1 Samuel 9-10, Psalm 98, Mark 10:35-52, 2 Corinthians 3

Psalm 98:

Once more the psalmist calls us to sing in joy to God! We are to sing a “new song.” It is easy to begin to go through life with furrowed brow and hunched back, looking down at your feet and smiling with the corners of your mouth turned down! Such ravens of religion, squawking their disaffection in melancholy tones, do nothing to commend the God they serve. Christians are to be joyful people, singing people. We all have times when we do not feel happy, and sadness, even depression, is an experience that is commensurate with genuine Christian faith. Christ was a man of sorrows himself. But the Christian is to sing!

How strange it is to gather together in worship and for there to be no singing, or for the people not to sing at all. We who follow Jesus sing with delight and devotion, duty and joy, to the one who saved us! We sing “for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation…” There is enough to sing about in the conversion of one person to keep you in full voice for all eternity! Sing to God because he is a God who saves.

Also sing to God because, “He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness” (98:3). God is a faithful God, a compassionate God. He is not quick to anger. He is filled with mercy. His faithfulness to his people is a covenant promise for all eternity. Certainly, God is holy. And that beautiful holiness is expressed in covenant love and faithfulness to his people. “Make a joyful noise, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!” (98:4).

The singing grows in volume and exuberance, “Let the sea roar…let the rivers clap their hands…let the hills sing for joy together” (98:8). This is the kind of praise to God that is massively profound and majestically voluminous!

And the psalm ends as we would not: “he will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity” (98:9). In a world of injustice, it is greatly to be praised that when God comes he will judge with pure justice. He will right every wrong. And those who follow him will find that there will be no more crying or weeping or mourning there, for the old order has gone and the new has come.