Let us go through this and pull out the structure. Verses 1 and 2 are the call to praise. "Make a joyful shout to the Lord!" That is telling somebody what to do, how to worship God, how to show praise to God, and the person or the thing or the people who are supposed to do this is "all you lands." This is everyone on earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness. This is the how. "Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing." Remember, the first one is an opening call to praise, which may specify who should praise and how, and Psalm 100, verses 1 and 2 fulfill all that. Make a joyful shout. Serve, that is, worship with gladness. Approach Him in song. So the psalmist here is rousing the land, mostly it would of course be the land of Israel who know this God that has chosen them. But it is as encompassing as all the lands. And it is telling us what we should do: serve and come before His presence. This is worship language. And we should do it with gladness and singing.
Verse 3 is the middle section of the structure, that is, a section highlighting God's praiseworthy deeds and qualities. So we get one verse here in this particular psalm, "Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture." Now each one of those lines is something different. A quality, an attribute of God, something that He has done that we should be thankful for. We should be joyous. We should sing songs of praise to Him because of what He is. So the psalmist here is pointing out God's worthiness on these specific points. And they are threefold.
1. His worthiness is the fact that He is God. He is God Most High. He is the sovereign Lord of all. He is the highest in the universe. He is the great governor of all things. And so He is worthy of great respect, honor, glory, and all the praise that we can give Him.
2. The psalmist points out that not only is He the great God overall, but specifically He is Creator. He made all things, and we owe Him everything because without Him, we would not exist. He made us and everything around us, and if He did not do that, where would we be? We would not even be. So that is a great thing to think about and something to praise Him for. That He decided not only to create us but to give us so much as our environment, as a way to bless us, and to help us prosper.
3. We need to praise Him because He chose us as His people. He made us separate from others on the face of the earth through His calling. And not only that, not only did He call us, but He went even further, and He tends and keeps us as a shepherd cares for his sheep. The psalmist is saying He went the next step. He went the extra mile and not only called us, but He is there all the time helping us, watching over us, blessing us, moving us, you know, whatever we need. Go back to Psalm 23 and see what the shepherd does to his sheep. And this is encapsulated in just one line in the psalm that yes, He chose us and He treats us like the sheep of His pasture. So that is worthy of praise.
Verse 4 in Psalm 100 is the concluding element and it restates the call to praise that we saw in verses 1 and 2, "Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing." And then we see a repeat in verse 4, "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name." So we are told after hearing what God has done and all the wonderful things that He is, well, we need to thank Him. And the idea here is to enter His house, His gate. When we came here to James' and Tammy's house, we had to go through a gate. And that showed where their property began. And so the same thing as with God's house. He has gates on His house, and we have to approach His gates and come into His gates to worship Him.
But what about verse 5? Normally in a psalm of praise, if it went according to the … . . .
