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.
If you're standing, please just bow your heads in prayer.
Father, we give you thanks and praise that all of our longings and yearnings
things ultimately come home to you. We give you thanks and praise, Father, that you desire us to
know you. You desire to satisfy the longings and yearnings and desires of our hearts.
We give you thanks and praise, Father, that you not only want to awaken and fan into flame within
us deep and true longings and yearnings, but that you will also, Father, shut down and reorder those
of our longings and yearnings that are disordered. But Father, we ask that you fan into flame within
us a deep longing and yearning for you. Lead us and guide us into all truth, we ask in the name of
Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated.
So, I don't know, maybe a year or something ago, I was talking to a young friend, and this young
friend hadn't seen his father in a couple of years for a variety of reasons. And he had just seen his
father and was shocked to discover that his father very clearly had Alzheimer's or some other form of
dementia, sufficiently advanced. I mean, the father still recognized the young man, but sufficiently
advanced he couldn't drive and everything like that. And there's still going to be other types of
conversations around people who suffer from this. And we were talking back and forward. He was asking
me a little bit about Alzheimer's and all. He's not a Christian. He knows I'm a pastor, and we've had
lots of conversations about the Christian faith. And in the course of it, you know, he mentioned,
you know, now I'm, you know, my mom and I are looking into it. Now we discover there's things
that you can do that might postpone getting Alzheimer's, like things that my dad never did,
like exercise, like get his hearing checked, like eating better food, like using things to keep his mind
active, like being social. And he went through a whole list of things that he said, now we know.
And he said, like, who knew? That's what he said. Who knew those things in advance? And I thought,
well, maybe it's because I'm old. I know those things actually. And my mom has Alzheimer's, had
Alzheimer's actually, so I'm conscious of it. And anyway, but he said, who knew? Who knew that those
things were actually important? It could make a really big difference in your quality of life.
The psalm that we're going to be looking at today is one of those who knew psalms. It talks about
four types, more than that, but I'm just going to look at, it talks about lots and lots of things.
It's a big, sprawling psalm that would be, if you ever wanted to go away for a, you know,
a weekend or something, you could probably just spend the whole weekend on the psalm because it's
so sprawling. But it touches on some things that really do make a difference in the life that God
intends for you to have, for all human beings to have. And rather than having to wait until
it's way too late and say, who knew? I'm going to tell you. The Bible tells you. We tell you
different things like this in the same weeks. It's going to talk about something which is
counter-cultural in terms of it's not something, so one of the things I try to do when I'm working
on the sermon is I try to imagine if I have a couple of people who ask me on a Friday, let's say,
what my sermon was going to be about. And they're all people, well, way very outside the Christian
faith. Although all of them to a small amount have become a bit Christ-curious. And so I try to think
of something I could say that would make them be interested in it. But what the first and biggest
thing in this psalm is talking about something that basically no Canadian thinks they have any interest
in. Like to be honest, the need to praise the triune God, nobody has that. The average Canadian would say,
I need that like a fish needs a bicycle. But I'm going to try to show you that's the very first of
several things. It's a type of need, a longing, a yearning that is really important for human
flourishing and growth. So if you would get your Bibles out and turn to Psalm 145.
Parts of the psalm I'm going to camp out on for a while and other parts I'm just going to read
through relatively quickly. But here's how it begins. And just before I begin,
if you ever talk to Jewish people about things in the psalms, you'll sometimes discover that their
Bibles have different verse numbers than our psalms do. So if you just look at this, I don't know if it's
going to be up on the screen, but this is one of those psalms that has a thing at the top that says
something like, in this one in case, it's a song of praise of David. And sort of in the Jewish Bible,
that would be verse one. And so what our verse one is, which is, I will extol you my God and King
and bless your name forever and ever, that would be in their Bible verse two. That's why sometimes
Jewish Old Testament, Jewish psalms have one more number than your Bible. So I'll just mention
that in case you have a wonderful opportunity to talk to a Jewish friend or acquaintance about the
Christian faith. But we see here, it's a Psalm of David. And the thing, one of the things which
you can't notice in this is it's an acrostic psalm. So there are 22 consonants in the Hebrew language,
and each one of the two lines verses begins with the letter. So it's just how, if you have young
kids, you want to teach them the ABCs. I don't know if they would have used a Psalm like this to help
teach Jewish kids their equivalents of the ABCs, but that's what this Psalm is like. And that's sort
of interesting to know because on one hand, it's also, on one hand, like the Psalm is like shooting
off in lots of different directions on one level. But on the other level, it's trying to say this is
part of the fundamental grammar and nature of what speech should be like. Like this is the ABCs
of speech and what your tongue and your mind and your heart and your longings and yearnings are for.
Anyway, let's go. First, we're going to spend longer on the first bit and then a bit shorter
as we go along. But it begins like this. I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name
forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the
Lord and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable or unfathomable. And the word extol
in verse one, that's just one of those hundred dollar words. It just means really, really,
really, really, highly praise. That's what it means. So a superlative praise. And I will extol
you, my God and King, and will bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you
and praise your name forever and ever. And it's very interesting here. The first thing that's,
there's lots of things that are interesting about this, just to camp on. David is the King of Israel.
Israel. And for traditional and Orthodox Jewish people, he is like the great king, the model of
all kings. And yet this great king, the model of all kings, he acknowledges a higher king than himself.
That's what's going on in this psalm. And the other thing is, the psalm begins with David acknowledging
that there is this being, who he's going to reveal in verse three, whose name is the Lord,
that this Lord is David's God and King. And what David here is doing is what we have to increasingly
learn how to do in Canada, which is that the Canadian view of God is not the Christian view of God.
I've only done this a couple of times with people who say they're an atheist. And if the conversation
goes the right way, I'll tell them, can you just describe to me the God that you don't believe in,
that don't believe exists? And they describe them. And I say, well, I don't believe that God exists either.
Which always surprises them. Because generally they think of, Canadians think of God as like maybe a type
of force or a mist or a, you know, something or something way far off. And that's not what Christians believe.
And so in the ancient world, the Jewish people were freaks. They were freaks because all of the smart people,
all of the cultured people, all of the powerful people, all of the religious people knew that it
was just obvious beyond words that there were many gods. Everybody except Jewish people.
Who said, no, no, there's only one God. And so he uses the generic word, my God and King.
Look at it again, verse one, I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord,
Lord, or Yahweh, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. So in a world of many
purported Jewish people would say gods, that people believe are gods, there is in fact only one true
and living God, and that is the Lord. And we now, of course, also know, and there's Old Testament
things, that's a whole other sermon about ultimately God is the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit,
three persons, one God forever and ever. It's a very different God than the God of Canadians.
It's a personal God. He's almighty. He's, and the word Lord here, it sounds off-putting to us, but
for Jewish people, this is their covenant name for God. This means, this is, God has revealed his name
to the Jewish people in the context of intimacy and closeness and nearness, that he, that people can be
with him and he will be with them. It's an intimate image, and it's an awe-inspiring image of the Lord.
And the very first, in fact, my four things that I want to try to communicate in this psalm
is the first one is praise-bless, the second one is ponder, the third one is tell, and the fourth one
is call. And I'm going to spend the longest time on the bless-praise, but that's one of the messages.
What do you use language for? What do you use your tongue for? What do you use your mind for?
What do you use your heart for? It is to praise and bless the true and living God, the triune God,
whose greatness is unfathomable, whose love never fails. The whole universe is filled with his mercy
and grace, and we are to praise him and to bless him. And the word praise and bless, they're very
similar. They're a little bit different. Praise is a little bit more like what we would call adoration,
not purely, but trying to praise God for who he is in and of himself, you know, that he's almighty,
he's everlasting, he's our father, he is good, he is true, he is beautiful, he is wise, he is all-knowing,
that's who God is in himself. And blessing is connected to that, but adds the other flavor of
gratitude. And I think about two months ago, I preached on a similar thing. And to get the difference
would be, if you haven't met Barbara Allen, I hope you meet Barbara Allen someday. She comes to the
eight o'clock service. She's like this, one of the super volunteers of the church. And she's, let's say
she's celebrated her 39th birthday many times. And she's old-fashioned and traditional. And so if you
did something like maybe come into the office and bring some homemade cookies, and she was there and
you gave her one, she would say to you, oh, bless you. Bless you for giving me this cookie.
And you see that, yes, that's an actual Old Testament type of sense of it. It's an expression
of gratitude. Not only that you're thoughtful and kind, and you see me, and you do something for me,
and I just say bless you. And that's this idea here, that we human beings are designed and called.
This is what is countercultural. This is what people will wish they knew, that we actually have
a need and a longing and a yearning. We're incomplete without praise and blessing.
Now, just a couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a young man, and a really
exceptional young man with really good questions. And I think it was like maybe the first time in his
life he'd ever talked to a Christian at any length in a way that wasn't threatening to him.
Thank you for your prayers that I was able to do that, by the way. I'm going to tell you more about
the conversation in a moment, because I wish I could do a do-over in lots of them. But one of the
things I talked to him about was how the Christian understanding of God is completely different,
and it's connected to how... Well, here's what I said. I said, you know, there's only ultimately
four different ways to understand human beings and their relationship to that which is more ultimate.
And I said, probably the first one is that the God or the gods created us human beings to be
the slave of the God or the gods. That's paganism. And it's actually what the Quran teaches, amongst
other things, is that we were created to be the slave of the God or the gods. The second view is that
we are a catastrophic, tragic accident. A catastrophic, tragic accident. That's fundamentally
what the Eastern religions teach. That everything was one. We were in... We were just... There's just
only God, and only God existed. And somehow or another, there's a... Different accounts. There's a
tragic accident, and individual bits of consciousness or gods start to exist. And that's a tragic thing,
and the whole point of life is to get back to the oneness, back to the ocean. The drop of moisture
rain to eventually get back and merge with the ocean. So either we are the slave of the gods,
that's why human beings exist, or we are a tragic, catastrophic accident, or we are...
We are an accident in a universe that doesn't give a dang.
We are just an accident in a universe that doesn't give a dang. And he said, well, who believes that?
I said, well, actually, you believe that. He said, no, I don't. I said, yes, you do. I mean,
you don't completely realize that's what you believe, but you believe in naturalistic evolution,
and naturalistic evolution is ultimately that there's just a series of their scientific laws
that describe physical and processes, and processes and energy. And just by the coincidence
about how things were arranged, one scientific thing, and the something causes something causes
something. And in the world, the universe, in your view, ultimately doesn't give a hoot about you. It
makes no distinction between you and a food wrapper or piece of garbage out on the street.
You live in a completely and utterly indifferent universe, and you just came to be ultimately by
accident. And he said, well, he didn't know what to say. I probably was the very first person in his
entire life who'd ever said something like that to him. And then I said, the fourth view is the
Christian view, is that the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who have loved each
other from all eternity and have no needs but are just pure goodness and love, out of love,
they made and created you for a love relationship with themselves, with God, with them, with him,
I said. My language was a bit... I said, that's the Christian view. And this is what's behind this,
you see. So, because at the end of the day, if our friends of more Eastern religions are correct,
then there is not really ultimately a true need to adore God or to bless him.
If it's in Islam, we might pray to him, but there's things that that's not entirely congruent
with the other things that they believe. But you might do it because that's what a slave should do.
So, it's the proper way to behave. I mean, there's nothing that you would praise or adore if the
naturalistic account of the world is correct. But if in fact, and by the way, I would say the fact
that human beings have longings and have yearnings and have desires, that that doesn't prove that the
Christian God is correct. But they are clues and hints that Christian description of God is the
correct one. If in fact, a loving God created us for a loving relationship with himself,
then in fact, it is within us, even if it's dormant and even if it's unrecognized,
a need to praise and to bless, to know and to love. It's actually there.
And that's what this psalm is calling us to, is to spend time in extolling God, praising him.
And when it says forever and ever and unsearchable, what this is saying, look at it again. What does it
say? I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless
you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and his greatness
is unsearchable, unsearchable or unfathomable. It means you'll never come to an end of it.
Here's how you need to think of it, not as something boring, not as if we have to sing the
same hymn for the rest of eternity, which would be really boring. But here, think of it in this way,
because there is no end to God. God is completely and utterly himself, but there is no end to him.
And that means, imagine that you now die, and you're now in God's nearer presence in the new heaven
and the new earth. And every day when you wake up, there is a new song and melody with lyrics in your
heart. And you hear them, and you want to sing them. And the beauty and the goodness of them breaks
your heart. And you think to yourself, I could sing that song for years to come. And the next day,
you wake up, and there's a new song and melody with lyrics that are so beautiful it breaks your heart.
And you go, I could sing this song. This is even better than the melody and the song that I heard
the day before. And then the next day, you wake up, and there's another new song. And another,
and another, and another. And every day for all eternity, the God who never comes to an end
reveals a song of praise with lyrics and music that breaks your heart. And every day,
the words and the music is more beautiful than the day before.
Or to look at it another way. Every day you wake up, and God gives you a brief glimpse of some new
aspect of his goodness, or his love, or his beauty. And the next day you wake up, and you get another
snapshot or image of his goodness, or truth, or beauty, or love. And it's different from the one before.
And you think, boy, the one yesterday was great. This is even better. And the next day, it's even
better. And the next day, it's even better. Every day, a new revelation from God of something about
his goodness, his beauty, his truth, his love. And that is who God is, and that is what God has called
us to. And so when we praise and adore the true and living God, and when we bless him for the things
that he has done, which are good for us, that is something fulfilling, not only something that God
built into us when he created us, but that he's calling us to as our end.
We were made to adore him, and to bless his name.
And as Augustine said, slightly different,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in him.
But, by the way, why should we believe this? I mean, amongst other things, maybe they're saying
that. You know, one of the reasons why we Christians believe this is that Jewish people had their own
good reasons why they believe this, because only the God of Israel was a God who actually acted in
history, in miracle, and in providence. And only the God of Israel was the God who could predict the
future and say what would happen. And the God of Israel's rules and way of living were beautiful
and wise, far more beautiful and far more wise, and far more lovely and loving than any of the
nations or other systems of thought around them. They had their own reasons. And we have also those
reasons as well. And even more, we know that Jesus rose from the dead. We know that Jesus rose from the
dead. We know that death no longer has hold of him. Death is defeated. He never comes to an end.
And when you put your faith and trust in Jesus, you come into union in him. And you too will now
eventually, in the new heaven and the new earth, have a resurrection body in the new heaven and the
new earth. And you will never come to an end. We know that because of Jesus. The resurrection changes
everything. He really did die on the cross to make you right with God. And he really did rise from the
dead. Hallelujah. That's what he did. And that's why we have that hope. And by the way, you know, with all of
this claim that one of the things we need is to praise and bless the Lord, and that's hard for us
to do. That's why we need Sunday church, where we can come together and Jono can pick spectacular
hymns, and we can sing them together because we don't have the resources. That's why we need the
creed to remind us of who God is every week. That's why we need the collects, and that's why we need each
other, and that's what we try to do here on a Sunday morning. Now, just, I'm conscious of the time.
We're going to have to be moving forward. The next little bit, this is an aside. It's not one of the
four things. The four things is that we use our minds and our hearts and our lips to praise slash
bless the Lord. The second one is to ponder. The third one is to tell, and the fourth one is to call.
And just before we get to that, as part of the second one, which is to plunder, over the years,
people have wondered why have we invested, I mean, over the years, we have, I mean, we've invested tens
and tens of thousands of dollars in Ryle, in training young men and others for ministry.
We have spent tens of thousands of dollars in church planting. Why do we do that?
Like, I've had people say it's like a bit of a waste, and it's sad. You get to meet, I mean,
Daniel Avitan, great work out in Kanata, but losing him was hard. Losing him was hard.
So it not only cost us money, but losing him was hard. Why do we do that? Well, look at verse 4.
One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. We need to be
concerned for the next generation and the next two generations and the next three generations and the
next four generations. Josiah is vastly younger than me.
And God willing, unless Jesus returns, which will be far better, he has, you know, hopefully he has
66 more years of ministry left. And I won't have 66 more years of ministry left.
And I hope that not only will he have a fruitful ministry, but he will have a fruitful ministry
where he raises up someone younger than him, call to the ordained ministry and equip lay people.
And that person, another generation. We should be concerned for who our great
grandchildren's pastors will be. You know, this verse here that commend,
one generation shall commend your works to another, that's why Sunday school is so important.
That you should pray for it and consider being involved. That's why youth group is so important.
That's why it's so important that we pray that the Lord will open a door for us to have university
ministry again. Because our hope and our prayer should be that one generation shall commend your
works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. That's why catechisms and Bible studies,
all those things are so important. We should be concerned about that. And we should pray about it,
be willing to invest money in it, and give our time as well, and the best of our thinking and
creativity about how we can reach out to the university. You know, that's on my heart to
get back. I can't believe we're right beside the university without having a more formal
relationship towards student ministry. We lost it during COVID. It's just a time of waiting in
prayer, waiting upon the Lord, but pray for it. And we want to be a one generation shall commend your
works to another generation type of church. But let's get back to ponder. Look at verses 4 to 7.
One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts.
On the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works, or deeds is maybe a better
word, and on your wondrous deeds I will meditate or plunder. And they shall speak of the might of
your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness. They shall pour forth the fame of
your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness. See, all these things can go back and
forward. It could be a very intricate diagram. One person compared this psalm to a very intricate work
of lace, where all the things are coming back and forward. If you see really intricate lace, that's what
this psalm is like. But here, on your wondrous deeds, I will meditate or I will ponder. And the thing about the
God who really does exist is that not only does he do things, he tells you that he's going to do them.
He does them, and he explains why he's doing them. So why is it, for instance, the same fellow that I
was talking with a couple of weeks ago, and it came up about different types of understandings of
where human beings were in the universe and why certain types of things were important. Because
you see, if in fact you have a longing and yearning for God, and if you are in a universe where you were
created by the triune God of love, and you were created to have a love relationship and connection
and union with that triune God, and obviously it's not going on, something needs to make you right with
him. And that's why Jesus is needed. He is the one who has come, God the Son of God, on behalf of the
Father and the power of the Spirit, coming into our human condition to do what needed to be done, to
reconcile us to God. And when we put our faith and trust in him, we come into union with him
and are reconciled in union with the triune God. The Holy Spirit indwells us, and through the Holy
Spirit, in a sense, the entire Godhead indwells us, and we dwell in the Godhead. It's an absolutely
spectacular and glorious vision. But if Jesus really did rise from the dead, and I think he did,
then it's only a wise thing to listen to what he says. Why do I believe the Old Testament is the
Word of God? Because that's what Jesus believed. Why do I believe that Jesus will come again? Because
that's what Jesus believed. Why do I believe that I have a Father in heaven who loves me and wants me
to pray to him? That's what Jesus believed. He believed it, he taught it, and I want to try to put it into
practice. I'm worthy and as incompetent as I often am. And that's, that's, and, and, and look, look,
look what goes on again. Just the Lord is great. Verse 8, the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to
anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
Why do we believe that? Because of Jesus, because of who he was, because of his compassion towards the
man with the speech impediment, but because of the lepers that he healed, because of the patience that
he showed with people who were rejecting him, how even on the, even when he's dying on the, on the cross,
the patience he has with one of the thieves who dies on the cross, who spends half the day mocking him,
and towards the end of the day actually says to Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,
and Jesus doesn't say, well listen, you're going to have to backtrack a little bit about how you've been
bad-mouthing me for six hours. He doesn't say that. He's patient, gracious, merciful. That's how we know
what God is like, because of Jesus and his, his beauty. Now I mentioned several things about this
young man, and I'm probably telling the story better than it actually happened, because I, I can tell you
that when it was over, I didn't think I'd done a good job.
Um, in fact, as I was driving home afterwards, I played over in my mind all sorts of different
things I could have said and should have said, and I, I didn't beat myself up about it, and part of the
reason I didn't beat up myself about it is because of the next few verses. Let's look, look, let's look
what they say. Look at verse 10 to 13. All your work shall give thanks to you, O Lord, or all your deeds,
or all your works, both of them are accurate, and all your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of
the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion
endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.
So what, how was that a comfort to me? Well, I, I wasn't aware of this particular part of the psalm.
I'm, I'm aware of how the, the, the truth comes up in the New Testament, but, but look again at verses
11 and 12. The saints, that's who he's just talking about, they, we shall speak of the glory of your
kingdom and tell of your power. And what's the power of the Lord? His power is to make known to the
children of man your mighty deeds and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. See, here's the comfort.
My job is to tell. His job is to make that truth come home.
He doesn't say, George, you better manage emotional manipulation and sales techniques and dumbing down
the message and pulling on heart, heartstrings and doing a whole pile of manipulative things to get a
person to accept what you say. Your job is to tell. My job is to make. I make it known.
And it's, and, and that's, that's my comfort. I did my best job. I, God in his grace and mercy gave me an
opportunity to share the image of the four different ways of understanding your relationship and who you
are. And he, he gave me an opportunity to talk about why the Christian message and faith isn't about
doing good things, but about being reconciled and in union with God, that God has to do this. And I
didn't do the, I didn't explain it very well. I was very unsatisfied. I did the best I could, but within
the limits of who I was and in my time, because I didn't wake up thinking I was going to have this
conversation that day, by the way, that I could prepare for. It was one of those things that goes
in a completely and utterly unexpected direction. And, and my job is to tell. His job is to bring it home.
That's very comforting to know. You don't have to have a PhD in theology to bear witness to Jesus.
And you don't have to worry if you don't do it perfectly. I, I've shared this before. I got it
from Greg Kokel. And, uh, you know, my hope in a conversation with him, I get a chance to bear
witness to Jesus. And by the way, I encourage you to pray for me, that I, I'm better at it. And, and maybe
we should just all pray for each other. I pray every day that God will give me two opportunities to bear
witness to Jesus, to somebody that doesn't know him. Now, a lot of times that doesn't happen.
Although, interestingly enough, a guy came up to me a week ago, I often have a Christian book out
when I'm working in a coffee shop. And he came up to me and said, uh, you must be a pastor. And we had
a bit of a conversation. He's not a Christian, but he notices me reading and studying. And he notices
that I have a book and he's now bought one of the books that I, I had beside me. He decided he'd buy
mere Christianity to read for himself. And he said, he said, pastor, you know, you're having an
influence on people here, even if you never say a word, which was a very comforting thing to say.
But, you know, just pray that God will give you an opportunity just to bear witness to,
to Jesus in, in some small way. And maybe it'll open doors to a bigger, a bigger topic, but just
pray that that will happen. And, and you, you extol, you praise, you share about the goodness and
greatness of God. And he is the one who brings that truth home. So the first thing for our lips
is to praise slash bless. The second thing is to, uh, is to ponder. The third thing is to tell,
we are to ponder his works, meditate upon them, meditate upon who Jesus is and what he says and
what he does. His works reveal who he is. It connects to the praising and it gives us stuff to,
to tell other thing about. So there's the praise bless. There is the ponder. There's the tell.
And the fourth one is call to call upon him ourselves. Um, in fact, in fact, this, um,
it was so funny. I, I, uh, you know, coming back from holidays, I had a couple of low days in the
afternoon. I love being the pastor of the church, but you know, you come back from holidays, it can be
a bit hard for part of that time. You know, you just think, oh, it's a really nice day. I wish I could
just sit and read a book or, you know, go for, do something else. And, and it was really funny. I'm,
I'm walking back thinking about that and all. And then I realized that the Psalm actually tells me
to do, the Psalm I'm going to tell, preach to you about was telling me to do something that I wasn't
doing myself. And it was as if God convicted me of it just as I'm walking. Here, here's what I'm
talking about. Look, look at what happens in verse 14 and following. The Lord upholds all who are
falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you and you give them their
food, food and due season. You open your hand. You satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord
is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him, honor him, revere him.
He also hears their cry and saves them. The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he
will destroy. My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord and let all flesh bless his holy name forever
and ever. Amen. Isn't that, it's just a wonderful thing about desires and needs. Here I was bowed down
and the Bible says to me, George, you're bowed down. Are you feeling your falling? I'm to call on you,
Father, because you lift me up. Why am I thinking of everything else other than that? Well, that's
because I'm a dumb guy thinking about what to tell others and not thinking about how I have to preach
the text to myself. You know, you can pray for me that I'm less thick about things like that.
You know, just, I have to share one thing. It's such a neat thing because it goes back and forward
between what God is like in his nature and what he's like in particular to those who come to him
for salvation. Look at verse 15, the eyes have all looked to you and you give them their food in due
season. My wife who's here today, she loves animals. We have two parrots, we have two dogs. In the past,
we've also had finches and a whole pile of animals. And one of the things that she loves to do is feed the
animals. God loves to feed the animals. Like, that's what he loves to do. Feed the animals. Feed us.
Isn't that cool? He knows you have needs. He's the one who meets needs. He knows you have desires. He
satisfies your desires. He knows you need to be saved. He's the one who saves. And so this is both a text
about how do you become a Christian. How do you become a Christian? You've heard this. You've heard
about Jesus. You call out to God. You'd be like the thief on the cross, even if you spent most of your
life just completely and utterly saying ridiculous and horrible things and angry things and derogatory
things about God. But the thief on the cross, just before he dies, says, remember me, Jesus, when you come
into my kingdom. And Jesus says, today you will be with me in paradise. That's who you call out to.
And he will take you to himself. And it's also how we grow. To remember, Christian, that you have a
father in heaven who is the almighty God who loves you and loves to hear you pray.
And he often says no to your prayer requests. And in heaven, you'll find out why that was so wise.
And sometimes he says, I'm going to wait 10 years before I fulfill it. And in heaven, you'll find out
why that was so wise. And sometimes he fulfills them right away. But he knows your needs. He knows
your desires. He knows your fall. And he loves to hear you pray. Just listen again, just before I
close in prayer, to the collect that we read today. The collect is just a very ancient prayer. I think this
one goes back to Gregory the Great, and it was slightly tweaked by the reformers. Listen to the prayer that we
prayed today. Almighty and everlasting God, who is always more ready to hear than we are to pray,
and who always gives more than either we desire or deserve. Pour down upon us the abundance of your
mercy, forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord.
Amen.
I love the Book of Common Prayer. That is such a formative prayer to pray and to live out of.
I invite you to stand.
Let's pray.
Father, we ask that you would fan into flame within us an ever deeper longing and yearning for you,
and fan into flame within us habits and disciplines of praising you and blessing you and of pondering you.
Create within us a desire to see you, Father, commended to the children and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren
and the great-great-great-grandchildren of those who are here and those lost sheep of yours who you will one day,
that you are in the process of calling home to yourself.
Father, grant us an ever-greater ability and habits to be able to tell others of your greatness and your glory and your splendor,
and Father, help us to call upon you, call upon you for our daily needs and for the deepest longing,
everything from the simplest need to the most profound longing and yearning and desire,
which we are almost embarrassed to tell others about.
Father, may your Holy Spirit move and work within us that we will be ones who call upon you,
not just ourselves individually, day by day, but as a congregation.
And we will encourage each other to do this, Father.
Help us to be a congregation of encouragement.
And we ask all these things in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior,
and all God's people said, Amen.
Amen.