I am the guy who yells at the TV during football games. I don’t want to be that guy, but I am. There have even been times when I have snapped out of my delirium to find myself on my hands and knees about 6 inches away from the TV screen. Sometimes I even shout at the players as if they could hear me through the television. Of course if my team wins, I have been known to jump, scream, and sometimes even cry out of joy.

As I read this Psalm through this week, it was clear to me that the psalmist who wrote these words was experiencing joy also. But this is a different kind of joy. It is a pure joy – joy in knowing the love of God. As you scan over this Psalm, just try to imagine the excitement with which the Psalmist wrote these words. He emphasized worshipping the Lord with joy, because he made us and because he loves us.

This got me thinking about my reaction to the gracious love of God. Do I always come to God’s house and worship the Lord with joy? I can jump up and down and scream about a football game with little thought, but do I get that excited when I think about the love with which God created me and redeemed me?

When you come to God’s house to worship, do you find yourself easily preoccupied with other things – with thoughts of work the next day, or distracted by the argument you had with your spouse on the ride here, or with painful eagerness to get home and take care of your list of chores? Do you know that Satan loves to steal the joy out of your worship? It fill him with great joy when he can distract God’s people from hearing the Word or concentrating on the Lord’s Supper. He counts those distractions as victories.

And so my prayer is today that you will find the excitement in this Psalm uplifting, that you will hear the Word of God and be comforted by the message so that you can worship in pure joy. God created you and loves you.

1. Because he made us (v. 1-3)

The Psalm writer begins with “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.” This is an invitation to join in worshipping the Almighty. The invite goes out to all the people of the world. It is for everyone with no one excluded. For God has made all of us. He put us here on earth beginning with Adam and Eve. Generation after generation has been woven together to form the fabric of mankind.

The invitation continues with the encouragement to “worship the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful songs.” In the first two lines of this Psalm you see the words joy, gladness, and joyful. This is how we are to worship the Lord. With glad hearts we raise up our voices in praise to the Lord. Why? Because “the Lord is God.” He is the God of the eternal covenant, the everlasting promise. God’s people in the Old Testament knew well that God keeps his promises. He brought them out of slavery in Egypt. He carried them on eagles’ wings. He set them apart with his gracious promise that a redeemer would come from them, one who would take away the sins of the world.

When those people heard God’s promises they knew they could count on God. David was told by the prophet Nathan that his sins of adultery and murder were forgiven. In New Testament, Peter and the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet were comforted with the same promise. “Your sins are forgiven!”

We too have that promise. Just think about that. You have sinned against God. I have sinned against God. So often I feel miserable about my sins. My jealous and angry thoughts, my hurtful words, my sin-filled actions – they weigh on me. Do your sins bother you? Do you feel the weight of your transgressions? Do you understand that you deserve God’s mighty wrath for your sins?

When we feel that sorrow over our sins, that is when we need to come to God’s house to hear the same promises that David, Peter, and the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet heard. When you come to God’s house you stand before God at the beginning of our service and you confess those sins. Then you hear the promise of God from the pastor, “I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Yes, that forgiveness is yours. The weight has been lifted. Your sins have been taken away by the Son of God who lived a perfect life, who died an innocent death, and who rose victorious from the grave. By the grace of God, you no longer are held accountable. Jesus paid for your sins once and for all and makes it possible for you to be brought into the family of God.

That is why the Psalm writer said, “We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” By your baptisms, you are now God’s sheep. And you will receive the inheritance that Jesus’ won for you. God has set you apart and made you his own.

2. Because he loves us (v. 4-5)

That is how much God loves us. There was nothing appealing about us. But God said, “I want you.” How spectacular is that. Let us worship the Lord with joy because he loves us.

This joy is not some manufactured joy that we need build up inside of us during worship. As the words of Psalm 100 remind us, when we come to church, “Let us enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise, give thanks to him and praise his name.” Come to God’s house not looking to be entertained and wowed with emotional tricks. Come with thankful hearts, ready to sing God’s praise for the forgiveness won for us on the cross of Calvary. What more do we need than that?

Let your praises ring out! I said before that it is easy for me to get excited about a football game. Today I am even more excited about the love of God. That is all that we need. The words of this Psalm tell us that the love of God is faithful. It endures generation after generation. Yes, we change. We wander away. We become unlovable. But God stays with us. He continues to love us. He continues to open his arms and welcome us back.

Let us praise God with thanksgiving for his love to us. With thankful hearts sing with loud voices the praises of God. With thankful hearts be generous with your offerings to God. With thankful hearts encourage one another with your worship.

In the book of Acts we are told, “In [Jesus] we live and move and have our being.” Or in another words, without Jesus we have nothing. The promises of God ought to pump us up more than any football game. The forgiveness of sins ought to move our emotions more than anything in this world. With that in mind and the words of Psalm 100 in our hearts, let us worship the Lord with joy every time we enter his house. He made us and he loves us. Amen.