When Explanations Fail

Bryan Chapell: If your pastors had been arrested or imprisoned or put before firing squads for preaching the gospel, if you had watched your children being raised in forced atheism being taught in their public schools, then if the moment came that even there were some few freedoms that you could sing from your heart, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands, serve the Lord with gladness because He has claimed us and we're the people of His pasture.
Guest (Male): So glad you joined us for today's Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today's episode, Pastor Bryan shares a lesson from Psalm 100. Dr. Chapell asks the question, how do you praise the King of Heaven when earth hurts so much? You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. And while you're there, look for Pastor Bryan's book, The Promises of Grace. Dr. Chapell offers a careful look at the beauty of grace and all it brings to believers. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the lesson, When Explanations Fail.
Bryan Chapell: Why don't you open your Bibles to Psalm 100 as I tell you a little bit why it became so meaningful to me. I don't believe that I have ever felt the power of Psalm 100 more than when I was with some of you in Cuba just a few weeks ago. In one worship service, I preached from Psalm 100. And as I did, even as I was preaching, I had this sense of something unusual happening. People were rapt in attention. They were engaged, their eyes virtually locked on my own. They seemed to be excited about the word of God. And as much as I was thrilled by that, I could not quite connect in my mind why in this moment, why these people were so connecting to this Psalm 100. And then even as I was preaching, I began to understand. Psalm 100 is the apex of what are known as the King Psalms in the Book of Psalms, where God Himself as Jehovah is being celebrated as a great King above all. And Psalm 100 is the apex of that. As I recognized what God's people were doing when they collected the Psalms into their hymnal and had Psalm 100 as the apex, what they were doing in heart was saying, "We have been ruled all our lives by a cruel despot who has tortured and murdered our people. And now finally we are back in our own land to worship God." Praise Him, all nations. Why would pastors and leaders from churches in Cuba resonate with such a Psalm? Because all of their lives, most of them for almost 70 years, lived under the cruelty of a dictator who by communist methodology was not only saying they could not worship as they desired but would be punished if they did. And now, as they were in this worship service knowing a few more freedoms, when they could say, "Praise God for He created us and calls us His own and frees us from our guilt," they were resonating again with the ancient people and the freedom that they were experiencing. You would do the same if you had been the Christians of Cuba who had watched your churches wither into husks as the people of God fearing persecution had stopped attending and stopped giving. If your pastors had been arrested or imprisoned or put before firing squads for preaching the gospel, if you had watched your children being raised in forced atheism being taught in their public schools. Then if the moment came that even there were some few freedoms that you could sing from your heart, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands, serve the Lord with gladness because He has claimed us and we're the people of His pasture. Your heart would know the resonance. And that's not just for an ancient people, and it's not just for the people of Cuba. It's for each of us when the clouds of life sink low, and you wonder if the job will still be there. If the job you're going to will ever be joy to you because you don't know if your house here will sell. When it's not just you but your grandkids who are sick. When you don't know if the marriage that brought you joy can ever be healed. Then you want to sing with gladness, but you wonder where it will come from. How do you praise the King of Heaven when earth hurts so much? Psalm 100 is all about that. You know it's intended to be a Psalm of worship praise. Even that superscript, that title that's right at the beginning of the Psalm says this: a Psalm for giving thanks. We often don't pay much attention to those superscripts, but it's the language that is being identified as a Psalm for a peace offering in the temple. People were to be coming to God and despite the fact that they had been idolatrous and sinful in rebellion, they were coming to make peace with God. And the fact that they could have peace with Him meant that they were to give thanks. Why? What does that King that they are worshipping actually expect of them? He says, "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth." Some of your translations say, "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth." To the Lord. We've lost the significance. In most of your Bibles, that word Lord is all capital letters. It's all capital letters to remind us the word that is being translated is the word Jehovah. God was the title, the nature of the ruler of Israel, but Jehovah was His name. And the reason that the psalmist is calling us to rejoice in Jehovah is because of who the people recognized Jehovah was. At the time of the Exodus, when Moses was being sent back to the people to call them out of slavery, remember he said to God, "Whom shall I say is sending me when people ask me, 'Who are you Moses, and who is sending you?'" And the Lord gave Moses this answer: "Say to the people of Israel, the Lord Jehovah, the God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations." To be Jehovah, God is saying, "I remind you I knew your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I made promises to them that will claim the nations. And this will remain true for all generations. I am a covenant-keeping God. And I am to be praised not because of your covenant keeping, but because of my covenant keeping. I am Jehovah." What is a covenant? One-sided love where the other party may fail, where we may fail. But what God is saying is, "I will not fail. I'm a covenant-keeping God. My name is Jehovah. I made myself known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And not only did I make myself known in the past, I will make myself known to children's children for all generations. I am the God who keeps faithfulness beyond your unfaithfulness." And not only is He to be praised because He is covenant keeping, but because He is creation making. This King of Heaven, this Jehovah God, we are told about in Psalm 95, one of the King Psalms in these words: "The Lord is a great God. The sea is His for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land." He's not only covenant keeping, He's creation making. He made all things, the sea and the land. He is powerful, vast, and great. And yet despite all of that, He is distance reducing between us and Him. When you think of how great God is, how powerful He is, it blows you away. Psalm 96, another of the King Psalms: "Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness. Tremble before Him, all the earth." We should tremble when we think this great and powerful God. And yet how does the Psalm begin who describes praise to Jehovah? Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness.
Guest (Male): You're listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. Have you thought about the fullness of God's grace and the role that it plays in your life? You can hear and understand that you are saved by grace. But what other spiritual benefits can an understanding of grace reveal? And what has God promised to believers that His grace will provide? In the book The Promises of Grace, Pastor Bryan offers a careful look at the beauty of grace and all it brings to you as a believer. God's Word does not promise more money and fewer headaches, but His grace provides a confidence in our relationship with Him. Pastor Bryan wants to help you focus on the promises that you can expect God to fulfill: promises of assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, and perseverance in trial. You can request your copy of The Promises of Grace when you go online at unlimitedgrace.com or by calling 844-41-GRACE. That's 844-414-7223. And now, more from Bryan Chapell on today's Unlimited Grace.
Bryan Chapell: We should be trembling. We should say, "No way can I approach this God." And yet He's saying, "Wait, come sing with joy, serve with gladness." How can that be? Because this particular Psalm to be sung in the midst of that peace offering was a Psalm that was to be sung even as a meal was being given to God's people. The peace offering was one in which a portion was given to God, and God saying, "There's peace between us now, not antagonism. You don't have to tremble now. You can have part of the meal too." And the people were expected to eat in the presence of God and, dare you say it, shout for joy. Some of you, as you think about kids or grandkids when they come to your dinner table and it's Thanksgiving or it's Christmas and they just lose themselves in gladness, even when they're at the dinner table when they're so comfortable, when they're so at ease, they shriek for joy. And here we are being told that even though you're in the presence of Jehovah, shout for joy. Rejoice in all that He has done because the antagonism is gone. You can be at peace with God. It said something to me when those people in Cuba who experienced so much horror and difficulty were singing. I've mentioned to you one of the services in an evening where in the rickety church that we were in and I was up in a balcony, I began to wonder, "Should I be up here?" because it was shaking with the exuberance of the singing and the music. And there was one song in particular that just seemed to capture the people, and they just sang at the top of their voices. It really was shouting for joy. And I said to my translator, "What are they singing?" And she said the words are, "We have been set free." And I recognized it was this beautiful double entendre that it was the message for the people of Cuba that they had been set free from their sin. But it was also their prefiguring their hope in Christ Jesus. Human dictators would one day no longer rule, that the power of humanity in its brokenness and cruelty had been and would be broken. And they could not help but let the exuberance go. "We have been set free." Shout for joy. Claim the God of your gladness. And we recognize that's what's supposed to be happening to us as well when we celebrate our freedom in worship. We celebrate what God is doing among us. And it's so made clear in the second verse: "Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into His presence with singing." There you are, having a meal with the Lord, and you're shouting for gladness. But beyond that, serving the Lord with gladness. What is that serving about? We have a sense that serving could be feeding the poor, mowing the church lawn, running the technology of the tabernacle. All of that is good and appropriate. But what is this service about? You really begin to understand it when you recognize from where it comes. Verse one right at the end: "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness." It's God's people who are being addressed, but it's the whole world that is in view. As we are to understand our worship with gladness is setting the pitch and the passion for the nations. That what God intends to do by the worship that happens among His people is to be magnetizing nations to the mission that we have. You've seen it happen. I've seen it happen. I've experienced it. When I was in that room in that church, in that rickety church with the people of Cuba just releasing faith and emotion and heart in worship, I had to ask, "What are they singing? I want to be a part of that. I want this gladness too." It's what our world yearns for. There are people all around us who just want some gladness. And when the people of God in their worship are rejoicing, whatever is true to their personality, to say with seriousness and sincerity and passion, "I believe this. This is food to my soul. This is peace to my heart. This is gladness." When that happens, it's worship that is mission at the same time. Evangelism is not just witnessing to somebody on your block or in your dorm. It's worshipping God with sincerity and joy. It's when we experience something when the choir has engaged in such a way that our hearts are rising. When the worship team is leading us not just in the words, when we watch their faces and we're magnetized to their enthusiasm and we want to feel it and experience and be touched by it. And it's what God is doing in His worship. He recognizes that when worship is right and true, pitch and passion both coming together in the church, that people say, "I want some of what you got. I want some of that. I want some of that gladness." And our worship is actually doing that. It's magnetic. It's communicative. It's infectious. Kathy and I were just a few weeks ago in Ireland, a nation which has so little respect for the church anymore because of sectarian violence that has gone for decades and now because of the sexual scandals that have happened in the church that everybody knows. A nation that just 15 or 20 years ago would have had 90% of the people attending church every Sunday now has less than 20%. The people are not just scandalized by the church; they are angry at the church. And yet in this one conference, which was in a tent in a small town, the believing, Bible-committed Christians of Northern Ireland were gathering together, trying together. As they gathered together to encourage one another, they began tentative singing. But the more they listened to one another, heard each other share thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, and praise God together, the worship just got more exuberant. It just got more passionate. It just got more enthralling. It got more loud. And we're in a tent so people across the town could hear us. And what that meant was that our worship became mission. And some of the homeless people of the streets and some of the addicted people of the streets began to come. And some people of other faiths and other backgrounds began to come, which for a lot of the people in the tent was a little disturbing, a little difficult to handle, and sweet and wonderful at the same time. As God was by worship bringing in the people, bringing in the nations. It's what happens when what is here is real because we are not just responding to the preacher saying, "You need to come to church more." If the only reason you come to church more is to alleviate guilt, I will assure you the guilt will grow remote. Something has to displace guilt as the reason. Why do we gather here? And the psalmist is actually giving us the reason for this glad worship when he says, "You need to remember the wonder of God's grace toward you." It's in such wonderful wording. Verse three: "Know that the Lord, He is God." How does Moses introduce God to the people of Israel? "In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth." He created all things. And yet, says the psalmist, "And it's He who made us." He made all things, and He made us too. And that sense of how great He is and yet caring at the same moment is meant to move us. You know when we were flying to that fishing spot in Canada, so we're in one of the northern settlements and we've gone an hour and a half by pontoon plane beyond the last settlement. And so we're up in the air flying over this vast expanse of Canadian wilderness, where you see nothing but lakes and trees and a few hills. And when you're out on the lakes, you see no one else, absolutely no one else but the ones who are in your party. And at some point feeling the vastness of the wilderness that we were in, I was at one point impressed, and then a little scared, and then feeling quite insignificant. If God has made all of this, and this that I can see even up in the air is but a speck on the map of not just the world but the universe that He's—who am I that God would care for me or think about me, even know what's going on in my life? And as I began to go into that spiral thinking about my life and my hurts and the difficulties and struggles, "Does God even care?" Our boat drifted past a shoreline that had a thick pine forest, which was broken at one point by a little pine tree arc. And in the arc was a little birch tree with a carpet of moss beneath it. And just as we were drifting past, the sun hit it. And I thought, "Here's this little, this little forest sanctuary for my soul." As I'm thinking of the darkness of the forest and yet here is God saying, "Here is a place for your soul to settle in the sanctuary. My goodness on display." And I recognized it's not just this little chapel in the wilderness that is to be solving the ache of my soul. It was yet another tree in another place where God was not in the midst of a pine forest with its needles sheltering a white birch tree, but provided a bloodied tree and not pine needles but nails in the hands and the feet of His Son. So that I as I look to Him in faith and say, "Father, I confess, though you have not forgotten me, I have forgotten you. Take my guilt and pardon me." And there is sanctuary for my soul at a hill called Calvary. It's the beauty of what He has provided to me over and over again. Not just the sanctuary of the forest but the sanctuary of His Son, that as dark as your life may be, you say, "God has given me eternity and forgiveness and Himself. He created all things and still claims me and cares for me."
Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. If you've been blessed by this message and would like to hear more from Dr. Chapell, I would encourage you to visit unlimitedgrace.com. In addition to messages from Pastor Bryan, you can explore the many sermons, podcasts, seminars, and more available to you. Also, be sure to request a copy of the book from Dr. Bryan Chapell called The Promises of Grace. We'll send you a copy right away as our way of saying thank you for your most generous financial support. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by His unlimited grace. This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.