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Date:   08/23/09

Text:   Psalm 117

Title:   God's Heart

Theme: We are to align our hearts with God's heart.   

 

Introduction:

  When our children were younger, we bought them clothes that were 1 or 2 size s larger that they could grow into. So you can imagine the kids walking around with that loose shirt and folded up pants. I also remember my mom would buy shoes that I would grow into. But as children grew older, they all wanted clothes that fit them just right.

  In our recent study of God's attributes, we mentioned that many of us believe a God that fit s us just right. W e desire a God close to us, but not too close ; a great God that can do great things for us, yet still under our control. We want a custom fit God, a God that is as small or as great as I am. This doesn't make sense, does it?

  The more we learned of God, the more this requires a major paradigm shift for us. Instead of God fitting us, we are to fit him. He is like that larger size shirt that we can grow into.

  Our text for this morning is psalm 117. It is the shortest chapter in the Bible. When I first looked at this psalm, I thought, oh my, how am I going to preach a sermon from the shortest chapter in the entire Bible? But the more I studied, the more I wondered how I can fit all these into one sermon? I began to understand why Kidner, an OT scholar who wrote that even it is the shortest psalm, it is one of the most potent and most seminal psalms. Spurgeon identified 5 doctrines in these two verses: calling of gentiles, summary of the gospel, end and goal of such blessings, duties of God's people and their privileges. Martin Luther devoted 36 pages to this psalm and categorized it into: prophecy, revelation, instruction and admonition.

  Now, let's take a look and see what we can learn about God's attributes in this psalm. So that we can align our hearts with His.

I  •  God has a heart of Mission .

In vs.1 is a call to worship. “ Praise the Lord, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!” To whom is this call issued? All nations, all peoples , with no exception. In Genesis 12:2-3 God clearly promised that, “ 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” All families of the earth, with no exception will be blessed by God because of Abraham. Later, on the eve of leaving Egypt , God gave the Israelites regulations on how to receive foreigners, the non-Jews into their community. Exodus 12;48-49, “ 48 If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. 49 There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.” Solomon in his prayer included the foreigners, 1King 8:41-43 “ 41 “Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name's sake 42 (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house, 43 hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.”

  And as we come to NT, the picture is even clearer. Jesus reached out to the Jews and non-Jews. In Romans 15:11, Paul quoted psalm 117 in the context that we are one in Christ therefore we are to accept one another. Then we find the final fruition in Revelation 7:9, “ 9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,….” From the beginning to the end, God's heart is a mission heart. He desires people from all nations will acknowledge him as king and worship him.

  What does this mean to us today? If God is to be king over all, it will shatter our narrow thinking of either just being my king or the king of this church. It will also shatter popular thoughts that different people have rights to different religions. Psalm 117 simply says there is one God for the world.

  When we align our hearts with God's, it means we're to look at the world from His perspective. If so, we understand that mission is not something we do once a year. Instead, mission, or telling others about Christ is to be a part of our belief system. Just like we don't need to organize a conference to remind us to eat 3 meals a day. Mission , whether local or global, is to be like breathing, an integral part of our existence. It is the bread and water of this and other churches; the air that we breathe.

II •  God has a heart of Preva lent love

The psalmist proclaimed that people from all nations are to come and worship God. Now, he also gave the reasons. First,

1 •  A mighty over love. Let's first focus on the word ‘Great'. God's love is great. The meaning of this ‘great' is that of mighty over, over-powering. It is used of the flood water mighty over the earth; God's blessing mighty over us. Israelites mighty over their enemies. Or in psalms 65, it described our sins as mighty over us. It is like swimming or standing in the water . When a wave comes, we can't stand firm, right? The wave mighty over us. We praise and worship God, why? Because His love is great, it comes at us like those waves, we just can't stand against it, we have to give in and worship him.

2 •  A covenant love. This steadfast love first appeared in Exo 34:6. It is God's covenant love towards His people. It is also called the loyal love. It is about God's promise of grace and unconditional love to His people. It is a love that never changes. It is often quoted by the Israelites after their 70 years of exile in Babylon . Having been brought back to the promised land, they looked back and all they saw was God's covenant, loyal love towards them. They looked at the past and present, they saw God's steadfast love and they worshipped him.

As we look at our own lives, we see the past of Christ's dying for us. And then we see how his death and resurrection saved a sinner like me. Moreover, we also know of God's promise for the future, of his return. We have seen experiences greater than the Israelites, how much more are we to worship this God because of his steadfast, loyal love.

There is this story about D.L. Moody, an American evangelist in the 19 th century. Moody traveled to England early in his ministry and met a young English preacher named Henry Moorhouse, who later pioneered Christian social service work in London 's poorer areas. One day Moorhouse told Moody, “I'm thinking of going to America .”

Moody said, “Well, if you should ever get to Chicago , come to my church and I'll give you a chance to preach.”

Moody was only being polite when he said this, because he had not heard Moorhouse and didn't know what he might say. He put the matter out of his mind, thinking that Moorhouse would probably never get as far west as Chicago . Sometime after Moody had gone back to America , he received a telegram that said, “Have arrived in New York . Will be in Chicago Sunday.” Moody didn't know what to do, especially since he was scheduled to be away that weekend. Finally he told the leaders of the church, “I think we should let him preach once. Put him on; then, if the people enjoy him, let him preach again.”

Moody was gone for a week following that Sunday, and when he got back he asked his wife, “How did the young preacher do?”

“He's a better preacher than you are,” she said. “He's telling sinners that God loves them.”

“That's not right,” Moody replied. “God doesn't love sinners.” He had not yet learned very much about the love of God.

“Well, if you don't think so, go and hear him.”

“What?” said Moody. “Do you mean to tell me he is still here, that he is still preaching?”

“Yes, he has been preaching all week, and he has only had one verse for a text. It is John 3:16.”

Moody went to the meeting. Moorhouse began by saying, “I have been hunting for a text all day, and I have not been able to find a better one than John 3:16. So I think I will just talk about it once more.” He began to preach, and afterward Moody testified that on that night he received his first clear understanding of the gospel of grace and the greatness of God's love.

There is also this story of the well known Swiss theologian Karl Barth. Many evangelicals are concerned about his salvation or born again experience. He has been asked, “Are you saved?” or “Dr. Barth, what is the greatest thought that has ever gone through your mind?” He paused and thought, then said, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

There is this one individual that faithfully comes to church every Sunday. He didn't walk nor hear well. Yet when I see him on Sunday mornings, I always hug him and said in his ears, “Jesus loves you.”. In our Chinese service, after introducing visitors, we sing this song as a gift to them: Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you. Jesus is in my heart, he loves you in my heart. T he best gift we can give to our children, or anyone is the message that Jesus loves you. God's love is like that wave, mighty over us. When this love touches us, it is hard or impossible to stand against it. We have no choice but to bow down and worship Him.

III •  God has a heart of eternal faithfulness

We have seen God's heart is missional, a prevalent love. Now let's look at the second part of vs.2, “ and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!” The word, ‘faithfulness' can equally be translated as ‘truth,' ‘steadfastness,' or ‘reliability.' In the NT, in the words of Jesus, it is, “truly, truly.”

I think of a young couple from LA. The husband was diagnosed with brain tumor several years ago and the cancer continued to grow after several surgeries. They decided to come to MD Anderson for further treatment. During this process, he fell in love with a young lady and decided to get married. Certainly this was not a popular decision in the midst of the cancer advancement and numerous surgeries and treatments. Their love prevailed. During the last few years, we saw the wife's unwavering love towards her husband. She was always there by his bedside, taking care of him, until he passed away three months ago. It was a loyal and reliable love.

Even though great is this love, it has a beginning and end. This love however, points us to a love that is so much greater and immeasurable. There is no end to God's love towards us. Even before we knew him, he was there loving us. This love is eternal and never wavers. This is the heart of the gospel message. This is the reason we are to worship and praise him.

Conclusion:

  To many of us, Psalm 117 is probably the first psalm we memorized. It was the shortest psalm and the shortest chapter in the entire Bible. It can easily become another rhetorical psalm, full of Christian clichés. “Praise the lord, all nations.” What will it take to avoid such clichés?

   It has been said that wherever one finds Chinese, there are Chinese restaurants. Wherever one finds Koreans, there are churches and missionaries. It was estimated that half of the Korean population in Beijing are either missionaries or individuals in some kind of mission work. We often ask why the Korean believers are so mission minded.

Recently, someone shared with us saying that in many of the Korean churches in the states, beginning with children, they are taught of God's mission heart. It is God's heart that his great and reliable love is to be proclaimed in all parts of the world. To go to places where the gospel has not preached is an indelible mark of their faith. It is like the kimchi they eat in every meal ; i t is in their blood.

If we are to take Psalm 117 beyond its appearance of Christian rhetoric and clichés, we need to align our hearts with God's heart. God's size is fixed, it cannot be changed. We are to stretch our size to fit God's. We are to capture this mission heart as our heart as well. For HCC and any other church, p roclaiming the gospel, that is, God's great and everlasting love, to people in every nation is not a matte r of whether we should do it or no t . It is always on the top of our priority. The question we ask is how and not why. As a church, what more can we do? Individually, we also ask how can God use my life to tell his eternal and constant love to those He brings into my life. How can God use me to bring the gospel message to other parts of the world?




http://archive.hcchome.org/

English Service:

Mandarin Service:

Cantonese Service:

2014 |2013 |2012 |2011 |2010 |2009 |2008 |2007
2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999

2014|2013|2012|2011|2010|2009|2008 |2007
2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999
Cantonese audio translation available up to 2011

2014 |2013 |2012 |2011

 


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