Psalms 100:1 - Meaning and Application

Here, the call to praise is urgent and repeated. This psalm truly fits its title, “a psalm of praise,” and it begins with the same summons we have seen several times: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth” (Psalm 100:1). When all nations are brought into discipleship and the gospel is preached to every creature, this call will be fully answered.

If we take the psalm as a call to the Jewish church to rejoice in God’s rule among them, as the earlier psalms were suited to the Messiah’s days, then this psalm may also have been meant for Gentile converts who came from many lands into the Jewish faith. Either way, the invitation is broad and warm. God does not need us or anything we can offer, but it is his will that we serve him and give ourselves to his worship.

We are called to come into his presence in the ways he has appointed, where he has promised to meet with his people (Psalm 100:2). That means entering his gates and courts (Psalm 100:4), waiting on him among his servants, and staying where he holds his court. In private worship and family worship, we also come before God, but public worship especially is pictured as entering his gates and courts. The people could not go into the holy place, where only the priests served, yet they should be thankful for their place in the courts of God’s house.

We are also encouraged to worship God gladly. “Serve the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2) points both to the joy that would mark gospel times and to the rule that should guide all worship. Holy joy is itself a true service to God. It honors him when we rejoice in him, and gospel worshipers should be joyful worshipers.

If we serve God with honesty, we should also serve him with gladness. We should be willing and eager to do so, glad when we are called to go up to the house of the Lord (Psalm 122:1). We should count it a comfort to have fellowship with God, and we should come into his presence with singing. That means songs of joy and songs of praise. We should not only comfort ourselves with worship, but also glorify God with our joy and give him the praise for what gives us delight.

We are told to be thankful and bless his name. This means, first, that we should count it a kindness to be admitted into his service and thank him for the liberty of coming near to him, the ordinances he has given, and the chance to wait on him in them. Second, we should weave praise and thanksgiving through all our worship. This golden thread should run through every duty (Hebrews 13:15), for it is the work of angels. In everything we do, and in every ordinance as well as every providence, we should give thanks.

The reasons for praise are just as important as the call to praise (Psalm 100:3, 5). We must know who God is in himself and who he is to us. Knowledge is the mother of devotion and of all obedience. Blind sacrifices will never please a God who sees everything. If we truly know these things, we will worship more carefully, more steadily, more inwardly, and more seriously.

First, “the Lord, he is God,” the only living and true God. He is infinitely perfect, self-existing, self-sufficient, and the source of all being. He is God, not a man like us. He is an eternal Spirit, beyond full understanding, independent of all else, the first cause and the last goal of all things. The heathen worshiped what they had imagined or made, but what people make with their own hands cannot be God. We worship the One who made us and made the whole world. All false gods are empty lies, and God has already triumphed over them.

Second, he is our Creator. “It is he who made us, and not we ourselves.” I can know that I exist, but I cannot say, “I am the one who simply is,” and so I must ask, “Where did I come from? Who made me? Where is God my Maker?” It is the Lord Jehovah. He gave us being, and he gave us this kind of being. He formed our bodies and gave us our spirits. We did not make ourselves, and we could not do it.

Third, because he made us, he has the right to own us. The Masoretes, by changing one letter in the Hebrew, read it as, “He made us, and we are his,” or “we belong to him.” Taken together, both readings teach the same truth: since God made us and we did not make ourselves, we are not our own. We belong to him. He has a clear right to us and to everything. We are his to be guided by his power, arranged by his will, and devoted to his honor and glory.

Fourth, he is our sovereign ruler. We are his people, his subjects, and he is our prince, ruler, and governor. He gives us moral law and will call us to account for what we do. The Lord is our judge, and the Lord is our lawgiver. We are not free to do whatever we want, but must carefully obey what he commands.

Fifth, he is our generous benefactor. We are not only his sheep, which already belong to him, but the sheep of his pasture, the flock he feeds and cares for. We are the sheep of his hand, in his keeping and under his control (Psalm 95:7). He who made us also sustains us and gives us all good things richly to enjoy.

Sixth, he is infinitely merciful and good (Psalm 100:5). The Lord is good, and therefore he does good. His mercy lasts forever. It is a fountain that can never run dry. The saints, who are now vessels of mercy set apart for God, will be forever the shining evidence of that mercy in glory.

Seventh, he is true and faithful, and his truth lasts through all generations. No word from him will fall to the ground as outdated or revoked. His promise is sure to all his people from age to age.