Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful
that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either
by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray
for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?
The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really,
I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible,
they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will
do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a
non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't
hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the
types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.
Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father, you know the condition that we're in right now. You know,
Father, some of us might be filled with joy, some of us having some worries. Father, we know that you
know. And so, Father, we know that your Word addresses who we really are in the states of our
real hearts. And we know that your Word is very powerful, important to us, especially since we all
struggle at different times and maybe a lot with worry. So we ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would
bring your Word deep into our heart, that your Word would form our heart and shape our heart and heal
and renew and give life to our heart. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior.
Amen. Please be seated.
Amen.
A lot of people aren't often conscious of when they worry. I mean, obviously some of us know that we're worrying,
but a lot of us aren't actually that conscious when we're worrying. But one of the times when worry really
comes home, and we all, you know, maybe you'd say that's not like me, but if you have a good friend or a sister
or a brother or a mom or a dad or a wife, they'd say, yeah, yeah, that's, he's talking about you.
You know, I say, what are you worried about? You say, no, I'm not worried. And I know that you're worried, right?
So, but one of the things that really brings worry home to us is when we try to sleep.
And things that are worried just stops us from being able to fall asleep or stay asleep or fall back to sleep.
That we wake up in the middle of the night for whatever reason, and then we just, the worries go around and around in our minds
and we just can't get back to sleep.
Often the worries that we worry about are more like the tip of an iceberg.
One way to think about worry and what it's like to be a human being with worry is to think of every one of us,
every human being, as we walk around throughout the day, we're actually pulling a little red wagon behind us.
If you don't like the color red, it can be a blue wagon, yellow wagon, whatever, orange wagon, whatever color you like.
But we're pulling a little wagon behind us.
And so something comes up that I start to worry about and I put it in that little red wagon.
And then something else, you know, and then there's some things maybe I've been worrying about for months, for years,
that just, it goes in the little red wagon.
And so a lot of times what we don't realize is we see human beings walking around and we don't see the invisible wagon that they're pulling.
And we don't realize that some people, those little collections of worries, some of them small, like just teensy-wingsy things,
some of them quite big.
But for many of us, that wagon is actually stacked higher than the ceiling here.
And we're pulling this wagon behind us and all these worries are tottering.
And in fact, actually what happens is another source of worry is that our worries are tottering and that they're going to sort of undo us.
And so often, even when we have worries in the middle of the night, it's the tip of the iceberg.
And some of us know we begin by worrying about one thing, but then we wake up in the middle of the night and we worry from this,
we worry about that and we worry about that.
But really, there's a whole little red wagon of worries that we pull around all the time and we don't often know what to deal with.
The psalm that we're going to look at today, that Uzo read, Psalm 67, is actually a very, very, very, very wise and helpful psalm slash prayer slash song
that talks about worry and is a bit of an antidote to worry.
And especially when, as I'm going to show you in a moment, it's connected to ancient practices,
it's a very, very powerful thing for us to consider trying to use more of and make more a part of our lives.
One of the things, I don't know how many of you have ever gone to Costco,
but the first maybe three or four times I went to Costco, I kept getting it wrong.
Now, if you've never been to Costco, you'd wonder, like, how could you go to a Costco and get things wrong?
Well, the first thing is, like, I go to a, you know, a Loblaws or whatever, you just walk in, right?
No, you can't just walk into Costco, you have to have your membership card out.
You have to show your membership card.
If you don't show them that card, you can't get in.
And then, like, you know, a very other simple very thing is that when it comes to the cash,
you don't put the cash, everybody else makes you hold on to your cart.
Costco makes you let go of your cart.
In fact, you can always tell the people who've just joined Costco when you're in the lineup,
and you see the people trying to bring their carts the way they normally do,
and the people, the staff say, no, no, no, you have to put the cart this way.
It's, we've been formed, we don't realize it, but, you know, Loblaws and Metro and all these grocery stores,
they formed us into a particular way of doing carts.
I've only been to England a couple of times.
Every time it's been very, very short, just it was a work-related thing for, like, two days or three days.
And I'd love to go sometime for a longer period of time.
But one of the worries I would have about going to England is that they, from my point of view,
drive on the wrong side of the road.
And I'm so deeply formed with driving on the right side of the road
that I would worry that if I was in a car, I would keep going into traffic and having accidents,
just because we've been deeply formed.
So we're a wide range of ages here, small congregation, but wide range of ages.
And one of the things for Christians, especially Christians under 35,
increasingly they are wanting, they're sort of becoming very conscious of how the world,
how Canada forms you, how there's, in a sense, a type of a forming power of our culture all the time.
And they're looking for new ways to be formed.
In fact, many of them are looking into ancient practices,
like having morning or evening prayer or something like that.
And so why am I saying all of this?
In the English Reformation, which happened in the mid-1500s,
one of the things that those early reformers did, which was very, very wise,
first of all, they didn't want to just get rid of everything in the Christian past.
They'd say, well, like, why would you get rid of Augustine?
Like, why would you get rid of John Chrysostom?
Like, why would you get rid of some of these really beautiful prayers that have been written?
Like, why would you get rid of that?
But they did realize that some stuff had developed over time in how Christianity was practiced.
And there's a lot of stuff that had to be purged.
Things had to be reformed to be made more biblical and to also make the gospel more clear.
And so that's what they did.
And one of the primary things that they did, this was a very, very bold vision in the mid-1500s.
They said, you know, we would like to see every Christian on one hand like a monk.
What they meant is that it had developed within Christianity that, well, I could just go ahead and live my life,
but the monks are supposed to pray and the monks are supposed to read the Bible, but I just go ahead and live my day.
And they said, no, no, it's not that the Reformation wanted to create the priesthood of all believers.
It wanted to create the monkhood of all believers.
It wanted to come to the place where the average person, the housewife, the shopkeeper, the farmer, the soldier, the business person, the artist,
that all of them would develop a habit of praying in the morning and in the evening and reading the Bible in the morning and in the evening.
And so what they did is they went and looked, and monks had developed this really complicated way of praying six times a day.
And they took three of them, the three for the early part of the day, and then they were sort of going to group them together,
cut out a whole pile of stuff that was going on there and make sure that everything that was done was biblical and reflected the gospel
and the three things that connected more to evening.
And they created this service called Morning Prayer, and it's actually something that a group of people can do together,
but it's actually something that the early Christians, like over almost 500 years ago,
they wanted people to get into this habit, that every morning they would say some prayers and read the Bible,
and every evening they would say some prayers and that they would read the Bible,
and it would be a bit of a discipline.
And one of the things with this type of a discipline is they wanted to make sure there were certain things
that really helped to form you, that were good to say every day,
so they made sure the Lord's Prayer was in there, that you'd pray the Lord's Prayer every morning and every evening.
The Creed would be there, that you would say the Apostles' Creed morning and evening,
because it's impossible to read the Bible without knowing the Creed.
I mean, not read it correctly, it's a great help.
And then they also sort of took these very foundational or formative texts that you could pray,
whether from the early church or whether it was from certain Bible texts.
Now this is a long introduction to say that what they thought they would do
is that they would say every second night we'll have people pray and read Psalm 67.
Every second night.
That's what we'll have people do.
Now let's just have a read about it, and you'll see why this is actually quite a brilliant thing.
Well, I'm going to read the whole psalm through,
and then I'm going to go back and say a few more things about it,
but just listen to this again.
Psalm 67.
And just sort of remember, you know, we...
See, here's the thing.
One of the things that we have a problem with is we think,
ah, you know, we're really smart Christians,
and we're really, you know, knowledgeable Christians,
and those Christians back, you know, 500 years ago,
like, what did they know?
How could they possibly know as much as we know?
Like, we know... No, no, no.
They often knew the Bible way, way better than we do.
And they knew the human heart better than we do.
And they knew there was a problem with worry.
And they knew there was a problem with selfishness and narcissism.
And they knew there was a problem of having small visions
and only thinking about yourself.
And they knew that that was the human condition.
And so they picked Psalm 67 as one of these texts
to really form you in a deep way.
By praying it every second night.
And here's... Just listen to it.
So here I am.
It's coming up to the end of the day.
I have my little red wagon.
It's really piled high with my worries.
And then I pray.
May God be gracious to us and bless us.
And make his face to shine upon us.
That your way may be known on earth.
Your saving health, power among all nations.
Let the peoples praise you, O God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
For you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon the earth.
Let the peoples praise you, O God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
The earth has yielded its increase.
God, our God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us.
Let all the ends of the earth fear him.
What a powerful thing to pray.
To pray on a regular basis.
To pray as you read the other bits of the Bible.
Now, so this, in a sense, this psalm was something
that they wanted you to read on a regular basis.
To remember all of the time as you're reading
the other parts of the Bible.
So that, in a sense, would start to form you.
That it could be memorized.
That it forms just how you think about the world
and see the world.
And it's made even more powerful
if you understand some of the bits in it.
And, in fact, I mean, I don't...
So, by the way, I know that Christians
aren't happy and upbeat all the time.
I mean, that would actually be sort of weird
if you always were.
Like, you know, you never get tired.
You never get hungry.
You never get grumpy.
Like, really?
We have a range of emotions.
But one of the things I think...
I mean, actually, what led me to become a Christian
was to see in other people
the emotional power and beauty of the Christian faith.
That's what led me to become a Christian.
I mean, afterwards, I discovered, you know,
lots of doctrines and apologetics
and all of that type of stuff.
But, you know, there is...
For people outside of the Christian faith,
they don't realize that as you enter into the Christian faith
and it becomes deeper, you become deeper in it
and it becomes deeper in you.
There really is something emotionally powerful
and beautiful in it.
I mean, obviously, you know, we have bad times
and depression and all those things.
But there is, in fact, still this something
which, as it takes hold of us,
is emotionally beautiful.
And you can see that when you look
at the little bits of it.
Let's look at verse 1.
We're going to camp in verse 1 for a bit.
But look at verse 1 of Psalm 67.
May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us.
Just a little while ago,
there was one of the people who works at a coffee shop
that I go to regularly.
I came up to get...
In that particular one, if you buy with a card,
you can get free refills.
And I like to get free refills because...
Free.
So I like free.
That's very powerful to me.
Free.
So I go up for my free refill
and I said to him,
I said, I just press send
and now my day's done.
I'm going to have this tea.
I'm going to head for home.
And so he said to me,
well, what do you do?
You obviously don't work in an office.
You work from home.
And then I said to him,
I said, well, I don't.
Maybe you don't know this
because you've only been working there about a month.
I said, I'm a pastor of a local church.
Now, here's the funny thing.
He said something which completely surprised me.
I found out later on,
I mean, he's like his grandparents,
great-grandparents were Catholics or something,
but he himself has nothing in practice.
Anyway, so I said,
I'm a pastor of a local church.
And he said,
oh, that explains how you always have
a positive attitude with us.
I thought, well, that's...
Not everybody thinks Christians are the bad guys.
I mean, that was one of the first things I thought.
But now, one of the reasons is that
I actually very self-consciously
tried to be a source,
like a type of secular blesser
to the people in the store
so that as I get to know them,
I make a point of,
like when I'm leaving, for instance,
to say,
and this is what I mean by a secular blessing,
I hope you have a really great shift.
I hope you have a great evening.
I hope you have a great rest of the day.
Like, I want to try to be an encourager to them.
And so I was really surprised when he said,
yeah, that fits.
You're a pastor.
You have this constant positive attitude.
Now, the reason I'm mentioning that
is this very word,
this very powerful word, blessing.
And it's going to be important.
Look at it again.
Verse one,
may God be gracious to us
and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us.
If you could put up the first point,
this is a bit wordy,
and I need to qualify it a little bit
and I probably should have shortened it,
but what's a blessing?
A blessing is power from the triune God
for you to thrive.
Like, that's actually the main thing to remember.
A blessing is power from the triune God
for you to thrive.
And then I've tried to make sure you understand.
It's a power for you to thrive.
And it can be one or more of this,
some combination in physical things,
like in health.
It can be what I call soulish,
because I didn't think of a better word.
I sort of made up a word, soulish.
It had a big red mark underneath it
and they didn't like it.
Google or whatever was very unhappy
that I used that word.
But soulish,
and that basically means
just like everything that goes on internally,
like, you know, your emotions,
your mind,
your will.
And then, of course, the social,
because we're, you know,
social human beings.
And it's a blessing in the,
a blessing is power from the triune God
for you to thrive in any of those spheres,
one or more.
And it's also a blessing
in terms of either the original creation,
which is what we live in right now,
or the new creation,
which is the new,
the coming new heaven and the new earth.
So what does this mean?
It means that,
so for instance,
I could pray for somebody
that God would bless them
with a good night's sleep.
Well, that's something physical
and something for their soul,
and it's something of this creation.
I could maybe pray
in my own prayer
that God would bless
a Muslim that I know,
that not only would he grant them
a good night's sleep,
but that Jesus would appear
to them in a dream.
You can pray that, by the way.
That's a good thing to pray.
Now here, obviously,
I'm not only praying
for a physical thing
that they would thrive,
but obviously a different type
of thriving
if Jesus was to appear
to them in a dream.
You know, you could pray
that there'd be harmony
in the family.
Well, that's a social thing.
That's part of this creation.
That's something that God
would obviously would like.
You could pray
that somebody would become
more prayerful.
Right?
So this is all,
this are all that God
would bless this person
with a deeper prayer life.
So that's what a blessing is.
And so it can be about,
you know, sleep,
physical things.
And it's why you can pray
blessing, God's blessing
on people outside
of the Christian faith,
on all sorts of people.
A blessing is power
that comes from the triune God
for you to thrive.
And now here's,
just look at verse one again.
May God be gracious to us
and bless us
and make his face
to shine upon us.
When I became a Christian,
I knew the Bible was special,
but if you do ask me
what the doctrine of the Bible is,
I wouldn't have been able
to tell you.
In fact, if you,
if I, if you,
if maybe in,
you know,
maybe one of the things
they'll do in heaven
for us to all have lots
of a big laugh
with each other
is to play back
what we said
when we were younger Christians.
And for some of us,
we'll be cringing
and everybody else
will have a good belly laugh
over the dumb things
that we said
or the dumb things
that we believed.
And over time,
you learn.
That's the hope
of the Christian faith
that you learn.
And, and so,
but the Bible,
one of the things
which is so powerful
when you understand
that Jesus wants you
to know that the Bible
is God's word written,
that God was the one
ultimately responsible
for the Bible being written.
The words that are there
are the words
that he wanted.
So what you're hearing
when you hear the Bible
is you're hearing God speak.
That's what you're hearing.
And, and so this on one hand
causes trouble for people.
A bit of a pre-announcement.
The first weekend in the fall,
we're bringing Paul Copeland
to Ottawa,
the Dig and Delve
Apologetics Ministry,
because sometimes
if you read parts
of the Old Testament
in particular,
it looks as if God's
called for genocide.
It looks like he's called
for holy war.
Some people will say
that it looks as if
the text is justifying
women being captured
and raped.
It looks like
it's justifying slavery.
There's a range of issues
and people say,
well, if this is what
God's word says,
how can you,
how can I worship that God?
And we're bringing in
this fellow Paul Copeland.
Bring your questions,
bring your skeptical friends,
bring your Christian friends
who are worried
about the Christian faith.
And we're going to have
a Friday evening
and Saturday morning
and there's a chance
he's going to be
the preacher the next,
the following Sunday,
the first Sunday in October
here at Church of the Messiah.
But that's in a sense
that not the danger
because the Bible
doesn't teach those things.
It's just a matter
of understanding
what the Bible
actually says.
I mean,
I probably read the Bible
twice a year
from cover to cover.
And the more I read
the Bible,
the more I know
that it doesn't teach
any of those things.
But anyway,
that's a bit of an aside.
But here's the important thing.
If you understand
that the Bible
is God's word written,
he wants you to pray this.
Like, what is God
thinking right now in heaven?
God is thinking
right now in heaven.
I want George
to learn how to pray
like this.
I want George
to pray about things
like this.
I want the people
in Church of the Messiah
to do this.
It's not being selfish.
It's not being high.
He wants me to say,
God, be gracious to me
and bless me and us
and make your face
shine upon me and us.
He wants me to pray that.
See how it talks
about worry?
To go to bed
saying,
one moment.
Okay.
And by the way,
a lot of your worry,
you know,
they're real things.
You know,
they're real things.
You have worries
about maybe your job,
your credit card bill,
all sorts of things.
I'm not saying
there's no worries.
But as you go to bed,
God is saying to you,
George,
I know you got
that little red wagon,
but here's what
I'd like you to pray.
Here's how I'd like
you to pray.
This is what I'm hoping
you'll pray,
how you will pray.
God,
please bless me
and my family.
Please
be gracious
to us.
I know you are,
and I know
your face is
shining upon me,
and may that
be true to me.
May that become
more real to my life.
He wants you
to ask for this.
It's part of the,
see,
this is what I was saying.
It's part of the emotional
beauty of Christianity.
That as we realize,
God wants me
to pray that.
Like,
he wants me
to pray that.
In the context
of my worries
and my hopes
and my dreams.
And it's not just that.
There's something in here
which shows the,
and this is connected
to the emotional beauty
and power
of the Christian faith.
faith.
And it's something
which is completely
and utterly unique,
which is seen here
in verse 1.
It's throughout
the entire
Old Testament.
Look at it again.
May God be gracious
to us and bless us
and make his face
to shine
upon us
or upon you.
You know,
I've had,
I had my times
after I became
a Christian faith
where I had doubts
about the Christian faith.
And as I've shared before,
for me,
at that time,
that I wasn't losing
my Christian faith
to become a,
you know,
like a Buddhist
or a Muslim
or any,
I,
for me,
it was atheism.
It's always been atheism.
That was my,
that was a source
of my doubt.
But, you know,
one of the things,
it was both the low point
of my atheism
but in some,
like my doubting
my Christian faith
and being pulled
towards atheism
or not wondering
whether Christianity
could be possibly true
and whether,
you know,
all of secularism
and agnosticism
and there is no God
and all of that,
that that's actually
the true thing.
And it was both
on one level
the depths of it
but also a turning point
I remember
almost in every case
that I'd be in some place
where you could actually
see the starry sky
maybe a little bit
outside the city
and I could see
the stars
and the black
but you know what,
I didn't see the stars
and I didn't see their beauty,
I saw the emptiness.
I saw the void.
That's the faith
of atheism
and secularism.
It's the void.
Lifeless,
indifferent,
empty space.
It is not the God
who you can become
in such a way
that his face
shines upon you.
To my friends
of other faiths,
you cannot possibly
imagine
a text like this
about Allah.
There is no possible way
that there would be
any text like this
that says Allah's face
smiles upon you,
shines upon you.
There is a sternness
and an indifference
to Allah.
For Buddha?
Well,
even in my neighborhood
I have lots of,
I drive by places
that have statues
of the Buddha
and
the Buddha,
the way Buddhism
is portrayed
is not
that at the end
of the day
you will appear
before a person
whose face
can shine
upon you.
The Buddha
is self-contained.
learning to be
indifferent
to desire.
And here is
the wonderful thing
when it says
his face
to shine upon you
and especially
as you go throughout
the rest of the Bible
and even in this psalm,
it is a smile.
It is a beaming smile.
It is a smile
that reflects
goodness.
It is a smile
that is pure.
It is not the smile
of a salesman
hoping
or a saleswoman
hoping they can
manipulate you
into buying something.
It is not the smile
of a person
hoping they can
so charm you
that they can
get you into bed.
It is not anything
which is impure.
There is a purity
to his shining
upon you.
It is affection.
It is delight.
It is love.
And this is how
God is described.
This is what
the ancient reformer
said,
you're going to go
to sleep.
As you go to sleep,
remember
that if you are
in Christ,
this is how God
is looking at you
right now.
Some of you
are worrying
about very,
very hard things
and some of you
might be in a position
where you are
very emotionally
down.
I have no authority
in and of myself
to say this.
All I have
is the authority
of God's word
to say that
if you are in Christ
right now,
God's face
is shining upon you.
You see,
in a sense,
this prayer
of Psalm 67
is forming me
to ask,
Father,
may you
help me
to have a humble
walking
knowing
that in Christ
you look at me
and your face
shines
as you look
at me.
Now,
let me tell you
what I've just said
about God
being described here.
Obviously,
that's not a proof
for Christianity.
But if you're
outside the Christian
faith,
don't you want
this to be true?
Like,
don't you want
this to be true?
I mean,
for everyone
who is outside
the Christian faith,
I mean,
you have reasons
why you're not a Christian.
I acknowledge that.
I know that.
I know that
from the inside
in my earlier life.
But there's also
a part of you
that doesn't want
Christianity to be true.
But when you hear this,
don't you want it
to be true?
Now,
some of you
might say,
well,
George,
this just sounds
to me like
the type of
a narcissist
prayer.
Bless me,
face shine upon me.
It's the prayer
of a tyrant.
Well,
there's a couple
of reasons
why that is not
the case.
And the first one
of them
is just seen
in verse 2.
So verse 1 is,
may God be gracious
to us
and bless us
and make his face
to shine upon us.
And it's all part
of the same sentence.
The ESV preserves
that it's one sentence.
You know,
two stanzas
but one sentence.
So may God be gracious
to us
and bless us
and make his face
to shine upon us
that,
your way
may be known
on earth,
your saving power
among all nations.
So,
if you could put up
the second point,
that would be very helpful.
He blesses you
to be a means
by which
he blesses others
from every nation.
He blesses you
not so you can just
get bloated
with his blessings
and just get bigger
and fatter
with his blessing.
Looking within,
happy at your blessing.
Everything in the world
is going to hell
and a hand card
and you're just
getting fatter
with his blessing.
No.
I mean,
that's one of the things
he does is
when that starts
to happen to us,
he punctures us.
He punctures us
because that's not
blessing inside,
that's hot gas.
That's something
foul
that's making us
really big like that.
He punctures that.
His word punctures that.
It's,
it's,
this is teaching me
to ask the complete
opposite of narcissistic
questions.
If I've been blessed
with a good mind,
the question for me
is God has blessed me
with a good mind.
How does he want me
to use my mind
to bless others?
If God has blessed you
with good,
large financial resources,
now he's not asking you
to give it all away,
but the question
you need to ask
if you have really
good financial resources
is,
okay,
he's blessed me
with these financial resources.
How does he want me
to give my money away
to be a blessing?
You know,
maybe he's blessed you
with time,
you know,
and leisure.
Not that you just
have to do all of your,
you only spend all your time
in,
you know,
doing,
you know,
praying,
but God's blessed me
with this time,
with this leisure.
How am I to use this
to bless others?
I mean,
one of the things
I sometimes tell people
that are older,
that are,
you know,
that are,
you know,
retired and everything
like that,
is I said,
you know,
if you have a harried mom
who's doing,
trying to keep her sanity
while looking after
three young kids
under six,
if she manages
one minute of prayer,
that actually might be
worth an hour
of prayer for you.
I'm a bit nicer than that
and not sort of mean,
right?
Because gosh,
it's just so hard
when you're harried
with kids,
but you know,
but it forces me
to ask,
you know,
and it forces us
as a congregation
to ask these very,
very non-narcissistic questions.
If God has blessed you
with a good house,
why has he blessed you
with a good house?
Is it to show hospitality
to people?
Is it to have people over?
Is it to have people
from the congregation
who maybe are single
or lonely
into the congregation
to invite your neighbor?
Like, see,
this psalmist force
is inviting us
to ask this other question
because he blesses you.
He blesses you.
He blesses us.
What do we do
with the blessing?
And it's one of the things
which is so wonderful
about this in Psalm 67.
It's a big vision.
Okay, he didn't just bless me
so that I can bless
the other people
who have my political views,
like the same type of music.
No, no, no.
There's these nations
that have come from
all over the world
to come to Canada.
How do I bless them?
How do I bless...
I mean, this is why
we support missionaries
in Angola,
why we support missionaries
in Northern Africa.
I'm going to be recommending
to the council
because we have some extra money
to give to missions
that we adopt a mission
by the end of the summer
that's trying to bring
the Christian message
to Afghanistanese
in Derry.
Isn't that something
we should want to do?
Help somebody tell people
about Jesus
stuck in Afghanistan
in the Derry language.
It's why we want
to plant churches.
It's why we want
to have a seminary.
And more and more,
how can...
God is blessing us.
How is that supposed
to go out?
That's what this psalm
is teaching us.
It's teaching us
a really, really big vision.
It's the opposite
of narcissism.
Now, I have to wrap things up
in a moment,
but there's something in here
which is going to get
at the deepest part
of how God wants
to bless us,
and it's found
in a type of a riddle.
Look at verse 2 again.
that your way
may be known on earth.
Your...
Look at this.
Saving power.
I mean, this gets
a lot of Canadians nervous.
Your way?
The good news is
that God has made a way.
Let me tell you.
If I give you a way
to make to reach God,
get a beer instead.
Don't listen to me.
I can't reach God.
Good grief.
What a ridiculous idea.
The Bible is the biggest critique
of religion and spirituality,
but what if God made a way?
And what if his way
that he made to us
was a way
where his saving power
can come to ordinary people
like you and me?
And then it continues,
verse 3,
let the peoples praise you,
O God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad
and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples
with equity
and guide the nations
upon the earth.
Let the peoples praise you,
O God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
So here's the riddle,
which is within this text.
The Bible is rejecting
self-salvation.
It says it doesn't work.
You have to receive
or surrender to
or come into
what God has provided.
In fact, actually,
you could put up
the third point.
That would be very good.
Claire,
the greatest blessing
is to surrender
to God's power
to save you
through faith in Jesus.
The greatest blessing
is to surrender
to God's power
to save you
through faith in Jesus.
Well, how can this work
and how does this
make any sense?
So you see,
the big problem
is,
and basically,
every religion
or spirituality
other than Christianity,
which is absolutely unique,
doesn't solve this issue.
You see,
really what happens,
like if you think
of something like Islam,
what you actually just have
is that God has favorites.
Sucks to be you,
sucks to be you,
sucks to be you.
Oh, like you,
boop,
sucks to be you.
You know,
he just has favorites.
It's sort of like
when Biden,
or whatever's going to happen
now with Biden,
but when he steps down,
he's going to give pardons,
right?
I've used this analogy
many times,
and most people
don't think it's justice.
It's just think
he's letting his cronies off,
and a Republican
will do the same thing.
This isn't any
political type of comment,
and nobody thinks
that these are all
profound acts of justice.
Occasionally,
they are,
that they'll give a pardon
to where there's been
a clear miscarriage of it,
but usually,
it's just their business cronies,
their political cronies,
their friends,
and they just give them a pass,
and that's what a lot of people
basically think
in terms of how salvation works,
but that's not
what Christianity is.
In Christianity,
grace isn't unjust,
and grace is not favoritism.
justice and the demands
of justice is met
in a way
that if it grabs you,
should just gobsmack you,
and I haven't used this analogy
for a long time,
but I'll use it again
because it's a brilliant analogy.
I actually learned about it
from a person from Thailand
who'd converted from Buddhism
to Christianity,
and here's the analogy.
Imagine,
we're going to have to go back
a few years.
I can't remember the last time
that England was in the Euro Cup
and made it to the finals,
but, you know,
whatever,
10 or 12 years ago.
Imagine that England
finally won the Euro Cup.
It's hard for us to imagine.
Go watch some things.
When your country wins,
they go completely berserk,
bananas with joy.
So England wins
the Euro Cup.
First thing they've won
since they won the World Cup
in 66 or something like that,
and there's a big victory celebration
in Wembley Stadium.
Sits 110,000 people,
and the English soccer team is there.
There are 110,000 people
going completely crazy.
British rock stars are singing
and all of that type of stuff,
and then all of a sudden,
the lights go down.
A voice comes on and says,
all of the exits have been lost.
There's a small nuclear device
in the very center of Wembley Stadium,
and we're going to blow it up
because it's time for England
to pay for its crimes,
and we're going to blow it up.
Goes out on the Internet,
goes out on the radio.
If the police try to do anything
to try to let the people come out,
do anything at all,
we're going to push the button.
We're going to kill everybody,
but we want to have a time
to humiliate the nation first.
And especially now
in the age of the Internet
and social media,
that would go around the world instantly.
In fact, large parts of the world
would stop looking at
what's happening in Wembley Stadium.
Now, I've used this analogy before,
but it's still a good analogy.
If I was to somehow or another,
you know, I found out
that one of you is actually a hacker,
and they're able to hack in,
and I call up the terrorists
and say, listen,
let the 110,000 people go
and all go sit in the nuclear device.
They'd laugh.
Why would we do that?
That's stupid.
But if the Queen of England
was to call them up
and say,
I will go and sit on that nuclear device
if you let the 110,000 people go,
they would take it.
They would take it in a moment.
You think the whole world is watching
while 110,000 English people
are in Wembley Stadium?
Just imagine what would happen
if the Queen of England
was sitting on that nuclear device.
They'd know they have all of England
in their grip.
England's past and present and future.
And all the Commonwealth nations,
they have them in their grip
because that's who the Queen can represent.
And if they ended up detonating
and killing her,
there'd be more mourning,
almost,
over her death than 110,000.
We can all see how the one
can represent the many.
And this is the power
and the beauty of Christianity.
God, the Son of God,
the Queen can represent all of England.
The Queen can represent the democracies.
The Queen can represent the Commonwealth.
Only God, the Son of God,
can represent every human being
who has ever lived.
And He is the one
who took our place.
And He willingly took upon Himself
the judgment.
If you could put up the point,
that would be great.
The greatest blessing
is to surrender to God's power
to save you
through faith in Jesus.
Now, I need to wrap up.
My time is up.
If you could just put...
Actually, we'll just read
verses 5 to 7 in closing
and then put up the point, Claire.
So it continues.
Let the peoples praise you, God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
The earth is yielded.
It's increased.
God, our God,
shall bless us.
God shall bless us.
Let all the ends of the earth
fear Him.
If you could put up the final point.
Why is it
that I pray
that people I know
come to a saving faith in Jesus?
Why is it
that I think
it's so important
to plant churches?
Why is it
that I think it's important
to support missionaries?
Why is it?
Well,
the Lord desires
more and more
ordinary people
from every nation
to know the joy
of worshiping Him?
That's why you pray.
Listen,
your testimony might be,
listen,
I'm not going to tell you
about necessarily
what God is doing
in my life right now
because really right now
I, frankly,
I'm having a really hard time.
But I know
that my Savior
is my Savior.
I know there will be joy.
It has been joy.
There will be joy.
Why do we pray
for others
to become Christians?
The Lord desires
more and more
ordinary people
from every nation
to know the joy
of worshiping Him.
The greatest blessing?
Surrender
to a saving power
by putting your faith
in Christ.
Remember
that God
is blessing you
to bless others.
Remember
that when you are
in Christ,
like right now,
I can't say this
in my own humanistic power,
but right now,
God is looking at us
and His face
is shining upon us.
Like right now.
Let's pray
that we live
out of that truth.
I invite you to stand.
Father,
we give you
thanks and praise
that you are a person,
that you love us
and you made us
as people
to know you
and to love you,
that you made us
to glorify you
and enjoy you forever.
That's why you made us.
That's what you made us for,
to glorify you
and to enjoy you forever.
That you desire
that even on this side
of the grave
that we would know
the joy of worshipping you,
of self-effacing
looking at you
and what you have done.
And we thank you
for Jesus.
We thank you
for what he did
for us on the cross.
Father,
if there are any here
or any online
or watching downstream
who have not put their faith
and trust in Jesus,
Father,
help them even now
just to surrender.
Surrender into his hands.
Surrender and say,
Jesus,
you are Savior.
You are Lord.
I am yours.
Knowing that he will
take all
who say that to him.
And Father,
we ask that you help us
not only to count
our blessings,
but as we count
each blessing
to also think
how is it,
why is it
that you have blessed me
with this?
How is it
that this is to be
a blessing
that I can use
to bless others?
Father,
we ask that you do that
for us as individuals,
that you help us
to do it as a church.
And we ask all these things
in the name of Jesus,
your Son,
and our Savior.
And all God's people said,
Amen.