Today we are going to take a look at Psalm 98 together. This psalm helps us with something that we do every week: sing worship to God. But Psalm 98 has much broader implications than just singing. Though its only nine verses, it encompasses the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation and encourages us to celebrate that story through songs of praise.

Singing praise is central to the Christian life. We sing praise every week as the gathered body of Christ. But do we know why we sing praise? Do we know how to sing praise? Do we know how to make praise a part of our everyday life? Let’s remember, it is to the holy God of the universe that we are called to render this praise; we should not take such an endeavor lightly!

Thankfully, we have Psalm 98 to guide our way. The big idea of the psalm is this: we should praise God in the present by remembering what He has done in the past and looking forward to what He will do in the future. Let’s consider the components of this idea in turn.

1. Praise God in the present (v. 4-6).

We are going to do a little bit of gymnastics in the psalm. I want to begin at the focal point of the psalm and show you how the parts work together. The center of these three verses is “sing praises to the Lord.” Well, what does that mean? “Praise” is one of those words that we say a lot, but do we know what it means?

To “praise” means to honor, worship, or express admiration for someone or something. The word translated “sing praises” is one word in Hebrew that means “make music in praise of God.” The psalmist is calling his audience to make music, to lift up their voices, and worship God. He encourages the use of the lyre, a melody, trumpets, and horns. The word “joyful noise” in v. 4 and 6 could also be translated “a joyful shout.” It was no quiet endeavor!

I love Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of these verses. “Shout your praises to God, everybody! Let loose and sing! Strike up the band! Round up the orchestra to play for God. Add on a hundred-voice choir. Feature trumpets and big trombones, fill the air with the praises to King God.”

Notice also who is called to sing praises: “all the earth” (v. 4)! God’s plan from the beginning of creation was for the earth to be filled with those who bear His image and praise Him with their lives. That’s why He told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. His desire is still the same- for all the earth to know Him and for all the earth to praise Him!

But all the earth does not praise Him- so we we’re called to go into all the earth, and do what? Interestingly enough, there’s multiple examples of missional singing throughout the Psalms. Singing praise and reaching the nations go together in some way. Consider Psalm 96:1-3, “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!”

Songs are one of the primary ways that God’s people can praise Him and tell of His work to others. We find examples all throughout the Scriptures, from Moses to Hannah to David to Mary to Simeon. And nearly all of the songs in Scripture have this unique feature: they look back on what God has done and look forward with anticipation to what He will do in the future. That’s how they’re missional. They “tell of His salvation” and “declare His glory among the nations.”

When we sing praises to God, we do the same: We worship Him. We declare His glory. We tell the lost about His marvelous works. And this is not just an Old Testament thing; singing is an integral part of the Christian life, too! Consider Ephesians 5:18-19, which tells us to be filled with the Spirit. Well, how do we do that? The participles that follow the command inform us, by “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.”

Can I ask you- how is your singing? Is it an important part of your Christian walk? We know we should pray, read the Word, and share our faith, but do we know that we should sing? Psalm 98 encourages you this morning- take your singing seriously! Sing during corporate worship. Pay attention to the words. Believe them as you sing. Sing in your car. Sing in your home. Fill your life with songs of praise.

If I am honest, there are times when I don’t feel like praying, but if I listen to a song and start singing, I find that the cold begins to melt off my heart. But on the other hand, there are times when I come into worship and sing songs while my mind and heart are elsewhere. But when we do that, we don’t experience the kind of missional praise the psalmist invites us to take part in.

Our lives should be filled with praise to the Lord. But if we’re honest, sometimes we don’t feel like singing, do we? Maybe you’re in a really tough season of life and singing sounds about as appealing as getting a root canal. Or maybe we’ve just gotten in a rut, where we just go through the motions. I think many of us may live there.

But can I encourage you? Every time you sing praises to the Lord- it is a beautiful offering to Him. Each week you come into worship with the experiences, emotions, and news of the past week, good or bad. And each time you praise the Lord in the midst of those things, He delights in it. He inhabits the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3).

But what if we don’t feel like it? Or what if we don’t know how to sing and actually sing to the Lord? Or as Ephesians says, “to each other?” This is where I think Psalm 98 helps us by showing us how to sing praises. And this is how: by remembering what God has done andlooking forward to what He will do. Let’s take a look at each of these.

2. Remember what He has done (v. 1-3).

We should sing praises to the Lord. But why? And how? The psalmist answers, by looking back and remembering what God has done. V. 1, “for he has done marvelous things!” What does he have in mind here? Let’s read the rest of the verse, “His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.” The “marvelous works” are God’s mighty acts of salvation by His “right hand.”

In the Old Testament, God’s salvation is typically attributed to His right hand. Exodus 15:6 reads, “Your right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.” Psalm 20:6 reads, “Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed; he will answer from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand.” This will be important in just a little bit, but let’s move to the next verse.

“The Lord has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” (v. 2-3). What salvation is the psalmist referring to here? It could be the salvation of God’s people from their slavery in Egypt. It could be the salvation of God’s people from the attacks of their enemies. Its likely that he has these national acts of salvation in mind because of who He has made known His salvation to “the nations.”

God always planned to make his work of salvation known to the surrounding nations. His salvation of Israel from her enemies was never just for Israel. Consider the greatest act of salvation in the Old Testament, the exodus from Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea. When Joshua recounts these events as the people of Israel enters the promised land, he writes in Joshua 4:23-24, ““The Lord God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”

The final part of the psalmist’s looking back is v. 3, “He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel, All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” God’s acts of salvation are proof that His love is steadfast (i.e. “steady,” unwavering) and that He is faithful to His promises.

That’s how Old Testament Israelites would have read these verses. But as New Testament Christians, we have a different lens, now that the fulfillment of these verses has come. First, the right arm of salvation. Who is that for us? It is Jesus. All the great acts of salvation in the Old Testament point forward to the ultimate salvation that Christ will provide. Every time that God delivered His people from their physical enemies, it was a sign that tone day He would deliver them from their eternal, spiritual enemies of sin, death, and Satan, with his right arm, His Son.

And what salvation did His Son accomplish? Verse 3 says that He remembered his faithfulness to Israel. He remembered His promises that He made to His people. To the people that He created that rejected him, and because of their sin, severed their relationship with Him, He promised to send a messiah who would live a perfectly righteous life on their behalf, die a sacrificial death in their place, take all the wrath they deserve for their sins, and would rise from the dead and ascend to the right hand of the Father in heaven.

And that’s exactly what He did. Why? Because He is a God of steadfast love. “But God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever shall believe in Him shall not perish but have ever lasting life.” And now anyone who turns from their sins and trusts Him as Savior will be saved. That’s the ultimate salvation, the ultimate “marvelous work” that we look back to when we praise God.

And finally, verse 3, “all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” This verse still awaits its final fulfillment. Remember, God always planned for the news of His salvation to reach the nations. We shouldn’t be surprised then to see Jesus commissioning His disciples to go and make disciples “of all nations” (Matt 28:19-20). And that’s exactly what they did, so that the apostle Paul could write of Jesus in 1 Timothy 3:16 that He “was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”

So how do we sing praises to God in our present? By looking back on what He’s done. By remembering the salvation He has worked in Christ. By remembering who we were1- alienated orphans without God and without hope, and who He’s made us- sons and daughters of the God of the universe with the bright hope of the future. That future is what the psalmist calls us to look to next.

3. Look forward to what He will do (v. 7-9).

How do we sing praise to God? By remembering what He has done. But also by looking forward to what He will do. Verses 7-9 of our psalm says, “Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it! Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.”

These verses attribute the human characteristics of song and praise to various aspects of creation. The sea, the sea creatures, the rivers, and the hills- sing for joy! Other psalms do this as well, such as Psalm 96:11-13, “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.”

C.S. Lewis would say that we are too quick to assume this just metaphorical language, which is why he wrote stories with talking trees and animals. Let’s use our imagination for a minute- imagine all of creation, in some way shape or form, singing, dancing, and rejoicing before the Lord. Imagine waves on the ocean dancing, the trees shaking with glee, the mountains shouting as they quake. Imagine elephants singing with their trunks, deer leaping with joy, and lions roaring with enthusiasm.

What could create such animation? Psalm 98 and 96 tells us. “For he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the people with equity” (98:9). Thus the psalmist calls us to sing now, for the reason that all creation will sing in the future- because the Lord will return to judge the earth.

When I was reading this psalm I was reminded of the Lion King. My boys and I watched the movie for the first time the other day and I was struck by the powerful imagery in the movie. If you haven’t seen the Lion King, it is the story of a lion named Simba whose father is the King of the pride lands. Simba has a sinister uncle, Scar, who kills the King, convinces Simba it was his fault, and takes over as king of the pride lands.

Simba runs away and the kingdom languishes under Scar’s reign. What was once a beautiful African ecosystem is now a deserted, decaying wasteland, where injustice reigns. The Disney animators did a great job depicting the kingdom under Scar’s rule: it’s dark, dirty, and altogether depressing.

But when Simba, the rightful heir to the kingdom, the Son, the right hand of his father, returns and defeats Scar, there is a beautiful scene where the sun rises, the grass returns, and all the animals come to pride rock to rejoice and celebrate his reign. That’s the picture I get when I read this psalm- all of creation rejoicing when the Lord returns to judge the earth.

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us that He will return to earth with all of the angels, sit on His throne, gather all the nations, and judge the earth. Now, as I say this, what emotions are in your heart? For those who don’t know Christ, it should be fear and terror, because God is a Holy God who does not clear the guilty. But for those who believe in Jesus, it should be joy, excitement, and eager anticipation, for we have been completely forgiven in Him, and have been given His perfect righteousness.

That day for us will be a glorious day. He will judge the earth. In other words, He will right every wrong, deal with every injustice, punish all evil, redeem every loss, renew the earth, and establish His righteous kingdom. Paul says that all creation groans for this day (Romans 8:19-23). The psalmist says that when this day comes, creation will rejoice. And He invites us to praise now because of the rejoicing that will happen then.

Remember verse 1 of our Psalm, “Oh sing to the Lord a new song.” Consider what Revelation 5:9 tells us that we will do on that day when Jesus returns and brings us into His kingdom “and they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” Even then, we look back, “you ransomed people for God” and look forward, “and they shall reign on the earth!

Can I ask you- do you long for Christ’s return? Do you long for Him to return and judge the earth? To set everything right? For all of creation to be as it should have been- without the presence of sin and its effects? The psalmist says to let that motivate your singing! Remember what He’s done and what He will do!

Maybe you’re here and you’re not really sure about all this Christianity stuff. But don’t you desire justice? Do you want there to be no consequences for those who work evil? Don’t you want justice to be served and peace to be restored? The Christian faith gives us this hope- that nothing escapes God’s eye. No one will ever get away with evil doing. Now that’s terrifying without the covering of Christ. But for those who trust Him, the prospect of divine justice satisfies the longing of our hearts for everything to be set right. That day will be a day of rejoicing for us, because we have already been made right with God by the sacrifice of His Son.

So how do we apply all of this? First, let me speak corporately. Praising God for what He’s done and what He will do is the regular rhythm of life in the body of Christ. In corporate worship, we proclaim what He’s done and what He will do in song. In our preaching, we preach the gospel of what He’s done and what He’s going to do in the future. In baptism, we celebrate what He’s done in an individual’s life and look forward to the future He has for them. In the Lord’s Supper, we remember what Jesus did in offering His body and shedding His blood but also look forward to the marriage feast of the lamb where we will celebrate communion with Him in heaven. So commit to a lifetime of worshipping with the body of Christ, praising God for what He’s done and what He will do until He returns.

Second, let me speak individually. Do you praise God? Do you worship Him through song and with your life? Maybe you feel lost and empty. Rember that God has sought you in His Son and promises to fill you with His Spirit. Maybe you feel alone. Remember that God has made you a part of His family in Christ. Maybe you still struggle with sin- remember that God has paid for your sins, and look forward to what He will do in removing every trace of sin from the world, including the temptation to do it in your own heart.

Wherever you are at, make it a discipline in your life to sing to the Lord and praise Him, remembering what He’s done and looking forward to what He will do. We’re doing this constantly in my family right now. When a precious three year old passed away recently in our family, we were, and are, all suffocated with wondering “why?” But we are all constantly reminding each other to praise God in the present and depend fully on Him, because of what He’s done- He defeated death forever on the cross, and because of what He will do- return and resurrect our bodies, removing the sting of death forever.

So where are you at today? If you know Christ- do you praise Him as you ought to? Maybe our time of response should be a time of repentance and asking God for the ability to worship Him as we should. But remember- our relationship with God is not based on what we have done, but what Christ has done- including living a life of perfect praise. So maybe we need to ask God for a greater appreciation for what He’s done and a greater longing for what He’s going to do. That will transform our praise in the present.

But if you don’t know Christ- you can’t do the very thing that you were created to do- to walk with God, know Him, and praise Him. And you’ll search the world for satisfaction, but it will never come until you do what you were made to do. You’ll groan, just like the creation does right now, because you can’t do what you ought to do. That can change today. You can believe in Jesus today.