My Dear Shepherds,
Back when Preaching Today came as a cassette tape in the mail, I heard a Christmas sermon by Dr. Bruce Thielemann. He said that one reason “Christianity is unique among the religions of the world … is that we are a singing faith. … Christianity is the one faith that puts a song in your heart. Confucianism has no chorales. Shintoism has no songs. Islam has no glorias. Atheism has no anthems.”
Our “psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit” trace their lineage back to the Hebrew psalter. There, one psalm, Psalm 92, is designated, “For the Sabbath Day.” It is still sung by Jews every Sabbath morning and evening and at every festival. Why? Because it constantly reminds Israel who they are and what sets them—and us—apart.
The psalm begins, “It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High.” We are not only believers; we are worshippers who put heart and art into our faith through song. “I sing for joy at what your hands have done” (v. 4). Then the lyrics carry us to a striking contrast between what we know and what others do not:
How great are your works, LORD, how profound your thoughts!
Senseless people do not know, fools do not understand. (Ps. 92:5)
Pastors instill the works and thoughts of the LORD into the hearts and minds of our people. Jews saw this psalm pointing primarily to God’s work in creation, but preachers now add to that the revelation of God’s greatest mystery, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Psalm 92 draws the line between those who delight in God’s love and faithfulness and those who don’t. Sundays are our God-given time to reorient believers on that score because they never ever hear this truth anywhere else.
… though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever. But you, LORD, are forever exalted. (vv. 7-8)
Our flock is prone to forget that those who live with no thought of God are as senseless as beasts, as fleeting as grass on a Chia Pet. So at least once a week we draw this line in the sand lest they become unwitting universalists or forget what an exclusive nation they belong to.
That said, we also come to this psalm as heirs of Christ’s Great Commission, “Go and make disciples of all nations ….” Psalm 92 sings solemnly that “the wages of sin is death,” but now we are a gospel choir singing in full voice, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We now have added vocabulary words like testimony, evangelism, and missionary to our kingdom language .
Of course, we were among those wicked evildoers who sprung up like grass. We were beggars, orphans, and rebels. But now
You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Pet. 2:9-10)
A lot of parents, handing off the car keys to their teenager on Friday night, have sent them off saying, “Remember who you are.” That’s our pastoral duty too. That’s why on a Sunday morning we sing, pray, preach, bless, and fellowship. It’s why we prize baptism and Communion. Maybe we should stand at the church door as people leave and shout after them, “Remember who you are!”
Be ye glad!
