“Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing” (Psalm 100:1-2).
The first thing we see in verse 1 is the command for the whole earth to worship the Lord. The Psalmist says: “Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands!” The “joyful shout” is the rejoicing of loyal subjects when their king appears among them. Think of King Saul and David when they defeated the Philistines … the women came from all towns of Israel to meet the king with shouts of joy! In the same way, the psalmist says all the peoples of the earth ought to worship the Lord with gladness and joyful songs. And this is not a suggestion, but rather a command to all the peoples of the earth. Psalm 2 tells the nations to “Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.”
Not only are all people required “to shout for joy to the LORD” but they are also commanded “to serve the LORD with gladness.” The great sin of unbelievers is that they will not worship and serve the one true God. “Worship” means to give God his worth, and this is something unbelievers will not do. God created man to praise and glorify Him, but because of sin man worships and serves the creature rather than the Creator, who is king over all and blessed forever (Romans 1). And those who do not obey the call to worship the LORD with gladness do so to their eternal condemnation. “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent…” (Acts 17:30)
And notice in our text that worship is not a sad and gloomy activity, but something that’s done with great joy. “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.” There’s nothing greater than gathering together as God’s people to give God His worth by hearing and obeying His Word, singing praise to His holy name, and serving Him in this temporal life with gladness. Psalm 122: “I was glad when they said unto me let us go up to the house of the Lord.”
Is this your response to worship, or do you wake up on Sunday morning and say, “Do we have to go to church again?” Do you behave like a believer or an unbeliever? The unbeliever does not understand what a joyous thing it is to worship, praise, and thank the Lord because he’s not in a covenant of peace with God; the unbeliever only knows God in judgment. But God’s people … those who know the Lord in salvation … ought to have great joy and rejoicing when it comes to worshiping the Lord. But sadly, how often does it seem that we put on our most miserable face when we come into the presence of God? Our text declares “make a joyful shout to the Lord!” Meditate on this text and pray that the Holy Spirit gives you a joyful spirit of worship so that you “come before His presence with singing.”