WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.519 So, perhaps you can turn back with me in your Bibles to Psalm 104 on page 607, as we are invited 00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:20.559 ! to give glory to the God who enjoys His creation. This psalm and this evening, in a sense, are all 00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:30.179 about looking at God's world with wonder. Perhaps it might be helpful to think of a time in your past, 00:00:30.219 --> 00:00:36.659 or maybe just the last time, when there was something in the created world made you say, 00:00:36.659 --> 00:00:45.299 wow, stopped you in your tracks. For me, I can remember as a child, late at night, sneaking out 00:00:45.299 --> 00:00:52.479 of my bedroom window to lay on the grass, because I knew that there was a shower of shooting stars 00:00:52.479 --> 00:01:02.119 that evening, and spending hours watching, you know, the inky blackness of the sky as these 00:01:02.119 --> 00:01:10.640 blazing stars passed overhead. That was a wow moment for me. And it's good for us to have that 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:17.439 sense of wonder in the world that God has made, and to acknowledge the God who made it. 00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:25.680 I think for most Christians and most people in the world, we will never, ever suffer from a view of God 00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:32.439 that is too big, but we will often from time to time have a view of God that becomes too small. 00:01:33.460 --> 00:01:38.240 And so, I think Psalm 104 is one of these psalms that becomes a gift to us, because they can help 00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:45.439 to counter that, because in this psalm, two things we're going to focus on. We're going to meet 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:54.659 the Lord God of glory, who we're told in verse 31, rejoices in His works. We're being invited to see 00:01:54.659 --> 00:02:00.780 the God who at Genesis 1 proclaimed the earth to be very good. And the psalm is going to show us why 00:02:00.780 --> 00:02:07.599 His world is very good, and why God rejoices in it. But we're also invited to recognize in verse 34 00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:16.479 that we should rejoice in the Lord. So, we are to see the beauty of creation, but never to stop there. 00:02:16.539 --> 00:02:21.240 Rather, we are to rejoice in the Lord. So, that's the two things we're going to think about. Why does 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:28.299 the Lord rejoice in His works, and why should we rejoice in the God who loves and takes pleasure in 00:02:28.300 --> 00:02:37.380 His creation? Okay, verse 31, may the glory of the Lord endure forever. May the Lord rejoice in His works. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:45.900 Again, if you think about maybe the last time you went to an art gallery, or you looked at a piece 00:02:45.900 --> 00:02:53.120 of architecture that was particularly impressive. If we spend any time at all reflecting, we are drawn 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:58.140 in our hearts and in our minds to praise of various kinds. Perhaps it's the beauty that we see, 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:04.740 the scale that's on display. Perhaps it's the scope and the scale. But at some point, we make that move 00:03:04.740 --> 00:03:12.400 from the masterpiece or the great piece of architecture to the one who made it. And that's 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:20.879 the big idea of Psalm 104. The whole universe is a canvas revealing the masterpiece of God's design. 00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:29.240 We see wonder all around, and the Psalm really wants to bring that out for us, with the ultimate design 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:37.699 that we wouldn't stop at the masterpiece. We would recognize the artist who made it all, 00:03:38.219 --> 00:03:44.979 and that we would give Him praise. When we rejoice in the wonderful works of God, 00:03:44.979 --> 00:03:56.099 we are following in the example of our God. And Psalm 104 gives us three reasons why the Lord chooses to 00:03:56.099 --> 00:04:03.959 rejoice in His works. And the first is because God's works reveal His glory. That's the connection of 00:04:03.959 --> 00:04:11.439 verse 31, may the glory of the Lord endure forever. May the Lord rejoice in His works. God's glory is seen 00:04:11.439 --> 00:04:22.719 in God's world, in this universe. And that's why the Psalm begins in poetic language, taking us back to 00:04:22.719 --> 00:04:32.639 Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Here is another way of picturing God as creator at the beginning. 00:04:32.639 --> 00:04:41.639 There is the idea of God as the King over His creation. Look at the way it's written, 00:04:41.719 --> 00:04:46.879 Lord my God, You're very great. You're clothed with splendor and majesty. This is the one who makes 00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:58.379 the clouds His chariot. And the universe that God creates is for us a revelation of His royal majesty. 00:04:58.379 --> 00:05:07.319 So think about the way it's put together. Here is the Lord God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 00:05:08.019 --> 00:05:16.279 He is the King, and as the King, He is pictured as commissioning and commanding a great building 00:05:16.279 --> 00:05:23.439 project. Look at verse 2, He stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of His upper 00:05:23.439 --> 00:05:33.300 chambers on their waters. The idea of God intimately involved in creating this world. And as these verses 00:05:33.300 --> 00:05:41.319 develop, we see there is order, there is control, there are no rivals to the rule of God. God sets limits. 00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:52.000 It's there in verse 5, He set the earth on its foundations. It can never be moved. And then of the 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:59.519 waters, by the time we get to verse 9, you set a boundary, the waters cannot cross. The idea that we find in 00:05:59.519 --> 00:06:08.060 Genesis 1 of dividing and separating the sea from the land, it's here in a different form. But God's 00:06:08.060 --> 00:06:19.040 powerful voice is what creates and shapes and fills this vast universe. So that God has charged the earth, 00:06:19.040 --> 00:06:32.580 the universe with His glory. Sadly, all too often we're too busy to notice it. It becomes commonplace 00:06:32.580 --> 00:06:40.879 to us. Sometimes we're too blinded to stop and to see and to worship, but that's what we're invited to. 00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:49.300 We live in a city that should make it easy for us to worship, I think. Alexander McCall Smith, I love 00:06:49.300 --> 00:06:55.060 his quote. It used to be on the wall of Morningside Library. It's speaking about his home city, Edinburgh, 00:06:55.219 --> 00:07:03.899 here. He said, this is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas, a city so beautiful 00:07:03.899 --> 00:07:11.459 it breaks the heart again and again and again. And if you've seen the sun shining on the crags, 00:07:11.519 --> 00:07:17.339 if you've been surprised by the beauty of Arthur's seat, then you know something of what he's talking 00:07:17.339 --> 00:07:26.699 about. We see glory everywhere in this world. We see glory in the starling murmurations. I don't know 00:07:26.699 --> 00:07:34.639 if you saw that one that was captured by the BBC. The starling murmuration above Chester. There was 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:40.459 falcons coming to dive, but the falcons couldn't get anywhere because they were dancing in harmony. 00:07:41.300 --> 00:07:47.199 There's glory in the starlings. There's glory in the cheetah chasing its prey. 00:07:47.199 --> 00:07:56.839 There's glory in the roaring 40s around Cape Horn, where the currents at that point in our globe move 00:07:56.839 --> 00:08:05.099 at 4 billion cubic feet per second, where the winds regularly reach hurricane level over 200 miles an 00:08:05.099 --> 00:08:12.259 hour, where the waves can reach over 100 feet. There is glory in our world. And that's just in our world. 00:08:12.259 --> 00:08:18.259 If we go galactic for a moment, think about our solar system. We are within the Milky Way galaxy. 00:08:19.379 --> 00:08:27.159 And if we, in our little solar system, were to fully orbit our galaxy, I am told it would take us 230 00:08:27.159 --> 00:08:36.879 million years. That is vast. When we remember that our sun is just one of 200 billion or so stars in our 00:08:36.879 --> 00:08:49.139 galaxy. The Hubble telescope, when it was pointed at one fixed point in the sky for 12 days, detected 10,000 00:08:49.139 --> 00:09:00.259 galaxies beyond our own. There is glory to God in our world. Two weeks ago, NASA confirmed 6,000 exoplanets, 00:09:00.259 --> 00:09:06.360 so planets outside our solar system. Before 1995, didn't know there was any. And now they're discovering 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:14.759 thousands. So, our telescopes serve to enhance our vision of God's glory, but so too do our microscopes. 00:09:16.600 --> 00:09:24.840 I learned about diatoms this week, the tiny microalgae in our waterways, invisible to the naked eye. 00:09:25.580 --> 00:09:31.539 But there are, you know, there are thousands of them in a single teaspoon. But they are amazingly 00:09:31.539 --> 00:09:38.740 beautiful. Each one is unique. And those tiny little things that we cannot even see, they generate 00:09:38.740 --> 00:09:46.519 somewhere between 20 to 50 percent of the world's oxygen. There's glory everywhere we look. 00:09:47.860 --> 00:09:55.459 And there's glory as we consider one another as God's image bearers. And one of the great privileges 00:09:55.460 --> 00:10:04.800 that we have as people is that we are uniquely able to reflect and to wonder. And we have been created 00:10:04.800 --> 00:10:11.060 with a sense of wonder that we might be drawn towards our wonderful God. 00:10:11.059 --> 00:10:27.559 We are unique. We do matter. We are tiny in the cosmos, but we are valuable to the God of glory. 00:10:29.959 --> 00:10:34.879 So, that's one reason why the Lord rejoices in His works, because they reveal His glory. 00:10:34.879 --> 00:10:41.480 But there's a second one within the psalm. God rejoices in His works as they display His wisdom. 00:10:42.379 --> 00:10:51.340 It's there in verse 24. How many are your works, Lord, in wisdom? You made them all. The earth is 00:10:51.340 --> 00:11:00.299 full of your creatures. So, as the psalm writer sits down to write this wonderful song, he has that 00:11:00.299 --> 00:11:06.839 instinctive understanding. When I look at a masterpiece in the universe, it demands a master 00:11:06.839 --> 00:11:16.039 craftsman, someone with wisdom to bring it all to be. And what he does is he turns to the seas and the 00:11:16.039 --> 00:11:24.059 oceans for that example. Verse 25, there is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond 00:11:24.059 --> 00:11:32.239 number, living things both large and small. The ocean's an amazing place, isn't it? Well, we have 00:11:32.239 --> 00:11:40.619 the sunlight zone from the surface down to the depth about 200 meters. It only has about 3% of the world's 00:11:40.619 --> 00:11:49.579 water, but it hosts 90% of all marine species. And central to it all is the tiny zooplankton that seems 00:11:49.580 --> 00:11:55.500 to be so important to keeping the food chain going. But then you can go down into the real depth, into the 00:11:55.500 --> 00:12:03.720 midnight zone, 1,000 meters to 4,000 meters, where the only light that exists is the bioluminescence of 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:12.139 the fish themselves. It's the home to the anglerfish and the ghost sharks, and all of these creatures that 00:12:12.139 --> 00:12:18.780 had been unknown for thousands of years, but each one of them giving glory to God in the wisdom of their 00:12:18.779 --> 00:12:28.699 design. And we're beginning to see them. The average depth of the ocean is beyond two miles. 80% of our 00:12:28.699 --> 00:12:36.879 seas are still unexplored, but when we do explore, they too will give glory to God's wisdom when new 00:12:36.879 --> 00:12:44.620 species and new ways of living are discovered. Back up to our surface. If you've ever had the joy 00:12:44.620 --> 00:12:51.860 of watching dolphins playing by the ferry on the way to Lewis, if you've ever seen a humpback whale 00:12:51.860 --> 00:12:59.259 breach the surface, if you've ever snorkeled and watched a seahorse float by, then you have seen 00:12:59.259 --> 00:13:05.960 the wisdom of God before your very eyes. And the psalmist helps us to recognize that. 00:13:05.960 --> 00:13:15.780 Here's the third reason why God the Lord rejoices in His works. It's because they reveal His authority. 00:13:16.680 --> 00:13:24.440 That's here really from verse 10 down to verse 30. The psalmist begins to look around and he begins to 00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:33.180 list each sphere of creation that puts on display the reality that God is King. So, verse 11 to 13, 00:13:33.179 --> 00:13:39.479 where's His eye? It's on the water systems, rather, verse 10. He makes springs, pour water into the 00:13:39.479 --> 00:13:44.859 ravines. It flows between the mountains. They give water to all the beasts of the field. 00:13:46.939 --> 00:13:52.659 The life that comes from the rain that supplies the land that supplies the living creatures, 00:13:52.659 --> 00:13:59.939 it comes from our God. And then He turns naturally from there, verse 14 to 16, to think about 00:13:59.940 --> 00:14:06.600 the produce of the land. He makes grass grow for the cattle and plants for people to cultivate. 00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:12.460 Wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts. 00:14:13.700 --> 00:14:19.900 God provides for our needs. He provides for the animals, and He provides for people. 00:14:19.899 --> 00:14:33.579 giving thanks before a meal. That's never, you know, a kind of a mindless kind of thing that we perform by 00:14:33.579 --> 00:14:42.480 roar. It should be an opportunity for us into worship and into joy as we recognize God's provision, 00:14:43.179 --> 00:14:49.819 God's authority that means we can eat. And then He moves from there to 00:14:49.820 --> 00:14:55.180 think about the habitats. Verse 17, there the birds make their nests, the sork has its home in the 00:14:55.180 --> 00:15:01.700 junipers, the high mountains belong to the wild goats, the crags are a refuge for the hyrax. 00:15:01.700 --> 00:15:08.220 I think that's the Salisbury Crags. He makes habitats suitable for different creatures. 00:15:09.400 --> 00:15:16.660 All the different biomes that we encounter in the world can all accommodate life. The snow leopard 00:15:16.659 --> 00:15:21.839 that has an easy time of it in King Craig normally lives in the high altitude, 00:15:22.079 --> 00:15:28.539 snowy mountains of Central Asia. I had the very restful, peaceful joy of just for a few moments 00:15:28.539 --> 00:15:35.699 watching a live cam of a South African watering hole. You ever want a breather from life? Find a 00:15:35.699 --> 00:15:42.079 live cam of a watering hole. And there was rhino, and there was a hippo, and there was some giraffes. 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:48.240 I'm guessing it was a highlights reel. There was an elephant, and I also discovered the heaviest 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:55.340 flying bird in the world was there, the coribustard. You can watch them on a live cam. 00:15:55.980 --> 00:16:04.980 And God the King establishes habitats for all of these creatures. Verse 19 to 23, it's the rhythms 00:16:04.980 --> 00:16:11.200 of day and night. He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. And 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:16.399 when the sun goes down, the wild predators come out, and they are able to work, and they're able to find 00:16:16.399 --> 00:16:25.320 their food. But when the sun comes up, they go to bed, and then we get up and go to work the days before 00:16:25.320 --> 00:16:36.060 shift work. But this whole psalm is challenging the idea that creation is chaotic and random, 00:16:37.060 --> 00:16:46.500 that creation is some kind of cosmic accident. I read a paper trying to explain the beginning of 00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:55.200 the world in these terms. So, there was a garbage bag of living cells that was there at the beginning, 00:16:55.320 --> 00:17:02.060 and imagine that bag being shaken up. And from the shake-up, we have the world. 00:17:04.460 --> 00:17:13.380 It requires a lot more faith than to trust in the authority of a divine, wise, glorious, authoritative 00:17:13.380 --> 00:17:20.340 God who spoke and brought it into existence. And then as you continue to look at that section, 00:17:20.339 --> 00:17:27.599 we are reminded in verse 27 to 30, this God who has created all things, this God who provides for all 00:17:27.599 --> 00:17:36.539 things, He is the God who is sovereign over life and over death. When you hide your face, they are 00:17:36.539 --> 00:17:41.799 terrified. When you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your spirit, 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:50.440 they are created, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. Our royal creator King 00:17:50.440 --> 00:17:59.919 was there at the beginning, creating it all, and He continues to sustain it all. And in Jesus, 00:18:01.180 --> 00:18:07.379 our Lord has entered in to this world He has made in order to bring redemption. 00:18:07.380 --> 00:18:22.500 Why does the Lord rejoice in His works? Because creation in all of its glory returns praise to the 00:18:22.500 --> 00:18:30.880 God who made it. It's interesting, that's the way Psalm 103 closes, and then we get into 104. Psalm 103, 00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:41.120 verse 22, praise the Lord, all His works everywhere in His dominion. Dominion, rule, kingdom, authority, 00:18:41.520 --> 00:18:49.520 everything under God's rule should praise the Lord. It's there towards the end of the Psalms as well, 00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:56.480 Psalm 148. Just to pick out, having praised the sun, the moon, and the stars, verse 5, 00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:03.500 let them praise the name of the Lord, for at His command they were created. The King creates, 00:19:03.660 --> 00:19:11.559 therefore the King deserves worship. And as these Psalms present that instinct, 00:19:12.860 --> 00:19:22.059 that creation praises its Creator, perhaps we begin to recognize something of the tragedy within humanity. 00:19:22.059 --> 00:19:33.779 Because of sin, we no longer instinctively praise our Creator. It's like the magnetic poles have been 00:19:33.779 --> 00:19:40.559 turned around, so instead of being drawn towards God in worship, now we move away from Him and we tend to 00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:46.099 ignore Him. Since Genesis 3, that's been the natural pattern of the human race, 00:19:46.099 --> 00:19:57.559 taking glory from God and taking it for ourselves. Or as Paul wrote in Romans 1, worshiping created 00:19:57.559 --> 00:20:08.000 things rather than our Creator. But still we have the reality of our loving Creator God, who has filled 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:14.079 the universe with wonderful things, who has been and continues to display His glory and wisdom and power, 00:20:14.079 --> 00:20:21.599 and He is continuing to call us towards a loving relationship of worship and wonder. 00:20:23.839 --> 00:20:32.139 So our second question is this, why should we rejoice in the Lord of creation? Why should we follow the 00:20:32.139 --> 00:20:42.319 Psalmist? In verse 34, he said, may my meditation be pleasing to Him as I rejoice in, not in creation, 00:20:42.319 --> 00:20:54.500 as I rejoice in the Lord. I came across a little phrase that I really appreciate. Paul Tripp, 00:20:55.019 --> 00:20:59.700 biblical counselor and Bible teacher, he recently wrote this as a piece of advice, 00:21:00.159 --> 00:21:07.299 don't pick a flower, boil an egg, or pet a dog without worshiping a glorious God. 00:21:07.299 --> 00:21:16.680 What's he saying there? I think he's saying the same thing as Psalm 104. Whenever we discover 00:21:16.680 --> 00:21:23.039 something that is good within God's creation, whenever we encounter something that creates a 00:21:23.039 --> 00:21:29.740 sense of awe in the universe, now whether that's a sunrise or the crashing waves, whether it's birdsong 00:21:29.740 --> 00:21:41.819 or autumn leaves or boiling an egg, we are invited to move from enjoying the good thing to rejoicing in God, 00:21:42.400 --> 00:21:54.460 our good creator. For many of us, I imagine we have at some point enjoyed David Attenborough and his 00:21:54.460 --> 00:21:59.960 documentaries. And to watch a David Attenborough documentary, you recognize that there is 00:21:59.960 --> 00:22:07.299 something coming close to worship happening there. David Attenborough said this, it seems to me that 00:22:07.299 --> 00:22:14.180 the natural world is the greatest source of excitement, the greatest source of visual beauty, 00:22:14.799 --> 00:22:20.980 the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life 00:22:20.980 --> 00:22:34.700 that makes life worth living. So close. What's missing is that he stops at the natural world. 00:22:36.360 --> 00:22:42.960 When we watch one of David Attenborough's wonderful documentaries or any other nature program, 00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:52.039 we should press beyond the natural world to the God who created that world, to the God who is the 00:22:52.039 --> 00:22:58.160 source of greatest excitement and visual beauty and intellectual interest. And that's what Psalm 104 00:22:58.160 --> 00:23:04.819 does for us. It reminds us that God has been incredibly kind to us in telescoping his glory for us, 00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:11.900 in helping to rescue us from the tendency to shrink God down or to ignore him in his world. 00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:19.700 And this matters for each one of us personally, when we understand that we are made by God for glory. 00:23:19.819 --> 00:23:25.500 Why do we love glorious things? Because we were made for glory and that ultimately our hearts would 00:23:25.500 --> 00:23:34.880 be captured by his perfect, unsurpassed glory. But the Bible tells us, and so does our experience, 00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:40.740 that sin, which curves us in on ourselves, will make us glory robbers. 00:23:40.740 --> 00:23:48.259 In that sense, rather than recognizing God as King, we want to push him out. We want to take credit for 00:23:48.259 --> 00:23:55.500 things that only God can do and produce. We long for people to see our glory rather than his. And so, 00:23:56.019 --> 00:24:02.620 from the very earliest time of Adam and Eve taking the forbidden fruit, we have been stealing glory from 00:24:02.619 --> 00:24:10.519 our God. But we're also invited to discover in the Bible, and we discover it personally in Jesus, 00:24:10.639 --> 00:24:21.179 that only God's glory can truly satisfy. That's the good news of the gospel. There is an answer for 00:24:21.179 --> 00:24:28.459 our hungry hearts that are looking for glory, and it's found in the Lord Jesus. He is the one who, 00:24:28.460 --> 00:24:35.500 John 1 tells us, created the world in wisdom. And then he stepped into this world that he made. He 00:24:35.500 --> 00:24:44.220 stepped into the canvas of creation, revealing to us the perfect glory of God in his perfect life of 00:24:44.220 --> 00:24:52.740 true obedience, in his loving sacrificial death for our glory robbing, and in his resurrection. 00:24:52.740 --> 00:25:03.960 With the result, that we can live with hope. We can live with hope that there is a day coming when we 00:25:03.960 --> 00:25:17.880 will gladly give God glory. Always. There is joy coming. That we will live in the light of his glory. 00:25:17.880 --> 00:25:26.860 Always. Always. As we come to trust in Jesus, the glorious Savior. 00:25:30.660 --> 00:25:36.800 We're in holiday season, and maybe some of us are going away on holiday. Maybe it's just that we're 00:25:36.800 --> 00:25:44.020 spending time in the city with family and friends, and the weather is nice. Can we talk to one another 00:25:44.019 --> 00:25:53.119 and talk to our own hearts and souls about the glory of God that is behind the beautiful colors and the 00:25:53.119 --> 00:25:59.680 delicious meal and the incredible view? Can we invite ourselves and others into wonder? 00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:07.900 Can we ask God to create something of that childlike wonder in ourselves and in others, that we would 00:26:07.900 --> 00:26:17.299 slow down to smell the roses, to pet the dog, to boil the egg, all the while seeing through 00:26:17.299 --> 00:26:28.880 to the God of greater glory? Can we live with that sense of everyday worship as we walk through 00:26:28.880 --> 00:26:39.900 God's world to really say, thank you for that delicious meal? To sing through life as we are struck again 00:26:39.900 --> 00:26:50.960 and again by God's great glory. I will sing to the Lord all my life. I will sing praise to my God as long 00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:59.600 as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him as I rejoice in the Lord.