“I
1 Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before His presence with singing.

II
3 Know that the Lord, He is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

III
4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

IV
5 For the Lord is good;
His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures to all generations.”

A song of joy

Combining bible verses 1 and 2, this is a song with four verses, each with three lines.

II and IV show the nature of God, who he is and what he has done, and by inference, our humble and completely dependent relation to him.

I and III show how we are called to respond to God’s greatness and his loving kindness.

Highlights

I: His call to us is universal, it is addressed to all people of the world, not just Israel;
He calls not for the finest of musicianship, but just a “joyful noise”;
Knowing our utter dependence on God is not a call to be seriously miserable, but to be joyful, glad and happy.

II: Proclaims God as the almighty creator; as a consequence we are not powerful, free and self-determining as we like to think, but we are completely dependent upon God, he owns us.

III: We are called to be thankful and actively praise him.

IV: States that God embodies and is the source of the ultimate ideals known by mankind (the Three Transcendentals of Plato and Aristotle). These are Truth, Goodness (both listed), and the third of Beauty (or that which is lovely), although not listed, I believe is a reflection of God’s love and mercy.

Personal response

While sorrow for my sin is an important step in faith, when I think of all that God has done for me through Jesus, and his loving care for me each day, I cannot but be happy and want to share that joy with others.

Some of the health and wellness stuff in the media talks of the benefits of having a spirit of gratitude, but unless people know who they are grateful to, and why, it’s a false attitude. But when I realise who God is and what he has done, I cannot but be grateful to him, and take pleasure in expressing that gratitude in worship.

Modern thought leaders who promote relativism believe our values are purely subjective and exist only in a person’s imagination, that there are no absolute or transcending values. But even the ancient Greek philosophers believed these ultimate ideals are objective and real, and knowable by those who seek them. So, we can recognise the presence of God in all that is good, true and lovely in this world, which gives us joy — contrary to the killjoys and grinches who see it as meaningless chaos, and who try to make it so.

Let us rejoice!