ROOTED - Saturday, April 18, 2026

Psalm 100

1 Make a joyful noise to
the Lord, all the earth!

2     Serve the Lord with gladness!

    Come into his presence with singing!

3 Know that the Lord, he is God!

    It is he who made us, and we are his;

    we are his people, and the sheep of his
pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

    and his courts with praise!

    Give thanks to him; bless his name!

5 For the Lord is good;

    his steadfast love endures forever,

    and his faithfulness to all generations.

Reflection: A Great Psalm

Written By:
Pastor Jesse Caro

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but here is another
Psalm I memorized when I was a boy. A short Psalm that I could easily recite
(Doing it now requires a prompt or two). I would recite these words (along with
Psalm 1, 19, 23, etc.) without a thought… literally. Children, I guess, tend to
do that: say or sing things without any real connection to what they mean. We
do the same thing. We pledge allegiances, recite creeds, and sing songs without
truly considering what in the world we are saying. Hopefully, as adults, we at
least sit for a moment to ponder the spiritual things we have memorized. Dare I
say we “meditate” on them.

Despite the fact that I meaninglessly memorized Psalm 100, I can
see now that it is a chapter with truths dropped on us like atomic bombs. In
this short Psalm we learn something about the nature of church (a place to
serve with gladness and sing praise to God). We read that we are merely
wandering sheep to a God who made us… a loving Creator. We learn something of
how thanksgiving blesses God. And we are reminded of the most foundational
truth in the universe: that God is a lovingly good God who is ever faithful.
This tiny Psalm packs a punch of theological truths, over and over. Psalm 100 is
poetic and pithy, and we run the risk of easily reading through it without any meaningful
contemplation. But I encourage you to occasionally read these Psalms slowly and
with a heart to meditate. Allow them to teach you about the nature of God and
ourselves. Think deeply about these things. Otherwise, you may as well be an 8-year-old
boy memorizing words in order to get a gold star sticker. And we are too old
for stickers.

Prayer

Lord, may we meditate deeply about you, especially as we read
these Psalms. May the beautiful poetry not cause us to lose track of the
beautiful truths in the text!