Psalm 117 • Song for All Peoples
Listen to the audio version of this message with the player below.
Sermon Notes
sermon note files here (add download buttons or image blocks as necessary)
Transcript
(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Let's stand and read the Lord's Word, Psalm 117. this great commission of the Old Testament as God makes central what we most should know.
Psalm 117, "Praise the Lord, all nations!
Extol him, all peoples!
For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord!"
Let's pray together.
>>> Father, thank You for making central in Your Word a message of steadfast love and enduring faithfulness.
The message that would unfold in the scriptures is how that is communicated to us by the gift of Your Son.
This day, as we would seek Your Word, show us Christ, that our praises would also enthrone Him on high and in the hearts of those that You love and we love.
This we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
>>> Please be seated.
The month that starts tomorrow will mark the one-year anniversary of the bombing of All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan, a church not as large as ours which on a Sunday morning had two Muslim suicide bombers enter, detonate the explosives and kill 127 men, women and children; 250 were wounded.
Because it's an Islamic state, those who were Christians in that church were those who were the oppressed minority of that particular area.
There were not jobs for them apart from the jobs that nobody else want, which it, most of the people in the church were garbage collectors.
They made their money collecting, sorting garbage.
There's no safety net for their wounds or their funerals.
There were no social services.
There was no one in the society to help them along.
And so the Monday, the day after the bombing, the people of the church came back.
And they gathered the Sunday School papers that had been spread by the bomb.
And they gathered the shoes of the children murdered and wounded so that they could be used by others who needed them.
And then they washed the walls of the blood of their families and friends.
And as they did so, even the secular reports said, "Their wails of agony pierced the silence of the indifferent neighborhood around them."
And then when the walls were clean, they arranged the pews and sat and began to sing songs of praise to God.
Why?
Because they remembered their charter: The church established over a hundred years before had said from its outset, "This church is to be a witness for Christ in a major Islamic city."
They believed that they truly would do what the psalmist had said so long ago, that they would enthrone Christ in the praises of His people; that they would be a witness to the greatness and the goodness of their God, particularly in the face of tragedy if they would continue to praise Him in the midst of agony and oppression so that all the world could see: Our God is not going to be stopped by this.
Our praises will not be stopped by this, because our God and His love and purposes are eternal.
How could we keep from singing?
Because we know the purposes of our praises: to enthrone the glory of our Savior.
It's what this psalm is all about, Psalm 117.
Talking so clearly about what our calling is.
We are to praise our God.
I mean, it's right there at the beginning in the first verse, "Praise the Lord, all nations!
Extol him, all peoples!"
What we may not see is the emphasis with which the psalmist is writing.
In our English bibles, it's, "Praise the Lord."
It's a word you know.
It's just "hallelujah."
Except in this particular place and only other three other places in the Bible, this "hallelujah" is in the long form.
"Hallelujah, Yahweh," as though the psalmist is saying with peculiar emphasis and force, "Praise the Lord."
Don't miss this.
Don't miss this focus.
And you get the emphasis in the expanse of the praise.
"Praise the Lord, all nations!"
Now, again, it just goes by in our worship tradition, but we don't understand how strange it must have been for the Jews to say, "Praise Yahweh, our God, all nations."
Because that word for nations is talking about the geopolitical states, the way people draw on the maps the line of country and designate nations.
But for Israel, the word "nations" just doesn't mean a political entity: It means our enemies.
These were the "goyim," the Gentiles, the non-elect, the non-treasured people.
We're the chosen people.
And, yet, here they are being put and told right in their own prayer book that we are to urge all nations to praise our God.
And it's not just nations.
"Extol him, all peoples."
This would be the Hebrew word not just for nation states but for people of different ethnicities, different tribes and races and backgrounds.
And for Israel, that meant those who were unclean, those who are not part of our people.
And, yet, the expression of what the psalmist is doing is saying, "I will remind my people that from the very beginning it was God's plan to use their blessing to be a blessing to the nations."
And so the reason that he is saying we are to praise Him with such expanse is that there is to be an expectation that the God of Israel will one day be praised by the whole world.
It is, after all, what the apostle Paul would do later when the church gathered in Rome and Gentiles began to believe in Jesus Christ, those from other nations and ethnicities and they began to join Jews in worship in Rome.
And the Jews began to get so upset, "What are these other people doing coming into our church?"
And Paul actually quotes this psalm to say, "It was the purpose of God from the beginning to have all nations give Him praise."
What this psalm is is just a foretaste of what we know is to happen at the end of the ages.
You know in our Unlimited Grace Calling we have talked about our desire to aspire to be a church who can early join the song of Revelation 5, that there will be that time that all nations gather together before the throne of Christ and they will say, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, because by Your blood You purchased people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."
It's your goal, God, to get all peoples together so that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And so this day, when Pastor Greg was announcing to you that you as a church have given this wonderful commission for us to find a Pastor of Evangelism and Enfolding and to recognize it would be so beautiful and good and a proclamation of the gospel if that was somebody from another nation and another ethnicity.
You recognize this isn't just political correctness: We are saying we want to participate in the plan of God; we want to be a church that is recognizing the new age not just out there somewhere, but we are bringing it into effect by the commitment and the compassion of our own hearts.
And what we are doing when we welcome others in some ways of not the dominant ethnicity that is here is we are saying we are joining with the Christians of the ages and of the world to be a part of the praise of God for something that bigger--, that's bigger than we are.
After all, when those Christians in Peshawar were singing praise to God, you recognize that they wanted their voices to touch their neighborhood, the very neighborhood that had bred the hatred that had resulted in the murder of their children.
And still they are saying, "This praise is to touch every tribe, every language, every people, every nation; friend or foe, we want all to know the wonder of our Savior, because that was the plan of God and we want to be in the purposes of God."
Why would we sing such praises?
Verse 2 simply gives the cause of the praise.
"For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever."
Steadfast love: It's the Hebrew word "hesed," which means "covenant love," not just affection, not romantic love but love that is based upon the prior commitment of another.
That's not going to be conditional.
It's not contractual.
That's not "I'll love you if you love me."
It is the steadfast love of the Lord that never ceases.
As God is saying, "I am to be praised for a love that's not based upon your praising me well enough, not by your life's action, not by your performance, not by your doing, but upon My love for you that's based totally upon My mercy."
And that's why the psalmist continues.
Not only do we praise God for His steadfast love but for the faithfulness of the Lord.
Now, I recognize in some of your translations it says, "The truth of the Lord."
And the word "truth" there is not about what's true or false.
It's not about what's accurate.
The word "truth" there means something that's true to its word.
When God is identifying Himself as truthful here, you have to say, "How is He being true to His word?"
By having a plan for the nations and all peoples.
After all, how did God establish the nation of Israel?
Did He pick them because they were the best and the nicest people?
No, He said, He said, "You are the most stiff-necked."
[Chuckles]
"Awful people, so I'm going to choose you."
So it's--, we, obvious how great is My mercy.
And it's that faithfulness to His word that God is identifying and reminding the Jews that when they were established as a people, what, after all, did God say to their forefather Abraham?
"I will make you a father of many" what?
Nations.
"I will make you a father of many nations."
And then saying to Abraham, "All the nations of the earth shall be blessed through you."
If God is to be true to His word, then His faithfulness is going to extend far beyond the Jews.
His faithfulness will touch many, and it will not be based upon anybody's qualifying, not upon their performance, not upon their goodness, not upon their merit, but entirely upon His steadfast love and His wondrous faithfulness.
I marvel and praise God for the Frederick's testimony in this service, don't you?
To recognize that what is being said was, "We were going a different direction, and we recognized there would be every reason in our lives for God to turn His back and walk away.
But as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love toward us."
Why?
Because of His steadfast love and His faithfulness.
He's been true to His word.
And that is the message of the church that is supposed to ignite praise in us.
And just so that it will, the psalmist actually puts words in front of those.
He says, "For great is his steadfast love."
The word "great" there is not talking about big: It's talking about powerful.
Mighty is the Lord's covenant love.
It's overcoming barriers.
It's moving past people's sin.
It's moving past their prejudice.
It's moving past their bias.
It is mighty covenant love.
And, then, the psalmist says in addition, "and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever."
It's unstoppable, and it's endless.
And it's this understanding that makes our hearts want to sing, to say: I recognize there are all kinds of barriers in my sin, in the hatreds and antipathies of others, in the hardness of others' hearts, in the differences among nations, but we believe that God has a promise that is in essence a prophecy that will come true; that He said He would be true to His word.
And His word was that Abraham would be a blessing to the nations.
And, therefore, as we are praising God, we are adding our voices, our song to the means by which God is going to reach the world for His Son, in love and mercy, for the sake of those who deserve it not at all.
I recognize that everything in us fights the truth of this.
In our hearts, we say, "But if the people around me knew this about me, if God Himself ever holds me accountable for, there is no way that His love will apply to me, that His grace will help me."
And that is why the psalmist is so defet--, definite in saying, "But great, mighty and powerful is the steadfast love of God, and His faithfulness without end," so that we will not base His love upon our affection, we will not base His purposes upon our performance but will simply say, "Praise God for how great and marvelous and majestic is His mercy."
If we begin to recognize what that is about, I will say again: Everything around us fights its truth.
Is it really true?
Could we say in our age that we believe that God is faithful to His people, that His purposes don't end?
After all, you must recognize the horrors of the church in the age in which we live.
Next month will also mark the one-year anniversary of what has now become a famous speech by a Cardinal in New York, some of you know, who was raised here in the Midwest.
And in that time, Cardinal Timothy Dolan simply said, "We have reached a new age of Christian martyrdom."
And he cited a year ago in New York City over a million Christians that could be identified as having been slain in this last decade, since this century began.
We have entered a new age of Christian martyrdom.
So is God's steadfast love enduring?
Is His faithfulness continuing?
I mean, that was said before the events of this last year.
For many of you in this room, you were raised at a time that I was: that we simply took for granted the greatest challenge to Christianity were going to be communist countries and the communist philosophy.
I must tell you, that is now just passe.
I mean, the two communist nations that are the greatest threat to Christianity right now are North Korea and Vietnam, small nations.
The threat to Christianity is not coming out of formerly communist nations.
The greatest threat to Christianity is coming out of the Muslim world, and as hard and politically incorrect as that is to say, we have to say how can we say that as believers and still have the praise of God and the purposes of God in our hearts?
I mean, you take a place right now like Southern Sudan.
Some of you know in elections a year ago Southern Sudan became a nation: Four million, primarily Christians, whose economy and lifeline is still controlled by an Islamic government in Northern Sudan who is currently orchestrating a famine in Southern Sudan.
Those who study it say that there will be fifty thousand Christian children who die by Christmas.
It is genocide of starvation.
And, of course, we don't hear about that so much because Sudan is not particularly critical to the U.S. interest or economy.
But where there is great interest, you recognize, even the news should tell us how difficult it would be right now to affirm the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
British historian Tom Holland simply writes these words: "What is happeling--, in the Middle East, what is happening in the Middle East is the virtual extinction of Christianity from its birthplace.
You hear bits and pieces; we hardly ever put it all together."
What's happening in Iraq, for instance?
Some of you may remember just a couple of weeks ago when the Yazidi cult driven out by I.S.I.S., so that's the Islamic, remember?
The Islamic State of Iraq in Syria.
As they moved into Northern Iraq, they moved out the Yazidi.
Now, the Yazidi is a cult group, and they were driven to the Sinjar Mountain.
And you read the terrible accounts of what was happening there as people were being starved and parched to death.
Ultimately there were supplies sent by the United States, but prior to that time, the conditions were so horrible that the people who were on the mountain knew that their children would die, in hours, some of them.
Some of them knew if their children got into the hands of the I.S.I.S. soldiers that terrible things would happen.
They threw their own children from the mountain rather than let them be taken.
We read about the Yazidi's.
What we did not read was that there were dozens and dozens of Christian families there, too.
And that's just a piece of the story.
What is happening in Iraq?
Some of you, of course, recognize that what is happening in Iraq is that I.S.I.S. is there in force.
A third of Iraq now is controlled by I.S.I.S.
As they moved into Mosul, and you hear on the news and you think: Where in the world is that?
Okay, think the land of Jonah and Nahum, those biblical people and biblical lands.
What has happened as I.S.I.S. has moved into Mosul?
The soldiers have come with clear orders.
We have them in our own Intelligence.
"Burn all business selling cigarettes or liquor.
Burn all churches.
Take all money and food.
Behead all Christian men.
Take their women; they are yours."
The reality if you just back away from the incidents and take the big picture, when the United States entered Iraq now more than a decade ago, one point two million Christians in Iraq; now less than two hundred thousand and most of them are refuges in dire circumstances, our brothers and sisters in Christ.
And that's just Iraq.
Some of you know that in Syria where also I.S.I.S. is having strong influence but there's also a civil war that's going on.
Before the civil war, ten percent of Syria was Christian; now very few Christians remain at all.
They basically all been driven out into the refugee camps into the surrounding nations.
Palestine makes our news, particularly as the rocket attacks from Hamas happened.
What do you know about Palestine?
Did you know that one point two million Palestinians are Christians?
Basically they've been spread throughout the world.
And because of the conflict with Israel, because of Hamas, because of what's happened there for the last two decades, very few Christians remain in Palestine.
There are some.
You know, Abu Dawud was here teaching at our church just a few weeks ago, a Christian Palestinian.
As he is here, what is he doing?
He's reminding us of our brothers and sisters who are standing for the Lord, singing praises in the most hostile places of the world so that God in Christ Jesus will be enthroned in the praises of His people, as they are being reminded and reminding others: This world is not the full picture; our God is about eternal purposes.
And we exist through the persecution and through the oppression and through the difficulty, that God may be known.
Some of you may be aware of Egypt, what's happening there, as the different Muslim forces have moved back and forth, that what has happened is Christians themselves have been caught in the crossfire, many churches burned, many Christians in hiding now.
Where some of you may have visited on some Holy Land tour, St. Catherine's Church, which is at the foot of Mt. Sinai where Moses, remember, was with the people of Israel.
St. Catherine's Church now, right now, is being threatened with bulldozing by an Egyptian general who says that it is a threat to national security.
Do you know why?
Because in St. Catherine's Church is the oldest copy of the Bible that we have in the language of Jesus.
A threat to national security of Egypt, so let's bulldoze it down.
What we understand over and over again is that there are hard things that Christians are facing.
How in the world could we say this psalm, that God is saying, "Mighty is his steadfast love and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever"?
Can we believe that?
I was helped recently by the report of a friend.
Some of you may know the name Mindy Bell.
She was a war correspondent and a Christian.
Her daughter and my daughter were actually roommates in college in their first year together.
And Mindy Bells recently woke--, wrote of what was happening in northern Nigeria.
Now, some of you know that North Africa is primarily Muslim as well.
And so she wrote what was happening in northern Nigeria.
That is where that other strange name enters our news reports: Boko Haram, which even al Qaeda fighters are terrified of.
Why?
Because they are not only filled with religious zeal, but the more that they have slaughtered the more the bloodlust has filled them.
And the atrocities are so numerous and so common that we can't even talk about them in a church setting.
And in that particular place, Mindy was recently visiting a town where all the churches had been burned.
And as she was visiting to give a report to say what has happened to the Christians in northern Nigeria, she said to enter that town and getting near one of the burned out churches actually heard a strange noise coming from behind the building.
And going around behind the building, she saw what just kind of fencepost and a corrugated roof building, she saw the pastors of the town gathered together with open bibles in their laps and singing songs of praise.
We will enthrone our God among the peoples.
And the way we do that is to extol Him, to praise Him, not for our present circumstances but for a grace that is eternal, for a plan that is beyond us.
What you recognize when people face such persecution, such hardship and they praise God, is just what you sang earlier: The church of Christ shall never perish.
Her dear Lord to defend."
There will be opposition.
There will be hardship and difficulty.
But kings and kingdoms may come and go: Jesus Christ shall prevail.
And when we recognize that, we don't just kind of write off Christians in other countries: We recognize we have tremendous privileges.
And one of those tremendous privileges is the ability to praise God without fear of reprisal, with the recognition that as we gather together we can be supporting in mission and prayer and purpose believers from across the world and across the generations.
Our end is not in the present.
We are about an eternal purpose for God's sake.
And when we see persecuted Christians who continue to praise God not only for their own sake but for the sake of enemy and neighbor, then we recognize this is something more powerful than we can imagine.
After all, one of the greatest gifts of the persecuted church is its continuing praise.
As the church praises God in the midst of difficulty, the world has to stand up and say, "How could they possibly?"
And the answer is because they are not bound to the realities and the promises of this world, but they are bound to the eternity and promises of God.
And He has said what would happen.
There will come the day when the knowledge of God covers the earth as water covers the sea.
Every other false thing will fall away.
Jesus Christ will reign.
And when I know that and you know that, it means that our lives have purpose.
And it says why the psalmist ends the psalm as he does, saying, "Praise the Lord!" because there is a compulsion to praise among those people who understand how great are the purposes and the love of God.
The song that we sang earlier, "How can I keep from singing?" is a song itself that came out of the Civil War agony and angst of this nation.
And, yet, what people did was they said if the horror is so great, then the message of salvation in Jesus Christ, His deliverance from the evil and the darkness and the blackness of the world, even appears greater in the midst of the agony.
How could I keep from singing?
If what God is promising is that His steadfast love toward us is great and His faithfulness will endure forever.
It's that knowledge that actually gives us a sense of a purpose and meaning.
We ultimately are in a cause that has not only eternity in view but the triumph of the best things this life can offer: mercy and love and faithfulness beyond the trials that we experience.
I couldn't help but think of this psalm because I was working on it when I heard the messages of the suicide death of Robin Williams this past week.
And for appropriate grief and a desire to honor his life, the internet exploded with people trying to find the most poignant film clip of his life that would somehow give meaning and significance to what he had stood for.
And apparently what was most riveted upon was that little period in "Dead Poets Society" where he's tried to encourage the boys that he's teaching, and he says, "Carpe diem, boys; seize the day.
Make your lives extraordinary."
And for all the wonder and the inspiration of those words and all the extraordinariness of his own life, you recognize it was not enough.
Ultimately he knew emptiness.
But what we recognize is not the story of one who took his life but one who gave His life.
I mentioned to you last week when we were looking at Psalm 116, it's one of four psalms that for a thousand years plus more the Israelites repeated annually in their Passover service.
The psalm that ended the service was this one.
Which means on that last supper night when Jesus was celebrating the Passover with His disciples, before He walks to Gethsemane to sweat blood of agony in prayer for His people and before He goes to Calvary to shed His blood for the sins of His people, it was Jesus Himself who would say, "Praise the Lord, all nations!
Extol him, all peoples!
For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord!"
And then the soldiers arrested Him.
It seems senseless.
It seems wrong.
It doesn't seem like it's faithfulness at all.
But Jesus knew that there was the most faithful act of God since the creation of the world that was about to happen.
And so He was praising God for a faithfulness beyond circumstances, a love beyond human explanation that was actually in divine provision.
It's what motivates us to say: We have to enthrone our God in our praises, not because we don't face darkness but because we know darkness does not triumph.
Because we know this is not the final chapter.
Because we know that His faithfulness endures, that His steadfast love is powerful.
I could not help but think of it in a more recent report by Mindy Bells.
When she was writing of what has happened in northern Iraq as the Christians have been forced into refugee camps but not Christians alone.
Some of you know enough about kind of the political religious world to know that I.S.I.S. is primarily made up of Sunni Muslims, which means they have also driven out Shiite Muslims from Mosul and surrounding areas, all of which have flooded into the refugee camps.
But the Christians, even in the refugee camps, have set up churches and shared what little food and little water and few medical supplies they have.
And so Mindy Bells wrote of churches filled up with Muslim women in head coverings from head to foot listening to Bible stories and Iraqi soldiers standing at the windows and listening in.
The steadfast love of the Lord is mighty, and His faithfulness endures forever.
Kings and kingdoms may come and go.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is like a steel locomotive going through history: It will not be stopped.
We know it sometimes in its power, because it faces resistance.
How could you recognize that a bulldozer was powerful if it never faced any resistance?
It has to push through the difficulty and the dictators and the famines and the floods and the hardship that God's people face.
And when they say, "But our praises are still to our God who has eternal faithfulness," then we enthrone Christ above all the world and say, "This is the God that we worship."
Does it apply to you at all?
I mean, I've spent so much time talking about world events, but I hope you recognize here in this area of the country that is ours, this Midwest, seventy million people live, according to the demographers in this Midwest.
And in thid Mist--, this Midwest, those who study religion across our world say right now the moral central of Christianity is not on our coasts; it's not in England.
The moral central of Christianity is in the Christian states of Africa and in the American Midwest.
This is where the values are maintained, the sense of mission and the holiness of God and the greatness of His grace.
It's here.
And we have a responsibility.
Among these seventy million, you must recognize the influx of people.
We have those Burundese and Sudanese.
They're here.
We have those from Pakistan and India and China.
They are here.
And to your amazement, I'm going to guess, the largest grouping of Arabs outside the Middle East is in Middle America.
Do we have a job to do?
How do we do it?
Our God is enthroned on the praises of His people.
So in difficulty, in hardship, with people sometimes laughing at us, ridicule us, we say: We have a purpose.
If I'm a businessman, I recognize in my work association, maybe in my international associations, there is a purpose in the eternal plan of God.
If I'm a young person, I say the extraordinary life that God is calling me to live is not just for myself: It's to participate in an eternal purpose that's far beyond me.
If I'm a mom, I say I have eternal souls in my care: I know it's dishes and diapers, but at the same time, there are eternal things being done.
So that God will make sure He knows through the praises of moms and business leaders and bricklayers and farmers and parents and students.
What will we know?
Great is His steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
It's not an isolated story.
It's the same story repeated over and over again through history.
I couldn't help but think of it this last week when one of the sweet people in this church mailed me a photograph of a memorial plaque from Hopedale, Illinois.
Okay, I didn't know it.
I had to look it up.
[Laughter]
Eight hundred and sixty-eight people.
And in 1894, in the little red brick schoolhouse, under the guidance of the wife of the methodist pastor, the first Vacation Bible School in the world.
Thirty-seven students attended that first summer.
And from that isolated, nondescript, insignificant, nobody-will-know-about it effort, what has happened?
Across all denominations, across all borders, across all nations, across all prejudices, literally millions of young people have come to know the Lord because of what was done in that place.
Our God is enthroned on the praises of His people.
As we are faithful to Him, we take the gospel past boundaries and enemies and prejudices and our own sin.
And we recognize what He will do is He will use us, because if you have breath, you can give praise.
And praise is the plan.
That our God will enthrone Himself in the praises of His people.
Praise the Lord.
Don't you want to do it?
Let's enthrone Him.
Let's stand and sing praises to our God.
I'll ask the musicians to come forward, and we will praise our God as we are mindful again that His purposes are eternal; His steadfast love is mighty, and His love endures forever.
Let's enthrone our God by singing His praises.