To listen to an audio recording of today’s sermon, click on the following link: "Blessed Is He Whose Help is the God of Jacob: A Hymn"
Psalm 146
Living the Blessed Life Series, Part 10
Lord’s Day, November 15, 2020
First Christian Church, Owensville, IN
(Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.)
• There is a category of Psalms called hymns.
Hymns (like Psalms 8, 19, 96, 98, 100, 103, 113, 117, 135, 146-50) praise God by describing two things:
• Who God is.
• What God has done.
Basic form of a hymn:
• Opening invitation to praise
• Reason for the praise, usually introduced by the word “for.” (description of God’s qualities/attributes; description of God’s regular actions to preserve the cosmos; description of his works in history, especially on behalf of Israel.)
• Renewed call to praise.
Laments dominate the first three books of Psalms while hymns dominate the last two.
• Psalms moves from lament to praise, from suffering to glory.
• Hymns make up about 1/5 of the Psalms.
• Psalms ends with five hymns back to back. (146-150)
• So let’s spend some time in one of these hymns by turning our attention to Psalm 146.
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
3 Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.
5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
10 The Lord will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord!
Commitment to Praise (vv. 1-2)
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
• V. 1b, NLT: Let all that I am praise the Lord.
2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live.
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
• V. 2b, NLT: I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath.
• According to Michael Wilcock the force of verse 2 is, “I intend to praise him every day of my life.”
• Do you and I have that kind of intention? Perhaps some here may go days without every praising our God.
• The 17th Century Puritan, Lewis Bayly, writes in his book, The Practice of Piety:
• “As soon as ever thou awakest in the morning, keep the door of thy heart fast shut, that no earthly thought may enter, before that God come in first; and let him, before all others, have the first place there. So all evil thoughts either will not dare to come in, or shall the easier be kept out; and the heart will more savour of piety and godliness all the day after” --Lewis Bayly, The Practice of Piety, (p. 1-2)
• Each day we have many choices to make, the chief of which is in whom are we putting our trust?
• The psalmist begins by saying…
Do Not Trust in Mortal Man (vv. 3-4)
3 Put not your trust in princes (rulers),
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.
• What has brought the psalmist to this conclusion is unknown.
• It could be that a ruler, a person in an authoritative position, had promised to help, but died before doing so.
• Genesis 2:7: Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. (CSB)
• Genesis 3:19: You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow
until you return to the ground,
since you were taken from it.
For you are dust,
and you will return to dust.” (CSB)
• Humans will return to humus. (James Limburg in Zorn, p. 519)
• Regardless of how he came to the conclusion, the point is:
• Don’t put your all your trust in influential (GW), powerful (NLT) people.
• This doesn’t mean that we don’t listen to the wisdom of others. But we must remember their limitations.
• “His praise of God is not to condemn the help one human being may give another. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that God, as our helper, has none of the limitations of mortal man.” –Walter Zorn, Psalms, V. 2, p. 517
• “While the world may lose their collective marbles when an election goes ‘wrong,’ may it never be so for the church of Jesus Christ.”--Adam Mabry in “Citizens and Pilgrims in an Election Season” (Source: world.wng.org/2020/11/citizens_and_pilgrims_in_an_election_season)
Trust Only in the God of Jacob (vv. 5-6)
5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
• Remember, Psalms is about living the blessed life. And “blessed” is how the Psalms begin:
• Psalm 1:1-2: Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night. (ESV)
• “The person who walks in God’s way is assured of God’s help…It is a call to trust the direction of one’s life, and the care of that life, into the hands of the ‘God of Jacob,’ the living God, for it is through him alone that the truly happy life is attainable.” –Walter Zorn, Psalms, V. 2, p. 520
Reasons for Trusting God’s Help (vv. 6-10a)
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,…
• The Maker of all things is the God of Jacob and He is the One…
…who keeps faith forever;…
• V. 6c, NLT: He keeps every promise forever.
7 who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,…
• James 1:27: Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. (NLT)
Did you notice that 5 times God’s name is proclaimed in verses 7-9? (The Lord sets…; the Lord opens…; The Lord lifts up…; the Lord loves…; The Lord watches over …)
• It is the name that dismisses every other name!
• Walter Brueggemann points out that [It is] “the Lord, not Baal; the Lord, not Saddam Hussein; the Lord, not the free-market system nor a Western government; the Lord, not the church organization; the Lord, not my favourite political persuasion.”—Walter Brueggemann
• Where would we be if that wasn’t true?
• Another reason to trust the God of Jacob:
… but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
• “One should remember the words of Ezek 33:11: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.’ It is not the wicked person God hates; it is his wicked ways. Of all needy souls on earth, none is more needy than the wicked.—Walter D. Zorn, p. 522.
• Unlike rulers whose bodies die and return to dust:
10 The Lord will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Reasons to praise God:
• God is all-powerful, having made heaven and earth. (6a)
• He is the divine helper, the hope of all and especially the oppressed, hungry, prisoners, blind, bowed down, alien, orphan and widow. (vv. 7-9) (Zorn, p. 517)
• He is a righteous judge (v. 9c)
• He is dependable; forever He rules and remains faithful. (vv. 6b, 10a)
Renewed Call to Praise (v. 10c)
Praise the Lord!
• “And the God of Jacob is our help and hope. There is no-one else to rely on. All the princes of our world, all the people of power and influence, whether we revile them or revere them, in the end return to the ground their plans come to nothing.”—Michael Wilcock, Message of the Psalms, V. 2p. 276
• God proved all of this when the eternal Word took on flesh and came into the world in the Person of Jesus Christ.
• Jesus quoting from Isaiah 61:1-2: Luke 4:16-22: 16 He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written:
18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me
to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free the oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
20 He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.” (CSB)
• 2 Timothy 1:9-10: 9 He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. 10 This has now been made evident through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. NLT)