Good morning.
Oh, that's about as good as the weather.
Good morning.
That's better.
My name's Chris.
For those of you who don't know me, I'm on the pastoral staff here.
And I'm just, it's great for me just seeing people kind of coming back from holiday.
Some of you have been away.
I know some of you are heading off.
But there's something about being part of a church, I think, which, you know this, we don't go to church, right?
We don't go to church.
We are the church.
You know that?
We are the church.
Which means that when we come together, this is only 20% of what we are as a church.
Sunday is only 20% of actually everything we do as a church.
Because there are community groups.
There are things that people are doing throughout the week.
St. Barnabas, connecting with youth.
There's lots of things that are going on in the church.
Because church is not just a meeting.
It's the people.
And it's a people who are gathered in the name of a God who is worthy to be praised.
And today we're going to talk about praise.
And this morning my goal is very simple, really.
I want to lead us to praise.
To praise God.
Not to praise me.
Not to praise anybody else.
But to praise the one who is worthy of praise.
Maybe if you just bow your head in prayer for a second.
Father, this for me is a huge topic where I feel inadequate.
I don't have words.
I don't see just how great you are.
But I pray this morning you would open my eyes.
You would open our eyes to see you.
To see your greatness.
To see and to praise the one who is worthy to be praised this morning.
In your name.
Amen.
So we're finishing off today.
We've been looking at a series in the Psalms.
And if you've been here, if you've not been here, we've been going for about eight weeks
looking at how we worship in all seasons of life.
Today it seems like we've got one season outside.
There are different seasons that we go through.
And the Psalms kind of take you on this journey.
On this kind of roller coaster of emotions.
Going from happiness that we talked about right at the beginning.
And then going through all this fear, awe, stress, worry.
And it's just this cycle of life that all of us, I think, can relate to.
Particularly in Hong Kong.
Things are constantly changing.
Everything's constantly happening.
We go up and we go down.
The weather goes up and we go down.
And that's what life is like.
And the Psalms are here to teach us in the roller coaster of life how to worship God.
And the really interesting thing about the Psalms is this.
The Psalms are explicitly organized with a trajectory.
There is a direction to the Psalms.
Because they go through all of this stuff in life.
There's 144 Psalms they go through.
And then the last five Psalms end with praise.
And that is deliberate.
It's deliberate.
Because the Psalms are trying to point you to the fact that whatever season you're going through.
Whatever circumstance you're facing.
Whatever is happening moment by moment.
Everything that God brings into your life is ultimately always meant to lead you to praise.
That's the purpose of it all.
And so today I want to look at three just very simple things to kind of talk about this.
I want to talk about we praise greatness.
We praise greatness.
But we often live, secondly, with copy greatness.
We praise greatness.
We live with copy greatness.
And then thirdly, the greatness of God's grace.
Okay?
So that's where we're going.
Three things.
But before we kind of get into this passage, I just want to say something about praise.
Did you know the reason God created you, the reason he chose you, if you're a Christian, the Bible says, is he chose you to praise him.
In Ephesians 1, it says, in love, in love, God predestined you.
That means he thought about you and he chose you.
If you were a Christian, he chose you before he made anything else for adoption as sons.
That means he brought you into his family, into relationship with him through Jesus Christ.
And it then says, according to the purpose of his will.
If you want to know what God's will is, here it is.
The purpose of his will is that you and I and this church is to be for the praise of his glorious grace.
That's the whole deal.
That's why you and I were created.
The reason that you breathe today is to the praise of his glorious grace.
The reason God has given some of you kids is to the praise of his glorious grace.
The reason you have a job, the reason you're single, the reason you're married, the reason we have air conditioning is for the praise of his glorious grace.
That's the deal.
That's why God created us.
Now, I don't know about you, but I've thought about that, and that sounds a little egocentric of God.
I mean, how can a God who says he's so great, he needs nothing, and then turn around and say, well, you've got to praise me, and even creates us to praise him.
That sounds a little bit like what C.S. Lewis said, like an old, vain woman seeking compliments.
Doesn't it?
But C.S. Lewis goes on to say, and I'm going to quote along this passage, but this is very, very perceptive.
What C.S. Lewis says,
He says,
Isn't she lovely?
Wasn't it glorious?
Don't you think that magnificent?
The Psalms, in telling everyone to praise God, are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.
Do you get what he's saying?
He's saying this.
God made you and me to praise him because he is the most valuable.
He is the most praiseworthy.
He is the greatest, most satisfying joy, and he wants us to find enjoyment in him because that is most satisfying.
Because what is the most great and valuable thing that you can think of in this world?
Because anything you can think of where you put God in the category and he always comes out better.
That's why he says, I want you to praise me.
But what is praise?
What is praise?
Praise is exalting, boasting of, speaking highly of deep down what you think is great.
It's our natural response to greatness.
I don't know what you praise on a regular basis.
You know, this week I've been watching the Olympics.
And there's been a certain amount of praise coming out from my mouth because Britain is second in the medal table.
And my wife is Chinese and we're beating them.
And that's a great source of joy for me.
But we praise what we think is valuable and great.
You know, Usain Bolt, the 100 meter winner, one of the greatest athletes.
Do you know what he said yesterday?
After he won his ninth gold medal, he said, there you go.
I'm the greatest.
Now, what is he doing?
He's praising what he thinks is great himself.
Right?
And that's what we do all the time.
You know, I've been praising Britain for winning the medals.
You know, I'm praising greatness.
When I hear people talking about how many steps they did on their Fitbit,
they're praising their greatness if it's more than 5,000.
But here when we come to this psalm, David, who writes this psalm, is the king of Israel.
He's the greatest king that Israel ever had.
And when you look at this, he could have said, I am the greatest, and everyone would have agreed with him.
But look at the first line.
Take your bulletin out.
Follow along.
I'm not going to go verse by verse, but I want you to pick out some key verses here.
First verse, he says, I will extol you, not me, you, my God and king.
He's saying, I'm not the center of this.
My greatness is not from me.
It is a gift from a king who is greater.
The true king of Israel.
God himself.
That's the true great king.
And godly praise always flows out of this humility of recognizing where you stand before God.
And then, when you do that, praise begins to overflow when you see who God really is.
I mean, just skim over this psalm from me.
Because this psalm, he's not just telling you to praise.
It's like an overflow of praise.
Look at the verbs for the speeches.
He says, verse 1, I will extol you, bless you.
Verse 2, commend your works, declare your mighty acts.
Then, verse 5, meditate on your glorious splendor.
I'll speak of the might of your awesome deeds.
Declare your greatness.
That's verse 6.
Pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness.
Sing aloud of your righteousness.
That's verse 7.
Give thanks to you.
Verse 10, bless you.
Speak of the glory of your kingdom.
Tell of your power.
Verse 11, make known your mighty deeds.
Verse 12, this is joy that is overflowing.
He can't hold his mouth.
It's got to come out.
Now, this isn't a man like me who, you know, I've been in church a while.
And I've been taught certain things about praying.
I don't know if any of you have heard the kind of ACTS acronym for how to pray.
It kind of goes adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication.
And so what I have often done, I've kind of tried that.
And I kind of sit down and I go, okay, now I've got to adore God.
And I'm like, okay, God, you're good.
God, you're great.
God, you're kind.
I'm getting hungry.
But God, you're loving.
I think I better go on to confession now.
That's often what praise has looked like in my life.
But the words in verse 7, pour forth,
that word, I will pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness,
that word literally means bubbles up.
It's like, you know when you turn on the shower,
and you hold the shower head,
and if you try and block some of the holes in the shower,
water just gushes out of another hole.
You block another hole, water just kind of comes out.
You just can't stop it.
It's bubbling forth.
It's irrepressible.
It's unstoppable.
There's this cascade of praise, he's saying.
It just bubbles up from within you.
That's a man who is intoxicated with God.
He's captivated by him.
He's not going through some kind of religious ritual,
like I've got to praise.
This is overflowing.
This is from the heart.
Because he's captivated by God, who he is, and what he's done.
I don't know if you noticed how many times he talks about things like wondrous works,
mighty acts, awesome deeds.
I mean, it just repeats it again and again and again.
You think he's like, what are you on?
But because when David thought of mighty acts and awesome deeds, he thought of a couple of things.
Because every Jew would think like this.
God's awesome acts and mighty deeds were shown in creation.
Because God creates and sustains everything.
If you look out when you walk down, and you can't see it well today, but you look out on creation,
you see the handwork of someone awesome.
Creation.
Redemption is the other thing that you would see with God's mighty acts.
But I want to just think about creation to start with.
And I thought about this, but I don't have adequate words to describe the greatness of God in creation.
I just don't.
When it says God's greatness is unsearchable,
it means you can't Google it and find the answer.
You have to look at it.
You have to meditate on it.
You have to consider it and just look in wonder.
And so that's what I'd like us to do now for a minute.
There's a great video that Francis Chan has, or pastor, has put together.
And I just want to show you this.
I hope the quality is okay.
I want to show you this.
And I want you just to look at it.
And I want you to think, what does this tell me about God?
What about what you're seeing right now?
First of all, this is the Earth.
Okay?
Then just take it off from the Earth from Southern California.
We're going to rise out for a little bit here.
Okay?
We're going to pull away from it.
We're going to pull higher.
Now this is at about 10 kilometers.
Like if you climb Mount Everest, this is what you'd see.
You'd see the curvature of the Earth from that distance.
Now you're going to climb even higher.
This is at 100 kilometers.
And you're a fourth of the way to the space station now.
This is what you'd see.
If you get to this level, you're going to insert an astronaut.
Get right there.
Okay?
Now we're going 100,000 kilometers.
100,000 kilometers.
If you're a fourth of the way to the Moon, that's what the Earth will look like.
Now we're going to pull away to a million kilometers.
At a million kilometers, there's the Moon.
Okay?
There's what you'd be really seeing there.
There are a million kilometers now.
You're past the Moon.
And now we're going to go to 100,000,000 kilometers.
100,000,000 kilometers.
There's still left to the Sun.
The Sun is not in three million kilometers.
Okay?
But now we're going to go to 10,000,000,000 kilometers.
Okay?
There's the Sun.
Okay?
It just passed the Sun.
Now we can see all of the planets.
10,000,000,000 kilometers.
And now we're at 10 to the 15th power.
I mean, it's 10 to the 15 zeros.
I don't know what I'm saying.
15 zeros.
And the Sun's like a bright dawn on the other stars.
And now we're going to 10 light years away.
10 light years away.
And there you go.
10 light years away.
Now you can see the Sun.
And by the 1100 stars, they're kind of the same person.
You know, that's our Sun.
And now we're going to go a thousand light years away.
A thousand light years away.
You wouldn't see our Sun anymore.
These are just a bunch of stars close to it.
That's a cluster inside the Milky Way.
Now we're going to do now even further.
And that's the Milky Way we live in.
See that cluster of stars?
Those are about 100,000 stars that are closest to us.
We can't serve Sun anymore this morning.
Now it's our Milky Way down.
We forget about here.
Okay, there's our Milky Way galaxy that we live in.
And we're just buried in there somewhere.
And we're going to pull out even further.
And you'll see that our galaxy is actually, it's a big galaxy.
And almost other things that you're seeing now are galaxies.
And we're going to pull away 10 million light years now.
The next thing is 10 million light years.
Those are all galaxies you see.
Amidst our million away.
Several hundred galaxies.
Now we're going to go 100 million light years away.
It's the last one.
And zoom out to 100 million light years.
Those are all clusters of galaxies.
Galaxies and clusters of galaxies.
You wouldn't even see how Milky Way galaxy anymore.
It's that.
We don't have telescopes that go beyond that.
That little sphere there.
What you're seeing right now.
First of all, this is the earth.
Okay?
And then just take it off from the earth.
Southern Cal.
Does that give us a little perspective?
When it says your greatness is unsearchable.
And it says God is the creator.
Do you begin to see why we should praise him?
Because if God is that great,
why is my life not more filled with praise?
I narrow my life down to a very small perspective.
But God is great and greatly to be praised.
When you see that kind of majesty,
and yet that is the God who is our God,
who can create all of that.
And he's not even in the picture.
He's further beyond that.
Doesn't that make you wonder?
Yeah.
So I want to ask us a question.
Why would I ever think that God was my personal assistant
to simply tap on my needs
and supply everything that I want just for me?
Why would I ever do that
when that is the God that we serve?
I want to move on to think about why it is that,
if I'm honest,
I often don't live my life with that kind of perspective.
I want to talk about copy greatness.
We praise what we think is great,
but there is something that I call copy greatness.
David says in verse 3,
every day I will bless you.
Every day I will bless you.
On your wondrous works,
I will meditate.
And yet,
how often is that true of me?
Because I don't know if you ever walk down Nathan Road
in Simpshire Joy.
If you walk down there,
you have a load of guys
who every time I walk past
are always saying,
copy watch,
Rolex,
cheap price,
copy watch.
And
I think
every day we are bombarded
by what I call copy greatness.
because copy whatever
is always an inferior version of the real thing.
It's always an inferior version of the real thing.
And I get so focused on copy greatness
because we've forgotten there is an original.
How does this work?
One of the main reasons
I think I don't overflow with praise in my life
is because I think the world revolves around me,
to be honest.
It should do.
I'm great.
At least
I'm so focused in my mind.
I don't know if you get like this.
I do.
I'm just so focused in my mind.
I'm wrapped up in the week.
My mind's going.
All the time revolved around my plans,
the things I want to fix,
the things I want to sort out in my world.
And it kind of,
everything kind of shrinks down
to my little world
that I'm trying to manage.
My little problems,
my things that are going on.
And that's why I stress.
That's why I fear.
That's why I worry.
Because,
I mean,
does anyone know what I'm talking about?
Because this,
the world is kind of this,
and I've got to handle it.
Because I've got to make sure that I'm great.
And I can't even handle my own world.
But I don't know what's been running through your mind this week.
What's been stressing you out this week?
I don't know whether it's deadlines,
whether it's job decisions,
whether it's kids,
whether it's Pokemon Go.
I don't know what it is.
But,
how much of what stresses you out
in the light of a God
who really is eternal,
the Bible says,
everlasting,
His kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting.
That's a long time.
How significant is what I stress about
compared to that?
But I do.
Louis,
Louis XIV,
was the greatest king of France.
He proclaimed,
I am the state.
Everyone had to call him Louis the Great.
He was the greatest celebrity of the time.
He built huge palaces.
I don't know if you've been to Versailles,
any of you.
I studied just outside of there for a year.
It's an extraordinary place.
He constructed monuments in his honor.
He'd have his own TV show if he was here today.
And he wanted his funeral to be as dramatic as his life was.
Do you know what he did?
He ordered,
for his funeral,
he ordered the lights in the cathedral to be dimmed.
Okay?
And one giant candle,
like a shining star,
to be placed on his coffin,
which was made of gold.
His gold coffin,
and his candle to be there,
so that he would be the centerpiece.
He would be the one lighting up the cathedral.
Because he wanted everyone to focus on him.
The funeral came,
the candles there,
thousands were in the cathedral,
all struck at this incredible event.
And the bishop,
Bishop Marion,
stood up
to give the sermon.
And then he did something
which was not in the script.
He went over
to the coffin,
and he snuffed out the candle.
And then he said these words,
As the cathedral was in darkness,
my brothers,
only God is great.
Because you see,
Louis XIV had lived a lifetime
trying to make his self,
his things,
the center of the world.
Trying to make him
the main thing.
And you know,
in the light of true greatness,
it's just snuffed out
in an instant.
So I don't know about you,
how do you try
and make yourself great?
You probably don't even
think about it like that.
But where in your thought life
are you the one
who is the center of attention?
I don't know if you ever
daydream.
But if you daydream
and fantasize
about the kind of
the life you'd like to have,
what you'd like to have,
have you ever noticed
that you're the one
who's usually the hero
of the story?
It's your kingdom
that you're trying to build.
Ever notice that?
I don't daydream about
everyone else getting the glory.
It's always me.
Why?
Because I live with
a copy greatness
where I want the praise
to come to me.
when you think about
your thoughts
and your plans,
what is the candle
that you are lighting?
Is it a candle
to yourself
or it is a candle
to the one
who is
a floodlight,
not just a little candle?
Because at the end of the day,
copy greatness
always gets exposed
as fake.
Always gets exposed
as fake.
So now,
I just want us
to think about that.
We were made
for the praise
of something great.
We are the ones
who try
and shrink
our world
down to a little
claustrophobic
kind of center
of us
and our little issues.
But I want to talk about,
thirdly,
the greatness
of God's grace.
the passage
that we read
says,
the Lord is gracious
and merciful,
slow to anger
and abounding
in steadfast love.
The second thing
that a Jew
would remember
when they talk
about
the wondrous works
and the splendor
of God
would be
redemption.
God's great deliverance
out of Egypt.
God's setting
people free
by his mercy
and his grace.
That's what a Jew
would remember
when he heard this.
But when we live
with copy greatness
we forget.
We forget
God's greatness
in creation.
We forget
God's mercy
in redemption.
Because
basically
I think
most of life
I don't actually think
I'm trying to make
myself great.
I don't.
I'm just getting on
with life.
Like when I was teaching
I was trying to be
a good teacher.
Okay,
I was doing it
for the student
and I'd love the compliments.
You know,
it kind of strokes your ego
when someone says,
hey then,
you were just the most
amazing teacher ever.
You know,
and I'd like that
and say,
no, no, no,
it's fine.
No, no, no.
But you know,
really say more,
please.
You know,
but you know,
and we all like that,
don't we?
We all like it
when someone approves of you
and someone says,
kind of strokes your back
and gives you a little
tap on the back.
We all like that.
But you know,
I thought I was still
trying to honour God
in my life
and trying to follow him
and I knew the doctrine
of God's grace
and all that kind of stuff.
You know,
but I'm more and more
convinced now
that actually much of
what I do
is actually more
about me
trying to make myself
greater than I am
and less about
just Christ
in things
because I deceive myself
all the time.
Much of what I do
is like this.
Much of what I do
is about showing
how great
my wondrous works are
and wanting the praise
from people around me.
because the thing is
when you find
your identity
and your performance
and that's your
wondrous works,
what happens is
in verse 12
it says,
the eyes of all
look to you
to give them their food
at the proper time
or in due season.
But when you're looking
for your own greatness,
you don't see God
as a source of grace.
God is the source
of the one
who gives you everything.
You think it's your
hard work that got it.
You think it was
your performance
that made it.
You think that
because I've been so busy
I managed to put food
or whatever it is
on the table.
I did it.
I'm not perfect
but I'm kind of great.
And we don't overflow
with constant praise
of God
because we don't see
God's grace
in his provision
and we live
under this delusion
that we are great
until something happens.
Failure.
Failure is one
of God's greatest gifts.
I hate it.
I hate failing.
But failure is one
of God's greatest gifts
to expose
your copy greatness
and to lead you back
to opening your eyes
to seeing what is original
and true
and real greatness.
Because what failure does,
I don't know
if you've experienced
real failure.
But when failure
comes,
it strips away
from you
everything that you
had based your sense
of greatness on.
Right?
You know when you're made
to feel that small
because you've made a mistake,
you've done something
before other people,
you know,
whether it's
you failed in your morality,
you failed in your religiosity,
you failed at your work performance,
you failed at being
a good parent,
you failed at being
the child that you should have been,
whatever it is,
when you get to that
you can feel like
about that big
and it strips you
of that idea
that actually
I was pretty good anyway.
Right?
Anyone know
what I'm talking about here?
J.K. Rowling,
Harry Potter,
in a Harvard commencement speech,
she said
of her failed marriage
being a single mother
and living in absolute poverty
because she became famous.
Said,
failure meant
a stripping away
of what was inessential.
I stopped pretending
to myself
that I was anything
other than what I was.
How does this connect
to grace
and God's grace?
Well,
verse 14,
it says,
the Lord upholds
all who fall.
Or as one preacher put it,
those who are apt
to fall.
The Lord upholds,
that means carries,
lifts up,
those who are apt
to fall,
who fall.
Why does David
in a psalm of praise
write that?
Because David knows
what it is
to fail
and to fall.
You know,
he was an adulterer,
a murderer.
He was a failure
as a father.
His whole family
became so broken
that there was rape,
there was murder,
his own son
tried to kill him.
They were just copying
what he had done.
I mean,
he was a failure.
He knew
what it was to fall
and there was
a shame on him.
But just before David,
at the same time of day,
there was another king,
a king called Saul.
Saul also knew failure.
He disobeyed.
In 1 Samuel 15,
God commands him
to go and destroy
an army,
get rid of everything,
don't keep anything
for yourself.
So what Saul does,
he goes down,
he defeats the whole army
but he keeps the best animals
for himself.
And then he goes off
and he builds a little monument
to his own greatness.
And then Samuel comes back
and says,
hey, what's going on here?
And Saul's like,
yeah, it's great,
I've obeyed God,
you know,
I've disfeated the army
and Samuel says,
I'm sorry,
but why have you disobeyed God?
And Saul's kind of
going in denial,
he's saying,
but I did obey God,
I did obey,
the animals here,
they're all for sacrifice
to God.
And Samuel's not having
any of it
and Samuel says to him,
you have disobeyed God
and then Saul's like,
no, no, no,
it wasn't me,
it was all my soldiers,
they took it,
it wasn't me,
they took all the stuff,
it wasn't me
and he blames them.
And then Samuel says to him,
hey, listen,
God's going to snuff out
your candle
and your kingdom
and suddenly Saul
is like,
oops.
And then he becomes,
feels guilty,
he's got caught,
he's like an American swimmer
issuing an apology
and he says,
please forgive me
but now honor me now
so that all the elders
will like kind of,
I won't lose face
in front of everybody else,
kind of,
I want to have respect,
I know I've done something
a bit naughty
but I want to keep face
in front of everybody.
Everything Saul did,
even his own apology
for his own greatness
to make himself look good
in other people's eyes,
what David did
was different.
There is something
that is very different
between David and Saul
because I don't know
if you know,
David throughout the whole
of the rest of the Bible
is called God's man.
He is exalted
actually in the Bible
not because he was great
but because he knew
a God who was great.
Saul is hardly mentioned
anywhere else
in the rest of the Bible.
Hardly anywhere else
in the rest of the Bible.
Why is that?
Well,
when you see
your failure,
your sin,
the mistakes
that you make,
you can respond
in one of two ways.
One will lead you
either to try
and keep making
your own greatness great,
the other will lead you
to seeing the greatness
of God.
It's a key decision.
You're either going
to be like David
or you're going
to be like Saul.
What Saul does,
he denies,
he blames,
he tries to get out of it.
He says,
I'm sorry but,
do you ever do that?
I do that when I get caught.
I say,
oh,
I'm sorry but,
it was,
you know,
I was tired.
You know,
that's not an apology,
okay?
If somebody,
if your spouse says to you,
I'm sorry but,
that's not an apology,
okay?
Don't accept it
because what we're trying to do,
we're trying to still
defend ourselves.
I wonder,
have you ever lived
with a fear of failure?
Have you ever messed up
where you're actually
trying to cover up
what you've done
so that other people
don't know?
We can do this,
church people
are so good at this.
We're experts
at covering up
because we've got to
look good on Sunday.
But all of us
have elements
of failure,
of shame,
of things inside of.
There's not one person
in this room
who doesn't.
and if you think
you don't have,
then I'd suggest
you're probably
living in denial
because we desperately
want other people
to see
that we're actually great
when the reality
is exposed
by our failure.
It's painful.
I remember a friend
once said to me,
his,
I think he was
about three years old,
his son,
he told his son,
there's some cookies
on the table,
don't eat the cookies.
He went upstairs
to do something,
comes down
a few minutes later
and he sees
there's one cookie
gone from the plate
on the table
and his son
has disappeared.
He spends the next
10, 15 minutes
looking around his house
trying to find his son,
can't find him anywhere.
And then finally,
he hears this little
kind of coming
from behind the sofa
and behind the curtain
which was behind the sofa
and he kind of creeps up
down round the back,
round the sofa
and there,
curled up on the floor
was his three-year-old son
wrapped around the curtain
hiding behind the sofa
and my friend
kind of looked at him
like a little bit strange
like,
what are you up to?
And,
I mean,
he's only three,
but,
and he said to him,
why are you hiding?
And the son said,
because I can't face you
from what you've done.
And that is actually
what it's like for us
before God.
When you see a God
who's that great,
throughout the whole of history,
every single one of us,
from Adam and Eve
all the way till now,
we always try
and run and hide
our shame,
the things we,
we always try to wrap
that curtain around us.
Because we don't want to know,
we don't want others to know
what we're really like
sometimes inside.
Failure exposes us.
We all have a secret,
just think about this,
we all have a secret
that you don't want
anyone else to know.
Right?
If I was to say now,
tell the person next to you
the thing that you don't
want them to know about you.
Is anything coming to your mind?
What's your secret?
Because that's your shame,
that's the thing
you want to hide away.
But David,
who has such shame,
how can he come to the point
where he overflows
with praise
praise
in this psalm
while Saul
is just,
disappears
and he's left in denial,
his candle is snuffed out.
How can that happen?
Here's the thing.
David,
we looked at Psalm 51
a few weeks ago,
I think Eric spoke on it.
David
realized
you have a choice.
You either run from God
or you run
to God.
And David knew something
about God.
David knew
that the Lord
is gracious
and merciful,
slow to anger
and abounding
in steadfast love.
David knew that.
He knew
that there was a God
who was so great
who could crush him
in an instant,
who could just
turn his back on him.
He's got the rest
of the universe
to play with.
Why would he care
about someone
so insignificantly small
in the light
of all of his creation?
And yet,
he knew,
like every single one of us,
that this God
is not distant.
This God is near
to all who call to him.
This God
is the one
who reaches down.
Because you know,
it says,
that verse says,
he upholds
all who fall,
he raises up
all who are bowed down.
Do you know,
if you're bowed down,
how do you raise
somebody else up?
You have to come down
to their level
and pick them up.
The God who created
all of that universe,
who didn't have to care
a dot about anyone,
he came down
to our level.
level.
He came down
to you,
he knows where
you're hiding.
In all of that,
he knows you.
And he comes down,
not with,
you know,
normally,
when you,
when you do something well
and other people
do terribly
what you want them to do,
what's your response?
Normally,
I think what we do
is we look down
on people
or we try and give them
advice on how to improve.
You've got to work hard
so you can improve
that skill.
Do you know,
if you experience that
in your office
or you get scolded
by somebody.
Okay,
you made that mistake,
you did that wrong,
don't do it better next time.
Right?
That's how we normally
treat failure.
We're just critical
of people.
But this God,
this King,
is so great,
he's never failed.
He does everything perfectly.
He gets 150%
in the marks,
not 100.
He's beyond the scale.
And here are we,
insignificant,
tiny,
small,
hiding,
shameful,
sinful,
the Bible will call it.
And yet,
this King
came down to our level,
saw you and me
crouching in the shame.
I don't know what it is
in your life,
but he sees it.
And he's not there
with a judging hand
saying,
you should do better.
He's there,
he comes down to our level.
He dies on a cross.
The scolding
that we maybe deserved,
he took from the Pharisees
who mocked him.
The criticalness,
the shame,
he was bowed down
and humiliated
on a Roman cross.
For you.
In the whole universe,
he sees you.
Right now.
He sees you.
He knows you.
And his grace
is calling you,
come and enjoy
the fact that
I'm not a God
who is distant,
but I run to you
and I want you
to run to me.
Right now.
He's lavish
in grace.
And he calls us
who are wrapped up
in our puny little world
to see
that though we stick
our middle finger
up at God
so often in our lives,
I'd turn away
if I was there.
I'd say,
I'd create another universe.
But he doesn't.
He says,
I am gracious.
I want you
to come to me.
If you get that,
when you fail,
if you see
that God's bringing you to fail,
this week,
if you make a mistake,
you get scolded,
you go into work,
things go wrong,
God is giving you
an opportunity
for two choices.
You can either be like Saul
and start trying to
cover up everything
or you can be amazed
that in spite of what
you and I are like,
you have a God
who is gracious
and who says,
I accept you.
I delight in you.
You're mine.
If you're not a Christian,
you need to know that
and you need to run
to this God.
God.
Because you see,
if you get the greatness
of God in those two things,
his creation
and his grace,
and it sinks
from here
to here,
you don't have to just
talk about grace
as an abstract concept.
You will know it here
and it will bubble up
in praise.
Just check your prayer life
now.
Check your praise life
now because that will tell you
if you have really
seeing the grace
and the mercy
and the goodness
of God in your life
right now.
I want to leave you
with one more video.
Because I want to leave you
as David overflows
with praise,
I want to show you
a modern day
somebody overflowing
with praise.
And I want you
to just look at it.
And I want you
to think about
whatever's going on
in your week
in the light
of who our king
really is.
And I want us
just to respond
in praise.
So...