Now listen to these words from Psalm 96. Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord. Bless his name. Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods, for all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols. But the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, oh families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. Tremble before him all the earth. Say among the nations, the Lord reigns. Yes, the world is established. It shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar and all that fills it. Let the field exult and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness. The psalm that Christa just read is called a song or a psalm. of kingship, or sometimes they're referred to as royal psalms. And you have a section of psalms that, just like there are many psalms of lament, there are many psalms that if you just are turning through the pages and reading through them, you see that the psalmist, and it could be different ones, are celebrating either an earthly king that rules over God's people, or the ultimate messianic king, God's reign over his people, Or very oftentimes there's a blending of the two where it may start off praising David, for example, at his coronation and then somewhere mid-psalm it's kind of morphed a little bit and you're kind of thinking, is he still talking about David or is he talking about the ultimate David? Is he talking about the ultimate Messiah who one day is yet to come and do these things. So a royal psalm that we're going to look at this morning and again we're kind of thinking through both how does this psalm lead me to worship the Messiah as I wait for him to come again and Knowing that Jesus came and that he had these psalms and that he used them in his own worship, we're also thinking through how did Jesus read and understand this psalm. And first of all, what is a royal psalm? So there are kind of two things that we see here, and that is a celebration of God's King and a call to respond accordingly. As we see that God is this, as we see that God does this, as we see that God promises that, we're kind of asking in the psalm, so what? What difference does that make in my life? And there's always these calls to here's how you respond. So look at this with me. There's a celebration of God's king in this psalm. And this is probably one of the most obvious things about the psalm as we read through it a moment ago, is that there's this effusive praise, first of all, for the attributes of this divine king, is how I'll refer to him, the divine king. The first and maybe the foremost attribute that we come across in this psalm is simply the glory of this king, and it's said many different ways. The psalms do this. Remember, we've talked about this before, but very often the type of poetry, like ancient poetry, You're not looking for a sonnet or even a haiku. You're not looking for necessarily rhyming words because those usually weren't there. But there are parallel ideas or antithetical ideas opposed to each other. And this was the way ancient poetry was written. And here in this psalm, the psalmist is piling up these different words. in a very poetic sort of way of saying, I'm not just talking about his glory, I'm talking about his splendor, I'm talking about his majesty, I'm talking about his beauty, and all of these things are saying the same thing many different ways. And the idea is, this divine king, one overarching quality of his life is just this awe-inspiring greatness. And I love that Psalm 19 says, the heavens declare the glory of God. You know, the sky, the firmament says something to us about the glory of God. And we live in a beautiful state, but I want you to think of this as sometimes you're driving in the mountains and there's a place as you're headed west out of town on I-70 and you come, you're climbing, climbing, climbing, you come to the crest of that hill and all of a sudden you see the whole continental divide and it's just beautiful. And sometimes you hit that just right with a sunrise or a sunset or the snow coming down or something, and it just, it kind of takes your breath away of like, that is awesome. And God puts these things in nature, and scripture even says that God puts these things in nature to give you some hint of what he means by his glory, by his splendor, by his majesty, by his beauty. Going on here, the psalm next refers to his strength, which is a, it's a physical strength, but it also is an authority. That it's saying he is strong, he is able, but he also has the authority to command. He has the authority to do certain things. And we use the example of, you know, there are thugs running around town that have power to do things, but they do not have the authority to do things. Sometimes you have the police officers who have the authority, but do not have as much power in some places as kind of the thugs. And the idea here is that God has both the power and the authority to reinforce his will, that strength. Then toward the end of the psalm, when he says that this king is coming to reign, he draws attention to two more qualities I want to point out. That is righteousness and faithfulness. So righteousness, a very basic word. The idea of being upright is the idea of being conformed to a standard. that God sets the standard, and then the idea of righteousness is that God can be relied upon to keep his own standard. And imagine what the world would be like if God set a standard and then God himself could not be relied upon to do what he himself said was the right thing. We have politicians like that where they say, well, this is what we stand for, and then when it's convenient for them, they break the rules for themselves. The idea of righteousness is that God is righteous toward us. He is right toward us, but he's also utterly trustworthy. And then the idea of faithfulness is just simply, and I love the way that Jesus' storybook Bible puts it, that never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love. Just many different perspectives of seeing the steadfastness, just the bomb-proofness, if I could put it that way, of his love toward us. And I want to point out that the first two categories, the glory and the strength, kind of refer to the greatness of God, whereas the second two refer to the goodness of God. And that, again, is something that we as Christians believe. It is a biblical worldview that our God is both great and good. And both of those things are super important, that those qualities are brought together in one God, that it's not simply that he's good in the way that your grandparents are good, but they're not great, they cannot enforce anything, but they're good. They can be trusted to do kind things. But also, God is not simply great and awesome and fearsome and powerful, but bad. which would be horrifying, it would be terrifying to have a God like that. But you see, in the glory, the strength, the righteousness, and the faithfulness, the psalmist is declaring this divine king is completely great. You cannot imagine a greatness that is greater than the greatness of this king, and you also can't imagine a goodness that is more good. So that's the first part of this, a celebration of the king's attributes. Then you also see woven into this a celebration of the king's actions. In verse 3, they're referred to as marvelous works. I mean, very simply, it's like he created, he saved. What's great about this king as opposed to other gods, other things that you could worship? And he's like, well, because this God made everything that you see. Why is there something instead of nothing? Why are any of us here? Why is any of this stuff? Why is any of this world, these mountains, this sky, the rain, the snow, all these things that we get to enjoy, why is there something instead of nothing? And the biblical answer is because God created us and all of this as an overflow of his glory. Tell of His salvation from day to day. This is that word that we saw last week, Yeshua, that as we're praying for a coming salvation, the Old Testament people are literally, in their language, praying for a coming Yeshua. We see throughout this psalm that there's another action, and that is simply the governance of God, the fact that He reigns, He's in control. And then the very last thing that we came to is this action, which we probably view as mainly still future, and that is of judging. And it's very redundant again. It's like he'll judge the peoples, he'll judge the earth, he'll judge the world. And it's a reference not so much to the physical earth and soil and dirt and rock, but it's obviously referring to the different peoples that comprise the earth and the world. And the idea is simply this God can be trusted one day to come back and settle all of his accounts. And because he's righteous, that means two things. It means for those who have broken the law, there is just punishment, and those who have kept the law, there is just reward. I want to point out as well, as you have these two words, the attributes and the actions, that the psalmist is showing you this God is not a God of character without conduct, but he's also not a God of conduct without character. You know, we often see this, again, in kind of world politics where maybe someone gets elected because you're thinking, I fundamentally trust that person to do the kinds of actions that I prefer or that I believe are right. But you look at that person and say, but that is not a person of character, right? And by the same token, sometimes you find people of tremendous character but they really have no authority or power or ability to do marvelous works. And I love that as the psalmist is presenting to us this divine king, he's saying the divine king has the character and the conduct that is great and good. So that's the celebration of God's king, and then here's the second part of that that we mentioned you'll find in a royal psalm, the call to respond accordingly. And I wanna just put this to you for a moment before I show you a couple things. If you believe, and I think many of you do, that the divine king is actually like what we just talked about, that he is glorious and beautiful and magnificent and majestic and powerful, and that he has authority and that he created and redeemed that He rules over everything in a good sense, and that He's coming back one day to judge the peoples of the earth rightly, then how do you respond to someone like that? And what's interesting to me is how very verbal the response, the expected response is in this psalm. Did you notice that? There are a lot of words, and I've marked it in my Bible, just going through and underlining all the words that are verbal. It means sing, sing, sing, tell, declare, ascribe, ascribe, ascribe, worship, say. I mean, the point, hopefully, that you're getting is the expected response to a God who is great and good is that we would do something verbal to reflect that back. And the two key ways that we do that are through worship, that is singing to the Lord, And this is over and over again in the psalm. Sing to the Lord, sing to the Lord. And then we do it by our witness, which is what we say about the Lord amongst others. We just sang a few songs before the message. We were worshiping together. Most of you were singing. But who were you singing to? I think a lot of times we're just singing, right? I mean, we're in a room full of people that are singing and we sing. It's like, but yeah, but who are you singing to? And I don't know that we think about it deliberately that way where the worship that we're called to is that, and one of the reasons why you're free to just kind of let it go is because you're singing to the Lord. And yes, I'm sure that in some sense, other people around you, if they were quiet and they were thinking about you, they would hear your voice joining with theirs, but hopefully they're doing the same thing too. This worship is a singing to the Lord. And these songs that were, as we're carrying these lyrics with music, really the heart of this cry is, God, if you're really like what Psalm 96 says you're like, and I believe that you are, I'm just reflecting right back to you. the praise, the delight, the joy of my heart, I love you, I enjoy you, and I'm singing to you. And the one thing I wanna say about witness here, I want you to note how many times the word among is used in this psalm as well, that as worship is singing to the Lord, this witness is a saying about the Lord among other people who need to hear. Okay, so that's the call to respond accordingly. It's just really that I don't see a whole lot else in this psalm. Honestly, I don't see a whole lot else for your lives besides worshiping and witnessing. And you say, well, what about discipleship and community and all that? Well, discipleship and community is to teach you how better to do those two things. It's not, I mean, discipleship is not just an end goal all in itself. Like, I just want to learn as much as I can about God and salvation and the Holy Spirit and end times and all that as I possibly can. Why? Oh, just so I'd know it. No, I mean, the goal is so that your worship and your witness would both be enhanced for your joy and for the joy of other people. So hopefully that makes sense. Now, what does this have to do with Advent? we have to rewind and we're trying now to put ourselves into the Old Testament. And we're thinking, okay, Jesus hasn't come, we don't know that part of the story yet, we have hints that someone like that is coming, we have even hints of where he's going to be born and different things like that, but he hasn't come yet. And I just want you to think as you read this divine, or this psalm about a divine king, And you're like, God, you are great, you are glorious, you are so good, so just, so righteous, so faithful to us. And then you're looking at your own experience in all these generations, and you're like, man, our own kings can't even hold the kingdom together. Right? I mean, God's one people. Now, not long after these words are written, they've got two kingdoms. They've got a northern kingdom of Israel and a southern king of Judah, and they got two different sets of kings going on amongst God's one people, simultaneously ruling, sometimes fighting with each other, sometimes sort of getting along, sometimes good, sometimes bad, and the people are like scratching their heads and just thinking, God, when are you yourself going to come and just be our king? Which, by the way, God had warned them about in advance, right? If you want a king like everybody else... First of all, just FYI, remember, I'm your king. God reminds them, like, I'm your king. But you want a human king, because you want to be like all the other nations. Well, I'll tell you what that king's gonna do to you, and their kings did exactly those negative things. And the people start this longing of, like, when is this king going to come? And then you've got to imagine waiting through the Babylonian captivity, the Persian captivity. Finally, there's this thing that we studied over the summer of, like, Nehemiah and Ezra come back to Jerusalem, and it's all broken down, and they rebuild this smaller temple, and they rebuild the walls. And you're like, okay, we're starting to get somewhere, but we don't even have a king anymore, let alone this kind of king. And then all of a sudden this famous guy named Alexander the Great sweeps through and all of a sudden you're conquered again. And then Caesar Augustus sweeps through and you're conquered again. And in the time when Jesus actually appears, Caesar Augustus, it's the height of the Pax Romana, the Roman peace. But the Roman peace was not just like, oh yay, we're just all reconciled and at peace with God and with each other. that peace obviously was enforced by the edge of a sword. It was like, we have a massive military, and if you cross us, we will make peace with you. Like, you will be at peace, because you won't be any longer. And as the people are reading through psalms like this, all these divine psalms, all these royal psalms, they're realizing more and more, our expectation, our longing, does not match our experience. We've never seen this kind of king, we've never interacted with this kind of king, and they may be thinking something like, Lord, I know that you reign in the sense that this psalm says. I know that, I believe that, but I sure don't feel it right now. And some of you may even have that, I mean, you can relate to that, because you may be thinking, with circumstances in my life, as I wait for you to return, I know that you reign, I know that you're in control, but it sure doesn't feel like that right now. It doesn't look like that in my culture. And so the first way I want to put this, if you picture God's people as one kind of little circle, they are immersed at this period of time in the advent, they're immersed in circumstantial darkness, circumstantial oppression. They are not free to experience all that is promised that would come through this divine King. But I want you to note also that there was not just a circumstantial darkness that encompassed them, there was a spiritual darkness inside of them. And I say that because you will notice, but as he's saying, sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth, sing to the Lord, bless his name, tell of his salvation from day to day, declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. And he goes on, verse seven, ascribe to the Lord, oh families of the peoples, tremble before him, all the earth, say among the nations, and what we should be hearing in this psalm that we probably don't hear is that this, again, is not just a call to worship that king. This is a call for God's people, God's covenant people. God is saying in this psalm, now go throughout the entire world. and proclaim the glory and the greatness of this king, and lead other people to come and to worship him with you. And I say that they were not just immersed in circumstantial darkness, but they had spiritual darkness, because what you realize is, all throughout the Old Testament, Israel barely fulfilled God's calling to go be a light to the nations. You had a bunch of people like Jonah, remember his story? And he's a prophet of God's people, and God's like, God doesn't even say, hey Jonah, you gotta go to Nineveh, this horrible, horrible, wicked, pagan place of Gentiles, and you need to preach the gospel to them and let them know that there's a Savior. God doesn't even say that. He says, just go and tell them I'm gonna wipe them out. You'd think he'd be like, sweet, yeah, I'll tell them that. But you know in Jonah's own internal dialogue, he's like, I didn't want to tell them even that. God's gonna wipe you guys out because you're so wicked. Because they could hear that and what? They could hear that and be like, you're right. We are really wicked. We deserve judgment. What hope is there for people like us? And they could humble themselves before God and say, there is no hope for people like us. We put ourselves before you, we put ourselves at your mercy because we agree, God, that we are exceedingly wicked, we deserve your judgment, and we're just praying for your mercy. And that's exactly what happened, is the city of Nineveh, here's Jonah just spouting off about judgment, and they repent, and Jonah's all broken up over it. God, I knew that you were gonna do this. I knew that you were gonna save them, those horrible people. That's an important part of Israel's Advent story. that as they were waiting for their messiah, as they were waiting for their divine king, as they had this calling to go and be a light to other peoples. You know, when you get to the end of this psalm, and it says, verse 13, the Lord is coming. He's coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples, and that is the peoples of the nations, he will judge them in righteousness and faithfulness, The advent cry of God's people, the advent expectation of God's people was we're special and one day this divine king is gonna come and judge all these other people and get rid of them and preserve us and so we can finally be at peace, we can finally be free because we're extra special. And I just wonder, I actually think, I was thinking about this this week about a lot of the preaching that maybe even you've heard about the second coming of God, how easy it is to think in a similar way of like, oh, second coming, so when God comes again, I get saved, I get taken out of here, I get to go to this awesome place forever, and he's gonna judge all the bad people. And there can be an us, them disconnect of thinking that this judgment of God is not something that includes me. It's something that's just for these other bad people that I don't, get along with, so that's kind of the advent way of reading this. Now how would Jesus have read this psalm? Obviously Jesus was the divine king, and so one basic way that he would read this is that this is a psalm about me. I am the divine king, I'm the king by right, I'm the king, I've created everything, and I'm coming back to my people, I'm coming back to my creation. By the way, it is interesting in the Christmas story, and we'll come to this Christmas Eve, In the Christmas story, who was it that recognized the kingship of Jesus? It was people from the nations. It was pagans. The wise men were the ones that said, we're coming to find Him who was born King of the Jews because we saw His sign. I can't find anybody else in that Christmas story, like even the shepherds, they're coming because they know there's a Savior. But the one who's like, there's a divine king, there's a special king that we've come all the way from the Orient to here to worship him and to give him these gifts is pagans. It was people of the nations. As Jesus reads this psalm and he's understanding, like, I'm the creator. I'm the one who made this. I'm the one who's come to redeem this. I love that there's this language in the middle of this psalm about how the heavens and the sea and the fields and everything, the trees, the forest, all this stuff, all of this recognizes that God is God. It's basically the idea of, like, the rest of creation doesn't struggle in the way that humans do with, like, I don't know if I believe this God stuff. It's like the trees are clapping their hands like, yay, Jesus! We had a lot of wind the other day that knocked some stuff over here in the parking lot, and you hear that rustling. I mean, I love loud stuff in creation, because it's just like, I just picture it cheering. It snows coming down, it's just like, yay! Just dumping praise on God's creation. And you see Jesus come, and it's like, yay! creation did in fact recognize its creator, right? And there are a lot of different stories that I could point you to, but obviously that one time he's out on the sea and he's just sound asleep in the middle of basically a hurricane, and the disciples are like, oh man, we're dead, we're toast. And they wake him up, like, do you not care that we're dying? And he just says, hush, be quiet. And the winds and the waves are like, yep, we know that voice. That's the one that called us into existence in the first place. So all through his life he's doing these marvelous works. He's proving his greatness above all the gods. But there's one area of this psalm where Jesus obviously would have read it very differently because what he did is very different than what the people's expectations were. And do you know what that area is? It's when you come to the end of this psalm and you see the divine king is coming to do what? The divine king is coming to judge. And it's interesting that when we come to that place of the life of Jesus, we see two things that the people did not expect. Number one, we see Jesus coming and saying, not only have I not come to judge and condemn you, He basically says, I will fulfill Israel's calling to be a light to the nations, because you have failed to do it generation after generation after generation. Even my called prophets, like Jonah, with my very words for people, for the peoples of the nations, for other tribes, other tongues, they didn't do it. And one thing that Jesus says when he comes is like, you know, this is not the Jewish expectation of what their Messiah, what their King would do, but I've come to be the true Israel, and I will be the light to the nations. I will disperse the gospel. I would declare the greatness and the glory of God the Father to all peoples everywhere. And then number two, in the place where Israel expected God to judge the nations, so we get to be free, you notice that Jesus was judged by the nations and for the nations. That essentially what's happening in the passion week of Christ's death and crucifixion, for the first time in a long time, you had the nations of the world coming together and agreeing about something. Did you know this? Where like Herod's like, nah, I don't wanna do it. Pilate's like, I don't wanna do it. So you've got a Roman governor and like a puppet Jewish king And then they kick him over to the high priest, who's like the Jewish religious leader, who kicks him around to like, who's the Roman authority, and we need the Gentiles and the Jews to come together and agree on something, and what is that something? That Jesus gets judged. That Jesus, the one innocent person who ever lived, has to die on a cross. And I love this, that the picture that the scripture gives us is that when Jesus comes as the divine king the first time, he doesn't sit on the bench. Jesus is the one on trial. And other people sit in judgment on Jesus rather than him being the judge. So let's come to this. application, how can and how should you use this psalm and how should you use as you're reading through the psalms and you come across a lot of these royal psalms or songs of kingship and you're still waiting for God to return one day, you want the king to come back, you want him with his authority and his greatness and his glory and his power to make everything right and he will. But we're waiting for that. And so we look back to this first time that he came, where he in some sense met people's expectations, but in another sense was very different than what people expected. He was judged for us instead of judging us, for example. So how should we use this psalm? And you've seen these points before. Because first of all, I think our waiting on Christ should be marked by worship. And second of all, I think our waiting on Christ should be marked by witness. that this is the idea of the Royal Psalms. This is the idea of if you actually, even as New Testament Christians, if you believe that you have a God like this who is the divine king with this kind of greatness and this kind of glory and this kind of goodness, the only reasonable response is that as we wait on him, everything about our lives would be characterized by worship, and by witness. Okay, so let's make a couple of specific applications of those two things. But I want to point out this word here that's here three times, because we know what sing means. We do a lot of singing together. It's still like one of those weird things that every human culture everywhere does. Like humans everywhere, even if they've never met other people, they sing. They sing about what's important to them. They sing about what they love. They sing about what they treasure. They sing about what they worship. But there's this word in verses 7 and 8 that's probably a little bit more unfamiliar, and that is the word ascribe. And I just want to point out the word ascribe does not mean to give God something. in the sense that we think of, you know, God doesn't have what? What are we ascribing to him here? We're ascribing to him glory and strength. We're ascribing to him the glory due his name. So that's not, okay, God doesn't have that glory and strength, so I'm gonna give it to him. The idea of ascribing is more like I'm attributing it to him and I'm celebrating it. And I think one of the best illustrations I can think of of ascribing something is sports center top 10 every day. It's one of those exciting things during your workout. And they've combed the entire world of sports, everything from playing cards and MMA to regular team sports. And they're like, these are the best 10 plays that happened in the world of sports today. And you're watching these things, and you're like, wow, that was a really good dunk. Or that was a really good bicycle kick. How did that jockey stay on that horse when it did that thing that it did? And it's just top plays. And what they're doing is, we're not creating those plays. We're not suddenly, that play didn't happen, but now it did because we're talking about it. It's just like, this really amazing thing happened, and we're gonna attribute it to the person who did it, and we're gonna celebrate it, and be like, wow, you gotta see this. So that's what it means to ascribe. And the idea is, as we're going through life, We're saying, wow, God did this, God is like this, and I'm gonna celebrate him for that. And that's what it means to ascribe. And I want us to note that we have more and better reasons to ascribe greatness and glory to God than even the Old Testament believers did. Because they're sitting here thinking, yes, we worship this divine king who's coming, because he's gonna just judge all these other people, and then we're just gonna be his special people again, and it's gonna be great. How many of you are Gentiles? Most of you? All of you? So we have more cause for praise, because Jesus is like, yeah, I'm not going to do right now what you think I'm going to do, like judging all them. I'm actually going to go to a cross and die for their sins, too, and then send my witnesses throughout all the earth so that people like you and me get to hear this good news and believe in Jesus. And he's not just their king, the king of the Jews, he is the king of kings. He's our king. He's my king. I want you to imagine that you have a car accident. Your car's totaled. Maybe a friend at church or a co-worker comes and says, I want you to have my car right now. I know that you don't have the funds to scrape together to buy something new. Take my car. And you're like, no, no, no. And you protest. And yes, yes, yes, you should take my car. And you're like, OK. And then weeks later, you're driving this car. And it's like the worst weather of the year. And it's that kind of snow that's coming down sideways. And you can barely see. And it's just frigidly cold. And you're driving along. And you're like, hey, there's that friend that gave me this car. And they're walking. And so you stop, and you're like, hey, hey, get in. What are you doing walking? And they say, well, I gave you my car. You're like, but I thought you had another car. Oh, no, I don't have another car. That was my only car, and I gave you my car. Why would you do that? I wonder if they just said, because I felt like you needed it worse than I did. See, originally, you're thinking, man, what a great gift that my friend would loan me this car or give me this car. That is a great gift, but you're thinking they had something else. And later when you discover you're trudging through the snow because I took something from you and now you don't have it, then your sense of their greatness, your sense of ascribing goodness to them is bigger than it was before. And that's the way salvation and our joy is, is that it was far more costly to God. Our salvation, our deliverance, our forgiveness, was far more costly to God than what any of the Old Testament saints understood that it would be. They knew that he was going to do something to pay for our sin, but very few of them understood the cross or anything like that, which is why they all run away. They're just like, no, the story can't end this way. And Jesus is like, this is the story. Let's think through this. As we wait for Christ's return, we're called to worship the King. What are we worshiping instead of the King? To put it another way, and this is in your notes, what are you treating as if it is the King of your life? It gets to call the shots in your life. What you do with your schedule, your time, your money, your talents that God has given you, who gets to call the shots? Because that's the one that's in control. That's the King of your life. And then I wanna come back to this describe word. I want us to understand when we give anything to God, whether it is our time or we're like, okay, I'll put something in the offering. I know that you've called me to do that. It's actually in this text. Understand, we don't give to God because he's needy. We give to God because he's worthy, okay? When we give to God, he doesn't suddenly have something that he didn't have before. Now he's like, okay, good. Now I can afford that building downtown. I mean, God owns everything. We don't do it to enrich him, we do it to exalt him. So that's worship. But then lastly, this witness piece of this, I want you to just think about this. There are two parts to this that we saw in this text. Number one, you've got to declare his glory. You're not witnessing if you are not declaring his glory. But the second piece of that is among the peoples. So we have people that like to declare His glory and they surround themselves with other believers. And it's a very comfortable situation because it's like the Christian concert. And it's a fun thing to do. And it's like we declare Your glory and we lift up our hands and we're just kind of free to do this. And of course you're free to do that because everybody around you is doing the same thing. But we've also got people that are believers that are among the nations, but are not declaring His glory, and the call here is to do both. And the more I thought about this, the more I thought, man, there is such a fine line between worship and witness, isn't there? Because it's basically just like, I'm just, witness is almost like, I'm just worshiping in front of people who need to see that there's something more valuable to worship. It doesn't have to be this really awkward, like, so, if you died tonight, do you know whether you'd spend eternity in heaven or hell? And be like, whoa, okay, like, hello, like, remind me not to sit next to you at lunch again. But, okay, in work, like, the boss just chews you out, and you responded so humbly. How could you do that? You know, because my ultimate hope is in Jesus. It hurt, it didn't feel good, but my hope is in Jesus. And I'm just thinking, what if worship and witness are not two distinct things, but more like two facets of one advent life? C.S. Lewis says some stuff about this. Let me just read this. He's talking about praise and worship and delight. He says, the most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything, strangely escaped me. I thought of praise in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise. Lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game. praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historic personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds praised most while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least. except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be the inner health made audible. I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it. Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent? He says the psalmist in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us as regards the supremely valuable what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value. I don't know if you understand what he's saying, but we were at the Broncos game last night, and there were not many good plays. I'll say that, because I'm over it. You know, when you're sitting next to someone, you may hit somebody and be like, you gotta watch this replay, right? And it's not enough that you thought it was a good play. You need someone else to see what you saw and agree with you, that was really cool, okay? That's what he's saying. He's saying we do that with everything in our lives. We're like, I thought that was cool, a rare beetle. I love that one, because it's just like, really? Yeah, somebody thinks that's super cool. And they're like, dude, you gotta check out this beetle I found. And you don't care that your friend doesn't do beetles, right? You're just like, it's my thing. He goes on to say, I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are. that the light is incomplete until it's expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is. To come suddenly at the turn of the road upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch. To hear a good joke and to find no one to share it with. I have that issue. I'll just, I'll wrap up. Actually, one of the awesome things I thought about this witness and what he's saying here is, so the people of Israel, and you'll notice it here in the psalm, God is like, you have this amazing divine king, go express to other people how much he means to you, how much you love him, how much you adore him, sincerely in love with him. And I see this in verse eight, that these people are supposed to bring an offering and come into his courts because they're led to worship him. And do you know the Israelites did the exact opposite? Not only did they not invite the peoples of the world, like, come into his courts with praise with us, they literally built a balustrade, a wall, around the temple courtyard. Not the temple, the courtyard. And they called it the Court of the Gentiles. And they inscribed on stones every so many feet, all the way around this big wall, basically, if you're one of the peoples of the nations, if you're one of the goyim, if you're one of the gentile, the pagan, who's come to access our God, well, guess what? He's our God. And upon penalty of death, you will proceed further. And what a praise it is that our Jesus comes, and he is this divine king, he is this glorious, he is this beautiful, he is this powerful, he is this good, he's this faithful. And he's like, yeah, I see your wall. And I'm not only gonna tear down that wall, I'm gonna tear down the wall that exists between you and God. I'll tear it down by the offering of my body for you, by the offering of my blood for you. So again, I think really our whole life, couldn't it just be simple? Instead of trying to do all these different things that we try to do, I'm so busy, I just can't. What if we turned our lives, the one Advent life that we have to live, into a life of worship and witness of this great King?