God's Wondrous Works

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

As I mentioned earlier, we’re changing things up a bit this morning. Instead of me just getting up here and sharing a message with you, we’re providing an opportunity for you to actually participate in applying the passage that we’ll look at this morning.

Tension

Thanks to several of you who have offered to do just that as part of our worship this morning. I know that all of us will be blessed by your participation. All I’m really going to do this morning is to set the stage by providing you with a little background on Psalm 105 and then together we’ll put into practice the commands that we find in that passage.

Truth

While you’re turning in your Bibles to Psalm 105, let me give you a little background. Although the author is not identified , the first 15 verses are found almost word for word in the song of David found in 1 Chronicles 16 on the occasion of the Ark of the Covenant being placed in the tent that David had built for it. So it’s very likely that David also wrote this Psalm, although we really don’t know which came first - this Psalm or the song in 1 Chronicles.

The first six verses, which I’ll read in just a moment, serves as an introduction to the body of the Psalm, which is an account of God's mercies to Israel as a nation, traced historically from the time of the covenant with Abraham to the occupation of the land of Canaan.. That introduction contains 10 imperatives, or commands. And the Psalm ends in verse 45 with one last command - Praise the Lord!

Introduction - vs. 1-6 - 10 commands

Body - vs. 7-45a - God’s mercies

Final command - v. 45b - Praise the Lord!

With that in mind, follow along as I read the first six verses of the chapter

Psalm 105:1–6 ESV

Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually! Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered, O offspring of Abraham, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones!

As I mentioned, there are ten commands in these six verses. They are commands, not suggestions or options. So that means that they are all things that we should be doing as God’s people. But what I also want you to notice is that every command involves putting all the focus on God - on His name, His deeds, His works, His name, His strength, His presence, His wondrous works, miracles and judgments.

And in the rest of the Psalm, David is going to recount the promises that God made to Abraham and then how He was faithful to carry out those promises in the generations which followed. Even though we aren’t part of Israel, we are still God’s people and this Psalm reminds us that everything good we have, every blessing in our life, including our salvation, is all God’s work and there is nothing we can boast in.

So let me quickly share with you several observations we can make about God’s sovereign purposes from this Psalm. I’m only going to make a few brief comments so that we’ll have plenty of time for the application portion of the message today.

GOD’S SOVEREIGN PURPOSES:

Cannot be thwarted

The next Psalm, Psalm 106 , is going to look at this same historical period from the viewpoint of Israel, who frequently rebelled against God and failed to obey Him. And yet, that faithlessness did not keep God from keeping His promises. That doesn’t mean that we don’t suffer the consequences of our rebellion, but it does mean that we can’t prevent God from accomplishing His purposes.

Involve individuals, but in a corporate context

As we saw last week, God’s initial promise was made to an individual - Abraham. But that promise involved both an entire people - the Israelites - and even all the nations of the world, who were to be blessed by Abraham and his descendants.

Are fulfilled in God’s timetable, not ours

It took somewhere around 650-700 years between the time God made His covenant with Abraham and the time Joshua led Israel across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. And even to this day, God’s promise hasn’t been completely fulfilled because the people of Israel didn’t take all the land that God had given into their hands. But that is going to happen one day when Jesus returns.

It also seems like it has been a long time since Jesus promised to return to this earth. But God is not bound by space and time and He is not bound by our timetables.

Involve using trials to refine us

The journey to the Promised Land was not easy. It involved being in bondage in Egypt for over 400 years. Then, because of their disobedience, they spent another 40 years wandering in the wilderness. God used those trials to refine His people, even though many of them refused to respond appropriately to His loving discipline.

God continues to refine His people today through trials. Even those trials aren’t pleasant, they are often an important part of God accomplishing His purposes in our lives and in the lives of others.

Are designed to bring Him glory

When God remained faithful to carry out His promises in spite of the rebellion of His people, He proved that He is capable of working even where we are weak and disobedient. And that brings glory to Him.

Today, God still works through our weaknesses, when we allow Him to do that. And that still brings Him glory.

Application

So what is our response to be to those truths about God’s sovereign purposes? Although there are 11 commands in this passage, we can group them into four things we need to do:

HOW WE ARE TO RESPOND TO GOD’S SOVEREIGN PURPOSES

Praise Him

We are to praise God for who He is and what He has done. In this passage, we see several different ways we can do that:

Give thanks

Sing/sing praises

Remember what He has done

Today, we’re primarily doing that through the songs that we will sing this morning.

Seek Him

Twice in verse 4, we are commanded to seek God. Although we know that God is presence always, we are still commanded to seek His presence continually. That means that we are to intentionally engage in practices where we get to know God better and experience His presence. We do that each week in our worship as we open His Word, as we pray, and as we sing.

Tell others about Him

According to this Psalm, we are to make know His deeds among the peoples and tell of His wondrous works. That means that we are to give testimony about how God is working in our lives both inside and outside the body of Christ.

One of the reasons that I wanted to give as many of you as possible an opportunity to do that as part of our worship today is that sharing our testimony among fellow disciples will hopefully give us the confidence to be able to also share with those outside our church family when we have opportunities to do so.

Obey Him

We see this in the first part of verse 45. We learn there that the reason that God fulfilled His promises was so that His people might keep His statutes and observe His laws.

As we talk about frequently, we do not obey God to earn His favor. There is nothing that we can do to merit our salvation because that is 100% God’s work in our lives. We obey Him out of gratitude for the fact that He has been gracious and merciful to us and been faithful to keep every one of His promises, even when we rebel against Him. That is why each week we make such a big deal about the importance of applying the things we’re learning from God’s Word in practical ways in our lives.

Action

So let’s take some time to apply this Psalm right now. We’re going to do that through singing some songs and by hearing the testimonies, both on video and live, from some in our church body and by listening as the Scriptures are read out loud. We’ll begin by listening to the rest of Psalm 105 and hearing about how God faithfully kept His promises to the Israelites.