Amen, and please be seated. And if you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Psalm 146. Today we're closing up some one-off sermons here at the end of summer before Lord willing we'll return to the Gospel of Matthew next week. And so we turn to Psalm 146 today.
This is the first of the last five Psalms, all of which are allaluyah Psalms. Praise the Lord Psalms. They both begin and end with allaluyah, which is a compound word from two words, holleluia, allal, meaning praise, and a contraction of the name Yahweh, Yah. So, hallelu, Yah, or Yahweh.
As we have often said, it's a personal name Yahweh, and not so much a title, though our English translations tend to translate it Lord with all capitals. The old King James translated it Jehovah, and that's why afterwards we're going to sing Psalm 146, Hallelujah praise Jehovah, though some modern scholars think that the name Jehovah really ought to be translated Yahweh and activate for later. But in any case, we sing praise to the Lord, and I'll be reading the passage using the name Yahweh. Now, praise puts words to our delight in something.
Like when you jump to your feet at some athletic prowess, and you just, you scream or you cheer or you say, did you see that? Where if sports aren't your thing, you know, you go to the Crystal Bridges, and you never once in your life thought a beetle was anything but nasty and ugly, and then you go to that presentation of beetles and butterflies, and you're a name or it, and you just say, wow, get this one. Praise puts words to our delight in something. We just, we say to our friends, have you seen it?
You got to see it. You got to hear it. And here the Psalm ends with a chorus of praise to Almighty God. You've got to see Him.
What's the Psalmist see? What's he do with what he sees? Let's think about that. Psalm 146 here now, the Word of God.
Praise the Lord. Praise Yahweh. Praise Yahweh. Oh my soul.
I will praise Yahweh. As I live, I will sing praises to my God while I have my being, but not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. That very day his plans perish.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in Yahweh, his God, who made heaven and earth the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. Yahweh sets the prisoners free. Yahweh opens the eyes of the blind. Yahweh lifts up those who are bowed down.
Yahweh loves the righteous. Yahweh watches over the sojourners. He upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked, he brings to ruin. Yahweh will reign forever.
Your God, O Zion, to all generations, praise Yahweh. Let's pray together. Our gracious Father in heaven, we pray that by the Holy Spirit you would take this word and apply it to the hearts and lives of these, your people. We need your help.
Help us. Help us to see and understand and know you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. There's a story of a man on Long Island who was finally able to satisfy his lifelong ambition to purchase a really highly technical barometer.
That may not be your kind of thing, but it was his. When the instrument arrived at home, he was extremely disappointed to find that the indicating needle appeared to be stuck, pointing to the sector marked hurricane. And after shaking the barometer, very vigorously several times, its new owners sat down and wrote a scorching letter to the manufacturer in the store from which he bought it. And the following morning on his way into work in New York City, he mailed the letters off in that evening.
He returned to Long Island to find that not only was the barometer missing, but his house also. The barometer's needle had been right. It was hurricane weather. You can have the truth.
But what are you doing with the truth that you have? That's the truth for that man as it is for Christians. We might know the truth about the Lord. And what are we doing with it?
That's what the author wants us to think through. This almost knows the truth, verses 5 to 10. And he does something with it, verses 1 to 5. Theology inspires doxology, knowing God produces praise and trust.
And here in the Psalm, the writer front loads his application and then keeps in reserve to conclude the very reasons why. Why? And so in verses 1 and 2, he noticed the praise that he commands. And in verses 3 to 5, notice the trust that he counsels and then verses 6 through 10, the God who captivates.
Notice verse the praise, he commands verses 1 and 2. He calls us to praise Yahweh, praise the Lord. And it's plural. I love the South for giving us y'all and even all y'all.
And that's what he says, all y'all praise the Lord. And one of the ways we praise him is in verse 2, right? I will praise Yahweh, I will sing praises to my God. And God's people have always been a singing people from the songs of Moses and Miriam in the Exodus to the songs of Deborah and Hannah in the Days of the Judges and Samuel to the sweet singer of Israel, David and the sons of Cora in the Psalms right up to today.
God's people are a singing people. How important is singing and how wonderful? Malins, grandparents were just two kids, young and in love, uninterested in Christ when they were walking one evening and they heard the sound from the sidewalk through the windows of a little church, the sound of God's people singing and they were intrigued, intrigued enough to visit and after visiting long enough God brought them to faith in Christ. But it was the singing of God's people that was the hook.
Well where else do people really sing together anymore except in worship? I guess you know some people sing at the ballgame, the National Anthem if it's not being performed and the seventh inning stretch and University choirs of course. But where else do people gather and sing? It's such an unusual thing in our culture and yet such a glorious thing that we're commanded even to do.
But notice it's not just all y'all sing. Notice he speaks to himself, praise the Lord, my soul, oh my soul. Why the self talk here? Why is he commanding himself to praise Yahweh?
Well I think we could say on the one hand he doesn't want to be a hypocrite calling others to a sacrifice of praise that he's unwilling to engage in himself that would be hypocrisy. But he also knows he needs to talk to himself. He needs to be urged to praise the Lord and he needs to even stir himself up to do it because even a believer in the Lord, well for them it doesn't just come naturally, it comes super naturally and you know how it is some mornings. You wake up and there's a sheet of eyes over your heart and you're just cold to the things of the Lord of the Lord himself and we need to be warmed by the Lord and he calls himself to praise and he stirs himself up to it.
I love the honesty of John Newton in those phrases, Jesus, my shepherd, brother, friend, my prophet, priest and king, my Lord, my life, my way, my end, accept the praise I bring. Weak is the effort of my heart and cold, my warmest thought. But when I see thee as thou art, I'll praise thee as I ought. I'm weak says Newton, I'm cold says Newton, and not until I see you as you are will I praise you as I should.
Do you, perhaps of course with this weekly voice or tone deaf words, it's okay, make a joyful noise unto the Lord or is there no song in your lips? Is there no sight of God before your eyes? No awe of God in your heart? No sense of the sweetness of Jesus in your soul or have you been moved by a sight of him?
The taste of his kindness and goodness to you, to praise. Well the antidote to a lack of doxology isn't simply to beat yourself up because you don't praise like you ought. You know the easiest way to make a Christian feel guilty is to ask them about their prayer life because there's not a Christian who's satisfied with the way that they pray. And praise is just a kind of prayer.
If I just ask you I'll have your praise life. No, no, no, no, I'll do better, I'll do better. That's not what we're aiming for here. What we need all of us is to see the one we praise and he'll draw forth from our hearts that adoration.
And so the writer calls us to praise and then he commends to us or councils to us trust in Yahweh verses three to five. So he's going to get to at the end all these incentives because of who the Lord is. But notice verses three to five the trust in Yahweh he councils. He urges us not simply to praise the Lord but to trust in the Lord.
And he sets up a contrast in verses three and four with verse five. Don't do one thing. Do another. Notice what you're not to do versus three and four.
Do not put your trust in princes. In a son of man. Now that's not the technical term that the Bible sometimes uses for the son of God who became the son of man, the Lord Jesus. But here it's a non-technical description of the children of man people.
Don't put your trust in princes. Don't put your trust in people in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs he returns to the earth on that very day his plans perish. So what should you do?
Well trust in Yahweh verse five. Blessed is he who's help is the God of Jacob whose hope is in the Lord his God. He's a contrast and he's saying true happiness is found in having God as your help and as your hope. Don't look for that in people no matter how powerful a prince they may be.
Not ultimately. He's not commending cynicism here. He's not commending all rejection of finding help and aid from one another. But he is commending realism here.
Be honest. We're far too easily infatuated with people and what they can do for us. Especially people who we think are great or are in great places. People who have money, people who have power or authority, people who have influence, princes among people.
Well we think much too highly of those kinds of people and what they can do for us. We're after all they are but people and people are what? Says the writer. Well they're weak for real.
Children of dust and feeble is frail. And their temporary says the writer verse four. When his breath departs he returns to the earth. I was reading this week and you'll remember the name William the Conqueror from your history classes if you've gotten that far.
He was the Duke of Normandy who really invaded England and defeated King Harold and at the battle Hastings in 1066 and then changed the course of English history from there on. He died in 1887 in circumstances that caused his biographer to reference this song. What happened was this is the biographer. King Philip of France had claimed lands on the border of Normandy that William believed were his.
He was the Duke of Normandy. So he crossed over to France and waged war against Philip taking with him his nobles, his military man and his power. The war was progressing in his favor. Things were going on going well.
He was on the verge of celebrating his triumph when well the horse he was riding stumbled and William was thrown forward onto the iron pommel of his saddle and received a fatal injury. And he was carried to an abbey where he eventually died and his nobles immediately abandoned ship. They all went back to their own places to guard their own properties to secure their own possessions. And William's servants after stripping the valuable clothing and jewelry off the dead king, well they made off too, leaving the naked body of the conqueror of England to lie on the abbey floor.
And the biographer noting that wrote, put not your trust in princes, which are nothing. O ye sons of men, but put your trust in the living and true God who is the maker of all. If riches increase, do not set your hearts on them. For all flesh is grass.
And all the glory of it is like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flowers fade away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And so the Lord is the only one who can be unconditionally trusted and actually have the one in whom you can have any hope that he'll actually come through for you. Our lives are weak.
Our lives are temporary. Our agendas are fleeting. On that very day of his death is plans perish. Oh, we may make plans.
Maybe you're a planner. Maybe you've got next week planned already or the week after. You may have a six semester plan or some of you are five and ten year planners. Maybe in your work you have to think that far out.
Few of us are thinking 100 years from now and planning for that day. But even if we are, none of us can bring it to fruition. None of us can make our plans keep going for a century or more. Now our thoughts die with us.
Our plans die with us. And the writer is saying, so don't put your trust in the great ones of the earth. They're here today and gone tomorrow. It says Charles Spurgeon, men are always far too apt to depend upon the great ones of earth and forget the great one above.
And this habit is the fruitful source of disappointment. I wonder how disappointed you are today in people who have let you down. Now don't let the frailty of people, which we must honestly observe, make you angry or resentful and so give up hope. The cynicism is easy.
Just see everybody's faults, put them in the worst possible light and tell yourself you're better than them and you'll never trust anyone. That's not what we're saying. You know, said a man to do his pastor in the 1980s, dated of course. We used to trust the generals but Vietnam changed all that.
We used to trust the politicians but Watergate changed all that. We used to trust the scientists but Three Mile Island changed all that. We used to trust the economists but then was session changed all that. Now we know that there is no one to trust.
Pretty cynical. Today we might be tempted to say, I mean that's dated, right? So we might say things like, well we used to trust our coaches but Penn State, Michigan State changed all that. We used to trust our clergy but then scandal, you know, changed all that.
We used to trust our churches but secret archives changed all that. We used to trust our parents. Divorce changed all that. We used to trust our friends but Facebook gossip or tweets or whatever.
Social media changed all that. We used to trust our politicians. Well, okay, some of you have never trusted politicians. I understand.
Look, it'd be very unsurprising if you are a cynic. Cynicism is settling in and has been for quite some time all over the world and all over our country. The reason for that is all the things we turn our eyes to for help and hope keep letting us down. And we think, wrongly, there is nowhere else to turn.
But there is. Happy. Blessed is the one whose help and hope are in Yahweh. We serve a better kingdom where the kingdom himself has died for our sins, risen from the dead, is ascended on high and rules and reigns over all things for the good of his people and our everlasting joy.
But I get it. We justify our cynicism because our politicians have failed us or the other guys' politicians failed us. We're just metal for a moment here. It's political season in America, isn't it?
Come November, you'll be asked to cast all kinds of votes. Some of you are going to hold your nose, some of you are going to show up, some of you are going to walk in, filled with the choices. I just want to say a nonpartisan word for a second. By nonpartisan, I mean, I want you to hear clearly that our church welcomes and invites people on all sides of all the issues of the day.
That is the doors of this church and the pews before us are as wide and as long as our community. We want everybody in our community to come to Redeemer and as I like to say, marinate in the Gospel. And that's the larger questions than the petty questions of the day. I'm not dismissing everything as unimportant, but there are larger things at play in this world than who will be the next president of the United States.
We want people to marinate in the Gospel, which is good news not of this world, about a kingdom that's not of this world but has entered this world and can bring you into it and then out of this world into the new heavens and new earth in saving us from ourselves. And it's not my role as a preacher to advocate directly for particular political solutions to entrenched societal problems. I have my own views on how we might go about changing society for the better as a private Christian. Some of you don't.
Some of you don't care. That's just fine. My private views may be right or they may be wrong. They may be wise or they may be foolish.
I'm not here for that. But I am as an ambassador of Christ in this pulpit to tell you of a better country than the USA and I'm a herald of a better servant leader than any human politician or prince. And so we simply welcome you and invite you and are glad you are here whether you're a die hard on the right or the left or the middle or the upper or the down or the just close my eyes, pinch my nose and pull the lever and whatever happens happens. There is only one kingdom that lasts forever and it's the kingdom of Yahweh and he is building his kingdom and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
You remember that come November. Tuesday election God is never on the ballot and every day after God is still on his throne. Put no confidence as the writer in princes but happy is the one whose help and hope is in Yahweh. Now let me meddle some more.
My married friends to engaged couples and goes looking for a partner. This passage reminds you that nobody can be Jesus for you. Your spouse can't be what only Jesus can be to you and you must not look then to your spouse to be Jesus for you. I'm not saying we don't need one another.
I'm not saying that we aren't to be a help to one another. It was not good for Adam in the garden to be alone. The Lord made a helper for him and they were to be a mutual help to one another and how glorious it is when the heart of a husband can trust in his wife and she does him good all her days and likewise they trust one another and do each other good all their days. We're not counseling cynicism here but no mere human being can bear the weight of being God for you nor should they have to and if that is your expectation you will in the end crush them.
You will destroy them. If you aren't finding your happiness in Jesus, if you aren't finding your ultimate help and your ultimate hope in Jesus then you're just going to suck the life out of any other person that we need to be resourced by the life of Christ in order to be a blessing and not a burden to one another. So the psalmist is being a realist and not a cynic and he understands the inadequacy and the brevity of man and the greatness of God and I would say he says so be an optimist not a pessimist because God is on his throne and our hope and our hope are tied together in him. And I love this story for giving me.
You've heard it three or four times. There was a school system in a large city that had a program to help children with their school work during days that they were staying in the city's hospitals. One day a teacher was assigned to the program and she received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child. She took a child's name and room number and talked briefly with the child's regular class teacher and then the teacher said well we're studying nouns and adverbs in class now and I'd be grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn't fall too far behind.
The hospital program teacher went to see this little boy in the afternoon and nobody had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain and upset at the side of the body she stammered as she told them I've been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs. And when she left she felt like she hadn't accomplished anything at all but the next day a nurse came up to her and said what did you do to that boy? And she thinking she had done something wrong began to stammer and apply and apologize and she said no no no no you don't know what I mean. We've been worried about that little boy.
But ever since yesterday his whole attitude has changed. She's fighting back. He's responding to treatment. And this as though he's decided to live two weeks later the little boy explained what had completely come over him and changed everything and it was this he had given hope until that teacher arrived and everything changed when he came to the simple realization expressed this way they wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy would they?
And so he began to live. A little bit of help gives a whole lot of hope and it's like that with the Lord. You look to the Lord for help in the present. And as he comes to your aid it builds your hope for the future.
But you might say I'm not worthy of his help. Why would he help me? I mean he knows everything I've done and said. He does all the twistedness of my heart and the filth of my imagination and the terrible person that I am who doesn't deserve help.
I'm so ashamed of myself. I can't even ask him for help you might say to yourself. What would we say to you? Well would you look?
Would you look at the passage? Notice verse 5. Who is this God who helps? He's the God of Jacob.
And who is Jacob? Jacob is the usurper. Jacob is the deceiver. Jacob was a deeply flawed man who wanted what God was offering and God gave it to him.
So you take encouragement. Bring your moral and spiritual bankrupt so you take God and ask for help. He delights the help, the helpless and the bankrupt. Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
Blessed are those who are spiritually and morally bankrupt spiritually and morally incapable of paying the debt that they owe. These are the people to whom God loves to give the kingdom. And so the passage says miserable are those who trust in princes but happier are those who trust in this king of kings. And so then who is this God?
This God of Jacob who gives to the one who asks who were invited to praise and to place our trust in? Well here's your incentive to do so. Notice in verses 6 through 10 he's the God who captivates. And the writer here the Psalmist piles up a list.
More can be said but he wants to say a lot and he says it less at least 12 things very quickly and since that what he does we'll just scan our eyes over them very quickly as well. Notice who this God is. Well verse 6 Yahweh is our maker. He made heaven and earth the sea and all that is in them.
So if you're leery of lightning terrified of tornadoes scared of sea creatures or wandering lost in the woods, who can help you? The God who made everything there is. That's who can help you. And he's not only our maker.
He's our promise keeper. Notice in verse 6 he keeps faith forever. That is he is unchanging faithful. He does what he says he will do and you can bank on him to do it.
And verse 3 he's our defender. Verse 7 he executes justice for the oppressed. That is he will call the wicked to account the wicked who oppress others. Now look we don't always see it in real time.
We don't see it instantaneously. Justice isn't needed out exactly in the moment the injustice has occurred. There may be a need to exercise patience so that you don't give way to despair. Is there some injustice you long to see made right?
The writer is saying it will be made right. Though the court of law often gets things wrong. There is a final Supreme Court so to speak whose chief justice sits on the throne of the universe. And every case is solved exactly as it ought to be.
He takes up for his oppressed people. He's our defender. He's also our provider. Notice that language verse 7 he gives food to the hungry.
Sometimes he does so miraculously like the ravens that fed Elijah when he was running for his life. Like the way that the Lord provided for the widow whose oil and flour were running out and the Lord abundantly provided for her and stressed it so to speak. Or like Christ who fed the thousands with just a little bit of bread and fish. More often though God provides for his people through the mundane work of our work.
And he gives us our daily bread that way. And one of those with spiritual hunger. Those who hunger and thirst as the scripture encourages us for righteousness. Well Jesus says they will be satisfied.
And Yahweh is our liberator. Notice in verse 7 he sets the prisoners free. He's the God who redeemed Israel out of bondage to Egypt. He can break the bondage of our sin.
He cuts the chain. He loses us from our sins and the prison we deserve on account of them. And Yahweh is our healer. Verse 8 he opens the eyes of the blind.
Jesus of course did this on numerous occasions. The thing which the ancient world understood that no man could do. Jesus did. And only he can open as well the eyes of our hearts and cause us to see the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
And so we sing amazing grace all sweet the sound that saved the rich like me. I once was lost but now I was blind. But now I see. Why do I see?
He opens the eyes of the blind. So some loved one you care about who's yet blind to the gospel? Yahweh is their only hope. Not only of saving them but of opening their eyes to see that he's their savior.
Won't you pray for that? Yahweh is our exaltor in the seventh place. He lifts up those who are bowed down. God opposes the proud but he's gracious to the humble and when we're helpless.
We're exactly where he wants us to be. That he might be our strength and weakness. He's also our lover. Notice that Yahweh loves the righteous.
Now the righteous here are not those who do everything right. And so their lives satisfy the requirements of being right in every way. Now the righteous in the scripture are the ones who trust in the Lord to be their Lord and savior and he accounts them righteous because of Jesus the righteous one. Just as the wicked are not wicked ultimately because their deeds are wicked though they may do wicked deeds.
Because they don't trust the Lord. And then everything else follows from that. The Lord loves those who trust in him. And verse 9 Yahweh is our watchman.
He watches over the sojourners. He cares for those no one else cares for. It's why the Old Testament law commanded Israel to care for aliens and strangers within their gates. Not just one another as fellow citizens and Israelites.
Why? Because God cares for the alien and the stranger, the sojourner. So I'd ask you know, who are the sojourners in our community? Who are the aliens and the strangers in our community?
Well how about non-citizens? Yeah, how about college students? I mean just for a second, you know, weird. You're just far from home.
You're far from everybody you know that loves you. He's growing up and maybe you're glad to be here. Maybe you missed. Maybe you long.
Maybe you just don't know anybody here yet. Who can you trust? Who will care for you? Who will be interested?
Well the Lord certainly, he watches over the sojourner. And the church at her best is like her Lord. Yahweh is also our Sustator. Number 10, he holds the widow and the fatherless.
He aids those whose earthly aid he has himself taken away. And so an early church leader wrote a letter to the emperor of Rome in AD 125 describing Christians this way. They love one another. And from widows they do not turn away their esteem.
And they deliver the orphan from him who treats him harshly. And he who has gives to him who has not without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in their homes and rejoice over him as a very brother. That's what the early church was like when the early church was like Yahweh.
He delights to help the helpless. And eleventh Yahweh is the destroyer of evil. Notice that language but the way of the wicked, he brings to ruin. He forts the way of the wicked or the way of the wicked, he turns upside down.
I think just one of the greatest anecdotes that I've ever come across is about the guy who robbed a woman's solar purse, used her credit cards at the track and won nearly $10,000. And they placed the winnings back on the credit card. Remember Haman in the Old Testament who wanted to exterminate all the Jews but Esther risked her life to save them having become queen for such a time as this. And Haman had built a platform upon which he hoped to hang the Jew, Malachi, Esther's uncle, and in the end God sought to it that Haman hung on his own gallows.
Because the way of the wicked, God brings to ruin. And twelfth Yahweh is our forever king. The Lord will reign forever. Your God has signed all generations.
He never dies. His plans never fail. His king, he is king and his kingdom, is never overcome. Nobody else then should get credit for these things.
No one else is like our God. Our maker, our promise keeper, our defender, our provider, liberator, healer, exaltor, lover, watchman, sustainer, destroyer of evil and forever king. So, hope in Him. Trust in Him.
You'll be blessed and happy in Him. And then you'll praise Him. Let's pray. Father, we bow and do praise You.
That You're all these things. Help us to know more and more what it means for You to be You and for us to trust in You. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
Amen. Let's stand together and sing.