Psalm 66 - Remembrance
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City. We are closing up our final week in the Psalms. We spent nine weeks this summer walking through the Psalms. We started off in Psalm 1 where we got a picture of how Psalm 1 and 2 give us a picture of the rest of the Psalms.
And then we looked at how the Bible and its beauty and its glory is shown through the Psalms. Then we learned how to use the Psalms for prayer. We got to see a picture of rest and repentance. We spent one week learning the command to sing from the Psalms, which actually has kind of been my favorite week since we started it. Matt Freeman walked us through that text that week. We got to do a worship night together.
And since then, I've kind of noticed the singing has been elevated, which has been good to hear. We spent a week learning what it looked like to be an emotionally healthy Christian from the Psalms. Last week, we got to see a Psalm of Lament and what it looks like to mourn. And this week, we're going to be looking at a Psalm of Remembrance. There are specific Psalms that just are devoted to remembering God's work. And many of the other Psalms kind of touch on remembering different aspects of how God has worked for His people.
So we're going to be in Psalm 66. If you have a Bible, you can turn to page 275 in your white Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, take that white Bible home with you. That is our gift to you. All right.
So there are four pictures that I brought with me today that kind of show my story, kind of show where I come from, who I am today. And I'm going to put them on the screen. The first picture is a picture of my baptism nine years ago, which is why it's really fuzzy, because back then cameras didn't, on phones, didn't have that great a picture quality. But that's my baptism, and that's significant for a few reasons. Firstly, that for 17 years, I walked as an enemy of the Lord and was brought into the family of God. The fact that I placed my faith in Jesus.
We're going to have baptisms here in about a month. If you wanted to talk more about what baptism is, we'd love to talk to you about it. But we're excited for that. And I look back at that, and I thank God that God saved me, and that baptism is a picture of the death-to-life conversion that happens in Christ. This picture is actually cool for another reason. That baptism happened at Midtown Fellowship Church, which is cool for me now, seeing as how we were planting Antioch Church, now we're joining forces, and we're all Mill City Church.
Mill City was planted by Midtown, so it's kind of come full circle for me in the past nine years since then. So that picture is significant for me. The second picture is a picture of our wedding day and my wife. That is cool for a few reasons. Firstly, our wedding day was awesome. We had a lot of fun.
We had people that came up to us in the years that followed, and they were like, man, your wedding was a lot of fun. Yeah, it was. We had a good time. And it's also significant, because we've been married for six years. I love my wife. I love getting to journey through life with her.
There's ups, there's downs, there's all kinds of chaos. But there's nobody I'd rather be with, journeying through this life together. She makes me a better man. She makes me a better husband. She helps me in so many ways. The next picture is a picture of our kiddos.
That's a recent picture. It's Eloise, who's our daughter. She's two. Bridgers, who was just born about six weeks ago. And they, man, kids change the game. They do.
They change everything. Sometimes it's chaotic, and most of the time, when I come home after a long day of working, I get to see my kids. It's just exciting. And I thank God for them. I'm growing in my ability to shepherd and care for others and learning to be patient with a crazy two-year-old and a baby who's crying and all of that. So I love my kids.
There's so much a part of my story and my future. This last picture, I'll rip that out of my sister's yearbook, is a picture of my family, not all of my family, but much of my family. I come from a crazy family. I know that everyone says my family's crazy. My family's nuts. They're nuts.
But we love each other a ton, and so much of the experiences I have, the good experiences, the bad experiences that I've had of my family have shaped me in profound ways that will help me shepherd and care for others because I can empathize with so many different situations that we've been through as a family. So those four pictures kind of tell my story, and it's cool to kind of go through Facebook and look back at pictures of our story to see where we come from. And in the same way, the Psalms do that. Like the Psalms give us pictures. They paint pictures of God's continued redemption and care of his people.
Like there are multiple Psalms that are solely dedicated to remembering how God saves his people. There are eight different Psalms that mention the event of the Exodus and the Egyptians, which we'll get into in a second in Psalm 66. There are three specific references that mention the Red Sea and that aspect of the story of Exodus. It was important for them to hear their story. Like they needed that because much of Israel's history is a lot of trials, a lot of really tough times. So they needed pictures of God's redemption to remind them of that.
Now you may be wondering, like that's great. Like you seem, preacher man, to be really excited about the Psalms and really excited about Psalms of remembrance. But what does that actually have to do with me? Like how does remembering Israel's history, how does that actually help us as Christians? Yeah, I get that. Like I get that.
I feel like that's one of the reasons why the Psalms are difficult to relate to. Like with the rest of like the Old Testament, there's usually stories that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And then it picks up with another story. And when you jump into Psalms, man, there's all kinds, there's emotions. It's messy. They're referencing all kinds of history.
There's all kinds of language that we're not familiar with. And it's hard to relate to them. But here's where I'd press in and here's where I'd say. That looking at Psalms like Psalm 66 and remembering God's work in the Psalms is good for us. The reason why is because we are just like the people of the Old Testament. We're just like them.
We are tempted to believe that because of our circumstances, that God doesn't care about us. Because of what we're facing, that God doesn't care about what we're going through. And we are just like them. And we need to be reminded of how God works for his people. So we're going to look at Psalm 66.
And we're going to see four helpful pictures as we walk through it. The first is a picture of God as creator. The second is a picture of God as Savior. The third is a picture of God as worthy. Worthy of worship. And the fourth is a picture of a God who loves.
So as we walk through this, we'll see those pictures. So let me pray and then we'll dive in. God, thank you so much for the Psalms and this season that we've gotten to spend in them. I pray that you would help us see their beauty as we close this out. That we'd see them as a good way to relate our experiences to how you work for your people. We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen. All right, so pick up in verse 1. Shout for joy to God, all the earth. Sing the glory of his name. Give to him glorious praise. Say to God, how awesome are your deeds.
So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you. All the earth worships you and sings praises to you. They sing praises to your name. Selah. So the word selah, I don't think we've really covered this in the Psalms yet.
You'll see that in other Psalms. We don't really know what that means in the Hebrew. We think it means a pause. So we'll pause with the psalmist here. The first thing we see here is God as creator. There's a call here for all the earth to worship God.
In verse 1 it says, shout for joy to God, all the earth. Verse 4 says, all the earth worships you. And the picture here is that God is the creator of all peoples, everywhere, of all things. Everything he has created and everything is his. And all of creation reflects his glory. We see this in Isaiah 44, 23.
Isaiah 44, 23 says, sing, O heavens. He's talking about the sky, the moon, the stars. Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout, O depths of the earth, breaking forth into singing, O mountains, O forests, and every tree in it. The heavens, everything above, and everything below, the forests, the mountains, all of it reflects his glory. Isaiah 49, 13 says, sing for joy, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth.
Break forth, O mountains, into singing. Another picture of all the earth sings God's praises. Jesus, at one point in the New Testament, Jesus, he's getting ready to walk into the city of Jerusalem. And the people are praising him like he's a God. Spoiler alert, he is. So they're praising him.
And then all of a sudden, some of his enemies come in and say, no, no, no, you've got to stop that. They're praising you like you're a God. And Jesus, he answers them. He says, I tell you, even if they were silent, even if they were silent, the very stones would cry out. He's like, even if they stop praising me, the stones will cry out. And he just drops the mic and walks into Jerusalem.
Jesus, the creator of the universe, all of it reflects his glory. And we need pictures of that. And we need to see that from the big things that he's created to the smaller things. Like we need to know, we need to think and remember that the earth revolves around the sun at like 93 million miles. All right?
I want you to think about this. If it goes out too far, all of life on earth dies. And if it comes too far in, all of life on earth dies. So God is holding the earth around the sun, going 93 million miles around. He's holding it at an axis of 23.5 degrees tilted. If it's tilted too far in, there's no life on earth.
If it's too straight, there's no life on earth. And I know some of you have been watching YouTube and you're thinking, the world is flat. I know that we thought that was settled science. It came back. And it still works for your worldview. Because if you take a map and you tilt it 23.5 degrees, we all come toppling out.
So God actually has to hold us together as we're revolving around the sun. So from the big picture, God, he sustains all of life. All the way down to like the smaller details. Like our eyes are the most complex organs in our bodies. And like two weeks ago, we got to sit under a solar eclipse. And I downplayed it.
I was like, there's no way. People are freaking out about this. This cannot be that cool. And it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I was so jacked for three minutes. We're cheering.
We're screaming. It was awesome. And then some people took pictures and video with really, really nice cameras. And you got to look at them online later. And tell me, were those pictures, those videos, they match what you saw in person? Not a chance.
What you got to see in person was amazing. Because our eyes are so complex. You can see the depth and the glory and the beauty of God's creation. All the way down to like our taste buds reflect God's glory. Like the fact that our tiny little taste buds help us taste food. I mean, this is like the best time to be alive to eat.
Like I know there's some Netflix documentaries that say otherwise. And I will contend there's some problems with our food system. But think about this. You can go to a restaurant where you can sit down and a chef will prepare a meal with food like spices and meats and vegetables from all over the globe on one plate. And you get to enjoy that on a regular basis. Because down to our taste buds reflect God's creativity and his glory.
So like why do we walk through all that? It's important for us to see how big our God is. How much he's in control. All the way down to the details. So that we can compare the glory of how big our creator God is to what we currently face.
And that's what Jesus does in Matthew 6. In Matthew 6 he's teaching on anxiety. And he says, don't be anxious. Do you see the birds? He's like the birds wake up every morning. They sing God's praises.
And God feeds the birds. And he says, look at the fields. The fields are clothed with beautiful flowers. Like I feed the birds. I clothe the fields. Like how much more do I care for you?
You who are made in the image of God. Like I care for everything else. And you are made in my image. Like I, that is the creator God who cares for us. And we need that picture. We need to remember that picture as we walk through pictures of like this in the Psalms.
So we get a picture of God as creator. And as we walk through we get a picture of God as savior. It picks up. In verse 5. Come and see what God has done. He is awesome in his deeds towards the children of man.
He turned the sea into dry land. They passed through the river on foot. There did we rejoice in him. Who rules by his might forever. Whose eyes keep watch on the nations. Let not the rebellious exalt themselves.
Selah. Alright, so when he says he turned the sea into dry land. And when he says they passed through the river on foot. What he is giving a picture of is the picture of Exodus. Like every Jewish person who hears this. Who sings this.
They are thinking of the event of the Exodus. I want to walk really quickly through what the story of Exodus is. If you have not read the story of Exodus. Please go home. It is the second book in the Bible. And read the story of Exodus.
And bonus. You can rent Prince of Egypt. Or go find that movie. It is a cartoon retelling of the story of Exodus. And it is actually fairly bitterly accurate. And it has an all star cast.
Like Liam Neeson. Sandra Bullock. Val Kilmer. You are never going to get a cast like that for a Bible movie again. So go.
Watch that movie. Read Exodus. I will tell you the highlights. The people of God have been enslaved by Egypt for around 400 years. And God is ready to bring them back into the promised land. So he raises up Moses.
We don't have time to get into his story of how he was born. And how he was called. But eventually Moses goes toe to toe with Pharaoh. Pharaoh is the ruler of Egypt. And he says let my people go. And Pharaoh says no.
I will not. And then one by one. He starts. God starts bringing plagues upon Egypt. To break Pharaoh. And he turns the river Nile into blood.
And each plague after that is actually a picture of God's dominance over the false gods of Egypt. Because those plagues are tied to false gods in Egypt. And one by one. Plague by plague. All the way to the tenth plague. Pharaoh says no.
And then on the tenth plague. Moses says if you do not let my people go. Every firstborn son in this land will die. And then Pharaoh says no. So Moses goes to the people.
And he says I want you to protect your family. I want you to take a lamb. I want you to slaughter it. I want you to take the blood of that lamb. And put it on the doorpost. And when God comes through.
To take the firstborn son out of every family. He will pass over your house. So they do. Egypt does not. And every firstborn son in Egypt dies. And Pharaoh finally says.
Get out. Leave. And not only do they leave. God says we're taking gold, silver, jewels with us. So they take Egypt.
They unload their riches. They walk right out of Egypt. They get close to the Red Sea. And Pharaoh changes his mind. He takes an army. And he comes to chase them down.
Take them back. And there's this scene at the Red Sea. Where they're coming down. They're barreling down on the Israelites. God creates this firestorm out of the heavens. It's kind of a lead blocker for them.
Then Moses takes his staff. He puts it in the Red Sea. And the Red Sea splits it too. And they travel through on foot. The other side safely. And then the Egyptians finally come through.
And the water collapses on them. And the enemy is defeated. And God's people are saved. That story shows up throughout the Bible. You can look at Deuteronomy, Joshua, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings. And in multiple Psalms you see the story referenced over and over and over again.
Which begs the question, why? Like why do the Israelites need to be continually reminded of this story? For some of whom happened centuries and centuries and centuries ago. The reason why is because it shows the heart of God. And His specific salvation of this people. Like I was reminding the Israelites.
I saved you. Like the reason you exist as a people is because I redeemed you from Egypt. From slavery to Egypt. I saved you. And they need this. They need this because their present circumstances.
For many who would sing this and read this, it doesn't feel like that at all. Like you pick up in verse 8. It says, Bless our God, O peoples. Let the sound of His praise be heard. Who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip. For you, O God, have tested us.
You have tried us as silver has tried. You brought us into the net. You laid a crushing burden on our backs. You let men ride over our heads. We went through the fire and through the water. Yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.
So there's two pictures that are happening in this section. Like the first picture is more references to what happened in Egypt. Like when he's talking about the burden that was placed upon their backs. Like that's a picture of what happened in Egypt. But because of the context of what this is written in, this is also, there are two pictures going on here.
Because for many people who would sing this, who would hear this read, for many of them, this is their current circumstances. Like when he says, For you've tested us. You've tried us like silver. When he says, You brought us into the net. You laid a crushing burden on our backs. Like they feel that because many of them are in exile.
Many of them are slaves again. Many of them are scattered across the Middle East. Far from the homeland. When he says, You let men ride in over our heads. They feel that. That's a picture of the enemy who came in with chariots and literally rode over people's heads.
So that's their present circumstances. And yet the psalmist here, he ends this section. He says, Yet you have brought us to a place of abundance. And in that context he means, We still exist. We are still abundant as a people. You still have sustained us.
And what's really cool about us, As we're applying our story on top of a Psalm of remembrance, Is that we get to remember our salvation story as we read their salvation story. Like we get to read in the cross into what happened with the Israelites. Like when they remember the Passover lamb that was slain so that they might be saved. We get to remember that on the night Jesus was betrayed, He celebrated a Passover meal. And that the following day he went to the cross and he became our Passover lamb that was slain for us. We get to remember our Passover lamb.
We get to remember, When we look at this picture, As they're remembering the Red Seas and the waters being parted, What we see as a connection in the New Testament, That baptism has some connections there. We get to remember baptism. Baptism is a sign of the death to life conversion that happens in Christ. And just as they pass through the waters and escape death into life, We get to remember our story as we read their story. And then you get to the place of abundance. And you get to think about the abundance of riches that we have in Christ.
Like the fact that we have victory over sin. The fact that we have a righteous standing before God. The fact that we have eternal fellowship with a God who's never going to forsake us. Like we get to remember the abundance of riches that we have there. And that is huge for us to remember in the midst of our trials. Like last week we touched on this.
Like if you're in the midst of health problems, It is so easy to believe the lie that is spilled into our heads from the enemy. That God doesn't care. That He doesn't care about my troubles. And we get to go back to our story and remember our salvation story. Remember, no, God does care. This is temporary.
But we are eternally His. Like we get to remember our story in the midst of marital problems. Like some of us are facing all kinds of marital issues. Like there's a scoreboard in your house. Like an unwritten scoreboard. And every time your spouse does something, You're marking it up.
And you're pointing to it. And you're remembering, Do you remember when you did this? Do you remember how you treated me there? And you've forgotten your story. You've forgotten that marriage is a reflection of the gospel. Like the God who lavished grace upon us.
That's what our marriage is supposed to reflect. Not remembering all the wrongs. That husbands are supposed to love our wives like Christ loved the church. And laying down our lives. That wives are supposed to follow our husbands' lead. Like we forget that.
We forget our story. So fill in the blank. Whatever problem you're facing, Remember your story that Jesus died for us. Because we have an enemy who's going to come in. He's going to tell us that God doesn't care. He doesn't care because of what you're facing.
And we're just like the Israelites. We need to be reminded of our salvation story. And that should turn us to praise. And that's what the psalmist picks up when we see a picture of how God is worthy of worship. Verse 13, it says, Now that form of worship should seem a little bit foreign to us. Like if Matt came in here on a Sunday and was like, Guys, I got some new stuff for you.
And he just started playing. He got his guitar. And he started strumming. And he said, Oh, we're going to slaughter animals. There's going to be blood everywhere. It doesn't sound like that.
It's kind of a Nickelback voice. But if he started singing songs like that, We'd all be sitting back and saying, Are you, like, get them off. Stay out. If you're not a Christian and you're new to some of this, You'd be like, I knew it. I knew it. They are crazy.
But as Christians, we'd be like, What's Matt doing? Like, that's not how we worship. And so the reality is our worship has changed. The picture of worship changes. So when we read passages like that that seem foreign, We get to take what is great about the way we worship now And apply it to how we're reading it.
Like we get to look at Romans 12.1 That says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, By the mercies of God, To present your bodies, hear this, As a living sacrifice, Holy and acceptable to God, Which is your spiritual worship. Like we, That is touching back to this picture Of the Old Testament. That the picture of worship changes. Like you don't have to go to the temple And make sacrifices anymore. Like we get to read this and go, Praise God that we are living sacrifice now. Because of what He has done, We're living sacrifice.
That we don't have to go and make sacrifices. We can point back to Jesus, Who perfectly fulfilled this sacrificial system. That He is our sacrifice. We can look back, At this, And remember, That we don't have to actually go to the temple To be in the presence of God. That we can worship God from anywhere, In every aspect of life. We can honor Him, As a living sacrifice, In our place of work, In our neighborhoods, In our homes.
We don't have to go to the temple, We can have, We have access to God from anywhere. And the fact that we actually have access, To God, Like they would have to come, A couple times a year to the temple, To make sacrifices. And in the temple, There's an inner part called, The holiness of holies. And there's a thick curtain, That separates it from the next room. And the next room, The inner courts, And the outer courts. And there's this huge separation.
You have a high priest, Who can go in a little bit for you, Who makes sacrifices for you. It's like, No, no, We have access to God, Now. Forever. In Christ. That when Jesus died on the cross, That curtain, That was in the inner part, Was torn in the two. And that symbolized, That we have access to God, Now.
And that we have Jesus, As our high priest, As the book of Hebrews teaches. That He is our high priest, And this miraculous, Mysterious way, Is at the right hand of God, Offering prayers, To the Father, On our behalf. I mean, It's just, The picture of worship, It gets so much better. And when we read, Sections like this, We get to remember, We sing songs, That are really, Really good, That remember our Savior, And what He has done, Because He is worthy, Of worship. And in the psalmist, He closes out this section, With a picture of how God, Loves His people. In verse 16, He says, Come and hear, All you who fear God, And I will tell you, What He has done for my soul.
I cried to Him with my mouth, And high praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished, Iniquity in my heart, The Lord would not have listened. But truly, God has listened. He has attended, To the voice of my prayer. Blessed be the God, Because He has not rejected my prayer, Or removed His steadfast love, From me. So again, In this section, We get two pictures here, Of what's happening.
In verse 16, He says, Come and hear, All you who fear God, And I will tell you, What He has done for my soul. So we are seeing a picture, Of God's love. And then, In verse 18, He says, If I had cherished, Iniquity in my heart, The Lord would not have listened. Which is also, A picture of love. But, It seems, On our first reading, You're like, Is He talking out of both sides, Of His mouth? In one part, He's saying, Come, And I will tell you, What God has done for my soul.
And in the next breath, He's like, But if I had cherished, Iniquity in my heart, God would not have listened. And you're like, How are those both, A picture of God's love? Growing up, I have two, Vivid, Pictured, Like memories, Of my stepdad. Like the first, The first is this two week trip, That we got to take, He, When I was a freshman in high school. Just me and him, We went to California, And, And we, We went to Sacramento, Then we drove to San Francisco, Spent some days there, Went down the highway one, And all of it's, I mean, That's such a beautiful drive. Went to LA, Then we went to Las Vegas, We went to the Grand Canyon, We went to Bryce National Park, To Zion National Park, Sequoia National Park, The Yosemite, It was two weeks, Of just so much fun, With my stepdad, And that was a picture, Of how much he cared, About me, And still cares about me.
So, I have that picture in my head, I also have a picture, Of, We towed the line. Now you, You didn't break curfew, In our house. That, That did not go well. Like you didn't talk back. You, This is off script. Alright, As a kid, I don't have this memory, But when he first came into my life, We, We tried to stone him.
Like my mom was dating him, We tried to stone him. He was watching us, And, And we took rocks and sticks, And we attempted to stone him. I don't have this memory, My brother remembers it, Because he's older than me, He was the ringleader, And we tried to stone him, And we'd never been spanked, In our life. And he spanked us, And we were mortified. They were dating, Like I'm so glad, That story didn't come up, Because if that story, Would have come up, Man, She broke up with him. But the years that followed, Like we got discipline, And we needed that.
Like we needed discipline, In our lives. And the reason why we needed that, Is because we needed to learn, To respect authority. And the reason that, I'm able to submit, To the authority of God's word, Is because I received discipline, I received instruction, I received warning. So I learned, Both of those, And both of those, Are a picture, Of God's love. And the psalmist here, The psalmist is so picturesque, Of remembering God's work. And specifically in prayer, The psalmist is reminding them, He's like, You know, A heart of obedience, It matters.
That doesn't mean, That we have to earn God's favor, We have to earn his ear. That doesn't mean that. We have a great high priest, Like all, That's settled. But there is a reality, That if our hearts, Are captivated by sin, Or as the psalmist says, He says, If I had cherished iniquity, In my heart. If our hearts, Are captivated by sin, And our prayers, They seem shallow, And base, And low, And not in alignment, With the will of God. But when we are sensitive, To his goodness, And to his glory, Man, When we're in that season, Our prayers tend to be rich, They tend to be, Spirit filled, They tend to be, In alignment with what God wants, For us.