Let the Nations Be Glad (Psalm 67)

Introduction

They say opposites attract, and that for the most part I would say is true with my wife and I. She grew up on the oldies, I grew up on country and a bit of southern rock/pop, and whatever category you count Garth Brooks. She loves jumping in the middle of large groups of conversation, me I prefer a conversation with one or two in a quieter setting. She gets energy with people, me though I love people, I recharge in quietness. But maybe most differently, she grew up in a family that sings, I did not.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love to sing. I have since I was a boy. From belting, thank God I’m a country boy by John Denver to singing Back Where I Come From by Kenny Chesney while working in the hayfields as a teenager. My guess, this loving to sing part comes as no surprise, as I love to sing and to sing loudly as we sing together on Sunday Mornings. But of course here is the thing, while my in-laws carry a beautiful tune, I do not. I can’t sing on key. I struggle to march to the same beat of the drums you could say. Thankfully, the LORD does not call us to sing on key, but to make a joyful noise. LORD, may I continue to make a joyful noise before you and LORD, help the poor souls hearing me.

However, while God doesn’t call us to sing on key, he does call us to march to the beat of his drums, following the beat of his heart. And that beat is what I want us to consider this morning as we turn our attention to Psalm 67.

‌If you are unfamiliar with the Bible, you can open your Bible up roughly in the middle and land in the Psalms and then turn to Psalm 67, that is the big number on the page, the little numbers are what we call verse numbers. If you do not have a copy of the Bible, please grab that red Bible in the seat in front of you. You can find the passage in that Bible on page #569. Psalm 67 on page #569.

‌While you are turning there, let me give a quick introduction to the Psalms as a whole and where Psalm 67 fits into the whole of the Psalms. The book of Psalms, often referred to as the Psalter, is a song book filled with praises to God. But the Psalter is not simply praise in the midst of joy, it is actually filled full of a wide range of emotions, including that of sorrow and lament that lead to praise and trust in God in the midst of ongoing troubles.

‌The whole of the Psalms is guided by the first two Psalms. Psalm 1 which makes a division between the blessed and the cursed sets the tone who are the blessed. The blessed are those who delight in the law of the LORD, those who walk in his ways. Anyone who does not is cursed. Then Psalm 2 helps set the tone in making clear that though the nations rage against God, they rage in vain, because the LORD has already sat his King in Zion on his holy hill. And YHWH tells his Son, his King to ask of him for the nations and they will be his heritage and the ends of the earth and it will be his possession. This decree then is a call for the nations to bow their knee and swear their allegiance to the King, the King of glory.

This all sets the stage then for us to rightly understand Psalm 67 this morning. Therefore let us hear the word of the LORD from Psalm 67.

‌Main Idea: God blesses his people for the purpose of blessing the nations so that they too may be glad in Him. ‌Points: (1) Let the Nations Know you, LORD (Psalm 67:1-3), (2) Let the Nations Be Glad in You, LORD (Psalm 67:4-5), and (3) Let the Nations Fear You, LORD (Psalm 67:6-7).

Point #1: Let the Nations Know You, LORD (Psalm 67:1-3)

Psalm 67:1-2…

The start of this prayer moves from us to the nations. This prayer though doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It is deeply rooted in the promises of God found earlier in the Bible. It is rooted in the promises of God to Abraham upon calling him to follow after him. Hear the promises of the LORD to Abraham.

Genesis 12:2–3 ESV

2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God promises to bless the world by blessing his people. This was the promise to Abraham and it is the prayer here found in Psalm 67:1-2, a call for this to come about.

The requests of verse 1 are also rooted elsewhere in Scripture in the Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6:24-26

Numbers 6:24–26 ESV

24 The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

This blessing and grace and favor, that is God’s face shining upon, has come in a variety of ways upon his people throughout his grand story of redemption. It came upon Israel under the Old Covenant in the blessing of provision, protection, deliverance from enemies. But it has now come through the person and work of God’s beloved Son, Jesus.

For in Jesus, God’s grace and blessing is poured out upon us. For it is by grace through faith that we are saved. And in our salvation, every blessing from the heavenly places is poured out on us (Eph 1:1-2:10) in Christ. This is God’s salvation made known.

And this is the desire of this prayer, for this God to be made known to the ends of the earth, to be known among every tongue and tribe and nation. Why? Verse 3…

It is God’s desire that he may be made known so that he could be praised among all the peoples of the earth. This has been God’s desire from the beginning of creation. His desire was for the earth to be filled with his glory.

Genesis 1:26–28 ESV

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

And so, Psalm 67 is rooted in this promise for the nations to be blessed and to see God’s salvation be made known to them as well. In the days of the Psalm being written, God would bless the nation of Israel so all the nations would hear and come and see what God has done for them with the desire for them to come and bow before him in praise.

But now, under the New Covenant that is sealed by the blood of Jesus, the way in which God has chosen to make his name known is by equipping and mobilizing the church to go and preach the message of salvation, the gospel. This is why we call the gospel good news. Because the gospel is the good news of God’s coming salvation to deliver us from the penalty and curse of our sin. It is the good news of how God has and is delivering us from death, death in sin and eventually death itself.

This is why Jesus called to himself disciples and taught them and then sent them to go and do what he was teaching and modeling for them. This is why following his death and resurrection, Jesus gave the church his mission, to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The mission of the church picked up God’s mission to fill the earth with his glory by being fruitful and multiplying, not just naturally by children, but by telling others this glorious message of salvation so that they may come to know the LORD, our God and join us in praising him.

It is this desire to make God known that flows here from Psalm 67:1-3. A desire for all to hear of this salvation and praise our God. And yet, many still do not know this news, they have not heard of this great salvation.

According to Joshua Project, a website committed to encouraging prayer for the unreached people groups of the world, there are currently 17,317 people groups in the world and 7,282 of these people groups are considered unreached. That is, less than 2% of their population has ever heard the name of Jesus. Many of those unreached have 0%. But if that is not enough, many of the people groups and nations where we suppose the gospel has gone and deemed reached have nothing more than a little Jesus added onto whatever previous religion the people had. Jesus and a little tribal religion. Or Jesus and and Hindu or Jesus and Buddha, etc.

Charles Spurgeon adds here:

The Treasury of David, Volume 3: Psalms 58–87 Exposition

Ignorance of God is the great enemy of mankind, and the testimonies of the saints, experimental and grateful, overcome this deadly foe. God has a set way and method of dealing out mercy to men, and it is the duty and privilege of a revived church to make that way to be everywhere known.

And this is part of the reason this prayer here of Psalm 67 should strike us so strongly, because here we hear God’s heart for the nations and in hearing it we are brought to the examination, is this heartbeat the beat we are marching to? Are we marching to God’s heartbeat for the nations as well? Do we desire to plead with the LORD for his glory to come and be made known among all the peoples of the earth?

A world in ruin needs our aide, they need to hear the message of the gospel. They need to hear that salvation belongs to our God. Land O’ Lakes Bible Church, it is our duty and great privilege to be part of God’s mission and go and make his ways known, to tell those of every tongue and tribe and nation that salvation belongs to our God! It is our duty and privilege to enter God’s global work, to prayerful seek opportunities to send qualified and godly workers across cultural, language, and people barriers with the message of salvation, so that they may believe in Jesus, the hope of the world. So that churches may be established to equip these new believers and reach still more with the gospel.

Now, I do not want to presume that everyone here this morning knows this truth about this great salvation, about this gospel. So though it has been referenced and hinted at, I want to make sure its message is clear.

GOSPEL!!!

It is because of this great salvation that we seek to go and proclaim it, both here and to the ends of the earth. For how much more should we who have been blessed in Christ, having received every blessing in the heavenly places in our union with him be a blessing to the nations? How can we who have received the grace of God not desire to march to the beat of God’s own heart for the nations and his glory to fill the earth? Church, is this the beat that we are marching to? Are we marching to the beat of God’s heart to see the earth filled with his glory? To see the nations come to know him? Because if we are marching to the beat of God’s own heart, we should be burdened about the reality that many still do not know our God and that salvation belongs to him.

Let us continually seek to march to the beat of God’s heart for the nations as we continue to cry out, “Let the nations know you, LORD so that they may praise you.”

To make this God known to the ends of the earth, we must pray for the nations, pray for more laborers. We must enter the work of missions. Missions not being just any work, but a particular work of taking the message of salvation across cultural, language, and peoples boundaries. Everything we call missions is not missions. Missions has the nations in sight. Therefore we must take part in sending missionaries and going ourselves. But missions is not the end goal. To quote John Piper from his book Let the Nations Be Glad, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” The goal is to make our God’s ways known, to make his salvation known, so that the peoples come to praise him.

Point #2: Let the Nations Be Glad in You, LORD (Psalm 67:4-5)

Verse 4 is the heartbeat of this Psalm, but the implication of it makes a sandwich of that heartbeat with on both sides of verse 4 us seeing the repeated phrase in verses 3 and 5, Let the peoples praise you, God; let all the peoples praise you. The desire is for the peoples to come and praise our God. To worship him. At the center of that worship is a gladness in God. Look there with me at verse 4.

This prayer runs back to Psalm 2, which we talked about in the intro this morning being crucial to understanding the whole of the Psalms. For in Psalm 2, the nations raged against the LORD, they failed to see the LORD had set his King on his Holy Hill. Psalm 67:4 though is the prayer that the nations would recognize that God has set his King there, and that they would then come and bow and serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. That they would swear allegiance, not out of obligation or begrudgingly, but joyfully and gladly.

That they would take joy in the one who judges with equity, that is with fairness and righteousness. That they would take joy in the one who guides the nations with his Sovereign and good rule.

Friend, is this our posture, to be glad and sing for joy in God? Is this our hope for the nations? That they would be glad in our God? It should be since this the chief end of man as summed up in the 1st question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

WSC Question #1: What is the chief end of man?

WSC Answer #1: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

This then is to be our prayer, Land O’ Lakes Bible Church. Praying that the nations would come and be glad in our God, that they too would enjoy him forever.

This is the purpose and end of missions as the peoples, the nations come and be glad in our God, that they praise him forever and ever in his goodness.

‌Point #3: Let the Nations Fear You, LORD (Psalm 67:6-7)

V.6 is the means of one of the ways the LORD has blessed his people, with the giving of food in the harvest, that the earth has given food for the people to eat. While to many this may not be thought of much outside of a quick prayer before a meal giving thanks for the food, this is a work of the LORD to be seen as a blessing. A work of redemption in the midst of the curse.

To borrow another quote from Charles Spurgeon,

“Sin first laid a curse on the soil, and grace alone can remove it.”

Spurgeon here referring back to Genesis 3 where the ground was cursed. This is why the hymn Joy to the World is so remarkable. Which for the record is actually not a Christmas hymn, but a second advent hymn which is why we sing it often at Christmas as we look forward to the return of Christ and the rule of his kingdom. Alas, in the third verse of that great hymn, we sing:

No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as, fas the curse is found.

The earth has yielded its increase, in the blessings of God blessing his people with the grace of food despite its curse. Time and time again in Israel’s history, abundance was had when Israel listened and obeyed the LORD. However, in times of disobedience, famine and hunger came.

We can take heart, Christian, that God’s blessings will continue to be poured out on his people then for the glory of God to be made known to the ends of the earth. In fact, as we see at the end of verse 6 and the start of verse 7, we see twice that our God shall bless us. This is meant to give double assurance of God’s ongoing provisions to his people, the ongoing outpouring of his grace and blessings and favor to them. For God has purchased a people to himself with the blood of his own Son Jesus. What a payment has been made. And because of the great cost that was paid to purchase us, how much more will God’s grace and favor and blessing be poured out on us to both keep us and to continue to make his ways and his glory known to the ends of the earth for our sake and the nations?

Church, let us then continually put Psalm 67 before us and pray this prayer. Praying that God’s fresh grace and blessings would be poured out on us, so that we may go and be a blessing to the nations, advancing his glory to the ends of the earth. So that the nations may come and praise our great God and be glad in him. Praying that the nations may fear our God and continue to bow before him in worship.

Let us continue to seek to march to the beat of God’s own heart in seeking for his glory to fill the earth by the nations coming to know him. Let us continue to seek to be a people commited to reaching the nations for Christ by proclaiming that this great salvation belongs to our God!

Let’s pray…