How will we come before God?
[Psalms 100]
During last Sunday's English Ministry service, I encouraged my church members to live for one week by comforting anybody whom the Lord allowed them to meet, based on the words of Acts 15:22-35. Then yesterday, after the morning prayer meeting on Tuesday, I had breakfast with the church leader couple. We had coffee together, and I was comforted by them rather than comforting them. Particularly, when the leaders’ wife shared God's abundant grace in her life of faith before God, “Coram Deo”, we rejoiced and thanked God together. What is our Christian life before God? Coram Deo's life is life before God. This is a God-centered idea that eventually leads us to live without shame in front of God (Internet). When we live without shame in front of God like this, our hearts are free when we come to God and give praise and worship Him.
As we meditate on Psalms 100 and answer “How will we come before God?” in three ways, I want to receive few lessons and apply in our lives.
First, we should come before God with thanksgiving.
Look at Psalms 100:4 – “Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise Give thanks to Him, bless His name.” When we come to the temple of the Lord to worship Him, we must come in with thanksgiving. Why should we come into the temple with thanksgiving to praise and worship God? The reason is because the psalmist says: ” For the LORD is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting And His faithfulness to all generations” (v. 5). The reason why we come up to the Lord's temple and give thanks to God and worship Him is because God is good and His lovingkindness and faithfulness toward us is eternal. That is, because God saves His people through the virtue of His lovingkindness and faithfulness. This is what Dr. Park said, ‘God doesn’t love the saint only for a while, and He doesn’t change in the middle. There are many twists and turns in the life of a believer. The course may be difficult and perhaps plain. But it is all joined together to benefit him, and all are the Lord's loving counsel. His sincere care for us extends from generation to generation’ (Park). We must come up to the Lord's temple and worship Him because we are grateful as we think of the saving grace that has been granted to us in Jesus Christ.
How is it? Do you come up to the Lord’s temple on Sunday to worship God with thanksgiving in your heart? For some reason, it seems that there are many times when Satan seduces us who come up to church to worship on Sunday so that we cannot step on the Lord’s temple and return home. Often, due to marital quarrels, it seems that there are cases where people cannot step on the Lord’s temple and go back home. It’s not easy to come up to His temple with thanksgiving in our hearts. There will be times when we come up with complicated mind because of these and other things. And there will be times when we enter the Lord’s temple with heavy heart out of anxiety, stress, and worry. However, in Psalms 100, when the psalmist comes up to the Lord's temple to worship God, he urges us to come up to worship Him with thanksgiving. Let us all come up to the Lord's temple and worship God because we are grateful for the saving grace of God that God has given us in Jesus Christ.
Second, we should come before God as we get to know Him.
Look at Psalms 100:3 – “Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” In this age of a famine for hearing the words of the Lord (Am. 8:11), we see a very sad reality in which we cannot hear the voice of the Lord even though we have ears. In particular, as we the pastors gave up our knowledge of God and forgotten God's law (Word) like Israeli priests in the time of Hosea, the flock is suffering from spiritual malnutrition and Satan's temptations like the lost sheep. At this time, we must press on to know the Lord (Hos 6:3). We must grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Therefore, when Jesus asked His disciples “But who do you say that I am?”, we should confess like the apostle Peter did – “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:15-16). In Psalms 100:3, the psalmist exhorts, “Know that the LORD Himself is God.” He encourages us to know that God is the Creator God who made us and He is the Shepherd who raises us. Therefore, he is saying that we must go up to the Lord's temple to praise and worship God because we ought to know and acknowledge the Lord as our God, and we are His people and the sheep of His pasture (v. 3).
Third and last, we should come before God with joy.
Look at Psalms 100:1-2: “Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth. Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing.” When we come up to the Lord's temple and give praise and worship to God, we should acknowledge and appreciate God's God. And we must not only praise and worship God with thanksgiving, but also praise and worship Him with joy. Why should we praise and worship God with joy? We can think of three things: (1) Because God has saved us, we must praise and worship God with the joy of salvation within us. (2) Because our God cannot overcome joy because of us (Zep 3:17), we must also offer praise and worship to God with God's joy. (3) The reason why we must also praise and worship God with joy is that our God is our joy.
This morning, I met deceased Pastor Andrew Kim in my dream. I can see the pastor saying, ‘I am not always with you.’ Then, I saw tree branches disappear one by one due to the water being sprayed. Then, while relatives and family members gathered around my father and tried to sing four songs, I woke up from a dream while singing the hymn “Just a Few More Days”. So, at this early morning prayer meeting, I praised this hymn to God and thought of the pastor and the saints who went to heaven first. “Just a few more days to be filled with praise, And to tell the old, old story; Then, when twilight falls, and my Savior calls I shall go to Him in glory” (v. 1). “What a joy 'twill be when I wake to see/ Him for whom my heart is burning!/ Nevermore to sigh, nevermore to die/ For that day my heart is yearning/ I'll exchange my cross for a starry crown/ Where the gates swing outward never/ At his feet I'll lay ev-'ry burden down/ And with Jesus reign forever” (v. 4 and chorus).
“Then, when twilight falls, and my Savior calls I shall go to Him in glory” …
James Kim
(Praising and worshiping the Lord of glory with thanks and joy)