Satan was the worship leader up in heaven, and now he hates it when people praise God like this. He would much rather have us focus our cheers, our praise, our adoration on sports or anything other than God. But we need to enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Because after all, hear me on this, thanksgiving and praise are the password into God's presence. So what does praise look like? Well, first I want to tell you what it's not.

Praise is not something that's manufactured. Praise is not something that we can teach you to do. It's not something that we can direct you to do. And here's the big one. Praise is not something that you have to feel before you engage in it. So what is praise? It's an outpouring of adoration and ascribing worth to God. Let's look at Isaiah's vision to see whom we're ascribing worth to. "And I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, with the train of his robe filling the temple.

Seraphim stood above him, and one called out to another and said: 'Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.' " We were singing about that this morning. "And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called out, while the house of God was filling with smoke. And then I said: 'Woe is me, for I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts.'

" A challenge that we see in the church today is that our view of God has become too small. It's too casual. We casually approach God, and even our worship can be just familiar. In this verse, we see two different reactions upon seeing God's glory. So the angels cry out, "Holy, holy, holy." So God's a loving God. Are they crying out loving? God's all-powerful. God's all-knowing. What are they focusing on? They're focusing on his holiness. But when Isaiah encounters God, he says, "Woe is me, for I am ruined," because he saw God's holiness.

Here's the thing. When we lose sight of God's holiness, we cheapen grace. We start to take sin too lightly. But when we see God rightly, our worship deepens, and our gratitude increases. So how should we worship? It's the big question. Well, the good news is Jesus told us in John 4: "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such people the Father seeks to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

So let's look. Must worship. Jesus is not talking about something that is a desirable element of worship. He's talking about something that is absolutely necessary. We must worship Him in spirit. This refers to your human spirit, your inner being, your regenerated soul. Worship is not conformity to some religious ritual or practice. We worship inwardly with the proper heart attitude. And we must worship Him in truth. True worship requires a correct understanding of God.

True worship is not an emotional high that's produced by music or atmosphere. It should be an authentic response to your mind comprehending God's character as revealed in scripture. So we need to know scripture, and we need to know what it says about praise and worship. And the Bible gives us many examples of what praise looks like, so let's look at some. Psalm 95:1-2, "O come, let us sing for joy to Yahweh. Let us make a loud shout to the rock of our salvation.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a loud shout to him with songs of praise." So praise can come in the form of music and singing, and it's most often what we think of, but there's more to it. True praise is an appreciation of God's majesty and his worth, which is, you can see from this verse, can be a loud shout. Kind of like what we do at football games. 1 Chronicle 16:23-24, "Sing to Yahweh, all the earth; proclaim good news of his salvation from day to day.

Recount his glory among the nations, his wondrous deeds among all the peoples." Recount his glory and wondrous deeds. In other words, tell everybody what God has done for you. Sing it. Proclaim it. That's worship. Psalm 34:1, "I will bless Yahweh at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth." So when do we praise him? All the time. Continually. Praise and worship are not a Sunday-only activity. What we do here on Sunday, that should be an outpouring of what you've been experiencing all week.

And if your Sunday worship is weak, there's a good chance that you are not praising him Monday through Saturday. Praise is a lifestyle. Psalm 47:1, "O clap your hands, all peoples; make a loud shout to God with the sound of a shout of joy." So praise can be clapping of hands. Psalm 149:3, "Let them praise his name with dancing; with tambourine and lyre let them sing praises to him." Praise can be dancing. No, you're not going to see me do that. Good jam.

So Hebrews 13:15, "Through him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God." We need to offer thanksgiving and praise and adoration to God, even when it is a sacrifice. True praise can cost you something because it requires an act of your will, and it's most real when you don't feel like praising God, but you choose to honor him anyway because of who he is. Acts 16:25, "But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them."

So Paul and Silas here are in jail. They have an uncertain future. In fact, Christians have already been killed. So they don't know what's going on, but they're praising him anyway. So praise him when it is difficult. Psalm 63:4, "Thus I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in your name." Psalm 134:2, "Lift up your hands to the sanctuary and bless Yahweh." So praise can be the lifting of hands. As you can see, the Bible contains a lot of examples of praise, and they involve our entire body.

We need to enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise because the God who made us has designed us to praise him. And why do we praise him? Let's go back to our text. Let's look at verse five. "For Yahweh is good. His loving kindness endures forever, and his faithfulness generation unto generation." So in our Sunday worship, do we come in with joyful songs, or do we just go through the motions? Hey, church, let's model joyful obedience in our worship services.

Let's enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. And I'll close with this. True praise and service to Yahweh flow from a clear knowledge of who he is as creator and shepherd. We've seen the command, serve with gladness. We've seen our foundation, know that it is Yahweh who made us. We've seen our identity, we are his people. And now we've seen the overflow. We enter with thanksgiving and praise because he is good and faithful. Now let's pray.

Father, we know that your word accomplishes the purposes that are appointed for it. So we pray that you will encourage us and change us. Forgive us for thinking that praise and worship is all about us and how we feel. Father, I pray that the Grove Bible Chapel would be a people that know you, that serve you with gladness, and praise you with everything that we have. I pray for those who might be weary in service, that they may know that Yahweh, you are God, and be renewed to serve with gladness.

Hear our prayers, Lord. Let our cries come to you in Jesus' name. And now let's pour out our adoration. Let's ascribe worth to God. Let's praise our creator with stringed instruments and resounding symbols and singing. And for some of us, that singing might sound more like a loud shout, and that's okay, too.