WHO DO YOU TRUST?
Notes
Transcript
Psalms 146:1-10
Everyone without exemption trust something (or someone). Whether we’re religious or irreligious, we trust something. There is something (or someone) that gives us joy, security and hope. It may be our status, riches, self-worth, relationships, even our belief system, or anything that gives us a sense of security and hope. In fact, often it is what defines our lives.
This is what I want us to see in Psalms 146. And the question that I want to ask is this: Who do we trust? Where do we find our ultimate security and hope?
Psalms 146 has a lot to say about these. In fact, if I may summarize this psalm in a sentence, this will it be:
DON’T PUT YOUR TRUST ON ANYTHING (OR ANYONE) OTHER THAN GOD!..
The psalmist laid out a couple of reasons why… so please read with me PSALMS 146
READ
PRAY
Literary context:
-the first of the Hallelujah Psalms (146-150). These are the last 5 chapters in the book of Psalms that are intended to call the people of God to a grand and glorious worship of God.
-as we would see, these 5 chapters are bookmarked with the phrase “PRAISE THE LORD”. If you look at chapters 146-150, they start and end with Praise the Lord.
-I think it not an overstatement to say that the primary intention of these last 5 chapters is to call the people of God to worship, which is just fitting because, after all the truths that were laid out in the first 145 chapters of Psalms, the only proper response should be an all-out worship of God!
And so, as I’ve said Ps. 146:1 starts with the phrase “praise the Lord.” It is repeated 2 times which gives it a sense of urgency and importance. In the Hebrew literature, when something is repeated, it is intended to add gravity to it.
Ex. Jesus with Nicodemus (John 3:3) “Truly, truly I say to you… “
Jesus is emphasizing to Nicodemus the importance of what he is about to say.
In the same sense, the psalmist in verse 1 is emphasizing the importance of worshiping God.
That’s why “Praise the Lord” is repeated..
And in v. 1-2, we would see that his call to worship is not only directed to others, but especially to himself.
1Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul.
2 While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.
The psalmist is declaring his unwavering worship of God as long as he lives with all that he has!
-That is something that as a follower of Christ we should aspire—to worship God with everything that we have, as long as we have breath- in plenty or in want, in joy or sorrow, in triumph or suffering—we should declare our unwavering worship to our God.
Now, sometimes, even we Christians have the tendency to think that worshipping God can only be fully expressed during Sundays—in our worship service—after all, that is why it is called worship service. Though it is right that we should give our very best in every worship service, it seems that the psalmist is telling us that it should not be limited just to a formal gathering.
In fact, even in the mundane & ordinary grind of our daily lives we are called to worship. And it is expressed in the succeeding verses by the word trust—the one on whom we put our confidence.
Notice in our text that immediately after the psalmist’s call to worship, it is followed in verse 3 by a discussion of our trust.
Verse 3—Put not your trust…
Verse 5—Happy is he that has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord…
And so, to the psalmist, a critical expression of worship is our trust because, at the end of the day, what we trust will define our longings, our joys, our confidence, our hope, and even our very being.
And so, Psalms 146 gives us two realities where humanity, without exemption, puts their trust on. So, if you are a human being, regardless of where you are in life, you trust only one of these two truths. There is none in between. Either you trust one or the other.
And, of course, the outline of this psalm is that the first one is what you should not trust, and the 2nd one is what you should trust, and then he laid out the reasons for it.. and that incidentally is the same outline I have for you, What we should not trust and why, and who should you trust and why.
1. DO NOT TRUST MAN (v. 3-4)
During those times, when societies were governed by kingdoms, the person that had the most power was the prince or King (if you had lived in the Middle East, you might have had a personal experience with this).
(Share some personal experience)
Yet the psalmist says, that even the most powerful person in the world—you should not put your trust on… Why?
By the way, trust here is not about “believing you because you’re an honest man.” trust here has the sense of putting your ultimate hope and security to (v.5)
a. Because there is no salvation in man (v.3)
salvation=transliterated into
Greek fr. Hebrew=T@shuw’ah (Tesh-oo-aw)
=means
deliverance (physical sense), Salvation (spiritual sense)
-We should not trust man because in the ultimate sense, when our life is at stake, man cannot deliver, man cannot save.
- Why can’t man deliver, or save?
b. Because man is a mere mortal who eventually will die, and when it happens all his thoughts, his plans, and even his glory perishes (v. 4)
No matter how great a man is, no matter how great his ambition and plans are, he is not immortal and he will eventually have to face death. And when that happens, all that is about him will likewise perish… and so, if you have your hope is tied up to that man or what he has, then your hope perishes with him...
At this point the psalmist might have in mind the very experience of Israel. He is most probably aware of the times when the chosen people of God, instead of trusting God, whose mighty work they have experienced first-hand, would call to pagan kings for help, instead of their God.
Turn to 2 king 16:5-9
—- Israel is already divided into the northern and southern kingdom.. and Judah (southern kingdom) is underseige by the alliance
of the northern kingdom and the pagan king of Syria. In v. 7, Judah, instead of trusting God, asked for the help of another pagan nation, Assyria, for their
deliverance. And if you’ll continue to read 2 kings you’ll see that this was detrimental to the worship of God, and eventually God punished Judah by
bringing Assyria, the very nation who they asked for help, to plunder and bring them to exile. They have put their trust in men, now they reap the
consequences.
APPLICATION:
What does it have to do with us today? We live in a modern and sophisticated society where we are not under kings and kingdoms. We enjoy the freest society that humanity has ever experienced. We don’t have kings and princes to rule over us; what more, we actually decide who will lead us…
Yet this passage has a lot to say to our modern and sophisticated society, especially for us in one of the most prosperous society in the world. Because although we are not under kings and princes which demands our trust, there are definitely so many things and stuff that could easily capture our hearts. It may not necessarily be man, or kingly authorities, but if it is where we find our source of joy, hope and fulfillment, then that is where our trust is; it may be job, status, family, relationship, education, ministry, finances, even good things. If that competes for our affections, then we have curved ourselves our
own princes… so, if we trust in any of these other than God, the psalmist tells us that these things are fleeting and temporary.
It may feel good for a season but ultimately it will disappoint you… because ultimately it doesn’t deliver what it promises…
So, who do we trust?
2. TRUST ONLY GOD (V. 5-10)
Why?
a. because God is the maker of heaven and earth and everything in it (v.6)
In other word, HE IS THE CREATOR
When the bible introduced God, the very first thing that it says of Him is that he is the Creator of everything…
Gen. 1:1, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.…from the smallest atom to the largest
universe and everything in between, He is the Creator.
If we will pause and try to wrap our thoughts around that reality.. God being the creator of everything including us… (sometimes we are so used to say that God is the creator that we loose the sense of it’s magnitude.. )
If only we Christian could grasp the reality of this truth that should give us great hope and keep us from despair and anxiety.… Why? Because if God is the creator of everything then he is the owner and the one who controls all of his creation, there is none outside of his control… and that is exactly the testimony of the Scripture.
I will not accept a bull from your house
or goats from your folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.
“If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fullness are mine.
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
“ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
And so, the first reason why the psalmist calls us to trust God is because He is the Creator, who owns and sovereignly and personally orchestrates his creation..
(just a side note, this is not a
call to be religious fatalist, but to be confident in trusting God)
b. Because He is faithful, thus he will deliver what he promised (v.5-6)
God is not only the creator and owner of his creation, but he is also faithful to his promises. Time and again the people of God had rested in God’s faithfulness for their deliverance.
In Lamentation 3:22-23, in the
midst of a great suffering and persecution that the Jews were into, to the point that they were eating their own babies just to have food (4:10), Jeremiah penned this assurance;
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
22 It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23They are new every morning: great is thy
faithfulness.
Despite of what they are experiencing at that time, Jeremiah can trust that they will survive not because of anything in them but because of the faithfulness of God.
God is faithful! He had been faithful to Adam & Eve when he promised that her seed will bruise the head of the serpent. He had been faithful to Abraham when he called him out of the land of Ur with the promise that he will make him a great nation and from himall the nations of the earth will be blessed. He is faithful to Moses that he will save His people out of captivity into the land that’s flowing with milk and honey. He is faithful to the the apostle and the early church, and he remains faithful even now to us who have trusted in his Son the Lord Jesus as only hope of salvation.
That is why, we can all say with Paul in 2 Cor. 1:20 “all the promises of God in him (Christ) are yes, and in him Amen… God has assured us of his faithfulness, and this had been sealed by the death and resurrection of his Son..
c. Because God is Eternal (v. 10)
In contrast to man, who is just a mere mortal and will die (v.4), God is immortal and will live and reign forever… And so if God will reign forever, and he is faithful forever, then all of his promises and purposes will abide forever… unlike man in v. 4 whose plans perish.
d. Because in God there is salvation. (v.7-9)
In a plain reading of v. 7-9, because of the words “justice for the oppressed”, set prisoners free, open the eyes (sight/healing) of the blind, food for the hungry. we may be tempted to think that these are promises about having a comfortable, healthy, not-so-difficult life for the people of God, It may seem that these points to a life that is without suffering, injustice or sickness. Not to mention that Christ himself did so many of these things in his earthly ministry.
The problem with that view is that if you look around the world there are so much suffering and injustice. You may then say that these promises are for Christ followers (Christians) only. Now that may be true for North American Christian, but if you’ll look at church history, and even at Christian in other parts of the world, there are so many Christians who are in poverty, who are suffering and even being killed for their faith.. So if that is how we understood these verses then the word of God has failed… But did God’s word really fail?
So what are these verses all about… my answer (and I’m not the only one who argues for this) is this is talking about salvation.. To support that interpretation. Turn to:
-Isaiah 61 are prophecies about the servant of the Lord, who will bring salvation to the world, namely the Lord
Jesus Christ,
--If you will look closely at the phrases and the wordings that were used, it echoes the same thoughts Psalms 146:7-9…
It talks about prisoners being freed, bringing good news to the poor, liberty to the captives… These are not merely talking about freedom from hardship or comfort to the poor but are prophetic salvation language that will be accomplished by the Servant of the Lord (Messiah)
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
Jesus is at the beginning of his preaching ministry..
He went to Nazareth, his hometown, read the prophecy in Isiah, and then v. 18-21
The Lord Jesus uses the same language that you will find in Psalms 146 and Isiah 61, to declare that he has come to bring salvation… He is the promised messiah of the old testament, that the Jews were waiting…
And that is the whole point of Psalms 146:7-9, because in reality, we are those who are captive and blinded by our own sins. We are the ones that needed to be freed not primarily from hardships in life but from the penalty and power of sin. We were spiritually blind and could not see the truth.. we are those that v. 7-9 are talking about.
So how did Jesus do that? How did he bring about salvation? How did he set the prisoners of sin free? How did he give sight to the spiritually blind?
Answer: by becoming a man like us, but unlike us who lived in sin and disobedience, Jesus did not ever sin. He lived in total obedience to God the Father. But despite his perfect, sinless life, he suffered and died on the cross. He did this not because he deserved to die, but to die the death that we deserve so that in his dying he is paying for our sins. Then after 3 days, he was resurrected, so that those who were blinded by their own sins will receive sight, and will see the condemnation that awaits them and then turn to to Christ in repentance and faith for their salvation.
Christ offered himself as the Perfect sacrifice who absorbed the anger of God for our sins and offered his perfect righteousness so that those who are oppressed by their own captivity to sin will be released from this bondage and experience freedom from the bondage and penalty of sin…
The main question now, is this: have you trusted Christ as your only Lord and Saviour. Have you repented from the sins that contend for your affections?
Because in verse 9, it says if you have not yet trusted Christ as your only hope to be acceptable before our holy God, then verse 9 says, the wicked will be turned upside down… the wicked will experience not the eternal faithfulness and mercies of God but his eternal hatred and judgement… and oh, it is a terryfying thing to fall in the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31).
And so let us end in verse 10…PRAISE THE LORD…
