Thank you very much for your welcome and prayers. Let me bring the greetings of Grace Church Montrose.
We are a free church of Scotland congregation up on the east coast.
If you don't know Scotland at all, there's Aberdeen, which is way north, and we're just a little bit south of them, a nice little seacoast town.
We actually haven't come from Montrose today, we've actually come from Ireland.
My accent might deceive you, but I am a very proud Irishman, and I'm very sad not to be there right now, but glad to be with you all.
So please keep open that passage you've got in front of you. We're looking at Psalm 113 today.
And this is where we begin. Let me tell you about, there was this photo, it was about 11 years ago, July 2013.
It kind of went a little bit viral. It was this picture of the Queen.
The Queen was visiting Kendal, this town in the Lake District in England.
As she was visiting the town, she was walking along the line where she encountered a Fijian soldier.
You see, she was walking along the line of the 1st Battalion of the Lancaster Regiment,
and they were all standing at attention before her, except for one, which was this Fijian soldier.
Because you see, where they were all stood straight, what he had done is he had sat down before her,
closed his eyes, bowed his head, and started clapping.
You see, for him, for Fijians in their culture, that's the way that you honour someone who is an authority,
someone who is above you, is to get down, bow your head, and clap them.
As you look over the broad scope of the Bible, the language, the pictures, the imagery of worship,
is always of bowing down.
It is of laying yourself prostrate before God.
Because in that way, we say, he is worthy.
Because he is supreme.
Because he is sovereign.
Because he is Lord.
This is the way that worshippers acknowledge the supremacy and the majesty of God.
But I want you just to return with me back to Kendall, July 2013.
And instead of imagining that Fijian soldier in front of the Queen,
I want you for a moment to imagine that you are that Fijian soldier.
And you've got down, you've sat down, crossed your legs,
bowed your head, closed your eyes, you're clapping.
And then I want you to imagine that after you've done that, you lift up your head.
And I want you to imagine that as you open up your eyes,
you see the Queen has got down on her, sat down in front of you,
and is looking right into your eyes.
That brings us right into the dynamic of this psalm that we've got here.
But more than that, that brings us right into the dynamic of the gospel itself.
The good news about Jesus.
Because what we encounter in this psalm,
the God that we worship,
as we take these words as our own,
the God that we meet in Jesus Christ,
that is the picture.
You see, here's the big thing that we're going to see today.
As we work our way through this psalm,
is that the Lord lowers himself.
The Holy One humbles himself.
The sovereign stoops down.
The transcendent condescends to us.
The God who gives himself,
we are going to meet the God who gives himself
in self-sacrificial love to us.
And through the psalm, as we work our way through this,
we are not just going to see how we worship God,
but primarily,
what we're going to see today
is the God who meets us
when we come to worship him in spirit and in truth.
As was mentioned,
this is the beginning of a little series
working through a section of psalms.
The psalms is a book in the Old Testament of the Bible.
This is the prayers, the songbook of the people of God.
And this little selection here,
Psalms 113 to 118,
they're known as the Egyptian Hallel Psalms.
Hallel is just the old word,
the Hebrew word for praise.
So you've ever heard anyone saying,
hallelujah, just what we have sang before.
That means praise the Lord.
And these are known as the Egyptian Hallel Psalms
because these are the songs that the people of God,
Israel would sing
when they gathered for this festival
that was known as the Passover.
The Passover is when the people gathered once a year
to remember this, the events,
the defining event for the people of Israel
when God liberated his people
from backbreaking, hope-sapping slavery in Egypt
and brought them out of that to be his very own people.
If you're ever reading through the Gospel of Matthew,
the Gospel of Luke, the accounts of Jesus' life,
there might be a little line that you just zoom by
but maybe not pay too much attention to,
but it's when they're gathering together
for the Passover meal,
the night before Jesus' death.
And it says this,
that they sang a hymn together.
And in all likelihood,
it was these songs,
Psalms 113 to 118.
You see, what they would do is they'd sing
Psalm 113 and 114 just before
they had the Passover meal.
And after the Passover meal,
they'd then sing 115 to 118.
Now, I know the series here is called
From the Lips of Jesus
because this is a reminder to us
as we work our way through these Psalms
over the next few weeks,
as you gather here Sunday by Sunday,
hear these Psalms preached.
One of the important things for us to remember
is this,
was Jesus singing these Psalms?
And in all likelihood,
these were the Psalms that Jesus himself sung
the night before he knew
he was going to the cross to die.
When we worked through these Psalms ourselves
up in Grace Church Montrose,
I called these the King's Last Hallelujah.
I like a little bit of a word play
because you see,
the night before his death,
Jesus didn't have a last hurrah,
but he led his people
to praise the Lord.
And that's what we're going to do
is we work our way through this,
hear this,
and we will all take these words as our own
and sing them to the praise of God.
I've got two points for us today,
so if you're note takers,
two nice and simple points.
And the first one is this,
praise our God.
Praise our God.
So here's a helpful tool for us
as we,
in our Bible reading kit,
it might seem obvious,
but sometimes I've learned
saying the obvious is really helpful to do.
If you see a word repeated
over and over and over again,
then maybe we should pay attention to it.
If we see a word repeated,
we can be confident that it's important.
You might think of it in these words.
If I'm sat at home on the couch
watching Ireland beat South Africa in the rugby
and I hear,
Kieran,
I know something is important,
it's happening.
You see,
I'm being summoned.
And here,
we are being summoned to praise God.
Look at these first couple of verses.
Praise the Lord.
Praise the name of the Lord.
Let the name of the Lord be praised.
The name of the Lord is to be praised.
Five different times we see that here.
We are being summoned to praise here.
But maybe we might just pause and ask a question.
So we're being called to praise the Lord.
But this might be a question that you've been asked before.
Maybe it's a question you've wanted to ask,
but you never wanted to say it loud
because it doesn't sound like a Christian thing to do.
But does God need to be praised?
We're told that we need to praise God,
but does God himself need to be praised?
How would you answer that question if someone asked you?
What would you say to them?
Well,
here's my answer.
Well,
no.
Of course,
he doesn't need to be praised.
God is the one who is perfectly and eternally happy.
He is the one who is in perfect and in eternal harmony.
Father,
Son,
and Holy Spirit joined together in beautiful and perfect love.
No,
he doesn't need our praise,
but he deserves it.
He deserves our praise.
For what and who he is,
for what he is doing for us,
what he has done for us,
and what he will do for us.
But I think we could also take this in a slightly different direction.
God doesn't need our praise,
but we do need to give it.
You see,
we are worshipping creatures.
We always want to give ourselves,
devote ourselves to something.
As Augustine,
that great doctor of the soul,
some of you might have heard this before,
as he said,
our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.
You see,
there's a trajectory of the heart,
a compulsion to worship something,
to adore it,
to give ourselves over to it,
to sacrifice ourselves to something.
And only God,
only God,
the true God,
the living God,
Father,
Son,
and Holy Spirit,
only he,
the one who has called us,
cleansed us,
and claimed us as his very own.
Only he can satisfy our hearts.
But I want us just to focus on verses two to three for a moment.
Do you notice there's kind of like a little bit of a sandwich here.
Let the name of the Lord be praised,
beginning of verse two,
and then the end of verse three,
the name of the Lord is to be praised.
See that there?
Praise,
name of the Lord,
name of the Lord praised.
This is kind of a feature of the Psalms.
It's a feature of kind of Hebrew poetry,
where they sandwich things,
and they want you to focus in on what's going on here in the middle.
And have a look at what the saying here in the middle tells us a bit about the nature of our praise of this God.
We are to praise him both now and forevermore,
from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.
Both now and forevermore,
we worship an eternal God,
no beginning,
no end,
and our worship is to match that as best as we can.
But it's not just about time,
but it's also about geography.
You see that there,
from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.
You'll all know the saying,
won't you?
The sun never sets on the British Empire.
But one day,
it will.
One day,
the British Empire will fade.
The sun will set on us.
But God doesn't just dwell over Britain.
God doesn't just dwell over Israel.
God sits enthroned over his eternal kingdom,
over everything.
And when we are called to praise him,
from the setting of the sun to its dawning and all the way around,
we join in with the praise of creation,
as the way the world was meant to be.
But what are we praising?
Does this look strange to you?
It says we're to praise the name of the Lord.
It doesn't say that we praise the Lord,
but we praise the name of the Lord.
You might have seen my little man running around here.
He was born last year,
and when we were thinking about naming him,
we finally came to,
we called him Ruan Fraser Padder Kelleher.
So Fraser Padder,
they're his middle names,
and they come from our family,
different people within our family,
Fraser and Padder.
Padder is just Irish for Peter.
But there was no real inherent meaning to those names that we chose them for.
We tend to impose meanings on names,
don't we?
So when my wife,
Sarah,
she suggested,
the name Oliver for a boy.
I say,
no way.
I knew an Oliver when I was seven years old,
and I'm not calling any child of mine that.
Apologies for any Olivers who are in here,
who are watching online.
But back here,
names functioned differently.
They told us about the character of an individual,
or the purposes of a person.
So Peter meant rock,
that it was on the profession of Peter,
that Jesus would build his church.
And the name of the Lord here,
you can see it there,
in all capitals,
is Yahweh.
Yahweh,
in Hebrew,
means,
I am that I am.
I was that I was.
I will be what I will be.
It means two things,
chiefly.
First,
that God is self-existent.
God is self-existent.
My life,
your life,
all our lives,
are dependent on something that is external to us.
The oxygen that we breathe,
the food that we'll eat after the service today,
the water that we drink.
But God himself
depends on him and him alone.
You see,
when God first reveals his name,
there's a story in the book of Exodus,
where Moses encounters a flaming bush.
And that flaming bush is a picture of this,
because you see,
the bush was a flame,
but nothing was burning.
For a fire to keep going,
it must consume up something for energy,
but it wasn't consuming anything,
because it was a picture
of the self-existent God.
I am who I am.
Because you see,
not only is God self-existent,
but he is unchanging.
Unchanging.
Who he was then,
he is now.
Who he will be in the future,
he is now.
Who he was before the world began,
he is now.
Who he will be when the world ends
and we are with him in glory,
that is who he is right now.
And there are two chief things in particular.
He is unchanging in his character
and in his promises to us.
And what we are doing here
when we are saying,
praise the name of the Lord,
praise the Lord,
we are inviting one another
to do this.
And when you look throughout scripture,
there's three principal directions
that we sing.
We sing directly to God.
We say,
you are worthy,
you are good.
But we can also sing to ourselves.
Bless the Lord,
oh my soul.
So we sing upwards,
inwards,
but we can also sing
outwards as well.
Before we were in Montrose
and before that,
before we were in Brossy Ferry
and before that,
we were in St. Andrews.
You know,
St. Andrews is known as
England's most northerly town
and it's also known
as the 51st state of America.
There's a lot of Americans there
and there was a lot of Americans
in our church.
One was a good friend of mine.
And seeing the way
that scripture spoke about
how we sing
out towards one another,
so persuaded by that,
what he would do then
during church
is when there were songs
about singing to one another,
he would look around
and other people.
He would flash his pearly whites
and try to encourage one another.
Now all the Brits,
as you can imagine,
put up their blinkers
and said,
please don't look at me.
This is really uncomfortable.
But what we are doing
when we take these words
as our own,
as we sing them
and we will sing
these words afterwards,
we are encouraging one another.
Praise the name of the Lord
because he is worthy
to be praised.
And what are we singing
when we sing this psalm?
And this is where
we're going to move into
and this is the meat
of this psalm.
We are calling on one another
to come and see
the incomparable gods,
the peerless one.
Because if our first point
is this,
praise our God,
our second point is this,
for who is like
the Lord our God?
For who is like
the Lord our God?
And so for our note takers
this morning
and even those
who aren't taking notes,
this is it.
This is what I want you
to take away from
today's sermon.
This is what I want.
If you only remember this,
this is brilliant.
God is both high
and humble.
He is both lifted up
and lowly.
High and humble,
lifted up and lowly.
This is the God
that we meet
when we worship him
through Jesus Christ.
We know this,
that God is most holy.
He is most just.
He is most wise.
But the particular focus
in this psalm,
as we call on one another
to praise the Lord,
we are saying to one another,
see his sovereignty,
see his majesty,
behold his power
and his authority.
Have a look at me
in verses four to five.
The Lord is exalted
over all the nations,
his glory above the heavens.
Who is like the Lord our God?
The one who sits
and thrones on high,
who stoops down
to look on the heavens
and the earth.
God is supreme
and transcendent.
He is the one
who looks down
from the heights.
And this isn't
a geographical descriptor here.
So it's not that
he's going to pass the moon
or he's beyond
the Milky Way.
This here refers
to his dominion,
his rule.
You see,
he is enthroned
enthroned
as the reigning king
over all the cosmos,
over all the universe,
over all the earth,
over all our lives.
And actually,
it's important to remember
that this describes
Jesus.
Jesus as he was
before he came
to live on earth.
Jesus as he is
as the resurrected king.
the one who is
in the form of God.
The one who has been
exalted above
every other name
in all of creation.
You see,
no politician,
no empire,
no multinational corporation,
no army,
nothing,
no one
compares
to the Lord
our God.
In some senses,
we might just think
to ourselves,
this is a rhetorical question.
There's no real answer
to this.
No one can compare
to him.
Sometimes,
after I've
watched highlights
of Ireland being amazing
at rugby,
this is the last comment
on that one today,
I look at the comment section
on different highlights,
whether that's
rugby,
American football,
another type of football,
whatever it is.
And you see,
one of the comments
that always strikes me
is you talk about this.
If a player has done
really well,
it says this.
He's gone into
God mode today.
And all I think
to myself
when I read that
is what a low,
impoverished,
diluted view
of God that is.
You see,
God isn't just
an amplified version
of ourselves.
He's not Clark Kent
after taking off
the suits
and putting on
his cape.
God is above
and beyond
us.
But it's not just
the rhetorical question
here.
Actually,
it gives us
a slightly
surprising
answer.
Have a look with me
at verse 6.
So we'll go through
from verse 5.
Who is like
the Lord our God,
the one who sits
enthroned on high?
And then look at
verse 6.
Who stoops down
to look
on the heavens
and the earth.
That word there
for stoop down,
that literally means
to humble,
to lower,
to abase
yourself.
And what do we
see here?
God comes
down,
stoops down
low,
humbles
himself,
abases
himself.
He enters
into our mess
to look
at us,
look into
the eyes
of his people.
In verses
7 to 9
here,
the psalmist,
the person
who wrote
this psalm,
they evoke
stories
and examples
of God
entering
into
and serving
the lowly.
Like
Joseph,
taken from
a hole
in the ground,
taken from
slavery
and prison,
and seated
with the
princes of
Egypt.
Or
King David,
the forgotten
son who
was made
king
over Israel.
But
verse 7
here in
particular,
he raises
the poor
from the
dust and
lifts the
needy
from the
ash heap.
And
this language
is actually
taken directly
from the
song of a
woman called
Hannah.
There's a book
in the Old
Testament called
One Samuel.
And it opens
up with the
story of
Hannah,
this lady
who had
fertility
issues.
She couldn't
bear children.
And she
was mocked.
And she
was slandered.
And God
in his grace
and kindness
gave her a
son whom
she named
Samuel.
And this
is the song
that she
sang.
that God
raises the
poor from
the dust
and lifts
the needy
from the
ash heap.
He seats
them with
princes,
with the
princes of
his people.
And what
I want to
say here,
as these
words are
put down
in the
psalm for
us to
sing,
these words
here,
verses 7
to 9,
these are
not promises
of what
God is
going to
do for
us.
But these
are pictures
of his
grace to
his people
and a
reminder
of the
way he
comes low
to meet
us in
our mess
when we
are face
down in
the mud.
So if
there are
people here
this morning,
we've got
family or
friends,
who might
be
struggling
with
fertility.
Verse 9
doesn't say
to you that
God doesn't
love you
because of
that.
But it's
saying look
at the way
that he's
loved and
cared for
people in
the past.
This is a
picture of
his grace
to his
people.
You see,
God has
acted in
history.
And
supremely,
we see
that in
the way
that he
acted through
his son,
Jesus.
You see,
so much of
religion,
isn't it,
is so
often we
think that
there's this
ladder that
we've got to
climb and
clamber our
way up.
and that
maybe,
just maybe,
we might
get to
the top
in time
and we
might just
meet God
at that
moment.
What an
amazing picture
we get in
this psalm
that says to
us that God
comes down to
meet us because
we just cannot
get up that
ladder.
we've tried
and we've
fallen and
we've slipped
down and
we just
cannot do
it.
And God
comes down to
meet us and
encounter us
in his grace.
But just have
a look at
the imagery
there.
It says
this,
he raises
the poor
from the
dust and
lifts the
needy from
the ash
heap.
Ash
heap could
also be
the refuse.
Whatever it
exactly means,
you see,
both of
these are
materials,
whatever they
are,
they get
thrown out.
They're
kind of
things that
get caught
up on the
bottom of
your foot
that you
try to
wipe off.
before you
go in and
stand on
the carpet.
Things that
get thrown
out,
forgotten
about.
And what
we're told
here is
that the
dust,
the ash
heap,
which is
fleeting,
unimportant,
that's where
God comes
down to
meet us.
Let me
tell you
about a
lady called
Josephine
Butler
quickly.
Josephine
Butler was
lived in
the
19th
century.
She was
born into
a well-to-do
family.
Her father
was a
cousin of
a prime
minister
during that
time.
She married
a Church
of England
vicar,
lived with
him in
Oxford,
then moved
to Cheltenham,
wasn't really
taking a step
down,
and then
finally he
got a job
in Liverpool.
Now,
no offence
to anyone
who's from
Liverpool,
but it
was a
major
step
down
from
both
Oxford
and
Cheltenham.
And when
she moved
there,
she went
to a
workhouse.
Now,
if you've
never heard
of what a
workhouse
is,
a workhouse
was the
kind of
place that
women who
couldn't
survive in
the streets
anymore,
that's where
they went
to.
This was
the last
chance
saloon.
They did
very basic,
hard,
manual labour.
The workhouse
she went to
was a place
that they
did oakum
picking.
You know,
the ropes
that they
throw into
the docks,
they pull
those out
and there
was little
tiny material
that they
would have
to take
out with
their hands.
It was
really hard
work.
And she
came and
sat down
with them
in their
circle while
they were
doing this
one day,
and they
laughed at
her,
dressed well
amongst the
women that
everyone else
had forgotten
about.
But she
kept coming
back,
and they
started
taking her
seriously.
Fast
forwarding,
she met
a young
woman in
that group
called Mary
Lomax who
just couldn't
cope anymore.
So she
and her
husband took
Mary into
their home.
They fed
her,
clothed
her,
and welcomed
her in.
One day,
Josephine
Butler's
husband was
speaking to
her,
and Mary
Lomax said
this,
Sir,
you have
brought me
into your
beautiful
home.
You have
treated me
as if I
was your
own daughter,
as if I
had never
done anything
wrong.
I have
seen Jesus
in you.
A dust in
scripture
means that
which is
fleeting and
unimportant.
death.
But it
also can
be a
picture of
death.
Remember
what we
said,
Jesus
sang this,
he prayed
this on
the night
before he
went to
the cross,
as he
confronted
his own
death.
Jesus,
the Lord,
lowers
himself
to the
dust.
He
lowers
himself
to death
to lift
us up
to life.
as Paul,
who was
one of the
leaders in
the early
church,
said,
writing to
the church
in Philippi,
he said
this,
that Jesus
humbled himself
by becoming
obedient to
the point
of death,
even death
on a
cross.
Or,
as he says
elsewhere,
is that
we have
been raised
up with
Christ Jesus,
seated with
him in the
heavenly realms.
God raises
the poor
from the
dust and
lifts the
needy from
the ash.
You see,
everyone who
puts their
trust in
Jesus is
raised up
from the
dust and
from death
to live
with him.
The one
on high
humbles
himself to
raise us
up from
death.
The
exalted
one
lowers
himself
so that
he might
exalt
the lowly
ones.
So just
as we
close,
remember
at the
beginning of
the service
we took
a moment
to look
through the
eyes of
that Fijian
soldier and
we imagined
what it
might be
like if
the queen
lowered
herself to
look at
him eye
to eye.
I want
to take
us to
another
scene,
something
that really
happens.
Remember we
spoke about
Peter a few
times,
the one
named
Rock.
There was a
time when
he looked at
Jesus eye
to eye.
Jesus,
the Lord
of heaven
was bowed
down before
him and
took on the
role of a
servant
and he
washed the
feet and
he washed
the dust
off the
feet of
Peter,
cleaning
him,
claiming
him,
calling
him to
be his
very own.
You see,
this is the
God that
we worship.
This is the
God that we
praise.
And so,
how can we
finish this?
Praise the
Lord.
Let us
praise the
Lord.
Praise the
Lord.
God our
Father,
we thank
you for
your grace
which is
beyond our
capacity to
grasp
the
magnitude
of your
mercy,
the
unfathomable
depths of
your love,
the
humility of
your son
Jesus.
But what a
glorious thing
to know
that not
only have
you met
us in
our mess,
saved us
from our
sin,
but that
through
Jesus,
you have
lifted us
up into
new life.
And so,
God,
we praise
you.
we praise
your holy
name.
It's in
Christ's name
we pray.
Amen.
you