Psalm 96
Pastor Matt Bell
Sermon Summary
In this exposition of Psalm 96, Pastor Matt declares the overarching theme that the Lord is undeniably awesome, sovereignly reigning over all creation and demanding a response of worship and global proclamation. Moving beyond a man-centered view of the gospel as merely a "ticket to heaven," the sermon elevates the cosmic scale of Christ's redemptive work, urging believers to worship in spirit and truth—not just through gathered singing, but by presenting their entire lives as a living sacrifice. Ultimately, the message challenges the church to abandon self-glory, resist cultural conformity, and boldly declare God's majesty to the nations, drawing profound inspiration from the steadfast conviction of the Oxford Martyrs who gladly laid down their lives for the unmatched glory of Christ.
Sermon Transcript
Introduction: A Big God Psalm
Psalm 96, if you have your Bible, Psalm 96, is where we are this morning. It is one of my favorite psalms, and I know I'm saying that every week, but why would I pick a psalm that's not my favorite? I have so many to choose from. So I've picked another one of my favorite psalms, Psalm 96.
And the reason it's one of my favorite psalms is because it's a big God psalm. It makes God big. Not that God's not already big. God is the biggest thing that there is, but it exposes that. It declares that. It puts it on display and exalts God in a vivid and powerful way.
And so we're just going to read through the whole thing. I invite you to stand with me as we read the word of God today. Thirteen verses, a relatively short psalm, but some very powerful truths. Psalm 96, it reads:
Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth!
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts!
Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth!
Say among the nations, "The Lord reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity."
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord, for he comes,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
and the peoples in his faithfulness.
Father, we do thank you for the truth of your word. It is that precious lamp to our feet, light to our path. God, as we spend time in your word, I pray that by your Spirit, you would speak to every heart that is here. Lord, we are a needy people that needs to hear from you, that needs to be in your presence, that needs strength for this day and this week, and hope for tomorrow. Lord, there are so many things that we need. Help us, Lord Jesus, to look to you as our source and supply. Speak to our hearts this morning. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated today.
The Great Commission in the Psalms
I love this psalm, as I said. One of the things I want to help you to take note of is how similar this psalm is to the Great Commission. The Great Commission comes at the end of Matthew's gospel. It's Jesus' final charge to his church, to his disciples, that they are to go into all the nations and to preach the gospel and the truth of the kingdom of God and the reign of Christ and salvation through his cross, to the whole world, to all the nations. And the themes of the Lord reigning—and Jesus said he had all authority in heaven and on earth and to go and to declare to the nations—it's all intertwined here in Psalm 96.
I was asked several years ago to preach this psalm at a missions conference, and I did. In my preparation for preaching at that conference, I took note that there are 14 imperatives in this psalm. An imperative is a commandment, an instruction, something that the people are to do, an action that we as God's people are to take. There are 14 of them in this psalm that I took note of some years ago as I was preaching through it.
Then, as I was preparing this week, I noticed not only are there instructions given to God's people of things that we ought to do, there are also a lot of things that it tells us about God. And so as I was preparing this week, I took out my notepad and my pen, and I just began to write down the things that it was telling us about who God is. When I finished doing that, I decided to number them, and I numbered those attributes of God, and to my amazement, when I counted them up, there were 14 of them.
So 14 imperatives, 14 attributes of God in this psalm. I didn't think that was just a coincidence. The number 7 in the Bible represents perfection. Fourteen represents double perfection. Twenty-eight is like quadruple perfection. And so it was at this point that I seriously considered preaching a 28-point sermon this morning. And y'all laugh because you think that's a joke, but I was very serious about preaching a 28-point sermon. I even made a slide for the 28 points.
After mulling over that idea for longer than I probably should have, I finally decided that a 28-point sermon might not be the best way to declare and to communicate these truths to you. So after meditating on these 28 points, essentially, they can be summarized with this statement: The Lord is awesome.
Amen. The Lord is awesome. So we should worship him and declare his glory to the world. This is the point of Psalm 96. This psalm begins with singing, "Oh, sing to the Lord a new song," and that's declaring to him that he is awesome. And then it moves from proclaiming to others his great and glorious name. And so this is going to be our outline this morning, these three points taken from this psalm.
Point 1: The Lord is Awesome
The first, of course, is that the Lord is awesome. And what a glorious and grand vision of the Lord do we see in this psalm. The first thing that we see about him, it speaks of God as one who brings salvation.
Of course, this is the book of Psalms. In the Old Testament, the salvation that they would have in mind would be that great deliverance that God brought to the people of Israel when they were enslaved in Egypt. Though Pharaoh himself, the most powerful man in the world, was viewed by many in that culture as a kind of god—Pharaoh himself worshipped and adored—God, the one true and living God, the Lord, showed that Pharaoh, even in all his might and the most powerful nation in the world, was no match for the power of Almighty God. As the psalmist says, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, God delivered his people from Egypt, leading them through the Red Sea on dry ground, the sea closing in on their enemies. This great victory that God worked for his people, this salvation, this deliverance.
And so he says to tell of God's salvation from day to day. Now here we are some 3,000 years later, on the other side of not only the Red Sea, but the other side of the cross. And there's an even greater work of salvation that God has done for his people. That work of salvation in the Old Testament, of delivering his people from Pharaoh in Egypt, we're told was only a picture, only an illustration of the greater salvation that would come through Jesus, the Son of God.
We had a greater need. There was a greater bondage than slavery in Egypt, and that was slavery to sin, under the taskmaster and the tyranny not of Pharaoh, but of Satan himself. Christ has come, Jesus has come, the Son of God has come, leaving heaven, coming to earth, living a perfect life, a sinless life, so that he could offer up his perfect life, shedding his blood to pay the price for our salvation, to redeem us. Through the cross and the resurrection, the chains of sin and hell and death have been broken in our lives so that all who would trust in Christ, who would forsake their life of sin and repent and call on the Lord for salvation, would be saved. They would be delivered, freed, led into a promised land—not one that just flows with milk and honey, but one that has streets of gold. One that is not temporary, but one that will last for all eternity.
The salvation that the Lord has worked for us is far greater and far superior than the salvation that the psalmist is talking about here. And if they were to talk about that salvation from day to day, every day, how much more should those of us who have tasted of the salvation of Jesus Christ be talking about that? Every single day of our lives. Declare his glories, talk of his salvation.
The vision that it has of God in this Psalm is that he is great and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. The gods of the people are worthless idols. They're the work of human hands, but our God is the one true God. Our God is the one who made the heavens and the earth. The contrast there is extreme. The gods of the nations are but mere idols. They're the work of human hands, but the work of our God is the one who created all things. The uncreated God.
We have a colloquial view of God in our culture, a common view of God. Sort of the view of God that when something goes well in their life, they sort of tip their hat to the "big guy upstairs." I just want to thank the big guy upstairs. That view of God where he's kind of along for the ride, riding shotgun in our lives. That view of God of, my guardian angel, he's just watching over me. This psalmist has a view of God that is far superior, far greater, far grander than the big guy upstairs. No, the Lord made the heavens and the earth. His works are marvelous.
It says that we are to worship him in the splendor of his holiness. That the Lord our God is holy. He is other. He is in a category all by himself. There is no one standing beside him. He is singular in his majesty and his glory is beyond comparison. He reigns over all the nations. It says he is coming to judge the earth, that his works are marvelous.
And as I said, we are to declare among the nations that the Lord reigns. The Lord reigns. Christ reigns today. That means you don't reign. That means he reigns. We really believe that here at this church. If you couldn't tell by our name, the big sign we have out front, the Lord reigns. Declare among the nations, the Lord reigns. Christ truly is king. We are not kings. We are not even the kings of our own lives. He is the one who reigns. And who does the Lord reign over? Only us, the church? The people who come on Sunday morning? No, he reigns over all. Over all the earth. Over all the nations. Our God is awesome, and he reigns over all. He is sovereign over all. That's the first point that the psalmist drives home.
Point 2: Therefore, Let Us Worship Him
The second is the therefore. Okay, what do we do about that? That's really cool. God reigns. He's over all. He's powerful. He's mighty. Okay, now what?
Because of that, we should worship him. Therefore, let us worship him. This psalmist begins, "Oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name." Three times before we even move into anything else in this psalm, we are told to sing, sing, sing to the Lord.
So how do we worship him? What does it look like? It looks like singing. It looks like lifting up our voice and praising him and worshiping him and adoring him. Giving breath to what is hopefully in our hearts.
If you love something truly, people are going to know about it. I have friends—I'm not among these friends—but I have friends that do a particular kind of exercise. And do you know that they do this type of exercise? Because they tell you about it. It's almost like a cult. Almost. That's a joke, in case you were wondering. But they're very passionate about it. And that's great. I'm all for exercise and being in shape. I think that's a great thing. They're very passionate, and in case you're wondering what that exercise is, who cares? It doesn't matter. It's just an illustration.
The point being is that if you're passionate about something, people are going to know about it. Because you're going to be talking about it. If you go to a nice restaurant, and they serve you on time, and the waiters are attentive, and everything is immaculate, and the food is delicious, and you have an incredible experience, you're going to tell somebody about it. And if the inverse is true, the contrary is true. They do a terrible job. There's hair in your food... I was going to keep going, but that reaction was enough. You're going to tell somebody about it.
You don't hide your passions. People know what you're passionate about. People know what you care about. If you love something, it's going to be given expression. Worship singing is part of how we give expression to the fact that our God is awesome. What the Lord has done for us in Christ is worth singing about. It's worth praising him over. It's worth exalting him, and whatever energy it takes to clap our hands, lift our hands, shout for joy—we sang "Shout to the Lord, all the earth" this morning. Let us sing. Whatever energy it must take to worship him, he's worthy. He's worthy of our worship, of our adoration, of our affection, and our attention.
During our worship time, as we're singing to the Lord, that's our time to put our focus on God. It's not just about our words, it's about our mind, our thoughts, our heart, our soul, setting our affections on the one who is worthy of our affections. And not just sort of looking around and saying, Oh, where's so-and-so today? Oh, that's right, they're on vacation. I wish I was on vacation right now. And what are we going to have for lunch today? And I wish my wife wasn't so this, or my husband wasn't so that. And how come the person next to me can't sing on key? Did they forget to brush their teeth? Maybe we ought to take up a collection for their deodorant fund. Just all of the things that flood our mind when we're around other people. At least flood my mind. I don't know about you.
What a waste. To go through all the effort of getting up at the crack of 9:00 a.m. to make it here by 10:15! What a colossal waste to go through all the effort to be here, to come so close, and not to truly enter into God's presence as we worship and glorify him. It's like the children of Israel that made it all the way up to the promised land and said, Nah, we're okay. We're good.
No, let us press in. Let us go deeper. How do we do that? By setting our attention, our affection, by disciplining our thoughts. Look, there are so many distractions. I get it. That's why I sit on the front row. There are less distractions. It's not just so I'm closer to come up and preach. If I sat back there—and I know that the most holy people sit back there, I know that, because you can worship with all these distractions. That's how I know how holy you are. If I sat back there, I could never worship. Because I'd just look at, Oh, look at this, and look at that, and oh wow, isn't that interesting?Why do I close my eyes when I worship? So I can focus on the Lord. Because I'm distracted easily.
So let us sing songs to him. Let us bless his name with our own lips, but let us not just do it with our words, let us do it from our hearts. This is what Jesus said in John chapter 4. Jesus said, the hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. I want to be one of those kind of worshipers, a true worshiper. What does that tell me? That tells me that there's such a thing as false worshipers. If Jesus is saying there's coming a time where those who truly worship God will worship him in spirit and in truth.
The truth is the words that we declare. We want the songs that we sing to be doctrinally sound, theologically accurate, based on the word of God, not just some inspirational songs. We want to be singing the truths of scripture, to worship in truth. But then to also worship in spirit, that's from the depths of my soul. That's not just words on my lips, that's words from my heart. That's not just me doing Christian karaoke. It's me worshiping Christ.
And it takes some effort to do that. It's not easy. Why? Because though the spirit may be willing, Jesus said, the flesh is weak. We all live in the flesh. The needs of the body. We get hungry, we get thirsty, we get tired, we get cold, we get hot. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. It takes effort to press in, to push through all of the distractions and say, I will not be deterred today. I've come to meet with the Lord.
It's like the woman who suffered so greatly with her issue of blood. She went to all the doctors, and none of them could help her, and she saw Jesus. There was a crowd of people pressing in around Jesus, and she said, "If I can only touch the hem of his garment, I will be healed." This weak, frail woman, who was ceremonially unclean because of her sickness, who according to the law of Moses wasn't even allowed to touch other people, said, "I am going to press through all of that so that I might touch him." And in that moment, she received her healing.
May we be like her. As I prayed this morning, we're a needy people. I came in here with needs today. I came in with great needs today. That's why I'm here today, because I recognize my great spiritual need. My need for the Lord, my need for Christ, my need to be strengthened and encouraged in his word and by his people. Because we are a needy people, let us press through all of the distractions and touch the hem of his garment in worship. True worshipers are those that worship in spirit and in truth, and Jesus says the Father is seeking after such people who will worship him that way.
Worship as a Living Sacrifice
He goes on to say in verse 7, "Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength! Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts! Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!"
Here he goes from talking about worshiping the Lord through song into worshiping the Lord through how we live our lives. When the Lord comes to the earth, he's going to judge the world. And so worship is much more than singing songs. It's certainly not less than that, but it's much more than that. If all we do is sing the words, but then we leave here and don't endeavor to live them out, what good is that? If us pressing into the presence of God isn't truly changing us, have we really entered into his presence to begin with? Or is it just pretense? Is it just words?
Let it not just be words on your lips. Let it be the way that we live our lives. Jesus said this in Matthew 15:7-9:
"You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'"
Press into the Lord, and let it be real. Let it be genuine. Let it not be for show and pretense. Let it not be, I'm going to raise my hand so everyone thinks I'm a holy guy. No, press in. Let it be real. To only honor the Lord with our lips, but to have a heart that is far from him, if you do that, you're a hypocrite. That's not me saying that. That's Jesus saying that.
We need to endeavor to live out the truth that we profess, to apply the word of God. That is also worship. Worship doesn't end when we leave here. This is to be like filling up your gas tank so that you can run for the Lord throughout the rest of the week.
Romans 12:1-2 says this. Paul says:
"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."
What he's saying is that we should give everything to the Lord, even our own bodies. We lay it all on his altar. When we come to the cross, when we lay everything down, we are declaring we are his, and we belong to him. That should be manifest in how we are endeavoring to live our lives. A living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This is your spiritual worship.
He goes on to clarify what he means. He says:
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."
The world is trying to force us into a particular mold. But the people of God are to live distinctly Christian lives, according to the Word of God. Where does transformation start? By renewing your mind. That's applying the word of God, meditating on it, thinking on it, letting the word of God wash over your mind.
There's all kinds of things in our culture that are contrary to the Word of God. When we come to Christ, we don't know what those things are. We need to have our minds washed and trained by the word of God. And then by discernment, we can see what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect, and live that out.
The point that I'm making today is that worship is not only what we sing, worship is how we live. In James chapter 3:9-10, he says this:
"With it [our tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so."
How can sweet water and bitter water pour out of the same fountain? How can we come into the presence of God and bless him and then leave here and go curse others? We need to let the truths we profess go deep into our hearts, that our hearts and our minds would be transformed, that we would bless God, and that we would bless others.
Point 3: Declaring His Glory to the World
The final point is that not only should we worship the Lord, but we should declare his glory to the world. God is awesome. Christ is awesome. He is worthy to be worshipped. We should worship him, and we should tell others about him, declaring his glory to the world.
There's this way that the gospel is sometimes presented that shrinks the gospel. It presents the good news of what God has done for us in Christ as merely a way to go to heaven one day. It presents the gospel as a way of getting your ticket punched. Because one day when you approach the pearly gates, you want to make sure your name is written in that book.
It's a shrinking of the gospel. You see, the gospel is not just a way to get your ticket punched to heaven. The gospel is about God and his glory filling the whole earth. When we reduce the gospel to just my ticket to heaven, we minimize the work of Christ. We make the gospel small.
These two outlooks are very different. The outlook that is consumed with what the psalmist was consumed with—declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples, say among the nations, the Lord reigns—this is a very big, high, lofty, exalted view of Christ. It's massive, it's cosmic, it's all-encompassing. As we sang today, that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That is one perspective. And then there's this other perspective: Pray this prayer and you won't go to hell when you die. They're very different.
The psalmist shows us we are to care about God's glory being put on display in the earth. I know this is true because that's what it means to be an image bearer of God. Humanity uniquely, above all other creation, bears the image of God. That means that you are designed in a way to display the attributes of God. That's why we were made. To mirror God, to image God, to put God's glory on display in our own life.
What is God's glory? God's glory is the radiant display of all that he is. His greatness, his beauty, his power, his character, his holiness. And that glory is to be put on display so that we would know Christ, enjoy Christ, and love Christ. We're supposed to care deeply that God would be glorified in the earth and in my life.
Satan came and tempted Adam and Eve in the garden and he said, "You don't have to do that. You can be like God yourself. You don't have to live under God's rule and reign for his glory. You can live for your own glory." They believed the lie. All of humanity, in one way or another, is living for their own glory.
This is more difficult today than it's ever been in the age that we live, with social media, which is the most self-glorifying thing that's ever been made. Look at me. Look what I'm doing. Look how awesome I am. Look how many likes I'm getting. That's human nature amplified by technology. It's the lie of the garden. We have to be very careful that we don't just fall into the pattern of the culture. Are we after our own glory?
I'm not saying you can't use social media. I'm not saying you have to be Amish. Although if you can build a barn, that's pretty cool. What I am saying is that you're either living for your glory or you're living for Christ's glory, and you can't do both at the same time. Search your heart. Is what I'm about to post to glorify Christ, or is it to glorify me? Is it so others would say Christ is awesome, or is it so others would say I'm awesome?
Because we're to declare among the nations his glory. In fact, when Jesus taught us how to pray, he made this the first petition: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name." Lord, that your name would be hallowed, that your name would be glorified on earth as it is in heaven. If this is the first thing Jesus taught us to pray for, does it not make sense that this would be the most important thing we should care about? Way down on the list is "give us our daily bread." We should be more concerned about the glory of God in the earth than where our next meal is coming from.
Am I living in such a way that is displaying the character of God, the nature of God, the love of Christ, the mercy of Christ, the patience of Christ, the grace of Christ? This should be the all-encompassing passion of every heart of a believer: that Christ would be glorified in our lives, that our names would be forgotten, that his name might be remembered. At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.
One of the things I've found surprising in my life over the last few years is how much it's begun to bother me when I hear the name of Jesus taken in vain. It didn't used to bother me as a kid. I sort of went in one ear and out the other. But I've noticed that the more I endeavor to live for the glory of God, the more when his name is blasphemed and dragged through the mud, it wounds me. It hurts me. I just put that before you as a little barometer for you. A little way of taking your temperature on your zeal for the glory of God. When his name is not hallowed but blasphemed, does it hurt? That's my Jesus. That's my God. I want to see his name exalted in the earth.
Conclusion: Lighting a Fire for His Glory
I'm going to invite our communion team to get ready, our worship team to come. I want to close with this story from history.
In 1555, in Oxford, England, Queen Mary I—a woman also known as Bloody Mary, not because she liked vodka and tomato juice, but because she persecuted the church so violently—had two Protestant ministers burned at the stake for heresy on October 16, 1555. Queen Mary was a devout papist, Catholic, and she saw it as her duty to purge the evil of Protestantism from England.
These two Protestant ministers' names were Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. They're known as the Oxford Martyrs. You can read their story in Foxe's Book of Martyrs. When they had bound them to the stake, lit the torches, the crowds assembled to watch these men burned for their testimony. They refused to recant.
A lighted torch was laid at Ridley's feet. And at that moment, Latimer, his friend next to him, said to him: "Be of good cheer, Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day by God's grace light up such a candle in England, as I trust shall never be put out."
These men had a vision of the glory of God being put on display. They understood that whatever God brings into my life, I will use it, I will embrace it as an opportunity to shine forth his glory. If it means being burned at the stake, Christ is king.
These executions, as violent and painful as they were, did not destroy the Protestant faith. In fact, the opposite happened. The more they burned ministers at the stake, the more people came to Christ when the people saw that even death had no sway over these men. Why? Because Christ has truly conquered death. Though it cost these men their lives, they had a confident expectation of the triumph of the kingdom of God in history, and they were willing to lay down their lives that God would be glorified in the earth. And so the Protestant Reformation not only swept Europe, but it made its way over to the New World, where countless millions have now been brought into the kingdom of God because people were determined: Christ will be glorified in my life.
Now, in no way, shape, or form is anybody here facing anything as drastic or dramatic as that. But the same Spirit that was in them is the same Spirit that is in us. The same Spirit that enabled and emboldened them to witness for Christ by their death can enable and embolden us to witness for Christ with our life. If we will only say, "Christ, you be glorified. I'm surrendering it all. I'm giving it all to you. I'm going to obey your word. I'm not just going to sing about you when it feels good. I'm going to live for you, even if it costs me something." Because I am zealous for the glory of God on the earth and in the nations.