May we rejoice like the kings of the earth to hear God's word.
So let's turn and study God's word together.
Just now in the book of Psalms, Psalm 117.
In the church Bible, this is page 614.
Praise the Lord, all nations.
Extol him, all peoples.
For great is his steadfast love towards us.
The faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord.
Let's bow our heads in prayer just now for a moment.
Heavenly Father, may we tonight be filled with praise as we are called to in these verses.
We long, Lord, for that overflow of praise that will fill the earth,
where we will not need to say to our neighbors,
believe in the Lord or to trust him or call people to worship,
because all of the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.
And so just now we pray, Father, as missionaries,
as people who are sent and commissioned to go into the darkness of this world,
but to bring forth the light of the countenance of Christ Jesus and to show him to all peoples.
And for that praise to resonate from us as those who are redeemed and have the hope of the gospel beating in their hearts.
So, Father, guide our thoughts and our minds, our attention this evening.
Fill us with certainty in the things of the gospel.
And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
I wonder this evening, what are we giving thanks for?
There are, of course, many things that we can give thanks for.
Many reasons to be filled with thankfulness.
Sometimes they're small things.
Sometimes we can be giving thanks for almost mundane things in our lives and our experience.
If you follow Scotland as a football fan, I'm sure there was some thanksgiving going up for Scotland's performance recently.
And then you come to the draw of the groups and you think, are we still so thankful?
Perhaps.
Recently, we've just had Thanksgiving.
We had our own Thanksgiving as a congregation last week.
And we give thanks this time of year for the harvest and for the fullness of God's blessing.
There are many things, just even day by day in our lives and experience, that we can give thanks for.
And on some levels, they are just mundane things.
We can give thanks for the air we breathe, for the food that we have, the water we have to drink,
and for the good things that God gives us.
We can thank God for our families.
The list is endless, really.
Not just trivial things, but great things in our lives that we can give thanks for.
And that call to thanksgiving is what is being echoed in this psalm.
It is a psalm that the words are there for all nations of the world.
Praise the Lord all nations.
Extol him all peoples.
It is, in fact, a wonderful thing that the shortest psalm in the Bible, the shortest chapter in the Bible,
it is a chapter that is seen simply to preach and proclaim the gospel.
To make the good news of Christ known to the nations so that they can respond to this call and they can praise the Lord.
And the evidence of that, I hope, is what we see, as I've already said in prayer this evening,
the evidence of this is what we see tonight.
That we, I suspect, largely a Gentile congregation,
have come together tonight to worship the Lord.
And to make him known.
And to give thanks to him for his steadfast love towards us
and for his faithfulness, which endures forever.
And so as we come tonight to respond to this invitation,
and as we, I hope, would also be looking to examine our hearts as we come to the Lord's table tomorrow.
That's the main reason for our gathering like this.
It's to enter into that exercise of spiritual preparation that we ought to have as we come to the Lord's table.
Let us tonight consider this invitation.
It is an invitation to do something.
It is an invitation tonight to come to praise and extol.
To praise means simply to acclaim.
To make much of someone.
To extol means to exalt or to eulogize them.
To proclaim their goodness.
To proclaim good things about them.
To make these things known.
And the act of praising or extolling the Lord is an act that uses the whole person.
And so tonight, if you're wanting to engage in the act of worship,
if you want to engage in the act of praise,
then not only do you need to use your lips,
but you need to use some of the other organs and abilities that God has given you.
First of all, you need to use your mind.
The person who comes to praise the Lord engages their mind in thoughts concerning the Lord.
And so tonight, as we come to praise God,
as we come to worship Him,
and as we do that through, in particular tomorrow,
the remembering of the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
then we do so engaging our minds in the act of worship.
We think about the words that are coming out of our mouth, certainly.
But we think more about the person and the work of that person.
We think about Jesus.
And that's one of the things that Paul,
when he writes to the Corinthian church,
reminds them of.
That they should come correctly to the Lord's table.
And part of that is discerning the Lord's body and blood.
And that is to think about it.
To perceive truth about the body of Jesus
and His blood which have been broken and shed at the cross.
And so the way that we come to the Lord's table
is thinking about what Christ has done.
But it's not enough for us simply to know these truths.
It's not enough for us simply to have in our minds
some element of that truth.
It also has to move other parts of us.
So if we want to come truly worshiping,
if we want to fulfill the invitation of this psalm,
the way in which we have to come is using our hearts.
If I want to acclaim somebody,
if I want to tell you of the wonders of a particular person,
then I need to use my heart behind that.
The example that you might use would be to talk about human people,
people that we would know and we want to pass on something of their wonderfulness.
There are some politicians that we might want to do that with.
We might really love some politicians.
Perhaps it's Tony Blair.
And you think about how good he was as a prime minister
and how good his government was.
Or sometimes you might even recognize how effective he was,
but still not entirely agree with everything he did.
And actually even my mentioning his name tonight might,
for some people here,
have resulted in a pretty visceral reaction down in your stomach.
And you think,
well, hang on a minute.
That guy was,
you know,
Iraq war.
Are we really sure that's someone we'd want to acclaim?
Go a little bit further back and you can see the same about Margaret Thatcher.
You can go further back into recent European history
and you find some truly awful figures.
You might know an awful lot about them,
but you would never dream of praising them
because they are so despicable.
Your heart,
to issue praise,
your heart needs to be engaged.
You need to delight in them.
You need to find things that are worthy of praise
in them that move your own heart,
that move you to express affection.
And so with Jesus,
that's what we're invited to do in this psalm.
It is to find,
using our minds,
find things that actually speak to our hearts
about what Jesus has done.
And so to truly praise him,
to truly extol him,
what we need to do is reflect on the person and work of Jesus
and find things there
that move our hearts,
that result in devotion for us.
And hopefully that is the case.
We can think about the work of God in the gospel.
We can think of the promises of God.
We can think of what Christ has done at the cross
to deal with our sin.
Perhaps there are things at the cross even
that particularly speak to us.
The gentleness of Jesus,
even as he's in agonizing pain
and he addresses his followers
and his mother.
And he says to John,
Behold your mother.
And to his mother,
Behold your son.
That love and that affection
that filled the heart of Jesus
just pours out of him,
doesn't it,
at the cross?
As he speaks to the thief
on his side
and says to him,
Today you will be with me in paradise.
Words that are particularly precious to me.
Perhaps to some of you as well.
Our hearts are moved
by the things of Jesus
and the things that he has done for us.
And perhaps even as we reflect on that
in a deeper and more theological way
and we begin to think about
the propitiation of sin,
of the fact that sin is covered.
We'll be singing tomorrow morning
about the hyssop.
Well, some of us will be singing in Gaelic,
I think it'll be.
But we'll be singing about hyssop
being used to sprinkle blood.
A covering for sin
that hides us,
shelters us
from the wrath of God.
How we're spared from hell and damnation
because Christ has loved us
and given himself for us.
Our hearts
are moved
by what we hear
and what leads us to worship.
But also to
an invisible muscle,
almost I suppose you could say,
our faith
needs to be engaged.
We have to believe
if we're going to praise God,
and this is a simple fact,
very difficult for people
in our modern age to understand,
but if you're going to worship God,
you have to worship
an invisible God.
And no one can worship him
without believing that he is.
And so if we want to come
and praise God,
then one of the things
that needs to be engaged in us
is that muscle of faith
that needs to be active,
that element of trust
in the person of Jesus,
who though we do not see him,
yet we believe in him.
None of us have seen Christ Jesus
personally, I think.
but yet we can be moved
to praise him
and to speak of his goodness
and his love towards us
because we believe in him.
We have been given the grace
to exercise faith.
And faith is like a muscle.
It has to be exercised.
What else?
It begins to suffer
from cramp and decay.
And so this call
in this psalm,
praise the Lord,
all nations,
extol him,
all peoples,
it is a call
to exercise faith.
It's a call
to actually engage
not only our minds
and our hearts
and our affection
towards Christ,
but to actually believe in him
with an element of trust
and personal dependence
that says,
he is my Savior.
That not only is Christ
a Savior,
not even perhaps
is Christ the Savior,
but tonight to worship
and say,
he is my Savior.
And it is necessary for us,
therefore then,
to use our bodies.
To use our bodies
in obedience
to the call of Jesus.
And that does involve
our lips
and our tongues
and our lungs
and our vocal cords.
It involves somehow
expressing from our hearts
a belief
that needs to work
its way out of us,
that needs to be heard,
that needs to be given voice,
that we believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we will testify
to this with our lips
and therefore,
having believed in our hearts
and testified with our lips,
we will be saved.
If that's you,
then perhaps there's another
piece of your body
that needs to be exercised tomorrow.
Perhaps that's your feet
and your legs.
Perhaps they need to be exercised
in physically coming
to the Lord's table,
professing the Lord's death
with your body,
obeying the command of Jesus
to use these very visceral,
literal symbols,
bread and wine,
to testify to the praise
of what he has done,
to acknowledge
the grace of God
revealed to sinners.
sinners.
In this psalm,
there is in fact
an invitation
to come to the Lord's table,
an invitation
to make the highest
proclamation
of your faith,
testifying to what
Jesus has done
for sinners
and to come
in obedience to him.
So it is an invitation
to do something.
It is also an invitation
to do something
concerning someone.
The person that we are to praise
is this one,
the Lord.
Praise the Lord,
all nations.
Extol him,
all peoples.
And you'll see,
you'll note in your Bibles
that the name,
the Lord,
there is that use
of the capital letters,
L-O-R-D.
In the Hebrew Bible,
the words that would be there,
the letters that would be there
are the consonants
of the name of God,
which even the Jews
wouldn't take on their lips.
And so it's almost
a bit tricky for us
to think,
how do we pronounce this?
Yahweh, probably.
It's tied into the name of God
that was given to Moses
at the burning bush
when Moses came
and he had to put off
his sandals
because the ground
on which he was standing
was holy ground.
And Moses' concern there
is not to say,
well, you're sending me,
Lord,
on this impossible mission
to tell Pharaoh,
let my people go.
The bigger concern
in Moses' heart
at that moment
was to say,
well, actually,
what about your own people?
What if they ask me
who sent you?
What will I say?
And you remember
the answer that was given
to Moses.
Tell them,
I am has sent them.
This one who is
the faithful God
of their patriarchs,
of Abraham
and Isaac
and Jacob.
The God of your forefathers,
the God of promises
is the one who has sent you.
We'll come to that
in just a moment
because that's spelled out
for us a bit more clearly
as we go on.
But just for us tonight
to think about this,
the invitation for us
is to praise the Lord.
And I find it very interesting.
I think as I go through
the book of Psalms,
I think actually
as I read the Psalms
more and more,
one of the things
I recognize is
that whatever you see
the name of Lord
in the book of Psalms,
you can actually put in
the name of Jesus
very easily
and it's not wrong.
It's not wrong
from a Trinitarian
theological perspective anyway.
What is true of one member
of the Trinity
is true of all members
of the Trinity.
And so if one member
of the Trinity
is worthy of our praise,
each member of the Trinity
is worthy of our praise.
So we can comfortably
and theologically
be right in putting
the name of Jesus in there.
But even to see it
at a higher level than that,
it's interesting to me
that even that expression
that we use,
whether it's the name Jehovah
or the name Yahweh,
it's a name that sounds
in some ways
difficult for us
because it's not the name
that we know our God by.
Tonight,
the name by which
we know our God
is Jesus.
And it's at His name
that every knee should bow
and every tongue
shall in fact confess
that Jesus is Lord.
And so tonight,
the invitation to us
to come to the Lord's table
is to come and remember
the work and the person
of Jesus
and to praise
and extol Jesus.
And so as you come
to the Lord's table,
do you come thinking
and moved in your heart
and exercising your faith,
not in some abstract idea
of God who is distant
from us perhaps,
but God who has come
close to us,
the God who has come
and lived among us,
the God who has borne
our sorrows
in His own person,
the God who has come
and lived among us
and in fact
emptied Himself
by taking on
the form of a servant
and coming in the person
of Christ?
Do we love Him, therefore?
This person
who is not distant from us.
And are we moved,
therefore, as well
to reflect on what we do
in relation to Him?
Do we come to Him
as our great high priest
with all of the sorrows
of our own hearts?
And do we praise Him
through our confession
of sin?
Because that's part of what
this worship and extolling Him
involves.
It involves an acknowledgement
of the relationship
that we have with Him.
And it is a relationship
where sin
is inescapable.
You cannot have
a relationship
with Christ
without wrestling
with
the reality
of our sin
and His
forgiveness of it.
And so,
as we come to praise Him,
as we come to worship Him,
as we come to
pour out our hearts
before Him
and acknowledge
His Lordship
over us,
do we come
acknowledging our sin
and confessing
what's necessary
for us,
this Jesus?
It's an invitation
as well,
not only to a certain
thing and concerning
a certain person,
but it's also an invitation
to all.
The nations
are mentioned.
Praise the Lord,
all nations.
The word in Hebrew
is the idea
of Gentile nations,
of foreign nations.
That's why
the New Testament
translation of it
that we've read
in Romans,
Paul says,
praise Him,
all you Gentiles.
It's an invitation
that goes out
to all of the
geopolitical groups
of the world.
It goes out
to the nations
that surrounded Israel,
whether it was
Edom or Moab
or Egypt
or Babylon
or whoever else.
All of these powers
are invited
to come and praise.
It's an invitation
that goes out today
to Hebrideans,
and to
Glaswegians,
to Tuchters
and Townies,
to Moas,
to every single
one of us.
It's an invitation
that comes
to all peoples,
all ethnic groups.
it's an invitation
for everyone.
And this again
is one of these things
that I think
in terms of communion
people struggle with.
Because sometimes
what you think
is one of the objections
that I know
people struggle with
who've sat away
from the Lord's table
for a long,
long time
is sometimes
they think,
well,
it's not for me
because it wasn't
for my dad
or it wasn't
for my mother.
And I know
my mom and my dad
and they were
very righteous people
and they never felt
able to go
to the Lord's table
and if I measure
myself against them
I am no better
so how can I
possibly go
to the Lord's table?
But I want you
tonight to remember
the invitation
to come
and the invitation
to praise
and extol the Lord
and the highest
expression of that
I think is an
obedience to Him.
It is for all peoples.
And so I want you
tonight,
if that's you,
I want you to
lay that concern
aside.
Because God
is not asking you
to praise Him
on behalf
of your mom and dad
or on behalf
of generations past.
He is asking
you to praise Him.
It is an invitation
for you
to obey Him
and come.
It is an invitation
for the individual.
And there is no
limits.
It is all nations,
all peoples.
So the invitation
of this psalm
comes to all of us
and we must
bow the knee
before Christ
and acknowledge
Him as Savior.
We must trust in Him
for our salvation
and we must
praise Him.
We must extol Him.
So what are we
praising Him
and extoling Him for?
I mean,
we've mentioned this
a little bit
in the passing already,
but verse 2 helps us.
For,
the great explanatory
word of the Bible,
For great is His
steadfast love
towards us.
Great is His
steadfast love.
Steadfast love
in Hebrew
is one word.
It's simply
the word chesed.
It's God's
love
for His
rebellious creatures.
Remember I said
before that sin,
our sin,
has to be
acknowledged
within how
we praise God.
It has to be seen.
It has to be
a component
of how we think
about why
we're praising God
at all.
Part of that is
because that is
what His chesed does.
The steadfast love
of the Lord
comes into
our experience
and it
obliterates
the traces
of sin
in our lives.
It just
covers them
entirely
so that they
cannot be seen.
If you want
to think
about the
greatest act
of God's
steadfast love,
it is found
at the cross
where God
in all of the
fullness of time
before that
had been busy
telling the Jews
this is how
we deal with sin.
We deal with it
through sacrifice.
Someone's blood
has to be
shed.
And there's
a wonderful moment
where God
has been demonstrating
this all the way
back to Abraham
where He sends
Abraham and He
says to Abraham
take your son,
your only son
whom you love
and take him
to the mountain
I will show you
and there
sacrifice him
to me.
And Abraham
takes his son,
his only son
whom he loves,
Isaac,
and leads him
up the mountain
and Isaac's
even asking,
where is the
lamb?
And as Abraham
takes his son
up to the altar,
he binds him
to the altar.
And he does
so in faith.
He does so
believing,
confident that
the promise
of God
is through
this son
so he believes
at that point
in a resurrection.
although Isaac
may be slain
and burned
as a sacrifice,
God will
raise him up.
So he does
it with full
confidence in God.
But he takes
him and he's
ready to plunge
the knife
into his son,
his only son
whom he loved.
And God
calls out to him,
the angel of the
Lord calls out
and says,
Abraham,
stop.
Do not do
this.
Now I know
that you love
me.
And God
who speaks
these words
knows that
at some point,
maybe 2,000 years
after that
or 1,000 years
after that,
perhaps even
on the same
hill
and the same
place,
another son
will be offered
as a sacrifice
for the sins
of the world.
And as we'll
think tomorrow,
there is no
voice that
calls out,
stop.
Great
is the
steadfast love
of the
Lord.
Not in some
abstract sense
where we can
look at someone
and say,
oh,
they're a
lovely person.
Haven't they
got such
wonderful
characteristics?
Aren't they
great?
But in
God's case
where we
talk about
his steadfast
love,
and in the
Bible it is
almost consistently
expressed this
way,
it is his
steadfast love
moving in a
direction.
It is towards
us.
It is
steadfast love
that is not
abstract and
over there.
It is
steadfast love
that comes
into the
experience and
the lives of
God's people
and does
something there
that brings
redemption into
their experience,
that sets them
free from the
coils and
entanglement of
sin, that sets
them free from
death itself,
and will one
day raise them
up with Christ
Jesus in the
fullness of the
resurrection.
This is the
steadfast love
of the Lord.
My question
for you
tonight is
quite simply
this, do
you know
this God?
Do we know
the steadfast
love of the
Lord?
Is that what
we're wanting
to worship?
Is that who
we want to
praise?
Is that what
of God we
want to
extol?
It ought to
be as we're
coming to the
Lord's table
because the
Lord's table
is the place
where we
remember the
pinnacle of
that love
being expressed.
in the broken
body and the
shed blood of
Christ Jesus.
It is
steadfast love
for us
sinners.
And it
leads us to
worship.
The covenant
love of the
Lord, that
steadfast love
of the Lord,
it's bound
up in his
covenant as
well.
And so
within the
heart of
covenant
theology is
the simple
fact of
God's
substitutionary
love.
God
establishes a
bond with
his people
to save
and redeem
them.
But the
bond that
he establishes
is one
made and
sealed through
the blood
of Jesus.
And
allied to
that is
this other
word, the
faithfulness of
God.
God
having
entered into
a covenant
to do
this, follows
through on
that promise.
And that
covenant is
bounded at
multiple
levels.
We might
think that it
was God's
promise to
Abraham, who
was the
father of
the faithful,
that God
promised Abraham
his name.
We might go
further back,
in fact, and
we might even
go back to
Adam, and
we could say
in Adam,
well, God
made a
promise to
Adam.
In fact, it
was a promise
passively made
to Adam.
It was a
statement, a
judgment made
to Satan, to
the evil
one, where
he said to
the serpent
in the garden,
one day the
seed of the
woman will
bruise the
head of the
serpent.
It's part
of the
curse.
But within
it, there is
that wonderful
truth, that
promise of
God, that a
faithful,
established
covenant has
been entered
into.
God is going
to redeem
these people.
He's going
to bring
redemption.
And
in the
fullness of
time that
comes in
the person
of Jesus.
But there
is another
layer to
this as
well, which
is the
covenant that
God made
with his
son, that
the father
and the
son entered
into in
eternity before
the foundation
of the
world.
Where creation
is established,
God says we
will make man
in our image.
But even
before that
process begins,
it's not as
if there's a
plan B
gets set up.
Where God
says, well,
by the way,
if things go
pear-shaped and
Adam sins,
you're going to
have to go and
redeem them.
The actual
plan from the
beginning was
that Christ
would come,
that God
the son would
enter into the
experience of
humanity.
It's almost as
if sin was
inevitable, not
foreordained under
God's control,
but just
inevitable in the
nature of his
creatures.
That sin was
inevitable.
God had
agreed within
the Trinity,
between the
Father and
the Son,
had agreed to
come.
And the
faithfulness of
God is seen
that in the
fullness of
time, the
Christ did
come.
This is
perhaps the
greatest wonder
of the cosmos,
that the God
and creator of
all things,
the one by
whose word and
power all
things are made
and sustained,
that he came
into the world,
that he took
on himself the
form of a
servant, and
that he subjected
himself to
the misery of
this world.
And that in his
faithfulness he
went to the
cross and he
died for his
people.
And tonight,
the question
before us is
simply this,
what are we
praising?
I mean, what
are we singing
of when we
sing this psalm?
What's on our
minds?
What's in our
hearts?
What's moving
us?
And surely it
is this, that
we know a
Savior, a
Redeemer in
Christ Jesus,
who loved us
and gave
himself for
us, and
who did
so through
the sorrow
of Gethsemane,
who in the
depths of
sorrow in
Gethsemane
said,
nevertheless
Father,
even though
if I could
ask that this
cup would
pass from
me,
nevertheless
Father, not
my will but
yours be
done,
who surrendered
himself willingly
to the will
of his
Father,
who carried
out the
fullness of
the covenant
commitments that
God had
entered into,
who carried
the cross.
This is our
Savior tonight.
Lord, this is
who we are
invited to
make much
of and to
extol with
our lips.
And so
will we not
come and
praise the
Lord?
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father we thank you for
tonight your fidelity
your faithfulness
the fact that you are
in Christ Jesus the hope of the Gentiles
and so Lord we need
desperately to have our hearts
engaged
and our minds committed
and our faith
exercised towards this great
truth that you
have done it all
and so
Father prepare us to come
in obedience
to your invitation
and we ask this for
Christ's own sake
Amen
We're going to sing in conclusion
in that psalm, Psalm 117
in Sing
Psalms page 155
The tune is Regent Square
We've sung it recently
actually in the congregation
Praise the Lord
O all you nations
all you peoples
sing his praise
for his love is great towards us
his commitment lasts always
he is faithful
now and ever
Hallelujah
Praise the Lord
I think we'll sing it through twice
and we'll stand to sing
and remain standing for the benediction
Praise the Lord
O all your nations
all you need
must sing his face
for his love is great towards us
praise the Lord
He is faithful
now and ever
praise the Lord
Alleluia, praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord, O all you nations, all you peoples sing his praise.
For his love is straight towards us, his moment and last always.
His faithful, alleluia, praise the Lord.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Amen.
Amen.