Psalm 111 - Redemption

Auto-generated from the audio — may contain errors.

0:13 The rest of us, we are going to keep going on these psalms. I'm enjoying the psalms. It's like a nice little exercise for me, and it's kind of so stepped out of the narrative. Part of what I love about the scriptures is the narrative, but the psalms are so stepped out of the narrative that you're looking at these ideas that are resonant but kind of outside of context. And it makes for nice meditations, at least for me.

0:44 The psalm that they assigned this morning is Psalm 111, if you want to look there with me. I don't know how they decided which psalm. I don't know how that happened. That would be an interesting thing to research, how the lectionary got made, who made the call there. But we know the lectionary comes down. It has lots of iterations. The one that we've been following is called the One Year Series.

1:16 In our Lutheran church, there's four different. They have a three-year rotation, so you don't preach the same thing every week, every year. And they've derived that off of the one-year one, which is older. So we've been using the one-year one because we don't do it all the time. So we might as well use the oldest one. And they have a psalm every week, and we've been looking at the psalms. And this Psalm 111, I mentioned a couple weeks ago that one of the forms they use for these psalms is an acrostic form.

1:47 And usually when they do an acrostic form, they use the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in alphabetical order as the first letter of the line. And this one is one of those, Psalm 111. Every half line is a new letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Obviously, it doesn't show up when we read it in English, but we wouldn't understand it if we read it in Hebrew. So there's a cost to everything, Ty, you know. So, but that's why this one is interesting because

2:18 it takes a certain amount of skill to have the psalm be coherent, but also follow that form. They're pretty sure the reason they use this form pretty regularly is because it helps people memorize the psalms. And so this one is like that. And it's a praise psalm. If you look at the start, he comes with this command, praise the Lord. I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in the company of the upright in the congregation.

2:49 Just it's worth saying just real quick that these psalms, if we understand them as kind of both liturgical hymns or prayers said as a group together or individual devotional guides, they work the same way as some, like, songs we might sing together, like we just sang with Carol and Mike, like that they could be descriptive of how we feel. So you read Psalm 111, and it says, praise the Lord. I praise the Lord with my whole heart.

3:21 You might wake up one morning and actually be struck by, like, how cool it is that the earth continues to work and that God holds it together with the force of his will and has put breath in your lungs that you could wake up and appreciate it. You might wake up some mornings and just really be like, yeah, man, I'm here to praise the Lord. And you might wake up other mornings, like, and you are out of coffee and someone disturbed your sleep and you didn't sleep well and you are crabby and grumpy and you come up to Psalm 111

3:52 and you read Psalm 111 and you're inclined to go. It says, praise the Lord with my whole heart, but I would prefer to go back to sleep. I'm annoyed. I'd prefer if the Lord had given me a good night's sleep and a fresh supply of coffee. And I don't feel like praising the Lord. The psalm works in both cases. Psalms can be descriptive or aspirational. And so you see sometimes when it says, praise the Lord with an exclamation point, it can be calling us to praise.

4:23 And part of what Psalm 111 is going to do is give you kind of fodder to remember why you might praise the Lord. And so just because we don't feel like it in a moment doesn't invalidate the prayer or the song. Because we don't feel like it in the moment might be the cause to sing the words, to invite ourselves to something that we don't particularly feel. It works both ways. So the psalmist says, praise the Lord. I'll give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart

4:55 in the company of the upright in the congregation. So they're saying this together in the group. Then they say, great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. Full of splendor and majesty is his work and his righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and merciful. This is the first place that really caused me to pause for a minute because I thought it was funny that,

5:27 you know, I can understand great are the works of the Lord, you know. Even when they're writing this and memorizing this in the B.C. before Christ arrives, when they have the temple, they know that their God, Yahweh, is the creator of heaven and earth, the beginning of all things. They know he is the sustainer of life. And so it makes sense that they would say, great are his works. I get that. They already know he's great

5:57 and he's full of splendor and majesty. But then when they add to this that he has caused his wondrous works to be remembered is a really interesting thing to think about for just a minute. And it caused me to go back and look at the way in which God's works have been remembered. You know, the Israelites, we can see here in this Psalm 111,

6:28 are really proud of the fact that they've got a record of what God has done. And on the surface, that might seem like not, like kind of an odd thing to be proud of. But consider who we have records of, like we have of the Israelites. Not very many, you know? Now, the Egyptians, we've got some like stone carvings

7:01 on buildings that might, we can piece together some histories, right? They had papyrus, but we don't have very many of that left. You know, we have from the East, like from India, the Rig Veda, and some of the Upanishads that are ancient and very hard to decipher what they mean, actually. The stories are incongruous and kind of out of context. We think because they were written in like, what's the word I'm thinking of?

7:33 Like hysteria, almost. Like divine hysteria. Maybe drug helped divine hysteria, the Upanishads, the Rig Veda. But this like thing that the Israelites have, you know, the oldest, I looked it up because I always remember that the Hebrew, the fullest, the most complete Hebrew Old Testament we have, Jewish Bible, is from like a thousand A.D. after the time of Jesus.

8:05 The Masoretes with the, they put the dot and tittles. But we have some several hundred years B.C. that they found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And they found them, remember that this was a group of monastics in the desert. And they would have these scrolls that they were using. And when they got new ones, the text was so sacred that they didn't want to throw them out. They didn't want to burn them because it's a miracle

8:35 that they have these stories. So they would roll up the scrolls and put it in jars and seal up the jars and just put it in the basement. And at some point, the monastic community died and the entrance to the basement was covered. And it wasn't until like this, 1900s, that someone was in the desert and uncovered this basement storage area. And the vases were so preserved because of the way they had closed it.

9:06 And the desert was so dry that they pulled out these old scrolls and found documents of the Jewish Bible, not complete, but near complete, from hundreds of years before the time of Jesus. And remember, we have fragments from a couple hundred years after Jesus. And then the fullest complete New Testament is from a thousand with the Masoretes. But the uniformity between the Masoretes and the Dead Sea Scrolls is such that there was no constructive

9:37 or material changes that needed to be made to our Old Testament because it had been preserved by the oral and written tradition from one copy to the next all the way through these hundreds of thousands of years. Why? Because the story of the God of creation is the lifeblood of humanity through the whole thing. And from the beginning, they've said, holy smokes, the care of the God of creation

10:09 and life to tell us how he did it and to remember the way he has preserved us is incredible. And not without our foolishness, right? We've talked about the story about how when you read, who is it, the child king, Josiah maybe, who like when he's nine he becomes king and he kicks out the idols from the temple and he's in the closet in the temple and he finds the scriptures

10:39 all dusty and forgotten about. And so he ushers in a great revival in Israel because they'd forgotten how to worship God. Why? Because they lost the Bible in the temple. And so we have done all sorts of things to diminish, to relinquish, to destroy, to lose the story of the God of creation and life and yet the story persists

11:09 across authors, through translations, amongst, why? Because the story of the God is the lifeblood of humanity. And the God that made us without our input is interested in preserving us off into eternity. And the way the God will do it is by whatever means necessary. Preserve the story

11:40 of how he has come through for you to bring you to this moment with him. And so the psalmist is like, man, his works are great, but he is, what does it say? Wondrous works will be, he has caused his wondrous works to be remembered. He is gracious and merciful. The fact that you have the story of the scriptures is a testament to the grace of the God and his mercy towards you. It is such that his mercy towards you is such that

12:10 he is like pushing through the fickleness of humanity. Like, part of the reason I think we stumbled on the printing press is because he thought I have got to get more copies of this thing out there. Do you know that as the church was forming, then they didn't settle on the New Testament books until the authorities made them? They had the Old Testament books, but they didn't have the New Testament books until Rome said, okay, there are so many followers of the way

12:41 of Jesus, we will make it acceptable. You no longer have to only worship the emperor, you can worship the way of Jesus if you'd like. Let's figure out what the right way to worship is Jesus. What are your official books? That's when they settled in 300 A.D. on the New Testament. 300, you know? And then again they had another persecution, they started collecting and burning the Bibles. I'm trying to say, like, this has not always been this way. but it is

13:13 some move of God that it has become this way. Why? Because God is interested in you finding your way to Him again. And the psalmist said, God's works are incredible and He is merciful and gracious to write them down for us. Right? Thank you. Okay. Verse 5 of Psalm 111.

13:45 He provides food for those who fear Him and He remembers His covenant forever. He has shown His people the power of His works in giving them the inheritance of the nations. They, you know, living where they were, were much more connected to the potential of not having enough food. And so the fact that the crops produced food for them on a regular basis, they ascribed

14:16 to God rightfully. And then this, giving them the inheritance of the nations is where He gave them the promised land, you know, where they walk in and take over from other nations. and then it says the works of His hands are faithful and just and all His precepts are trustworthy. They are established forever and ever to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. He sent redemption to His people and has

14:47 commanded His covenant forever. The second time they say His covenant, He remembers His covenant forever, but the place where I paused here was that He has sent redemption for His people. Because when I see redemption in the story of Scripture, of course, I think about Jesus and then I remembered that the psalmist doesn't know about Jesus of Nazareth and already affirms in the kind of, this is like the peak

15:17 of the work of God. It's about to turn and the psalm to close, so it's like building on the reasons that their heart worships God, that they are inviting praise to the Lord. His works are wonderful. He's remembered. He accomplishes redemption and doesn't know about Jesus, so what redemption are they referring to, you know? I mean, probably the first, the biggest is when God redeems

15:47 them from Egypt. It's a big deal. It's a long time ago, but still a big deal. Kind of a defining act of the God. And if you think about what he demonstrates, he demonstrates his authority and power over not only the military of Egypt, but all of the gods of Egypt, right? And that's what all the plagues are for. And if you think about the motivation in his redemption there, it's not

16:17 that the Israelites, they were complaining to God. He said, I have heard the cries of my people, but then when Moses gets there, they're like, dude, you're making our life harder. Go away. We can deal with it as it is. We can deal with Egypt. And so they cry out in pain and frustration and anger and sadness, but once God tries to come, they ask God to leave on multiple occasions. So if you think about the motivation for God to come and rescue Israel, what the psalmist says is

16:48 he's honoring the commitment he made to Abraham. He says, I made a covenant that I will rescue and redeem the people. And whether the people like it or not, I keep my side of the covenant. And so I'll go rescue them even if they're not interested in it. I'll go get them out. And so it could be that the psalmist thinks about the redemption, but as I sat with it a little bit, I thought, you know, Egypt is this paradigmatic redemption of Israel that God accomplishes

17:19 where it like sets the pattern by which he will redeem us over and over again. But the psalmist, depending on when it's written, if we think during the time of King David, Israel has seen several redemptive acts of God, like lots of them actually, that the redemption of Egypt is just like the banner over which all the redemption of God has happened since. If you think about, if you read through the Judges, the whole period of the Judges is a problem of

17:49 enemies coming against Israel and Israel going, hey God, why is it this way? He's like, because you guys are a mess. Here, follow this person. He raises up a judge and he redeems them, defends them, protects them, and then as that judge dwindles, they forget the way of God again. They're not following God and the enemies come against them. And because they don't have God with them, and then they cry out to God, hey, why did things get this way? So whether you read about Gideon or Samson or Deborah, God over and over

18:20 again is redeeming people who have forgotten him, who have abandoned him. Though he redeemed them in Egypt, though he brought them in with Joshua, though he's redeemed them with Judges before, they forget him and he redeems them again. And here's the thing. What do you

18:51 remember about the God for you? What has God done for you? What have you forgotten that God has done for you? What have you remembered? perhaps God has redeemed you before.

19:26 The psalmist says that, he says, he sent redemption to his people and commanded his covenant forever. Of course, after the time of the psalmist, then the next story of redemption is with King Cyrus, where they are exiled and then the foreign king, God commands or works through a

19:56 foreign king to release Israel back to their homeland, redeem them and send them home. Though it's not what kings do, Cyrus is called a messiah, a liberating king, even though he's not an Israelite, because he sends the Israelites back home to rebuild the temple. And then finally, of course, in the person of Jesus, does God accomplish the redemption of his people. This is why Simeon, it's kind of famous, I'll read it just for fun,

20:27 towards the end of the first chapter of Luke, Simeon has been staying in the temple, waiting, and his father, Zachariah, oh no, this is not Simeon, this is Zachariah, sorry, and his father, Zachariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. Just to remind you

20:58 that like, God has made a promise to humanity that he is not done honoring yet. And the promise includes you. So that the testimony of Egypt and the judges and Cyrus and Jesus

21:28 are preserved and have been preserved through fire and death and mistranslation for thousands of years in order that you might remember the mighty works of God and then believe that he will redeem you. That your forgetfulness, that your short-sightedness, that your sinfulness,

21:59 that your enemies, that your hardship, that your famine and death, nothing can stop the commitment of the God to redeem you, to rescue you. praise the Lord. That God can redeem and rescue you and he has and he will, both. What a cool affirmation this psalm

22:30 is. He sent redemption to his people, he has commanded his covenant forever and holy and awesome is his name. And then it concludes here, after it's given us all these reasons to praise the Lord. And then it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever. Because the psalmist is like, this God who has done

23:00 these great and mighty works, and out of his grace and mercy has caused the great and mighty works he has done in the past to be remembered, has been acting consistently with redemption in order to honor his covenant for us. So then the psalmist is like, the smart ones study this. The smart ones study the God. Because with the God is everlasting

23:31 covenant and life. The wise ones order their path according to this God. God because from the beginning until the end, he has made a way for us to live. Who else among men can make such a claim? The psalmist says, the wise ones study the way of God and live accordingly. That's why you and I keep coming. Not because

24:01 everything always resolves the way we want. Not because as we come back to the story and to one another, everything always gets easy or has a clean bow. Not even because as we come together and back to the story and to one another, not even do we get all the answers we need or would like. That's not

24:31 even it. We keep coming back to the story and to one another because where else would we go? Who else has such a track record of redemption for his people? Who else could redeem us off into the future? Where else would we go? The psalmist says, whether I feel like it or not, I get up and praise the Lord because whom else would I praise? Whom else might I

25:02 trust? Who else has demonstrated his commitment to me in this way? Be reminded this morning that the God of creation and life has redeemed you from all danger and peril, all ignorance and frailty, all foolishness and passive apathy.

25:33 God has redeemed you now and forever. Let's pray that we might walk in light of that today. Hey, Lord, thank you for the promise of redemption. Redeem us again today with your grace and mercy. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.