Psalm 147
Let’s hear God’s word together.
This is Psalm 147. Praise the Lord, for it is good
to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant and a song of
praise is fitting. The Lord builds up Jerusalem.
He gathers the outcast of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and
binds up their wounds. He determines the numbers of
the stars. He gives to all of them their
names. Great is our Lord and abundant
in power. His understanding is beyond measure.
The Lord lifts up the humble. He cast the wicked to the ground.
Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving. Make melody to our God with the
lyre. He covers the heavens with clouds.
He prepares the rain for the earth. He makes grass grow on
the hills. He gives to the beast their food
and to the young ravens that cry. His delight is not in the
strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man. But the Lord takes pleasure in
those who fear him, and those who hope in his steadfast love.
Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise your God, O Zion. For
he strengthens the bars of your gates. He blesses your children
within you. He makes peace in your borders.
He fills you with the finest of the wheat. He sends out his
command to the earth, his word runs swiftly. He gives snow like
wool, he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals
of ice like crumbs. Who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word and melts
them. He makes his wind blow and the waters flow. He declares
his word to Jacob, his statutes, and his rules to Israel. He has
not dealt thus with any other nation. They do not know his
rules. Praise the Lord. When we were
all kids, I suppose you did the same as I did when you were in
grade school, maybe on the playground or in the cafeteria. You would
talk amongst other students and you would talk about What you
had at home What kind of TV you had? For us. I remember we got
our first color TV that Was a requirement because we bought a VCR and a
VCR you just couldn’t have the experience on a black and white
TV So we would talk amongst ourselves at the cafeteria the playground
what kind of cars we had what kind of televisions we had what
kind of trips we took and And then it would come at Christmas,
what kind of presents we got. And what were we discussing?
We were discussing the care and the provision we received at
home. Some kids were rich, other kids were poor. Some fathers
worked and bought things for their children. Other fathers
worked but couldn’t afford things for their children but played
catch with them or attended their ball games. and those sorts of
things. And we had all these differences of fatherly care. One of the great blessings we
have as Christians is we have the same father and he cares
for us in much the same way. And so while we think tonight
about Psalm 147, the second of the last five Great Hallelujah
Psalms, Great Hallels. We want to look at this psalm
tonight as a Jerusalem psalm, a Zion psalm, a church psalm,
if you will. And we want to see why we should
praise God. And the big answer for why we
should praise God is because he cares for Zion. He cares for his church. And so as we think of Psalm 147,
as we think of praising God, we think of it being good and
fitting and joyful to praise God. We’re going to look at a
couple sets of reasons more specifically than he just cares for us. We’re
going to look at specific ways he cares for us. So Psalm 147,
a hymn of praise to our creator God who cares for his people. Remember that many of these final
psalms are in the context of the return from exile. So Israel off in Babylon returned
back to Jerusalem, back to rebuild the temple, to rebuild the city
and their homes, and to rebuild the wall. So think of Ezra and
Nehemiah and Haggai and Zechariah as you think of many of these
final psalms. Well, we want to think in the
first six verses of God, of the creator, God the creator. We’re told in verses one through
six, praise the Lord for it is good to sing praises to our God. It is pleasant. A song of praise
is fitting. Why? Because the Lord builds
up Jerusalem. He gathers the outcast of Israel. There’s the exile. He heals the
brokenhearted. He binds up their wounds. He
determines the numbers of stars. He gives to all of them their
names. Our Lord is great. Abundant in
power, his understanding beyond measure, he lifts the humble
and he casts the wicked to the ground. Many of you, I think,
have lived enough life to know that there are just some circumstances
in life that cannot be overcome. It may be a sickness, it may
be a disease, it may be an economic circumstance. There’s lots of
things that you could fill in the blank with, but these are
circumstances that cannot be overcome unless God intervenes.
A lot of times we get on autopilot, we work, we get a paycheck, we
go to the grocery store, we pay the bills. By the time the first
of the month rolls around, we do it all over again. And we
kind of get on a autopilot where we feel like I’m working, I’m
paying the bills, I’m doing all this. We don’t sing glory to
me and praise to me, but then along comes in life something
that we can’t fix. We can’t fix it with the checkbook.
We can’t fix it with elbow grease and those sorts of things. It’s
a spiritual, a physical, a great difficulty that comes into our
life. And the psalmist recognizes that
when Israel returned from Egypt and they entered into a set of
circumstances because of the exile, because of the return,
only God could make it possible. Now, if you know anything about
the exile and the return from exile, it took a decree from
a Babylonian king. It took a great bit of God’s
blessing for Israel to return, for the tribe of Judah, for the
people of Jerusalem to return. It took not only a decree of
Cyrus, but it took his blessing, his permission, it took his funds,
but it also took the Babylonians emptying the treasury and returning
to the Israelites, the possessions, the implements from Jerusalem
that were stolen a century earlier when when Jerusalem and the temple
were plundered and destroyed. And so God in his grace, God
in his mercy, yes, through a wicked king, he brought Israel back
to Jerusalem. He, as our psalm says, gathered
his people. He builds up the city. He heals
their wounds. He binds up and he restores them. And so why do we worship God?
Well, we worship him as the creator of the universe. We worship him
as the one, according to verses four and five, he determines
the numbers of the stars. He gives to all of them their
names. You know, you can, You got a
girl you love or a guy you love, you can buy them a star, right?
Y’all seen that and get the certificate. That’s really theft, right? Because
they’re God stars. He already knows them by name.
And so you buy one for your boyfriend, you know, Jonathan star or Susie
star. Well, they’re already God stars.
He knows them by name. And the one who knows the stars
by names, the creator of the universe, he plants you in his
church. He protects you in his body. He brings you, he brings his
people back to a place, restoring them where they might worship
and serve him. And so here God is worshiped
as the creator and the sustainer. He names the stars. His understanding
is great. His power is magnificent. He lifts up the humble and he
judges. the unrighteous, he judges the
wicked. And so that’s the first thing
this psalm points us to. We want to give praise to God,
we want to say hallelujah, it’s because he’s the creator who
looks out for his creation. And in specific here, he looks
out for his church as he returns them from exile back to their
homeland, to Jerusalem. Well, he’s also their provider. Look at verses seven through
11. sing to the Lord with thanksgiving, make melody to our God with the
lyre. He covers the heavens with clouds.
He prepares rain for the earth. He makes grass grow on the hills.
He gives to the beast their food, to the young ravens that cry.
His delight is not in the strength of the horse. His pleasure is
not in the legs of the men, but the delight of the Lord takes
pleasure in those who fear him and those who hope in his steadfast
love. This is an opportunity for the
people of God to give thanks. Yes, in the context of those
who returned from exile and rebuilt the city of Jerusalem, but it’s
good for us as we gather every Sunday to give thanks to the
Lord. He’s created us, he’s sustained us, he’s provided for us, he’s
taken care of us, he’s helped us overcome circumstances, he’s
even led us through hardships, and it has shaped and it has
changed us. But God is our provider. There
are many mighty things in the world if you think about it. In your hands, many of you have
one of these little gadgets. In this little gadget is a microprocessor,
a processor. that it used to take rooms of
equipment filled, uh, to, to operate, uh, something way less
powerful than this. Uh, we, we drive down the road,
we see tractor trailers delivering our, our goods and services,
pulling our gasoline. Uh, we all have cars. Some of us maybe have come in
two cars tonight. Uh, we have these things in our
pocket with a magnetic strip. They control the financial world.
Uh, we see heavy equipment. Maybe you watch on PBS, these
shows about mining equipment and you see a shovel that can
scoop, you know, this many tons and cubic yards in one swoop.
And then there’s a truck that can hold multiple scoops of those
great excavators. Uh, we, we see all kinds of instances
of power. We see skyscrapers and roads
and bridges and all the rest. And what does our passage tell
us? That’s all well and good. That’s all great, but we give
thanks to the Lord. We give thanks to the Lord who
does not delight in the strength of the horse or in the legs of
the man. He did make us. He did give us
dominion over the earth. And it’s wonderful that people
can do medical things and technological things and architectural things
and physical things. That’s all wonderful. But God’s
delight is in those who fear him. those who hope in his steadfast
love. And so God, our provider, yes,
he takes care of the stars. He takes care of the cows and
he does take care of us through men and women who have dominion
over the earth. all the men and women of the
earth need Yahweh. They need to fear him. They need to trust
in him and believe and walk in his steadfast love. And so in
our provider, when we come to him in Thanksgiving, we thank
him for all the benefits of the world. Yes, but we come in reverence,
we come in fear and we come in confidence. And in a sense you
could look at verses 10 and 11, maybe in light of the New Testament
and our understanding of justification. Who does God delight in? He delights
in those who fear him. He delights in those who hope
in his steadfast love, those who put their faith, their trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so God is our creator. He’s our provider. But the last
thing in verses 12 to 20, we want to think about is he is,
he is our God. He is the church’s God. Here
in this passage, he is Zion’s God. Starting at verse 12, we
praise the Lord. Oh, Jerusalem, praise your God. Oh, Zion. He strengthens the
bars of your gates. He blesses your children within
you. He makes peace within your borders. He fills you with the
finest of wheat. He sends out his command to the
earth. His word runs swiftly. He gives snow like wool. He scatters
hoarfrost like ashes. He hurls down the crystals of
ice like crumbs. Who can stand before his cold?
He sends out his word and melts them. He makes his wind blow
and the waters flow. He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and rules to Israel. He is not dealt thus. with any
other nation. They do not know his rules. When
Israel returned from exile, they were exposed. They went to a
city with no walls. They went to a city where their
homes were torn down, and they went to a city that did not even
have a foundation to a temple where they could worship God.
But not only that, on their long trip, the thousand mile or so
trip back to Jerusalem from Babylon, they went in caravan, maybe camels
and donkeys and horses and other beasts of burden. The women,
the children, the men, but they also carried the wealth of the
temple that had been plundered and was now returned to them.
And so they were exposed on this long journey, but they were exposed
when they got back to the city. No wall, no houses, no fighting
men, but God gave them blessing. And that’s what this section
praises God for. God, God takes care of his children. Yes, God sends rain on the earth,
You may live next to a non-Christian. Does the rain only fall on your
house? No, it usually gets theirs. And they probably have a sprinkler
system too. But God blesses his church specifically. And notice
the great blessings. He gives them peace within their
borders. Their children are blessed. The walls or the gates, the bars
of Zion are blessed. He sends out his word and it
snows. He sends out his word again and the snow melts. But
even more specifically, God reveals himself by his special word,
his revealed word to Zion and to his church. And that’s the
best we can get from God. Yes, it’s wonderful that it rains.
It’s wonderful that we have wheat. It’s wonderful that our barns
are full or that we have children and grandchildren and generations.
All that is wonderful. But where would we be without
God and his word, his revelation, his law, his statutes and his
commandments? He has only given that to Israel. He’s only given that to his church. Paul says in his letter to the
Corinthians, the man without the spirit does not understand.
the things of the spirit. And so spiritual things are spiritually
discerned and we ought to give great thanks to God, yes, for
his care and creation, yes, for his care inside the church, the
city of Zion, but we ought to give thanks to God for his revealed
word to us and that we have the spirit to receive it and to understand
it and to put it into practice in our lives. But most of all,
I think we ought to be grateful to God and sing praise to him.
for the greatest revelation, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember the book of Hebrews
in the last or in former days, God spoke to us, his word by
his prophets. He spoke to us in many ways and
in many iterations. but he has fully and finally
spoken to us by his son. And so we are a blessed people,
not only God’s provision for the things of this earth, but
for the things of the next life as well. Let’s give thanks together. Lord, we come to you thankful
that in this Psalm, we are called to give thanks, to praise you
for your wondrous provision. You are our creator. You are
our sustainer and you are our redeemer. And we thank you for
the wind and the rain and the snow. We thank you for the cattle
and the wheat, for children and grandchildren. But most of all,
we thank you for your word and spirit and your son, the Lord
Jesus. You have not kept yourself from
us, but you have given us your all. And so we give you thanks
this night and we pray your blessing upon us in Christ’s name. Amen.