PURSUING YOUR PLEASURE IN GOD
BY SPREADING HIS FAME AMONG THE NATIONS
Psalm 67: 1-7
INTRODUCTION
On Friday, January 26th an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 on
the Richter scale, struck the state of Gujarat in northwest India. Since
then over 300 more tremors measuring over 3 have occurred. The death toll
is estimated to be over 30,000 people. That is like losing one out of
every three people living in and around Janesville. One million people
are homeless. In three towns with populations over 25,000, over 90% of
the buildings were flattened. It is expected that hundreds of thousands
of people will be living in tents for at least a year. This is in a desert
region that is in its third year of drought.
These facts and statistics have little impact on most of us. We may feel
a faint twinge of pity followed quickly by a thought of how glad we are
to live in the Midwestern U.S. where these kinds of things don’t happen.
Some of us may have been moved to send a check to the Red Cross or some
other relief agency. Some of us may have felt somewhat guilty for how
well we have it here in the U.S. Most of us, however, gave only passing
notice to this horrific tragedy. Many of us may not even have been aware
that it even happened. We, like most human beings, are so consumed with
the details of our own lives that it is virtually impossible for us to
give any sustained attention to the overwhelming needs of the rest of
the world. We are so emotionally engaged with our own situations that
we have no emotional energy left to give to people that we do not even
know.
Yet, we know, if we are followers of Jesus, that the rest of the world
is our business. Jesus told us to go and make disciples of all the nations.
I’m approaching this morning’s subject with a great awareness that I and
we as a church have an obligation to care for and be involved in this
world that God made. But I am also deeply aware of how indifferent I and
you are to the world. Not only are we indifferent to the physical suffering
that is in the world but also we are even more indifferent to the spiritual
condition of the world. Most of us do not really believe that the billions
of people living where there is no church need our assistance more
than those who are physically suffering. We don’t really believe what
the Scriptures plainly teach; there will not be single person in heaven
that has not consciously trusted in the promise of God as revealed in
the person of Jesus Christ. Everyone who dies without hearing the gospel
of Christ is heading to an eternal hell. If you are trying to comfort
yourself with the hope that there will be people in heaven who never heard
the gospel, you are engaging in wishful thinking.
I really do believe what the title to the sermon implies. When people
are pursuing their pleasure in God, they will seek their happiness by
spreading the fame of God to the nations. It is an infallible connection.
The question I am asking this morning is how do I and how do we overcome
our lethargy, our indifference to the rest of the world? How do we become
a people that are so energized by the glory of God that we cannot help
but spread his glory to the nations? I believe that Psalm 67 holds the
key to unlocking our hearts and our lives for the sake of all the unreached
peoples of the world.
I have been involved in many Christian meetings aimed at motivating people
to be missionaries and to care about the rest of the world. Most often,
the preferred method of motivation is shame or guilt. Now I do not for
a moment believe that we are not guilty for not caring about the spread
of the gospel more than we do. But I do not believe the Bible ever uses
our guilt to motivate us to do what we ought to do. Guilt is present for
one reason, to cause us to flee to Christ in repentance and faith. It
is not ever meant to motivate us to positive, loving action. In fact,
if you do things out of guilt you are dishonoring God and not loving people.
When you do what you do out of guilt you are simply trying to earn forgiveness.
You are engaging in self-righteousness. You are trying to pay for your
own sins and to show that you are worthy of forgiveness. You are treating
the death of Jesus as if it were meaningless. You are not serving people
out of a heart of love but using people to assuage your own conscience.
If you feel guilty during this sermon about your lack of love for the
peoples of the world, don’t vow to be a missionary. Go to Christ, tell
him of your sin, and trust him as the one who paid for your sin. He bore
the guilt of sin so that we do not bear it any longer.
(NOTE: I’ll be using the translation on the back of the notes.) Psalm
67 tells us that…
MAIN POINT
Delight in God is the source of love for the peoples of the world
therefore…
I. We ask God to increase our delight (vv. 1-2)
There are 10 references to the nations of the world in these seven short
verses. It is taken up with the response of the entire world to the only
God who exists. However, notice where it starts. It starts with a prayer
for God to bless "us". Who are the "us"? I want you
to look at Numbers 6: 23-27 on page 99. "The Lord said to Moses,
‘Tell Aaron and his sons, "This is how you are to bless the Israelites.
Say to them, ‘The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face
shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.’" ‘So they will put my name on the Israelites,
and I will bless them.’" The prayer in Psalm 67:1 is based on this
blessing. It is simply asking God to do what he has promised to do.
The priestly benediction of Numbers 6 was a daily recitation at the temple.
In pronouncing this blessing upon the people of Israel the priests are
in a sense "branding" the nation of Israel as belonging to God.
Look at v. 27. When they pronounce the blessing, they put the name of
God upon the people of Israel. If any of you have seen either of the "Toy
Story" movies, you know that Woody, the cowboy toy, has the name
of his owner, Andy, on the bottom of his boot. According to the movies,
it is a source of great joy for a toy to belong to a child. Throughout
both movies, Woody often refers to the fact that Andy has put his name
on him. In fact, at one point in Toy Story 2, the way that the real Buzz
Light Year proves he is the real one is by showing Andy’s name written
on his shoe.
In the NT the same thing is now said about the church. Christians are
all those who have been baptized into "the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit." 2 Cor. 1: 21-22 says, "Now it
is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us,
set his seal of ownership upon us, and put his Spirit in our hearts
as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come." Just like a boy choosing
a toy, loving it, and putting his name on it, so God has chosen a people
for himself. He has put his name on them and he loves them and treasures
them. All those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ and are thus
members of Christ’s church have the name of the Triune God, the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ put upon them. It is this group of people
who together pray verse 1. This is not the prayer of an individual but
the prayer of the people of God together. What is it that we are asking
for?
When we ask God to be gracious to us, we are asking him to deal with
us according to his own mercy, not according to our sin. In other words,
we ask him to be kind to us, not because we deserve it, but for the sake
of Christ. It is to pray like the psalmist prays in Psalm 25: 11, "For
the sake of your name, O Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great."
Asking God to be gracious is also a request for help because I am helpless.
This is one of the chief marks of the Christian. A Christian knows that
"nothing good dwells in me, that is in my sinful nature". I
know that I am lost in the misery of sin unless God mercifully acts to
set me free. It is to pray like Psalm 25: 16-18, "Turn to me and
be gracious to me for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart
have multiplied; free me from my anguish. Look upon my affliction and
my distress and take away all my sins." The prayer for God to be
gracious to us is not a prayer for God to let us live how we want here
on earth and then in the end take us to heaven. It is a to pray that God
would graciously enable us to fight against our sin now and to overcome
the misery caused by sin in our lives.
Asking God to bless us is to ask him to give us everything we need to
live the life he has called us to live. It is to pray that God supply
our "daily bread". We are to have confidence that because God
has placed his name on us and because he does not deal with us according
to our sin but according to his mercy that he will give us everything
we need. "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us
all, how will not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"
We as the church must go through each day looking to God for all we need
to live and obey him in the circumstances in which he places us. In the
psalm before this one we are told, (66:8-12) "Praise our God, O peoples,
let the sound of his praise be heard; he has preserved our lives and kept
our feet from slipping. For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like
silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You
let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought
us to a place of abundance." We are at all times to ask God to bless
us so that we might live his life in the midst of the life he has given
us. It is not a prayer that we never have trouble, that we are always
healthy and wealthy. Rather it is a prayer that God give us all we need
to live the life he’s given, whatever it involves.
Third, we are to ask that God make his face shine upon us. This is the
highest and best thing that the Christian can pray for. It is a request
for God to be present with us, as his people. We are asking him, as it
were, to come among us, smiling with pleasure to be with us. There is
this scene in "It’s a Wonderful Life" that always makes me cry.
Jimmy Stewart is at home at the end of the day when Uncle Billy has lost
the money. His wife and a couple of children are decorating the Christmas
tree. One of his children is playing the piano. Another child sits on
his lap. He is completely distracted with his worry and anger. Finally,
he yells at the child who is practicing piano. He starts ranting and raving
about all that is wrong with his life and with his house and his family
and eventually smashes some furniture. The whole family stares at him,
one of the children begins to cry and he runs from the house. Many of
us think that this is how God would act if he were among us. He would
be throwing the furniture around because he is so angry at how we’ve screwed
up. He would express his disappointment with us and call us on the carpet
one by one.
How differently the Scriptures picture God’s presence with his people.
"The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take
great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice
over you with singing." This is the promise of God in Christ. This
is what we desire more than everything else in the world. We want God
to be among us the way Jimmy Stewart was with his family after he had
his little experience with Clarence the angel. Do you remember? He came
into the house, swept his children into his arms, hugged, and kissed them.
He gave thanks for all the quirks and idiosyncrasies of their home but
most of all he clung to his wife and declared his love for her. God wants
to be gracious to us, he wants to bless us and he wants to smile upon
us, not because of who we are but because he has put his name upon us
through the death and resurrection of Jesus. So we ask for these three
things with complete confidence that this is how he will deal with us.
Now notice v. 2. Why do we want God to do these things for us? We pray
these three things so that all the peoples of the world might know God’s
way and his salvation. What is so cool about this is that v. 2 is here
because of what God says to Abraham in Genesis 12. The psalmist knows
his Bible. He knows that God has put his name on Israel and promised to
be gracious and bless them as his people. But he also knows that God told
Abraham that the reason he was going to bless Abraham and make him into
a great nation was so that all the nations of the world would be blessed
through him. So, we pray that God will bless us so that the nations will
be blessed.
But we don’t pray this prayer simply out of duty. We want God’s
name to be made great in the whole earth. We want his way and salvation
to be known precisely because he is gracious to us, blesses us and makes
his face shine upon us. The more delighted we are with God, the happier
we will be to declare his greatness to the nations. Therefore, we beg
God to increase our delight in him. The only thing standing between God
and the evangelization of the nations is our lack of delight in him. Won’t
you join me in begging God to increase our delight in him by his being
gracious to us so that his way and his salvation would be know in the
earth?
Delight in God is the source of love for the peoples of the world
therefore…
- We ask God to increase our delight
- And…
II. We ask God to cause the peoples of the world to delight in him
(vv. 3-6)
I want you to notice that verse 4 is the focus of the entire Psalm by
the way it is laid out. All the other verses have two lines while v. 4
has 3 lines. There are seven verses in the psalm; v. 4 is the middle verse.
Verses 3 and 5 are identical and serve to bracket off v. 4. What is the
great hope and ambition of the psalmist? That the peoples of the world
praise God, rejoice in God, cry out loud for joy in God. Do you ever cry
out for joy? I’ve cried out for joy over the accomplishments of my children.
I’ve cried out for joy when playing with Jaimee and she acts so cute.
I’ve cried out for joy when I’ve shot a big buck. I’ve cried out for joy
when the Badgers or Packers have won a big game. I’ve cried out for joy
when our softball team won the 1st place trophy last year.
Crying out for joy is not something that you can fake. The church wants
above all things for the peoples of the world to cry out for joy in God.
We want God’s greatness to be seen, loved, delighted in and praised by
the peoples of the world. We want God to be glorified. But we also want
good for the peoples of the world. We want them to be as happy as it is
possible for human beings to be. We love people when we desire that they
shout for joy in God. As Dr. Piper says, "Love is helping people
toward the greatest beauty and the highest value and the deepest satisfaction
and the most lasting joy and the biggest reward and the most wonderful
friendship and the most overwhelming worship—love is helping people toward
God." (John Piper, "Let the Nations Be Glad", p. 28)
There are three questions to answer in these verses. Who do the term’s
"peoples" and "nations" refer to? What God do we want
people to praise? Why will the nations cry aloud for joy?
First, to whom are we referring when we ask God to make the "nations"
or "peoples" praise him? These terms reflect what God told Abraham
in Genesis 12: 3 that all the families of the earth will be blessed through
his descendants. It is not God’s will that every individual in the world
is blessed with the knowledge of his way and his salvation. It is his
will that individuals from every nation or people group be blessed
with this knowledge. This is stated by Jesus in the Great Commission in
Matthew 28: 19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations",
not every person. In the book of Revelation, we have the clearest statement
of this purpose of God. Rev 8: 9, "After this I looked and there
before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every
nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in
front of the Lamb…" You’ll notice in both the NT passages I quoted
and here in Psalm 67, that God’s will is that some people from "all
the nations, all the peoples" know, love and worship God.
Therefore, we must have as the goal of our missionary efforts to help
plant churches among the people groups of the world who are still without
a church. The presence of a church is the only way we can tell if some
people from a particular nation know the way and salvation of God. Therefore,
our primary ambition, as a church is to assist in the planting of churches
among ethnic people groups, especially those who do not yet have a church
among them.
Second, what God do we want people to praise? Now this might seem like
a stupid question to ask. But I can assure you it is a question that must
be asked. What is the first of the 10 commandments? "You shall have
no other gods before me." Who is the "me"? His name is
Yahweh. He is the creator of the heavens and the earth. He is the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He is Jesus. He is the God who is a Trinity, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. The god the Moslem’s worship is a false god. Allah is not the
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Allah is the god that Mohammed and his
followers made up. The god that the Jewish people are worshipping today
is a false god. They, like their fathers before them, reject the one who
came from God and so they reject God himself. Jesus says, "You do
not know me or my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also."
The gods of the Hindus and Buddhists and Aboriginal peoples are all false
gods. Unless you are worshipping the God who is revealed in the pages
of this book and who was supremely revealed by Jesus, "in whom dwells
the fullness of God in bodily form," you are worshipping a false
god. "This is what the Lord says, Israel’s King and Redeemer, the
Lord Almighty, ‘I am the first and I am the last. Apart from me there
is no god." The way of God and the salvation of God that we want
people to know is Jesus. There is no other way, no other salvation.
Understanding this ought to help us know why we are motivated for all
the nations to praise God. In what I say next, I am not endorsing U.S.
policy toward Iraq or criticizing them for how they feel about us. I’m
simply trying to use them as an illustration. The Iraqi government hates
the United States and its people. The government, in all its publications
and in its schools, in every way that it can is seeking to poison the
minds of the Iraqi people against the U.S. They are telling falsehoods
and describing the citizens of the U.S. in the most unflattering terms.
If you really stopped and thought about what is going on, you would be
mad and sad at the same time. You would be mad because you and your country
are being lied about. We are not being respected or honored but rather
treated with contempt and accused of things we never did. But we would
also be sad because we know that the average Iraqi, especially the children,
would be helped if their government was not so opposed to us. If Sadam
Hussein wasn’t in charge and the Iraqi government was more cooperative,
the people of Iraq could benefit from friendship with us. It’s much like
that as we think of the nations of the world who are worshipping false
gods. When you think of the one billion Hindus in the world we ought to
be both mad and sad. They are worshipping and trusting in false gods.
They are treating the God who actually exists with contempt. They are
telling their children that Christ is a nobody and that he did nothing
for them. We also are sad because we know how happy they would be if they
would repent of their idol worship and embrace Christ. We feel like Jonah
in his prayer from the belly of the great fish, "Those who cling
to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." So we
pray, "O God, let the Hindu peoples praise you, all of the Hindu
peoples. May they rejoice and shout for joy because you rule the peoples
justly and you guide the peoples of the earth."
Finally, note that the reason the people of the earth rejoice is because
they discover that the God who actually exists is "ruling the peoples
justly and guiding the nations of the earth." You would not think
at first glance that discovering that God judges the peoples justly would
be the cause of joy. Justice means that people get what they deserve.
So when you discover that you’ve been worshipping a false god and that
the true God is very unhappy about it, you would not think that would
be cause for rejoicing. No criminal ever rejoiced when the police showed
up while they were committing a crime. The justice of God is only good
news when you discover that God, in order to demonstrate his justice and
forgive sinners, killed his son for the sins of those who trust his son.
How can a perfectly just God ever allow sinners who have daily broken
his laws and despised him into his presence? The only way is if he punishes
his own son for all the sins of those sinners who will trust in him. So
God judges the nations justly by punishing all those who refuse to trust
in his salvation and by saving through his son all those who follow his
way and trust his salvation. Then he guides or shepherds all the nations
by providing for their physical needs and by providing the great shepherd
to all who will repent.
C. H. Spurgeon said in commenting on this psalm, "Ignorance of God
is the great enemy of mankind." We know this is true from personal
experience and so we ask God to increase our delight so the nations will
know God’s way and salvation. We also pray that God would let the nations
respond to our testimony to his greatness by praising him and rejoicing
in him.
Delight in God is the source of love for the peoples of the world
therefore…
- We ask God to increase our delight
- We ask God to cause the peoples of the world to delight in him
- And…
III. Our growing delight fills us with anticipation for the day the
peoples will delight in him (vv. 7-8)
I’m only going to make a few brief comments about vv. 7-8. First, how
does the earth producing its fruit have anything to do with the rest of
the psalm? It’s the only past tense verb in the whole psalm. Verse 7 is
the beginning of the answer to the prayer in v. 1. We ask God to be gracious
to us, to bless us, and to smile upon us and then we discover that we
have enough food to eat, that our physical needs are being taken care
of. So, we rightly conclude that God is blessing us. The psalm puts the
production of fruit forward as a symbol of the beginning of the answer
to our prayers in verse one. I’ve had a number of you tell me about the
ways you’ve been seeing God increase your joy in him. You’re seeing greater
victory over a particular sin. You’ve been able to love a particularly
difficult person that you’ve been asking God to help you love. You’re
reading the Bible consistently for the first time. God provided for a
particular need you had financially. In short, you’ve seen an answer to
your prayers.
The psalmist tells us that when we begin to see God answering our prayer
we should draw the conclusion that all that we are asking for is going
to happen. How can you be confident that the ends of the earth will fear
God? God is answering our prayers for him to be gracious to us, to bless
us, and to make his face shine on us. When these things happen then the
nations will know the way of God and the salvation of God and come to
fear and praise him. I often think of what John and Peter said to the
Jewish ruling council in Jerusalem when they were arrested. They were
commanded to not talk about Jesus anymore. They responded by saying, "We
are not able to not speak about what we have seen and heard." When
God is gracious to us, blesses us, and makes his face shine upon us, we
also will not be able to not speak about what we have seen and heard.
When you realize that thousands of Christian churches over the whole globe
are praying like this and so experiencing the greatness of God in this
way it is not hard to see that as God blesses us, the ends of the earth
will fear him.
Delight in God is the source of love for the peoples of the world
therefore…
- We ask God to increase our delight
- We ask God to cause the peoples of the world to delight in him
- Our growing delight fills us with anticipation for the day when
the world will delight in him
C. H. Spurgeon, probably the greatest preacher in the history of the
church said this, "Our prayer and labor should be, that the knowledge
of salvation may become as universal as the light of the sun." I
am praying that you and I will grow to care about the peoples of the world
as we ask God to bless us. There are three ways I want to ask you to respond
to this sermon:
- I would like everyone in here to read "Let the Nations Be Glad"
by John Piper. It will transform how you think and pray in regards to
missions.
- With Todd’s plans to go to England at the end of the year, we need
help on our mission’s team. So talk with Todd if you would like to get
involved.
- We are going to the Czec Republic from June 22 to July 2nd.
We will be running an English camp using the Bible as the text we will
be studying. The mission’s team is praying that 6 to 12 of us will go
on this trip. Come with or give money so others may go.
© Copyright
2001 John Swanson.
You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material
in any format provided that:
(1) you credit the author,
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If you would like to post this material to the web, or if your intended
use is other than outlined above, please contact River Hills Community
Church, 2843 West Court Street, Janesville, WI 53545. (608) 758-0943.
mail@riverhillsonline.org
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