Shabbat Shalom all,
All praise and esteem belongs to יהוה our Elohim and we delight in bringing Him the joyous song of praise, aměn!
Qolasim/Colossians 3:16 “Let the Word of Messiah dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing with pleasure in your hearts to the Master in psalms and songs of praise and spiritual songs.”
Singing with pleasure in your hearts!!! How vital this is for us – as the Word of Messiah dwells in us richly we are to sing with great pleasure in our hearts – to Him our Master, Redeemer and King – and we are to be doing this with great joy as we sing in psalms and songs of praise and spiritual songs!!! Tonight I want us to be reminded of this vital call to sing with pleasure in our hearts to the Master! So now echo this call to you all and charge you all to be a joy filled people who sing with pleasure in your hearts, as you raise a shout to our King in song. Tonight I would like us to worship and praise a little more. But first I would like to look at a couple of verses and words that remind us of our need to be a “singing, praising, worshipping and shouting with joy” kind of people. In this verse in Qolasim/Colossians, the Greek root word translated as pleasure is χάρις charis – Strong’s G5485 meaning, ‘grace, kindness, blessing, gift, favour’. In other words we are to be singing with ‘favour’ in our hearts – that is to say that we are to be singing with the loving-kindness and gift of His Word that now richly dwells in us, given to us as a precious gift through the shed Blood of our Messiah!
As we are in the midst of the week of Matzot/Unleavened Bread and actually entering into the last day of Matzot, we are reminded how, by His Blood, we are cleansed from all unrighteousness and sin, and at this time of year the words of Sha’ul to Titos speak loud and clear:
Titos/Titus 3:4-7 “But when the kindness and the love of Elohim our Saviour toward man appeared, 5 He saved us, not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His compassion, through the washing of rebirth, and renewal by the Set-apart Spirit, 6 which He poured out on us richly through יהושע Messiah our Saviour, 7 that having been declared right by His favour we should become heirs according to the expectation of everlasting life.”
In Messiah, we have richly received a great renewal by the Set-Apart Spirit, causing us to have a sure expectation of everlasting life – and that is worth singing about and shouting with joy unto יהוה our Elohim!!!
We certainly enjoyed a great Pěsaḥ Meal together at the end of last Shabbat and in the clear call to be an alert and watchful people who are guarding His commands, we must never neglect the need to be doing that with joy – a joy that comes straight from the heart in recognition of all that He has done for us and continues to do in us as we work out our deliverance with fear and trembling, as He leads us in every step we take!!!
As I was meditating on the Word, seeking what I should be bringing to you tonight, I could not get away from the fact that we are to be a joyful people who are shouting with joy unto our King.
Tehillah/Psalm 66 is a great Psalm of praise, which can certainly stir in us the need to acknowledge and recognise how privileged we are as a people that can be gathered here in the Master’s presence on His Shabbat. After having eaten together at the Master’s Table at the end of last Shabbat, as we shared the Pěsaḥ Meal and a great night of watches, we recognise how great it is to be able to actually stand and declare our praise unto our Most High and Set-Apart King!!! In a brief message tonight called, “SHOUT WITH JOY AND SING WITH PLEASURE TO THE MASTER!”, I would like us to certainly do just that, but before we sing and praise and make a resounding shout of joy, please turn with me to Tehillah/Psalm 66 as we look briefly at this great song/melody of praise that should teach us to be a people who are able to sing with much pleasure in our hearts to our Great Redeemer and King, who became sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of Elohim. (Read).
This Tehillah/Psalm is a great declaration and praise of deliverance, and I cannot help but be moved to sing and shout with joy when I read and meditate upon this song and poem of praise!
While I usually cannot help myself looking deeply into root words and structures of passages and chapters, I did have to restrain myself in preparing for tonight, because if I did not I would have you hear all night dissecting this great poem…. Yet my attention was steered toward the need for us to do what the first verse tells us to… and this is my message tonight…. “SHOUT WITH JOY”.
We often can get caught up in the chaotic web of the worldly systems that we find ourselves living in the midst of, and in the process of getting tangled up in the pressures of daily life as we know it, we can tend to neglect this much needed task of shouting with joy to Elohim!
As we all prepared ourselves in getting rid of leaven from our homes and eat unleavened Bread this week we embrace this time reflecting on the powerful work of redemption that Messiah has done for us, and are challenged to carefully consider how our lives are measuring up when we look into the mirror of the Word, and how this week of unleavened bread ought to cause us to challenge us to not only be rid of leaven for a week, but also realise that by His resurrection power that now lives in us, we are enabled by His Word that richly dwells in us to walk and live as He walked and lived!!! This is the reason for us to shout with joy to Elohim, and sing out the splendour of His Name and make His praise esteemed!
The Hebrew primitive root verb translated in verse 1 as “Shout with joy” is רוּעַ rua – Strong’s H7321 and means, ‘to raise a shout, give a blast, battle cry, jubilant shouting, shout joyfully, shout in triumph’.
This Tehillah/Psalm has the title – לַמְנַצֵּחַ שִׁיר מִזְמוֹר – ‘lamnatsueyaḥ shiyr mizmor’ … “To the chief musician, a song, a psalm” and this is a song or psalm or poem of praise, and is thought to have been a psalm that was written and sung after the exile, by the returning captives as a great declaration of praise to Elohim for their deliverance out of an oppressive bondage that they had been under due to rebellion and sin, and this is a very fitting song or poem for us to also be declaring in our raising a shout with joy for our deliverance from sin and death!
What I found interesting with this word רוּעַ rua, is that while it is found 46 times in the Tanak (O.T.) it is found 12 times in Tehillim/Psalms and I want to quickly list those 12 verse from the Psalms that contain this verb, as it is very fitting in recognising the call for all the earth to raise a shout to Elohim, for the deliverance He has brought to all mankind, giving all a means to be grafted in to the 12 tribes of Yisra’ĕl, through the Blood of Messiah!
1 – Tehillah/Psalm 41:11 “By this I know that You did delight in me, because my enemy does not shout for joy over me.”
2 – Tehillah/Psalm 47:1 “Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to Elohim with a voice of singing!”
3 – Tehillah/Psalm 60:8 “Mo’aḇ is My wash-pot, over Edom I cast My shoe, Shout loud, O Philistia, because of Me.”
4 – Tehillah/Psalm 65:13 “The meadows are dressed in flocks, and valleys are covered with grain; they shout for joy and sing.”
5 – Tehillah/Psalm 66:1 “Shout with joy to Elohim, all the earth!”
6 – Tehillah/Psalm 81:1 “Shout for joy to Elohim our strength; raise a shout to the Elohim of Ya’aqoḇ.”
7 – Tehillah/Psalm 95:1 “Come, let us sing to יהוה! Let us raise a shout to the Rock of our deliverance.”
8 – Tehillah/Psalm 95:2 “Let us come before His face with thanksgiving; let us raise a shout to Him in song.”
9 – Tehillah/Psalm 98:4 “Raise a shout to יהוה, all the earth; break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises.”
10 – Tehillah/Psalm 98:6 “With trumpets and the sound of a horn; raise a shout before יהוה, the Sovereign.”
11 – Tehillah/Psalm 100:1 “Raise a shout for יהוה, all the earth!”
12 – Tehillah/Psalm 108:9 “Mo’aḇ is My wash-pot, over Edom I cast My shoe, Over Philistia I raise a shout.”
In these 12 verses we see the great call to raise a shout with joy unto the Rock of our Deliverance – יהושע Messiah, and what is clear is the call to shout, sing, clap our hands – doing it with joy!!! I love the contrast between Tehillah/Psalm 60:8 where יהוה is ironically calling Philistia to shout aloud, and basically asking them if they actually think that they can shout in triumph over Him!!! Then in Tehillah/Psalm 108:9 we see how יהוה declares that He raises a shout over Philistia – for He is triumphant over our enemies, and as Tehillah/Psalm 41:11 declares – that because He delights in us, our enemies do not shout in triumph over us – rather through His deliverance for us, He raises a shout of triumph over them – and this is exactly what I am calling us to do tonight – to raise a shout with joy to the Elohim of our deliverance and do so with singing and songs of praise, clapping of hands and the sound of the horn – singing out the splendour of His Name, making His praise esteemed!!!
And so my ‘short’ message tonight is simply a call to SHOUT WITH JOY and spend the evening making a truly joyful noise as we offer up an offering of thanksgiving and praise…..