"Lean into the Lord with Praise" Psalm 147

The reading is from Psalm 147. Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving.

Make melody to our God on the lyre. He covers the heavens with clouds. He prepares rain for the earth. He makes grass grow on the hills. He gives to the beasts their food and to the young ravens that cry.

His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of man. But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope, in his steadfast love.

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise your God, O Zion. For he strengthens the bars of your gates. He blesses your children within you. He makes peace in your borders.

He fills you with the finest of the wheat. He sends out his command to the earth. His words run swiftly. He gives snow like wool. He scatters frost like ashes.

He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs. Who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word and melts them. He makes his wind blow and the waters flow. He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel.

He has not dealt thus with any other nation. They do not know his rules. Praise the Lord. So as I mentioned, Psalm 147 is a hymn of praise.

And on first glance, it's not so dissimilar to the hymns we looked at last week and the week before. So the Psalter is coming to its end. Psalm 145 to the end, 150.

They're all hymns of praise, psalms of praise. And there's a lot of similarities between the various psalms. But underlying this psalm lies a very difficult reality that could have easily sunk God's people.

This is a post-exilic psalm. Now, what do I mean by post-exilic? The history of Israel, the people of God, were...

I mean, you could go back to creation, but say we'll start at Abraham. God makes a promise to Abraham as descendants. Fast forward. They find themselves in Egypt to escape a famine. They prosper.

They grow in Egypt. Only to find themselves in slavery for centuries. Now, eventually, God takes them out of slavery. Gives them the promised land.

There's a conquering of the land. There's a lot of idolatry. There's a lot of... We're for God. We're against God. Our enemies are coming. God, help us. We're for God.

We're against God. Our enemies are coming. There's a cycle of apostasy, of disobedience. And then, eventually, they are utterly conquered.

By the time they're conquered, the kingdom, the people of Israel, they're already splintered. And then, they're taken away to foreign lands. And eventually, those foreign powers are conquered by other foreign powers, are conquered by other foreign powers.

And then, we find ourselves where this psalm takes place. About 2,500 years ago. We're not exactly sure who wrote it or when it was written.

But it's called post-exilic because by the time we get to the Persian Empire, the Persian king sponsors the Israelites to go back to their land to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, to rebuild the temple.

And then, that's why we call it post-exilic. After the exile. And it seems like it would be actually a cause for great celebration. And it is, to an extent.

But we have to remember one thing. The Israelites returned to the promised land. But their trust and hope in the Lord, it had to be shaken.

And we see it shaken in a psalm like this. Can we believe in the promises of Scripture again? Is God truly good? Will he provide for what we need?

Can we trust him once again? Can we be optimistic about our future? You see, not all of the Israelites went back.

And those that went back were very much products of Persia. Interestingly, Jewish people that live in Israel or all over the world today that have come from what is modern-day Iran, they look like Persians.

They eat like Persians. They speak Farsi. In many respects, whatever culture you find yourself in, you can't help but absorb it.

And a part of that is seeing some of the benefits of that culture. So what happens is the Israelites come back, and their confidence isn't necessarily rock solid.

But it starts to become a bit shaky. You know, the circumstances we experience are not similar to a post-exilic Israel.

We have not been uprooted. I mean, actually, in Canada, that's the case. In other parts of the world, Christians have totally been plucked up from their home and brought to other foreign lands.

I'm talking specifically in our context. But whether you're a Christian or somebody that's on the outside of the faith that might be peering in, the fear, the doubt, the shaky heart towards the goodness of God is quite real.

It could be very much a reality that you experience. We're in a psalm of praise. And Psalm 147 is a psalm, again, with a backdrop of post-exile, a psalm that helps the people of God deal with their shaky trust in him by not shrinking back from God, not taking a break from God, not being okay with just going through the motions but not being zealous for God, but rather the way forward is to lean in to praise.

You have doubts, they're real. Don't shy away from them. Embrace them for what they are, but don't take a break from God. Lean into him.

This is what the psalm will teach us this morning. So the psalm is divided into three parts. Each part, verse 1, verse 7, and I think verse 12, will all begin with a call to praise.

Praise the Lord, or some variation of praise the Lord. It will then have an affirmation of what God does, and then almost like a proof of why he is trustworthy to do it.

And it will all be around God being a creator and a sustainer of his creation. So if you have a Bible, please turn with me to Psalm 147. If you don't have a Bible and you're prone to distraction on your phone and you don't want to open your Bible app, I totally understand.

There's Bibles at the welcome table just outside, and you can grab one of those at any time. So we'll divide the psalm into three parts, or actually the psalm is divided into three parts.

And the psalm will teach us to praise God first, for he gathers the outcast and heals the wounded. And finally, the psalm will teach us to praise God, for he shows favor and gives grace.

He gathers the outcast and heals the wounded. He provides for those in need and takes pleasure in his people. And he shows favor and gives peace. Let's get right into it, verse 1.

Praise the Lord, for it is good to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant, and the song of praise is fitting. We'll stop there because the psalmist is actually incredibly wise to open up the psalm, a psalm again to bolster our faith in who God is and what he does, by first saying that it is actually just a really good thing to praise God.

It's fitting. It is beautiful. It is pleasant. The language here conveys something like a lovely, pleasurable, beautiful, delightful experience.

Worship is a joy, the psalmist tells us. And before we get into what God does, the psalmist wants us to know that praise is due to the Lord because he's the Lord.

And what's important for us to understand first, as we come into the psalm, but also as we come to the Lord in prayer, is we need to learn not to bypass giving glory to God for who he is and go right to our requests.

Okay? But to first learn how to engage in prayer, in praise to the one true God who desires and has made a way of relationship between him and his people.

Verse 1 is very much in relational type of language. It reminds us that praise is first and foremost a relational reality well before it's a transactional one.

I'll give an example. This is Christine's actually teaching the younger ones, so I don't mind if this embarrasses her.

That's fine. When we were dating, Christine, we dated for just a few weeks before she went to France. And it was really, I was working two jobs and I was trying to hammer out student debt because I don't have a girl in my life and I want to provide for her and all that stuff.

And anyways, so we would Skype twice a week. It was kind of in this interesting between time between buying long distance cards at convenience stores or gas stations and then well before WhatsApp video calls.

So I think WhatsApp was a thing at the time, but we'd have to Skype. And Skype was a headache. And it was even more of a headache because we didn't have internet at our bachelor compound that we lived in.

So Fridays, it was okay. I was at job number two. I would do overnights, but I would sleep for a bit of the overnight. And I'd wake up really early, around 5 o'clock, use the internet, log on to Skype, if I could log on.

And then we would have this delightful, grainy conversation until the staff came or the kids at this group home started wrestling before they woke up.

But Mondays were different. That was the main job. And it was a day job. So I would wake up pretty early. I want to say 5 o'clock, but I don't think it was quite 5 o'clock.

I'd bundle up, especially in the winter because we were dating primarily when she was gone in the wintertime. And I would trek it from our place in Vanier to the Starbucks at Chapters on Rideau Street, if you guys remember that place.

And the internet at Starbucks wasn't great. But it didn't matter because I got to see this lady that I was dating and quite interested in at the Starbucks.

Primarily a romantic, relational, I just wanted to see her face. It was that kind of relationship. I go to great distances and inconvenience myself happily to make it happen.

The psalmist envisions praise towards the Lord as something akin to a romance. Enjoying prayer and praise for the sake of the other person.

There's a relational dynamic. This is what the psalmist is beginning with in verse 1 here. Again, we see language that is first and foremost a relational reality rather than a transactional one.

This is what the psalmist wants us to know right off the get-go. Verse 2 and 3. The Lord builds up Jerusalem. He gathers the outcasts of Israel.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. The people of Israel, they're returning to Jerusalem. Again, like I mentioned, they're in a bit of a terrible state. They aren't just weary from travel.

I looked up what, and I don't know if it is, if it was the capital in ancient Persia. Susa, it's not really a place, but there's a neighboring city nearby.

And I Google mapped it. It's a bit over 1,500 kilometers to get from there to Jerusalem. It gave me an estimate of how long it would take to walk.

It's like 360-something days. I don't know. You don't want to walk it. It would be very perilous. Nevertheless, there wasn't a high-speed train. They didn't hop on whatever airline.

They had to walk it. They were weary from travel. But these people, like I mentioned, they're spiritually weary. Notice how they are described here. Again, verses 2 and 3 are describing God's people.

Not just a generic people, but in this case, it's God's people. How are they described in verse 2 and 3? They're outcast. They're brokenhearted. They look to God by faith.

We can see some of this in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra in the Hebrew Scriptures that really detail the rebuilding of the temple and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.

But they are woefully unprepared to rebuild this city, the temple that was absolutely razed to the ground during the Assyrian and then the Babylonian conquest of the land.

They were proud people. They turned their back to God. And as a result, they went into exile. But they are not returning as proud people. They are returning as pretty broken and humble people.

But friends, this is what the Lord specializes in. Okay? He specializes in taking a needy and broken and outcast people, a humbled people, and pouring upon them love and grace.

What does it say in the Proverbs? God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. He opposes those who turn their noses up at God, who claim that their words and their plans are far greater than God's word and plans.

That, in fact, God's ways are not ways that lead to life, but are actually the ways that stunt our growth and maybe even lead to death.

That God's ways are not beautiful, but kind of ugly, maybe bigoted, and not joyful, but certainly not joyful, but maybe even dreary. So what does God do?

He gives them over to what their wills demanded. Okay? And that's what brought them into exile. But in doing so, we find the grace of God at work. Why? Because God, desiring to bless and to heal and to restore, what does he do?

He gathers, he binds up, in this case. He allows their pride to cause them to crash so that then he has them in a humbled state so that he can bless them.

What we see here is an act of God's grace at work to let people suffer. To let proud people suffer. You know, that might not seem like a loving thing, but just consider this.

Because if somebody has a broken bone that they don't get set properly, okay, and it becomes, I don't know, crooked, it doesn't work the way it's supposed to.

A proper surgeon, a proper doctor will break the bone, will re-break the bone so that it can be set properly, so that the leg can be of use again. It's something similar to the Lord.

He needs us to understand just the consequences of a prideful life. Not because he's an egotistical maniac, but because he is a God who has created this world so that at the pinnacle, and we'll see this in a bit, the pinnacle of our existence is praising him.

And when we do so, life goes well. Not necessarily in a monetary way or a material way, but well in our souls. And God is much more concerned about our souls than our comfort.

The psalmist is telling us not to run away from God when we are confronted with our pride. Friends, do not run away from God if you are confronted with your pride. When your heart is exposed as a selfish heart or a hard heart, do not run away from the Lord.

When your plans that you once thought were foolproof prove to be your undoing, do not run away from the Lord. Look to him.

Ask, what are you allowing me to go through in this season so that I may see something of your goodness, God? Will you help me? Because what does it say again in verses 2 and 3?

The Lord builds up. The Lord gathers. The Lord heals. He binds. This is a God that delights in restoration.

And we can be sure that God does it. And this is where we'll see the first part of the, almost like a proof, that he is capable of doing it by this understanding that God is all-powerful.

Look with me at verses 4 to 6. 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 beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the humble. He casts the wicked to the ground. If God can create the universe, and we are still exploring aspects of the solar system, but in his infinite power, in his infinite presence, the fact that he is the uncreated creator, he knows everything.

Can he then not bind your wounds? Can he then not gather you if you are an outcast? Can he not set your broken limbs so that you can live in fullness, or at least continue to grow into that fullness?

Can he not do it? The psalmist is saying, look at the stars and then consider yourself. He is able. The Lord who is master over all, he can surely heal his people.

And this next section continues to show God's care and highlighting his provision. So our second point, for he provides for those in need and takes pleasure in his people.

Read with me verses 7, 8, and 9. Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving. Make melody to our God on the lyre. He covers the heavens with clouds.

He prepares rain for the earth. He makes grass grow on the hills. He gives to the beasts their food and to the young ravens that cry.

The Lord, he is incredible in strength and grandeur, but also he delights in upholding the creation that he has created. He loves to see life exist and flourish and grow.

There's the bit about seeing grass grow on a hill. A hill or a mountaintop is not exactly the most ideal place, but because there is life even on a hill, even on a mountain, God will provide sustenance.

Even to the ravens that cry out to him. And we see ravens. I mean, ravens are kind of cool, but they can be a nuisance. In the ancient world to the ancient Israelites, they were unclean.

They're carrion. They are an unclean animal. And here we see that God cares even for those aspects of his creation that are maybe a bit unsightly.

It's not just the city centers and the beautiful areas and the well-to-do people he takes care of, but all of creation. He delights in bringing life forward in.

This is the God who is highlighted here. He sustains, for he designed it, all creation intelligently.

You know, we, and I think things are turning a little bit, but by and large, we're not connected to creation very well. All right? We're no longer an agrarian society.

We don't hunt or gather for sustenance, only sport. We are not subject to the seas and what they can give to us so that we can live.

So we find ourselves potentially in this delusion that we can, we are the ones that create life. We are the ones that sustain life. But that is not the case.

It is God who sets forward the ecosystem so that we can, if we were in an agrarian society, that we could plant and grow and reap.

God is the one who has the oceans in his hands so that fish can be fished out of it for sustenance or we can hunt the fields. In the end, whether or not we are removed from God's creation, we are still subject to it and we need his provision.

And the psalmist is reminding us of that. God's provision is universal. He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.

But the psalmist continues in this section, verses 10 and 11, to show that there's actually a special care that God extends to those that love him, to his particular people.

Look with me at verses 10 and 11. His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those whose hope is in his steadfast love.

These are, if you've been around the church for some time, you would have heard these. It's actually a wonderful reminder, worthy of a fridge magnet, if I can say.

These are wonderful verses to remember. In fact, I would say that this is really the high point of this particular psalm. And it's really the high point of God's provision for his creation.

You see, God, the sustainer and the creator and sustainer of all things, at the very pinnacle, at the very high point of how he provides and how he sustains is by giving himself to us so that he is delightful and pleasurable to us and we to him.

But it's very specifically, we see this in verse 11, the second part. But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him. The fear here is, I mean, to recognize that God is greater than us, that he is stronger than us, but also that apart from him, we are nothing.

So again, we have this theme of humility being the thing that God wants to see, the thing that God embraces. It's a wonderful declaration of what God delights in, but also it's a warning and an encouragement for us that we ought not to find our ultimate hope in this earthly, our earthly vision of strength and bounty.

You see, here in verse 10, his delight is not in the strength of the horse. This is a war horse, right? Think chariots, think a sea of soldiers arrayed for battle.

The pleasures in the legs of a man, the same idea. We're prone to this, to look for strength in strong things, earthly strong things.

We want to find our strength in money, our security in a well-planned-for future, in our health, you name it.

And these things are good, and they're worthy of your time, as you plan, as you work. But they are a terrible, terrible thing if you are putting your eternal hope in them, your strength, the hope of your very soul.

I mean, just this past week, trade talks broke off, and now the economy is maybe a bit more perilous than it was the week before. A group of people are negotiating.

It's affecting us hundreds of miles away. You think that good times will continue to last, and then a sickness hits, a tragedy.

I got a bit of a dose of this this summer. We went to PEI for a family reunion, and we went to this one beach. We've been there in the past, and there's this place where you can jump off.

It's like 10, 15 feet, whatever. And Joseph, he's a big guy now, so he wants to jump off. We didn't have a life jacket, but he's been taking swim lessons, and I'm a bit of a dumb dad, okay?

So the way this works is, you jump off, and if the tide's going out, you just kind of swim, and then you swim to the side, you can get out, no problem. The tide's going in, there's a nice little lagoon.

So I jumped with Joseph. We caught the ladder. It was fine. Later that day, we decided to jump again, and in this case, he didn't want me to hold his wrist.

Again, he's a big guy. So we held hands, and we jumped, and I'm slightly bigger than my son, so I went under, and it takes me a bit of time to come up, but soon as we jumped, and hit the water, I lost his hand, and I came up, and he wasn't there, and I panicked, and I put my head underneath, and by the way, the tide was going out, but not crazy, like it wasn't heavy, it wasn't fast moving, but I put my head underneath, and I had like a foot of visibility, and I put my head up again, and it's like my, I had four seconds where my life was over, okay?

I turn around, and the boy floats, so he's like halfway up the ladder, and I'm okay. I had a nightmare that night. Like it was, it was like four or five seconds of, of my life, just crashing around me, and it reminded me how fragile this life is.

Maybe you have a certain experience, maybe something similar, and hopefully, you know, something you laugh about that wasn't tragic, but to put all of our hope in, in, in the horse, all of our hope in, in, in the legs, the thighs of men, all of our, all of our strength in things that are strong, that we think will last forever, but won't, it is, it is a very tempting thing, but it is a problem, because whatever it will be in this life, where you are putting your ultimate hope into, that is, that is, that is in a, in an eternal way, in a, in a temporal thing, it will let you down.

It will let you down. The psalmist is saying that God, he actually delights in us putting our strength in him, taking our pleasure, and putting our hope in his steadfast love.

So the psalmist reminds God's people about, about his, his provision, and, and how he delights in us, and especially those that are his own, that he, that put their faith in him.

Now we enter into the third and final point, where God shows his favor, and gives his peace. Look with me at verses 12 to 14.

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise your God, O Zion. For he strengthens the bars of your gates. He blesses your children within you.

He makes peace in your borders. He fills you with the finest of the wheat. Here we see that Israel has returned from exile, and has begun to, to rebuild.

And continuing with this affirmation, that strength ultimately comes from the Lord, that the psalmist reminds the people, that their safety, and security, and therefore their satisfaction, comes not from gates, but from the Lord who strengthens the gates.

It doesn't come from the borders, but the Lord who gives peace within the land. Hope is beginning to bud amongst God's people, once again. When our hope is in the Lord, our hope is in something sure.

Our longings are there, and we will try to satisfy them in anything. And we want to grow, we want to be filled. And like I mentioned in the previous point, we look to other things, but God here, the psalmist here, and the Lord really through the psalmist, he is affirming, that the very things we want, are only found in him.

The hope of peace, amongst people and nations. Where there is no peace, there's war. A society can't flourish, if there's a constant bombardment, of calamity.

When men can no longer till the ground, because of invasion, or the spread of evil, they put down the shovel, they put down the hoe, they pick up the rifle and the sword. The land doesn't produce, the way it ought to.

Once again, we see that God is the one, who brings peace ultimately. We can have an absence of war, but can we have the peace, that we need, to see society, to see human beings grow, in the way that we want them to, to see our longings be met.

Once again, the psalmist, calls us to praise the Lord. Once again, he tells us what he's going to do, and then once again, he gives us a bit of a proof text. Verses 15 to 20.

He sends out his command, to the earth. His word runs swiftly. He gives snow like wool, he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals, of ice like crumbs.

Who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word, and melts them. He makes his wind blow, and the waters flow. He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel.

He has not dealt thus with any other nation. They do not know his rules. And then it closes, as it began, praise the Lord. Once again, God can do all of this, because he influences, and upholds his creation.

And in this case, the psalmist wants us to see, that he does so, by the power of his word. Look again, verse 15, he sends out his command. His word runs swiftly, down to verse 18.

He sends out his word. Verse 19, he declares his word, his statutes, and his rules to Israel. And then finally, verse 20, he has not dealt, he has not dealt thus with any other nation.

They do not know his rules, which is to say, his Torah, his ways, his word. How does God ultimately sustain everything?

Does he have a whole host of workers that patch up holes in the cosmic fabric, so to speak? No, in the same way that we see in Genesis 1, with creation, and then here, with his sustaining of creation, God merely speaks.

And it is done. He reveals himself also to us, so that he can be known. He declares his statutes to us, so that flourishing and praise may fill the earth.

You see, God's word is at the center of his power, and at the center of his covenant love, towards those whom he favors. Look at verse 19, and we get a bit more of an insight into this.

Verse 19 says this, he declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel. Jacob, a short for the people of God, the people of Israel. You'll notice also, the people of Israel are called Jerusalem, or he talks about Zion.

But why hear Jacob? Now, listen, I wasn't bright enough to come up with this. This is one of the commentaries that I went to that was very helpful in this regard. But why Jacob here?

Why not Abraham? He's talked about his covenants and his statutes. You know, God makes the covenant with Abraham. Why not Isaac, the son of promise?

Why not Joseph, who is the deliverer of Israel, or Moses, right? Because God gives Israel the law through Moses. Why not King David? Why Jacob here?

I think it has something to do with what I opened up with at the beginning of the sermon, that life being full of difficulty, that might very well call into question the promises and goodness of God, that cause us to flee from him.

And this was, this was in many respects, Jacob's experience. Jacob has a terrible life, in many respects.

He is on the run from family members. He is duped. He is himself a deceiver. He is constantly on the run. And he is all that while looking for blessing.

He is looking for affirmation. He is looking for the longings of his soul to be fulfilled. In Genesis 32, we see Jacob running from his father-in-law, and then melting like wax, because of his brother, who he thinks is going to come for revenge.

And then we have this very bizarre story, where Jacob, the son is going down, and he is by himself. And this mystery figure shows up. And it says that he wrestles with him.

He struggles with him. He wrestles with him. And what's even more bizarre about this is that the figure turns out to be God. And then what's even more bizarre about it is that somehow, Jacob is prevailing against this figure, who turns out to be God.

And that's where we'll pick up the bit here. Verse 26 of Genesis 32. Then he said, this is this mysterious figure, Let me go, for the day has broken.

They're wrestling all through the night. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob.

Then he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. For you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. Verse 29. Then Jacob asked him, Please tell me your name.

But he said, Why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.

Again, remember verses 10 and 11. Okay? Verses 10 and 11. His delight, God's delight, is not in the strength of the horse, the pleasure, or his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, and those whose hope is in his steadfast love.

You see, God takes pleasure in those who seek after him, who trust in him, who look not for blessings and solutions in the world, but come to the realization that all of our hopes and our longings and the true love that we so desire is found in God alone.

And I think this is what we see with Jacob, and maybe that's why the psalmist included it at the end of our psalm this morning. This psalm is about a people who are partially restored.

Israel came back, at least a portion of Israel came back, to the promised land, yet still struggled with brokenness, temptations, fragility of life. The promise of full restoration that we see here in this psalm, it doesn't come to take place ultimately, but it's pointing to something else.

The people of Israel knew a season of peace, but their ultimate and eternal peace was to come. Ultimately, the psalmist, he is writing this psalm to highlight for the people and to remind them of God's provision, but ultimately for us as well, to point to us, to point to Christ so that we can see him.

We can see beyond the physical rebuilding of Jerusalem some 2,500 years ago to the birth of this new Jerusalem, which is to say, the place where God will dwell with his people forever, where we will be in his presence to know love abounding, to enjoy his goodness and kindness for all time.

You know, in the new Jerusalem, there's no need for the war horse, because there's peace. There's wholeness and fullness. There's no need for the strength of men to fight battles against enemies because there are no battles to be fought.

Christ has fought them. It's remarkable then that both Isaiah and Micah, two prophets of God to Israel, they proclaim this picture of what this heavenly peace will look like.

And this is what we'll end with. I'll read Isaiah's version from Isaiah 2 because it's almost verbatim in Micah chapter 4. And this is what it says.

He shall judge between the nations and shall decide disputes for many peoples. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore. It's a wonderful, beautiful picture. In fact, it's etched in the side of the United Nations in New York City.

It's a wonderful hope. But we understand through this psalm that only in Christ can this vision of peace be achieved. For he is the only one who has made peace between us and God.

And it is through his cross. I mean, it is only through the cross where we can know the delight and goodness of God towards us. And because he suffered far more pain than the exiles of Israel and far more pain than you and I, far more indignity, far greater humiliation, and then tasted not a portion of death, but all of death, then we can trust that he is trustworthy.

That when we are feeling like our knees are feeble and that we ought to trust in other people, that we can press in, we can lean into him in the same way Jacob did and hold on to him and trust that he will bless.

Friends, don't misplace your hope. Do not put them in, do not put your hope or trust in the war horse and everything that this world has to offer.

Put it in the one true God. He is trustworthy. Lean into him.