Sermon Tone Analysis

One of the most successful and iconic commercials of all time was the Coke commercial from the early 70’s in which a group of young people dressed in their nation’s ethnic clothing harmoniously sang, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.”

The spirit of this commercial is a dim reflection of what should characterize the church.

As we learned last week from Psalm 33, God provides his people with new opportunities each day to experience his grace and power.

These opportunities in turn should inspire God’s people to sing unto the Lord a New Song.

Psalm 96 is another of the “New Song” Psalms and in this psalm we learn that we are not to keep our New Song to ourselves but are to teach the world to sing God’s praises as well!

The psalmist gives us three reasons why we are to teach the world to sing.

The first of these is because the Lord is Great.

Because the Lord is Great

Everyone has a “god”, even the atheist, although they will not admit it.

Everyone has a worldview that explains reality and the controlling factor of that reality is their “god.”

The problem with man-made gods is they are too small.

They are not worthy to be compared to the greatness of the Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

This week our nation’s capital will be filled with pomp and circumstance as a new President is inaugurated.

The psalmist uses the glory of earthly rulers to teach us about Yahweh’s greatness.

The glory of God’s splendor and majesty towers over the insignificant glory of the kings and presidents of this world.

Throughout scripture we are warned that no one can look upon Yahweh’s glory and live.

We are not the only intelligent beings God has created.

Scripture tells us that when the glory of angles is fully revealed people fall down before them as if they were dead!

But these glorious beings are no match for the glory of God.

Even the most powerful of these heavenly beings must shield their eyes from His glory!

The response of both men and angels to the greatness God’s glory is “fear” and “trembling.”

Verses 8-9 describe what true worship looks like,

True Christian worship is emotional, but the emotion that should characterizes it is reverence and awe.

Do not get me wrong, Christian worship should be joyous and zealous, but joy and zeal without reverence and awe reveal a shallow or even a false faith.

Paul warns that zeal without knowledge of the true God is a dangerous thing.

Paul says this about the unbelieving Jews of his day.

Without a true knowledge of the true greatness of God, our worship is no better that the pagan worshipers of Baal who Elijah confronted on Mt.

Carmel.

What knowledge was it that the unbelieving Jews Paul writes about lacked?

They lacked the knowledge of Christ as found in the Gospel!

The greatness of God is most clearly demonstrated to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

His virgin birth, his sinless life, his sacrificial death, his resurrection and ascension into heaven all powerful testify to the greatness of God.

False teachers emphasis miracles and emotionalism.

They claim these are signs of the Holy Spirits presence and power.

They speak of the necessity of “power encounters.”

The “power encounter” the apostles preached was Jesus!

The Holy Spirit was sent to show God’s glory and might through the preaching of Christ and the miracle of new birth in His name!

If we want to teach the world to sing, we must teach the world about Jesus.

As the Holy Spirit opens peoples eyes we begin to see reality as it really is.

This brings us to the second reason we are to teach the world to sing.

Because the Lord is Reality

Look with me at verse 5:

What our English bibles translates as “worthless idols” is literally, “worthless things.”

False gods are worthless.

They are worthless because they fail to explain reality.

I spoke earlier of worldviews (everyone has a worldview).

All worldviews attempt to explain four questions:

How did the universe get here?

Why is there evil in the world?

How can we eliminate evil?

What the universe’s ultimate purpose and fate?

According to 2 Corinthians 3, sin and Satan are like a veil that blind us to the glory of God.

All other worldviews are distortions of reality.

The answers to lives fundamental questions coming out of academia, Hollywood, Washington D.C. and the other religions of this world are delusions.

In the language of Psalm 96 they are all worthless things.

Only the comprehensive story of creation, fall, redemption and new creation that we find in Scripture we provide us with a true view of reality.

This is why is is so important that we teach the world to sing the New Song of Christ.

Without Christ, people are disconnected from reality and in the end they will face God’s judgement!

The reality of the coming judgement brings us to the final reason we need to teach the world to sing.

The Lord is in Control!

Because the Lord is in Control

In the Garden of Eden, God gave humanity stewardship over the whole earth.

When we look at the environmental devastation humanity has brought to the earth is it any surprise that we find the created order rejoicing at the prospect of God’s coming judgement!

The answer to evil that Christianity offers is humanity’s sin.

All the other religions and philosophies of this world point their finger at someone or something else.

Only Christianity says,

If we relied on our reason alone we would come to the conclusion that God must be out of control, because the evil in this world certainly seems that way.

But the Bible offers a more complex and glorious answer than our minds can come up with.

From the stench and decay of death God brings resurrection through Jesus Christ.

The resurrected Christ freely offers to all the opportunity to share in His resurrection glory.

We must teach the world to sing so they can drink from the water of life!

If they do not drink they will face sure and certain judgement.

The New Song we sing is a meaningless ditty.

It is a song of reverence and awe about the greatness of Christ.

It is a song of revelation telling about the reality of the universe found in Christ.

It is a song of hope about the sovereign reign of Christ.

Let us Sing a New Song so that the whole world may hear!