Evangelism | Psalm 67
Notes
Transcript
Konnection Kids, y’all are good to head on over to the back to find your leaders.
Good morning. If y’all don’t know my name, my name is David Wood and I have the privilege to serve here as the worship and student pastor. You’ll usually see me up here with a guitar in my hand or behind the drum set, but I have the honor of bringing the Word this morning and I am so excited.
Our passage this morning Psalm 67 if y’all wanna go ahead and turn there.
So for the past couple months we’ve been in a series called Authentic Faith. And in this series we just wanna make it clear what authentic faith in Christ is. And last week we started taking a look at the way authentic faith plays out in the culture of the church. And the word culture means a group of people that share the same heart or values. So we’re looking at how authentic faith unites us through these four cultures of a healthy church.
These four cultures of a healthy church that we’re diving into are serving, evangelism, community, and generosity. Last week we talked about serving and today we’re talking about evangelism.
I’ve started meeting with a guy at our church over at Chick-fil-a and we’ve been going through this Equip guide that’s designed to walk people through kinda the foundation of what we believe as Christians. And he was asking me what I was preaching on this Sunday and I told him it was on evangelism. And he looked at me and he said, “What’s that?” And in that moment I was reminded that it’s so easy to throw around these churchy terms like “evangelism” without actually explaining what they mean.
So before we get into our passage I want to define real quick what evangelism means. The word evangelism actually comes from the Greek word “euangelion” (you-on-gale-eon) and it just means “gospeling.” So next time you’re evangelizing, just say, “Yea I’m gospeling.” But the word gospel just means good news and when we say “gospel” we’re specifically referring to the good news that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave three days later to pay the penalty for our sins.
So the word evangelism is really just a fancy way of saying “sharing the gospel.” Evangelism is sharing the gospel with others.
Now before the college kids start asking if they’re getting any english credits for this sermon, we’ll move on. But I wanna preface our passage by saying evangelism isn’t just sharing the gospel. Evangelism isn’t just sharing the gospel. Evangelism is also a RESULT OF the gospel. I wanna say this one more time for those taking notes: “Evangelism is not just sharing the gospel, evangelism is also a result of the gospel.”
And that’s what our passage this morning is all about. It’s gonna show us what happens to us when we receive the grace of God.
So let’s dive in, Psalm 67.
[Scripture Reading]
For the choir director; with stringed instruments. A Psalm. A Song.
1 God be gracious to us and bless us,
And cause His face to shine upon us—
Selah.
2 That Your way may be known on the earth,
Your salvation among all nations.
3 Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy;
For You will judge the peoples with uprightness
And guide the nations on the earth.
Selah.
5 Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
6 The earth has yielded its produce;
God, our God, blesses us.
7 God blesses us,
That all the ends of the earth may fear Him.
Now I gotta be honest with y’all, I had trouble figuring out how to divide this passage up because everything is so interwoven together. So we’re gonna do something a little different this morning. Instead of having three points for y’all, we’re gonna condense this entire Psalm into one sentence, then we’re gonna take a look at three sections of this sentence.
I’m gonna go ahead and give y’all the sentence (we’ll have it right here on the screen), then we’re gonna take this sentence bit by bit. Alright here it is, “God is gracious to us so that He might be known among all nations for the global praise of His glory.” [Repeat that]
That’s a loaded sentence, so let’s break it up a little. Let’s start with…
God is gracious to us
God is gracious to us
1 God be gracious to us and bless us,
And cause His face to shine upon us—
Selah.
Now as awesome as this verse is, it’s not an original from whoever wrote this Psalm. It’s actually from a previous passage of scripture called the “Priestly Blessing” in Numbers 6. As God is giving Moses the law in the wilderness, God says this to Moses in verses 23 through 27…
23 “Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them:
24 The Lord bless you, and keep you;
25 The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
26 The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.’
27 “So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them.”
And Aaron and his sons would give this blessing to the people of Israel so that, as it says in verse 27, they would invoke the name of the Lord on them and God would bless them.
But the difference for us today is God doesn’t command a priest to come and bless us each day. The people of Israel back in the Old Testament were longing for blessing, but we’ve already received blessing.
And there are so many ways we have been blessed. I mean just think about the beauty of creation and all the material things like food and water and clothing that God has provided for us. That’s what the writer of Psalm 67 is talking about in verse 6.
6 The earth has yielded its produce;
God, our God, blesses us.
Back in the day, if you didn’t have crops growing, you didn’t have food. So the psalmist here is saying that God has blessed Israel by providing them with crops for food.
Then you also think about the people God has put in our lives like family members and friends and mentors and we can see that we have been incredibly blessed.
But the most incredible blessing we have been given is what (or I guess rather who)? Jesus. This is the ultimate blessing we could receive.
Let’s just walk through and think about the gospel for a moment. Jesus, the Son of God, seated in heaven, deserving of all glory, stepped off His glorious throne. He was already infinitely glorious and yet he chose to become a man. God became a man.
And He lived on Earth for many years. I mean just think about what Jesus has already given up. Jesus decided to take on humanity and deal with stuff like getting hungry, thirsty, manual labor, getting tired, and dealing with Atlanta Highway traffic. I don’t know if y’all can tell but I wrote this while sitting at the Atlanta Highway Starbucks as I saw stand still traffic on the road in front of me. So, if you’re wondering how to write a sermon, I hear just writing about what’s right in front of you works. But we think Jesus was between about 33 and 40 when He died on the cross, so He dealt with all these things (outside of the Atlanta Highway traffic) for at least 33 years!
But that’s not even getting into the worst of it. Near the end of His life, Jesus dealt with persecution from all angles. Everyone wanted Him gone. Then in the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus awaited His fate on the cross, He sweated drops of blood. I’m a pretty anxious person so naturally I get stressed pretty easily. But I can’t say I’ve ever sweated drops of blood.
Then He was arrested. And this is where I want us to really try to put ourselves in Jesus’ shoes and imagine ourselves in this situation. Jesus was mocked, humiliated, and beaten (tortured), and He didn’t even do anything wrong. We might would be content with facing the consequences for something we have done wrong, but Jesus was humiliated, mocked, and tortured for crimes He didn’t commit. We wouldn’t be okay with that. We’d lose our minds. But Jesus didn’t say anything. He just took it. And eventually was nailed in His hands and feet and hung on a cross until He would eventually die. And He did it as a blessing to you.
You just think about that and wonder, “Wow Jesus has blessed me beyond what I can even comprehend. This is who I want to follow. This is who I want to be my King and Lord! I want to devote my life to Jesus!” But the craziest part is, He wasn’t even done yet.
Three days after Jesus died He came back to life. And He told His disciples, “Go and tell others about Me. Declare the good news of the salvation I give. And hey guess what, I’m gonna send my Spirit and He’s gonna help you.” Jesus had just given us the greatest blessing of all, and He didn’t just say, “Alright y’all got this. Peace out.” He stayed here to help us by sending His Spirit to live in us.
So Jesus provided the way of salvation for us by dying on the cross and rising from the grave, and He provides His Spirit to guide us each and every day.
This is where many people want to stop reading Psalm 67. “God loves me and He gives me all these blessings and this is all for me,” when in actuality Psalm 67 doesn’t stop there.
Let’s take a look at both verses 1 and 2 of Psalm 67 again.
1 God be gracious to us and bless us,
And cause His face to shine upon us—
Selah.
2 That Your way may be known on the earth,
Your salvation among all nations.
This brings us the second section of this sentence we’re breaking down…
so that He might be known among all nations
so that He might be known among all nations
What Jesus did for you on the cross, and what the Spirit does through you now isn’t just for you.
Most of y’all know John 3:16. Say it with me… “For God so loved the…” Who? God so loved you? God so loved me? God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” It’s not all about you.
Jesus on many occasions said that He is the light of the world. What does a light do? It makes so it isn’t dark anymore. The world was a sinful place filled with darkness, then Jesus came into the world to be the light in this dark world.
But Jesus also says on many occasions that WE are the light of the world. You might ask, how can Jesus be the light of the world and we be the light of the world? I’m glad you asked that’s a great question.
We just talked about God’s Spirit living in us. Yes Jesus is the light of the world, and as His Spirit lives in us we also become the light of the world.
So we are also lights in this dark world. Now I want to do a little demonstration.
get out phone flashlight
I’m gonna ask the soundbooth for a quick favor. Can y’all turn off the stage lights and the house lights for a moment?
This light is a Christian. And as a Christian lives on Earth they do good deeds, love others, and share the gospel and they are a bright light in this dark world. Now I’m gonna put my hand over the light. Not very effective is it.
Alright we can turn the light’s back on. Thank y’all.
God has shown us incredible grace. His face shines upon us and we experience the joy of salvation from our sins. We’ve been saved and our Savior says, “Go and tell others about me,” and we become the light to tell others about how great Jesus is… but some of are trying to put our hand over the light.
Jesus actually uses this same analogy in Mark 4. Mark 4 21 says…
Mark 4:21 (NASB95)
21 … “A lamp is not brought to be put under a basket, is it, or under a bed? Is it not brought to be put on the lampstand?
We haven’t been saved to keep this to ourselves. And I wanna make this clear. Jesus isn’t saying that a lamp should be put on a lampstand, He’s saying a lamp is put on a lampstand. In other words, I’m not saying you should share the gospel as a Christian, I’m saying that it’s part of your very identity as a Christian that you share the gospel. When you understand what Christ has done for you on the cross, you naturally desire to tell others about it. And we see this in verse 4…
4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy;
For You will judge the peoples with uprightness
And guide the nations on the earth.
Selah.
The grace we’ve been shown brings joy to our hearts. The greatness of God brings joy to our hearts. The guidance we receive from the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and other Christians brings joy to our hearts. And our desire is to tell others about how great God is.
I wanna share a story that I’ve shared before in Connection Students so students if you’ve heard this story before, guess what, you get to hear it again.
One time I was in Chattanooga, Tennesse for a Phil Wickham concert with Nick and we were looking for a place to grab some food before the concert and I noticed there was a Korean BBQ restaurant nearby. Now I love Korean BBQ, but I had never been to a restaurant that was dedicated to Korean BBQ so I was curious, I asked Nick what he thought about that, and he said he was down so we headed over there.
So two people who had never been to a Korean BBQ restaurant before walked in ready to eat. Now if you’ve been to a Korean BBQ restaurant before, I imagine you already know where this is going.
So the waitress sat us down at a table and we noticed this big circle in the middle of our table. Seemed pretty weird but we just shrugged it off and took a look at our menus.
As we look at our menus, we noticed that for the low low price of $30, you could do this all you can eat option where you just keep asking the server for all this stuff and they just keep bringing it to you. And it was at that moment that I thought to myself, “I can eat more than $30 worth of food.” And Nick was apparently thinking the same thing because we both decided to shell out the money to do the all you can eat Korean BBQ.
And this where things got strange. The server didn’t explain anything to us. I guess he just assumed we had been to a Korean BBQ restaurant before, but about 5 minutes passes by and the waiter comes back and he picks up the circle in the middle of our table and turns on a gas burner and puts the circle back.
So that this point we’ve deduced with our expert detective skills that this is a grill in the middle of our table. Then the waiter comes back out not too much longer after that and sets some raw meat on our table.
And now we’ve put two and two together. This all you can eat option was they just bring as much raw meat as you can eat to your table for you to cook on your little table grill. And so we ate and we ate till we felt like we got our $30 worth and headed on to the concert.
And lemme just say, we had the best time. It was actually really fun to walk into this restaurant with no idea what we’re getting into and figuring it out in the moment. And once I got home, I told everyone about it. I told friends, family, this is the second sermon I’ve talked about it in. One weekend I had a friend from Dublin visit Athens and I took him to D92, our local Korean BBQ restaurant here in Athens.
I was so excited to tell everyone about how great Korean BBQ restaurants are because of this great experience I had. And it’s the same way with the salvation Jesus has given us. Our natural response to the incredible grace Jesus has shown us is to tell others about it. It’s part of our identity because if we’ve truly understood the gospel, we’ll be excited to tell others about it.
And now we’re getting to purpose of it all. We can go ahead and hit the last slide because now we’re seeing the ultimate purpose of God’s grace…
for the global praise of His glory.
for the global praise of His glory.
I told you earlier that God’s grace is not just for you. but now I tell you that God’s grace isn’t even just for the entire world. The ultimate purpose of God’s grace is the praise of His glory.
I’m about to say something that is a hard pill to swallow, but Jesus’ primary motive for dying on the cross isn’t because He loves you. (you could hear a pen drop in here)
The primary motive for Jesus dying on a cross is actually best seen in what happened three days later. Three days later, Jesus demonstrated His glory by conquering death and coming back to life after receiving the full wrath of God. The primary motive for this act of grace was glory to Jesus.
Look at verse 3 of Psalm 67.
3 Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
It says the same thing in verse 5. Then in verse 7 we get the summary of this entire Psalm when it says…
7 God blesses us,
That all the ends of the earth may fear Him.
And this isn’t “please don’t hurt me” fear. This is witnessing Jesus calm a storm from a boat in the middle of the lake fear. Like wow God is cool. He is so worthy of reverence and awe.
But this begs the question, “Does God have an ulterior motive for the grace He shows us?” The answer is no. An ulterior motive is a motive that’s intentionally hidden, but God doesn’t keep hidden the fact that the ultimate purpose of His grace is His glory.
God made it clear from the very beginning that His purpose in making man was to gather worshipers for Himself.
Just take a look at Genesis 1:28. This is God talking to Adam and Eve…
Genesis 1:28 (NASB95)
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth…”
God tells His worshipers to increase in number, make more worshipers, fill the Earth.
When God was establishing the nation of Israel through the blessings He gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He blessed them and told them to gather more worshipers from other nations.
15 Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven,
16 and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son,
17 indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.
18 “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Then God repeats this to Isaac in Genesis 26:4.
4 “I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;
And then to Jacob in Genesis 28:14.
14 “Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
God is gathering worshipers for the praise of His glory.
And we see this play out in so many more passages in the Old and New Testament.
In Joshua 2, Rahab, who was not born into the kingdom of Israel but was from Jericho, said this to the Israelites.
10 “For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
11 “When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.
In 1 Kings we see Solomon as the king of Israel and God blesses him with incredible wisdom like no other man had ever had. And we see why God blessed Solomon with this wisdom. Many foreign kings came to Israel to listen to the wisdom of Solomon and they would give praise to the God of Israel as a result. The greatest example of this is the Queen of Sheba. In 1 Kings 10 verse 9, she says…
9 “Blessed be the Lord your God who delighted in you to set you on the throne of Israel; because the Lord loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and righteousness.”
Have I given enough examples? It is woven throughout every page of scripture. God made it clear that His grace was ultimately for the praise of His glory.
But I know some of you are thinking because I’ve thought this too, “Doesn’t that make God selfish?” And I’ve pondered that many times.
The answer is no. He isn’t selfish. Being selfish implies that God only thinks about Himself. But the fact of the matter is, God is the only being, Jesus is the only man that is actually worthy of receiving glory.
And God is so awesome because as He receives glory, those who are giving glory to Him receive everlasting joy. So no, God isn’t just thinking about Himself. Because as He receives glory, you receive grace and joy just being in His presence.
The sad truth is there are a ton of people who love point one (God shows us grace), and some of them can get on board with point two (so that He might be known among all nations), but unfortunately there are so many that can’t get on board with the fact that God’s grace is for the glory of Himself.
And to those people I just wanna say this, and I mean this with love and I hope this doesn’t offend you, but how could you think that this is all about you? You’re a sinner. I’m a sinner. We’re not perfect. How could this all be about anyone but Jesus?
I wanna ask the rest of the band to come up
There are so many applications for this, but this sermon’s all about evangelism, so let’s bring it home.
There are people in your life who don’t know about the grace of Jesus. In your workplace, in your classes, in your grocery stores. And God deserves their praise. He is worthy to receive praise from everyone on this planet. He’s given you everything, He offers them everything, tell them!
Share with them that you’re a sinner and they’re a sinner but that Jesus died on a cross to pay for their sins and they don’t have to receive the punishment for their sins. They too can have eternal life if they believe in Jesus.
I once heard a story about a man driving down the road on a foggy day and there’s an earthquake. The man pulls over to wait it out, and once it’s over he hops back on the road.
He then drives on a bridge and all of the sudden the cars in front of him start disappearing. He pulls over, gets out, and sees that the bridge collapsed.
He sees a car coming and he waves from the side of the road and yells to get the attention of the driver, but the driver just thinks they’re crazy and they keep going and they fall. And this happens two more times… then the man sees a bus coming. And he’s not letting this one fall.
So he runs out to the middle of the road in front of the bus and waves his hands almost violently and yells at the top of his lungs and the bus driver is enraged, but they stop. The driver gets out in a fit of rage and asks what’s wrong with this man. And then he sees that the bridge is out. And the driver and everyone on the bus is so thankful to this man who sacrificed his life to warn them about the bridge.
Christ has put you here to warn the bus, and to warn everyone approaching that their sin will lead to their death. But they don’t have to fall. Christ has provided eternal life to all who believe.
You might be here and you’re realizing that you don’t know Jesus. I invite you, don’t wait to accept Him as your Savior. You don’t know what tomorrow brings. As we respond in worship I invite you to pray to God and say, “I’m a sinner in need of a Savior. Jesus I confess that You are my Savior.”
Before we pray, we’ve been jumping around a lot in this Psalm this morning and in light of everything we’ve talked about, I just wanna reread it from start to finish.
For the choir director; with stringed instruments. A Psalm. A Song.
1 God be gracious to us and bless us,
And cause His face to shine upon us—
Selah.
2 That Your way may be known on the earth,
Your salvation among all nations.
3 Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy;
For You will judge the peoples with uprightness
And guide the nations on the earth.
Selah.
5 Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
6 The earth has yielded its produce;
God, our God, blesses us.
7 God blesses us,
That all the ends of the earth may fear Him.
We’re about to sing a song called Worthy Of It All. This song comes from Revelation 5 and this passage gives us this picture of heaven. And in this picture of heaven all the saints who accepted Jesus as their Savior on Earth, all the angels, all the elders in heaven, bow before the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and say, “Worthy are You; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”
So we know from the book of Revelation that God is gonna accomplish His mission to gather worshipers from all nations. Let’s gather the worshipers.
And let’s respond to Him in song right now.
[Let’s pray]
