Sermon: Our Great God

Before I read God's word to us this morning, let's pray that God will give us understanding and will bless his word to us.

Oh Lord, father, son, and Holy Spirit, we humbly ask now that you would open our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things from your law and not just wondrous things, but we would behold you, your glory, your majesty, your beauty, your goodness, your truth, your love. Take us higher and deeper and farther into your greatness and through this, oh God, we pray that you would stir our hearts to sing greater praise for you are worthy of all the praise

that we can give and even more. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Psalm 145, A song of praise of David. I will extole you, my God and king and bless your name forever and ever, every day. I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts on the glorious splendor of your majesty.

And on your wondrous works, I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds and I will declare your greatness. They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made. All your works shall give thanks to you oh Lord.

And all your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of your glory of your kingdom and tell of your power to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds in the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works. The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down the eyes of all look

to you and you give them their food. And due season you open your hand, you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The Lord is near to all who call on him to all who call on him. In truth, he fulfills the desire of those who fear him. He also hears their cry and saves them. The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy my mouth

will speak the praise of the Lord and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever. Amen. Well, dear friends and the Lord Jesus Christ in my house, we are excited for the Summer Olympics. It's just a few weeks away and maybe you've noticed over the last week or so that the Olympic trials have been taking place and have been aired on tv. The other night my family and I had the TV on and we were watching the Olympic trials

who was gonna make team USA and and this particular night, uh, the women's gymnastics was on tv. At one point on the television screen there was a young girl who was shown in the crowd who was holding a stuffed animal, a goat, a stuffed goat. You think, what in the world is that for? What does that mean? Well, she had the goat because she was watching Simone Biles, Simone Biles, this gymnast who is one of the best gymnasts ever.

And she had a goat because in recent years, goat has come to mean greatest of all time. It's an acrostic g greatest O of a all T time. This young girl was not meaning to criticize Simone Biles. She was trying to laud her for her greatness as an athlete. And I think just the fact that our culture has clung to this funny acrostic goat, uh, says something about What we love, what we appreciate. Don't you think it's true that our culture loves

and appreciates greatness? Greatness in sports. We are consumed with who the best players are and what they've done in recent games in recent decades. The movies that have done the best are those of the superheroes, the the best superheroes that have existed. And then even in our just everyday news cycle, stories of greatness often come up everyday heroics of ordinary men and women. Our culture loves greatness. And this morning we are studying a psalm

by the goat, the greatest of all time. David King. David, as you know and remember, king David was greatly regarded as Israel's great king. He is the gold standard of all the Israelite kings been reading in my personal devotions over the last couple weeks, Chronicles and Kings, all the good kings of Judah are compared to David. He is the gold standard. He is and was the great king. He was of course a great military leader

under his rule and reign. Israel experienced great prosperity. But what we see this morning is that David was also a great writer. He was a great writer and a great singer. He's very articulate. 73, almost half of our Psalms, 73 of the one 50 in this book, the Psalms are attributed to King David. He was a great writer. This one here in Psalm 145 is the last one in all of scripture that is attributed to him. And we see here in this psalm

and we would find in his other psalms that David's words are eloquent, very eloquent literature. They're also deeply engaging. They're very personal. They marvelously express for us our every thought and feeling. So much so that one author has said that the psalms are an anatomy of all the parts of the soul. They just capture really well what we think and what we feel. And I think the reason why is because David is able to express theological truths

in very poignant ways. Well here in this particular psalm that David wrote, we see all of his gifts. Every single one of his writing gifts I think are on display here as we'll see. And as we've heard, David has an expansive vocabulary for which to capture the, the thoughts that he has, the meditations that he has. What you won't see. But what I wanna make you aware of is how David chose to write this particular psalm.

This is an alphabet acrostic. So you won't see this in the English because um, our letters don't match up exactly with the Hebrew letters. But if you were to look at the Hebrew, you'd see that each verse starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So the first verse begins with olive, the second verse begins with bait and the third gal and so on and so forth. And you can see that the ESV translators even want you

to be aware of this. They put a footnote there next to 1 45. It says the Psalm isn't acrostic poem. So there are, there's 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. You'll notice maybe that there's just 21 verses in this psalm. So in the, in some of the early manuscripts, one of the letters was missing Noon. Noon. But many of the early ancient translations supply the missing verse and so does the ESV. So you'll see in the end of verse 13,

just wanna point this out to you. Now before we get into it, the end of 13 you'll see that section of scripture that's in brackets. And the, the reason why they put those words in brackets is because those are the missing. That's the missing verse, um, from some of those other translations. And so the ESV supplies those there at the end of verse 13.

We could go on at length to talk about the greatness of David, all of his abilities and gifts that God gave to him. But David doesn't want our attention. It's not his focus in the scriptures, it's not his focus. Here in Psalm 1 45, David was a great king and leader, but David served a greater God. And that's what we see David doing. What we see David doing in this psalm is using all of his gifts, using everything that is with within him

to bless God's holy name to magnify and exalt our God. And we see that even beginning in the opening doxology in verses one through three here, these verses set the introduction for us to this entire Psalm. They tell us the theme and the tune of this psalm theme is found in verse three. Great is the Lord. Great is the Lord word. Lord. There is the word the the name that God himself gave to his people, to his covenant people Lord.

And all capitalized letters meaning Yahweh, the covenant God who would be faithful to his promises and faithful through the generations great is his name. I will bless your name. And David says at the end of verse three, your greatness is unsearchable. You are great and your greatness is unsearchable. This does not mean that we can know nothing of God's greatness. It does not mean that. It doesn't mean that we should try

to know more about God's greatness. What it does mean is this, we can never know God's greatness fully. It's beyond human searching. It's beyond finding out God's greatness goes, extends far above the heavens and far below the depths. God's greatness is unsearchable and therefore he is to be praised. He is to be praised. That's the tune, the tune of this psalm. It's therein the title, A song of praise. But what we find is that David, as he's meditating

and contemplating the greatness of God, his heart is stirred. He has to give a response. And that response is doxology, doxology. It's it's singing to the praise of God. And this is no ho hum acknowledgement of God's greatness. It's joyful, it's profuse. You see that word in verse one, I will extol you. That is to praise enthusiastically, to lift up and to magnify God. David says he will sing of, he will sing his name

and sing his praises every single day. There is not one day of his existence where God is not great and when God is not greatly to be praised and this song he says will continue forever and ever. It's not just as long as I live, it is into eternity, into the ages to come. It is a great song. It is praise in abundance and that's exactly what God deserves for his abundant greatness. Now in between this opening doxology verses one

through three and the closing doxology verse 21, David highlights four aspects of God's greatness, four aspects of God's greatness which contribute, which show his reveal to us and show us his surpassing greatness. You think of a diamond how it has many aspects which makes it great and beautiful. It's color, it's clarity, it's cut it's sides, it's carrot. So it is with God. There are many aspects which can be highlighted about his greatness.

And David here shares four with us, four with us. So beginning in verses four through seven, David highlights for us the greatness of God's works, the greatness of God's works. He emphasizes for us God's wondrous works and his mighty acts. David here is not specifying what he has in mind. What are the the mighty acts and the wondrous works that he is considering and contemplating and metting meditating upon? But that does not mean it should not be understood then

that there is nothing specific for which to praise God. You might think that David is, is meditating and he is trying to cons his thoughts are taking them all over. And he, he begins with Israel's history, the history of his nation about how perhaps God delivered them from the hand of the Egyptians. When Moses sings his song of deliverance in Exodus 15, he, he uses some of this very same language that David employs here in Psalm 1 45.

He says, who is like you? A Lord among the gods who is like you, majestic in holiness awesome and glorious deeds doing wonders. God has done great things for his people Israel. But maybe also David is thinking about his own life, about what God has done for him personally. Perhaps he was meditating upon how the Lord delivered the great and fearsome Goliath into his hand with just a stone and a sling. Or maybe how God saved him time

and time again from the attempts of Saul to kill him or from his own son, Absalom killing him. Or maybe David was thinking about how God gave him a son to sit upon his throne so that his kingdom would extend into future generations. Or maybe David was thinking about how God led him to conviction and repentance in his sin. We don't know what these mighty acts or wondrous works that filled David's mind. And perhaps David didn't intend for us to know specifically

what God, what was in his mind, what he was thinking about, what God had done. And maybe that's because David recognized like all of us ought to, that all of God's acts, all of his works are worthy of praise, his works of creation, his works of providence, God's works of redemption, every single work is worthy of our praise. And you notice how David can't help himself as he's thinking about what God has done to just heap

praises upon God with all this descriptive language, these descriptive adjectives. He says in verses four through seven, mighty Acts glorious splendor, wondrous works, awesome deeds. It's almost as if David doesn't have enough capital in his word bank to heap the praises upon God's name.

Verses four through seven Tell us much about the greatness of God's wondrous works, but they also focus a lot on transmission, transmission, the carrying on of the fame of those works. And here my friends, is the great occupation of each and every generation. We're all employed in this same task. Every generation declaring God's works to the next generation.

Now you'll notice from these verses that speaking or using words is essential. Yes, our lives can, can say something of God's greatness, but speaking declaring is essential. And there seems to be a progression here. From verses four to seven, we begin with a commendation, a declaration in verse four. And by the time we get to verse seven, we see that this declaration is almost unending. The the abundant goodness of God is pouring forth.

Think of what my mind thinks of as maybe like when a water main is, is broken, severed, and all of a sudden water just starts gushing forth and you cannot stop it. It is pouring forth water. And here there is pouring forth the fame of abundant goodness. And then, then it leads to song singing aloud, singing aloud of God's righteousness. We don't even just speak, we sing to the praise of God's name. Now in Israel, parents

and elders were meant responsible to teach the coming generation of God's great deeds. So you think of Exodus 13 where they have just been uh, celebrating the Passover and the expectation is that at some point the kids in the families are going to ask their parents, what does this mean? Why are we celebrating the Passover? Why are we taking unleavened bread? And the reason, uh, we see that we are to teach the next generation is so that the praises

of God are not forgotten. They never stop. And that's the purpose here of this generation. Now, some of you in this room are parents, some of you are elders or leaders in this church. Some of you are old.

You all have a purpose your whole life through to share and to declare the greatness of God so that they'll be repeated. Now, I've been thinking about this and maybe you've never thought about this before, about how blessed we are in this church to belong to a generational church. As you look across the sanctuary, you see young people who just had some baptisms in the first service, some one month olds, and we have people

that are into their eighties and nineties. It's a great blessing. It's to belong to a generational church and to you, the younger generations, I just wanna say to you, don't overlook this blessing. Don't overlook this blessing to have older generations who will spend their time teaching you in Sunday school and at VBS who will sit next to you in the pew, either be in front of you or behind you and sing with you and help you open to the right passage in the Bible

and to the older generations here in this church, I wanna say, please, I please do not neglect this wonderful responsibility that you have before God and to us to tell us and to share with us what God has done.

Follow David's example and lead us by example. Please, I'm gonna leave you with this older generation. I wanna give you a challenge, challenge from Charles Spurgeon when he was commenting on this verse. I think he, he said it well and this would be a good challenge to you. He says, oh, that there were more of these memories and utterances for it is not right. That the goodness of the living God should be buried in the cemetery

of silence, in the grave of ingratitude. Please share these stories, what God has done and has left for us in the scriptures. But you too have known personally story. You have stories personally of what God has done for you, what he's done for your family. Tell us the great goodness of God. And that's where David brings us next in verses eight through 10, to the greatness of God's goodness, the greatness of God's goodness.

And in verse eight, David here is repeating God's self revelation, God's self revelation. This verse here in in verse eight, the words of it are some of the most quoted words in the Old Testament. So we find them in the wilderness, we find them in the prophets, we find them in the Psalms, we find them even post exile. But the first time we hear of these words is in Exodus 34. Exodus 34, verse six. Remember with me what happens there In Exodus 34,

Moses has asked God to show him his glory. And God says, I cannot do that, but I will pass by you. I will, I will hide you in the cleft of the rock and I will let all of my glory pass by you. And what God does is he speaks, he speaks of his glory of his character. And this is what he says to Moses at Mount Sinai. Listen to the similarity. The Lord. The Lord a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Now it might surprise you, but this testimony from God comes just two chapters after Israel had sinned their great sin by erecting a golden calf and saying, here Israel, here is your God. And God says to Moses, and he says to all his people, I am merciful and gracious. I am slow to, to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And what Moses does in response to hearing this from God is he bows down in worship, he bows down in worship.

And I think that's exactly what David has in mind for us. I think that's what he expects from repeating these words in verse eight, that we too will bow down in worship. Now I think here, dear friends, is an opportunity for your own testimony, your own testimony to speak to others about the greatness of God and what he's done for you, particularly in how he has been slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love. You are more like those rebellious

Israelites than you think. And I am too. It's true of all of us that God has been merciful and gracious long to anger and resolute in his covenant faithfulness and love toward us. But God's the greatness of God's goodness doesn't stop there. It extends to all he has made. Verse nine, the Lord is good to all. This is speaking of God's common grace, meaning that God's blessings fall upon the godly and the ungodly because of his common grace to all creatures.

David says, to all means, there's not a single one of you in this room. Not a single one of us can say that we haven't experienced God's blessing. In some measure, the sun has fallen upon us and so has the rain. It falls upon the just and the unjust. We have enjoyed the consumption of earth's produce. It is God's common grace to us. He has shown us blessing all each one, each and every one of us. And thus, verse 10 says,

all your work shall give thanks to you. Oh Lord, all of your works shall praise you. Every single work has a reason to thank our great God for his great goodness. Then David turns our attention in verses 11 through 13, to the greatness of God's kingdom, the greatness of God's kingdom and his rule. And it seems to me that David is probably highlighting two realities of God's kingdom that make it so great. The first would be that God's kingdom is universal.

It's universal. It extends to all things, all places. No, no one, no man, no woman, no thing, no plant, no no animal exists out of God's reign and rule. Since God created all things and sustains all all things. The extent of His kingdom is the whole world. The whole world is under God's kingdom. He reigns everywhere. And that's what David is highlighting in verse 10. But then also in verses 14 through 16. And David says this,

in such a way speaks about God's kingdom, the universal nature of God's kingdom in such a way that it seems like David desires that all people will recognize that they have reason to give thanks to God, that they ought to express their appreciation to God for his kindness to them. That they will realize every single person that they exist in God's kingdom and they depend on God. They live under his rule.

But secondly, I think David telling us about the greatness of God's kingdom and that it's also particular, it's particular, and by by this I mean it, that there is a special aspect of God's kingdom.

You see, all out of all the nations of the earth, God chose one. He set apart one nation to be his treasured possession. He chose Israel to be a kingdom of priests that would serve him and would make his name known to the ends of the earth, his works and his glory known to all the world. And they were to bless God, they were to bless their king and to invite others into the singing of God's praises. These were a favored people.

They knew God's particular favor of them and they were to be filled with praise for that. And I think David's highlighting that there at the end of verse 10, and then through 11 and in through 13. Now if anyone could claim expert knowledge of God's kingdom, it would be David, right? David was the great king, the the one appointed by God to be the ruler over God's people in this world.

And you'll remember that in second, Sam, second Samuel, chapter seven, God made a great promise to David a promise that David would always have a descendant upon his throne. David's kingdom would never end. How can that be? Well, it was fulfilled in David's royal son, his greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was from the line of David and he was the anointed one, the one who triumphed over death through resurrection, the one who

reigns forever at the right hand of God. God's kingdom is ruled here and now here and now by the Lord Jesus Christ. But the fullness of his kingdom is not yet. It is not yet, it is still to come. And that's why we pray, even still, oh Lord, let your kingdom come, let your will be done for us. That ought to be good news. It was for David. It ought to be for us too. And it ought to inspire. Praise the greatness of God's kingdom.

David knew his place. He knew his place before David was Israel's great king. He was even more than that. A servant. A servant in God's kingdom. Kingdom brothers and sisters. If you belong to Jesus, if you have been conquered by him, if you have been saved and rescued from your sins, transferred from the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of light, then you too are a citizen of this kingdom. You are under the rule and reign of king Jesus.

And your task as a citizen of this kingdom is to be an ambassador, is to be an ambassador of this kingdom, to proclaim the greatness and glory and splendor of God's kingdom. And as John Calvin said of the church, he said, the task of the church is to make the invisible kingdom visible. Your job is to proclaim and to make God's invisible kingdom visible in the way that you speak of God and of his Christ. In your jobs, in your families, in your schools,

even in your checkbooks. What you give to what you spend money on and how you spend your time.

Great. So David spends time speaking of God's great kingdom. And then finally he speaks of God's great provision, the greatness of God's provision in verses 14 through 20. And David says again in verses 14 through 17, that this great provision of God extends to all. It extends to all. You see all the uses of all in those verses. The same hands that strung the stars at creation are the very same hands that give that give food

to the hungry and satisfy the desires of everything. The same hands that raise up those who are bow down, the one who upholds the falling god's goodness is said to extend to all his creatures.

And for some of you that is really good news, really good news because you feel like you are falling down and David tells you there is a God who can lift you up and some of you feel like you can't beat back the anxiety. And David said, there is a God who upholds. There is a God who provides for those who are without work or underpaid and can hardly provide for themselves. There is a God who provides. And you see here that God's goodness,

God's provision is free and boundless. It has no bounds. It extends to all.

But there is a warning. There is a warning in this passage. Only one time in here at the end of the Psalm, this warning comes up all the wicked. He will destroy God's kindness. His benevolence in his provisions will only last for a time. For a time. God is just, he is faithful. He must punish wickedness, he must deal with evil and he will.

So maybe you need to hear that warning and you need to hear that warning so that you, you turn to recognize God's special provision. Or maybe you allow God's special provision to woo you, to woo you, to bring you into His love and into his grace. We see in verses 18 through 20 that the Lord has a special benevolence for his people, special benevolence for those who call on him. In truth, he is near for those who fear him.

He fulfills their desires, he hears their cry and he saves them. He preserves those who love them. He preserves them in his love. That was true for David, but it isn't it so much more true for us today, believers today, don't we see how Christ has done this most clearly. He came near to us in the flesh. Jesus cried out on the cross taking our sins upon himself. He saved us from sin and from death and from judgment and destruction.

And now there is nothing that can snatch you out of his hand. He has purchased you. Nothing can snatch you out of his hand. He will preserve all who love him. What more could you ask for? What? What more could you desire?

God's care for his people begins in this life, but it does not end with this life. God's care for his people extends into eternity. His kind provision for you will never ever cease. David here has highlighted four aspects of God's greatness. And then he closes with a, a closing doxology in verse 21, my mouth will speak the praise of the Lord and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever. His final declaration of praise is just

as it has been throughout the whole Psalm. It's personal, my mouth. It's spoken and declare he will use his mouth to declare God's greatness yet again. And it's inclusive. It's inclusive. David desires that he will not be the only voice. His mouth will not be the only mouth praising God. He wants all flesh to bless God's holy name. Dear friends, God's greatness deserves our praise for who He is, for what he has done. He is worthy of all of our adoration and all of our worship.

And dear friends, what better way to share with those who are desiring to hear of greatness than to share with them about our great God?

People want to hear about greatness. Hold forth for them our great God. Let his praises fill your lips. Don't go silent. We want these praises to resound forever and ever starting here and into eternity. Let's pray and let's ask that God will help us.

Oh God, that is the desire of our hearts, that we would praise you forever and ever. We want to praise you in eternity with the saints who have gone before the generation that has passed on with the angels.

We also wanna sing your praises now for we recognize that we are great beneficiaries of your great goodness, your great kindness, your great love. You have done so much for us. We ought to sing your praise. Would you tune our hearts to sing your praise For you are our great God and you are worthy of every praise we can give. We ask this in the name of Jesus our savior. Amen.