Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

As my kids were growing up they would come into the house singing the latest song that they had heard on the radio.

One of my favorite things was to join in singing with them.

They would stop in shock and horror and exclaim, “How do you know that song?!”, to which I would reply, “Oh, that’s an old song.”

“No its not, it just came out last week.”

99 red balloons,      Angel of the morning remade by Juice Newton,

Red Red Wine by Neil Diamond was remade by UB40.

My kids just assumed because they were hearing it for the first time on their radio stations that it had to be new.

They had no idea that these songs were hits long before they were even born.

I go through the same thing with movies.

I thought Sabrina with Harrison Ford was new until I found the original on the Classic Movie Channel.

Guess Who,             The Italian Job (1969),

You’ve Got Mail was originally the Shop Around the Corner.

When we haven’t been exposed to the older things we just assume that what we know is new and original.

Sometimes, we do this with the Bible and the New Testament.

We read something in the NT and just assume that it is new.

It is easy to go, “Well Jesus said it, it must be new.”

But we know better than that.

A good bit of the time Jesus was quoting directly from the OT.

We are familiar with the passage when Jesus is asked what the most important commandment is.

And we know that his reply  of “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” is straight from the OT.

It was from the Shema the most well known command that was given to the Jews to teach their children.

But Jesus then follows it up with, “And love your neighbor as yourself.”

For the longest time I thought this was just something that Jesus added on his own.

It wasn’t until years later that I discovered that he was quoting directly from  Lev 19.18.

A good Bible with footnotes would have been a great help when I was younger.

\\ We know that as NT Christians we are called to action by the Great Commission:

Matthew 28:19-20 (NKJV) \\ 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, /even/ to the end of the age.”

Amen.

It is this passage, more than any other that lights the evangelistic fires.

Does not tell us to pick a few people to go and make disciples.

It simply says Go, Make, baptize and teach.

It is a responsibility that falls to each and every one of us.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that God does give the gift of evangelism to certain people, and those people are meant to proclaim His message to the masses of people.

But God also calls each of us right where we are to fulfill his commission.

If we didn’t know better we would think that this “going and making disciples” was a new idea, but when we look closely at the Old Testament we will find that God has always intended that his people should be an evangelistic and missionary force through whom he could reveal

his grace and mercy,

his power and purpose,

his holiness and righteousness,

and his love and salvation.

If we look at today’s passage we see this:

            Turn to  Psalm 96:1-10 (NKJV) \\ 1 Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!

Sing to the Lord, all the earth.

\\ 2 Sing to the Lord, bless His name; Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.

\\ 3 Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples.

\\ 4 For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods.

\\ 5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the Lord made the heavens.

\\ 6 Honor and majesty are before Him; Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

\\ 7 Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples, Give to the Lord glory and strength.

\\ 8 Give to the Lord the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come into His courts.

\\ 9 Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!

Tremble before Him, all the earth.

\\ 10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns; The world also is firmly established, It shall not be moved; He shall judge the peoples righteously.”

\\ \\

11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and all it contains; \\ 12 Let the field exult, and all that is in it.

Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy \\ 13 Before the Lord, for He is coming, For He is coming to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness And the peoples in His faithfulness.

\\ \\

We can hear the GC faintly in this Old Testament hymn, for the psalmist calls attention to Israel’s missionary charter.

This grand coronation anthem falls into four stanzas:

The first stanza, vss1-3, invites Israel to assume its high calling as the Lord’s evangelist.

The second stanza, vss 4-6, sets God high above the idols, the nothings, which were worshiped by the pagan nations of the earth.

Any other god is not really a god.

The third stanza, vss 7-10, invites the people of all nations to enter the temple gates to worship and to honor and bless the name of the Lord on an equal basis with the Jewish people.

There were always Gentiles coming to the temple to see what it was about.

The fourth and final stanza, vss 11-13 calls upon nature in all of its heights and depths and lengths and breadths to praise the Lord for his greatness and goodness.

The first stanza of the text describes our mission.

*We are to proclaim his salvation.*

This isn’t just telling people about his salvation.

A different translation of this gives us a clearer meaning of this passage.

We are to “show forth his salvation.”

The method for doing this is disclosed.

A demonstration is called for in the words “*show forth his salvation from day to day*.”

The *purpose of  both* ancient Israel and of the modern church is disclosed in the words “show forth his salvation.”

Let’s dig into this a little deeper this morning.

The first thing that we see is that:

I. Our mission is defined:  our mission is to “Show forth his salvation.”

We will do well if our life is a song of praise to the Lord.

By this song of praise we are to communicate to the unsaved around us the wonders of God’s grace toward all people.

From the very beginning, our faith has been a missionary faith and God has been seeking to reach more and more people with the message of his redeeming love.

God’s great missionary purpose began with Abraham.

He set His people apart (made them holy) so that they could be an example to all the nations.

He gave them special rules that would keep them safe and healthy.

He even showed that his redemption was to be all-inclusive when He commanded  Jonah to go to the wicked city of Nineveh.

Even Israel’s enemies were included.

The Jews were meant to be a witness to the One True God.  (They didn’t always do this)  Instead of being distinct and different from the people around them, the Jews adopted their customs as they tried to fit in.

They weren’t supposed to fit in.

*We are not supposed to fit in!*

The Jews wanted a King like all the other nations.

They were willing to trade the glory of God for the glory of man.

They didn’t want to be different.

We know how much of a disaster that was.

When they weren’t careful they wound up looking just like the people around them.

That’s not much of a witness, is it?

That responsibility now falls to those of us who are in the church.

We occupy the position of privilege and responsibility that was once enjoyed by Israel.

Listen to what Peter writes about this:

 

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” (1 Peter 2:9–10).

Peter tells us that we now have the responsibility that God originally gave to Israel.

We were *not a people* until we were brought into the body of Christ, we were out there doing our own thing, but now we are brought together.

We have been adopted into the family.

Now that we are in the family of God, Our job is not to fit in and be like the people around us, our job is to show people what the standard is, our job is to lead the way and for them to want to be like us because we reflect the Father and His love.