Classic Friday: Psalm 117

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Psalm 117 and the Call to Ceaseless Praise

This morning we come to a very interesting psalm in the Old Testament that is Psalm 117, as you�ve heard already. It�s a psalm that has really become central in my thinking and in my life over this last year for various reasons and primarily for the great truths about God that it presents.

As you turn there, I would invite you to turn there to Psalm 117. Just a few things about this psalm that are interesting and providential. This psalm falls in the mathematical center of the Bible. In case some of you are math nerds, there�s 594 chapters right before the psalm and 594 chapters after it.

It�s right there, smack bang in the middle. But I think even more than all of that, it�s providential that God placed it in the middle because it really, even though it�s the shortest psalm in the Bible, the shortest chapter in the Bible, it�s also one of the most central in terms of its truth and its meaning and it capsulates much of what the whole gospel and the whole scripture say about God and Jesus Christ.

Martin Luther, therefore, he loved a lot of the psalms and in many ways he discovered the gospel in Romans, but he was led to that through the psalms and he loved this psalm particularly. He said there�s so much gospel truth in it, so much so that he decided to write a whole separate 36-page commentary on just these two verses.

So that�s about 18 pages per verse. So if we don�t get done until, you know, about midnight tonight, I�m still going short compared to Luther. But this psalm was part of the Hillel psalms and this particular set here, the Hillel were songs of praise that they would sing as they went to the temple, but this 113 -118 where psalm 117 is found is part of a special Hillel.

It was called even the Egyptian Hillel, six psalms sung particularly celebrating the exodus. But if you remember redemption history, that takes us all the way to then what Jesus did on the cross. And they sang these six psalms including 117 every time they celebrated the Passover.

Now catch the significance of this even before we get into the psalm. Matthew 26 verse 30 tells us that Jesus as he celebrated the Passover, he sang a song and this would be the traditional psalms that he would sing with his disciples.

So just in case you didn�t know this, Jesus sang and he sang scripture and he even sang this psalm as he was going to the cross. And we�re going to talk about that even as we go through this psalm, but I think one of the reasons why is as Jesus was going to that cross that he was going to offer his life for you and me.

He was even centralized on glory and on the glory of God that was going to be promoted through his sacrifice that he was going to give for his people. And that's because this psalm is saturated with praise to Yahweh.

It starts off with Hallelu when we know that word from the Hebrew Yahweh, and then it ends.

With Hallelu-Yah.

And even the tense of these verbs that introduce, we haven't even read the psalm yet, I'm just sort of introducing it, there's so much here, is a sense of commanding God's people as they think about God's work in their lives and God's work in the world to be filled with praise from beginning to end.

It starts with praise and it ends with praise. Isn't that what our life is supposed to be? Isn't that what we're saved for ultimately? Not for ourselves, not for our own merit, not for our own work, not for our own glory, not for our own ministry, but that we would fade away even.

That we would die and that our life would just be in a little bit of what we did even this morning, right? As we sang together. This is what we get to look forward to in heaven forever and ever. It would be just ceaseless Hallelu-Yah.

And so intentionally the psalm brackets us with that idea of worship from beginning to end to teach us that the driving force of the Christian life is not our activities, it's not our work, it's not church programs, but it's worship which is a hidden work that only God can see.

Christianity is not some kind of an act that we play before one another, but it's the grand call of Christ even, isn't it, in Luke 9 verse 24 that whoever wishes to save his life must lose it for my sake.

And so the psalm is calling us to reflect upon this truth that I have no value. Wouldn't you say that that's the beginning point of being saved in the gospel? I'm a wretch, I'm a sinner, I have nothing to offer God except for one thing, my sin.

I have no value.

But I am captivated in salvation by the grandeur of the value of who God is, of who God is even in Jesus Christ. And life is about me losing myself in the grandeur of God. That's the adventure of Christianity, isn't it?

And this is really what makes life sweet, even as you go through trials to recognize that they will all lead you toward the grandeur of worship. So let's read Psalm 117 and follow along with me as we read this shortest chapter and yet this most solid and saturated and theological chapter in the Bible.

Psalm 117, starting with verse 1, it says this, praise Yahweh, all nations, laud Him. That's an interesting word.

We'll talk about it.

Praise Yahweh, all nations, laud Him, all peoples, for His loving kindness is great toward us and the truth of Yahweh is everlasting. Praise Yahweh. Even as we read these verses, you can see the divine logic.

It's very, it's very clear. The scripture is doxological and so it leads us to worship, but it's also logical. It makes you think as you worship. And the first part of this Psalm, verse 1, is the command or the what of worship.

We need to think about the content of what we worship God in and for. And then verse 2, and you can see the clause changing there, for, giving us a cause or a why of worship and a sense of even being motivated.

If you're asking, how can I be worshiping ceaselessly? And you're saying, life doesn't seem like that to me all the time. And He gives you some fuel, some gasoline, so that worship can go on in a ceaseless way based on who God is.

And so this Psalm is really like a life lesson, a life journey on how to make worship the driving force of all that we would be. Everything that we do in ministry and in life is all encapsulated in worship.

Paul said that, right? Philippians 1 .21, for me to live is Christ and dying is more Christ. And so this is really what we're going to learn even as we look at this Psalm. And I want to split it up in this way for us as we meditate on this Psalm.

This Psalm gives us basically two exhortations to make your life Christian. If you are a Christian this morning, to make your life, two exhortations to make your life resonate with worship. We don't want to have worship start from our own imagination.

We don't want to have worship start from our own creativity, but we want to have worship start from God's revelation of Himself. And we want to resonate with that. So there's two exhortations to make your life resonate with worship.

And so we're just going to be looking at the first one in verse one and the second one in verse two. Look again at verse one as it says, praise Yahweh all nations and laud Him all peoples. What a grand call that is.

And it's a call that takes us, you know, sometimes we can become so small minded. We can just think about our lives. We can think about our trials. And He wants to lift you up to think about who you are as part of the kingdom of God.

You're part of something that is bigger than the universe. And this is the God that you know. This is the God that you serve in Christ. He's over all the nations and He's over all the peoples. And so the first exhortation is just simply this.

It's this idea if you have too small a view of God, and that's why your worship is too small. And so start brothers and sisters with a corrective, saturate your mind with God's greatness. Isn't that the battle of life?

We begin to think that God is small and life is big. And He's saying, no, no, no, no, no, no. Start your day. Start today even with thinking about how great God is so that the things of this world maybe that you're even struggling with this morning, and I know you will have struggles if you're a Christian, will become small.

Saturate your mind with just how God, with how great God is. Every single nation, every single people is under Him. We get intimidated sometimes by the nations and the people, right? I've had a lot of episodes even this last year where I've had to be with authorities and police and ministers.

And it's scary sometimes because, you know, I'm just a small and significant man. But we need to recognize like Isaiah, that God is always on His throne and no matter who's coming and going, that there is only one consistent reality that the Christian.

Lives in.

And that is that God is in charge. He is sovereign. He's ruling and nothing can change that. And so the Psalmist commands our hearts and he says, don't be led by your emotions. Don't be led by what you saw on the news last night.

Don't be led by just the things that you see even, but through faith, be led by the doctrine of the greatness of God. And then the feelings will come. And then you'll be led to worship. Now, he starts by saying, praise Yahweh, or we know this as Hallelujah.

I get so fed up sometimes when I hear people using it almost as a Christian greeting, right?

Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

We're just throwing it around.

And the thing that bothers me, even in all of that, is we don't even hardly know what we're saying. It's just something that Christians say like, hello. And as I was studying this, I was just, my mind was boggled with some of the richness of what this word even means.

It's not just a Christian phrase, but it's something richer. As the psalmist says, Hallel, he's using an idea that we may not think of often, but was very convicting almost to a Hebrew mindset and to somebody that knew this language.

Look for instance, in one place, at a verse that you might know well, but you may not have known that this word was used there. Jeremiah chapter 9, verses 23 and 24. Jeremiah chapter 9. Maybe some of you have this verse on your walls.

Maybe some of you have cross-stitched this verse. But Jeremiah chapter 9, verses 23 and 24. So we're going to be doing a little bit of moving around in the Old Testament. And it says this. Familiar words to you.

Let not the wise man, what, boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches. You know, all that muck that we tend to have our life saturated in in this world.

But let him, and we love the resolution, let him who boasts. There is a kind of boasting that is sinful, but there is a boasting that we are exhorted.

To have.

Let him who boasts, boasts in what? That he knows and understands me. We love to brag about stupid things, the psalmist, Jeremiah is saying. The castles on this earth, our accomplishments, our education, our, you know, our brilliance.

And he says, all of that stuff is done. And the only thing that we should brag in and we should boast in is what? The fact that you are known by God. The fact that Christ has made you an enemy of God, his friend, right?

Now catch this. The word boast, every time it's used in Jeremiah 9, 22 and 23 is the word halal. And so when you turn back to Psalm 117, turn back there, this is what the psalmist is telling.

Us.

He's saying that there's a sense in which your mind needs to be saturated with God's greatness and is that you need to use that sinful tendency that you have to brag about dumb things that you do and that you, you have in your life, your money and your achievements.

And maybe the fact that you have six kids or whatever, and that you think you've made it in life. And he says, you need to silence your mouth and you need to be using your mouth and your heart more to brag in Christ and in God and who he is.

You see how this, this word that we normally use, hallelujah, is actually a word of conviction. It's a word of repentance. It's a word of abandoning our sinful bent to be self-arrogant and to say that we would like Paul says, I will boast in Christ alone.

I will boast in God alone. The only substance that we have that is worthy of boasting is, is God and, and, and so he.

Goes on to help us.

He says in verse one, if you look at Psalm 117, verse one, again, he says, brag in Yahweh.

Why?

First of all, because he is over all the nations. So how do we saturate our minds with God's greatness? I think the Psalmist is giving us sort of a two-step way to saturate our minds, to, to marinate our minds, to just soak our minds so much with who God is that there's nothing else left there.

He says, first of all, boast in his rule. He is king of kings and think about his rule. This is, this is the theme of all of scripture, isn't it? And in fact, it is promised to Christ in Psalm two, that the God who is the creator of the God, who's the ruler of all the nations who made them anyway, why wouldn't they be under.

Him?

He promises to put all those nations under Christ. And you remember the first words of Jesus when he was raised from the dead to his disciples, he said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore. You know, I, I hate it when people start with go, you got to start with all authority. And that's why we have a mission. That's why we have a Christian ministry. That's why we have a Christian life even.

And so the Psalmist reminds us of just this, this grandeur of who God is. You know, I, I get to travel around a lot and I, I love the opportunity that I have sometimes to go into some, some big cities, you know, Boston, Los Angeles and, and, and for me, I'm a small guy and as I'm, I'm looking at some of these buildings and they're hundreds of stories high and they're just huge and, and massive edifices that, that represent the greatness of man in a certain sense, you, you, you feel a little small and then you get in a plane, right?

And you take off and you get to 30 ,000 feet and you're looking at some of those buildings that were scaring you and they look like small little Lego blocks. That's just a little bit of God's perspective all the time.

He's never looking at what we do here on this earth and seeing that as significant because he's the Lord over all the nations, not just one nation. And that's what he seeks to do even in the missionary endeavor that we have in Christ, isn't it?

To just claim that authority that's already his. Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 15, it says this, this is God's perspective all the time and we need to remember this. Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are regarded, you know, as a, a speck of dust on the scales.

That lint maybe that you cleared off your, your jacket this morning. That's how the nations look to, to Christ and to our God.

That's who he is.

Behold, he lifts up the islands like, like fine dust, right? And in this day and age where our anxiety lies in, in governments and them coming and going and politics and, and the things of this, this world, we just need to remember who the God is that we serve day by day.

He's the God who owns all the nations. Why do you fret? Why do you worry? Why do you allow your mind to be filled with a sense of bragging in the things that don't matter, right? Even some of us, maybe we have this addiction, probably men just looking at politics on the.

News.

And I know it's, it's interesting and it's getting kind of strange nowadays, but do we have so many conversations just talking about that in our homes that our kids are even getting anxious and scared because they think that that's the only thing that matters and they forget that God is on his throne?

You got to be careful even how you talk about politics today. Don't, don't, don't brag in the things that are happening on this earth, brag in the things that are happening in heaven, boast in God, boast in Christ, because one day this is the reality and this is what we get to long for.

Even as we sit here in churches that one day he's going to gather us, Revelation 19, 6, and what kind of gathering is it going to be? I can't wait for that day. A multitude of heaven from every tribe and every tongue and every nation, Revelation 19, verse 6, saying, hallelujah for the Lord, our God, the almighty reigns.

Every nation that thought they were great has fallen. Egypt, Rome, you know, whatever nation you look at today, America, India, China, we're not going to stand. But the only kingdom that will stand forever and ever is the kingdom of Christ.

Why?

Because he's the God of the nations. And so, the psalmist first draws our attention to this idea. If you're beginning to be small-minded, he says, saturate your mind with the greatness of God, first of all, as the ruler, the king of kings, who no one can thwart, who no one can challenge.

And he demonstrated that preeminently in the cross, didn't he? As the nations raged against him, who triumphed? The Lord Jesus. And that's why we're here today. No one can thwart the kingdom of Christ, amen?

The Missionary Heart of Psalm 117

And now the psalmist moves as he's still trying to just blow our minds, to make our minds recognize that we can't contain worship in our minds. That's the adventure, isn't it? That's why heaven isn't boring.

If you ever thought about it, we're going to be there for millennia and millennia. What are we going to do after day 2000? We're going to learn new things about the greatness of God. And so, he goes on to show us how we can continue to be saturated by saying, not just boast in his rule, but he says, celebrate his redemption.

That's the second way in which we can be saturated with his greatness. Celebrate his redemption. Look at verse 1 again. He says, laud him, the second part of verse 1, laud him, all peoples. Now he's moving from the great, the nations, to the minutia.

This word for peoples is talking about the small tribes or the small families of the.

Earth.

And it's showing us even the missionary heart of God, where he's going to gather together from all the nations. He's going to gather together a people from every family of this earth to sing his praises.

And even as I look around this room, isn't that true even in this church in some way? I mean, as you think about it, there's all kinds of divisiveness out there in the world, but it doesn't happen here.

We shouldn't actually be sitting next to each other in this room, but we're only sitting here because of Christ's redemptive power. And so, he says, that's a cause for celebration. This word for laud, you know, it's this old English word.

I don't know if some of your Bible translations say celebrate. That's a better rendering of it, really, that we can understand. Psalm 63 verse 3 says this, because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips will laud you, or my lips will sing praises to you.

Isn't that true that really all the songs that we sing, and if we sing songs about ourselves, they're dumb songs. But all the songs that we sing really enthrall our hearts when they're songs about Christ and his redemptive power, right?

Those are the songs that really fill your heart with joy, don't they? And so, he says, this is something to celebrate over and over again. The power of Jesus Christ, like Colossians 3, 11 talks about a renewal in which there is no Greek or no Jew, no circumcised, no uncircumcised, no barbarian, no Scythian, no slave or free man, but Christ is all and is in all and he creates one family.

You know, I don't want to get into trouble here today, but there's all this talk about race and racism, and I just got to tell you, the Bible doesn't believe in races. I know I'm a different color of skin from maybe some of you, but we're all part of the same family.

You know, we believe in that, right, theologically. And so, we got to look beyond some of these conversations that are going on today that don't recognize that we came from God's creative hand and he made us one family and in redemption, that's what happens again.

And you don't need to go to a political rally to have that happen. You need to submit to the gospel to have that happen. And so, he says, let's celebrate this fact and passionately pursue this fact in worship that as we worship, one of the themes of worship is God's great unifying power in the gospel.

You know, as of today, there's 7 ,040 unreached peoples in the world, 41 .5 of the world today hasn't heard the gospel. There's about 1 ,600 languages or 114 million people without a Bible in their hands.

And that's, you know, whether you want to get involved in that or not, that's how much I guarantee you because of what God says is going to be brought to Christ. And he will do it, whether he does it through you or whether he does it through somebody else.

Christ is doing this in the world right now. I have a friend who studied at our Bible college and he's just such an example to me and he's been working for the last five years in a tribal region in the Himalayas, in a tribe that it's called the Brockpot tribe and they don't even have a written script.

And he went there at first and he said, pray for me because I'm going to be snowed in for six months out of the year. And I said, what's wrong with you, man? Why don't you find a decent place to go and do church work?

And he says, no, I'm burdened for this. I got to do this. By God's grace, God gave him a wife who's a nurse that can take care of him while he's there in this God forsaken country. But he told me, I can think of doing nothing better with my life.

And I said, tell me why that is? And he said, it's because I know, I know based on Revelation 5, 9 that there's going to be a people from every tribe and tongue and nation singing Christ praises that he has some people in this tribe that will belong to him.

I'm going to be here and I'm going to be translating the Bible into this people's language until his family hears his voice. And that's that's worship, isn't it? That's that's the enthusiasm that we can have that goes beyond just our mundane careers of just trying to buy homes and having jobs and things like that.

Those things don't matter. Ultimately, they're just a means to to Christ and ultimately of what human history is is moving towards. And that is that he will cause a song to be sung to him from all the families of the earth.

Amen. I hope that's encouraging to your heart this morning. Maybe after seeing what's happening in your own life and in your own trials, maybe just watching the news, your heart has stopped boasting in God and the Lord is reminding you today to live by faith.

And not by sight, because what you see by faith is more real. Are you consumed this year by your own agenda or by the glory and majesty of Christ over men's souls? What do you celebrate? The latest iPhone, you know, when it comes out, I don't know if it's coming out in a few months and everybody's going crazy and staying out and waiting in line for a night, maybe just to see a stupid piece of metal and and technology.

Do you celebrate the things that really matter? Amen. The kingdom of Christ. You see, when when our hearts are filled with with mud and trifles, worship isn't going.

To flow out of it.

But when our heart is filled with Christ, we want to have time for all that junk and God will do his his work in in maturing us with with ceaseless worship that that never ends. Well, praise God that the psalmist doesn't end there because it's it's it's great to think about the greatness of God, but he he continues to then even give us some motivations and he says, as he turns into into verse two, he says, for his loving kindness is great towards us and the truth of the Lord is everlasting.

Here's here's a question for you to think about, even as we think about worship. Why do we worship? Why do you worship? And the wrong answer is. Because God needs me, you know, if I wasn't there on Sunday, you know, I've got this great tenor and, you know, it just wouldn't sound that good in church.

And sometimes we think that, don't we, that somehow I contribute something to God in worship and and he he's blessed by me. Act 17 verses 24 and 25 need to be emblazoned in our hearts that the God who made this world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor does he get service from human hands as though he needed anything.

And why is that true? Because he gives to all men life and breath and all things. And so what the psalmist is is is telling us, even as we go into verse two, is, you know, here's the great mystery and encouragement of Christian worship is that, number one, God doesn't need our worship, but we need worship.

It strengthens us. It renews us. It makes us stronger in our life before God as we spend time in his presence. And he loves to to give us that blessing. You know, it's a blessing to even be in God's presence.

It's only possible because of what Jesus has done that we can be in God's presence. And as we worship him, he changes us. And so that's kind of the idea that we find in verse two, he says, for his loving kindness is what great towards us and the truth of the Lord is everlasting.

The idea that it it sustains you forever. And so the second exhortation is this. It's actually an encouragement, first, that we would saturate our minds with God's greatness. But secondly, worship is this, he says, strengthen your heart, strengthen your heart day by day with God's goodness.

This is the portion of the Christian that you should you should long for worship because you should say without worship, I can't live. I can't have faith. And that worship would even be that place of of encouragement and strength for you.

Now, how does he teach us to strengthen our hearts? He uses these two attributes, he says, for his loving kindness is great and the truth of the Lord is everlasting. And if you're a Christian that has read scripture for a while, you should say these two attributes.

There's the song of the whole Bible. There's a song of of the attributes of who God is to sinners throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. Just to give you a brief overview. You remember when Moses, he was weak and he was struggling with just ministry, right?

Ministry can do that to you sometimes. And he said, Lord, show me your glory. You remember what the Lord did? Exodus 34. He said, well, you can't see my full glory and live, but I'll show you the back parts of my glory.

Exodus 34, verse six, Yahweh passed before him and proclaimed Yahweh, Yahweh Elohim, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and catch this full of loving kindness and.

Truth.

The same two attributes that the Psalmist used in Psalm 117, verse two. Think about Jesus Christ in John chapter one, verse 14. And this is really key. As he comes to us as sinners, how does he reveal himself to us?

And if you will, he could have revealed himself to us as judge and rightly so and crushed us for our sinfulness. He could have revealed himself to us as king and just sort of made us cower before him.

But he doesn't do those things because he comes to us, John chapter one, verse 14. He comes to save. The word became flesh, John chapter one, verse 14, and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, which is what?

Strengthening to us.

Why?

Because it's full of grace, or you can even say loving kindness and truth. And so this is the drumbeat of Christ, if you will, as he comes to sinners. He doesn't come to crush us, but he comes to lift us up from the ash heap and say, I want to make you live and I will make you live through what?

Through loving kindness and truth. If you look back at Psalm 117, verse two, did you think that we could get so much from these two verses? It's not because I'm smart. It's because this is scripture, OK?

And it's inspired by God and it is just rich. And this morning is going to be enough for us to do to just grasp even everything that's in here, but just a little bit of what he's saying as he says, strengthen your heart with these two attributes, he says, first of all, strengthen your heart with this first attribute,.

His love.

His loving kindness or his love, he says it conquers us. Now, what does that mean? When he says his loving kindness is great, literally the Hebrew uses a word that's a military term. The idea of if you look at Exodus 17, verse 11, it says this.

You remember the story? It's a great story. When Moses was praying and the Israelites were fighting against the Amalekites and God was showing them where their strength came from. And whenever Moses raised his hands and prayed, the Israelites, it said, conquered the Amalekites.

But whenever his hands came down and so he had to have two helpers because he couldn't.

Do that.

His hands came down, Aaron and Hur came around him and held his arms up. But when his hands came down, the Amalekites conquered the Israelites. That same word for army conquering another army is used in Psalm 117 when it says his love conquers us.

It prevails over us. And at first I'm going and you're probably thinking the same thing. You don't normally speak about love in that way, do you? And that's because we often have made love into this romantic, sappy, Hollywood kind of passive thing.

But the Bible doesn't present the love of Christ in that way at all. It talks about a love that is irresistible. It talks about a love that sinners cannot prevail against. And so what kind of love is this?

Well, this word loving kindness is kesed in Hebrew. I love that word because it helps you to really get those throat juices out. But kesed is the idea of God's attribute of doing good even to those who are his enemies.

Don't we have that in Romans chapter 5 verse 8? It's not the kind of love that is kind of playing tango with somebody, but it's the kind of love that is even winning over somebody that's fighting against him.

That's even rebelling against him. And so God takes people that are spiteful, that hate him, that have no regard for him like me, like you. Wouldn't you all say, if you think about your testimony, that it was the love of Christ that conquered me.

That's why I'm here today. Psalm 103 verses 8 and 9, the Lord is merciful and gracious. Praise God that he's slow to anger because I deserve his anger and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us and keep his anger forever.