Psalms 67 "What does it mean to be blessed by God?"

Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful

that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either

by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray

for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?

The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really,

I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible,

they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will

do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a

non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't

hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the

types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father, you know the condition that we're in right now. You know,

Father, some of us might be filled with joy, some of us having some worries. Father, we know that you

know. And so, Father, we know that your Word addresses who we really are in the states of our

real hearts. And we know that your Word is very powerful, important to us, especially since we all

struggle at different times and maybe a lot with worry. So we ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would

bring your Word deep into our heart, that your Word would form our heart and shape our heart and heal

and renew and give life to our heart. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior.

Amen. Please be seated.

Amen.

Amen.

A lot of people aren't often conscious of when they worry. I mean, obviously some of us know that we're worrying,

but a lot of us aren't actually that conscious when we're worrying. But one of the times when worry really

comes home, and we all, you know, maybe you'd say that's not like me, but if you have a good friend or a sister

or a brother or a mom or a dad or a wife, they'd say, yeah, yeah, that's, he's talking about you.

You know, I say, what are you worried about? You say, no, I'm not worried. And I know that you're worried, right?

So, but one of the things that really brings worry home to us is when we try to sleep.

And things that are worried just stops us from being able to fall asleep or stay asleep or fall back to sleep.

That we wake up in the middle of the night for whatever reason, and then we just, the worries go around and around in our minds

and we just can't get back to sleep.

Often the worries that we worry about are more like the tip of an iceberg.

One way to think about worry and what it's like to be a human being with worry is to think of every one of us,

every human being, as we walk around throughout the day, we're actually pulling a little red wagon behind us.

If you don't like the color red, it can be a blue wagon, yellow wagon, whatever, orange wagon, whatever color you like.

But we're pulling a little wagon behind us.

And so something comes up that I start to worry about and I put it in that little red wagon.

And then something else, you know, and then there's some things maybe I've been worrying about for months, for years,

that just, it goes in the little red wagon.

And so a lot of times what we don't realize is we see human beings walking around and we don't see the invisible wagon that they're pulling.

And we don't realize that some people, those little collections of worries, some of them small, like just teensy-wingsy things,

some of them quite big.

But for many of us, that wagon is actually stacked higher than the ceiling here.

And we're pulling this wagon behind us and all these worries are tottering.

And in fact, actually what happens is another source of worry is that our worries are tottering and that they're going to sort of undo us.

And so often, even when we have worries in the middle of the night, it's the tip of the iceberg.

And some of us know we begin by worrying about one thing, but then we wake up in the middle of the night and we worry from this,

we worry about that and we worry about that.

But really, there's a whole little red wagon of worries that we pull around all the time and we don't often know what to deal with.

The psalm that we're going to look at today, that Uzo read, Psalm 67, is actually a very, very, very, very wise and helpful psalm slash prayer slash song

that talks about worry and is a bit of an antidote to worry.

And especially when, as I'm going to show you in a moment, it's connected to ancient practices,

it's a very, very powerful thing for us to consider trying to use more of and make more a part of our lives.

One of the things, I don't know how many of you have ever gone to Costco,

but the first maybe three or four times I went to Costco, I kept getting it wrong.

Now, if you've never been to Costco, you'd wonder, like, how could you go to a Costco and get things wrong?

Well, the first thing is, like, I go to a, you know, a Loblaws or whatever, you just walk in, right?

No, you can't just walk into Costco, you have to have your membership card out.

You have to show your membership card.

If you don't show them that card, you can't get in.

And then, like, you know, a very other simple very thing is that when it comes to the cash,

you don't put the cash, everybody else makes you hold on to your cart.

Costco makes you let go of your cart.

In fact, you can always tell the people who've just joined Costco when you're in the lineup,

and you see the people trying to bring their carts the way they normally do,

and the people, the staff say, no, no, no, you have to put the cart this way.

It's, we've been formed, we don't realize it, but, you know, Loblaws and Metro and all these grocery stores,

they formed us into a particular way of doing carts.

I've only been to England a couple of times.

Every time it's been very, very short, just it was a work-related thing for, like, two days or three days.

And I'd love to go sometime for a longer period of time.

But one of the worries I would have about going to England is that they, from my point of view,

drive on the wrong side of the road.

And I'm so deeply formed with driving on the right side of the road

that I would worry that if I was in a car, I would keep going into traffic and having accidents,

just because we've been deeply formed.

So we're a wide range of ages here, small congregation, but wide range of ages.

And one of the things for Christians, especially Christians under 35,

increasingly they are wanting, they're sort of becoming very conscious of how the world,

how Canada forms you, how there's, in a sense, a type of a forming power of our culture all the time.

And they're looking for new ways to be formed.

In fact, many of them are looking into ancient practices,

like having morning or evening prayer or something like that.

And so why am I saying all of this?

In the English Reformation, which happened in the mid-1500s,

one of the things that those early reformers did, which was very, very wise,

first of all, they didn't want to just get rid of everything in the Christian past.

They'd say, well, like, why would you get rid of Augustine?

Like, why would you get rid of John Chrysostom?

Like, why would you get rid of some of these really beautiful prayers that have been written?

Like, why would you get rid of that?

But they did realize that some stuff had developed over time in how Christianity was practiced.

And there's a lot of stuff that had to be purged.

Things had to be reformed to be made more biblical and to also make the gospel more clear.

And so that's what they did.

And one of the primary things that they did, this was a very, very bold vision in the mid-1500s.

They said, you know, we would like to see every Christian on one hand like a monk.

What they meant is that it had developed within Christianity that, well, I could just go ahead and live my life,

but the monks are supposed to pray and the monks are supposed to read the Bible, but I just go ahead and live my day.

And they said, no, no, it's not that the Reformation wanted to create the priesthood of all believers.

It wanted to create the monkhood of all believers.

It wanted to come to the place where the average person, the housewife, the shopkeeper, the farmer, the soldier, the business person, the artist,

that all of them would develop a habit of praying in the morning and in the evening and reading the Bible in the morning and in the evening.

And so what they did is they went and looked, and monks had developed this really complicated way of praying six times a day.

And they took three of them, the three for the early part of the day, and then they were sort of going to group them together,

cut out a whole pile of stuff that was going on there and make sure that everything that was done was biblical and reflected the gospel

and the three things that connected more to evening.

And they created this service called Morning Prayer, and it's actually something that a group of people can do together,

but it's actually something that the early Christians, like over almost 500 years ago,

they wanted people to get into this habit, that every morning they would say some prayers and read the Bible,

and every evening they would say some prayers and that they would read the Bible,

and it would be a bit of a discipline.

And one of the things with this type of a discipline is they wanted to make sure there were certain things

that really helped to form you, that were good to say every day,

so they made sure the Lord's Prayer was in there, that you'd pray the Lord's Prayer every morning and every evening.

The Creed would be there, that you would say the Apostles' Creed morning and evening,

because it's impossible to read the Bible without knowing the Creed.

I mean, not read it correctly, it's a great help.

And then they also sort of took these very foundational or formative texts that you could pray,

whether from the early church or whether it was from certain Bible texts.

Now this is a long introduction to say that what they thought they would do

is that they would say every second night we'll have people pray and read Psalm 67.

Every second night.

That's what we'll have people do.

Now let's just have a read about it, and you'll see why this is actually quite a brilliant thing.

Well, I'm going to read the whole psalm through,

and then I'm going to go back and say a few more things about it,

but just listen to this again.

Psalm 67.

And just sort of remember, you know, we...

See, here's the thing.

One of the things that we have a problem with is we think,

ah, you know, we're really smart Christians,

and we're really, you know, knowledgeable Christians,

and those Christians back, you know, 500 years ago,

like, what did they know?

How could they possibly know as much as we know?

Like, we know... No, no, no.

They often knew the Bible way, way better than we do.

And they knew the human heart better than we do.

And they knew there was a problem with worry.

And they knew there was a problem with selfishness and narcissism.

And they knew there was a problem of having small visions

and only thinking about yourself.

And they knew that that was the human condition.

And so they picked Psalm 67 as one of these texts

to really form you in a deep way.

By praying it every second night.

And here's... Just listen to it.

So here I am.

It's coming up to the end of the day.

I have my little red wagon.

It's really piled high with my worries.

And then I pray.

May God be gracious to us and bless us.

And make his face to shine upon us.

That your way may be known on earth.

Your saving health, power among all nations.

Let the peoples praise you, O God.

Let all the peoples praise you.

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.

For you judge the peoples with equity

and guide the nations upon the earth.

Let the peoples praise you, O God.

Let all the peoples praise you.

The earth has yielded its increase.

God, our God, shall bless us.

God shall bless us.

Let all the ends of the earth fear him.

What a powerful thing to pray.

To pray on a regular basis.

To pray as you read the other bits of the Bible.

Now, so this, in a sense, this psalm was something

that they wanted you to read on a regular basis.

To remember all of the time as you're reading

the other parts of the Bible.

So that, in a sense, would start to form you.

That it could be memorized.

That it forms just how you think about the world

and see the world.

And it's made even more powerful

if you understand some of the bits in it.

And, in fact, I mean, I don't...

So, by the way, I know that Christians

aren't happy and upbeat all the time.

I mean, that would actually be sort of weird

if you always were.

Like, you know, you never get tired.

You never get hungry.

You never get grumpy.

Like, really?

We have a range of emotions.

But one of the things I think...

I mean, actually, what led me to become a Christian

was to see in other people

the emotional power and beauty of the Christian faith.

That's what led me to become a Christian.

I mean, afterwards, I discovered, you know,

lots of doctrines and apologetics

and all of that type of stuff.

But, you know, there is...

For people outside of the Christian faith,

they don't realize that as you enter into the Christian faith

and it becomes deeper, you become deeper in it

and it becomes deeper in you.

There really is something emotionally powerful

and beautiful in it.

I mean, obviously, you know, we have bad times

and depression and all those things.

But there is, in fact, still this something

which, as it takes hold of us,

is emotionally beautiful.

And you can see that when you look

at the little bits of it.

Let's look at verse 1.

We're going to camp in verse 1 for a bit.

But look at verse 1 of Psalm 67.

May God be gracious to us and bless us

and make his face to shine upon us.

Just a little while ago,

there was one of the people who works at a coffee shop

that I go to regularly.

I came up to get...

In that particular one, if you buy with a card,

you can get free refills.

And I like to get free refills because...

Free.

So I like free.

That's very powerful to me.

Free.

So I go up for my free refill

and I said to him,

I said, I just press send

and now my day's done.

I'm going to have this tea.

I'm going to head for home.

And so he said to me,

well, what do you do?

You obviously don't work in an office.

You work from home.

And then I said to him,

I said, well, I don't.

Maybe you don't know this

because you've only been working there about a month.

I said, I'm a pastor of a local church.

Now, here's the funny thing.

He said something which completely surprised me.

I found out later on,

I mean, he's like his grandparents,

great-grandparents were Catholics or something,

but he himself has nothing in practice.

Anyway, so I said,

I'm a pastor of a local church.

And he said,

oh, that explains how you always have

a positive attitude with us.

I thought, well, that's...

Not everybody thinks Christians are the bad guys.

I mean, that was one of the first things I thought.

But now, one of the reasons is that

I actually very self-consciously

tried to be a source,

like a type of secular blesser

to the people in the store

so that as I get to know them,

I make a point of,

like when I'm leaving, for instance,

to say,

and this is what I mean by a secular blessing,

I hope you have a really great shift.

I hope you have a great evening.

I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Like, I want to try to be an encourager to them.

And so I was really surprised when he said,

yeah, that fits.

You're a pastor.

You have this constant positive attitude.

Now, the reason I'm mentioning that

is this very word,

this very powerful word, blessing.

And it's going to be important.

Look at it again.

Verse one,

may God be gracious to us

and bless us

and make his face to shine upon us.

If you could put up the first point,

this is a bit wordy,

and I need to qualify it a little bit

and I probably should have shortened it,

but what's a blessing?

A blessing is power from the triune God

for you to thrive.

Like, that's actually the main thing to remember.

A blessing is power from the triune God

for you to thrive.

And then I've tried to make sure you understand.

It's a power for you to thrive.

And it can be one or more of this,

some combination in physical things,

like in health.

It can be what I call soulish,

because I didn't think of a better word.

I sort of made up a word, soulish.

It had a big red mark underneath it

and they didn't like it.

Google or whatever was very unhappy

that I used that word.

But soulish,

and that basically means

just like everything that goes on internally,

like, you know, your emotions,

your mind,

your will.

And then, of course, the social,

because we're, you know,

social human beings.

And it's a blessing in the,

a blessing is power from the triune God

for you to thrive in any of those spheres,

one or more.

And it's also a blessing

in terms of either the original creation,

which is what we live in right now,

or the new creation,

which is the new,

the coming new heaven and the new earth.

So what does this mean?

It means that,

so for instance,

I could pray for somebody

that God would bless them

with a good night's sleep.

Well, that's something physical

and something for their soul,

and it's something of this creation.

I could maybe pray

in my own prayer

that God would bless

a Muslim that I know,

that not only would he grant them

a good night's sleep,

but that Jesus would appear

to them in a dream.

You can pray that, by the way.

That's a good thing to pray.

Now here, obviously,

I'm not only praying

for a physical thing

that they would thrive,

but obviously a different type

of thriving

if Jesus was to appear

to them in a dream.

You know, you could pray

that there'd be harmony

in the family.

Well, that's a social thing.

That's part of this creation.

That's something that God

would obviously would like.

You could pray

that somebody would become

more prayerful.

Right?

So this is all,

this are all that God

would bless this person

with a deeper prayer life.

So that's what a blessing is.

And so it can be about,

you know, sleep,

physical things.

And it's why you can pray

blessing, God's blessing

on people outside

of the Christian faith,

on all sorts of people.

A blessing is power

that comes from the triune God

for you to thrive.

And now here's,

just look at verse one again.

May God be gracious to us

and bless us

and make his face

to shine upon us.

When I became a Christian,

I knew the Bible was special,

but if you do ask me

what the doctrine of the Bible is,

I wouldn't have been able

to tell you.

In fact, if you,

if I, if you,

if maybe in,

you know,

maybe one of the things

they'll do in heaven

for us to all have lots

of a big laugh

with each other

is to play back

what we said

when we were younger Christians.

And for some of us,

we'll be cringing

and everybody else

will have a good belly laugh

over the dumb things

that we said

or the dumb things

that we believed.

And over time,

you learn.

That's the hope

of the Christian faith

that you learn.

And, and so,

but the Bible,

one of the things

which is so powerful

when you understand

that Jesus wants you

to know that the Bible

is God's word written,

that God was the one

ultimately responsible

for the Bible being written.

The words that are there

are the words

that he wanted.

So what you're hearing

when you hear the Bible

is you're hearing God speak.

That's what you're hearing.

And, and so this on one hand

causes trouble for people.

A bit of a pre-announcement.

The first weekend in the fall,

we're bringing Paul Copeland

to Ottawa,

the Dig and Delve

Apologetics Ministry,

because sometimes

if you read parts

of the Old Testament

in particular,

it looks as if God's

called for genocide.

It looks like he's called

for holy war.

Some people will say

that it looks as if

the text is justifying

women being captured

and raped.

It looks like

it's justifying slavery.

There's a range of issues

and people say,

well, if this is what

God's word says,

how can you,

how can I worship that God?

And we're bringing in

this fellow Paul Copeland.

Bring your questions,

bring your skeptical friends,

bring your Christian friends

who are worried

about the Christian faith.

And we're going to have

a Friday evening

and Saturday morning

and there's a chance

he's going to be

the preacher the next,

the following Sunday,

the first Sunday in October

here at Church of the Messiah.

But that's in a sense

that not the danger

because the Bible

doesn't teach those things.

It's just a matter

of understanding

what the Bible

actually says.

I mean,

I probably read the Bible

twice a year

from cover to cover.

And the more I read

the Bible,

the more I know

that it doesn't teach

any of those things.

But anyway,

that's a bit of an aside.

But here's the important thing.

If you understand

that the Bible

is God's word written,

he wants you to pray this.

Like, what is God

thinking right now in heaven?

God is thinking

right now in heaven.

I want George

to learn how to pray

like this.

I want George

to pray about things

like this.

I want the people

in Church of the Messiah

to do this.

It's not being selfish.

It's not being high.

He wants me to say,

God, be gracious to me

and bless me and us

and make your face

shine upon me and us.

He wants me to pray that.

See how it talks

about worry?

To go to bed

saying,

one moment.

Okay.

And by the way,

a lot of your worry,

you know,

they're real things.

You know,

they're real things.

You have worries

about maybe your job,

your credit card bill,

all sorts of things.

I'm not saying

there's no worries.

But as you go to bed,

God is saying to you,

George,

I know you got

that little red wagon,

but here's what

I'd like you to pray.

Here's how I'd like

you to pray.

This is what I'm hoping

you'll pray,

how you will pray.

God,

please bless me

and my family.

Please

be gracious

to us.

I know you are,

and I know

your face is

shining upon me,

and may that

be true to me.

May that become

more real to my life.

He wants you

to ask for this.

It's part of the,

see,

this is what I was saying.

It's part of the emotional

beauty of Christianity.

That as we realize,

God wants me

to pray that.

Like,

he wants me

to pray that.

In the context

of my worries

and my hopes

and my dreams.

And it's not just that.

There's something in here

which shows the,

and this is connected

to the emotional beauty

and power

of the Christian faith.

faith.

And it's something

which is completely

and utterly unique,

which is seen here

in verse 1.

It's throughout

the entire

Old Testament.

Look at it again.

May God be gracious

to us and bless us

and make his face

to shine

upon us

or upon you.

You know,

I've had,

I had my times

after I became

a Christian faith

where I had doubts

about the Christian faith.

And as I've shared before,

for me,

at that time,

that I wasn't losing

my Christian faith

to become a,

you know,

like a Buddhist

or a Muslim

or any,

I,

for me,

it was atheism.

It's always been atheism.

That was my,

that was a source

of my doubt.

But, you know,

one of the things,

it was both the low point

of my atheism

but in some,

like my doubting

my Christian faith

and being pulled

towards atheism

or not wondering

whether Christianity

could be possibly true

and whether,

you know,

all of secularism

and agnosticism

and there is no God

and all of that,

that that's actually

the true thing.

And it was both

on one level

the depths of it

but also a turning point

I remember

almost in every case

that I'd be in some place

where you could actually

see the starry sky

maybe a little bit

outside the city

and I could see

the stars

and the black

but you know what,

I didn't see the stars

and I didn't see their beauty,

I saw the emptiness.

I saw the void.

That's the faith

of atheism

and secularism.

It's the void.

Lifeless,

indifferent,

empty space.

It is not the God

who you can become

in such a way

that his face

shines upon you.

To my friends

of other faiths,

you cannot possibly

imagine

a text like this

about Allah.

There is no possible way

that there would be

any text like this

that says Allah's face

smiles upon you,

shines upon you.

There is a sternness

and an indifference

to Allah.

For Buddha?

Well,

even in my neighborhood

I have lots of,

I drive by places

that have statues

of the Buddha

and

the Buddha,

the way Buddhism

is portrayed

is not

that at the end

of the day

you will appear

before a person

whose face

can shine

upon you.

The Buddha

is self-contained.

learning to be

indifferent

to desire.

And here is

the wonderful thing

when it says

his face

to shine upon you

and especially

as you go throughout

the rest of the Bible

and even in this psalm,

it is a smile.

It is a beaming smile.

It is a smile

that reflects

goodness.

It is a smile

that is pure.

It is not the smile

of a salesman

hoping

or a saleswoman

hoping they can

manipulate you

into buying something.

It is not the smile

of a person

hoping they can

so charm you

that they can

get you into bed.

It is not anything

which is impure.

There is a purity

to his shining

upon you.

It is affection.

It is delight.

It is love.

And this is how

God is described.

This is what

the ancient reformer

said,

you're going to go

to sleep.

As you go to sleep,

remember

that if you are

in Christ,

this is how God

is looking at you

right now.

Some of you

are worrying

about very,

very hard things

and some of you

might be in a position

where you are

very emotionally

down.

I have no authority

in and of myself

to say this.

All I have

is the authority

of God's word

to say that

if you are in Christ

right now,

God's face

is shining upon you.

You see,

in a sense,

this prayer

of Psalm 67

is forming me

to ask,

Father,

may you

help me

to have a humble

walking

knowing

that in Christ

you look at me

and your face

shines

as you look

at me.

Now,

let me tell you

what I've just said

about God

being described here.

Obviously,

that's not a proof

for Christianity.

But if you're

outside the Christian

faith,

don't you want

this to be true?

Like,

don't you want

this to be true?

I mean,

for everyone

who is outside

the Christian faith,

I mean,

you have reasons

why you're not a Christian.

I acknowledge that.

I know that.

I know that

from the inside

in my earlier life.

But there's also

a part of you

that doesn't want

Christianity to be true.

But when you hear this,

don't you want it

to be true?

Now,

some of you

might say,

well,

George,

this just sounds

to me like

the type of

a narcissist

prayer.

Bless me,

face shine upon me.

It's the prayer

of a tyrant.

Well,

there's a couple

of reasons

why that is not

the case.

And the first one

of them

is just seen

in verse 2.

So verse 1 is,

may God be gracious

to us

and bless us

and make his face

to shine upon us.

And it's all part

of the same sentence.

The ESV preserves

that it's one sentence.

You know,

two stanzas

but one sentence.

So may God be gracious

to us

and bless us

and make his face

to shine upon us

that,

that,

your way

may be known

on earth,

your saving power

among all nations.

So,

if you could put up

the second point,

that would be very helpful.

He blesses you

to be a means

by which

he blesses others

from every nation.

He blesses you

not so you can just

get bloated

with his blessings

and just get bigger

and fatter

with his blessing.

Looking within,

happy at your blessing.

Everything in the world

is going to hell

and a hand card

and you're just

getting fatter

with his blessing.

No.

I mean,

that's one of the things

he does is

when that starts

to happen to us,

he punctures us.

He punctures us

because that's not

blessing inside,

that's hot gas.

That's something

foul

that's making us

really big like that.

He punctures that.

His word punctures that.

It's,

it's,

it's,

this is teaching me

to ask the complete

opposite of narcissistic

questions.

If I've been blessed

with a good mind,

the question for me

is God has blessed me

with a good mind.

How does he want me

to use my mind

to bless others?

If God has blessed you

with good,

large financial resources,

now he's not asking you

to give it all away,

but the question

you need to ask

if you have really

good financial resources

is,

okay,

he's blessed me

with these financial resources.

How does he want me

to give my money away

to be a blessing?

You know,

maybe he's blessed you

with time,

you know,

and leisure.

Not that you just

have to do all of your,

you only spend all your time

in,

you know,

doing,

you know,

praying,

but God's blessed me

with this time,

with this leisure.

How am I to use this

to bless others?

I mean,

one of the things

I sometimes tell people

that are older,

that are,

you know,

that are,

you know,

retired and everything

like that,

is I said,

you know,

if you have a harried mom

who's doing,

trying to keep her sanity

while looking after

three young kids

under six,

if she manages

one minute of prayer,

that actually might be

worth an hour

of prayer for you.

I'm a bit nicer than that

and not sort of mean,

right?

Because gosh,

it's just so hard

when you're harried

with kids,

but you know,

but it forces me

to ask,

you know,

and it forces us

as a congregation

to ask these very,

very non-narcissistic questions.

If God has blessed you

with a good house,

why has he blessed you

with a good house?

Is it to show hospitality

to people?

Is it to have people over?

Is it to have people

from the congregation

who maybe are single

or lonely

into the congregation

to invite your neighbor?

Like, see,

this psalmist force

is inviting us

to ask this other question

because he blesses you.

He blesses you.

He blesses you.

He blesses us.

What do we do

with the blessing?

And it's one of the things

which is so wonderful

about this in Psalm 67.

It's a big vision.

Okay, he didn't just bless me

so that I can bless

the other people

who have my political views,

like the same type of music.

No, no, no.

There's these nations

that have come from

all over the world

to come to Canada.

How do I bless them?

How do I bless...

I mean, this is why

we support missionaries

in Angola,

why we support missionaries

in Northern Africa.

I'm going to be recommending

to the council

because we have some extra money

to give to missions

that we adopt a mission

by the end of the summer

that's trying to bring

the Christian message

to Afghanistanese

in Derry.

Isn't that something

we should want to do?

Help somebody tell people

about Jesus

stuck in Afghanistan

in the Derry language.

It's why we want

to plant churches.

It's why we want

to have a seminary.

And more and more,

how can...

God is blessing us.

How is that supposed

to go out?

That's what this psalm

is teaching us.

It's teaching us

a really, really big vision.

It's the opposite

of narcissism.

Now, I have to wrap things up

in a moment,

but there's something in here

which is going to get

at the deepest part

of how God wants

to bless us,

and it's found

in a type of a riddle.

Look at verse 2 again.

that your way

may be known on earth.

Your...

Look at this.

Saving power.

I mean, this gets

a lot of Canadians nervous.

Your way?

The good news is

that God has made a way.

Let me tell you.

If I give you a way

to make to reach God,

get a beer instead.

Don't listen to me.

I can't reach God.

Good grief.

What a ridiculous idea.

The Bible is the biggest critique

of religion and spirituality,

but what if God made a way?

And what if his way

that he made to us

was a way

where his saving power

can come to ordinary people

like you and me?

And then it continues,

verse 3,

let the peoples praise you,

O God.

Let all the peoples praise you.

Let the nations be glad

and sing for joy,

for you judge the peoples

with equity

and guide the nations

upon the earth.

Let the peoples praise you,

O God.

Let all the peoples praise you.

So here's the riddle,

which is within this text.

The Bible is rejecting

self-salvation.

It says it doesn't work.

You have to receive

or surrender to

or come into

what God has provided.

In fact, actually,

you could put up

the third point.

That would be very good.

Claire,

the greatest blessing

is to surrender

to God's power

to save you

through faith in Jesus.

The greatest blessing

is to surrender

to God's power

to save you

through faith in Jesus.

Well, how can this work

and how does this

make any sense?

So you see,

the big problem

is,

and basically,

every religion

or spirituality

other than Christianity,

which is absolutely unique,

doesn't solve this issue.

You see,

really what happens,

like if you think

of something like Islam,

what you actually just have

is that God has favorites.

Sucks to be you,

sucks to be you,

sucks to be you,

sucks to be you,

sucks to be you.

Oh, like you,

boop,

sucks to be you.

You know,

he just has favorites.

It's sort of like

when Biden,

or whatever's going to happen

now with Biden,

but when he steps down,

he's going to give pardons,

right?

I've used this analogy

many times,

and most people

don't think it's justice.

It's just think

he's letting his cronies off,

and a Republican

will do the same thing.

This isn't any

political type of comment,

and nobody thinks

that these are all

profound acts of justice.

Occasionally,

they are,

that they'll give a pardon

to where there's been

a clear miscarriage of it,

but usually,

it's just their business cronies,

their political cronies,

their friends,

and they just give them a pass,

and that's what a lot of people

basically think

in terms of how salvation works,

but that's not

what Christianity is.

In Christianity,

grace isn't unjust,

and grace is not favoritism.

justice and the demands

of justice is met

in a way

that if it grabs you,

should just gobsmack you,

and I haven't used this analogy

for a long time,

but I'll use it again

because it's a brilliant analogy.

I actually learned about it

from a person from Thailand

who'd converted from Buddhism

to Christianity,

and here's the analogy.

Imagine,

we're going to have to go back

a few years.

I can't remember the last time

that England was in the Euro Cup

and made it to the finals,

but, you know,

whatever,

10 or 12 years ago.

Imagine that England

finally won the Euro Cup.

It's hard for us to imagine.

Go watch some things.

When your country wins,

they go completely berserk,

bananas with joy.

So England wins

the Euro Cup.

First thing they've won

since they won the World Cup

in 66 or something like that,

and there's a big victory celebration

in Wembley Stadium.

Sits 110,000 people,

and the English soccer team is there.

There are 110,000 people

going completely crazy.

British rock stars are singing

and all of that type of stuff,

and then all of a sudden,

the lights go down.

A voice comes on and says,

all of the exits have been lost.

There's a small nuclear device

in the very center of Wembley Stadium,

and we're going to blow it up

because it's time for England

to pay for its crimes,

and we're going to blow it up.

Goes out on the Internet,

goes out on the radio.

If the police try to do anything

to try to let the people come out,

do anything at all,

we're going to push the button.

We're going to kill everybody,

but we want to have a time

to humiliate the nation first.

And especially now

in the age of the Internet

and social media,

that would go around the world instantly.

In fact, large parts of the world

would stop looking at

what's happening in Wembley Stadium.

Now, I've used this analogy before,

but it's still a good analogy.

If I was to somehow or another,

you know, I found out

that one of you is actually a hacker,

and they're able to hack in,

and I call up the terrorists

and say, listen,

let the 110,000 people go

and all go sit in the nuclear device.

They'd laugh.

Why would we do that?

That's stupid.

But if the Queen of England

was to call them up

and say,

I will go and sit on that nuclear device

if you let the 110,000 people go,

they would take it.

They would take it in a moment.

You think the whole world is watching

while 110,000 English people

are in Wembley Stadium?

Just imagine what would happen

if the Queen of England

was sitting on that nuclear device.

They'd know they have all of England

in their grip.

England's past and present and future.

And all the Commonwealth nations,

they have them in their grip

because that's who the Queen can represent.

And if they ended up detonating

and killing her,

there'd be more mourning,

almost,

over her death than 110,000.

We can all see how the one

can represent the many.

And this is the power

and the beauty of Christianity.

God, the Son of God,

the Queen can represent all of England.

The Queen can represent the democracies.

The Queen can represent the Commonwealth.

Only God, the Son of God,

can represent every human being

who has ever lived.

And He is the one

who took our place.

And He willingly took upon Himself

the judgment.

If you could put up the point,

that would be great.

The greatest blessing

is to surrender to God's power

to save you

through faith in Jesus.

Now, I need to wrap up.

My time is up.

If you could just put...

Actually, we'll just read

verses 5 to 7 in closing

and then put up the point, Claire.

So it continues.

Let the peoples praise you, God.

Let all the peoples praise you.

The earth is yielded.

It's increased.

God, our God,

shall bless us.

God shall bless us.

Let all the ends of the earth

fear Him.

If you could put up the final point.

Why is it

that I pray

that people I know

come to a saving faith in Jesus?

Why is it

that I think

it's so important

to plant churches?

Why is it

that I think it's important

to support missionaries?

Why is it?

Well,

the Lord desires

more and more

ordinary people

from every nation

to know the joy

of worshiping Him?

That's why you pray.

Listen,

your testimony might be,

listen,

I'm not going to tell you

about necessarily

what God is doing

in my life right now

because really right now

I, frankly,

I'm having a really hard time.

But I know

that my Savior

is my Savior.

I know there will be joy.

It has been joy.

There will be joy.

Why do we pray

for others

to become Christians?

The Lord desires

more and more

ordinary people

from every nation

to know the joy

of worshiping Him.

The greatest blessing?

Surrender

to a saving power

by putting your faith

in Christ.

Remember

that God

is blessing you

to bless others.

Remember

that when you are

in Christ,

like right now,

I can't say this

in my own humanistic power,

but right now,

God is looking at us

and His face

is shining upon us.

Like right now.

Let's pray

that we live

out of that truth.

I invite you to stand.

Father,

we give you

thanks and praise

that you are a person,

that you love us

and you made us

as people

to know you

and to love you,

that you made us

to glorify you

and enjoy you forever.

That's why you made us.

That's what you made us for,

to glorify you

and to enjoy you forever.

That you desire

that even on this side

of the grave

that we would know

the joy of worshipping you,

of self-effacing

looking at you

and what you have done.

And we thank you

for Jesus.

We thank you

for what he did

for us on the cross.

Father,

if there are any here

or any online

or watching downstream

who have not put their faith

and trust in Jesus,

Father,

help them even now

just to surrender.

Surrender into his hands.

Surrender and say,

Jesus,

you are Savior.

You are Lord.

I am yours.

Knowing that he will

take all

who say that to him.

And Father,

we ask that you help us

not only to count

our blessings,

but as we count

each blessing

to also think

how is it,

why is it

that you have blessed me

with this?

How is it

that this is to be

a blessing

that I can use

to bless others?

Father,

we ask that you do that

for us as individuals,

that you help us

to do it as a church.

And we ask all these things

in the name of Jesus,

your Son,

and our Savior.

And all God's people said,

Amen.