Remembering the Lord with Our Lips and Lives

Welcome, Announcements, & Call to Worship

Welcome

Good morning, church family. It does my heart well to see you all here this morning, and for those worshiping at home know that we miss you and look forward to the day you’ll be able to join us here in person, and we’ll trust the Lord, with you, for His timing.

Announcements

Often in the Apostle Paul’s benedictions, he would say something like, “Give everyone a hug for me” when he said, “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Thess 5:26). Well we’ll be holding off on this as we sacrificially love one another by social distancing. Later in our service we’ll celebrate the Lord’s supper, and I want you to know that communion has been prepared with the utmost of care (gloves/mask/bread in a cup as well) so that you can feel comfortable eating and drinking when it comes time. Even still, if you’re uneasy about it, you should feel no undue pressure to eat and drink.

Our nursery and the room across the hall is available, parents/grandparents, if you need a space for your kids to get some wiggles out. But first you need to know that we love God’s gift of children and the noise they make, so as long as you don’t feel it’s too big of a distraction and are able to listen, we invite you to continue to stay in here. But if at any point you need space for them to get some energy out, the nursery, nursing mother’s room (just outside these doors), and child’s play room are available for you. We simply ask that if others are there you work together to distance yourselves and be patient with our children as they aren’t sure what to do with all this.

Awana Awards Night & Pinewood Derby - May 27th at 6:30pm

Summer Youth Group - Wed. nights (6:30-8:30). Graduated 5th-graders can move up the first Wednesday in June

Luanna

Call to Worship

Psalm 105:1–4 (ESV)

1 Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon/proclaim his name;

(Call on here is the same word as ‘proclaim’ in Exod. 33:19; 34:5–6.)

make known his deeds among the peoples!

2 Sing to him, sing praises to him;

tell of all his wondrous works!

3 Glory in his holy name;

let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!

4 Seek the Lord and his strength;

seek his presence continually!

Message

Introduction

A history psalm in the style of a hymn (J.A. Anderson).

Give thanks with your lips and lives (1-4)

A call to praise for Israel to sing and praise the glorious works of his name (1–4).

We first see this phrase in Gen. 4:26, where people began to “call upon the name of the Lord.”

A Psalm addressed to people from Abraham through Jacob (Israel)

The people are to boast loudly, sing “praise with pride” (Ross, 264).

There is nothing rote, unemotional about it. No simply going through the motions.

This is all-in praise that is full-throated and confident in every way.

It says something about us when we have a hard time thinking of what to praise the Lord for. That doesn’t mean that it’s always instantly recalled (as we see many Psalms dedicated to reminding people). But as soon as the Lord’s deeds are mentioned, we ought to be caught up in praise. And, we ought to help others become caught up in praise as well.

How, by helping one another remember specific works of the Lord.

Remember the Lord! (5-6)

A call for Israel to remember the Lords works for the nation (5–6).

Remember God’s promise (7-11)

Here we see the reason for that call to praise the Lord.

The LORD’s judgments are in all the earth (7).

The LORD fulfilled the oath he swore to the fathers concerning the land (8–11).

God remembers his Word…his covenant (8)

Psalm 106:45 ESV

45 For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

Remember God’s protection (12-15)

The LORD protected the fathers/patriarchs when they were traveling as sojourners in other lands (12–15).

As nomads without a home, the lived in one king’s land after another. Constantly remembering that they didn’t have their own land.

D.A. Carson points out: “the only land they ever owned was a tomb (Gn. 23) for burying Sarah.

(Interesting, isn’t it that while that was the only land they ever owned (to that point), Jesus himself was buried in a borrowed tomb.)

It is a good place to wonder about God’s mysterious providences as you remember.

God promises land and seems to have left them landless! But never unprotected—not even when their own sin and shortcomings would seem to have forfeited his goodwill (Gn. 12:10–20; 20:1–18; 26:1–11), nor when they faced the massed powers of the world (Gn. 14).

15 — Anointed, set apart for God in status and function. Prophets (cf. Gn. 20:7) where Abraham is the first in the Bible to be called a prophet.

Remember God’s advanced provision (16-23)

The LORD sovereignly brought Joseph to Egypt so that at the time of the famine the family could move to Egypt (16–22).

Allen P. Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms (90–150): Commentary, vol. 3, Kregel Exegetical Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2016), 262–263.

Remember God’s blessings and judgments (24-36)

The psalmist recalls how the LORD prepared for the deliverance by judging Egypt and the Egyptians (24–36).

The LORD blessed his people abundantly (24–25).

The LORD gave them leaders and brought great plagues on Egypt by his powerful word (26–36).

Remember God’s special leading (37-42)

The psalmist rehearses how the LORD delivered his people from bondage, provided for them in the wilderness, and gave them the promised land (37–45).

The LORD brought them out of Egypt with spoil (37–38).

The LORD led them through the wilderness with marvelous works (39–41).

He spread a cloud and fire before them (39).

He gave them quail and manna (40).

He brought water out of the rock (41).

Honor the Lord with your lips and lives (43-45)

He remembered his promise to the fathers (42).

He brought them out with rejoicing (43).

He gave them the land so that they would keep his word (44–45).

Epilogue: “Praise the LORD!”

But there is more. Vs 43–44 form a conclusion matching the praiseful beginning to the psalm. Those who experienced at first hand what the Lord had done for them rejoiced and were glad. God had been good to them, crowning his record of promise-keeping with the gift of the land (44), just as he had pledged to Abraham four hundred years and more earlier (Gn. 15:7–16). But joy falls short of the response he designed: all he did was with a view to creating for himself a people who would obey his word (45). Without this, praise is only religious noise (Am. 5:23–24).

Derek Kidner has a wonderfully sharp comment on this closing verse in which he relates it to exactly the same point in the New Testament. He writes, “The final verse shows why grace abounded; not that sin might also abound, but (to quote a New Testament equivalent of verse 45), ‘that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’ (Rom. 8:4, AV).”2 This is the ultimate point of God’s covenant with us after all, not that those upon whom God sets his covenant love might be merely a select or unusual people, but that they might be holy, as he is.

Peter understood it. He wrote, “Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’ ” (1 Peter 1:15–16). Are you? Are any of us?

Communion Transition

As we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, deacons and servers will bring the elements to each family to reduce many hands touching the plates.