Well, I'm not from Louisville either, but I've learned to say it correctly with some practice. It's not Louieville, it's not Louisville. More importantly, I come with greetings from the church in Louisville. We are grateful that you are here, and I'm particularly grateful to be here with you this morning. I feel quite at home with you, actually, for two reasons that I want to tell you about. The first is that for some years in middle school and first year of high school, I lived in Overland Park. Right around the corner, 119th and Schweitzer. And so driving around, I recognized many of the street names, although I didn't recognize much of what was beside the streets. Much has changed in the 20 years since we moved away, but I am grateful to come back and enjoy Kansas City barbecue. And more importantly, secondly, I feel quite at home with you because of who you are and what you are here together as a church. I've anticipated coming here now for a few weeks since Matthew invited me, and I've expected that I would arrive here to find a group of people gathered together by the sovereign wisdom of God. People who, like we do in Louisville, love the gospel because they've been transformed by the gospel. And I've just met a handful of you. I'm looking forward to get to know more of you. But as I hear you sing and as we receive the Lord's Supper together, and I hear the announcements about what's going on in this church, I have every confidence that we are together united in this mission to proclaim the gospel and see people converted and saved and joined to the church. And that is wonderfully exciting to me. And so again, I feel very at home here, and I'm glad to be with you this morning.
You can open up your Bibles to Psalm 150. The last of the Psalms. If you're not as familiar with your Bible, just open up to the middle. Chances are you will find yourself in or near Psalms, and then turn a little bit to the right. Psalm 150. This is a good Psalm for a new year. Even though it is the last of the Psalms, it's a good place to begin a new year. Many people this time of year are making resolutions. I'm told that health club memberships are at a a high for the year in the month of January, although I also understand that by January 15th, 50% or more of those health club memberships will lapse, not to be resumed again until next January 1st. I didn't make any particular New Year's resolutions this year, although I'm starting to rethink that because about 45 minutes before the meeting started, my pants ripped right on the side. So I changed into— I had a nice pair of Dress pants on, I changed into these jeans, more comfortable. So perhaps I need to make some New Year's resolutions. But Psalm 150 is a good place for us to start the new year.
So I was preparing for this trip here, opened up Google Maps. I'm a maps guy. I like to see where I'm going, the lay of the land. Where's the airport in relation to Overland Park? Where's the church compared to where I used to live? That sort of thing. I like to have the layout in front of me. I like to know where I'm going. Where things are in relation to each other. Psalm 150 is a little bit like Google Maps in that it will orient us to where we are, where we're headed, who we are, who God is, and who we are in relation to him. So I think it's a good place for us to start this morning.
So I'd like to read Psalm 150. It's not a long psalm, it won't take us very long. What I would like you to do is to follow along, to look at the words on the page as I read. I want you to absorb God's Word with all the senses that God has given you. And after I've read this, we'll pray and ask for God's help in our understanding of His Word. Psalm 150. Praise the Lord, praise God in His sanctuary, praise Him in His mighty heavens, praise Him for His mighty deeds, praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with trumpet sound. Praise Him with the lute and harp. Praise Him with tambourine and dance. Praise Him with strings and pipe. Praise Him with sounding cymbals. Praise Him with loud clashing cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
Well, if you've ever read straight through the Psalms, or even if you just happen to have read the last few of the Psalms, then you know that the last 5 Psalms each begin and end with this phrase, "Praise the Lord." Psalm 146, 147, 148, 149, and 150 all start and end, they're bookended, each one of them with this phrase, Praise the Lord. And Psalm 150 takes it even to a higher level because that phrase, either praise the Lord, praise God, or praise Him, is on every single line of the song. Now, I am not a Bible scholar, but it doesn't take one to discern that there's something we're to learn from this, to take away from this. It's no coincidence.
And we need to think carefully about this phrase. What does it mean to praise the Lord? It's a phrase that if we're not careful can quickly become a bit of Christian jargon, one of these phrases that we throw out with one another because it seems like the kind of Christian thing to say. Hey, I got a new job. Well, praise the Lord, brother. And that's good and we should say things like that. Our speech should be shaped by the words we find in the Bible. There's nothing to be ashamed of about that, so long as we do it thoughtfully and intelligently, so long as we understand the words that we are saying together. So we need to think carefully about this phrase, "Praise the Lord." I think we all know intuitively what it means to praise something. We do it all the time. But to think a little bit more carefully about it, I want us to consider some words by C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis wrote a commentary on the Psalms. It's called Reflections on the Psalms. It's mostly good. It might be worth getting and reading if you can read it with discernment. There are a few parts that aren't as good, but mostly it's excellent. And he has a phrase in the beginning of this book. He says, the world rings with praise.
6 · Explains that praising is a universal human activity—we praise what we value and we urge others to join us in praising it
And he goes on on that page to explain that all around us, people are praising other people and other things all the time. People praise their children or their fiancée or their spouse or their parents. People, if they maybe just come back from a vacation, they praise the mountains or the beach. They praise their job if they like it. They praise their house if they like it. They praise their favorite actor, their favorite politician, their favorite musician. They praise their favorite food. We praise all sorts of things, don't we? And he goes on to explain it like this. He says, just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it. They say things like, isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent? So we spontaneously praise what we value, and we spontaneously urge others to join us in praising the things that we value. We do that all the time.
7 · Applies the general principle of praising what we value to everyday life with personal and relatable examples
Think about what you did or talked about over the last week. Maybe you were telling somebody else here, or at work, or at school about your vacation, about your Christmas break. You were telling them about gifts you received, food that you ate, family that you saw. No doubt somewhere in that report you praised someone or something. Maybe you were telling somebody, inviting them to come to church on a Christmas Eve service. You were praising this church to them. Maybe you were praising some accomplishments from your children or your spouse. We praise what we prize and we do it all the time. We do it about incredibly important things. We do it about incredibly trivial things. I urge my wife to join me in praising the Washington Nationals. She won't do it. Not impressive to her. But I'll come busting in the room, "Babe, I got great news!" Her eyes perk up, she's expecting to hear a baby was born, somebody got engaged. Great news, the Nationals— and I'll tell her we picked up some pitcher or something. I'm urging her to join me in praising what I value. She doesn't value them, but she indulges me and we'll watch a game and that sort of thing. But we do this all the time. You're probably thinking of something, something in the last week that you have urged others to join you in praising. C.S. Lewis goes on and explains, "The psalmist in telling everyone to praise God, well, they're doing what all men do when they speak about what they care about." in telling us to praise God. They are simply doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.
8 · Provides exegesis of Psalm 150:1 by explaining Hebrew poetic parallelism
And this happens everywhere. Look at Psalm 150:1, "Praise the Lord, praise God in His sanctuary, praise Him in His mighty heavens." Now, if you are reading Psalm 150 in your Read Through the Bible in a Year plan, and you're hustling through these last few Psalms, they probably grouped together the last handful of them, and you got to get your reading done for the day, you might read over this verse rather quickly. It's good for us to slow down and think about what do these words mean? What is God telling us here? Praise the Lord in His sanctuary and praise Him in His mighty heavens. This is Hebrew poetry. Now, English poetry, we're used to rhyming. Not all English poetry works that way, but that's what we're most familiar with. Roses are red, violets are blue, that sort of thing, right? We all understand how that works. Hebrew poetry is not at all about rhyming sounds, which is good for us because few of us can read or understand Hebrew. It rhymes ideas. And so the way Hebrew poetry makes a point is by putting together consecutive lines that either reinforce the same idea or build on an idea or maybe even contrast an idea to help us understand and get the idea. And that's what's happening here. Praise God in His sanctuary, praise Him in His mighty heavens. This is a poetic way of saying, praise God on earth and in heaven. His sanctuary, he's referring there to the temple in Jerusalem. Praise Him in the mighty heavens, he's there talking about the place where God dwells above the unseen, untouchable realm of God's throne in heaven. And He's bringing them together as if to say, maybe we would say from coast to coast, but broader than that, "In all the land on earth and in everything that is above on earth and in heavens, let everything praise the Lord."
9 · Walks through Psalm 148 verse by verse to demonstrate that all of creation—from the outermost heavens to the earth, from inanimate objects to animals to humans of all ages and stations—is summoned to praise God
What He's saying is that there is no corner of the universe where God is not worthy of praise. And so He's calling all the universe. Earth and heaven, summoning them to worship God and to praise him, to join him in praising God. And if you're not totally convinced of this just from these, these two lines in this one verse, just let's just jump out to Psalm 150 to Psalm 148. A little field trip. You may not even need to turn the page, but we're going to real quick skim through Psalm 148. This is like zooming in on Psalm 150, verse 1, because what we have here is a list of the places and the people and the things that are called to praise God. Look at verse 1: Praise him from the heavens. Psalm 148, verse 1: Praise him from the heavens, praise him in the heights. So all the heavens are to praise God. Verse 2: Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his hosts. So he is to be praised by those who are in heaven. We're going to start slowly zooming into where we live. Verse 3: Praise him, sun and moon, Praise Him, all you shining stars. So now the part of heaven that we can actually see and recognize also summoned in the praise of this God. Verse 4, praise Him, you highest heavens, you waters above the heavens. Now he's thinking of not only the heavens of outer space, but the atmosphere that surrounds this globe. Verse 5, praise Him. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded and they were created. He established them forever. He gave it a decree, it shall not pass. Verse 7, "Praise the Lord from the earth." This is like one of those National Geographic videos that starts way far away and starts zooming in, and all of a sudden the earth comes into view. And now we're going to zoom in closer to earth and see who else is supposed to be praising. "Praise Him, you great creatures in all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling His word." Verse 9, "Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars." But it's not just inanimate objects that are called to praise God. Look at verse 10: "Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds." It's not just animals. Verse 11: "Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth, young men and maidens together, old men and children, let them praise the name of the Lord." And the "them" he's referring to there is everything from verse 1 right on through that entire list. Let them, let them all, let them praise the Lord. He is summoning all of creation to praise the Lord. Everywhere. Everyone. At every time. Called. Invited. Summoned to praise God.
10 · Steps out of exposition to address the congregation's lived experience
It's easy to agree with this point, I think. I mean, we sit here on a Sunday morning and think, yeah, that's right, everybody should praise God. We can see that. Plain enough on a Sunday morning looking at God's Word. And some days I think that happens for us, doesn't it? I mean, I think as Christians, we do have those days where things seem to work right. We wake up in the morning, the coffee is fresh, and you sit down to your Bible, and as you're reading, it feels like God is leaning over your shoulder almost, pointing things out to you on the page, and it's just popping off the page. You're saying, well, this is amazing. I'm learning about God and His goodness. His faithfulness to me, and it's rich and inspiring and heartening and strengthening for your day. And as you pray, it feels like the Holy Spirit is in the room with you. You sense God's nearness and His presence, and the only disappointing part of it is that the time is done so quickly and you have to move on. That does happen to us, but it doesn't happen all the time, does it?
11 · Catalogs the obstacles to praise—distraction, anxiety, suffering, relational conflict—with specific, relatable examples
It's not like that for me every day. Many times it's a struggle just to wake up. I have 4 small children. I think they conspire at times to prevent me from having a coherent quiet time in the morning between waking up at night or waking up too early. It can be challenging. And there are many other things that would keep us from responding with this sort of passionate praising of the Lord first thing in the morning. There are times when we're simply distracted. Excited by other things. Maybe this morning you woke up thinking about football. My Washington Redskins are playing this afternoon. I'd be lying to you if I said I haven't thought about that once or twice today. There are times maybe that we are anxious, simply preoccupied by other things. There are many trials. I don't know you well enough to offer specifics, but I imagine that the trials and temptations in Kansas City are much the same as they are in Louisville, Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles. Maybe tempted by anxiety about the future, the economy, jobs, healthcare, maybe about health. Maybe you or someone you love has a difficult health trial that is protracted and doesn't seem to be resolvable in the near future. Maybe it's a relational struggle. Maybe your trial is even more acute than that. Maybe you've recently lost a loved one. Maybe you've recently lost a job. Maybe your relational struggle came to a head over the holidays. It was an outburst with a family member or the icy truce of a cold war. I don't know what it is for you, but there's something. There's something that would distract you this morning. Keep us from praising the Lord? It's probably something coming to mind. There are many things that would keep us from praising the Lord everywhere. And we need to watch for those things. The presence of those things doesn't mean that we shouldn't praise the Lord. We'll think more about that as we go on.
12 · Summarizes the first major section (praise the Lord everywhere) and signals the structural shift to the second major section (praise the Lord for all He's done)
We've been thinking here about praising the Lord in all the earth. Been thinking about how God has summoned us to praise him in all circumstances, in every place, at all the time. But it can be challenging when there are these difficulties. Life is hard. We live in a broken world. People disappoint. We sin. We disappoint ourselves. We— there's so many struggles that would keep us from this. But this psalm can help us because it gives us a pathway forward so that even in the midst of those difficulties and struggles and trials that every person in the world encounters, even in the midst of those, we can proceed and continue to praise the Lord even in the face of great difficulty.
13 · Introduces the second major point by framing the question the next section will answer: Why should we praise the Lord in the midst of suffering? The answer is found in Psalm 150:2—we praise Him because of His mighty deeds and His excellent greatness
So if you're taking notes, the first point I had, I'm not sure I made that very clear. The first point was praise the Lord in all the earth. The second point here comes out of verse 2: "Praise the Lord for all He's done." So we praise the Lord for all He's done. This point basically answers the question, well, why should we praise the Lord? If life is so difficult and there's so many trials, and God is powerful and loving and wise, and yet it seems like the press of suffering never lets up, even on Christians, why? Why should we praise the Lord? Well, there are many answers to that question, many ways to answer that question, but here's how Psalm 150:2 gets at that. We praise the Lord because of who He is and because of what He's done. Or maybe we could flip it around. We praise the Lord because of what He's done, because of who He is. Look at verse 2 with me. Praise Him for His mighty deeds. Praise Him for His excellent greatness. Praise Him for His mighty deeds. Praise Him for His excellent greatness. What He's done because of who He is.
14 · Establishes the inseparability of God's character (His excellent greatness) and God's actions (His mighty deeds)
We praise God for what He's done because of who He is. Now, these verses help us to think about these as like two different categories. Well, you have what God has done and you have who He is. He does what He does because of who He is. Really, we can't even separate those two things. They go together. They're so intertwined that oftentimes they seem to fit together right into the same verse. And let's take another little field trip over to Psalm 146. So we're staying right here at the end of the Psalms, all these praise the Lord Psalms. And here's where we'll see this even more about his mighty deeds and his excellent greatness. We're going to read verses 5 through 9. Psalm 146:5-9. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, and the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners, he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. These verses tell us a lot about what he does. He helps, he gives hope, he creates, he keeps faith, he executes justice, he feeds, he protects, and so on. We could just keep reading through the Bible and add to that list indefinitely. The things that God does, His mighty deeds. But you can back up from that to understand why He does those things. It's like you can peek behind the curtain to understand a little bit of why God does what He does. He keeps faith because He's faithful. Psalm 146 doesn't say that explicitly, but as you know, there's plenty of verses we could go to to see that. He executes justice because He's just.
15 · Identifies the pastoral problem: believers who intellectually affirm God's character can still functionally disconnect His character from His actions in the midst of suffering
And before you think, well, duh, you came all the way from Louisville to tell us this. Well, no, it's good that we think this through. We know sort of intellectually what God is like. We know that's true. I mean, any one of us, right, could pass a true/false test about the character and nature of God. We know what He's like in His excellent greatness, but when trial and trouble come, our temptation is to make some sort of disconnect between who God is and what He does. And we might, even in the midst of our trouble, remember His excellent greatness and be able to praise Him and remember something abstractly about, well, what He's like. Sure, God is faithful, He's loving, He's just. All of that may be true, but we begin to think, when trouble and suffering really come and press on our lives, our temptation is to lose sight of His mighty deeds. And to begin to think about what He does in different ways, we may lose sight of His goodness at work in our lives, His faithfulness at work in our lives, His justice at work in our lives. And if we do that long enough, that will begin to work backwards towards how we think about God and His character. And so in the midst of our troubles and trials and joys and happiness, we have to remember this connection between his mighty deeds and his excellent greatness. These verses push us to connect the work that God does is because of who he is. God does what he does because of who he is. God's character works out in his actions.
16 · Applies the theological claim to the congregation's immediate and future circumstances
Friends, we got to remember this in this new year. I, I hope you can carry this thought with you because Trouble's coming. Maybe you're in a trial now. If not, maybe you recently were. If not, you soon will be. I don't have to be a gifted prophet to make that prediction. We live in a fallen world and we need some place safe to retreat to. We need some solid ground.
17 · Personal story of seeking shelter from a storm in a Colorado cave
Years ago, some friends of mine, one summer we were in Colorado And we were driving along a road in this valley and we saw across a kind of wide open field, we saw these caves in a cliff. We thought, that looks cool. We should go check that out. So we parked the car on the side of the road, we jumped the fence, and we started heading across this field. And as often happens in the mountains, it was a lot further than we thought it was. It didn't look like very far at all. As we got out of the car, it looked like it might rain a little bit, but whatever, we're in college, it's fine. We don't mind getting wet. We're trekking across this field. It was a lot farther than we thought it was. And as we're— it wasn't more, it was like plains. I mean, it just kept on going. We're walking across this field and we realize it's not just about to rain, there's a serious storm coming. And so we start hustling, we're running across this field to try to get to these caves. We're really just stranded out in the open. And we made it to the cave like right as this storm descended upon us, lightning, huge hail, tons of driving rain, but we were in this cave. It was a big wide— the mouth of this cave was probably about the size of this room, and all we had to do was step back just a little bit into it. We could see the storm raging just outside the cave, even a little bit of mist blowing upon us, but we were safe. We knew that no lightning would strike us, no hail hit us in the head, not even a drop of rain would wet our clothes. We were safe.
18 · Applies the cave illustration to the spiritual reality: verses like Psalm 150:2 are a shelter in the storm
Friends, we need the safety and the shelter of verses like Psalm 150:2. We need to know that God works with mighty deeds because of His excellent greatness, who He is and what He's done. This is a shelter for us. We're going to be at times out and exposed to trial and temptation, and when those moments come, We need something we can step back to, something safe and certain, the truth about who God is and what He does in our lives. And if this isn't firm ground for you, if you're not confident in God's goodness and faithfulness and justice to you, if you're not sure that God is at work in your life for your good, I want to urge you.
19 · Direct exhortation to study Scripture in order to know God's character and actions
To press into God's Word this year, to study this book and understand who God is and what he does for his people. Because there are great truths here for you that will be for you a shelter in the midst of the storm that will inevitably rage in your life. If you're not sure where to go or what to read or how to embark on a study like that, talk to Dave, talk to Matthew, come see me after the meeting today. We'd love to help get you started on something like that. We need this book to shape us. We need it to be for us a shelter.
20 · Personal testimony of using Psalm 68:19 as a sustaining truth during a severe trial
Had a time not long ago where my family had encountered trouble. We had a trial that came upon us unexpectedly. It was difficult, severe. It was confusing and perplexing along the way. And I needed some simple truth that I could hang on to because in the midst of trial, I don't need elaborate systems of theology. What I need is simple truth that I can return to again and again. And for me, Psalm 68:19 fit the bill: Blessed be the Lord who daily bears us up. God is our salvation. And that morning, every morning of that trial, as I woke up and thought about the storm raging around us, I didn't want to get out of bed, I didn't want to proceed with the day, and yet that Psalm was simple enough, clear enough that I could recite it and remember it and proceed with my day with faith and confidence.
21 · Clarifies the function of repeating Scripture in trial—it is not a mantra but a means of shaping the believer by reinforcing truth about God's character and actions
Now, remembering that verse or one like it, whatever may work for you, it's not a mantra, it's not something that I just recite to myself to hope that it's true. Rather, those verses shape us. As I woke up each morning and thought about that verse, Blessed be the Lord who daily bears us up. God is my salvation. I was remembering truth about who God is and what He does. I remembered that He daily bears us up, and I needed that picture in my mind of God carrying me through the trials of my day. I needed to be reminded that He is our salvation. And if there's a trial coming for you, friends, you need something like that. Maybe Psalm 68:19 would serve you as well. There may be some other verse that would help you. Some verse that you could carry through your day that will shape you. We need to see who God is and what he's done.
22 · Exegetes Psalm 147:3-6 to demonstrate that God's cosmic power (naming the stars) and His personal care (healing the brokenhearted) are not disconnected but flow from the same nature
Look at Psalm 147, as long as we're here in the end of the Psalms. Look at Psalm 147:3-6. I want to give you this just as an example of how we see who God is and what he's done throughout the Bible. It shows up on every page. Psalm 147:3-6, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." By the way, that alone would be a great verse to take with you into 2013. Let's keep going though. "He determines the number of the stars. He gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the humble. He casts the wicked to the ground." What a great couple verses. But if you read them slowly and think about what's here, it's a little perplexing. I've been thinking about this for the last few days and thinking it almost seems like it would make more sense to just go right from verse 3 into verse 6, doesn't it? I mean, He heals the brokenhearted, He binds up the wounds, He lifts up the humble, He casts the wicked to the ground. That has a nice flow to it. That seems to make sense, but wedged in there is this bit about, "He determines the number of the stars, He gives to all of them their names." Well, that's not by accident that that's there. The Holy Spirit had something in mind when He wedged that little bit about the stars in between these two verses about how God cares for us. I think what He wants us to see and remember in that is that God is big, very big, so big that he's not only created the stars, he's not only numbered them as NASA has to do because they simply run out of names, he names them all, he calls them by name. God is aware of all these stars, of what they're doing, he's causing them to continue in their path, the planets or whatever that's orbiting around them, all of that. He's causing, He's upholding all of that with the kind of attentiveness to detail that He's actually named every one of these stars. When you think about that, well, that helps you with verse 3. It's the God who has named the stars, who calls them forth with great power. That is the God who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Do you see how this fits together? Who God is and what he's done. The great and all-powerful God that keeps the universe spinning, that holds all things in his hand and has even gone so far as to name every star in heaven. That is the God that is attentive to the details of your life, who is aware of the brokenhearted pain and difficulty that you've experienced and is stepping into that to care for you, to heal the brokenhearted, to bind up their wounds. Who God is, what he's done.
23 · Synthesizes the exposition of Psalm 147 into a pastoral affirmation: God's greatness and nearness are not in tension but in perfect harmony
Friends, this is help for 2013 right here at the beginning, at the end of the Psalms for the beginning of the year. I love these verses. I love how they show us something about God and both His grandeur and greatness and majesty. God is big and yet God is near. As big as God is, is how intimately involved He is with the small little details of life. He's deep into all these things.
24 · Pivots from the general principle (God's power and attentiveness) to its supreme demonstration in the gospel
And listen, this combination of power and attentiveness, I think, come together most clearly in the cross of Jesus Christ. I want to talk for a moment about how the Gospel is the clearest demonstration of who God is and what He's done.
25 · Evangelistic gospel presentation for non-Christians in the congregation
Now I know in a group this size, there may be some of you who came— maybe you came today as a guest. And maybe you hear the word Gospel, you think of style of music. Maybe you're not familiar with the Gospel. Or what that means or why even a group of people would gather together like this. And first of all, let me just say, I'm so glad you're here. I'm a guest here too, but we're really glad that you are here, that you would come and visit a church. And secondly, we want you to know what the gospel is. Very simply, it's good news. And good news starts with bad news. There's bad news that people like us have sinned. We have broken God's laws that are contained here in the Bible. And God is a loving God, but he's also a just God. He is a God of justice, and his holiness means that he will punish sin. But there is good news, that sinners can escape the punishment they deserve through Jesus Christ, through his death on the cross. That's why Christians make such a big deal about Christmas, because it's at Christmas that Jesus came and was born. He was born to die. Christmas is about Easter. Christmas is about Jesus' death on the cross.
26 · Applies the gospel to the question of God's attentiveness
And it's there that we see— look, if you're tempted to doubt the idea that God is for you, that God is at work in your circumstances, that He's attentive to the details of your life, look no further than the Gospel. Look no further than the truth that Jesus died not just for sinners, in general, which he did, but for you. If you doubt this, if you struggle with the sense that God is distant or displeased with you, if you have trouble thinking that God is attentive to the details of your life, think about Galatians 2:20. It's a sweet verse. The Apostle Paul, he just said simply, almost in passing, he refers to Jesus. He says, "Because He loved me and gave Himself for me." He loved me and gave Himself for me.
27 · Addresses a common objection: that biblical promises are for special Christians, not ordinary believers
Now don't fall into the temptation of thinking, well, Paul can say that because he was the Apostle Paul. The guy's going to have his name engraved on the foundation stones of heaven. I mean, of course God loved him. This book is for every Christian. Every word of this book is for every Christian. Those words are for you. He loved you and he gave himself for you.
28 · Doxological exposition of the gospel's demonstration of God's power and attentiveness
Do you see the convergence of both power and majesty with attentiveness to you? He loved you and gave himself for you. The sins that you've committed, ways that you failed God, Jesus died for those things. The ways that I've sinned, it's a long list. Oh, it gives me great joy to think that at some moment, I don't know how this worked, but at some moment on the cross, that sin flashed before God, and because Jesus is there dying, bearing the wrath of God in my place, that sin was stamped forgiven. Washed clean by the blood of Christ, punished on Christ, and no more to be remembered. And then think about the metaphors for forgiveness that run through the Bible. Cast to the depths of the sea, put behind God's back, removed as far as the east is from the west, washed clean as white as snow. Oh friends, good news. Do you see the attentiveness of God in the gospel? I hope you do.
29 · Expounds Romans 8:32 with rhetorical correction of common misreadings
Romans 8:32, "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for really holy Christians." No, that's not what it says. "He who gave Him up for people who really try hard." That's not what it says either. "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all." How will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? I hope you see this convergence, God's goodness and His action together. God is attentive to the details of your trouble, and though it may not seem like God is at work for your good right away. He is at work for your good. Rescue, deliverance is coming. Persevere with faith.
30 · Summarizes the first two points (praise everywhere, praise for all He's done) and introduces the third major section with a rhetorical question: How should believers respond to this God? Signals the structural shift to application
And so we saw in verse 1 how Psalm 150 leads us to praise the Lord in all the earth. And here in verse 2, we praise the Lord for all He's done. And as we go on through this psalm, the third point, the final point, is to praise the Lord with all you've got. There is a bit of a shift. There's even a space between verse 2 and 3 because it's like a new paragraph, something kind of a new thought that's being introduced here. If all this is true, if it's true that God, the all-powerful, mighty Creator and Sustainer of the universe, stoops down and is attentive to mere creatures like us, What should we do? How should we respond? What sort of activity should this stir up in us?
31 · Reads Psalm 150:3-6 and observes the oddness of ending the Psalter with a list of musical instruments
Well, let's read verses 3-6 again. "Praise Him with trumpet sound. Praise Him with lute and harp. Praise Him with tambourine and dance. Praise Him with strings and pipe. Praise Him with sounding cymbals. Praise Him with loud clashing cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise Him." Praise the Lord. I hope there's no confusion here about what we are called to do. How we are called to praise the Lord. Here's what's strange, I think. This strikes me as odd. Psalm 150, the very last word of the Psalms. Most of the Psalms, most of this psalm is just a list of musical instruments. That is kind of odd, right? I mean, it seems like an odd way to end The book of worship for God's people. But here it is. It's a list of instruments.
32 · Exegetes the list of instruments in Psalm 150 by identifying their varied functions in Israelite life—national, congregational, priestly, and domestic
Now, we don't need to go through these individual instruments so much and talk about what they are or were. I think He could have just as easily have created a list of instruments from our day. Praise the Lord with the guitar and the French horn and the bass and the flute and whatever. Praise the Lord with everything, it seems here that the instruments listed represent music from a wide variety of settings within the daily life of Israel. Some of these instruments, like the trumpet, were used as a national summons, either to war or to celebration. You only blew the trumpet at particular times. Some of these instruments were used in celebrations, in joyful worship together as a congregation. Some of these instruments were just household musical instruments, much like a piano or a guitar might be today, played at home or in the streets. Some of these were used by priests. Others of them were used by normal men and women, even children. They're instruments from every corner of life. See a theme emerging here? And this seems to invite creativity and passion that spreads out into every area of life. God shows that His mighty deeds and His excellent greatness, they're on display at times other than just Sunday morning. So our praise together as Christians can't simply be confined to when we gather here on Sunday mornings. This isn't the only time to praise the Lord. I think that's the point of this list of instruments. It's another way of saying, it's a very creative way of saying, that we're called to praise the Lord in all of life.
33 · Synthesizes the exposition of Psalm 150:3-6 into a theological claim: in light of God's mighty deeds and excellent greatness, believers are called to passionate, boisterous, loud worship—not just in formal settings but in all of life
The point is here, in light of His mighty deeds and His excellent greatness, lift up your voice and worship. Not just on Sunday mornings, at all times, everywhere, with our whole hearts. Tell others, let the world ring with praise, and let it ring loudly. Now these verses call for passionate, boisterous, eager worship of the living God. One author that I read as I was preparing for this sermon points out that there's really no reference here to words, no reference to feelings or emotions of gratitude or gratefulness to God or praising Him or anything. It's just noise. What comes out here is just noise and lots of it and loud noise. I think it's obvious that it's not just noise for noise's sake. This is volume with a purpose. His mighty deeds and His excellent greatness call for sounds of loudest praise.
34 · Applies the call to praise to Providence Community Church specifically by cataloging God's mighty deeds in their midst: the church's existence, numerical and spiritual growth, and the provision of a faithful pastor
Here in Providence Community Church, I understand y'all recently celebrated your 10th anniversary together as a church. Brings me great joy to hear that news. Dave was telling me that in the car last night. I, I thought it was less than that. I thought you guys had been out here for 4 or 5 years, and I was just thrilled to hear that you were celebrating your 10th anniversary together as a church. What that tells me is that there are many reasons to praise the Lord here in this church. I mean, first, just look around the room. Think about the group of people that you are seated with this morning? What are the chances left to yourselves that you would be friends? What occasion would you ever have to gather together? Why would you invest so much of your time and your life together if God hadn't brought you together at this time in this place for this purpose: glorifying Himself? There alone, the fact that this church exists here right now in this place is reason to praise the Lord. Think about, for those of you who have been around for all 10 years or 9 or 7 or 8, think about how God has brought people here in the last few years. Think about how God has begun growing you together as a church. Think about how not only you're growing numerically, but growing together in maturity, growing together in your understanding of the Gospel, growing together in your ability to apply the Gospel and actually change and grow together to be more like Christ. Think together about how kind God has been to bring you Matthew Wassink as a pastor 2 years ago. You have a man here who loves God's Word, who will preach God's Word to you, who will come and care for you. Think about the many ways that God has blessed you in your personal lives, your relationships together. There is an unending list of ways, reasons for us to praise God for His excellent greatness and His mighty deeds.
35 · Proposes a concrete spiritual practice for the new year: keeping a daily list of God's excellent greatness and mighty deeds
In fact, there would be a good resolution to start a list of God's excellent greatness and mighty deeds that are visible in your life. If you started a list and each day made it your endeavor to write down one way that day that you saw God's excellent greatness or his mighty deeds in your life, Do you think that by the end of 2013 you would be any more eager to praise the Lord? I think you would, and in fact, I think you would have trouble limiting yourself to one thing a day. Friends, that would be a worthy endeavor, and it would be a worthy list to share with others because there will be times when it is hard to see the excellent greatness and the mighty deeds of the Lord, but at those times you can remind each other of who God is and what he's done.
36 · Exhorts the congregation to praise the Lord together in all settings—formal worship, personal gatherings, and everyday life
You have the great joy of being together as a church, being joined together to serve together, to pray together, to sacrifice together, to give together to the mission, to evangelize together, to care for one another. So many great things about being together as a church. And when you do, when you gather together, whether it's here on Sunday mornings individually, personally, together at Starbucks or in each other's homes or whatever it is you do this year, praise the Lord together. Recount together his excellent greatness and his mighty deeds. Sunday mornings, Tuesdays at lunch, Friday afternoons, late into the night on Wednesdays, whenever it is, praise the Lord.
37 · Concludes the sermon by quoting the hymn 'Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing' as a prayer and doxological affirmation
"Come Thou Fount," think about this song, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." Here's a prayer for us: Tune my heart to sing Thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise. Yes, they do. Let us praise the Lord.
38 · Closing signal indicating the sermon's conclusion and transition to prayer
Let's pray.