“Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing” … “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise” (Psalm 100).
A mark of a true believer is a delight in the worship of God. What about you? Do you wake up on Sunday morning rejoicing to go to worship or is it a burden to you? Would you rather stay home and sleep or go to the ball game on Sunday morning? What about you young people? What do you think when Mom or Dad wakes you up on Sunday morning and says, “Get ready for church”? Would you rather be at the shopping mall or home watching TV? Do you rejoice or do you mumble and groan when you hear the word “church”?
You see, how you respond to worship on the Lord’s Day reveals what’s going on in your soul. And if you’d rather be some other place when the church gathers together for public worship then you reveal, at worst, an unbelieving heart, or at best, a heart of a spiritual infant. Every Sunday morning we ought to sing these words: “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.” We ought to delight to “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”
By God’s grace, believers are those being conformed into the very image of Jesus Christ. Was Jesus ever burdened by worship? Was He ever burdened to hear the Word of God? NEVER! Therefore, as believers, we ought to delight in the worship of God by hearing His word on the Lord’s Day. Parents, you must teach this principle to your children. They must learn what a great joy and wonderful privilege it is to go to a church that faithfully stands on the truth of God’s Word. If you parents don’t rejoice to worship God neither will your children! You must teach your children to cultivate a spirit of worship for the true and living God out of a thankful heart.
Today there’s such a famine for the preaching of God’s Word and a famine for the hearing of God’s Word. Too many “preachers” don’t preach the Word of God and too many church members don’t desire to hear God’s Word preached … and yet they call themselves followers of Christ? The duty of a follower of Christ is to obey His Word. Jesus said in John 10: “My sheep hear my voice and they follow Me.” And the sheep hear Christ’s voice on Sunday morning when the preacher faithfully proclaims God’s Word. Therefore, every believer has a responsibility to be in a place of worship on Sunday morning where the Word of God is faithfully preached and taught in order that they might bow their necks in faithful obedience to the God who has saved their soul by the person and work of Jesus Christ. As believers, we must be seen ‘entering into His gates with thanksgiving” and we must be heard entering “into his courts with praise.”