The Splendour and majesty of the Lord's Labour

Grace Fellowship Church iconGrace Fellowship Church

1 view

Aug 31/2025 | Psalm 111 | Expository sermon by Dan Sudfeld.

0 comments

00:00
This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. If you would like to learn more about us, please visit us at our website at graceedmonton .ca.
00:11
You can also find us on Instagram, Grace Church, Y -E -G, all one word, or on Facebook.
00:18
You can also find us on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you listen to your favorite podcasts.
00:24
Please enjoy the following sermon. Well, take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 111, and I just want to begin by reading this particular psalm.
00:35
Just let me say a couple of things before that. I preached, actually, we're going through, I'll mention this a little bit later, but we're going through in our church the number of wisdom, the books of wisdom.
00:47
So you have Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Solomon, and we've kind of,
00:53
I've just kind of done a number of different, gone to a number of different places there. And one of the places
00:58
I went to a couple of weeks ago was to Psalm 112. And Psalm 111 and Psalm 112 kind of go together.
01:06
They're both wisdom psalms. One of the things about both of them is if you're, if you have anything other than an
01:13
English Standard Version with you, or if you have the Legacy Standard Version, you'll notice that, and you don't notice this in the
01:22
English Standard Version, but both those psalms are kind of acrostics. Every line starts with the letter of the
01:27
Hebrew alphabet. And some of the Bibles put that in there, and some don't. But both of those are like that.
01:34
So it's almost like part one and part two. So if you're reading them, if we were to make something up in English, it'd be like first line starting with A, second line starting with B, third line starting with C.
01:44
So that's what both of these psalms do. So they're connected together. And they fit really with wisdom literature because the last verse, which
01:52
I'll read right away, is the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and which you see lots in Proverbs.
01:58
And then the first verse of 112 is, praise the Lord, blessed is the man who fears the Lord. So wisdom and fear of God often go together, and they do here as well.
02:08
So I want you to look at Psalm 111 today. So follow along as I read it. Praise the Lord. I will give thanks to the
02:15
Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright in the congregation.
02:21
Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.
02:33
He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and merciful.
02:39
He provides food for those who feared him. He remembers his covenant forever. He has shown his people the power of his works in giving them the inheritance of the nations.
02:50
The works of his hands are faithful and just. All his precepts are trustworthy. They are established forever and ever to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
03:01
He sent redemption to his people. He has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name.
03:09
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it as wisdom have a good understanding.
03:16
His praise endures forever. This is the holy, inspired, inerrant, authoritative, and sufficient word of God.
03:25
May God add his blessing to our hearts, to those who read. The splendor and majesty of the
03:33
Lord's labors. Those verses talked about splendor and majesty of the
03:38
Lord's works, but since it's the Labor Day weekend, I took the liberty of changing it a little bit to the
03:44
Lord's labors. I'm not totally sure, but I think Labor Day was originally meant to highlight the contribution of workers and work to our society.
03:55
As I looked it up a little bit this week, it actually had something to do with a union in Toronto in the 1870s, the
04:04
Toronto Typographical Union. I imagine that was a printing place of work, and they were petitioning the leaders of that day to go from a, just imagine this, to go from a 12 -hour, six -day week, which is what they did back then, to a nine -hour, six -day week.
04:25
That was kind of how it started, and John A. MacDonald, who was our first Prime Minister, he supported those workers, but it's a decade later that they decided to commemorate that and call it
04:40
Labor Day. And so, anyways, Labor Day is not connected to any kind of religious holiday like Christmas or Easter or even
04:48
Thanksgiving Day, but the Bible does talk about work. The Bible does talk about work, most gloriously about the work of God.
04:55
And so I want to take time today to have us think about the works of the Lord from this psalm. The Bible does talk about how our
05:02
Christian life intersects with our jobs in many different places, including in problems many times.
05:09
2 Thessalonians 2, of course, talks about the fact that if you don't work, you shouldn't eat, that sort of thing, and he was talking particularly to people in that day, in Thessalonica, who were not doing anything because they thought the
05:21
Lord would come right away, and so they just figured out, well, just wait, that sort of thing. And he says, he actually told them to be at work and that sort of thing.
05:32
In that sense, this is not maybe so much of a practical how -to message, because we really want to focus not on our work, but on the work of God, but more trying to take a glimpse this afternoon at the glories of God.
05:47
Art galleries are places that display works of art, and so this afternoon,
05:54
I want us to step a little bit into God's gallery, and we want to try and see God's works on display.
06:01
In John chapter 10, Jesus sees a blind man there, and he tells the disciples that he's about to heal this man, and he says, so that the works of God might be displayed in him, so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
06:17
And so we want to go into the gallery and take a peek at God's works this afternoon, and we'll do that by walking through the gallery that is
06:24
Psalm 111. I'm going to say this morning probably lots of times today. I have to get used to doing church in the afternoon.
06:32
The entrance point to the gallery is to raise our affections to him, and so that's how it starts and how it ends this psalm.
06:41
Verse one, praise the Lord, raising our affections to him, and then on the way out in verse 10, he ends by saying his praise endures forever, and so we're aiming as we walk through this psalm to try to find out why we ought to praise
06:58
God. But first, right at the beginning, the psalmist reveals the attitude that he's going to take with him as he explores this grand gallery.
07:07
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
07:14
And so as we apply this to ourselves, we see how and where we ought to go about praising
07:21
God. First, it says we ought to do it with all our hearts.
07:27
When we truly see God's works, God's works of art on display, our reaction should be, the first one should be wow, and then something like God, you are amazing, and then thank you,
07:45
Lord. Wholehearted praise. We should praise the Lord with our whole heart.
07:51
Secondly, it gives us the context in which we best praise God, and this is beautiful.
07:57
I love this because this is kind of what we've been doing here this afternoon, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
08:05
The author of this psalm is praising God in the congregation, so this is corporate worship. God has given us each other, one another, the fellowship of believers with whom we can express our thanksgiving to God.
08:21
Together, we don't gather to watch God's people perform from on a stage.
08:30
We gather to participate with the company of the upright. I just love that description, company. It's a beautiful word.
08:36
Psalm 55 verse 4, verses 14 uses that as a verb. It talks about sweet counsel or sweet fellowship together.
08:45
We gather to thank the Lord together with our whole hearts. That's what corporate worship is, isn't it?
08:51
It's a fellowship of God's people gathering to collectively lift our hearts in praise and thanksgiving, as we've been doing so wonderfully already here this afternoon, to God.
09:04
We can do that on our own, but we love to praise the Lord every seventh day, on the first day of the week.
09:13
And so, what are we supposed to praise God for? What is it exactly that makes Him worthy of praise and worthy of thanksgiving?
09:22
The answer to that question, in this psalm particularly, is what's called His works.
09:28
Simple. It's His works. You see that there in verse 2, great are the works of the
09:35
Lord. You see it in verse 3, full of splendor and majesty, is His work.
09:41
Verse 4, He's caused His wondrous works to be remembered. Verse 6, He has shown the people,
09:46
His people, the power of His works. Verse 7, the works of His hands are faithful and just.
09:55
All His precepts are trustworthy. And so, putting it all together, Psalm 111 is a call to praise
10:00
God for His works. And so, then we've got to figure out the next question, is what are works?
10:10
What are His works? What has God worked? What are God's labors? What has He worked on that should cause us then to praise
10:16
Him? What kinds of labors? What kinds of efforts? What kinds of activities? What kinds of work has
10:22
He done? What has God exerted Himself to do? Well, the first work, when we think about all the things that God has done, what's the first thing you think of?
10:35
You think of creation, right? God worked to create and we definitely praise
10:42
God because of His creation. So, maybe you've, part of your summer has involved traveling, where you've been able to see
10:50
God's handiwork in creation. Maybe you've seen the mountains. Maybe you've seen beautiful trees.
10:56
Maybe you've seen open fields and prairies. Maybe you've seen lakes. Maybe you've seen hills or creeks or wildlife or sunrise or sunset.
11:05
We can go on and on with all the things that God has created, the beauty of His handiwork. These all shout
11:12
God's works of creation. And so, if you go to Genesis 1, you can read about God's work of creation.
11:20
And Genesis 2 says, on the seventh day, God finished His work, which He had done.
11:27
And God rested from all the work which He had done in creation. So, God worked to create the world that we live in and to enjoy.
11:38
And we can walk through the gallery that is the world and should say what this psalmist says, great are the works of the
11:47
Lord. There's just so much to praise God for just in His work of creation, never mind what
11:53
He does in each of our lives. But if you just end at Genesis 2, you might think that God is done working.
12:01
God rested from His work, it says, right? But that was Genesis 2, and that was just the seventh day of creation.
12:11
And on, we can probably assume that on the eighth day, He was right back at work.
12:17
And that was necessary because we all know what happened in Genesis 3, the man and the woman
12:22
He created sin, committed cosmic treason against the
12:28
Creator. And by that one act, they subjected the entire creation to the effects of that sin.
12:37
And so, we find out that God is still at work, if we can put it that way, where God has done His work of creation,
12:43
He immediately started His work of recreation. In Genesis 6,
12:49
God is described as striving with man. It's a word that gives a sense of agony, striving, working with man.
12:59
God's physical work of creation now takes on a spiritual dimension, where in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2,
13:07
He was working in creation. Now, besides sustaining His creation, He's working in salvation, not only creation, but in salvation.
13:16
In some sense, He always has been, even before creation. He's got purposes from all eternity to save His people, to save a people for Himself.
13:26
But He's working in salvation, and also then in sanctification, in making us holy.
13:32
And so, we have verses like Ephesians 111, which says that God works all things according to the counsel of His will.
13:40
God is actually at work, working to save and transform His people.
13:45
And when we get to the culmination, the last part of God's purpose of finally saving His people in glorification, we read in Revelation 15,
13:53
Revelation 15 verse 3, that in heaven, the redeemed will still be singing, as we do now, we'll still be praising the
14:02
Lord. But it says there, great and marvelous are your works. This is the song that they'll be singing to the
14:08
Lord. Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God Almighty. So, right from Genesis to Revelation, creation to glorification, we'll be singing of God's works.
14:22
His people will be praising God in heaven for His work, His work that makes it possible for us to even be there in heaven.
14:30
And so, we'll be praising God now and right through eternity for His labors, for His labors.
14:36
As we make our way through Psalm 111, it seems like it's mainly these saving works of God that the writer has in mind.
14:44
He's thinking about how God delivers and saves and rescues His people. He's probably thinking back again to how
14:50
God supernaturally delivered Israel from Egypt and how He delivered them from slavery through the
14:56
Red Sea, through the wilderness, and into the promised land. And this rescue in Egypt foreshadows the great spiritual realities of salvation where He rescues
15:08
His people through Christ from slavery to sin into salvation and sanctification and eventually glorification.
15:19
So, let's go back to Psalm 111 again and find out about the work that God has done and the work that God is doing in order to inform our praise and our worship.
15:33
We'll see. If you like taking notes, I see there's some places to take notes there in your handout, how
15:39
God's works are described, first of all, how God's works are displayed, and then how we can truly delight in God's works.
15:47
So, if you like alliteration, these are all these, how God's works are described, how they're displayed, and how we can then delight in God's works.
15:56
First, how are God's works described? What kinds of adjectives does
16:02
He use to describe God's works? We see here God's works described as great in verse 2.
16:09
Verse 3, they're described as full of splendor, full of splendor and majesty is
16:15
His work. And so, this psalmist really allows his mind to reflect on all the ways that God has acted and all the ways that God has worked, all the ways that God has intervened in salvation history up until that point.
16:29
And after all those reflections, he tries to come up with words to describe them. And his vocabulary, the words that he has in his mind bring him to words like great and full of splendor and majesty.
16:43
Those words splendor and majesty could also be translated as height and grandeur.
16:49
He's stretching his mind up to try to come up with the adjectives and the verbs within the limits of language that would fit to describe
16:59
God's works. No one could do things like this but God alone. No one could deliver people like this but God alone.
17:08
No one could rescue people like this but God alone. In fact, Psalm 86 verse 8, if you just want to travel back a few pages, it says, there is none like you among the gods,
17:24
O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.
17:31
See, God's works are beyond compare. There's nothing else in creation that rises to the level of what
17:41
God has done, what God has worked. The other way God's works are described here back in Psalm 111 is by their enduring quality.
17:48
His works are permanent. You see that all through this psalm. Verse 3, his righteousness endures forever.
17:55
Verse 5, he remembers his covenant forever. Verse 7 and 8, all his precepts are trustworthy.
18:00
They're established forever and ever. He has commanded his covenant forever in verse 9.
18:07
This enduring quality of God's works is why the psalm writer can end the psalm there at the very end with his praise endures.
18:16
How long? Forever. God's works are eternal. They don't peter out.
18:21
They don't fade in their effectiveness or in their power to accomplish what they've set out, what they're set out to accomplish.
18:29
And so if you're here today and you're a Christian, this description ought to comfort us tremendously.
18:36
It ought to give an amazing sense of assurance that God's works last forever. What God has done, what
18:42
God has worked is eternal in life years. When God accomplishes something, it has a forever quality about it.
18:50
It's enduring. It's unalterable. It perseveres. Now transfer that to God's work in your life.
18:57
He has worked to save you. He has worked to rescue you and you can rest assured that his works are established forever.
19:07
We'd only see this here in Psalm 111, but this is a truth, a wonderful, glorious truth that's affirmed in the entire
19:14
Bible. John 6, verse 39, of all that he has given me, I lose nothing. John 10, 28, my sheep will never perish.
19:22
Romans 8, 38, nothing will separate you from the love of Christ. Philippians 1, 6 also affirms that he who began a good, what?
19:30
Good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Christ Jesus. God's works in salvation and in sanctification, which is growing your holiness, your set -apartness, are from everlasting to everlasting.
19:45
We might say that God's workmanship has a lifetime guarantee. If that were a product that we bought, which it isn't, but if it were, that kind of guarantee is as good as it can get.
19:57
There is no better guarantee, no better warranty, than a lifetime guarantee. But God's workmanship is even better than that.
20:04
It has a lifetime and more guarantee. You can't say that about any other kind of product, if we want to put it that way.
20:12
The works of God are enduring. They will not fade with time.
20:18
The works of God are great. They're full of splendor and majesty. Praise the Lord. Great are the works of the
20:26
Lord. Well, that's how God's works are described. How are his works displayed?
20:33
How does God display? How does he demonstrate? How does he exhibit his works? Has he collected them into a gallery where we can buy a ticket and walk through and look at them and marvel at them and remember them?
20:48
Well, look at verses four to six. Here are some of God's descriptions are listed or some of the things that he's done are described and displayed.
21:03
What has the Lord done? Verse four, he has caused his works to be remembered. Verse five, he provides food for those who fear him.
21:12
Verse six, he has shown his people the power of his works. All those can be summarized by the word revelation.
21:22
He's revealed his works. He's displayed them. Just think about verse four. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered.
21:29
How has he made them remembered? Well, there in the Old Testament, it was through feasts and through commemorations.
21:36
Those all served to display
21:42
God's works. And so we can go to him and we can just look at that gallery that God has given us and see what he's accomplished for us.
21:56
I know it's out of order here, so I'm going to make sure I get those right. He's displayed them from generation to generation.
22:03
And so he's kind of thinking back into Israel's history and what happened when the marvelous things happened, like going through the
22:16
Red Sea and all those sort of things. Those works will be remembered as one generation passed them on to another generation as parents talk to their children about what
22:25
God has done. But how have the works of God been passed down to us to be remembered?
22:31
Well, here we have an answer in verse five. It says he provides food for those who fear him.
22:37
He remembers his covenant forever. In this psalm, he's thinking back to the manna that was provided in the desert.
22:45
But all of that was a foreshadow of God providing his son who revealed himself in John as the bread of life.
22:53
And now God has provided his word, the scriptures, the Bible to nourish us and to feed us, taste and see that the
23:01
Lord is good. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
23:10
And so one of his works is revelation, the way in which he makes himself known through his word and God's people that are caused to remember by eating the bread and drinking the cup, which we're going to do in just a little while,
23:22
Lord willing. The second way his works are displayed stands out. I say that because it looks like Psalm 111 is structured in a certain way.
23:31
We already talked a little bit about its structure. So everything in this psalm funnels into verse nine.
23:38
And here's what I mean by that. In poetry, including in Hebrew poetry, the meaning of words is not found so much in sentences and clauses.
23:46
Even in our poetry, it's found in the way the lines are structured.
23:53
And God has designed this poem, this psalm beautifully. And so let me try to show you how he does that, not counting the line.
23:59
And you might be able to see this in the version that you're using, but not counting the line at the beginning and the line at the end, which both talk about praise.
24:09
The only other verse that has three lines is verse nine. All the other verses have two lines.
24:16
Verse nine is different than the other verses in the psalm. And it's meant to be like that. It's done like that intentionally because it tells us that the writer was trying to emphasize something here.
24:28
And the line that stands out, the line that doesn't just seem to fit the natural rhythm of the poem, you'll have to trust me in this, is the first line of verse nine.
24:37
And this line defines the work of the Lord that the writer wants to emphasize. What has the
24:44
Lord done? What is the work that he has accomplished? What is his primary achievement?
24:50
Here, it's the work of redemption. He sent redemption to his people.
24:58
He has worked redemption to his people. That word redemption was a word picture borrowed from the marketplaces of that day in that culture.
25:08
It meant to buy something from the place of trade, and the idea was that that would never return.
25:15
One example of a purchase in Bible times would be the purchase of a slave. And so when it says that God has sent redemption to his people, it would have reminded the people, the congregation, that sang this psalm of the exodus of Israel from Egypt.
25:31
That's probably the event, the work of God that this psalmist is thinking about. He sent redemption to his people.
25:38
How? In that day, he's probably thinking back in Israel's history in the person of Moses, his deliverer.
25:47
He sent redemption. He actually says he even sent redemption through Pharaoh, of whom
25:52
God said, I will be honored through Pharaoh. So that whole event, he sent redemption through the
25:59
Red Sea. Think about Moses' words to the people. Exodus 14, verse 13, says, stand firm and see the salvation of the
26:07
Lord, which he will work for you today. And then this, you only have to be silent.
26:16
You only have to be silent. In other words, God is going to work while they're supposed to watch what
26:22
God would do. Well, the redemption that God worked was the purchase, the redemption of his people, people who were in bondage as slaves in Egypt, people that he then redeemed for himself.
26:39
This idea of redemption also reminds us not only of redemption which God has sent in the past, it's pointing back to redemption past, but that's a signpost with an arrow that points ahead to a present redemption that he makes available.
26:54
Why do I say that? Because the New Testament also talks about slavery, doesn't it? Talks about another group of people who are slaves not to Egypt, but slaves to sin.
27:07
Talks about another group of people who are in dire need of rescue from that enslavement, a group of people who are in dire need of someone to pay a redemption price, a ransom price, to redeem them from that slavery.
27:18
It talks about a group of people who are, in fact, helpless. Talks about a group of people that included you and me, a group of people who were blind, dead in our sins, without hope in the world.
27:36
But as it says in Romans 6, while we were still weak, while we were still helpless at the right time,
27:43
Christ died for the ungodly. While we were yet enslaved, while we were yet sinners,
27:49
Christ died for us. And since therefore we've now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved from the wrath of God.
27:56
For if, while we're enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
28:08
See, God, in his mercy, sent a redeemer to slaves.
28:14
And not only did he send a redeemer, he sent an actual and complete redemption. The redeemer is his son.
28:20
The purchase price was the blood of his son. The marketplace was the cross. It was at the cross that God sent redemption, in the words of Psalm 111, sent redemption to his people.
28:32
And as his people repent of their sins, and as they trust completely in Christ's work on the cross, they become, as Romans 6 says, slaves of righteousness, willing, joyful slaves of Christ Jesus.
28:50
That's what we are, who we are in Christ. This is cause for praise.
28:57
This is cause for singing. This is cause to give thanks to the Lord with your whole heart. Charles Patton Spurgeon, called the preachers in London in the late 1800s, was right when he wrote, redemption is a fit theme for the heartiest music.
29:15
Redemption is a fit theme for the heartiest music. Fanny Crosby did exactly that when she thought about redemption.
29:22
She wrote a song called Redeemed, how I'd love to proclaim it. One of the verses for that song goes like this,
29:30
I think of my blessed redeemer, I think of him all the day long, I sing for I cannot be silent, his love is the theme of my song.
29:39
So how about you, when you think of your redeemer, when you think about God's work of redemption, do you sing because you cannot be silent?
29:49
Interesting that he said what? Be silent, don't do anything. But now we sing because we cannot be silent.
29:57
And that then leads right into the response, to our response to God's works. Now that we know what
30:03
God's work is, how it's described, how it's displayed, what are we to do about it? Well there are three answers that our text challenges us with.
30:14
The first is in verse two, great are the works, are his works, and I skipped a line there when
30:21
I walked through this at the beginning, great are the works of the Lord, just describing
30:26
God's works is great, but it says in the second line, studied by all who delight in them.
30:33
The response for us who delight in God's work is to give ourselves to know them and to study them.
30:40
The people who ought to be studying them are those who delight in God's works. The ones who delight in God's works are those to whom
30:48
God's works apply, namely the redeemed, the congregation, the company of the upright, not upright in and of themselves, but made righteous by Christ.
31:01
This is saying that this group of people who delight in God's works, the ones that have been the recipients of God's work, will have an insatiable desire to know more.
31:11
They will yearn to inquire into the depths of God's labors for them. They're going to want to bend their minds, incline their minds to understand
31:21
God and his works. So does that describe you?
31:27
Is that how you respond to God's works? Do you study God's work? Are you, in the words of the old magazine, are you an inquiring mind that wants to know more about how
31:37
God has worked to save you? This is something to which we ought to give our study, which means to give our time, to give our effort, to meditate upon God's works day and night.
31:52
This is what God wants us to give our energy to, and his works are worthy of the best of our time and our energy.
32:00
Don't give your best to lesser things. You'll never totally comprehend all that God has done unless you truly delight in what
32:09
God has labored to do for you. You should keep pondering and thinking and studying his works.
32:15
That's why you have opportunities here, even in the church, on your off Sunday, opportunities to study and to,
32:23
I can't remember the study that you talked about that you were mentioning. Historical theology. Historical theology.
32:29
Man, that would be awesome. Yeah, so you have opportunities to be able to do that. Awesome. The Bible is your tool.
32:37
It's kindly presented to us by God, preserved for us by God, to study his works.
32:44
Give yourself to that study. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered. A second response to God's work is to, is fear or reverence.
32:53
Verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In our church, like I said, we've spent the summer thinking about a section of books in the
33:01
Bible called wisdom literature. All those books, and even Job, include the saying, the fear of the
33:08
Lord is the beginning of wisdom, or something to that effect. When we study God's works, it should cause us to revere
33:14
God. That's what that fear means. There is a sense of fear in that, if you're not a believer, you're scared of his, you should be scared of his judgment.
33:23
But when we are believers, we still fear God for the holiness that he exudes, and who he is as holy.
33:31
But we reverence him, we honor him. It's a different kind of fear there as well, that's all one and the same.
33:39
And we do that because we see him as our Lord, our master, the one to whom we bow in humble submission.
33:45
When we understand that God has, what God has worked in order to redeem us, and when we understand that he's actually accomplished that redemption through the atoning sacrifice of his son, then we will have a healthy fear and reverence of our holy
33:58
God. We should always keep in mind who God is in comparison to who we are.
34:06
We need to have a healthy fear and respect, we're the only one that can save us from destruction and eternal judgment.
34:12
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Well, we've only just talked about God's works,
34:20
God's labors, and the next thing is, what about us? This is really counterintuitive to us as humans, isn't it?
34:28
We always delve towards thinking that we need to do something in order to get something.
34:34
And there is a, you know, a truism about that, that in order to do something, you have to, in order to get something, you have to expend effort into doing that.
34:45
But Christianity is utterly unlike all other religions precisely because it's
34:50
God who does all the work. All other religions require some sort of merit -earning work in order for its adherents to reach the ultimate goal, whether that's paradise, or whether that's enlightenment, or whether that's nirvana, or whether that's the celestial city, whatever celestial kingdom, or whatever it is.
35:11
Christianity is unique in that God did the work, God labored to get you to that eternal place.
35:20
If you're a Christian, God has accomplished that plan of redemption on your behalf. He did what we could not do.
35:26
He works what we could not work. So maybe you're here today and you believe you need to do good works, good deeds in order to get to heaven, or you think that you're a good person, you kind of have the scales up, and you say, as long as I do more good things than bad things, then you're fine.
35:44
Well, if you do, then Psalm 111 is for you. You just need to know that you can rest the opposite of work in knowing that God's works are totally sufficient for you to get to heaven.
35:58
If it was dependent on your works, you would never make it because even the best things that we do are always tainted by wrong motivations, by self -interest, those sorts of things.
36:11
God requires absolute perfection, and the only one that met that requirement is, of course, his son
36:18
Jesus Christ, who lived without sin ever.
36:25
He was without sin. The way you can get to heaven is precisely not through your own works, but through God's work of saving his people.
36:33
Bible says, for it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
36:40
It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Then it goes on to say, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
36:52
And so you become a Christian not by boasting about your own good works, by saying, God, look what I've done, but by boasting on what
36:59
God has done in Christ. Great are the works not of, insert your name there, but great are the works of the
37:06
Lord. He sent redemption to his people. He sent his son as our redeemer, our savior.
37:13
His work that is finally decisive in your salvation is not your own, it's his.
37:21
And the irony of this concept of work is that once God has done the work of saving us through Christ, and once we respond in faith, when we come out on the other side, then we are recreated for good works.
37:35
That's what Ephesians 2, 8 and 10 says, those verses I just read. There's no reason for us to boast about getting saved, because we are his workmanship, but once we become believers, we do good works.
37:47
He creates us actually for those good works. We're created in Christ Jesus for good works.
37:53
And so God does the work to save us, but once we're saved, we do good works as an expression and a confirmation of what
38:04
God has done for us. And the forum in which we mainly do those good works is within the life of the church, in the congregation.
38:15
That's where our God created and God enabled works are most expressed.
38:20
Yes, we do evangelism and those sort of things as well, and those are other good works that God has created for us to do, but they're mostly expressed within the context of the church being with God's people in the company of the upright.
38:34
And then just as another implication or application for Christians, for us that are part of the body of Christ, once we study to understand
38:43
God's works, we should just respond in praise and worship. We of all people ought to be singing about God's works.
38:50
We ought to be the kind of people that boasts much about God. He has provided his word and his grace and his compassion and his mercy.
39:02
He's granted us redemption. He's given us the gift of his son. And so whenever we gather, whenever we assemble like this, we ought to be praising the
39:11
Lord with all our hearts. And so I encourage you, as you've done so well today already and so enthusiastically at Grace Fellowship, to be that kind of a congregation.
39:21
Be the kind of people that recognize that God has done great and lofty things for you. Be the kind of people who constantly and joyfully and enthusiastically direct praise toward God for sending his redemption to his people, uniting all of you in the faith.
39:41
Great are the works of the Lord. Holy and awesome is his name. Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church.
39:52
If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church, or our
39:59
Instagram at Grace Church, Y -E -G, all one word. Finally, you can visit us at our website, graceedmonton .ca.