Psalm 65

Our reading today is from Psalm chapter sixty-five.

O God of our salvation, to the choir master, a Psalm of David, a song.

Praise is due to you, O God in Zion, and to you shall vows be performed.

O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come.

When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions.

Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts.

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple.

By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas, the one who by his strength established the mountains, being girded with might, who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their ways, the tumult of the peoples, so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.

You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.

You visit the earth and water it.

You greatly enrich it.

The river of God is full of water.

You provide their grain, for so you have repaired it.

You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening out showers, and blessing its growth.

You crown the year with your bounty, your wagon tracks overflow with over abundance.

The pastures of the wilderness overflow.

The hills gird themselves with joy.

The meadows clothe themselves with locks.

The valleys deck themselves with grain.

They shout and sing together for joy.

And so reads God's word.

Together, we're actually nearly uh finished our uh our summer series in the Psalms.

We'll be concluding in a couple of weeks' time.

And then uh beginning on the 28th of August, we'll begin it.

We'll be beginning a five-week uh mini-series, uh more topical series, looking at our DNA, our values as a church, particularly as new people join us, or perhaps you've joined recently, and you'd like to just drill down into what we believe, what we prioritize, what we value.

Uh, we'll be doing that from the 28th of August through the month of September.

Uh, and that is all I'm going to give away for the for the autumn term right now.

Uh that should have given you time to pull up Psalm 65.

And so you can be looking at that and checking to make sure that I'm actually uh saying what the uh what the text in front of us is saying.

As I was looking at this text this week, I was uh I was reflecting on a time about six years ago uh when I was at a conference uh in uh the Czech Republic, Czechia uh now, and uh was it was a church planting conference.

It was a bunch of other pastors, church planters, and uh we were asked uh quite early on, I think it was the first session, and I was there with one other uh city staff member at the time.

We were asked to to basically kind of chat amongst ourselves uh in your staff team group about stuff that was good, going well, uh in your church plan and stuff that was uh could be better, uh stuff that wasn't great and things that were challenges to overcome.

And and I distinctly remember in that uh in that group, and this is me by way of confession, now it was six years ago, so many of you weren't here, uh, but uh turning to the staff member at the time going, well, I can fill out the uh the not going well list, but I'm struggling to see what is going well.

I'm struggling to see what's good, I can fill out the bad list, I can fill out my list of complaints and the people that are irritating me.

Some of you have hung on.

Thank you for being here.

Uh that's a joke.

Uh uh, but isn't it interesting?

I could fill out the list of complaints, but I was struggling to see the list of good things.

And actually, it was the the other staff member at the time who was like, no, no, hold on.

He asked us to list out the good stuff first.

Let's start talking about the stuff that we can thank God for.

And before we knew it, we'd fill the page.

It's really interesting how we tend to focus on the stuff that isn't going well rather than stopping and taking stock of the stuff that there is to be thankful for.

Isn't it strange how complaints and criticisms stick but compliments are forgotten?

Isn't it strange how we occupy our mind with difficulties while blessings are often taken for granted?

When do you, when do I pray most or pray the most for?

It's when things are going bad, or it's for stuff that isn't working right, or stuff that we need.

We don't tend to pray, or we pray less when stuff's going really well.

We forget to reflect back to God the stuff that is good about our lives, about our world, about the things that He's given us.

It's it's almost as though there's there's something not quite right with our perception of the world.

Because it's not as though we have a balanced view of the good and bad.

We fixate on the bad and we forget the good.

It is as though what we actually need as human beings is we need new glasses, new lenses with which to see the world, so that we can see it as God intended it to be seen, that we can do that reflecting to Him that we so often fail to do.

And actually, one of the things that the Bible does is that it gives us those new lenses, it gives us that Christian world view.

So that terms, the way of viewing the world that is distinctly Christian.

And Psalm 65 was challenging me this week to actually be looking at the world through those new lenses, those lenses of a Christian worldview, to actually see, gosh, there are so many things to praise and to thank God for.

And that's what this psalm is full of.

One of the things that you will notice as you go through this psalm, even as you cast your eye down, is that there is one repeated word that comes over and over and over again.

It is the word you praise is due to you.

You who hear prayer, you atone for our transgressions, you choose and bring near.

You make the going out of the morning and evening to shout for joy, you still the roaring seas, you visit the earth and water it, you water the furrows abundantly, you crown the year with beauty.

You, you, you what does this Psalm see?

This Psalm sees with the eyes of faith, with the Christian worldview, the actions of God in the cosmos that are so easily forgotten.

There are many reasons why actually saying this is important, but I'm going to give you one of them now and we'll flesh it out a little bit later.

One of the reasons why it's important to fix these new lenses to your head and to the perspective of your life is because one of the things that I feel in my heart, and I'm sure I'm not alone in confessing this, but one of the things that I feel in my heart is resentment when things do not go my way.

Or entitlement that things ought to go a certain way.

When we are captivated by the Christian worldview, it frees us from that sense of resentment or entitlement.

And so this morning, considering all the things that there are to thank God for and to praise God for, is good for your soul if you are given to discontentment and grunt grumbling and complaining and resentment and entitlement.

But before we get there, I'm going to give you three things that David praises God for.

And then I'm going to give you four things.

You're welcome.

Four implications of that.

And in the middle, we're going to have a little interlude.

Okay?

So three things to thank God for, four implications of that, and then a little interlude.

I don't know what else to call it, but it's an interlude.

We might get some ice cream, who knows?

Uh, but we're gonna have a little because there's something else to think about in the middle between those two sections.

David praises God for three things.

First and foremost, uh, he praises God for salvation.

He puts the uh he puts the the chief and greatest thing to praise God for right at the right at the top of the psalm.

He praises God because he is the one who saves.

David here in verses one to four is aware of his sin, of his transgressions or iniquities, depending on your uh translations.

Sins, transgressions, iniquities, they're all the same.

So that what does it all of those mean?

They mean loving created things more than the creator, loving ourselves more than the God who made us, being turned into ourselves, uh, forgetting God, not doing what we ought to do, or doing what we ought not to do.

Those are sins, transgressions, and iniquities.

And David is acutely aware of them.

But he's he pushes it further.

One of the things that David's aware of is that sometimes the sin wins.

Have you ever felt that?

Sometimes the sin gets the better of us, of you, because what does he say?

He says, When iniquities prevail against me, when they get the upper hand.

Sometimes it's great when you turn aside and you say no uh to sin and worldly passions, but sometimes you sit there like David, and you go, Oh, those sins have prevailed against me again.

That in that battle I've lost again.

And David is feeling that.

And where does he go?

He goes to God and he teaches us something remarkable, and that is that God provides the solution, he provides a way out when iniquities prevail against me, when they're winning, when my sin's getting the better of me, what happens?

You, God, atone for our transgressions.

You atone for our transgressions, for our sins.

Atone means to uh to cover, to cover over.

We often try to kind of cover up our own shortcomings, our own failings, our own sins so that other people don't see them because people think bad of us.

That's why uh you don't need to teach a child, um, certainly you don't need to teach my children, uh, when they've done something wrong to go and run and hide.

Owen prefers to go and hide behind the door of the playroom.

He doesn't want to be seen.

But we're all doing that.

We're all running, we're all hiding in various ways, just in the same way that if you were there in our identity workshop this week, we we looked at how Adam and Eve, what did they do?

They they covered themselves with fig leaves, these these wholly inadequate makeshift coverings.

We cover ourselves over with uh with performance and with success and with reputation and uh with uh uh with deflection or with uh with blaming others.

We all try to cover ourselves, and they are not sufficient, but God covers, he atones.

Atonement also has this idea of reconciling, of bringing back together that at one-ment, of bringing back into relationship.

Why?

Because sin separates.

Again, what do Adam and Eve do as soon as they uh committed treason against God?

Well, they they hide from him and they hide from one another.

Some of you, again, are running and hiding from God.

You feel that pursuit of God of you, and you're you're running from him, or you're consciously aware of how sin in your life or sin in your past has separated you from those who you love.

And those things are very difficult indeed to overcome by our own strength, which is why David looks at God and says, You atone, you cover, you reconcile, you bring back.

What's more David realizes that he does not deserve.

It's a remarkable coming from the king, from the most powerful man in Israel, that he realizes, verse 4, that he doesn't deserve God's salvation, that he hasn't merited it, but that it comes from God's choosing.

Blessed is the one you choose to bring near, to dwell in your courts.

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house and the holiness of your temple.

Salvation, folks, begins and ends with God.

Salvation is not dependent upon our virtue or our goodness or our merit, but on God's grace and his gracious choosing of us.

What is grace?

It is God's undeserved kindness to us, unmerited, unjustified, unlooked for kindness.

And David realizes in this Psalm that one of the reasons why he ought to praise God is because God graciously covers his sin and brings him into relationship with him.

And the result of that relationship, you look at the language of the second half of verse 4 about being brought into the temple courts, about being satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple.

There's an abundance, there's a there's a lavishness to God's salvation, to relationship with Him.

We looked at it a few months ago when we were looking at John chapter 10, where Jesus talks about how he has come to give life and life abundantly, that the Christian life is not one of rationed goodness, that Jesus blesses fully and abundantly in his covering of sin, in his bringing into relation, in his adoption of us as sons of the Father.

John 10 · chapter mention

That's what it means to be brought into the into the temple courts where you dwell forever, to be near to God in that way is lavish and good and glorious and worthy of praise.

And David realizes that he said, it's so amazing that as I reflect on the depth of my own heart, as I reflect on the things that I have thought this week, as I reflect on the things that I have done, how amazing it is that God would set his love upon me, that he would cover my sin and transgression, that he would bring me back into relationship.

And it wouldn't just be the relationship of a servant with his master, but a relationship of a son with his father, dwelling in the courts, receiving and knowing the abundant life of sins forgiven.

That's where he begins.

That's the chief reason for the Christian to thank and to praise God this morning.

You praising God for your salvation this morning?

Do you know your salvation, that your sin has been covered, that you have been brought near to the Father?

Do you thank God for that this morning?

Are you taking it for granted like I do so often?

Or have you started and go, do you know what?

I'm the worst guy that I know.

And God has set his love upon me.

Praise be to him.

Blessed be your name.

That's the first and chief reason.

The second reason why David praises God in uh verses five to eight can be summarized in that he praises God for the uh for the peace and predictability of the cosmos, that there is a there's a stability, there's a there's a knowability of the world.

Uh the image, that one of the chief images here is that of the mountains.

There's nothing more uh permanent or predictable uh than the than the mountains.

Uh imagine you South Africans, uh, that you you flew home and you visited Cape Town and you looked up and Table Mountain wasn't there anymore.

There's some questions to be asked.

Now we don't have anything as luxurious and glorious as Table Mountain, but imagine you were you were driving north and you suddenly realize the mountains of mourn aren't there.

Where did they go?

And somebody came, oh yeah, no, the mountains shift all the time.

You do sorry, what?

They do what?

No, mountains don't shift.

Mountains are permanent, they're established.

God has set the bounds of the the cosmos.

And that's very good for knowing where you're where you are and where you're going.

There's a predictability to the world.

No one else can still the seas than God.

We, when we are on the ocean, are at its mercy, but it bends to it to his will.

It bends to the will of its maker.

Obviously, our minds go to uh to the New Testament, places like Mark chapter 4, and the disciples and the disciples are in the boat and they're in terror.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

Why are they in terror?

Because they're utterly helpless to effect any change upon the sea.

But why is the Messiah sleeping?

Why is God's king asleep in the boat?

Because he knows that he can just wake up and say, knock it off.

And it does.

Peace be still.

Be muzzled.

That's what that word actually means, like a like a like a rabid dog.

Be muzzled, he speaks to the wind and the waves, and it becomes utterly calm.

The chaos here of the seas in verse 7 are deliberately paralleled with the uh with the the chaos and the tumult and the angst amongst people in the world.

Do you see that?

He stills the roaring seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples, that the unpredictable chaos of the ocean is compared to the chaos of the world and of people warring against one another.

And that it just as God brings nature to heal, he is also the one who brings peace to reign.

Not up until February of this year, very sadly.

Our continent here in Europe enjoyed one of the longest stretches of uh of peace by and large that it has experienced for centuries, seven decades of relative peace and prosperity and security.

And the temptation can be think can be to think, oh my goodness, didn't uh uh didn't the uh didn't the leaders of Europe really they really learned their their lessons?

They they really led well and prioritized peace.

Now, there is there are senses and times in which that is true, and we thank God for his work in that.

But it would be uh foolish to think that the peace and prosperity that has uh befallen Europe over the last seven and a half decades is solely as a result of political will and human mind.

God blessed, blesses lands with peace and prosperity.

It is when we look with the eyes of faith, is when we look with that Christian worldview, we think, God is God is actually so gracious and so kind to bring peace.

Why is it that uh peace, again, by and large, has existed in our island since 1998?

Is it because of the political will of Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern?

There's certainly remarkable things were were achieved there.

But we can all look and point at times and where where our leaders have have failed and have acted against the interests of uh of peace and prosperity and security.

No, no, peace has existed for for some of you all of your life, which means.

Me feel incredibly old because I remember when the Good Friday Agreement was passed because God was gracious, because God stilled the tumult of the peoples, and that is something to render great thanks to him.

Blessed be your name.

God here not just brings peace and stability, he brings a predictability to the whole cosmos.

This image in verse 8b says, You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.

What does that mean?

What is the the image of the joyfulness or the goodness of the morning and the evening?

It's a sunrise and a sunset.

We've all, I'm sure, at least I hope you have, seen one of those two phenomena.

Have you ever sat and watched the sun drop into the Pacific Ocean?

Have you ever sat and watched it in the west of Ireland drop into the Atlantic?

Or have you been up early and seen it rise in the harbor here in Dublin?

You've seen the glory of sunshine.

And have you ever thought, gosh, I for one am relieved that that came back?

Because when it went yesterday, I didn't know what was happening.

No, of course you didn't think that, because there's a predictability to the cosmos.

Why do the stars stay in?

I was gonna say stay in place, but you know what I mean.

Don't overthink that.

But there is still a predictability, even with the intricacy of that, right?

You ever sit back and go, oh yes, we can work out all of the mechanisms of of that, and we can uh marvel at the intricacies of that, but actually the reason why the sun rises tomorrow or will set this evening is because God has ordained it.

Isn't that wonderful?

Isn't that something to reflect praise to him for?

David praises God for the peace and predictability of the cosmos.

And thirdly and finally, David praises God for his provision.

For his provision in the world, and particularly around kind of harvest type imagery.

And here's the thing: like I intimated with the the stars and the cosmos, it is possible for you as a 16-year-old to sit in an exam room and to explain how photosynthesis works, by and large.

Or to or how the how or how the Krebs cycle works, how mitochondria uh process uh and energy, that sort of thing.

And you don't write in your exam answer, God did it.

At least I don't think you do.

You can explain those things with a level of fullness and competence without ever having to mention God.

It's a it's possible to describe the gestation of a human in the womb without ever mentioning the divine.

It is possible to lay out the chain of events that brings uh the food that you enjoy from the farm where it was made to the fork where you stick it in your mouth without ever mentioning God.

And all of those explanations would be true.

And all of those explanations would be true and at the same time insufficient.

David concludes Psalm 65 by showing us that creation is teeming with abundant life, crops and flocks are flourishing, and the people's hearts are being gladdened.

Why?

Because God acts.

Because God sends the rain, because he waters it.

He waters the earth, he provides abundantly for his people, for the earth.

And that is the thing.

He's watering the whole earth, he's watering all of the peoples.

The psalmist says elsewhere, the sun shines upon the just and the unjust.

You have David was praising God for his salvation as an expression of God's, what we would call his special grace, his particular grace to those whom he graciously chooses.

This is an expression of God's common grace to all of humanity.

Whether or not you're a Christian here this morning, you experience God's human brais common grace.

Let me demonstrate for you right now that you're experiencing God's common grace.

Take a breath.

There you go.

That came from him.

Your hand here.

That came from him.

That's an expression of his grace to you.

That he keeps you in being.

That your atoms don't fly apart.

That he gives you graciously from his hand.

Every breath, every heartbeat, every neural synapse fire.

That is his common grace to all of humanity, and David praises God for it.

Everything you have, everything you enjoy, everything you make or produce comes from the majestic, gracious, glorious Lord of all creation.

And you know what's really sad?

I lose sight of that every day.

I'm so glad that I got to study Psalm 65 this week.

Because it caused me at so many different moments to kind of stop and to step back and think, actually, this is amazing.

That God would do this, that he would act in these way, that he has provided for me.

And I'm so ungrateful a lot of the time.

And I lose sight of it.

And I complain.

I get bitter, entitled, and resentful.

And yet he is so gracious.

Those are the three things.

Now, what about our interlude?

One of the things that you may have picked up on as we're going through is that there are times and seasons where some of the things that I have described don't seem to be happening.

What happens when it looks like these things have been interrupted?

Peace and provision of the world.

Maybe even it feels like our sin has and our salvation feels almost interrupted because our sin is so prevailing against us.

And we have seasons of wandering away from God.

Maybe some of you are here this morning, and you're here, but you're not here because you know that you're running, you know that you're wandering, you know you've been in that dry, arid season, you know it's kind of to do with you.

But it feels like salvation has been interrupted, to say nothing of the fact that peace does not always prevail as we are seeing in our world.

Provision is also interrupted as people on our planet experience famine and starvation and lack and want and hunger.

How are we to understand these things in the light of this psalm that is so abundant and glorious in terms of praising God for all of the things that He does and is doing?

There's lots to say about why there is suffering in our world, and that's probably all for another sermon.

But one of the things that I want to bring to you, and one of the things that I will say about it, is that when you feel that disconnect, one of the things that we realize as Christians is that we are living between two ages.

We're living between what people call the now and the not yet.

That there are blessings to be experienced now, good things to be enjoyed now, and yet the full expression of them still waits for us in the new heavens and the new earth.

Now, sin has been atoned for.

We do not believe that you will be perfected in this world.

We journey in holiness, becoming more and more like the Lord Jesus.

But as Paul says in the start of Philippians, that he will bring that work to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.

So sin will always be present with us in this life.

Moreover, we do not believe that the material health and prosperity and abundance is the birthright of all of all Christians in this life.

That if you simply have more faith, God will heal you, or that God will bless you materially.

No, no, that is a wrong way to uh to look at faith.

God has blessed you abundantly in the in the Lord Jesus, in his covering of your sin.

You will know full healing and restoration and abundant life in that future kingdom.

But for now, it may be ordained for you to suffer for a while.

Christians die.

Christians die horribly.

Christians die of cancer.

Christians are martyred.

Christians are martyred today in provinces of India, in places in Nigeria.

Was their faith lacking?

No.

They live, we live, between the now and the not yet.

And so when we experience this disconnect between what Psalm 65 is laying out and what we feel in the world, it's not as though we go, well, where's God then?

Why did God let that happen?

No, no, we look with the eyes of faith to a future day when Jesus will return and will make all things new.

And the full promise of Psalm 65 will be realized in all of the cosmos and in all of our lives.

When we feel that disconnect, it propels us forward.

We look beyond this world.

Believers now get sick, they know hunger, chaos, loss, and grief.

But there is for all of us who are trusting in Jesus a day stored up in eternity when all of those things will be no more, when the king returns, and he will bring the full blessings of his kingdom to bear in this world.

Brothers and sisters, if you're if you're feeling under the kosh of suffering and grief, if you're just really feeling like your back is against the wall, there is much more to be said about how Christians can process suffering.

And so I'm going to leave our interlude there.

But if you need pastoral help or support to traverse the sufferings of this world and to have the eyes of faith and the hope that the Lord Jesus gives you, please, would you come and talk to me?

Send me an email, mark at citychurchdublin.ie, reach out to me, find my number on the on the group chat.

I want to, we as leaders, as elders, it doesn't have to be me.

If you think well, Mark's a bit of a jerk, but I'd like to talk to Duncan.

I mean, okay.

Um, you can do that.

We want to support you through that, but I'm going to leave the interlude there, okay?

Because we don't have forever.

Uh, I'm going to uh to draw out our four implications.

So, what are we being grateful for?

We are we're displaying gratitude, we're blessing and praising God this morning for his salvation in the Lord Jesus.

For the way that he has ordered his world, and how do we get so often to enjoy peace and prosperity, that they all graciously come from his hand, and that he provides for our needs.

He knows them, he graciously answers prayer.

You, I'm sure that I know that there are people in this room who can testify even just in the last months of oh, gosh, God really came through there.

We didn't know how he was going to answer that, but he's graciously provided for our needs.

That's what God does.

And there are so many reasons to bless him.

Implications of that.

Four of them.

First, first implication for your life is give glory and get joy.

Give glory and get joy.

The Psalm, Psalm 65, is simultaneously full of rendering glory to God and of experiencing joy, of delighting in giving glory to God.

And so he talks about the the joy that is felt from the uh from seeing the sunrise and sunset.

Praise is due to you, verse one.

We glory in you, we rejoice in who you are.

Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion.

To you our vows shall be performed.

Giving glory to God and receiving joy in your heart go hand in hand.

It's a misstep.

It's wrong to think of the Christianity is simply um grudging dutiful service rendered to some distant deity, to some tyrant king.

No, the the dynamics of the kingdom are as you give glory, you get joy.

When we lose sight of what God is doing in our world, or in our lives we rob him of the glory due to his name, we rob ourselves of joy.

When we forget God, when we live our own way, when we live in that entitled, resentful, anxious, bitter spirit, we don't experience an awful lot of joy.

We might experience a little bit of happiness for a season, because things are going our way, but not endure, not enduring joy, not joy that sustains through suffering and lack.

No, we give glory, and as a result, we get joy.

Second implication choose gratitude this morning.

Choose gratitude.

I I put it that way because I actually do think that gratitude is a choice.

I know it's a choice because I often choose to go the other way.

I often choose to complain, I often choose to to be discontented.

Or rather, I should say, that's my natural disposition.

That's where I go by nature.

And so, in order to think differently, I need to choose to be grateful.

I need to choose to step back and to take stock of the of the things that God has given me that are worth praising Him for.

If you're like me and you battle with resentment or discontentment or entitlement or bitterness, would you do war with me by choosing gratitude?

Look at your life.

Look at where you are.

Take stock this afternoon.

Look at who you are with, what God has done for you, and find in those things reasons to be thankful.

Rehearse them, list them, tell them to yourself, speak to yourself of reasons to praise God.

Tell them to others, express them to those around you of the things that He has done, the things that you are graciously enjoying.

Because at that point, gratitude and generosity and graciousness will begin to well up in your heart.

We've got to train ourselves to be a grateful people.

Because we're not.

We're not in our city, we're not in our world, we're not in the West, by default, grateful.

Do not let resentment or discontentment grip your heart.

Choose gratitude.

Start the day by thinking.

I need to think of three things to thank God for.

I promise you, it will transform your outlook.

It will cause your life to be in harmony with the theme of Psalm 65.

Give glory, get joy, choose gratitude.

Third, confess knowing mercy.

Confess knowing mercy.

David points out in verse 2 that God is the one who hears prayer, that he that he is the one to whom all flesh will come, and that he again, the king, comes with his sin.

When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions.

John in his first letter says that if we claim that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

But if we are honest and confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

David confesses to God that his sin is prevailing against him because he knows the mercy of God.

If God is someone to be terrified of, you will never confess to him.

You will always want to hide from him because you are scared of him.

But if you know that he is merciful, if you know that he is gracious and has atone for your sin, then you will confess readily.

Knowing mercy.

What is it you're carrying?

Maybe it's the the habitual Lord it's me again.

Yes, it's the same sin.

Yes, it's the same thing.

Confess, knowing mercy.

And fourthly and finally there is a Well, I'll just say it and then I'll explain.

Fourthly and finally.

Celebrate the global, expansive, inclusive love of God.

There is a sense in which the Psalm, or in the Psalm in which there is uh there is an eye on God's global purposes.

That God is is working not just in Israel as it was in the Old Testament, but but outside and drawing all peoples to Himself.

The verse 2, to you all flesh shall come.

Or verse 5.

By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.

Celebrate this morning that God is gathering people for himself from every tribe, tongue, nation, and background.

That God's salvation and his blessing extends far beyond our reach.

It touches the lives of people that we would never dream of, that we would never think that he could save and bring to himself.

That is a glorious thing to behold, and it is a wonderful thing to be able to express in part in this, our church family, in our gathering, as people of different ages and backgrounds and experiences come together knowing the hope of all nations, to celebrate the inclusive and expansive love of God.

Folks, we have many reasons to be thankful, to render God thanks and praise this morning.

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