Psalm 67 - Join the Praise
INTRODUCTION:
Interest:
When we stop and think about it, a lot of the things that we do we actually are doing so that others will hear of it. Sometimes such actions may reveal a wrong motivation, like when the high school boy watches a Hallmark movie just so that he can make sure that the girl he likes hears about it, all in the hope that she will think he is the kind of sensitive guy she would like to date.
Other times, though, doing things so that others will hear about it is a proper motivation to underlie our actions. For example, this past week contained our annual Veterans Day holiday, the day to honor those who have served in our country’s military. This year, as is traditional, many politicians around the country participated in services designed to honor our vets. Both President Trump and Joe Biden publicly participated in Veteran Day activities. We recognize that the main reason that the politicians participate in these events was so that they will be seen doing so. And yet, that does not mean that they necessarily have the wrong motivation. In many cases, I am sure that they want to be seen so that the ceremonies and events will garner more attention from the medial and the public. They want to be seen honoring our vets so as to draw the attention of others to the sacrifices that our vets have made. Their actions are designed to increase the honor that our country directs toward our vets. This is an example of a proper motivation for doing things that others will hear and see.
Involvement:
As we will see today, our God also does things so that they will be seen. Certainly, we can only ascribe righteous motives to God for His actions.
Context:
Our Psalm is 67 this morning. Like the last couple of psalms, this one too is a thanksgiving psalm, a psalm of praise to God.
Preview:
Of course, even though this psalm has a similar theme to the ones we have looked at the last couple of weeks, that does not mean that it can not teach us anything new. God inspired each psalm which gives each one infinite depth. Furthermore, God inspired each psalm to teach slightly different lessons. The lesson that we can learn from our psalm this morning is that God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him. God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him.
Thanksgiving is only a couple weeks away. In America we think of Thanksgiving as both a season and a holiday. It is a time of year when we contemplate and celebrate the many blessings we have experienced in the past year. It is great that we are coming to this psalm so near that day because this lesson should resonate with us as we consider the blessings that we have received from God. God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him.
Psalm 67 is a short psalm, only seven verses. Let’s go ahead and read it together…<read Ps 67>.
We have no idea who wrote this psalm, but it is clearly well-structured. Verses 3 and 5 repeat a common refrain. There are matching ideas in the first two and last 2 verses. Verse 1 and 6 and 7 talk about God while verses 2-5 address God directly in prayer. All of this structure, though, is designed to emphasis our main idea: God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him.
Furthermore, as that idea pulses throughout this psalm, the structure breaks out three ways in which the main idea is supposed to work.
Transition from introduction to body:
God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him. The first way that is meant to work is seen in verse 2,…
BODY:
I. Our blessing spreads the knowledge of God’s salvation.
In verse 1, the psalmist echoed the well-known priestly benediction that Israelite worshipers heard at numerous festivals, a benediction that is probably familiar to us as well as it is used frequently to conclude church services still: “The LORD bless you, and keep you; The LORD make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace.” The psalmist echoes these words, but also personalize them so that the people hearing this psalm will think about how God has blessed them as His chosen nation and individually as His chosen people. God is clearly the source of all of the blessings that Israel has received. It is right and proper for Israel to look to Him to continue to show His blessings to them.
Yet, the moment that the people begin to think about how they have been the recipients of God’s great blessing, the psalmist lifts their gaze beyond the borders of Israel, “That Your way may be known on the earth, Your salvation among all the nations.” The psalmist desires that knowledge of what God has done for Israel should travel far beyond Israel, that the entire world should know Israel’s blessings from God.
Now, allow me to just mention in passing that this universal scope continues in the refrain of verses 3 and 5. The prayer is that all the “peoples” of the earth—“peoples” plural—will be motivated to praise God. I began our series in September about what kind of a church we should be with a survey of the Bible that demonstrated that God has always intended to bless every nation—all peoples—with His promise. That is the point that this Psalm is making as well, a point that is somewhat obscured by the KJV’s choice to translate verses 3 and 5 as singular “people” rather than plural “peoples.” The Hebrew is clearly plural. In fact, three of the main Hebrew words that are used to describe nations or people groups are found in this short psalm used as poetic synonyms, all in the plural, all pointing to the diverse peoples of the earth.
God has blessed Israel—His chosen nation; the people of Israel are supposed to recognize that glorious truth and yearn for such blessings to continue. At the same time, the overflow of their blessing should be that the knowledge of God spreads throughout all the other nations spread over the face of the earth—the other peoples. The point is that this is why God has blessed them.
Now, what specific knowledge is intended to be spread by God’s blessing of Israel? The psalmist says God’s “way” and God’s “salvation.” Praise will come to all peoples as they “know” these things. The word “know”—“may be known”—is a term that goes beyond mere intellectual knowledge. It implies experiential knowledge. When Adam “knew” Eve, she had a child.
“Way” refers to the things that display God’s character. “Salvation” points to the benefits that come to those God favors—the deliverance He provides. As the peoples of the world see God’s way and salvation displayed in the blessings of Israel, they can experience—know—God…and such knowledge will generate praise because God is, as we have seen over the previous weeks, an awesome God.
Application
Friends, as we talked about last week, God is still in the business of blessing His people. You and I, who “know” the salvation of God through our experience of saving faith in Jesus Christ have experienced His blessing. Day in and day out, we continue to experience His blessing. We have not missed His blessing. What we may have missed, though, is the reason…or more accurately, one of the reasons…for His blessing. The reason God has blessed us is so that people to the ends of the earth will know Him through our blessings, specifically by the spread of the knowledge of His salvation.
Are you spreading the fame of God by sharing the knowledge of His salvation? Are you pointing people to Christ by sharing what Christ has done for you? Are you living your life in open praise of your God? Are you joyfully thanking your Savior?
Transition:
Remember our main idea? God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him. Our blessing spreads the knowledge of God’s salvation. That is the way that God’s blessing is meant to work to generate praise in others. A second way can be seen in verse 4,…
II. Our blessing spreads the knowledge of God’s wisdom.
The psalmist prays in verse 4 that as the nations observe God’s blessing on Israel, they will be moved to joy; they will be glad and sing for joy. There are two specific things in this verse that are given as reasons for the nations to praise God, both things that reflect God’s wisdom.
One, the nations see God’s righteous character on display as He judges the peoples, the nations. They see that God is upright in His judgment. The term “uprightness” has the idea of absolute equity. God is no Respecter of persons; He judges with absolute equality.
Illustration
We all recognize that a when things are not handled with equality, the result is anger rather than joy. Just think about how we feel when it seems as if one side of the political spectrum is receiving an unequal advantage through media coverage. This week I have seen news articles as well as several testimonials of conservative people exciting Facebook for a couple of competing social media platforms because it seems as if liberal views have an unfair advantage on Facebook. With such a contested presidential election, the slanting of political statements by Facebook has been enough to push many over the edge and led to the canceling of their accounts.
Well, with God there is no slanting of anything. God is absolutely equal in all of His judgments. That is because He judges things by His own standard of righteousness—an absolute standard determined by His perfect character. That character—God’s wisdom—is on display before the nations as they observe God’s governance of Israel.
Two, God’s wisdom is on display in the way that He guides all the nations. God has a plan, a perfect plan, that comprehends every part of human history. All nations, not just Israel, fall within the scope of that plan. The word “guide” in verse 4 is a word that means “lead.” God leads the nations of the earth—He guides them—so that His plan will come about.
That plan, of course, has a special place for Israel. He revealed that when He formed the nation. God’s blessings for the demonstrate that special spot in His plan. At the same time, God’s deals with the Israel as justly has He does for all the nations, as the many times Israel faced judgment demonstrated. When the nations of the earth looked at all of these things, they were able to see that God’s wisdom was guiding their nation as well as Israel. Such was an inescapable conclusion, a conclusion that should result in gladness and joy. In fact, Israel was to recognize that God was blessing them so that the nations would respond in this way.
Application
Folks, I hope that we all recognize that we too live in a nation that has been blessed by God. I remind us frequently that we are not Israel, God has not promised us the same conditional blessings that He promised Israel. But that does not mean that He has not blessed America; He certainly has. The level of freedom that we have experienced is unparalleled. Look at the way God has moved in our nation’s history through various revivals. Look at the great preachers and missionaries that He has raised up in our history. Look at the biblical resources that we have at our fingertips.
Illustration
Next week we are taking up an offering for Bible’s International’s Sango Bible Project in Central African Republic. The Sango people have an old poor translation. Soon they will have this updated one, which if they are fortunate enough to be able to get their hands on a printed copy, will be available. By contrast, I did a quick count on my computer and I believe that I have somewhere around 27 different English translations. Some of them are old English, like the Wycliff Bible and the Tyndale Bible. But many of them are very good translations. With a couple clicks of the mouse I can access any of them. I can also access them on my phone or my tablet. And that doesn’t include the 20 print English Bibles in my office, which contain 10 different English translations. On top of all that, I literally have thousands of books written by pastors and scholars in English that help me understand the Bible more thoroughly and apply it to my life. We are blessed beyond measure to live in America. Not only do all of these resources exist, we have pretty easy access to them. Sure, they may cost us some money, but by-and-large God has provided sufficient money that we can get them when we choose to do so. At that is not to mention the endless access that we have to things like online sermons and podcasts and webinars and so forth, many of which are free. We are blessed.
Do we recognize, though, that our blessing has a purpose? God has blessed us to spread the knowledge of spread His wisdom. How do we do that, you might ask?
Well, let me quickly suggest a couple of ways. One, we need to live our lives so that people see the wisdom of God on display. In other words, God’s revelation of His wisdom must be our guide. With all the resources available to us, there is no excuse for us to be unaware of what God has stated.
Illustration
Yesterday, while I was working on this sermon several ladies were in the church for their monthly craft day. I’m not sure who was here, but my guess is that there was probably at least one knitter and one crocheter in the mix. I also bet that were I to ask, a person who knitted could explain to me quite a bit about how knitting works, the different stiches and the way to read patterns, and such. They could probably even teach me to do a basic stich or two, assuming I had the patience to let them. Furthermore, the knitter and crocheter could undoubtedly explain the difference between the two crafts even thought they both use yarn. These ladies could show me their work, displaying the results of the craft.
And frankly, the same is true for every one of us in several areas of personal interest. I have heard guys explain details of grilling. I have heard kids explain the strategy employed in an offensive basketball play. I have been known to drone on about the wonders of coffee roasting. We are able to learn much about what interests us.
Does God’s instructions for our lives interest us in similar fashion. We are blessed by God to have His revelation. We are to allow it to guide our lives so that by watching how our lives work under God’s guidance others can learn that God is upright. Our lives are to visibly display the knowledge of God’s wisdom.
A second way that our lives can display the wisdom of God is by living in such a way that we display a confidence that God is guiding the nations of the earth, that He has a plan and He is working out His plan through the nations of the earth.
Illustration
Four years ago, the news and social media was filled with interviews and pictures of people falling apart because Donald Trump had won the election to be the President of the United States. There were actual emotional breakdowns and many protest marches across the country. In the last week there have been similar interviews and pictures of people falling apart because Joe Biden has likely won the election to the President of the United Stated. Now, I am not referring to those concerned about election integrity, that is a different issue. I am talking about people who cannot emotionally handle the idea that the country may not be going the direction that they want it to go. Last week, I very liberal relative posted on Facebook that the day after the election she didn’t even want to get out of bed face the world because it was obvious that roughly half the country thought differently than her and she couldn’t deal with that concept.
Friends, we are to be different. Our God is guiding America. And our God is guiding every other nation that America shares the world with at this point in history. He is guiding it according to His sovereign plan for His own purpose of bringing glory to His name. We, those of us who know Him are to spread the knowledge of His wisdom by demonstrating with our lives the understanding that we are blessed to be under His guidance…period. He may guide our nation in a way that we personally do not prefer, but that should not change in the least the confidence that we display in His wisdom by how we live our lives. We simply carry on joyfully praising our God.
Transition:
God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him. Our blessing spreads the knowledge of God’s wisdom. That is a second way that God’s blessing is meant to work to generate praise in others. A third way, highlighted in the final two verses is that…
III. Our blessing spreads the knowledge of God’s generosity.
Verse 6 has the only past tense verb in the entire psalm. All the other verbs are either referring to things that are happening in the present or will happen in the future. Verse 6 looks at one thing that has happened in the past, though; God has caused the earth to yield its produce. Year after year Israel has harvested grain and grapes and fruit because God has caused the crops and vines and trees to grow. The psalmist looks at how the earth has produced this annual increase and takes that as a picture of even better things to come. God has caused the earth to produce, he says, so that “all the ends of the earth may fear Him.” He recognizes that as the people of the world to see the blessings of God on Israel, the intended result is that they become true worshippers of God themselves. They are to see that God’s generosity to Israel demonstrates that He is the true and living God, a generous God worthy of worship.
Illustration
Several of the Israelite festivals were designed to recognize that the annual produce that the people enjoyed was provided through the generosity of God. They were designed to allow the people to worship God for His generosity.
Our modern Thanksgiving holiday reflects this same concept in its origin. Of course, our secular culture is trying to separate the concept of annual produce from the generosity of God. Frankly, one of the reasons that we see the political divide aligning so strongly along urban and rural areas is that it is much easier to separate the idea of God from the blessing of produce the further you get from the actual production of that produce. The farmer is more apt to be amazed by a bountiful harvest than a city-dweller whose closest contact with the same produce comes in the form of a cardboard box of ground flour or plastic bag of baked bread.
Yet, the principle remains the same. Our blessing…and again we are extremely blessed…our blessing should spread the knowledge of God’s generosity. Are we a thankful people? Are we grateful for what God has given us?
Application
One of the commentaries that I read this week called Psalm 67 a missionary psalm because it reflects the desire for the entire world to know God. There is truth in that statement, but we also can recognize that Israel did not really have a missionary mandate in the way that we think of missions. In the OT, Israel was to be an example of obedience to God; they were to be known as worshippers of God. They were to rejoice when others joined them in worship of God. But they did not have a mandate to spread the name of Yahweh throughout the world. They main role in God’s plan was to show the need and provide the line for the Messiah. On this NT side of the cross, however, we do have a missionary mandate. We are still to be an example of obedience to God. We are be worshippers of God as well, displaying to the world our knowledge of God. But we are also to be proclaimers of God. As Christ prepared to leave the earth after His resurrection, He gave the command to go and make disciples, to teach people from all over the earth to observe all that He has commanded. That means that not only are we to share through demonstration the knowledge of God’s generosity, we must tell of His generosity.
Next week, we will have the opportunity in the afternoon to stand before a microphone and…I’ll call it practice, because we need to take it beyond this room…tell how God has been generous to us this year.
Most important though, we need to tell of the generosity of our God who sent His own Son to die for us because our sin deserved eternal punishment. We have been blessed with forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ. We must proclaim the knowledge of God’s generosity so that all the ends of the earth may fear Him.
How can we do that? We can certainly give generously next week to the Sango Bible Project. We can give faithfully to our church for missions. But we must also speak openly and boldly to the people around us about the blessing we have received from God—a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
Transition from body to conclusion:
God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him. Our blessing spread the knowledge of God’s generosity. That is the third way that God’s blessing is meant to work to generate praise in others.
CONCLUSION
God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him.
Sometimes we do thinks so that others will see us do them. As I mentioned at the beginning, this past week several politicians engaged in Veteran Day events so that others would see their involvement and be motivated to rightly honor vets as well.
Our God also does things so that others will see. He blesses us. God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him.
In our psalm we have seen three ways in which God does this through the blessings that He gives us. One, our blessing spreads the knowledge of God’s salvation. Two, our blessing spreads the knowledge of God’s wisdom. And three, our blessing spreads the knowledge of God’s generosity.
God blesses us so that we will urge others to praise Him.