Praise the Lord

What if your loudest cheers are aimed at the wrong throne? We dive into Psalm 98 and make a bold case: worship isn’t about musical style or mood, it’s about worth. From the first line—sing to the Lord for he has done marvelous things—we trace how songs shape hearts, why instruments and even shouts belong in church, and how our daily habits reveal what we truly adore. If you’ve ever wondered why you sing loudly at a game but go quiet on Sunday, this conversation will meet you right there.

We talk about worship as formation, not performance. Melodies make meaning sticky, turning doctrine into daily courage when anxiety flares. We name modern idols with open eyes—phones, status, sports—and show why they can’t satisfy the ache for glory. Then we turn to the center: Jesus, whose stretched arms on the cross “worked salvation,” and whose resurrection crowned him King of kings. That’s why praise gets loud. Not to chase hype, but to respond to rescue. Justice and fairness aren’t slogans; they are the future government of the world under Christ. Rivers clap, hills sing, and we learn to match creation’s chorus.

Expect honest stories, a few laughs about clapping on beat, and a clear path to grow without pretending. We share simple practices to realign attention, sing with conviction, and let gratitude set the volume. If you’re hungry for worship that feels true, grounded, and hopeful—rooted in the gospel and aimed at a coming kingdom—press play, add your voice, and let joy rise. If this episode moved you or gave you a next step, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can join the song.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening, Psalm 98 Read Aloud
• 2:26 Why Worship Divides Churches
• 3:25 Psalm 98 As A Call To Worship
• 6:20 Why Singing Forms What We Love
• 9:50 Instruments, Volume, And Joyful Noise
• 12:45 Cultural Hesitations And Clapping
• 16:05 We All Worship Something
• 19:40 Misaligned Worship And Modern Idols
• 22:10 Sin Bends Our Worship Away From God
• 25:20 The Thirst We Cannot Quench
• 27:15 Salvation As The Reason For Praise
• 29:10 Jesus The King Who Judges Justly

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hey y'all, good to be with you this morning. Um yeah, as Billy said, I am Michael Provitera. I'm one of the pastors at New City currently, and we are hoping to plant uh in College Hill launching in the fall.

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

Mike, stop talking about your church plan. I have to I have to dismiss kids. I'm sorry, I forgot to do that. Yeah. Um I forgot. At this time, if your kids age two through second grade can go downstairs to be part of kids' church, or you're welcome to stay and worship with us. Okay, please tell us about your church plan.

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

That was it. College Hill, fall. Cool. Uh good with you. We're looking at Psalm 98 this morning. Um in your Bibles. If you if you could turn there actually it's in your bulletin as well. Um I'm gonna read uh I'm gonna read a little bit different translation from them what's in the bulletin, but it's close enough. Um this is uh let me read here God's word and then we'll pray. Uh Psalm 98 says, Sing to the Lord, sing to a new song to the Lord, for he has done wonderful deeds. His right hand has won a mighty victory, his holy arm has shown his saving power. The Lord has announced his victory, and he has revealed his righteousness to every nation. He has remembered his promise to love and be faithful to Israel. The ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God. Shout to the Lord, all the earth, break out in praise and sing for joy. Sing your praise to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and melodious song, with trumpets and the sounds sound of the ram's horn, make a joyful symphony before the Lord the King. Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise, let the earth and all living things join in, let the rivers clap their hands in glee, let the hills sing out their songs of joy before the Lord. For the Lord is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with justice and the nations with fairness. Let's pray. Oh Lord, you are good. Father, we thank you for this day that we can be gathered together in the name of Christ Jesus, our Savior. Oh, we pray as we dig into your word today, uh, that you would uh give us eyes to see you more clearly, uh minds to know you more deeply, and hearts to love you. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. So if you have uh been around church circles for any length of time, uh you may have experienced or heard of uh what some call the worship wars, right? These are fights about how churches should worship. Um for example, should the church have a choir? Uh should worship only be done with organ and hymns? Uh is rock and roll okay? Do we need a fog machine? Right? Do pastors wear robes? Do they wear sneakers? Right? I could go on uh and on because this is this is an endless war. Um but I won't. Because there have been posts and podcasts dedicated to this issue for decades, uh, and there are loud voices on every side arguing for uh a position. And in fact, I'm gonna argue that in the American church, worship is probably one of the most divisive issues that churches often face. Now, while the word worship doesn't appear here in Psalm 98, uh talk of praising the Lord is all over this psalm. Right? The things of worship are described. In fact, I think it's safe to call Psalm 98 a call to worship. And if you notice, we did actually use it for our call to worship today. And uh, I chose this psalm because it's actually not for any reason for you guys, this isn't anything special for you to hear. I just know that before we go in. Uh, but because it's one of the psalms assigned for this Sunday in the church lectionary. And so as you're coming to a church to preach, it's always say, Well, what do I want to talk about today? Oh, this one looks good. Perfect. Um, but we are going to unpack this idea of worship, right? What is worship? Why do we do the things we do in church? And Psalm 98 is a great place to start for that. Uh so I'm going to unpack what's here in the Psalm, how it impacts our worship, uh, and also the motivation that allows us to be a people of this kind of praise. So as I said, Psalm 98 is meant to be an encouragement to worship, right? It was written to God's people to give them the words and inspiration to worship him. The Psalter is actually like the hymn book. It's the hymnal of ancient Israel. It's the hymnal of the church. It is uh worship songs meant to instruct the people of God. Now we don't know who the author was, uh, but apparently the author was a faithful Israelite who had seen God's faithfulness and salvation in his own life, because the big idea of Psalm 98 is that God has brought salvation to ancient Israel so that they and also the surrounding nations and all creation should worship the Lord. Everything, the psalmist saying, everything and everyone, everywhere, should worship God. And his faithfulness to his covenant people, this small nation in the Middle East, is a hopeful sign, therefore, for all the world. If God is faithful to this people, he certainly will be faithful to all the world. And notice the psalm actually starts with a command. Oh sing. Right? The first word of the psalm is a command to sing. Sing. God's people, if you ever wonder why we sing in church, it's biblical, number one. Um we're commanded to. Like we're commanded to sing to God as part of worship. And even more than just the fact that we're commanded to, singing is actually immensely practical, right? Singing has a way of deepening our understanding, our learning, our memories. For example, how did you learn the A B C's? All right, you might have had flashcards, you might have had some blocks with letters on them, right? But uh, most likely you learned the song, right? A, B, C, D, E, F, G, right? And I you we all know the song. That's probably one of the first things you learned is you were learning that song. I remember with our oldest kid, like we um would sing that to him all the time because we were like paranoid and anxious about whether or not he'd be able to read and function in society, right? So we would sing that to him constantly, so he'd know it. The third child we didn't even bother, but somehow she can read. So um, you know, you learn as you parent. But if you think about the alphabet song, you still know it. Even though you probably learned it when you were two or three. I don't know any other things that I learned when I was two or three that I still know today. And in fact, uh I still use it today, right? When I'm trying to figure out something that is in alphabetical order, a lot of times I'll hum that to myself because I'm like, what comes after P, Q, R, S, T, U, V? Like, that's me. Um, I still use it. And also, music is emotionally powerful. Uh, B.B. King's great-grandmother, I just learned this fact this week, but his great grandmother, B.B. King, you know, the great blues guitarist, um, his great-grandmother, who had been enslaved in America, told him, singing about your sadness unburdens your soul. And that was inspiration for him to continue his musical career. To sing the blues. Music has a way of sticking with us, in other words. Uh, if you have had the privilege of watching K-pop Demon Hunters, you might know this. I watched this a couple weeks ago with my daughter. Uh, and now, it's actually a pretty good movie. Um, and now most mornings I wake up with K-pop songs stuck in my head from the movie. And they're really catchy, and I don't like that because that's not my genre. Uh, but that it's there, it's sticking with me. And so it makes sense that that singing praise to God is a powerful way of shaping and forming us as God's people. Because frankly, I would rather wake up with like a hymn or a worship song stuck in my head every morning than some k-pop song. But it's it's powerful, it shapes and forms us. And so the psalm instructs us to sing, but not just sing, it also calls God's people to take up instruments, right? It mentions the harp, which is like uh uh uh proto-guitar. Uh the lyre, technically, is what it is. It's but it's a pre-guitar. The guitar eventually becomes formed out of it. So Adam, you did a good job this morning with the guitar. Uh trumpets, right? A ram's horn. Uh other psalms encourage us to use loud, crashing cymbals. It sounds kind of metal, if you ask me. If you were to look at all the psalms, it's pretty loud, joyful noise. Uh, but the Bible encourages that. So, musicians, you can rock on for God if you want, because the Psalms tell you to. And lastly, we're also called to shout to God or to make a joyful noise, depending on your translation. Now, uh, I am a PCA pastor. Uh, this is a Presbyterian church. I think that's okay if you know that, right? Yeah, okay. Some people like to hide it. But uh now I fully understand that Presbyterian and shouting and worship typically do not go together. And I know that there's some cultures where this feels a lot more natural, and Reform Presbyterianism is not one of them. But I think for all of us, myself included, this psalm is an encouragement to make a joyful noise. Right? It's not a suggestion, it's a command in here. The psalmist doesn't say, hey, if you feel like it, you can make it, you can shout to the Lord. No, it's a commandment. It's actually what God encourages us to do. Um and so the music team, I know there's only two of you this morning. I am not encouraging you to get like super rowdy after the sermon. Don't feel like you're gonna fail if you if you don't do that. Um but I do think this is an area where anyone who is in our tradition can grow, myself included. Umbe you don't start with shouting, right? Maybe it's not where you don't go from like one to ten all of a sudden, but maybe we maybe we all sing a lot louder. Maybe we can sing like we mean it. Maybe we can all grow in making a more joyful noise to the Lord. And this psalm was written to encourage uh God's people to enthusiastically and loudly praise him. And the big takeaway from the psalm is that God loves it. God loves joyful, exuberant music. It delights him to hear praise this way. And it's also a deeply human thing. Now, why don't we do that? Because I think I think a lot of us probably struggle with this, especially in this little theological niche and tradition of Christendom. Uh uh, we all struggle with this. Why? What was what is some of the reasons we struggle with this? Is this just a uh a white Presbyterian culture thing? Maybe. Right? I said maybe it's true that some cultures seem to have an easier time doing this than others. Uh I have been at New City for 12 years now, and uh every so often someone thinks they can get us, they can get Presbyterians to start clapping during worship. And it's really cute. Like it's really awesome. Uh and it would be great if it worked. And then you know it works for a little bit, there's some clapping, and usually after about 30 seconds it dies out. Um But the psalm says, right? Uh the seas are roaring, the rivers are clapping their hands. If a river can clap, certainly I can clap. Apparently a river has more rhythm than Presbyterians. Um But what is this? Why why do we struggle with this? I do find it interesting that while we we struggle to sing loudly and make a joyful noise in church, I bet we all do it in other places. For example, if you go to a concert of your favorite band, I bet you sing along loudly. I've been at concerts where the the crowd is singing the songs louder than the band on stage. If you go to a Reds game or a Bengals game or an FC game, I bet you are clapping loudly and singing to the with the crowd, you know, when all the dances are going on and the the who day, the Bengals score touchdown, it's who day, right? Um We took our kids to Disney World this summer, which was the first and Lord willing the last time. Um it was fine. Uh we were at Epcot one evening, and they did in the evenings they did this big fireworks and music show. Um you know, I like fireworks as much as the next next guy, they're a lot of fun. But I was blown away because at Disney people were really into this show. Like, really into this show, which was filled with inspirational Disney music and lights, and no joke, and no offense to this is you, but I saw people crying. I saw people with their hands raised in the air. I saw people jumping and shouting and singing along, and I was like, am I at a mega church, a charismatic mega church service? Because that's exactly what it looked like. The only difference was people were singing like let it go or something. But I was I was blown away because I was sure I like Disney movies, but I could never get into Disney that that much. But what I saw was a form of worship at the happiest place on earth, supposedly, quotes. That was heaven for some folks, even though for me it's like my own personal hell to stand in like a line for 90 minutes to ride a two-minute ride in 100-degree rather or whatever. But what's going on here? Why why? Why? Well, human beings were made to worship. The English word worship, I don't know if you know this, but it comes from an old English word, which is we're Skype. Um that's my best old English pronunciation, but essentially means worship. Very clear, right? Worship? No. Think about it this way. We have words like friendship, uh, which is means you're being a friend to or with somebody, or membership, which means you're a member of an organization or a church. Worth ship, it's just giving worth to something. And we shorten it to worship. Worship, not we take off the th, right? In Psalm 98, we are called to sing and make music and shout about God because he is worth it. And also in the Bible, the words translated worship in Hebrew and Greek generally mean to bow down or to serve something. And so when you start to think about worship that way, you realize that while we may struggle in church sometimes to worship, to give worth to God, we uh worship every day all the time. There's all kinds of things that we think are worthy of our time and our attention and our devotion. For example, my family is worthy of that. And that's a good thing. Like to give time and attention, devotion to my family. On Sunday afternoons, I generally put aside other things to watch the Bengals lose. Um, right? That's and that's apparently worth three hours of my time on a Sunday morning. Uh I don't know why, but it is. Thankfully they're off today, so I don't have to endure that torture and punishment. Uh I like to exercise and devote time during the week to that. Right? If you start looking at your own life, you you start to realize that you bow down and serve all kinds of other things. You say all kinds of other things are worth your time other than God. For example, I literally bow down and serve this thing all the time, right? If I I hold it, caress it, right? If it dings or buzzes, I come running to it. I keep it near me at all times. I give it my attention, my devotion. It might be the first thing I pick up in the morning, the last thing I look at before I go to bed. And that hurts to say, but it's true. And I hate that, but it's true. And maybe one of the reasons that we are living in this world where lots of people are reporting record high depression and anxiety is because we are worshiping something other than God, right? Something that cannot give us life. And that's just we're tempted to it. Psalm 135 says, The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak, they have eyes but do not see, they have ears but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouth. And then this line, which is devastating those who make them become like them, and so do all who trust in them. Human beings are worshiping beings. We make choices every single day about what we will bow down to and serve. We give what we will give time and energy to. And what you worship shapes what you become. That's the words of the scriptures, right? And so the calling of Psalm 98 is hey, God is worthy of your time and energy. God is worth serving, God is worth focusing on, God is worth devoting yourself to. So worship him, right? Don't do it half-heartedly. Worship him with all you've got. Give it your all. Because it's worth it. Because he's good. But why don't we do that? This is my original question. Why still, why don't we do that? Why am I so quick to give time and energy and worth to other things? Why is my worship misaligned? Well, the Apostle Paul tells us it's sin. This is this is the big the big picture, right? Uh Romans 1, 22, 23 says, claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Right? That's human nature, this side of the fall. Sin is not just doing bad things, it is a bent toward not wanting anything to do with God or the way he created us to live. Our natural default state, according to the scriptures, is to turn away and rebel against God. We don't trust him, we don't like him, we don't want to do what he says, we aren't really sure if he is worth it or worthy of worship. We want to do our own thing on our own time for ourselves only. We belong to ourselves. But you see, we weren't made to live like that. And that's why it doesn't really work when we try to live that way. We were made to be in a relationship dependent upon God and one another. And because of that, we're constantly looking for something other than God to fill that void that we know we need to have filled. Uh we keep looking for something else and say, this time, this time I think this is gonna work. This time I think I'll find what I'm looking for.

unknown: 19:03

Right?

SPEAKER_01: 19:03

That's what an addict says, as you're chasing a high that you'll never get again. And yet, as you too once saying, we still haven't found what we're looking for. Right? None of those things can or will be satisfied. And that's why when Disney releases another Marvel movie, you go to it hoping it'll be amazing, and then you feel a sense of sadness and despair just because it's just as mediocre as the last few. I'm talking about myself here. You're not just annoyed, there's a sense of homesickness, even. It's why, even if you have great kids and a great marriage, you can feel like something is missing some days. And it's also why you can't turn your marriage or your kids into something that you hope will fill you up because they never will. And it's why when one of the Rockefellers was once asked, How much money is enough, he replied, just a little bit more. In the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus Christ uh encountered this woman who was at a well, who had been trying to find life and meaning in being with a bunch of different men. And it never satisfied, it never worked out for her. And this is what Jesus told her. Listen to this. He's John, this is John chapter 4, starting at verse 13. Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water, he's talking about water and a well, but it's also the metaphorical water that she is drinking of. Um, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. And this is the beauty of Psalm 98. Right? It roots its call to worship in something very specific. It roots its call to worship in a promise like this. It doesn't say, you know, worship God so you'll be hashtag blessed. All right, it doesn't say worship God and you'll be happy. Now look at verse one again. It says, Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. The Lord has made known his salvation, he's 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. The Psalm says that the reason God is worthy of this kind of praise isn't just like, oh, this is the way we're made to live. I mean, that's part of it. But like, God is actually worthy of this kind of praise. He's actually it's actually owed to him because he has rescued his people. And for those of us who live after the coming of Jesus Christ, uh this psalm is actually like a prophetic foreshadowing of what God was going to do a thousand plus years later. We, as Christians, can worship like this because we give God our time and our energy and devotion and choose to serve Him, not just because He actually makes life go better, but also because the salvation that He has worked through Jesus Christ for us. Do you know why Jesus is worth singing to? Do you know why he is worth shouting and cheering for? Well, first, because he's the king. We have all these rallies for politicians and celebrities, and no one gives a second thought about clapping or cheering for them, and they're just as jacked up as the rest of us. Uh, but Jesus is supreme over all of them. He is the king of the universe who is ruling and reigning over all things. He is the reason why you are alive this morning. He is the one who wills and decides whether you take your next breath. He is the king of kings and the lord of lords. And as the Psalm says, He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with justice and the nations with fairness. And that word judge in Hebrew doesn't just mean punish. It actually means to govern, to rule. Christ, the Psalm tells us, is going to come and govern this messed up world and make it right. Make it fair. Make all the sad things come untrue. There will be a day, the Bible tells us, when God will come and purge all the evil and sin from the world. And so if you're willing to cheer uh for your preferred preferred political candidate, then you should definitely cheer for King Jesus. And also, he is here with us. The Lord Jesus said that when two or three are gathered in his name, he is present with us. That's his promise. Until the end of the age. When we worship, when we gather for worship on Sundays, God is here with us by his Holy Spirit. And so we make a joyful noise. But this psalm, while talking about past instances of God's salvation for his people, is also looking forward to the salvation God was going to bring and reveal to the side of the nations. Because this salvation isn't, notice it's not just for Israel, it's for the entire world. And that salvation was in Christ Jesus. He is king, not just because he is king, because he saved us and those from every tribe, tongue, and nation who give their allegiance to him. The world we live in was invaded by sin, but God has been on a rescue mission for the last 4,000 years to work through time and history and space so that the entire world would come to worship him. Not just people from every time and place and nation, but also creation itself, right? He talks about seas here, the rivers clapping. In other psalms, it talks about the trees clapping their hands, mountains, planets, every living creature. God wants that worship. And you and I needed rescued. We confessed our sins this morning. We still struggle with them. But we were drowning in sin. We were doomed to death. God's judgment was rightly deserved by us. And all humanity, since the rebellion of the first human beings, have been under a curse. We've been bent inward by sin. We've been rebels at heart. But God came in Christ as one of us to live the perfect life that we ought to live. So when God looks at you, you don't have He doesn't see your sins, He doesn't see your failings, He doesn't see your struggles, He sees the perfect record of Christ Jesus for you. That stainless record. He came to do that for you. And yet we still killed him. We hung him upon a cross to die. But that cross, unbeknownst to us, was our salvation. That cross was his throne. His crown was a crown of thorns. The nailing of his hands, right and left, hanging by his arms, was quite literally working salvation to us on the cross. Jesus died for our sins. He lived for us. And yet death didn't have the last word because he defeated death from the inside, rising on the third day and ascending into heaven as the rightful king. That's why he's king. Right. And where he now rules and reigns to make all things new. And as God's people, we are looking forward to that day when he will come again and finally becomes the governor of this world. We are not left to the whims of fickle human leaders to govern us. God will be judge, God will be king, he will put all things to rights, and that is why we praise. That is why we sing. That is why we shout and clap our hands. Because if you have given your allegiance to Jesus, if you put your trust in him, that future is guaranteed for you. Your sins, past, present, and future, have been paid for. You stand before God, completely forgiven. God has put his spirit within you to give you new life and has given you hope for the future no matter what is coming your way this week. And when you really know that, when you see that on a deep level, and not just intellectually, when you start to let that be your story, it leads to worship like this psalm. Because that kind of God is worth it. He is worthy of shouts and singing and praise because he loves you. Because he gave his life for you, because he wants to secure your future with him in his coming kingdom. Christ is for you today. So shout to the Lord, all the earth. Break out in praise and sing for joy. He has rescued you in Christ Jesus, paid for all your sins. Nothing can separate you from him, nothing can stop his rescue mission of all creation. Hope in that and sing to the Lord. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I confess that uh I am mostly preaching myself today. I give so many so much worth to other things. Uh, and I forget about you, I put you in the back burner of my life. Um, and I would rather sing or shout about a football team with like a four and six record or whatever, uh, than I would about you. But I pray that you'd make us of all people worship. Help us to rest in the gospel for us, and the knowledge that you are a good God who loves us. And let us uh give you all the worth and all the praise. Ask us in the name of Jesus Christ, our King and our God and our Savior, who is coming again to make all things new. Amen.