A Song for the Lord’s Day

Have you ever paused to think about what it is we’re doing here on a Sunday morning? We certainly have other things that we could be doing, and yet we’re here. Why? What prompted us to gather, even with like-minded believers, friends in Christ, Why do we do this on Sunday and why do we do it every Sunday? What’s it all about? Think of it.

In the fullness of our morning, we will see others who we look forward to seeing all week or longer. We’ll enjoy some wonderful treats here in a few moments. during our fellowship time and we’ll sing just as we’ve already done so this morning. Most of us love to sing. Some of us look forward to serving others in a wide variety of ways.

Some of us have the privilege to teach or play music or keep the congregation safe by various means and yet none of those things are the ultimate reason for gathering. I’m not even posing the question to you individually, what it is that we’re doing, what is our mindset. Rather, I’m pressing us, collectively, to think about the nature of corporate worship. In its essence, what is worship? Some of us are just so used to gathering for worship on a Sunday that because we’ve done it so regularly for so long, that we do it as a matter of course, almost mechanically. We’re saved. We know that we’re supposed to engage in corporate worship, and that’s that. We’ve long since forgotten the why of worship, the purpose.

Our unidentified psalmist addresses this subject in Psalm 92. Make the Lord’s people turn there now, Psalm 92. This Psalm presents the child of God humbly before his or her sovereign God, the ruler of all, coming before him in humble gratitude, all the while in the midst of an ungodly and unbelieving world. Yet a writer, undisturbed by any of it, brings his worship to God. The focus is the good and benevolent God. It’s a church song, a worship song, which details the qualities of the devotion of God’s people. The qualities of the devotion of God’s people.

Would you follow along as I read Psalm 92? It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness by night, with the ten-stringed lute and with the harp, with resounding music upon the lyre. For you, O Lord, have made me glad by what you have done. I will sing for joy at the works of your hands. How great are your works, O Lord!

Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man has no knowledge, nor does a stupid man understand this. that when the wicked sprouted up like grass, and all who did iniquity flourished, it was only that they might be destroyed forevermore. But you, O Lord, are on high forever.

For behold, your enemies, O Lord, for behold, your enemies will perish. All who do iniquity will be scattered, But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox. I have been anointed with fresh oil, and my eye has looked exultantly upon my foes. My ears hear of the evildoers who rise up against me.

The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon, planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age. They shall be full of sap and very green to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock. There is no unrighteousness in him.

Now, before we even get into the psalm itself, we have to interact with the title, sometimes called the superscription. More than two-thirds of the Psalms have these titles, and there’s been a long-running debate about whether or not these titles are inspired.

We know this. They are very ancient, all written in Hebrew, and the original Hebrew Bible held them to be inspired and even assigned verse numbers to them. At minimum, they are the work of faithful scholars attempting to contribute to a better understanding of the psalm. We ought not disregard them altogether.

They do communicate of a wide variety of things. Sometimes the subject or theme of the psalm. Sometimes the author is named. The collection into which it was gathered, perhaps. or the historical background of the psalm, as well as directions for use in corporate worship. And so perhaps we should receive them with an open hand, allowing them to instruct us as far as we’re able to understand them.

The title of this psalm provokes several questions. The easy question is the reference to a psalm, a song. Which is it? A psalm or a song? The bottom line is that not all psalms are intended to be songs, and not all songs are psalms. But this one is both, which possibly suggests that it was to be sung with musical instruments, even as it says in the psalm.

The more difficult reference is to the Sabbath. A psalm, a song for the Sabbath day. And we have to consider the subject of the Sabbath. Though the words are different, the Sabbath is intimately connected with the seventh day of Genesis 2-2, The seventh day, God completed his work, which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day. This is not the institution of the Sabbath for the people of God. This was God resting from his work on the seventh day, not that he needed rest. He did so as a precedent to be applied later to Israel.

God first introduced the Sabbath to the Jewish people in Exodus 16. According to the Jewish calendar, Saturday was the seventh day of the week, Sunday was the first. And I don’t agree with their practice, but at least seventh-day Adventists are consistent when they maintain the Sabbath by celebrating it on a Saturday. After the Sabbath was introduced there in Exodus 16, the Sabbath observance was formalized at the giving of the 10 commandments. It was the fourth commandment. Listen, if you would, Exodus 20. In verse eight, remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or female servant, or your cattle, or your sojourner who stays with you.

For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. That is the institution, the formal institution of the Sabbath. That commandment was ratified in chapter 23, emphasized again in chapter 31, and it’s repeated again and again to God’s people. Sabbath, one day in seven, was for them. God gave it as an intended blessing, a joyful day of rest and worship. But in time, it turned into a legalistic burden that had everyone spying out their neighbors, turning them in for supposed violations of the Sabbath.

Well, there’s a longstanding observation that of the Ten Commandments, the fourth is the only one not reiterated in the New Testament. The New Testament writers don’t emphasize any existing Old Testament rules about the Sabbath. The New Testament writers don’t give any new instructions about it. The word Sabbath is used in the New Testament, but the commandment seems to have faded and even ended under the new covenant.

Let me show you some of this. The word Sabbath is basically used in about five ways in the New Testament. None of them, none of them teach the perpetual observation of the Sabbath. The first use was with reference to controversies involving Jesus’ ministry. The very first time it’s used is in Matthew 12.

Remember, Jesus and his disciples were walking through a field, picking the heads off grain and eating them, rubbing them between their hands to expose the grain. Well, that took place on the Sabbath and the Pharisees challenged that this was a violation of the law.

It only gets worse. Jesus is criticized for three healings. Each of them performed on the Sabbath. John 5, the lame man by the pool. Matthew 12, the man with the withered hand. John chapter 9, the man born blind, which verse we just read. Jesus used none of those occasions to affirm the Old Testament Sabbath observation.

The second way that the word Sabbath is used is just simply to refer to the seventh day of the week. And this usually is articulated something like this. On a Sabbath, after the Sabbath, every Sabbath, a Sabbath day. Just a simple reference to the seventh day, none of those teach the perpetual observation of a Sabbath.

The third, and very similar way in which it’s used, occur five times during Paul’s outreach ministry to the Jewish people. Acts 13, 14, on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue. That was Paul’s practice. Acts 13, 42, speaking of the next Sabbath. Acts 16, 13, on the Sabbath day. Acts 17, 2, according to Paul’s custom, he went to them, that is the Jewish people, and for three Sabbaths, he reasoned with them from the scriptures. Acts 18, 4, he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. All of those examples are directly related to Paul’s ministry to the Jewish people.

And these verses teach the perpetual observation of, pardon me, these verses do not teach the perpetual observation of the Sabbath. There’s a fourth way that these, the word is used. There are two other, really, they’re lone verses. They’re isolated, kind of independent, lone ranger verses. They both marginalize Sabbath worship.

Colossians 2.16. Therefore, let no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. Colossi was a city beset by Judaizers. They were trying to get Christians to dip back in and import Jewish practices into Christianity. Paul says you can’t let that happen.

And the final use is Hebrews 4.9. You probably know this.

There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. That just speaks of salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ. the rest of which the Sabbath was a mere shadow. Until Christ came, nothing had really given people the rest that they needed. Not the law, not the sacrifices, not the Sabbath observation, but now, by faith in Christ, the rest, the Sabbath rest, peace with God, is available. So that’s how the word Sabbath is used in the New Testament.

None of them can be construed as teaching that the Sabbath was to be observed perpetually in Christ’s church. Now, if even Jesus downplayed the observation of the Sabbath, why do so many churches and denominations still fastidiously honor it? But we can’t blame it on the reformers, Luther, Calvin, Wingley. They did not reinvigorate the observation of the Sabbath. The restoration of the Sabbath observance is traceable instead to the rise of Puritanism in the 16th century. Now, I love the Puritans. They’re thorough. erudite, powerful manner in which they communicate biblical truth. These serious men, after 10 centuries of error, imported into the church by the Roman Catholic Church, they began to rethink everything.

And it has to be noted here that at that time, Israel itself did not exist. Following the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, what Jewish people remained were scattered across the globe in obscurity. There was no constituted nation of Israel. And that made it somewhat natural for the Puritans to adopt many of Israel’s promises and practices.

This was the beginning of what we now know as Covenantalism. Among other things, the Puritans revived the Judaistic practice of Sabbath-keeping. And soon, the critical scrutiny over people’s observation of the Sabbath became second only to the Pharisees in its intensity.

So, For non-Sabbatarian Christians, does that mean that we can’t worship? Not at all. At the formation of Christ’s church in Acts 2, a new approach to worship was established. Instead of seventh-day Sabbatarian worship, at the resurrection of Christ, worship was instituted anew. Instead of Seventh-day Sabbatarian worship, as Jesus was raised on the third day, that is the beginning of the New Testament church worship cycle.

Gospel writers point out that it was the first day of the week when Jesus was raised, Sunday. Christ’s resurrection alone would forever make Sunday special. Jesus also presented himself a week later on a Sunday to his followers. And so Christ’s church began to transition from the Jewish Sabbath, worshiping on the first day of the week, to worshiping on the first day of the week, a Sunday. It was the Apostle John writing his revelation who first referred to it as the Lord’s Day. Christ’s Church now worships not on the Sabbath, but on the Lord’s Day. But the question still remains, what can non-sabbatarian Christians do with a psalm that is dedicated to the Sabbath? can’t foolishly toss it aside as a Jewish-only psalm. What then? The solution is simple. We need only to answer this question.

What did this title mean to the one who wrote it, and what did it mean to those who read it? Did it mean that this psalm was only to be used by Jewish people on their Sabbath? No. The reference again suggests its use during the worship of God, which at that time just happened to be on a Saturday Sabbath. For New Testament believers, this psalm is of use to us for the exact same purpose.

To guide and direct our worship of God. Simply stated, it is a song for the Lord’s day. Where the psalmist here sets forth the qualities of the devotion of God’s people. The qualities of the devotion of God’s people, the first of which we find in verses one through four the commendation of corporate worship. Would you glance there?

The psalmist opens, it is good, purely and inherently good, to give thanks to the Lord. It is good for us to think on all that God has done, all that he is, and to give thanks. It is good for us, and it’s good for our relationship with God. At the heart of this good activity is Thanksgiving.

That’s what we’re doing when we gather for corporate worship. We are gathering to collectively express heartfelt gratitude to God for the mercy and grace that he’s shown to us. The psalmist here is extolling the blessing of corporate worship, and he effectively tells us the what The how and the why of worship. What is corporate worship?

The psalmist first indicates that it is the giving of thanks to the Lord. As we ponder all of the ways that God has lavished his kindness upon us, the response should be gratitude. A humble expression of thanks. is the heart of worship. Luke records a powerful example for us. Just listen. In Luke 17, Jesus comes across 10 lepers, all crying out to Jesus for mercy.

It’s a gripping and pitiful scene. Leprosy has to be one of the worst afflictions to ever befall humanity. It was a malady that affected the skin, but it was painful and unsightly and contagious and incurable. Lepers were unclean outcasts of that society. And so when Luke says that these ten lepers stood at a distance, he’s bringing in that idea of their isolation.

They call out to Jesus and he immediately directs them to go and show themselves to the priests. On the way, they are miraculously healed. And one of them, only one of them, turned back to Jesus to say, thank you. One man. The other nine continued on their way, resumed their lives without even a hint of gratefulness. That’s a sad reminder of our own tendency, isn’t it? A tendency to ingratitude.

Well, The what of worship begins with the giving of thanks to the Lord, and that leads naturally to the singing of praises. Worship in song issues forth from the thankfulness in our hearts. And thankfulness and singing lead naturally to the declaration of God’s loving kindness and his faithfulness.

We want to tell other people. This naturally arises from the people who have been touched by God’s benevolent goodness. It’s only natural that we should want to proclaim God’s mercies to others. This is why we gather. This is the nature of corporate worship. Giving thanks, singing praises, declaring him to others. This is the what. of worship. Why are we here on a beautiful Sunday morning? We’re here to humbly come before God and to say thank you. Because our woeful condition was far worse than leprosy, wasn’t it? We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were not simply outcast from society. We faced a Christless eternity.

But God intervened. He redeemed us through the blood of his own son. He saved us. So we’re here to express our gratitude, sing praises to him who he calls here most high, the supreme one, sovereign over all. You add to this the creation that God has made, put on display. largely as a testimony to his nature. He’s obviously given us life or we wouldn’t be here to be redeemed and saved. What is more, he’s given us family and friends and countless blessings. The list is endless of the things for which we should thank God. This is the reason that we’re gathered. Worship is God’s people humbly thanking him for all that he is and all that he’s done. So gratefulness, this expression in song and proclamation is the what of worship, and the psalmist tells us the how, verse three.

This is not comprehensive, but the psalmist says that our singing is to be done with the 10-stringed lute, the harp, and the lyre. All of these are stringed instruments, and the psalmist here isn’t saying that we should place a restriction on drums, or horns, or woodwinds, or anything else. He’s simply affirming instrumentation in worship. I’ve worshipped in churches that sing only acapella, and it is, it’s beautiful. Human voice is the most wonderful instrument of all, but there’s no prohibition in scripture against all kinds of musical instruments. Essentially, the psalmist says, this is the how of worship. Make a joyful noise. Strike up the band.

So the what and the how of worship, what about the why? We’ve already established that worship is the expression of gratitude, the giving of thanks, But here the psalmist lays it out in verse four. Our worship is in response to what God has done. You, O Lord, have made me glad by what you have done. This captures the entire scope of God’s doings. And in response, he says, I will sing for joy at the works of your hands. We can almost hear the psalmist exalting in song. He recognizes the incredible ways in which he has seen God work and he responds accordingly.

And so should we. We have to cultivate a heart of gratitude. We have to pause. We have to think back on our week of all the ways that we’ve seen God move in our midst, in our world. will not only mean thanking God for the positive things in our lives, but also a heart of contentment to wait on Him. The child of God, it will not be hard to see God at work in the world, to find numberless things for which to give thanks. He’s Almighty God, and He is at work in our world.

There’s a second quality to which the psalmist directs. The qualities of the devotions of God’s people, not only the commendation of corporate worship, but the contrast of corporate worship. Verses five through nine, the psalmist’s heart is full. You can just feel it, can’t you?

He has seen how wonderful, how stupendous God’s work is in the world. in creation, in the world in general, and also in his own life. And he recognizes the magnificent workings of God’s providence. He sees it. Even as his heart begins to recognize that not all people recognize God’s goodness, he at least cannot keep from reiterating it one more time in verse five. He’s awestruck, not only at God’s works, but even at his deep thoughts, his purposes, his plans, his decrees.

Psalm 36 echoes this. Your judgments are like a great deep. He features it as a great and deep ocean. They are profound and wonderful, even if they are incomprehensible to us. As Isaiah put it, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts, says God. That’s Paul’s description of it as well, isn’t it? In Romans 11, oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways. but the psalmist snaps back to earth and immediately acknowledges that not all men observe and respond to God’s goodness. In verses six and seven, he presents a horribly sad picture. The dramatic contrast with the grateful heart of worship that he described in the opening paragraph.

And in contrast, he says, there are those who have no time or thought of God at all. Even on your way to worship this morning, you probably saw it. You probably passed dozens of people, no time for God. Those out for a walk or a jog or bike ride, those mowing their lawn, doing yard work, heading up to boat or fish or golf or hike, anything but God. Direct contrast with the deep mind of God, the senseless man, as the writer calls him, has no knowledge.

To quote the psalmist, parents, to quote the psalmist in blunter terms, he says that they are stupid. That word is translated as such three times in the Psalms, Jeremiah three times as well. He uses this language to refer to those who place their hope in dead idols. Stupid. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the same word is translated more than 60 times as fools or foolish.

Both terms, stupid and foolish, are accurate descriptions of the person who refuses to acknowledge God. The hard-hearted disbeliever is like a brute beast, like a stubborn, willful animal. Willful in their unbelief, they refuse thoughts of anything outside of themselves. Such a person is only driven by his appetites and instincts. Most of you know this experience.

You’re in a conversation, right, with an unbelieving family member or friend or co-worker, and the mere mention of God, or a brief citation of a passage, conversation is over, right? They will not tolerate thoughts or discussions about God, That shouldn’t surprise us. Paul said that a natural man, an unbelieving person, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. These are those who Paul described as always hearing and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, regardless of how many degrees they have.

Deep down, they know that there’s a God. Paul says in Romans 1, they suppress the truth. They smother the knowledge of God’s revelation of himself to his creation. Please observe that they must be highly motivated to do this because they know that God is a holy God who will judge. You glance at verse 7. This is what they refuse to understand. This is what they refuse to acknowledge. What they cannot bear to accept.

Thomas paints a graphic picture. When the wicked sprouted up like grass and all who did iniquity flourished, it was only that they might be destroyed forevermore. These unbelieving people are in the midst of enjoying life. And they assume that this would just go on indefinitely. In their pride, they have no thought of God. They are inflexibly bent on ignoring the truth of their own condition. That they are flourishing in their wickedness, which will soon be destroyed like grass in a fire. It’s a truly horrifying image.

And I would even say for his own sake the psalmist must return to his thoughts of God. It’s that horrible In verses eight and nine he says but you oh lord You oh lord are on high forever for behold your enemies. Oh lord for behold your enemies will perish all who do iniquity will be scattered god It cannot be harmed by the unbelief and wickedness of man. When the psalmist says, you, O Lord, are on high forever, he’s employing basically time as a measurement for distance. You are impossibly far away.

God is utterly unthreatened and inaccessible to the attacks of unbelieving humanity. Neither can we ever allow the unbelief of those in the world to negatively affect us, to bring us down, to cause us doubt. As our psalmist does, we have to sandwich the unbelief of the world with thoughts of God’s faithfulness. We too must counter the world with our own.

But you, oh Lord, There’s a third quality of the devotion of God’s people, not only the commendation of corporate worship, the contrast of corporate worship. Look at the fruit of corporate worship in verses 10 through 15. Our psalmist opening words again, where it is good to give thanks, sing praises, declares mercy and faithfulness. It is good to gather for corporate worship. And we immediately noted that our worship is good, not only for God, but that he is pleased with it, but it is purely and inherently good for us. It cultivates in us a heart of gratitude. But God’s blessings also flow from worshiping him.

That doesn’t It shouldn’t be crassly understood as a contract that if we only show up to church, God’s gonna give us things. That’s a completely wrong way of approaching God in worship, giving in order to receive. But that said, God does tend to bless righteousness and obedience And in verses 10 through 11, the psalmist speaks of his personal experience under God’s gracious hand.

You have exalted my horn, anointed me with fresh oil. These statements are both euphemisms, metaphors that speak of receiving God’s favor. Last Lord’s Day, Psalm 75. We read of these proverbial horns, both lifted up or cut off. Here, it’s only the former image. Like a majestic and powerful ox, he has been exalted, strengthened, and restored by God. And this anointing, it’s likely not for the priesthood or royalty. It’s an indication of God’s special kindnesses to him.

And as many of the Psalms chronicle, there are earthly enemies to overcome as well. The psalmist takes by faith that God has already defeated them. Foes and evildoers, he calls them. And so this looking exultantly and even his hearing ears indicates a decisive victory.

The result of looking to and waiting upon his God. He’s under God Almighty’s care, and he has come to his desperate aid. From his own direct experience with God, he turns to a general proclamation of blessing on God’s people in the remaining verses. This is what he observes. This is how God tends to respond to those, his children.

The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age. They shall be full of sap and very green to declare that the Lord is upright. Palm tree is a picture of a plentiful and stately and a thriving tree. Strong and durable. is the cedar, and together they are essentially the same illustration as the man of God in Psalm 1, remember?

He will be like a tree, firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither, and whatever he does, he prospers. How blessed is that man, the psalmist says, and such is the righteous lover of God. He will be flourishing and vibrant and grand, a happy description of the child of God. The person who genuinely worships God will be blessed. With that, the psalm writer cannot contain himself. In his review of corporate worship, he’s reminded all over again of God’s incredible greatness, and he erupts with a final enthusiastic praise.

He is my rock. There is no unrighteousness in him. God, as our rock points to the fact that he is steadfast and unchanging. God is an immovable rock. That’s an image that is plentifully used in the Psalms. Listen to just a few. Psalm 18, 2, my rock in whom I take refuge. 1914, my rock and my Redeemer. 31, 2, a rock of strength. 89, 26, the rock of my salvation. 94, 22, the rock of my refuge. There’s not a speck of unrighteousness in our God. God’s perfect righteousness is that which sent Jesus Christ to the cross on our behalf. God is altogether just and fair.

So our psalm opened with an admonition to gratitude, thankfulness. Thomas does so by Pausing to take an inventory of all that God had done for him All that God was doing for God’s people all that he has done for sinners We have much for which to give thanks Would you join me as we go before the throne of grace Our gracious God We humble ourselves before you and thank you for this song, which is indeed for us. It is a song that tells us about the qualities of corporate worship.

Lord, we thank you for the privilege to have been drawn in here even this morning. We thank you for your work of grace in saving us. We thank you for the privilege that is ours to walk with those of like faith. We thank you for the privilege to sing your praises and to proclaim you in all that we do and say.

Lord, we thank you for the blessing that is ours in being able to look and observe and to see you at work in this world. Lord, most of all, we thank you that we no longer bear the consequences of our sin. Jesus Christ has paid them in full. Lord, we thank you for the Savior that you provided. We thank you for the salvation that we have because of our faith in him. And Lord, we thank you for the privilege that we have to walk with our fellow believers in that truth.

Lord God, we pray. that if there are any in our midst who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, no amount of church attendance, no amount of corporate worship, no Bible translation or denomination will give them the hope and the rest that can only be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we plead that you would do your work in the hearts of Sinners, as you’ve done in ours, bring them to repentance, we pray, for their sin. Point them in the direction of our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s such a simple equation. Faith alone in Christ alone brings salvation. Lord, we rejoice in that and we thank you for it. In Jesus’ name.