Praise for God's Care (A Study of Psalm 145 Part 3)

So this morning, of course, we will be in Psalm 145.

And I would encourage you, as I do every week, I would encourage

you to turn to Psalm 145 and it is found verse 14, which is

where we'll be, is found on page 525.

If you're using one of our Bibles, someone told me last

week, they said, oh, I might have to start bringing my Bible

because I keep asking people to turn to different sections and

scriptures. So which is awesome.

That made me so happy to hear. I'll check in with her later,

the later after the service to see if she brought her Bible.

But yeah, always, I always encourage you to bring your

bring your Bibles with you on Sunday mornings because we will

be in them and we'll be in a couple of different passages

this morning that you'll be turning to Psalm 1:45.

If you're able to, would you please stand as we read Psalm

145, starting at verse 14. The Lord upholds all who are

falling and raises up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food.

In due season You open your hand.

You satisfy the desire of every living thing.

The Lord is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His works.

The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him.

In truth, He fulfills the desire of those who fear Him.

He also hears their cry and saves them.

The Lord preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will

destroy. My mouth will speak the praise

of the Lord, and let all flesh bless His holy name forever and

ever. Amen.

You may be seated. So the last couple weeks we've

been in this Psalm, we've devoted a bit of time to

examining what does it mean to praise God?

All the different words that David used for praising God and

the different ways that we can do that.

And then part of what we praise God for is his great working.

That was our focus in the first Week, 2 weeks ago, and the many

ways that he had worked in the past, from the exodus to his

involvement in our in our own lives.

We even spent some time last week in Exodus 34 examining the

character of the king and that he is gracious and compassionate

and slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love.

He's a good king and He offers his protection to us, but he

also has expectations of us. So this morning we'll pick up

with God's provision. Now as we do that, we see that

part of how God provides is by lifting up the broken.

He lifts up the broken. Verse 14 said the Lord upholds

all who are falling and raises up all who are about down.

You know, as one pours through the pages of Scripture,

something interesting emerges. Humans finding themselves at the

end of the rope, completely beat down and destroyed, wanting

nothing more to do with this earthly life and discouragement

rather than death. Discouragement has become the

great equalizer because all of the heroes of the faith, they

all experience discouragement at some point in their lives.

Let's focus on one particular person for a moment.

Job. Job was considered the noblest

man in the entire world, but after all the trials that he had

experienced, he wrote. And it's there on the screen for

you. Has not man a hard service on

earth? And are not his days like the

days of a hired hand? Like a slave who longs for the

shadow, and like a hired hand who looks for his wages?

So I am allotted Months of emptiness and nights of misery

are apportioned to me. When I lie down, I say, When

shall I arise? But the night is long, and I am

full of tossing till the dawn. My flesh is clothed with worms

and dirt. My skin hardens, then breaks out

afresh. My days are swifter than a

weaver's shuttle and come to their end without hope.

Remembering that my life is a breath, my eye will never again

see God, I want to pause for a moment.

Sometimes people think that we have to act like we have it all

together. But when you look at Scripture,

clearly joke doesn't have it all together right here, right?

And David, when you read all through the Psalms, there's so

many places where life is certainly not going his way.

So we can take the trials, the struggles in life, and we can

bring those to God. God's a big boy, right?

God can handle it. So Job had lost his property,

his family. He'd lost even his health.

The only thing he didn't lose was his wife.

And well, she wasn't too good. She actually only made the

situation worse. So he was completely discouraged

and he had lost all hope. And after a lot of going back

and forth and, and talking with God and talking with his friends

who were pretty worthless, Job 1925 through 27.

Job says this. And this is one of my favorite

passages in Scripture. For I know that my Redeemer

lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth after my

skin has been thus destroyed. Yet in my flesh I shall see God,

whom I shall see for myself, and then my eyes shall behold, and

not another. My heart faints within me.

Job's hope within. A God who stands outside of

time, a Redeemer who values Job's life and offers him

something more than just an earthly experience.

This was Job's hope. Not.

It wasn't simply wishful thinking, but it was full belief

that seeing God someday would become an actual reality, not

just hoping for something. So all of us have known

discouragements in our lives, some of us more than others, as

some personalities are more prone to deeper bouts of

discouragement and depression. However, the text this morning,

this verse doesn't simply have discouragement in mind.

Oppression is also in view here. See, when it says those who are

bowed down, it's not just referring to someone who has

fallen on hard times. They're in a season of maybe bad

luck. Things just aren't going their

way. No, that's not what's in view

here. No, this person has been brought

down by someone else. The actions of another person

has served to bring this person down and to discourage them.

When this happens, some may find themselves that they experience

a particularly hard time of depression.

So David knew this as a reality, as King Saul had, had made David

enemy #1 for more than a decade, he'd been enemy number one of

King Saul in spite of not doing anything wrong.

He was Saul's enemy. But David knew that God was the

lifter of his spirit, and he was continually going to God during

that season when he's on the run, fearing for his life.

So God upholds in raises up those who are broken and bowed

down. Next we see that God provides.

Verse 15 tells us that God provides the eyes of all look to

you and you give them their food in due season.

The providing of food that this verse speaks of is something

that is part of what we call in theological circles, common

grace. Now, common grace is

distinguished from saving grace. Saving grace is the grace that

that God imparts to those who would place their faith in Him.

That is what saving grace is. The common grace is the grace of

God-given to all people in the world.

This grace is given to people regardless of whether or not

they actually believe in Him. God has always shown His common

grace to everyone everywhere through all of history.

Everyone has been a recipient of His common grace.

So verse 9 from last week spoke to this common grace.

It said the Lord is good to all and His mercy is over all that

he has made. Also, when the Sermon on the

Mount, Jesus Speaking of the Father, he said he makes his

sunrise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just

and the unjust. So God's goodness is on

everyone. The air we breathe is God's

goodness. Waking up to each new morning is

God's goodness and bringing in the harvest.

This food is God's goodness, His common grace to all.

Now notice that the verse says in due season.

In due season means that God's going to bring this about in the

right time. He knows the right time for

everything. He knows when someone's at the

end and they can't take it anymore.

He knows when we're about to be destroyed and we need to be

lifted up. God knows everything and

provides for each person in His time a new job, financial

resources, food, a career change to becoming a lead pastor, all

all of these. God performs in His perfect

timing. You might think that you have

the right timing figured out. I thought I had it all figured

out. God had other plans, but God

will work His will in the right season.

It might take longer than you want, or it might even be sooner

than you want. God's timing is perfect.

So we've received God's common grace.

But then verse 16 takes it a step farther.

You open your hand. You satisfy the desire of every

living thing. He satisfies our desires.

God is generous and He provides for His people in a bountiful

manner. He isn't stingy and He isn't

tight fisted. For 60 years now, literally 60

years, Mick Jagger has been singing those famous lyrics.

I can't get no satisfaction because I try and I try and I

try and I try. The double negative aside,

Jagger has clearly been looking for satisfaction in the wrong

places. The 17th century scientist,

mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal is said to have

authored the notion of the God shaped hole that exists inside

of each person. Now this is the concept that

there's something inside of us, inside each person that longs

for something bigger than us, the unmoved mover, the immutable

and infinite God of this world. Now the translations of his

French texts don't exactly yield the words God shaped whole, but

the concept is there in his writings.

In Section 7 on morality and doctrine, Pascal writes.

What is it then, that this desire and this inability to

proclaim to us? But there was once in man a true

happiness, of which there now remain to him only the mark and

empty trace of this happiness, which he in vain tries to fill

from all his surroundings, seeking from things absence the

help he does not obtain in things presence.

But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can

only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to

say, only by God Himself. Let me repeat that these are all

all these things that we try to fill our lives with, all these

things that we try to satisfy our lives with, They're all

inadequate because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an

infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God

himself. True satisfaction is only found

in God. All other attempts to find it

elsewhere will just leave you in the same place as Mick Jagger

not being able to find satisfaction.

God's fulfilling our desires and providing for us is a reflection

of His good character. So next we briefly look at God's

righteous ways, verse 17. The Lord is righteous in all His

ways and kind in all His works. Now, if you're like me, then

perhaps you've misunderstood the meaning of the word

righteousness. For years I have the notion that

righteousness was more or less just a synonym for the word

holiness. I'm not sure what caused me to

realize this, but after examining the Word more deeply,

I began to understand that righteousness is really about

justice. Righteousness is about God's

justice, His in his dealings with us and our justice in

dealing with other people, doing right by them.

So in light of that, allow me to offer to you the Pastor Drew

paraphrase of verse 17. God is just in his dealings with

us and loving in all his deeds. Now perhaps that verse might

strike you a little bit when you think of it in those terms.

Does God's justice mesh with God's love and mercy and

compassion? How?

How do these these things go together?

Well, here's the great paradox. Mercy and justice meet in God.

God is both merciful and God is both just.

Neither quality is exclusive, but rather are two sides of the

same coin. God is at once perfectly just

and absolutely tender and compassionate at the same time.

Now David didn't have the fully fleshed out under the standing

of the Messiah that that we have.

He he had what's was in his scriptures, which was parts of

the Old Testament. So he didn't fully understand

what the Messiah would be. But but God's justice demands

that that sin is punished. Now, this has not changed.

Sin has always been punished all the way from the Garden all the

way up to today. Sin has to be punished.

However, God's mercy and compassion offered forgiveness

to us through the sacrifice and finished work of Jesus Christ on

the cross. So that is how both justice and

compassion are demonstrated in our God.

Moving on to verse 18, as we look at God's deliverance, the

Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him.

In truth, God is near. He's near to us.

And being near to us means that when we call on Him, He's

attentive to us. God isn't like our daughter

Arya. If she's reading a book and you

say her name, in all likelihood she is not going to respond.

She doesn't even hear you speaking to her.

Even when you use her name, she won't even hear you because she

is so absorbed in that book. She is not attentive to anything

else going on around her. It's really amazing.

I don't know how she does it, but God, when we call out to

him, he's near to us and he's attentive to us when we call.

Now I've referred to God's transcendence a few times over

the last couple weeks. Mean that God is so great and

beyond this world that we can't possibly know everything there

is to know about him. So this is true.

But I also said a couple weeks ago that God is imminent.

He's close to us like a friend. God is near to us, and He is

completely. Accessible.

He hasn't locked himself away in some safe house in heaven.

No, he's near. Also, to say that God's near

means he's present with those who sincerely seek him.

Now, it's possible you've heard the question and rather trite

statement. Are you far from God?

Well, guess who moved? The obvious implied answer being

that God didn't move. You did.

However, it's a disservice to stop there so we can then

continue with another fairly forward response.

God is only a prayer away. This isn't just a trite

statement, it's truth. If you seek Him, then you will

find Him. He's right there.

The writer of Hebrews tells us that whoever would draw near to

God must believe that he exists, and He rewards those who seek

Him. Seeking after Him isn't

something that that you will do in vain.

If you were earnestly seeking after Him and Scripture says you

will find Him. Now consider for a moment what

would happen if you wanted to approach an earthly king or a

president. You can't simply go to the

King's place of residence, which right now is Clarence House, I

believe is what it's called. You can't go to the King's place

of residence and and say I want to meet with the king, just as

you can't go to the White House and say I would like to meet

with the president. Try as you might, as much as you

might want to gain an audience with either of these two men,

you're probably going to be unsuccessful in your attempts.

You will not gain an audience with these men.

But if we earnestly, truthfully desire to see God, if we really

desire to be near Him, then we will receive that reward and

we'll find ourselves in close proximity to our key.

Verse 19. He fulfills the desire of those

who fear Him. He also hears their cry and

saves them. God listens.

He's a God who listens. He doesn't turn a deaf ear.

As I said, he's attentive to the cries of his people.

When we cry out to him in trouble, God hears us and has

compassion on us. He'll bandage our wounds.

He'll pick us up and be our rescue.

He brings deliverance to his people.

So David experienced this in his life.

God was there as David's deliverance all through his life

and God was listening to him. Now this was obviously the case

during the 1st 10 to 15 years after Samuel had an anointed

David as king and during which time David was on the run for

his life. But then David had become king,

and there was his own personal exile.

He'd been exiled from Jerusalem because his rebellious son

Absalom had usurped the throne. And so again David found himself

in a place where he was fearing for his life.

And through it all, David continually cried out to a God

and expressed worship to him at every season.

This was in spite of the constant threats on his life.

In the midst of these things, David knew God listens.

And that's how he can say God hears their cry and saves

because David had experienced it in his own life.

And then he goes on to say, God hears your cry and saves.

Those who worship Him in reverent fear will be delivered

when they cry out. Last week we talked about living

in the Kingdom and I referenced one Monty Python movie.

So now hopefully every every time you see that movie or hear

about it, you will think about what it's like to live in God's

Kingdom. So we talked about living in the

Kingdom and, and the fact that we can expect certain things

when we live in the Kingdom. We know that there will be

expectations placed on us, but then we also know that there are

benefits to life in the Kingdom of God.

We have His protection as God preserves the righteous.

He preserves the righteous, but He also destroys the wicked.

Verse 20 said He preserves all who love him, but all the wicked

he will destroy. He keeps watch over and He

guards all who love him. It's easy for us to miss what

this means since we're not so versed in the nuances of being a

Pagan deity. You see, Pagan gods didn't

demand love from their subjects. They demanded loyalty for sure.

And this loyalty was shown through simple actions like

offerings and sacrifices. But love never entered the

equation in how a Pagan God interacted with its subjects.

There wasn't love from the God for the subjects, and there

wasn't love from the subjects for the God.

But Yahweh. Yahweh is different.

While there are expectations placed on His followers, it's

love that is the basis for that relationship, not coercion.

We don't love God in order to receive His protection.

We love God because He first loved us.

We love Him out of grateful hearts for the salvation that

we've received. And then this is the evidence of

true godliness. Our God's ways are way different

than the ways of the Pagan gods. Go ahead and turn a little to

the left to Psalm 121. This is such an awesome Psalm.

Psalm 121 is a beautiful statement of God's protection

for His people, and I suspect much of this will be familiar to

many of you. I lift up my eyes to the hills.

From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who

made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be

moved, but he who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your

right hand. The sun shall not strike you by

day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all

evil. He will keep your life.

The Lord will keep your going out and you're coming in from

this time forth and forevermore. This, this is the protection

offered to those who call on him in truth, the protection offered

to those who fear Him, The protection offered to those who

love Him. He fiercely protects His people,

But the wicked don't experience the same benefits since they

don't live under the rule and reign of our God, Psalm 1,

Psalms 1:5–6

verses 5 through 6 reads. Therefore the wicked will not

stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of

the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of

the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

So these verses beg the question, Who are the wicked?

Is this a word reserved solely for the Hitler's and Pol Pots

and Stalin's of the world, people whose lives are

characterized by evil and Avi and who are obviously wicked?

Or is there a broader category in view here?

Well, I would suggest that this verse is getting at both the

obviously wicked of this world as well as those who are in a

broader category. Generally speaking, we can think

of the wicked as people whose lives are characterized by

rebellion against God. They have complete disdain for

God's ways and God's righteousness.

Instead of living according to His ways, they choose instead to

live in open rebellion against their Creator.

This is a hallmark of their life.

There's no doubt about their level of morality as they are

completely immoral. This is who the wicked are.

Then there's also a broader category though listed as

sinners. And when you come across this,

it might catch your attention because you might stop and

think, what does that mean? I'm a Sinner?

We're all sinners, right? Well, in a technical sense, yes,

we all sin. But that's not what this passage

has in view when Scripture references sinners.

It isn't referring to those who have placed their faith in Jesus

Christ redeeming work on the cross.

No, that's not what's in view when Scripture is talking about

sinners. Scripture it's talking about

people who have not given their life over to Christ and they are

choosing rather to live their own ways to have self on the

throne of their lives rather than King Jesus on the throne of

their lives. So these people and the wicked

will find themselves wanting in the day of judgment.

And as we end it all comes back to where we started.

Verse one said I will extol you my God and King and bless your

name forever and ever. And then to close out the

chapter, David basically says, well, he actually repeats

verbatim part of verse one, and then he uses that Hebrew

parallelism that I talked about, saying the same thing just in a

different way. He says in verse 21, My mouth

will speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless

his holy name forever and ever. David has made it clear he's

going to praise the Lord his king.

He's going to say great things about God, and then his

encouragement is for everyone, everything to do the same,

everything to praise the Lord and to do that forever.

As we wrap up the short series, I want to leave you with the

summation I came across. So Psalm 145 and life in the

Kingdom of God. I can expect God to act in a way

that's consistent with his nature.

I can expect him to keep his promises.

I can expect God to hold me up when I stumble.

I can expect him to give me what I need when I need it.

I can expect him to be open handed with me and sensitive to

my desires. I can expect Him to do the right

thing, to deal with me and love to be near, to be when I cry.

I can expect God to save me. And God, for His part, can

expect something from me in return.

He can expect praise. We can expect life in the

Kingdom of God. We can expect God to take care

of us and provide for all we need and our proper response to

the God who provides for all we need, our salvation and our

daily sustenance. Our proper response is lives of

praise. Let's bow our heads and close

our eyes. God, we thank You that you are

gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding the

steadfast love. May we never forget that that is

who you are. Yet you are also just and we

give thanks for your justice that took our sins and punish

them on Jesus on that cross, providing the way for us to live

life under your rule and reign. Would you continue to move in

this place and in this time as we sit at your table in Jesus

name, Amen?