Joy’s Ignition

Tony Reinke Joy, Psalms, Rick Gamache

This Sunday at his church (Sovereign Grace Fellowship; Bloomington, MN), my friend Rick Gamache kicked off a new summer sermon series in the Psalms. The series begins with Psalm 33.

On the opening three verses (Psalm 33:1-3) Rick made the following comments in his sermon:

This is not a casual suggestion to worship God. This is not a suggestion at all. It’s a command. There are five imperatives in this three-verse invocation to worship. Here they are: “shout,” “give thanks,” make melody,” “sing,” “play.” We are to do all those things joyfully and so we are to do all those things very loudly. It is a call to passionate, exuberant exultation. As Charles Spurgeon said, “Joy is the soul of praise to God.”

This is a hymn to be sung when the people of God gather together. The Psalmist, by commanding that we worship joyfully, is saying that joy should mark the people of God. Joyful praise, the Psalmist says in verse 1, befits the people of God. In other words, joy is the appropriate response to God. It’s not the only response. There are other hymns that call for other types of response: stunned silence, or awe and wonder, or holy fear, or brokenness and contrition, or deep longings. But in all those other responses to God, there should be an undercurrent of joy because joy is the soul of praise. So when the people gather–like we are gathered this morning–the accent should be on joyful celebration.

Note that the joyful shouts and the joyful expressions of gratitude and the joyful singing and all the joyful playing are not tied to our circumstances.

Were not told:

  • Shout for joy in the Lord … if everything is going well with you.
  • Give thanks to the Lord … if everything went as you planned it this week.
  • Sing a new song to God … if you got a raise.

The imperatives are not tied to our situations or our circumstances. …

So what is all this joy about? Why give exuberant thanks? Why sing new songs? The Psalmist does not encourage us to put on a show. He’s not saying, “Gather with the people of God and when you do, do all that you can to appear joyful.” This is not a command to be disingenuous. The Psalmist and God expect us to experience joy–real joy–as we shout and give thanks and sing. And so the rest of the Psalm tells us why we should be joyful.

Three verses tell us what to do (1–3), and those are followed by 17 verses that specifically tell us why (4–22). And that’s evidence of the fact that we need all the help we can get to be stirred to joyful praise.

If you are anything like me, then you are fickle, you are distracted, your joy wanes, and sometimes it seems to disappear completely. And yet here is a call to joyful worship. Why? What or who ignites this joy? God. God is the one who ignites the joy. The 17 following verses answer why we worship with joy—because of God, who he is, and what he’s done for his people. God is the reason for our joy. And it is this joy that runs as an undercurrent and withstand all the attacks of life.

Big Sig (Pics)

Tony Reinke Baseball, Photographs

Wednesday night my son (9) and his baseball team won the league baseball championship–a three-peat! Before the game I was persuaded by my wife and some other parents of players on the team that it was time to break out my digital SLR camera (Canon Digital Rebel XT) and “Big Sig,” the affectionate name for my Sigma 400mm telephoto lens. It has been a while since I’ve shot with it and the conditions that night were not perfect for taking pictures, but I did manage a few shots that I wanted to pass along. Click images for larger versions.







On My iPod

Tony Reinke Music, Sigur Rós

A few of the albums currently streaming through the ‘buds:

  • The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow (2011). An album that grew on me after about the third or fourth play. [Amazon | iTunes]
  • Josh Garrels, Love & War & The Sea In Between (2011). Apart from one or two songs that grate on me, I like this album a lot. Don’t miss his track “Farther Along.” Crank it and sing along! Garrels recently told CT, “We were so provided for during the making of this album, by both God and men, that it seems appropriate to give away as freely as we received.” In that spirit, you can download the album for free here.
  • Sovereign Grace Music, Risen (2011). I’ve been listening to this album since before Easter. Why stop now? [Amazon | iTunes]
  • Sigur Rós, Takk… (2005). Because my playlist is always flavored with a little Sigur. [Amazon | iTunes]
  • Glenn Gould, Bach: The Goldberg Variations (1955). It’s unclear if Gould was autistic or just eccentric but it’s obvious he was a prodigy. The energy he brings to the piano in this recording is impressive. [Amazon | iTunes]

What albums currently flavor your life?

Suffering

Tony Reinke Job, Suffering

Francis I. Andersen, Job (Tyndale OT Commentary), 68:

Men seek an explanation of suffering in cause and effect. They look backwards for a connection between prior sin and present suffering. The Bible looks forwards in hope and seeks explanations, not so much in origins as in goals. The purpose of suffering is seen, not in its cause, but in its result. The man was born blind so that the works of God could be displayed in him (Jn. 9:3).

But sometimes good never seems to come out of evil. Men wait in vain. They find God’s slowness irksome. They lose heart, and often lose faith. The Bible commends God’s self-restraint. The outworkings of His justice through the long processes of history, which sometimes require spans of many centuries, are part of our existence in time. It is easier to see the hand of God in spectacular and immediate acts, and the sinner who is not instantly corrected is likely to despise God’s delay in executing justice as a sign that He is indifferent or even absent. We have to be as patient as God Himself to see the end result, or to go on living in faith without seeing it. In due season we shall reap, if we do not faint.

Lay Face Down and Clutch the Grass

Tony Reinke Apologetics, Art, N.D. Wilson, Worldview

If you enjoyed N. D. Wilson’s brilliant book Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God’s Spoken World, I think you will enjoy his new DVD by the same title. The new “bookumentary” is just as artistic, personal, creation marveling, Creator worshiping, and as serious about worldview, graveyards, hell, art, evil, and enjoying hotdogs, ice cream, shorelines, and butterflies. It’s a 50-minute worldview film about God and life that will edify your soul and give you a new appreciation for the marvelous world in which we live. And it’s a project that has quite a lot of potential uses in campus and community outreach (study guide included).

Props to Wilson (@ndwilsonmutters) and director Aaron Rench (@aaronrench; also the executive director of Collision: Christopher Hitchens vs. Douglas Wilson) for pulling off a thoughtful, edifying, and artistic new film.

You can buy the movie from Canon Press ($22) or watch the trailer here: