Psalm 66

Our reading today is from Psalm 66.

How awesome are your deeds?

To the choir master, a song, a psalm.

Shout for joy to God all the earth.

Sing the glory of his name.

Give to him glorious praise.

Say to God, How awesome are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.

All the earth worships you and sings praises to you.

They sing praises to your name.

Say La.

Come and see what God has done.

He is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.

He turned the sea into dry land.

They passed through the river on foot.

There did we rejoice in him, who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations.

Let not the rebellious exalt themselves.

Say La.

Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept our soul among the living, and has not let our feet slip.

For you, O God, have tested us.

You have tried us as silver is tried.

You brought us into the net, you laid a crushing burden on our backs, you let men ride over our heads, we went through fire and through water, yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.

I will come into your house with burnt offerings, I will perform my my vows to you, that which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.

I will offer to you burnt offerings of flattened animals, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams, I will make an offering of bulls and goats.

Say Allah.

Come and hear all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.

I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

But truly God has listened.

He has attended to the voice of my prayer.

Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me.

And so reads God's Word.

As has been mentioned.

If you please uh get a Bible, whether it's a physical Bible or a Bible on your phone, and turn to Psalm 66, that will be really helpful as we spend time considering what God has to say to us through his word by his spirit.

Manchester United are a wonderful team, aren't they?

They're a great team.

A team that sadly are not doing well at the moment.

We'll see that in a minute.

And I've supported them since I was a kid.

When I lived in Manchester, I was able to actually go to the stadium Old Trafford a few times and be able to see a game or two.

And it is one of the most iconic stadiums in the world.

And if you went to the stadium, you would see banners all around, and in particular, this is a prominent banner that you would see.

Manchester is my heaven.

In many ways, we can look at this and think it's just a banner.

It's just a banner in a stadium.

But the truth is that this banner is revealing something.

That for some people, Manchester United is the thing they worship.

For some people, this club, this team, is what they so desperately desire to feel satisfied through, through their success.

You might think worship, as we've kind of been thinking about already, is just when we sing together.

We come, it's a religious thing that we do, a word that we use when we sing songs about God.

But the truth is, all of us, as Mark said, are worshippers.

No matter who you are, if you were at a united match, what you would see is disappointment at the moment.

But what you would see is grown men singing with all they have, passionately singing, trying to support their team, getting angry when things go badly.

That's kind of where we are at the minute, and rejoicing with enthusiasm when things go well, when we score a goal.

That is worship.

This is what we are like as people, whether you are a Christian or not, you need to realize you are a worshiper.

We are all worshiping something.

Now, for most of us, it's probably not Manchester United.

But whatever it is, whether it's money, relationships, whether it's experiences, success, family, whatever it might be, you worship.

We all seek at times to place our hope in something other than God.

We all seek at times to place our ultimate joy in something other than God.

Today, this morning, we have done that.

And the call of this Psalm is toward true worship.

Worship of the one who deserves our worship, worship of the one who we've been created to worship.

It's an invitation.

In the opening verses, there is this call to us in verse 1.

Shout for joy to God on all the earth.

Sing the glory of his name.

Give to him glorious praise.

Say to God, how awesome are your deeds.

The psalmist is exposing to us a true reality.

That above all else, God is the one we should worship.

That above all the things in the earth, we should all give him glory.

This psalm in the Bible exposes that there is a day when this will be the case.

When we are all going to worship before him.

Because if you notice in verse 4, he says, All the earth worships you and sings praises to you.

They sing praises to your name.

He goes from inviting them to declaring what is going to happen.

That there is a day that is coming where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

All creation will worship him as the author of creation.

Maybe you're hearing you don't know Jesus as your Savior.

There is a day in which you will bow before him.

That is not a question.

The Bible is clear on that.

The question is for you is will it be from a heart that has surrendered to him or from a heart that has rejected him?

Because you will bow either gladly or reluctantly.

This is where all creation is headed.

So often yet, for us, even as Christians, we can feel so numb toward God, can't we?

When we sing the words prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God we love.

We know these words speak truth to our experience.

Speak how we so much wander away, so many times, leaving the God we love for other things.

I have a particular burden as I've been thinking and dwelling and meditating on this, Psalm.

And it's for those among us right here and right now, today, and you know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

You love him and yet you feel so dull toward him.

Maybe it's been for a long time, maybe it's only been for a short time, but you you know you love him, you know you trust in him, and yet you're emotionally so numbers toward him, distant from him, feeling even maybe abandoned by him.

I have been longing that even as I stand here that I realize and appreciate that I can't actually change your situation.

As much as I long for that, a change that would see your coldness toward him transformed once again to affectionate love, that would see a change, that would see your feelings of abandonment transformed to awe in view of his tender care and grace toward you.

But my prayer has been that he would do that work among us, among you, in your very life, that today by the power of the Spirit He might once again stir your affections toward him, as you gaze upon his beauty, the glory of his gospel.

Because this Psalm is a declaration toward us all, toward you and me, of how we can truly worship him.

True worship that is produced through his saving work, his sanctifying work, and his sustaining work.

If you move the slides on, there we go.

Look at that.

I love you guys.

This is my love for you right here.

It's up on the screen.

So this is how and why we worship.

So his saving work.

Look down at verse 5 with me.

Come and see what God has done.

He is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man, he has turned the sea into dry land, they passed through the river on foot, and there did we rejoice in him who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations.

Let not the rebellious exalt themselves.

Selah.

The psalmist invites you to come and see.

To notice something about God, something that we need to continually meditate upon.

That the God we worship is a God who saves.

The psalmist draws our attention to these awesome deeds, and how does he illustrate them?

He illustrates them by pointing Israel back, back toward their history, back toward the moment God saved them from Egypt.

We see this that if you don't know the story, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt.

But God had not abandoned them.

God hears their cries and sends Moses to lead the people out.

But Pharaoh refuses.

He refuses to let them go, and God sends plague after plague until Pharaoh decides to let them go.

They're finally free.

Could you imagine?

Years and years of thinking we're left, we're abandoned, we're slaves.

God does not listen to us, and now finally, God has moved, worked a salvation for them, and they are free.

Imagine how they would have been so joyful.

Finally free.

And they're making their way out of Egypt, and they think that this freedom is secure, and that God has done this, and they are overjoyed, and they come near the Red Sea, but the Egyptians come after them, and they see them beginning to charge.

And in that moment, the Israelites are gripped by fear.

They go from one minute, trusting, rejoicing, to what is God doing?

He's abandoned us, he's led us here to die in one moment.

And yet God tells Moses to lift up his staff and stretch it out over the waters, and the waters part to produce dry land.

And they walk through, and God works his salvation for his people.

But for the Egyptians, they are destroyed.

This is not a little thing for them as a people.

As they would have heard these words as Israelites, they would have seen this as a very significant point within their history.

You can imagine as they reach the other side, just seeing this extraordinary, amazing moment of God working in a supernatural way.

The joy that they would have felt.

What else would they do but to worship and praise God?

You see that in the end of verse 6b.

There did we rejoice in him who rules by his might forever.

There is one response to his salvation.

It is worship, it is praise when we realize what he has done.

And this is what the psalmist is reminding us of that people worship, and worship is produced through our understanding of our salvation and the God who saves.

Worship comes in this way that we did not earn it, we did not deserve it.

But how often are we like the Israelites?

How often they forget, how often they failed to see the joy of their salvation, to recognize all that God had done for them.

And maybe you're better than me, but is this not your experience as a Christian?

So often we forget.

We remember historically to feeling so joyful in our salvation, and but presently we just feel numb.

This Psalm speaks to our experience that we are so forgetful and we need reminding.

Reminding of all that God has done.

That we consider Jesus' incarnation, his life, death, and resurrection, and we feel nothing.

We just know it.

Yeah, of course.

Oh, he came.

Oh, he he lived a perfect life.

Oh, he died.

Oh, he rose again.

Yeah, I know all that stuff.

The psalmist is helping us to realize that no matter how far along you are in the faith, no matter how mature you are, if you do not fight regularly, often, daily, to remember the joy of your salvation, then why would you worship him?

If you do not seek to be reminded regularly of your utter desperate need of Jesus, then why would you think of worshiping him?

The God of the Bible has never been just desiring our lip service.

He's never just wanted people to just come bring sacrifices to him, just go through the motions to treat him and our relationship to him like a transaction.

But rather, he desires our very being to be so captured by him, to know him for who he actually is and not just know things about him, to enjoy a genuine, deep, soul-satisfying relationship with him.

This is utterly foundational, sorry, to our understanding of our salvation.

Because to appreciate you have never and will never earn it is the best thing you can do.

It is by grace through faith.

Faith that sees Jesus come as a baby in utter poverty and marvels.

Faith that sees Jesus mocked, beaten, and bruised and marvels.

Faith that sees Jesus rejected and killed and marvels.

Faith that sees Jesus risen and reigning and marvels.

And knows that it was for us, for our good and his glory, that he did this.

We need to appreciate that as Christians, that it is not just we did not earn our salvation, but rather it is that we had no reason, he had no reason to save us.

We didn't deserve it.

There's nothing in us that deserved it.

Do you actually know that?

Do you accept that?

Do you stand upon that?

Because I think one of the biggest dangers I see in my own life, in others, is an attitude of entitlement.

Is an attitude that diminishes the biblical view of who we are and who he is, that struggles to see that we are created, we are creatures, and he is the creator.

And that before him, I deserve nothing.

Before him, you deserve nothing because when we believe we do, we will diminish the beauty and the glory of the gospel.

When we believe this, we will diminish the beauty and the glory of his salvation.

We are sinful people.

And the more we embrace that, the better it will be, the more we realize that we have rejected him and yet he is gracious and merciful, the more we will wonder in our salvation.

We will think, wow, how good he is to save someone like me.

A wretched sinner.

God's love and care for you, brother and sister in Christ is because of him.

Because of who he is, because he chose to love you.

Do you stand upon that?

Is that where you actually stand?

Do you live out of that reality that when you do fail, when you do muck up, your response is faith and repentance.

It isn't, I have to try harder.

Because this is so good.

You see, someone could come and seek to tear me down.

Just imagine, someone just wants to say how bad I am.

Maybe that's all of you.

But anyway, you might think, oh, you're a terrible person, and they come to me and think, oh, you're this, you're that, you're that.

The truth in that moment is I am actually free to admit, oh, you think I'm that bad.

I'm actually way worse.

I'm far more sinful than that.

You can't actually know the depth of my sin.

I am far more wicked, and yet I am a child of God.

Because it is by grace through faith, saved and justified, not because of me, but because of him.

My identity is secure in Christ Himself, not myself, not in others' opinions of me, but in him.

I stand upon his righteousness, not my own, because I am a broken man and we are all broken people.

This foundation enables us to truly worship as people redeemed by his blood, people invited into the family, people who are not servants but sons and daughters of the living God.

That is who you are, above other things in your life, above being a husband, a father, a parent, whatever.

A colleague, you are a child of the living God, because of his saving grace towards us.

Having laid the foundation of his saving work, the psalmist directs us towards his sanctifying work.

Look down at verse 8.

Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard.

Who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip?

Now, as you just read those verses, you can read them and think, oh, they're just so lovely.

They're so nice, aren't they?

They're just so lovely verses.

They just feel like you could put them on a nice cushion, you know?

Who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip?

Yay, Jesus! Woo! But where the psalmist goes is to the depth of our human experience.

What I mean by this is that true worship is not actually light and fluffy.

True worship is not just about the good things we receive.

It is not just thinking about these nice things, but it is life that has known God's work in the midst of the deepest pains we go through.

Because look where the psalmist goes.

Verse 10, for you, you, O God, have tested us.

You have tried us as silver is tried.

You have brought us into the net.

You had laid a crushing burden on our backs.

You let men ride over our heads.

We went through fire and through water.

These verses, they are not simple.

They're not just light, fluffy verses, but hold great weight in how we understand our pains.

How you understand our suffering, your suffering, your trials in life, as those who know Jesus?

I know that even as we are here, for some of us, maybe for all of us, we'll struggle deeply with these words.

And I think the question that will bubble up is how is that fair?

How is it fair that God would test us, that God would allow us to go through such pains in life, casting burdens on our backs?

How is that fair?

I want you to think for a moment that as a parent, my children, especially because of their age, don't understand all the time what I'm doing.

They've no idea.

Because for every parent to rightly seek to parent, you have a responsibility to set boundaries.

There are consequences for disobedience.

If you're a loving parent, you will set right boundaries.

And when you think to your childhood, all of us can think of moments where in the moment we were like crushed by our parents.

Why?

Why would you do that?

And then you grow up and you think, oh yeah.

I realize now.

That was stupid of me, wasn't it?

Because they were seeking to love you.

They were wanting to help, to give you life, and they want the best for you.

If I went to Ezra and said to him, right, right, buddy, do what you want.

You make your choices, you do anything you think is right.

What would happen?

Well, number one, he'd eat a lot.

He would eat a lot of food.

Now, he would eat some fruit, he loves fruit, but like he'd have 20 bananas and get violently ill, but he'd just eat a lot.

He'd probably stick on a YouTube of watching airplanes coming into land and he loves it.

He loves those YouTube videos of coming into land and taking off just all day long.

He'd just watch it.

He wouldn't really go to sleep when he needed sleep.

He'd go around pooing and weeing himself all the time because he couldn't be bothered to go to the toilet.

And I think a lot of more serious things would happen.

Now, if you looked at me and I did that, you would think, what a bad parent.

What a terrible parent.

How unloving they have been toward their child.

But the truth is, when myself and Becky tell Ezra no, his little world ends.

He flops down on the floor.

And it's over a silly thing as well.

But anyway, he throws himself down and he has no understanding why we would do it.

He thinks he knows better.

Or when we punish him and try to speak to him about the reasons we are doing it, not because we hate him.

It is because we love him so dearly and want the best for him and want him to flourish in life.

When we think about this, how much more is this true of our Heavenly Father?

When we think about him as Himself, as the one who is love itself, He longs for us, He longs for us to have life, to flourish, to know that in the midst of pain and suffering, that is not a sign of His rejection of you.

It is not that He is the cause of suffering, of evil, of pain, of hurt, of brokenness.

No, that is a result of sin.

And yet God being God uses this, uses this for our good.

Only He can do that.

The Bible is clear that God being God does this.

I do not think this is just a simplistic reality to comprehend, but if we as Christians believe and desire to allow Scripture to be truth, we need to embrace the goodness of this.

That he does not sin and cannot.

And yet he is able to use the trials and the brokenness, the suffering of this world to bring us toward life itself.

Look at verse 12.

Yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.

Brother, sister, when you see this reality in the life of a fellow believer, when you witness someone in this situation, you witness them going through pain and struggle and just horrible things, and yet they are praising and clinging to Jesus.

We see that as glorious.

We think, wow, what a work of God.

This is the very thing that we are witnessing upon the cross, is it not?

That Satan thinks he has the upper hand.

But God uses the worst day in human history for his eternal good purposes.

That is the gospel.

A mature Christian carries scars.

That is a fact.

We have gone through immense pain in our lives, and yet it has produced abundance.

Scars that have grown our dependence and our reliance upon Jesus Christ.

Scars that have grown our relationship toward our Heavenly Father.

Scars that have helped us to rest in the Spirit's power at work within us instead of ourselves.

My daughter Erin's middle name is Elizabeth.

Now, some people spread an idea that it's after Lizzie in the church, you know.

She might say that sometime and just let her think it's that.

You know, we named her after Lizzie, but we didn't.

The actual name is after Elizabeth Elliot.

A woman who, along with her husband, went to reach a people group in Ecuador.

And her husband, along with four others, went to seek to share the gospel with them, and they were killed, murdered.

Later, she would return and continue the gospel work there.

But she is a woman who experienced suffering in very specific ways throughout her life.

And this is what she has to say about her suffering.

The deepest things that I've learned in my own life have come from the deepest suffering.

And out of the deepest waters and the hottest fires have come the deepest things I know about God.

Appreciate that anything you go through in this life is not wasted.

It is not for nothing.

Because he is a God who will lead us to abundance.

And when we embrace and know this, our response is clear.

It is almost as if the psalmist cannot contain himself anymore.

Because as he begins to declare his response, his response to God using his suffering, he goes into worship.

Verse 13 I will come into your house with burnt offerings.

I will perform my vows to you, that my which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.

I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams.

I will make an offering of bulls and goats.

The response that happens in the life of a believer is worship when we realize what God is doing, when we embrace that He is using everything for our good, knowing that where He leads is to a place of abundance because the day is coming.

The day is drawing near when He will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

And on that day we will worship Him eternally.

We need to not let our eyes ever take our gaze off that day.

Remembering that day is coming, and on that day we will rejoice and know that He is good and faithful, and we will not doubt Him anymore.

Finally, the Psalmist testifies to God's sustaining work.

Verse 16 Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for my soul.

I cried to Him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.

If I cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

But truly God has listened.

He has attended to the voice of my prayer.

Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me.

The focus of what the psalmist desires to share is not just about practical answers to prayer.

But it is much more than that.

It is what God has actually worked in him.

I will tell what he has done for my soul.

Because when God answers prayer, it is not primarily about practical realities.

That's not that he doesn't care, he does care.

And he desires to provide for us as his children.

But it is much deeper than that, that through prayer the Lord meets us in our need.

Not just practically but spiritually.

If our prayers are more about God being a solution machine, we have lost sight of the blessing and privilege of prayer.

Prayer is given to us to enable us to commune with the living God.

To come before our loving Father, to be with him through the Spirit.

It is not us just creating a wish list.

And that's not saying we don't bring things to him.

But it is much more, much deeper than that.

And it is a foundational part of his sustaining work in our lives.

It is a grace toward us.

Considering the power of prayer through Scripture.

If you go to the Gospels, what do you see?

You see our Savior continually departing, going away to do what?

To pray.

Praying throughout the night.

Let's be honest.

We struggle with maybe 30 minutes.

Maybe an hour, maybe.

And it's not about that time limit, but it's the fact that Jesus wanted to be with his father.

He knew he needed that, to commune with his loving father.

Jesus before the cross.

What does he do?

He goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and comes once again before his father.

Not my will, but your will be done.

And the Father meets him in his need and seeks to strengthen him.

Study the book of Acts.

What do you see?

At the beginning of Acts, we see over 2,000 people come to faith on hearing the proclamation of the gospel.

But what was happening with those who proclaimed with Peter and the apostles before?

Yes, the Spirit came, but before that they were praying.

What we see is time and time again, prayer and the movement of God go hand in hand.

We need to embrace that prayer should not be something we just get through.

I just need to check it off.

It is a gift toward us.

That we get to come before the Lord, that we get to have moments where no one else is present, no one else is with us, and commune with the living God, our loving Father, and be known by Him and be sustained by Him.

If you want to see change in your life, in the lives of others, pray and see what God does.

How many times do we have a testimony or testimonies of how slow we are to pray?

It kind of generally goes like this you have an issue in your life, and you think, okay, what am I gonna do?

How am I gonna fix it?

And you you go about doing different things, trying to fix the issue, thinking, yeah, I'm gonna be able to do it, I'm gonna be able to do it in my own strength.

I'll sort this out.

And you strive and work, and and nothing happens.

And you're just left flapping around, feeling hopeless.

And then you think, oh wait, now I'm a Christian.

Oh yeah, maybe I should pray.

Let's give it a whirl, let's let's see how that goes.

And you pray, and God meets you in that space, and he helps you, and he gives you peace, and and you think, oh, praise God, how good he is, how kind he is.

And what is actually crazy is we think in that moment, oh, I was so silly, wasn't I?

Oh, why didn't I go to pray in the first place?

And then another issue arrives, and what do we do?

The exact same thing.

Guys, this is the way we are, and yet the beauty and the wonder of the gospel is that you cannot out sin or outrun your savior.

Every time he is arms wide open, come on, come back.

I know what you were trying.

I know what you're like, but come on, come back to me.

Let me hear you.

Let me seek to meet you in that place.

This is who he is.

I think this is what we need to realize that there is a struggle that we have, an instinct that we have within us.

And I think how it was illustrated helpfully this week was through a friend that I was speaking to.

I meet with a few people who are in ministry and we seek to encourage one another and share what's going on and pray with one another.

And he was just sharing how he'd just been going through a season for the past year or so of just feeling so overwhelmed, feeling like he was so unsure how to even fulfill his ministry, feeling so weak in himself, struggling deeply.

And you might not be here and you might not be in ministry, which most of us aren't in terms of full-time ministry, paid ministry, but we all have moments like this, and the beauty of the glory of the gospel is that our response is not pull yourself together, but rather rest.

Resting in the fact that I'm not enough, but I know the one who is, I know the one who will sustain me.

We have such fear of being seen as weak.

We have such fear in admitting that we are weak.

And yet, this is what we are being called to accept our weakness.

We all need to realize that we are weak, and that is okay.

Because we run to the Lord, the one who tells us, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

If you are weak here today, and I'm just gonna say you probably all are, you're in good company.

He is the one who will strengthen us.

We need to learn to let go.

We need to learn to hand it over to him, to entrust ourselves to him, knowing that he is faithful.

That is true freedom.

His intimate care and love for you as your Lord and Savior.

Breathing and knowing that he has you and he will never let you go.

Brother, sister in Christ, I genuinely love you guys.

I love you guys, I love how you love Jesus.

I love the ways in which you are a blessing to me, and I long for all of us that we might be reminded and refreshed of our Savior, that we might see the goodness of all he has done and continues to do in our lives, that nothing would blind us from that truth, that we would not allow the lies of the devil to get in, because our eyes would be set upon him.

We are being invited into this.

Invited into enjoying and rejoicing in him, in his grace in our lives, invited into enjoying and rejoicing in him, in his care, his faithfulness toward you, even in the darkest days when you.

Feel so alone, you are not alone.

He is with you.

He will sustain you by the power of his spirit within us.

Shout for joy to God all the earth.

Sing the glory of his name.

Give to him glorious praise.

Say to God, how awesome are your deeds.

So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.

All the earth worships you and sings praises to you.

Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer.

Or removed his steadfast love from me.

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