Psalm 97

What is Sovereignty?

Sovereignty: is reigning or having control over all things. Ultimately God is in complete control of all things, though He may choose to let certain events happen according to natural laws that He has ordained.

What does the future hold?

This is probably a question you have been asked or even you have asked before. Another way that this is asked is where do you see yourself in the next 10 years. It is alway fun to imagine what is going to happen in the future because its completely unknown to us.

In high school and middle school you really have know idea what job you will have the rest of you life or who you will marry or even where you will live. But you all have an idea of what you want to do and who you want to be.

The reality of it all though is that the future is completely uncertain, but that does not mean that we should be afraid of it because we do know who holds the future and who will be in control no matter what happens.

In Psalm 97 we are going to look at 3 key aspects of our christian future.

Psalm 97:1–12 NLT

1 The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice! Let the farthest coastlands be glad. 2 Dark clouds surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 3 Fire spreads ahead of him and burns up all his foes. 4 His lightning flashes out across the world. The earth sees and trembles. 5 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. 6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness; every nation sees his glory. 7 Those who worship idols are disgraced— all who brag about their worthless gods— for every god must bow to him. 8 Jerusalem has heard and rejoiced, and all the towns of Judah are glad because of your justice, O Lord! 9 For you, O Lord, are supreme over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. 10 You who love the Lord, hate evil! He protects the lives of his godly people and rescues them from the power of the wicked. 11 Light shines on the godly, and joy on those whose hearts are right. 12 May all who are godly rejoice in the Lord and praise his holy name!

The future is completely uncertain to us but the good news is that we know who controls the future and that God promises a phenomenal outcome to those who are his.

1. What is the promise in these verses?

1. The Promise

Psalm 97:1–5 NLT

1 The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice! Let the farthest coastlands be glad. 2 Dark clouds surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 3 Fire spreads ahead of him and burns up all his foes. 4 His lightning flashes out across the world. The earth sees and trembles. 5 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth.

The promise is that the LORD reigns! There is no surprise who is in control of everything. There is not surprise who is in power. There is no surprising God. Because God is sovereign over all of his creation. Meaning that God is in control of everything.

We should all rejoice because God is still in control and be thankful that no one can take his place. The Psalmist proclaims that because God is in control of the entire universe we should all be glad and joyful! All of us should be excited because God is in control. This should help us carry on in a crazy world knowing that whatever happens whether we see it as good or bad, that God is sovereign over it all.

God is ultimately in charge of his creation. But this is not something we can completely understand. He is in complete control but yet allows for us to make decisions.

Whenever we think of God there is still so much mystery surrounding the perfect God who we worship. The psalmist even alluded to the clouds and darkness that surround him which means that there is no understanding every single aspect of God but yet we can rest assured that He is Righteous and Just. The aspects of God we cannot fully comprehend are still perfect and good and should draw us to more awe of Him.

What does it mean for God to be sovereign and reigning over all of creation?

It does not mean that God is a dictator and rules everybody and everything with an iron fist. But it does mean that there is absolutely nothing that is outside of his reign. God reigns in love and care but also with vengeance and wrath.

God can make entire mountains melt and the world light up from lightning. This shows that there is no where in which we can hide from God’s control. God is in control of all things and can command all things.

Because God Reigns we should worship him over all other idols.

2. What is the difference between God and gods?

God is all powerful and far above all other gods. God controls other gods. Ultimately God can save you where other gods are worthless and will ultimately be destroyed.

2. The Difference

Psalm 97:6–9 NLT

6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness; every nation sees his glory. 7 Those who worship idols are disgraced— all who brag about their worthless gods— for every god must bow to him. 8 Jerusalem has heard and rejoiced, and all the towns of Judah are glad because of your justice, O Lord! 9 For you, O Lord, are supreme over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.

The 90’s psalms love differentiating between God and our gods (idols). God is to be worshipped throughout all of creation. There is not a single aspect of creation that does not worship God. We need to be worshipping God above all other gods that we have talked about over the past couple of weeks.

All of our idols are worthless because they cannot save us. Your boyfriend/ girlfriend cannot save you. You social media cannot save you. Your friends cannot save you. All of these things are good things until they begin replacing God in your life. If they are pulling you away from God then it’s not worth staying in a relationship with them. If your friends are pulling you away from worshipping God then it may be time to find some better friends.

We need to be surrounding ourselves with people that are going to be building us up in Christ. This is a difficult thing to especially when you are with friends that are not helping you grow spiritually.

These people can become our idols and whenever they become our idols then we take our eyes off of God. Whatever we worship will not give us any satisfaction because true satisfaction can only be found in God alone.

All of our worthless idols will quickly be put to shame and all of creation will ultimately worship the true God. God is able to judge all other gods and put them to shame. God is also able to be exalted high above all others because he is perfect in all that he does.

God is unlike any other god or (idol) because there would not be any other idols unless God had allowed for them to be created. Humans create idols to take place of God because we are a people that desires to worship.

God is different from all other gods because he is has created all other gods. God is different from all other gods because God alone can save. God is different from all other gods because God is exalted over all other gods.

3. What are we waiting for?

3. The Waiting

Psalm 97:10–12 NLT

10 You who love the Lord, hate evil! He protects the lives of his godly people and rescues them from the power of the wicked. 11 Light shines on the godly, and joy on those whose hearts are right. 12 May all who are godly rejoice in the Lord and praise his holy name!

The great news about us knowing that God is in control is that we are waiting for the ultimate moment whenever we are rejoicing with God forever.

But what exactly are we supposed to be doing during this waiting period?

1st we need to hate what is evil.

That means we need to reject sin in our lives and begin to absolutely despise our sin. We need to be a group of people that grieves as soon as they commit a sin because we realize the travesty that we have commited against a HOLY God.

So many times we enjoy our sin to an extent in which we constantly come back to doing it again once we have “repented”.

We get caught in the merry go round of sin in which we sin, then feel guilty, then repent, and then we do the exact same thing again.

While we are waiting for the glorious day when God completely eradicates sin we need to start hating our sin. If you hate something you are not going to do it again. We need to hate our own sin so that we are not tempted to do it again.

We hate our sin by growing closer to God. The closer we get to God the more our heart and desires are going to line up with God. Thus we are able to flee from sin into the arms of God.

2nd we need to rejoice in the Lord.

Those who are saved are in the perfect position to rejoice in what God has done for us personally. God saved us when we did not deserve it. Since we did not deserve it we should be rejoicing.

True joy comes from God, so christians should be the most joyous people on the planet. But why are there so many angry, mad, hateful christians that come to church every single week.

They are like that most likely because they do not understand how bad they truly were or that they never deserved salvation to begin with.

While we are waiting for Jesus to make his return we need to be joyful about what God has already done in our lives.

3rd we need to Worship his Holy name!

We need to worship God while we are waiting for the ultimate time of worship. There will be a time in eternity where all creatures worship God because he is worthy of their worship so we need to be worshipping God continually now! We need to worship God with our lives. We need to be honoring God with the way that we treat others, how we live our life, and how we share him throughout the world.

Worshipping God is not just something we do at church before a sermon but worshipping God should encompass our entire lives.

We ultimately worship God because he reigns.

Revelation 19:6–8 ESV

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

This is from the book of revelation and can you feel the joy and happiness that is happening in these verses. The christians are so ecstatic about Jesus coming that they are all screaming Hallelujah!

This is the moment when the church can be with God forever and ever. I am so quickly reminded of the joy I had at mine and Breanna’s wedding because I had waited so long to marry the perfect girl and spend the rest of my life together. The moment she walked down the aisle is a moment of Joy that I will never forget.

But that moment is going to miniscule compared to the moment we finally get to see Jesus and know that we are going to be living with him forever.

The moment when the church sees no more pain or heartache.

The moment when the church can truly worship God face to face.

This is the reason why we focus on living our lives focused on worship now.

This is the reason why we need to take our faith seriously.

This is the reason we need to worship God far above all other gods.

This is the reason we can hold on to the promises of God.

This is the reason we wait patiently on the Lord.