Psalm 96

Here are some notes from one of Mo's talks at Relay 2.

God is more glorious than we can ever imagine.

V1-6
Verse one starts by addressing the whole world...tell the whole world about the salvation He has made available. We all should be rejoicing, the whole world should be rejoicing because of the work of the Lord. We should rejoice because of the Lord and what He has done. God's people need to declare this truth, we need to declare the name and glory and works of the Lord.

Why?
Verse four says that God is great and greatly to be praised and feard. All the other gods that people worshipped then and worship now are mute harmful, pointless idols. There is no glory in them, no worth in them at all. God made the Heavens, made everything there is, so how can anyone consider worshipping something created instead of the Creator Himself? There is slendour and majesty and strength and beauty in the Lord. This is why we need to tell people...it's good for people to hear and respond about and to the glory of God. And when we realise the glory of God it will appall us that people worship anything else, and this will spill over into evangelism. There are no borders to this mission, this Psalm addresses the whole world, and should affect every part of our lives.

V7-13
So come and tell God how great He is, how worthy He is of praise. We should tremble before Him because He is going to judge the world. He reigns, and this is to be our message. So God is going to judge, and judge with equity. And this is a joyful thing. The world is crying out for justice. God is moving all of history to this point, to the point of His judgement. So God's people need to be aprt of this, we need to show people what God is like, because He is who He is. And He will judge the world with righteousness. And this will cause the earth to rejoice (v11)

We need to be convinced that the world should respond. He made the world and everything in it so people should be worshipping Him. We need to grasp this, we need to call people to worship the Judge, to be hidden in Him from His own judgement, because thats what we were created to do, and that's what we'll spend all of eternity together. We need to be convinced of this in our worship and our evangelism. We need a deep knowledge of God. A knowledge of God that will overspill into worship and into evangelism, for the supremacy of the Creator, and the joy of His worshippers...