WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:12.280 We're continuing a series today that we were doing before Christmas time called Songs for 00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:19.039 Life and in that we're looking at different Psalms over the course of 10 weeks or so. 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:26.359 And the idea in this series is it's not that we have 150 disconnected Psalms within the 00:00:26.359 --> 00:00:32.439 one book, but that actually because the Bible writers love design and because God loves design, 00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:39.119 the Psalms are all actually connected and there's themes and there's repetition throughout, but 00:00:39.119 --> 00:00:44.799 there are a couple things that make the connection really clear throughout the book of Psalms. And 00:00:44.799 --> 00:00:49.719 that's that you'll have noticed before probably and we've mentioned in the series that there are 00:00:49.719 --> 00:00:56.320 five different books in the Psalms within the one book. And one of the deepest connections between 00:00:56.320 --> 00:01:01.359 those five books we find in this passage, which is why we chose it. And each week we're looking at 00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:07.519 a couple examples of different Psalms from the different books to show how they're all actually 00:01:07.519 --> 00:01:14.400 bound together. And at the very end of this passage there was the refrain, Blessed be the Lord 00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:20.840 the God of Israel, from everlasting everlasting and let all the people say amen. And that refrain 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:27.200 actually shows up at the end of every single one of the first four books. So you see that same 00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:35.719 text, the quote from Psalm 41, 72, 89 and then 106. Those are the ends of each of the four books. 00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:40.680 And then in the fifth book you have five straight Psalms that say the same thing over and over again. 00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:46.760 Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. And that means that this morning there's 50 00:01:46.760 --> 00:01:52.960 verses about in this passage. We've got to focus. We can't look at all of them. And so let's look 00:01:52.960 --> 00:01:58.400 at what binds the book of Psalms together. And that's the command that begins this passage and ends 00:01:58.400 --> 00:02:05.520 this passage. It's the command to worship. It's the phrase praise the Lord. And as we start 2022 00:02:05.520 --> 00:02:11.640 and we see that as the binder across the book of Psalms, the command praise the Lord, you know, 00:02:11.639 --> 00:02:17.639 it's always a good idea to get back to basics and to ask the question, what does it mean to praise? 00:02:17.639 --> 00:02:24.359 And so this morning we're going to do that. Let's ask three questions of this passage. What does it 00:02:24.359 --> 00:02:30.719 mean to praise? Why do we praise or why should we praise and how can we do it? And they're all 00:02:30.719 --> 00:02:34.679 right here in Psalm 1-6. So let's do that first. What does it mean to praise? And I just want to 00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:41.760 say something very brief about this. If you look at verse two, it asks the question, who can utter 00:02:41.760 --> 00:02:48.719 the mighty deeds of the Lord or declare all of his praise? Who can declare all the praise of the 00:02:48.719 --> 00:02:54.360 Lord? Now, we are very used to when we look at the Psalms hearing the command praise the Lord. 00:02:54.360 --> 00:03:03.159 But here in verse two, it flips it and turns the command praise into a noun. So it says, 00:03:03.159 --> 00:03:10.039 who could declare all the praises of the Lord? And you see there, it's not saying praises Lord, 00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:16.319 it's saying that the praises of the Lord are something to praise God for. And that means you 00:03:16.319 --> 00:03:23.199 can hear in that that the word praise used as a noun means something like God's accomplishments, 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:29.319 God's virtues, God's attributes. In other words, saying who could possibly list all the things 00:03:29.319 --> 00:03:34.639 that you could praise God for, all the praises of God, the things that make him worth praising. 00:03:34.639 --> 00:03:40.959 And so if you flip it back around to the verb that it normally is, the word praise has got to 00:03:40.959 --> 00:03:49.319 mean something like giving credit and adoration for great things, attributes, achievements, 00:03:49.319 --> 00:03:55.319 virtues, something like that. And that helps us to, I think, dig into a little bit more of a 00:03:55.319 --> 00:04:01.120 substantial definition, one of the famous definitions that you'll read from one commentator in 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:06.000 particular, but all over the place of what it means to praise across the Bible. What does it 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:13.599 mean? It means this ascribing ultimate value to something. So to praise something is to ascribe 00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:20.159 ultimate value to whatever it is that you're praising. And so the Bible has all these synonyms 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:26.200 that capture that. The weight of that idea, we say right next to praise, we say worship, we say 00:04:26.200 --> 00:04:35.240 glory in, take glory in, we ascribe adoration, we laud, that's the old King James, we honor. 00:04:35.240 --> 00:04:42.240 There's all sorts of synonyms for that. And in all those words, they're wrapped up in the one 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:46.800 command in Hebrew, which everybody, Christian, or if you've not grown up in the church, you'll 00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:54.319 know it, it's hallelujah, which is a one sentence actually command, hallel, praise, hallelujah, 00:04:54.319 --> 00:05:04.759 praise God, the Lord. And in those words to glory, hallelujah, praise, bound into the weight of those 00:05:04.759 --> 00:05:09.800 words is the fact that there's a second part to the definition of what it means to praise. Praise 00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:16.400 does not only mean ascribing ultimate value to something, but it's ascribing ultimate value to 00:05:16.399 --> 00:05:22.839 something with all of who you are. So with your intellect, with your emotional life, and with your 00:05:22.839 --> 00:05:27.919 desires, your will. And you know, as we go through the Psalm in just a moment, you'll see that this 00:05:27.919 --> 00:05:34.079 passage says things that you need to know about the one you're praising. It says you've got to 00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:39.519 know something in your mind. And then of course, the Psalm is a song, it's saying you've got to 00:05:39.519 --> 00:05:45.159 sing it too, because it hits the emotions. And then of course, the whole point of the Psalm is that 00:05:45.160 --> 00:05:52.480 you, your idea about God and your will and your desires would be changed. And so praise is ascribing 00:05:52.480 --> 00:06:00.400 ultimate value to something and doing it with your mind, your will and your emotional life, all of 00:06:00.400 --> 00:06:05.040 what you are. And that means the command when you hear the command hallelujah, which we read twice 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:11.720 at the beginning and end here, it really means something like bow your knee, get on your knees, 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:18.680 bow your knee, knee, and bow the whole self before whatever you find most precious, before that 00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:24.160 thing that you think is most worthy of praise. All right, now that that leads us then to dig in a 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:31.040 little more and ask, why do we why do we do this? Why are we being commanded to praise and why the 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:37.000 human beings praise at all? And that's also right here. There's there's three reasons I think in 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:43.079 this passage that come up for why we praise. And there's one central reason. But let's look at one 00:06:43.079 --> 00:06:48.399 of the subordinate reasons first. The first is this, we praise, we worship, because we actually 00:06:48.399 --> 00:06:56.240 have to. We have, we have to. And commentators, sociologists, Christian theologians, psychologists, 00:06:56.240 --> 00:07:03.839 pick your field of study. Everybody in the academy actually agrees that human beings are 00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:10.239 adoring and praising creatures. We cannot stop praising things. We can't stop worshiping things. 00:07:10.239 --> 00:07:16.599 The question is never are we worshiping? It's always what is it? What is it that we're worshiping? 00:07:16.599 --> 00:07:22.679 And this Psalm, the one of the reasons we chose it is because it's exemplary, because it's a Psalm 00:07:22.679 --> 00:07:29.000 that teaches us why we have the Psalms. And you know, why do we have the Psalms? Maybe the most 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:34.480 binding connection of all the Psalms is the command, praise the Lord, praise the Lord. It comes up so 00:07:34.480 --> 00:07:41.959 many times. Why? And it's because we as human beings have to praise something, but we struggle so 00:07:41.959 --> 00:07:46.920 much with always praising things that we're not supposed to praise. And so the Psalms are songs 00:07:46.920 --> 00:07:53.360 that exist that keep having to yell at me and you to say, praise the Lord, get back to praising 00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:58.519 what you're supposed to praise, praise the Lord. And that's actually exactly what the whole of 00:07:58.519 --> 00:08:07.120 this passage Psalm 106 is really about. Let me just show you this disparity by covering 40 verses 00:08:07.120 --> 00:08:14.079 really quickly. We're going to cover all 40 of the verses. You would have noticed when we were 00:08:14.079 --> 00:08:22.759 reading that this passage is a series of stories of the ways that Israel was saved by God, even 00:08:22.759 --> 00:08:27.359 when they didn't want to be. And then they turned around and rejected the God who saved them. And 00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:34.200 the Psalmist really is confessing that sin and saying, once more, look at us. We've done it again. 00:08:34.200 --> 00:08:39.879 You know, we're in exile again, because once again, we've rejected the God who had saved us. And now 00:08:39.879 --> 00:08:45.360 we're asking that he would do it again. And that's what the Psalm is about. And in it, there's six, 00:08:45.360 --> 00:08:50.600 seven, eight different stories of how they did that, which are all about this grand problem that 00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:57.720 we have to worship, but we are always worshiping the wrong things. And in verse seven to 12, God 00:08:57.720 --> 00:09:04.080 had brought them out of Egypt, the Israelites, and saved them. And they saw, they saw his plugs, 00:09:04.080 --> 00:09:09.879 they saw his power, they saw him spread the Red Sea apart into two. And as soon as they got across 00:09:09.879 --> 00:09:16.240 the water, they said, I want to be back in Egypt. And we learn from that little section that human 00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:24.279 beings praise security and safety more often than they praise God, that we're prone to do that. And 00:09:24.279 --> 00:09:30.399 in verses 13 to 15, they get into the desert lands. And they say, we want to be back in Egypt 00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:35.840 again, because we would rather have food in our bellies than following the God who has saved us. 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:42.519 And we learn there that human beings praise their bellies and their appetites more than they praise 00:09:42.519 --> 00:09:49.240 the God that that's revealed himself. And you jump to verses 16 to 18, which is a story from 00:09:49.240 --> 00:09:55.840 Numbers chapter 16, where Korah and some others tried to lead a coup against God's appointed 00:09:55.840 --> 00:10:04.480 leadership. And we learn there that we humans are very prone to worshiping power and fame more 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:10.559 than the God who has revealed himself. And you jump to the climax story, which is verses 19 to 23. 00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:18.759 And they worshipped, they bowed before a crafted idol, a cow, a calf, rather than the God who was 00:10:18.759 --> 00:10:24.879 actually making himself visible on the mountain next to them, but in cloud. And we learn there 00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:30.599 that human beings would rather praise and worship something that is visible and empirical and 00:10:30.599 --> 00:10:34.759 certain. They want to touch what they worship. And they want to, they want to be able to see it more 00:10:34.759 --> 00:10:40.919 than the God who has revealed himself. And you jump to verses 24 to 27, and they get to the edge 00:10:40.919 --> 00:10:47.159 of the promised land and they refuse to go in because they worshiped their own safety more than 00:10:47.159 --> 00:10:55.439 God. And verses 28 to 31, 40 years later, after that, they reject God altogether and worship the 00:10:55.439 --> 00:11:02.439 gods of Moab. And they do that because they want pleasure. They want all the things that the gods 00:11:02.440 --> 00:11:07.480 of Moab, the sex and the money and the power that the gods of Moab offer. And we learn that human 00:11:07.480 --> 00:11:17.240 beings want pleasures more than God. And lastly, in verse 32 to 39, it summarizes all of it and says 00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:23.200 that over hundreds of years and century after century, people that God calls have defiled 00:11:23.200 --> 00:11:29.040 themselves in all sorts of ways by worshiping safety and power and fame and pleasure and resources 00:11:29.039 --> 00:11:36.639 and treasures and marriage and money and family and whatever it may be, more than the God who has 00:11:36.639 --> 00:11:42.879 revealed himself, who's made the world and said praise the Lord. God saves human beings over and 00:11:42.879 --> 00:11:47.879 over again throughout the centuries. And the pattern is always that we turn back and we struggle 00:11:47.879 --> 00:11:55.120 with worshiping, theme, creature rather than the creator. Now, that means what this is saying is 00:11:55.120 --> 00:12:02.840 that what the Bible is saying is the reason that as humans, we can't stop worshiping and we struggle 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:09.639 to worship the right thing is never because anybody struggles with ear religion. You know, 00:12:09.639 --> 00:12:14.879 the problem with human beings is not that we are not religious. That's never been the issue. In 00:12:14.879 --> 00:12:20.480 fact, Rodney Stark, one of the current historians of our time, really good gifted historians, 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:26.320 wrote a book called The Triumph of Faith where he makes a very convincing argument that people are 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:32.480 actually more religious in 2010 when he wrote it than in 1910. It's not that we're getting less 00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:36.480 religious. It's just that organized religion is not as popular, but we're getting more religious. 00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:42.879 Human beings are religious from top to bottom because religion happens when we set a great 00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:50.639 hope upon something that could frame our personal identity and then our desires conform to that 00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:55.279 thing. We want that thing above everything else. That's religion. And so we as human beings cannot 00:12:55.279 --> 00:13:01.559 stop worshiping. We're worshiping creatures and the problem is so acute in fact that you might 00:13:01.559 --> 00:13:10.679 have noticed as I closed this first point that in Psalm 10620, there's the very famous quote, 00:13:10.679 --> 00:13:17.159 they exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox. And you know where that gets quoted again. 00:13:17.159 --> 00:13:23.159 That gets quoted again only at one other time in the Bible in Romans 123, the very famous moment 00:13:23.159 --> 00:13:29.000 where Paul says, what is wrong with humanity? We exchanged the glory of God for the glory of 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:36.439 creatures. In other words, Paul is saying the problem in the era, the centuries of BC time, 00:13:36.440 --> 00:13:41.720 the Old Testament is the exact same as the New Testament and beyond. We always do this. We 00:13:41.720 --> 00:13:47.800 exchange the glory of God for the glory of creatures. We worship, but we worship the wrong 00:13:47.800 --> 00:13:52.520 things. We have to worship. That's why we worship. Now secondly, and this is the big point, the big 00:13:52.520 --> 00:13:59.000 reason here, the big idea in this passage, why we should praise the Lord instead of creatures is 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:07.159 captured, I think in verse 40, 44 to 48. And if you see that in verse 44, it says, nevertheless, 00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:13.840 he looked upon their distress. And when they heard their cry and for their sake, he remembered the 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:20.679 covenant. And what that's saying is that God, despite all the ways that we worship the wrong 00:14:20.679 --> 00:14:27.120 things, nevertheless, he remembers his promise and he comes to save anyway. And if you jump back 00:14:27.120 --> 00:14:33.879 to the very beginning of the passage, places like verse one, it says, for he is good. His, he has 00:14:33.879 --> 00:14:40.200 steadfast love. He loves according to everything he said he would do. He loves all the way. Verse 00:14:40.200 --> 00:14:47.720 two, he does mighty deeds that exhibit that love. Verse seven, brings it all together and it summarizes 00:14:47.720 --> 00:14:53.480 it. It says, God, you do great works for us because you love us and you're good and you're 00:14:53.480 --> 00:15:01.680 powerful. And that's another word. The Psalmist is saying, now that is why we pray. We praise the 00:15:01.680 --> 00:15:10.800 Lord because he's good and because in his power, he's decided to be merciful. And so we should praise 00:15:10.800 --> 00:15:20.279 the Lord. Now, we've got to get shaken up a little bit today to hear the fact, the power, the reality 00:15:20.279 --> 00:15:27.279 behind that kind of a claim. Because if you've been in church for any time in your life, the fact 00:15:27.279 --> 00:15:33.199 that God is good and powerful and just and merciful and remembers his covenant is old hat to you and 00:15:33.199 --> 00:15:42.600 can be, can get stale. Tuesday will be one month since Heather and I moved back to Edinburgh from 00:15:42.600 --> 00:15:52.159 the States. And one of the joys of doing that is to walk around again and glory in this great city. 00:15:52.159 --> 00:16:00.879 And for anybody that's not, that's an outsider that's trying to be an insider, you move to 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:07.080 Edinburgh or you come from elsewhere or you come to Scotland and you make that drive as I did this 00:16:07.080 --> 00:16:10.680 week through the highlands and the snow and you remember again or you see for the first time, 00:16:10.679 --> 00:16:17.120 whoa, this is unlike anywhere I've ever been and it's glorious and beautiful and overwhelming and 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:22.839 powerful and the castle looks like it grew up out of the rock. It's like a living organism when you 00:16:22.839 --> 00:16:28.519 walk up Johnson Terrace. And you know, there's only three cities in the world set on seven hills, 00:16:28.519 --> 00:16:35.399 Athens, Rome and Edinburgh and all three have an unmatched beauty about them. And I didn't tell them 00:16:35.399 --> 00:16:40.519 I was going to do this, but it's been a privilege this week to have my sister and her husband 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:45.240 my brother-in-law Matthias here and Matthias has never been here. He's never been out of the States 00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:51.519 and so it's been fun to get to drive through the snowy highlands and see his face experience that 00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:58.399 reality for the first time. Now look, the Psalms do this all the time. What they do is when you 00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:04.119 walk up Johnson Terrace and you see that rock and you realize how unique it is, you say, whoa, 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:11.159 the Lord is my rock and you drive through the National Park on the way to Inverness and you say, 00:17:11.159 --> 00:17:17.519 God is my refuge. I mean, look, I look to the hills and I say, where does my help come from? It 00:17:17.519 --> 00:17:21.639 comes from the maker of heaven and earth. That's exactly what the Psalms do. They walk the Psalmist 00:17:21.639 --> 00:17:26.799 walk around cities and fortresses and towers and hills and mountains and they say, God is actually 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:33.079 like that. The Lord is my shepherd because I see shepherds all the time and I know and you can do 00:17:33.079 --> 00:17:37.919 this in Scotland unlike most other places. You can say, the Lord is my shepherd because I see what 00:17:37.919 --> 00:17:45.639 the shepherds are up to and I know what kind of care they offer. And what that means is that every 00:17:45.639 --> 00:17:52.000 time a Psalm like this says, God is good and God is a rock and God is powerful and God is merciful 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:57.839 and God is just and you should worship him because of that. It is both true and not true at the very 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:05.119 same time. We talk about that in Christian theology of the speaking about God analogously to our 00:18:05.119 --> 00:18:10.839 reality. We say, you know, I look at that castle and I say, man, I think about God. God is like 00:18:10.839 --> 00:18:15.720 the head, but he's not like that at all at the same at the very same time. It's both true to say 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:22.199 it and it's not true and it's not true because when I say God is a rock like that rock, we don't know 00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:28.160 the half of it. God is so much more than that. He's so much bigger and he's so much more powerful 00:18:28.160 --> 00:18:36.440 than that rock and so unmoving. The rock is only a tiny little shadow of his incomprehensibility. 00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:43.319 We say that we can apprehend God, but we cannot comprehend God. And there's a huge difference in 00:18:43.319 --> 00:18:47.600 those two realities. And so what we have to, you see, this is where the rubber hits the road on the 00:18:47.599 --> 00:18:53.119 question. Why do you praise? You know, we know why we praise because we can't stop praising, 00:18:53.119 --> 00:18:59.599 but why praise the Lord like this Psalm commands? And here it is. If somebody was to ask you, 00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:07.159 why do you come here every Sunday, week after week? Or why are you visiting today? Or, you know, 00:19:07.159 --> 00:19:13.799 why do you come to a worship service at all? What this Psalm is saying is that your answer to that 00:19:13.799 --> 00:19:21.879 cannot be first because I really like the music or because sometimes the sermons are not that bad 00:19:21.879 --> 00:19:29.480 or because I went to a bunch of churches and I dated them all and this one, I decided to get 00:19:29.480 --> 00:19:35.319 engaged with St. Columbus rather than the other ones. It can't be for any of those reasons. That's 00:19:35.319 --> 00:19:40.440 not the first reason, at least. What this Psalm is saying is that the reason we ought to worship the 00:19:40.440 --> 00:19:46.720 Lord, the reason we come to worship is because God deserves it. Because God deserves it. Because 00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:51.360 he's the only being that is worthy of worship. He's only being worthy of praise. He's the only 00:19:51.360 --> 00:19:58.039 one who is both like the Castle Rock, but the Castle Rock could never comprehend how God is a 00:19:58.039 --> 00:20:02.559 rock. Never. He's the only one who deserves it. And God even knows that. Of course, He knows that. 00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:08.960 Verse eight and nine, the question is posed, why does God save Israel over and over again? And 00:20:08.960 --> 00:20:16.400 God says, for my own glory, for my namesake. And as soon as you hear something like that, we all 00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:22.360 should immediately recognize that if a human being ever says that, that's the epitome of what's 00:20:22.360 --> 00:20:28.600 wrong with the world. That's pride, that's arrogance, that's the allure of celebrity. But why is it so 00:20:28.600 --> 00:20:35.799 wrong for me to say that and for you to say that, but so right for God? And we could do a series on 00:20:35.799 --> 00:20:41.720 that question. So all we'll say is this, that whenever we say, whenever we say that's so 00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:46.720 prideful for a person to seek fame, to seek glory, to seek praise, to seek worship, why? Well, 00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:55.519 it's precisely because there is only one who actually deserves praise and glory and worship. 00:20:55.519 --> 00:21:02.879 And if God really is that big, that omnipotent, that powerful, that praiseworthy, that merciful, 00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:09.680 then there can only be one being in the world who deserves our praise. And that is the Lord. Now 00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:17.120 finally, to close this long point out, finally, the third reason, there's one more reason, and you 00:21:17.120 --> 00:21:23.520 know the logic so far. The logic is we have to worship because we're worshiping beings. So are 00:21:23.520 --> 00:21:28.680 we worshiping the only being who deserves worship? But I just want to press into that just a little 00:21:28.680 --> 00:21:34.799 bit more and say that the third reason here to praise the Lord is because actually all of us 00:21:34.799 --> 00:21:44.080 need an object of worship in our lives that can handle our worship. Every single one of us, if 00:21:44.080 --> 00:21:48.840 you've ever worshiped in your life like me, anything that is not God, you might have found out the 00:21:48.840 --> 00:21:55.240 hard way that nothing in this world that you worship can handle the weight of your worship, 00:21:55.240 --> 00:22:00.559 can handle it. But because what worship does, we've already said this, worship frames your identity. 00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:07.160 Jesus makes this really clear in the Gospels when he tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. 00:22:07.160 --> 00:22:12.559 You know, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Lazarus, a poor man goes to heaven, 00:22:12.559 --> 00:22:18.160 but the rich man dies and goes to hell. And he tells this story to explain all sorts of things, 00:22:18.160 --> 00:22:22.960 but I just want to point out one thing. Lazarus, the poor man has a name and his name is not poor 00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:32.960 man, but the rich man, he has no name. Why? Because in his life, the rich man worshiped money and he 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:38.920 lost his identity to it. You know, whatever you worship is what you will become like. Your identity 00:22:38.920 --> 00:22:44.319 will conform to it. And so praise is so powerful because it forms your identity. And then it 00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:49.920 transforms your ethics. You live according to the law of that thing that you seek. And then that 00:22:49.920 --> 00:22:56.840 means it conforms your desires. It's worship has immense power and we're all doing it. We're putting 00:22:56.840 --> 00:23:03.400 our time, our talent, our treasure and ourselves into whatever it is that we seek. And that's why 00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:09.720 it's so serious. You've got to have something that can handle the weight of what you, of your needs, 00:23:09.720 --> 00:23:15.640 of your worship. Now, I don't say this to pick on my parents at all, actually to pick on me as a 00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:21.759 parent. But all of us know, you know, if you grew up in a healthy household, in a household that had 00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:27.040 good parents, and I know some of you did it and some of you did. But if you didn't, if you did, I 00:23:27.040 --> 00:23:33.640 should say, you know, there comes a time in your life where you hit that age where you realize that 00:23:33.640 --> 00:23:40.680 your parents are big sinners. And hopefully, they, you know that because they said it to you over and 00:23:40.680 --> 00:23:47.720 over again. But what you realize at some point as a child, and I hope that my kids are growing to 00:23:47.720 --> 00:23:53.600 know this, is that if you put the weight of your expectations of ultimate security, righteousness, 00:23:53.600 --> 00:23:59.600 goodness and health in the power and authority of your parents, that there will be many times where 00:23:59.600 --> 00:24:04.920 you will be disappointed. And when you get, if you're married, and if you're seeking marriage, 00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:10.200 this is so important that, and if you're married, you know. And I say this not to pick on my wife, 00:24:10.200 --> 00:24:17.519 but on me, as the poor spouse between us. You know that if you turn and you get married and you look 00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:24.480 to marriage for the weight of your fulfillment, and as your ultimate destiny, and that other person 00:24:24.480 --> 00:24:30.279 to complete you, and to be your soulmate, and to be your end all be all, you know that marriage is 00:24:30.279 --> 00:24:37.440 going to be hard and disappointing. That a person and a creature, a parent, a child, a family, fame, 00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:45.759 money, power, success, beauty, just pick it. It cannot handle the weight of your worship. It can't 00:24:45.759 --> 00:24:51.440 do it. And in this Psalm to close this point, there is one, there's one major application point. 00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:57.840 It's in verse four. It's the prayer. Remember me in the time of your favor, oh God, when you come to 00:24:57.840 --> 00:25:03.200 save, remember me. And what the Psalm is asking you to do today, all of us, no matter if you're a 00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:10.799 Christian or not today, this is the call. Just say this prayer. Remember me, Lord, today in the time 00:25:10.799 --> 00:25:16.080 of your favor and the day of your salvation, because I am a human who has run after all of these 00:25:16.080 --> 00:25:22.160 different idols across the whole of my life. I keep doing, I keep chasing after them. And so when you 00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:27.840 come to save, include me, remember me, because my faith is weak, but I'll turn to you today, and I'll 00:25:27.839 --> 00:25:34.559 trust you. Now he answers at the end of the passage verse 44 to 48 and says, I will remember. 00:25:35.279 --> 00:25:39.679 I remember my covenant. I will not break the promise I made from the beginning of time. 00:25:39.679 --> 00:25:44.399 I will show mercy even though you don't deserve it. There is one place in the Bible 00:25:45.679 --> 00:25:51.839 where 44 to 48 is quoted, only one. And that's at the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:25:51.839 --> 00:26:02.559 In Luke chapter one, Zechariah sings Psalm 106, 45 to 48. And he, when he's told by an angel, 00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:09.919 your son is going to be the one who will bear the prophecy about the son, Jesus Christ. He turns to 00:26:09.919 --> 00:26:16.720 God and sings and says, you have remembered me, oh Lord, the day of your favor has come. You have 00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:22.960 not forgotten your covenant. It's always been about this man, the one that is to come Jesus Christ. 00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:27.920 You see the connection, when you read Psalm 106 and you hear the command, pray like this. Remember 00:26:27.920 --> 00:26:34.160 me, Lord, because I've chased after all these gods and they have not, they couldn't bear the 00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:40.640 weight of my identity and my needs. Luke one is saying, well, turn your face to Jerusalem 00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:47.360 and lift your eyes up to the cross of Jesus Christ and know that at the cross, every single one of 00:26:47.360 --> 00:26:52.960 the little gods, the little things that you worshiped have been crucified in him. Your sins 00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:59.280 have been cast away and God has actually at the cross, if that is your prayer today, God 00:26:59.280 --> 00:27:04.000 at the cross, at the moment of the cross in the middle of history turned and said about you from 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:09.920 eternity, from everlasting to everlasting, I name you Christian, not by the name of the idol that 00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:17.759 you worship. And that's an offer today. It's an offer of renewal for you Christian and it's an offer 00:27:17.759 --> 00:27:24.480 for anybody who would come to trust this man, Jesus Christ, who came to die for you. The reason 00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:29.840 to follow Jesus Christ today is because you need an object of praise that cannot be crushed under 00:27:29.840 --> 00:27:39.039 the weight of your expectations. And the God who is also man, who is just merciful, powerful, 00:27:39.039 --> 00:27:46.960 and forgives, he can handle you. He can handle your worship. Now let me close by asking how to 00:27:46.960 --> 00:27:55.279 praise God. And if you're a human being today, or if you're a rock or a frog or a wave or a tree 00:27:55.279 --> 00:28:00.240 or anything, the Psalms tell you praise the Lord. And so we're under the weight of the command. 00:28:01.599 --> 00:28:08.159 And there's so much we could say about this about how to praise God, but I just want to draw 00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:14.240 four specifics from this passage of ways that this passage actually says you can praise God 00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:19.519 as we close. There's something, the first is this, there's something more specific about the prayer 00:28:19.519 --> 00:28:25.440 here. Remember me, oh Lord. And that's that we've already said, remember me, oh Lord, because I 00:28:25.440 --> 00:28:30.880 have chased after things that are not God. And that means that this is a prayer actually of 00:28:30.880 --> 00:28:34.800 confession. And we pray to prayer of confession in our service because we see it all across the 00:28:34.799 --> 00:28:43.039 Bible. And let me use the fact of this here to just give the annual pastor's token charge as we 00:28:43.039 --> 00:28:51.359 begin the new year. Make 2022, I think this passage is asking us, make 2022 a year of daily prayer 00:28:52.240 --> 00:28:58.079 and include in that a prayer of confession and repentance before God. It's a command of scripture. 00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:05.679 It's a daily duty and a delight to once again, every new morning confess and believe the gospel 00:29:06.559 --> 00:29:10.960 and dedicate the day to the Lord. And we do it every Sunday and there's a command here, I think, 00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:17.199 in remember me, oh Lord, because I'm such an idol. I'm such a sinner, a command to go to confession 00:29:17.199 --> 00:29:24.319 every single day. Secondly, verse two, verse two, remember, ask the question, who can utter all of 00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:30.079 his praise? Who could possibly name all the things that God is worthy to be praised for? And at the 00:29:30.079 --> 00:29:35.599 same time, the Psalm goes on to talk about all the things God could be praised for. And that means, 00:29:35.599 --> 00:29:42.079 I think, this Psalm is calling us this year to praise God by talking about God. And, you know, 00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:46.799 talk about God, we call theology. That's all it is, is talking about God and talking about things 00:29:46.799 --> 00:29:52.720 in the light of God. And I think one of the signs of a growing and healthy congregation, and there 00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:59.839 are five, at least, and we'll do that another day, but is a growth in talk about God, a growth in 00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:04.720 theological depth, a growth in wanting to talk about God, talk about God this year. That's how 00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:10.720 we can praise God. God loves, it glorifies God when we talk about God. So seek the face of God 00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:16.160 by talking about God this year. Third, there's a temptation here, nevertheless, addressed in verse 00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:20.559 three. So we've taken something from verse one, verse two, and now in verse three, there's a 00:30:20.559 --> 00:30:26.879 temptation here, and it's addressed in verse three. You could read this passage, the 10 stories about 00:30:26.879 --> 00:30:32.879 how Israel drifted, and then God remembered, and he saved them anyway, and say, well, if God keeps 00:30:32.879 --> 00:30:41.200 doing this, it must mean that God has made most glorious every time I sin. And, you know, God, 00:30:41.200 --> 00:30:45.759 and this is exactly what Paul brings up in Romans. He says, should we keep sinning so that God gets 00:30:45.759 --> 00:30:50.960 more and more glory for his mercy? And Paul says no. And Psalm 106 says no. Verse three addresses 00:30:50.960 --> 00:30:57.920 that verse three says that God loves when we love righteousness and justice. And so another way 00:30:57.920 --> 00:31:03.359 that this song gives us to praise God this year is make it a year of fighting your indwelling sin 00:31:03.359 --> 00:31:09.680 and seeking to conform to the life of Jesus Christ. Loving righteousness and loving justice is another 00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:17.360 way. Fourth and finally, and very simply, in verse one and verse 48, the point of the Psalm, 00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:24.960 we can praise God this year by singing praise to God. Praise the Lord, this passage says, 00:31:24.960 --> 00:31:29.039 it says it at the beginning and at the end. That's the point here. The assembled people are 00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:35.120 gathered together, and they're called as the body of God, the body of Christ. Praise the Lord. Sing, 00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:40.479 praise to the living God. We read the call to worship today from Psalm 106. The reason we have 00:31:40.479 --> 00:31:46.559 the call to worship is because it's God who calls us to come and to praise him. We don't invite 00:31:46.559 --> 00:31:51.359 ourselves. He commands, he calls, and there it is. That's how we can worship God this year. I'll give 00:31:51.359 --> 00:31:59.039 the last word this morning to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews 12 is a passage about worship and about 00:31:59.039 --> 00:32:09.279 praising God through Jesus Christ. Hebrews 12 goes so far as to say that when God's people come 00:32:09.279 --> 00:32:17.200 together like this and sing praise to God, that they cross the threshold and they enter into sacred 00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:24.799 space and sacred time. We know that that's not because of the building. It's not because we 00:32:24.799 --> 00:32:31.119 dwell in a temple today. Not at all. Hebrews 12 says why that is the case. It's the case because 00:32:31.119 --> 00:32:36.639 when the people of God gather, the Holy Spirit of God says, I will be with you. It's a promise. 00:32:38.399 --> 00:32:46.720 Again, this frees us from the weight of relying on our feelings as we come to work. Sometimes we 00:32:46.720 --> 00:32:52.480 can leave here and say, it felt really good today. It felt flat today. There's good and true things 00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:57.920 about that. But what Hebrews 12 says is, know that when you cross the threshold and enter into 00:32:57.920 --> 00:33:03.360 worship with God's people, the Holy Spirit has come. God is there no matter how you feel. 00:33:04.559 --> 00:33:08.960 If the gospel is preached and the word is open and praises are sung to Father, Son, and Spirit, 00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:15.360 the Holy Spirit comes to meet with you. That's why worship is so important and so serious. Not only 00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:23.119 that, but 10,000 times 10,000 myriads of myriads of angels in the church, triumphant, the church, 00:33:23.839 --> 00:33:29.359 our brothers and sisters who have deceased are there worshiping on that same Sunday every week 00:33:29.359 --> 00:33:37.759 with us in the heavenly place. So sing to the Lord. Praise the Lord. God is here. The Holy Spirit 00:33:37.759 --> 00:33:43.199 has come today. He promises and he meets with us now. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, 00:33:43.200 --> 00:33:48.240 from everlasting to everlasting. And all God's people said, Amen.