Consumed with Joy in the Lord

Dannah Gresh: In Psalm 92 we’re told to praise God for His work. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Praise and thanksgiving are not supposed to be something we just keep totally within our own hearts. It doesn't have to always be a quiet exercise. It can be a very expressive exercise.

Song:

It is good (ummm) to give thanks (ummm)
It is good to give thanks to the Lord.

Nancy: Who God is, this is a reason for joy.

Song:

To declare Your loving kindness in the morning.

Nancy: He’s always been at work. He’s at work today. 

Song:

To remember You are faithful in the evening.

Nancy:And we can’t count how many things He has done and He’s doing in this world.

Song:

It is good to give thanks to the Lord.¹

Dannah: It is good! And welcome to the Revive Our Hearts podcast for December 5, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh. Our host is the author of A 30-Day Walk with God in the Psalms, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy:Yesterday morning I received a text from my sweet friend Karen Ellis. You may have heard her speak at a True Woman conference. She’s been a guest on Revive Our Hearts and on our Grounded podcast as well. And this text she sent me just lifted my heart as I was studying and preparing for this recording day.

She said, “Oh Saint.” That’s what she called me, “Oh Saint.” Children of God are saints—set apart as God’s holy ones. She said,

Oh Saint,
God has been so merciful. I woke up thinking what wondrous love is this. Oh my soul, oh my soul. The lavish love and mercy of the King of the universe has no rival.”

What a joy to wake up to that kind of text in the morning: “What wondrous love is this. Oh my soul, oh my soul. The lavish love and mercy of the King of the universe has no rival.

My friend Karen is living out what we’re learning in Psalm 92 this week: to speak, to declare, to celebrate, to sing about, to give thanks for the love, the mercy, the faithfulness of God.

I’ll just tell you, you get a text like that, it makes your day! And maybe you’re not getting texts like that, but maybe you could send a text like that to someone else. It will make their day. This is how we declare to each other and lift our hearts with assurances of the faithfulness of God.

Well, we’re back to Psalm 92 today. It’s titled in my Bible, “God’s Love and Faithfulness,” because that’s what the focus is. That’s the theme of our praise and thanksgiving. God loves us with this undying, covenant-keeping love. And He is always, always faithful–faithful to His Word, faithful to His character, faithful to His promises.

So this is a song, a song for the Sabbath Day, to be used by the Israelites in the Old Testament as part of their Sabbath Day worship. We can use it any day, but what a good reminder as we come together on the Lord’s Day to worship Him together.

So I want to read verses 1 through 3 of this psalm, and then we’ll continue into the next portion. But just to reset where we were yesterday, this reminder that:

It is good to give thanks to the LORD,
to sing praise to your name, Most High,
to declare your faithful love in the morning
and your faithfulness at night,
with a ten-stringed harp
and the music of a lyre.

So, picking up where we left off yesterday, we want to go today to verses 4 and 5. I want you to see first in verse 4 the great joy that God gives to His people—His people who are mindful of Him, who know who He is, who worship Him, who give Him thanks, who give Him praise. They get joy in return. Look at verse 4:

For you have made me rejoice, LORD . . .

That word means “to be glad; to brighten up.” When somebody’s happy, you can tell it by their face. Right? Their countenance gets brighter. And the psalmist says, “Lord, You have made me rejoice. You have brightened, you have gladdened my face, my countenance. You have made me rejoice.”

And then in that second half of that verse:

I will shout for joy . . .

You have made me rejoice. I will shout for joy. That word “shout for joy” is a word that means “triumph.” It actually can mean “to creak.” I kind of like that because when I sing, especially if I sing loudly to the Lord, it does sound kind of creaky, creaking—I’m not sure what the form of that word is. But “to creak; to cry out; to be joyful; to sing aloud for joy.”

You see, praise and thanksgiving are not supposed to be something we just keep totally within our own hearts. It doesn’t have to always be a quiet exercise. It can be a very expressive exercise–singing aloud to the Lord.

And I want to say, when you come together with the people of God on the Lord’s Day for corporate worship, when they sing, I want to encourage you to sing. I want to encourage you to tell your face about the goodness of the Lord.

You look around sometimes at Christians singing, and you’d think we missed the church and got the morgue. I mean, it can be pretty disheartening because we’re not thinking about what we’re singing and who we’re singing it to. We’re not thinking about the faithfulness and the covenant-keeping love of God.

The psalmist says, “Lord, You have made me rejoice.” It doesn’t mean there aren’t any problems. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any hard things going on in our lives. You look across the congregation on any given Lord’s Day, and there are lots of people who have deep pain in their lives and in their circumstances. Maybe you do as you worship the Lord. But in the midst of that, the psalmist says, “You have made me rejoice. You have brightened my heart, my face. You have gladdened me. I will shout for joy. I will express the joy that You put in my heart because of who You are.”

Now, what causes that kind of response? What makes us rejoice? What makes us creak? What makes us shout out loud? (I’m not talking about creaky knees. I’m talking about creaky singing and praising and thanking the Lord with this crying-out-loud voice.) What’s the source of our thanksgiving and praise? What’s the source of our joy?

Well, it’s not something that we can just conjure up: ”I’m going to be a happy person. I’m going to sing clappy-happy songs. I’m going to pretend like I’m happy.” That’s not what we’re talking about.

The joy we’re talking about is not rooted or grounded in what’s going on around us which may be painful, grievous, hard. That’s not the source of our joy. What is the source of our rejoicing and our joy?

Well, we’ve seen part of the answer to that in verse 2 that we looked at yesterday. The source of our joy is in who God is—His faithful love, His steadfast love, His loving kindness, and His faithfulness. That word in the Hebrew means, literally, “firmness.” We waffle. We waiver. We shift. We go up and down sometimes with our emotions or with how we’re feeling. But God is firm. The word “faithfulness” means “security, stability.” He is a steady, faithful God. When we’re up and down, He is steady. He is faithful.

So who God is, this is a reason for joy, for rejoicing, and for celebrating the goodness of God.

So in verse 2 we see a source of joy is who God is, but then we come to verse 4, and we find another source of our joy. “You have made me rejoice, LORD, by what You have done.”

Verse 2: Who You are causes me to have joy and rejoicing. Verse 4: What You have done makes me rejoice.

I will shout for joy [Why?]
because of the works of your hands. (v. 4)

What You have done.

First, who You are, and then what You have done—the works of Your hands.

Our God is a God who works. He worked from the very first pages of Scripture. Before there was time and heaven and earth, He was working. He is still working. He will be working for all of eternity. The works of God should make us glad. They should be a cause for joy and rejoicing.

Now, I just want to read here a string of verses—we’ll put the references in the transcript to today’s program at ReviveOurHearts.com—but I want you to get a sense of how God works and what He does in His work because this is supposed to make us joyful. This is supposed to make us rejoice.

So, we see in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God was creating. I think, in the true sense of the word, we wouldn’t use that word for anybody other than God because He made it ex nihilo—out of nothing, God worked. He made everything that is out of nothing. Anything we make just takes things God has made and makes something more out of them, brings them together, arranges them. But God is the One who created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. He was working in Genesis 1.

Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. (Gen. 2:7) 

God formed the man. God was working. He was shaping the man, body and soul, making the man until he became a living being with the very breath of God in him. God was at work.

And then going back to the last verse of Genesis, chapter 1, 

God saw all that he had made, [the work that He had done, He looked it over, examined it] and it was very good indeed. (Gen.1:31)

The work of God is good. God works, and what He makes is good.

We see this theme running through all of Scripture. Job 5:9–10 says that, 

God does great and unsearchable things,
wonders without number. 

You say, “What are these great and unsearchable things? What are these wonders?” Well, look at the next verse:

He gives rain to the earth
and sends water to the fields.

When it rains outside, did you ever look up and say, “Lord, this is a great and unsearchable thing You have done. This is a wonder that You have done”? If it’s raining we’re grouchy, saying, “Oh, I don’t want rain! I’ve got to go out in the rain today?” Listen, the rain, if we could study it and know where it comes from and how it works and how it comes down to the earth and goes up . . . I’m not a scientist. I can’t explain all of that, but I know that it is a great and unsearchable thing that God does wonders without number—little things . . . big things such as sending rain to the earth.

Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works:
Which You have done; 

[This is supposed to bring us joy, to make us rejoice.]

And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered. (Psalm 40:5 NKJV)

The works of God. You may see God doing a few little things in your life, and you think, But there’s so much else going on here. There’s so many problems I’m facing.

But the Scripture says the works of God are numerous. They are wonderful. They would outnumber . . . You can’t count if you tried all the things that God is doing in this world and on behalf of His people and for the salvation, redemption of this planet. You can’t count how many works He is doing.

I will remember the LORD’s works;
yes, I will remember your ancient wonders. (Psalm 77:11)

This is why we need to be students of this Book, going back and seeing what has the Lord done in the past. It’s why we need to jot down and remember the works of God that He has done in our own lives. The older you get, the more you’ll wish you had written those down because you start to forget them.

But the psalmist says, 

I will remember the LORD’s works;
yes, I will remember your ancient wonders.
I will reflect on all you have done.
and meditate on your actions. (Psalm 77:11)

How often do we see God do something and then we just psft and move on past it. We’re on to the next thing.

Do you stop and think? Do you stop and meditate on what God just did? The change He brought about in someone’s life. The way He provided to meet a need. The way He answered a prayer. The call you got from that son or daughter that had broken off a relationship, and you see ice thawing. This is a wonder. This is God at work. And the psalmist said, “I’m going to not just flip past them, but I’m going to stop, pause, meditate, think about, give praise to the Lord for His works.”

How countless are your works, LORD!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures. (Psalm 104:24) 

God is at work. He has always been at work. He’s at work today, and we can’t count how many things He has done and is doing in this world.

The LORD’s works are great,
studied by all who delight in them. (Psalm 111:2)

Listen, no one should enjoy studying mathematics and science and history and literature and grammar and all these disciplines that we think when we’re going through school. “Why do I need that?”

If we delight in the works of the Lord, we will delight in studying what He has made and how it works and what He has done and how it all comes together. I feel like I have just the tiniest little thimble full of knowledge about the universe and the world that God has made and His works in this world, but I want to be a student of these great works, not to just let them pass by unnoticed.

I will praise you
because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. (Psalm 139:14)

Thinking of the human body, we don’t have an iota of knowledge about all that there is about what makes the human body special and distinct and how the different systems work and work together. But the psalmist says, “I’m going to praise You about it because I know You made this body.”

My parents didn’t make this body. No human made this body. This was not a matter of chance. You made the color of my hair. (Well, it used to be one color. It’s a different color now.) But You made it, and the changes in my body, the changes in the seasons of life.

Lord, “Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.” Doctors get a little glimpse of this. I can never understand how a medical doctor cannot be a believer in the God, the Creator of the universe when you see the marvels and the wonders of the human anatomy and all the different systems. I will praise You for this.

I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all you have done;
I reflect on the work of your hands. (Psalm 143:5)

Oh, Lord GOD! You yourself made the heavens and earth by your great
power and with your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you! (Jeremiah 32:17)

The creation of this world, God’s power, God’s spoken Word, and just His outstretched arm saying, “Let it be,” and it was. No human being can do works like God’s works. But God is still at work.

Jesus responded to them, “My Father is still working, and I am working also.” (John 5:7)

God sent His precious Son Jesus to this earth to do His works here on earth, the miracles, the healings, the words He spoke, the messages He gave. These are the works of God that Jesus came to bring to us in such a way that we could see the works of God in a new way and then to bring about here through His crucifixion and His resurrection the ultimate, redeeming, saving works of God.

God continues to work now that Jesus has ascended into heaven. He is praying for us. We are down here on earth, and the Scripture says in Philippians chapter 2: 

It is God who is today till continuing to work in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose. (Phil. 2:13 paraphrased)

God is still working. He’s working in us so that we want to love Him, to praise Him, to follow Him, to serve Him, and to enable us to do His work according to His purpose for His glory in this world that He has created. That’s Philippians 2:13.

They sang the song of God’s servant Moses and the song of the Lamb: [And what is that song that they are singing in heaven?]
Great and awe-inspiring are your works,
Lord God, the Almighty. (Revelation 15:3)

“Lord, You have made me rejoice by what You have done. I will shout for joy because of the works of Your hands.”

And we go to the next verse in Psalm 92, verse 5, and we sum it all up with this beautiful verse:

“How magnificent are your works, Oh LORD” Magnificent. Great. Large. Excellent. 

How magnificent are your works, LORD,
how profound [“how very deep,” your translation may say] are your thoughts!

This is the wellspring of true and lasting joy—to focus not on my works, but His, not on what I have done, but on what He has done.

How much do we often focus our attention, our affections, our thinking on what others have done? The things that have blessed us? The things that have hurt us or harmed us or annoyed us? Or on what we have done—our achievements, our accomplishments, or our failures? We get so wrapped up in what others have done and what we have done, and we forget to think about, to meditate on, to reflect on what God has done.

“How magnificent are Your works, LORD, how profound are Your thoughts.”

Now, we were created in the image of God. That means we were created to work. Work is not a bad thing. Work is not a result of the Fall. God gave the man and the woman work to do in the Garden of Eden. And He gives us work to do here in this world. He will give us work to do as His faithful servants for all eternity in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

So, working is a reflection of God’s image because He works. And our works are intended to reflect His works to those around us. Remember Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, “Let your light shine before others so that they may see”–what? What are they going to see? Just your glowing face? No. They will see “your good works and they will give glory to Your Father in heaven.” They won’t give us the glory. They give Him the glory because our works are a pale reflection that the world can see the works of God.

And we are to focus not on our own thoughts or the thoughts of those around us, but the psalmist says, “How profound [how very deep] are your thoughts, Oh, LORD,” Psalm 92:5.

Focusing on His works, His thoughts, His goodness—not the badness in our world or in my world.

I want to encourage you to be alert, to be tuned today to what God has done, to what God is doing all around you, to the works of His hands. Notice them. Think about them. Point them out to others.

Robert often talks about when he was a dad with little girls, how he would say to his little girls as they’d be out for a walk and they’d see something—just ants crawling around on the dirt. He’d point them out, and he’d say, “Isn’t God amazing?!”

That’s the way we should be thinking and talking all day long. “Isn’t God amazing?!” “How magnificent are your works, LORD, how profound your thoughts.”

While I was meditating on this passage, I picked up a bad case of poison ivy (this is a number of weeks ago). I broke a tooth. I celebrated a marker birthday. We were remodeling our house, and for hours upon hours, I was focused on a minutia of things like doorknobs and drawer handles and paint colors and carpet samples and light fixtures. God created big things and little things, and God cares about big things and little things in our lives.

But I find that so many days, even as I’m studying God’s Word, getting ready to teach, leading this ministry, my thoughts are often obsessed with things that are insignificant in the light of His works, His thoughts, what He has done, and what He is doing in our world. So, are we consumed with our works, our thoughts? Or His works and His thoughts?

For my thoughts [God says] are not your thoughts,
your ways are not my ways. . . .
For as heaven is higher than earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa. 55:8)

As I’ve been meditating on Psalm 92 here, “How magnificent are your works, how profound your thoughts,” Psalm 92, verse 5.

I think of how social media is kind of just the opposite of that, and how often I find myself just mindlessly scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. How those reels, those pictures, those captions, those images . . . they aren’t bad ones, but how they can steal my time and my affections from the Most High God and replace the profound thoughts of God with puny, trifling, worthless thoughts.

Are our thoughts trivial? Are they petty? Or are they profound and pure and rich and deep like God’s thoughts?

Do you want to have God’s thoughts? Open His Book. You read it. You meditate on it. You live in it. You soak in it. You steep in it, like I put my tea bag in my cup in the morning, and I let it steep. I let it soak in the hot water until what’s in that tea bag gets infused into the water. That’s what we want God’s Word to be doing in our hearts so that we will have His thoughts filling our minds.

Our prayer is that our thoughts would align with His thoughts: that we would ponder His thoughts and His works; that we would be shaped by them, formed by them, sanctified by them because we become what we think about. So if that’s true, what are you becoming?

What are you thinking about? Are you thinking about His magnificent works? His profound thoughts? And do those thoughts and those works of the Lord inspire you to worship? to wonder? to awe? to joy?

“Oh, LORD, how magnificent are your works.” How magnificent are Your works. “How profound [how deep] are your thoughts.”

May they cause us to rejoice and to reflect Your works and Your thoughts to the world around us this day. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: God alone is the reason for our joy. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been explaining how the works of God make us truly glad. I hope you’re living in that awe and joy of the Lord today.

Revive Our Hearts brings you messages like what you just heard to help you and women everywhere thrive in Christ.

Nancy: That’s right, Dannah. And there’s nothing more encouraging to me than to hear of fruit, ways that God is using Revive Our Hearts. And often it’s ministry fruit we weren’t even aware of. That was the case recently when we had a special visitor here at Revive Our Hearts.

Sophia: I am Sophia. I am from Hungary.

Nancy: Sophia was here in Michigan visiting her sister who was having a baby. She told a friend that her dream was to visit Revive Our Hearts. So before she headed back home to Hungary, she was able to stop in and watch a recording session. She told us that back home in Hungary it can be hard to share her faith with others.

Sophia: What I experience in my small surrounding, where I’m working, and with people I meet outside the university, many people are in the tolerant gray zonee. They don’t say no to anything, and they don’t say yes to anything. They are just somewhere in the middle.

Nancy: Sophia has been troubled by the spiritual climate around her, and she’s been eager to do something about it. She was preparing for a Bible study she leads when she came across ReviveOurHearts.com.

Sophia: I went back again and again and found trustworthy materials which helped me also to understand personally so much more about the Word of God.

Nancy: Now she’s led multiple Bible studies using resources from Revive Our Hearts. She told us about her vision: small groups, or what she calls “women circles.”

Sophia: My dream would be that there are many women circles by coming together in somebody’s living room and sitting down and spending the time really checking seriously about God’s Word. What does it teach for us about Christian living? What does it teach about what topics about womanhood? About our role as women in the Church, outside of the Church, in the family, single or married? It would be really good to see such circles.

Nancy: When I heard Sophia express that heart desire, I couldn’t help thinking, That’s exactly what I’ve always longed for as well.

Well, by God’s grace, it’s happening, little by little, in women circles here in the United States and around the world. And what a privilege it is for Revive Our Hearts to play a part in bringing those desires to fruition. We want to help women thrive and be fruitful in any season in any location.

Now, none of that takes place in a vacuum. We need you to help spread the word. We need you to pray. And we need you to support us financially as the Lord enables and prompts you to do that.

Sophia is serving the Lord in a place that desperately needs the light of God’s Word to shine. Would you join us in helping people like her?

December is a key month for us at Revive Our Hearts. Almost half of the year’s donations come in December alone. On top of that, donations this fall were lower than usual. So, to encourage you to give, some friends of Revive Our Hearts have set aside a matching gift fund. That means that whatever you donate here in December will be matched dollar for dollar by that fund.

We’d be so grateful to hear from you. Your gift at this time will help us continue equipping women like Sophia in places like Hungary and all around the world. And can I just say in advance, “Thank you so much for your gift”?

Dannah: Yes, we appreciate it so, so much.

In order to give, simply head to ReviveOurHearts.com and click where it says, “Donate,” or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Now, before we wrap up today, I want to remind you the Celebrate the Season sale is going on. Yes! Do you love sales? I do, too. Be sure to grab some of your favorite resources at a discount. Get your gift shopping done and shop the sale at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Even when it seems like evil is winning, God is still on His throne, and tomorrow Nancy will continue walking us through Psalm 92 with some powerful insights. I hope you’ll be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB unless othewise noted.

¹ Poor Bishop Hooper. “Psalm 92 - Single.” Released September 29, 2021 ℗ 2021 Firstborn Music.

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