Responding to the God who Reigns
Nick Owens, July 21, 2024
Intro – It’s been our practice here at Trinity for about the last 15 years, of spending time each summer in the book of Psalms. And though we’re well into the summer by now, this is actually our first Sunday this summer in the Psalms. If you’ve been with us we have spent the last 6 ½ months in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, this amazing letter that is really all about the gospel.
If I was to ask you this morning – What is the gospel? What would you say?
You might say things like – well the gospel is news, it’s news about something that happened – it’s news about a person – Jesus, the Son of God, who was born, lived, died and rose again. And you would be right.
And another person might add – yes, and the gospel is the message about what Jesus has done for us that when we hear it and believe it we are saved and brought into right relationship with God – all our sins and the ways we’ve failed to love God and love others are forgiven through Jesus who died and rose for us. And that’s also right.
But some of you may remember one of things that Paul emphasizes at the very beginning of Romans is that the gospel is BIG. It is the message about Jesus, who he is and what he did, but it is far bigger than just a message of how people can be saved, how individuals can be forgiven and made right with God.
The gospel proclaims – there is a new king. And this king has come to bring God’s Kingdom to this world. The gospel proclaims, that new creation has begun through Jesus, it proclaims that the renewal of all things has begun, that a new world order that is breaking into this world through Jesus – who is the king.
There is a new political order – not democrat or republican, not the labor party if you’re british – not the earthly, this world sort of politics of nations and political movements that come and go, but rather a kingdom that will go on forever ruled by THE KING, THE LORD of all.
It was this claim that was problematic for the early Christian, living in the Roman Empire – Because Rome literally had it’s own gospel message – they used this exact same language about the Emperor who the Lord and the Savior who brought peace and order to the world – in their version of it – though that “peace” was always held together by a lot of violence and oppression. Into that world – Paul writes to the church in Rome about the gospel – the good news of the real king and his kingdom and of the real peace that comes through him.
And so because of this theme we’ve been considering in Romans of Jesus as the cosmic, universal king – this morning and two weeks from now, we are going to look at a couple of Psalms about God’s kingship – God’s Reign. This is the theme of Psalms 93-100 and this morning we’ll consider Psalm 97 which is very much about God’s Reign and how to respond to it.
If you have your bulletin out, that will be helpful as we together make our way through this text –
The Psalm beings, v. 1 – with a proclamation –
The LORD reigns, (or in Hebrew – Yhwh is king) let the earth rejoice;
let the many coastlands be glad! – which is to say – let the far existing places – the ends of the earth rejoice.
This is what is real and true – God reigns – and this is good for the world. Everything is meant to rejoice at this fact.
The rest of this Psalm develops – who is this God who reigns – and then we are told how we ought to respond.
So let’s consider these 2 themes – First – Who is this God who reigns, that is what is he like. And then Second – How we ought to respond.
First – Who is this God who reigns, what is he like –
Look at the description in verses 2-5:
v. 2 “Clouds and thick darkness are all around him”
v. 3 “fire goes before him”
v. 4 we read of “his lightning” lighting up the world
Just this past week, on Monday night, our family, probably like many of you were in our basement watching the news and checking the weather as dangerous thunder storms and tornados made their way through our area. I wonder, what would it have been like to be out in the storm, not safe in a basement, not even in a car, but out there exposed, watching as the dark clouds and strong winds and lightning was coming through….. imagine that and…. then…. you know, add in some blazing fire in the sky and you’re getting closer to what the writer wants us to picture.
This imagery is recalling Theophanies in the OT – Theophanies are instances where God appears, where God visibly makes himself known. There are various examples in the OT where we see this, like in the opening chapters of Ezekiel, or when Isaiah sees a vision of God on the throne in the temple, or at Mt. Sinai. In Exodus 19 the people of Israel, after being saved by God at the Red Sea, come to the foot of Mount Sinai and we read….
(Exodus 19:16) there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled.
In the very next chapter – the people beg Moses to tell them what God says – It’s just too much to be that close to God – they are terrified…..
And this is one of the common responses when someone is hit with the reality of the Real God – terror, being undone, all of a sudden realizing who it is who is God – who is the King before whom we live and do life.
This imagery is meant to tell us – this God we’re talking about – he is holy. He is pure goodness. His holiness, like a fire, consumes all that is corrupt v. 3 – his presence is intense. Even things in the world that seem immoveable and eternal, the mountains – v. 5 they melt like wax before him. For he is the sovereign king of all the earth.
Here’s why all this matters – if you’re going to respond well to this God, this God who reigns – you better have an accurate understanding of who we’re talking about.
According to one poll, from 2023 – 74 percent of Americans say they believe in God. But I wonder, what kind of God do they believe in? And for those who don’t believe in God – what sort of God are they not believing in?
C.S. Lewis put it so well when he described the kind of God or spirituality most people are after and want. He writes,
“An “impersonal God” -well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads –better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap –best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, ….approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband-that is quite another matter.”
When the average person thinks about god, religion, spirituality or whatever – it might be a rather impotent god – “the man upstairs” – someone might say. OR it’s the sort of stuff Lewis is talking about –
It’s an impersonal God – not a person you have to deal with. OR It’s a god of your own feelings and preferences that you can make and shape – the subjective god you have in your own head – the sort of god or spirituality you can pick and choose to be whatever you want it to be. OR as Lewis says – best of all – it’s a belief in some a higher power that we can tap into whenever we like…. It’s always there, always ready for us, always something we can tap into to fill up and get what we need, but certainly not a person with fixed character traits –
who are who they are, who has opinions, and who’s opinions are more than just his “take” on reality – but is actually the way things are because he created it.
The God of the Bible is quite far from the comfortable sorts of religion or spirituality or belief in God that most people want or think about.
– He is a personal being. His name is “I am” that’s what “Yhwh” roughly translates – “I am” – you can’t compare me to other gods or other things in creation – I exist in a category all by myself…..– I exist independent of creation and independent from any of us – he doesn’t need us, he doesn’t need approval – he is the farthest thing possible from a god in our own head – he is who he is and our feelings about it are irrelevant to his existence.
This is the God we’re talking about here. This is the God who reigns.
Second – How we ought to respond.
In the rest of the Psalm we get a picture of how we first ought not to respond, and then second how we should respond.
v. 6 begins by telling us something of the revelation of God – God making himself known in a way that all people can see. There are things the creation itself declares about God the creator and king.
We read back in v. 2 that “righteousness and judgement” are the foundation of his throne. His reign is one that is characterized by “righteousness” – It is not a reign of pure power and bullying through strength like the Empires of the ANE or Rome…. No, as one writer put it – “The LORD’s reign is power devoted to righteousness and justice. Righteousness is the rightness that makes for life and [true] peace; justice is found in decisions and actions according to righteousness.” (Interpretation Psalm Commentary, 311).
This “righteousness” is revealed in Creation – v. 6 – The Heaven’s declare it. And I think maybe here’s one way to think about it.
Up until last week our family was watching a lot of soccer or Futbol – the Euro Cup tournament ended last Sunday as did Copa America.
Whenever a player thinks they are fouled they do this – They protest to the ref. What’s really hilarious has been this past year as many of the 7, now 8 year olds on Liam’s team who have started watching soccer, they now do this to the refs.
But that’s a picture of what we do whenever we feel like wrong has been done to us – we appeal, we get upset, not just because we don’t like it, but because it feels like something actually wrong has occurred. There has been a violation of justice, a violation of righteousness – of what is truly right and so we appeal to others – and this reaction, that we all have to wrong that happens in the world is its own testifying to the fact that we do have knowledge of God’s righteousness even though we may misunderstand, and twist and get things wrong – still…. we know that there is such a thing.
“The heavens declare his righteousness and all the people see his glory.”
The Psalm then tells us of two responses to God’s Reign – and ultimately how we should respond.
The first, is the response of those who worship idols. Here the Reign of God has this exposing effect – look at v. 7
All worshipers of images are put to shame,
who make their boast in worthless idols;
Remember that Idolatry isn’t just the worship of literal images and statues – but even as we saw in Romans 1 – Idolatry is the worship of anything in creation. It’s that thing that comes so easy to us as people bent away from the true God – it’s the thing we do when we trade the worship of God and centering our lives around the one true God to center our lives on anything else. This, Psalm 97, tells us will result in shame – when the reality hits home that we’ve made something ultimate in our lives that’s not God.
Remember Bernie Madoff – he was the mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding investors over the course of decades in an estimated 65 billion dollars worth of investments. Imagine you were one of the investors giving your money to Bernie Madoff – how was he claiming to get 15-18% returns when everyone else was getting less? It doesn’t add up. Imagine you had a feeling in your gut, something is off here, it doesn’t seem right….. And then imagine the feeling when all is exposed and you realize you’ve invested the resources of your life in a lie….
That’s the sort of thing v. 7 is describing – the exposing that will happen to all who have centered their life on things other than the one true God.
This Psalm says – you know something of God’s righteousness and his glory – you live in his world. V. 9 Yhwh is one who is exalted over all – all people and all spiritual beings owe him worship – he alone deserves to be at the center.
But look at v. 8 – here is the right response.
Zion hears and is glad,
and the daughters of Judah rejoice,
This is the response of those who truly belong to God – it is, if you look back to v. 1 the exact response the proclamation calls for – to respond to Yhwh who is king – with gladness and rejoicing
And I want to ask – Why? Why do they respond this way? -the verse tells us – it’s because they hear…. They have listened…… they’ve listened to Yhwh.
Those who truly belong to God, described here as Zion – because they belong to city of God, they are glad and they rejoice – because they hear.
The verb is “Shema” – and that might sound familiar because it comes from one of the most important verses in the OT – called by that very name – “The Shema” – is Deut 6:4 – Where Israel, God’s people are called to “listen” – Deut. 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Jesus says that this is the most important command in the whole OT.
And at it’s heart is the call to “hear” – to listen.
I’ve been thinking this week a lot about the importance of listening. Many of you know my love for Jazz music. I think when it comes to music, jazz is the highest musical art form. There is much to learn about life and even what it means to be a Christian from jazz.
You can’t play jazz if you don’t know how to listen. Jazz has, like all music, rhythm, harmony, and melody, but where it differs and where it has such beauty is in improvisation – where the musicians have to compose on the spot, making up new melodies on top of the harmony of the song while the other musicians support the soloist. It’s a musical conversation and to take part in the conversation you have to listen and you have to have trained ears to listen well.
Here’s the thing about jazz and about life – it’s not scripted. You and I have to get up each day and live just like the soloist has to play a melody that fits and makes sense with the tune that’s being played.
Each and every day – we get up, we make choices, we in a sense, improvise, things don’t always go as planned. Nothing ever goes perfectly to plan, right?!
Here’s the thing – You’ll never know how to improvise your life if you aren’t listening to Yhwh. You’ll never know what really matters, how to navigate difficult or hard situations, suffering and pain if you’re not listening….. you’ll also not know how to navigate things like joy and success – you’ll never know how to improvise your life, how to live – if you’re not listening.
I was reading a Biblical scholar this past week, who is also a jazz piano player – and he was talking about a gig he was playing. They were in a part of the song where the saxophone player in his group was soloing and it was his job to comp – which is when a rhythm section instrument like piano or guirat lay down the chords, play harmonies and rhythms that support and fit with what the soloist is doing.
And he described how at one point the saxophone player just took off playing these really sort of out there lines stretching the harmony and because he was so keyed in to what was happening, he hit this chord that created this amazing musical moment as the bass player in his group, yells out a resounding – “Yeah!!”
The only reason he knew what to play was because he was listening and he had spent years, and quite literally tens of thousands of hours listening to the music of jazz.
This is the thing that marks out God’s people, they listen. And because they listen, they can respond to God with the harmony of rejoicing and gladness.
Those who truly belong to God – they listen. They’ve not shrunk god, trying to make him into something he’s not, a god more manageable and more fit to what I want god to be like – they’ve listened to the real God speak in his word.
You know…. As you turn to the NT – there’s a scene in the gospels, where Jesus goes up to a mountain with 3 of his disciples – Peter, James, and John. And in a moment he is transfigured, that is, they see Jesus in his true glory… and God’s voice comes from heaven….. do you remember what he says, “This is my son, listen to him.”
Receive him, open yourself up to him, let his words and who he is and what he came to do resonate deeply in your soul. Listen to him. He is Yhwh come in the flesh.
He came in the flesh – and in his first coming he came in great humility – he didn’t at that time v. 3 “burn up his adversaries all around” – but he came in great humility – to bring righteousness and to make things right by dying our death, that we might be made right with God as we hear him and receive him.
How are we to respond…. we are to hear, to listen. As we hear and take in what God has said in his word and through his Son. We are to rejoice. That’s how the Psalm ends – with rejoicing and thanksgiving toward our king who has graciously made us to belong to him.
And as we listen and rejoice in our king – we are v. 10 to “hate evil!” – “O you who love Yhwh, hate evil!” – which is to say – let your king’s agenda and his perspective, and his opinion – be yours.
And even though living in a world where idolatry is baked into the way of life – and sometimes being for what Yhwh is for and being against what Yhwh is against will make life hard. Do not fret but rejoice in Yhwh, because (second half of v. 10)
He preserves the lives of his saints;
he delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
He is the God who cares, who keeps, who delivers. He is the God v. 11 – who enriches our lives sowing light and joy. God like a gardener not only protects but nourishes the lives of those who belong to him.
So – listen to him – and listen well. Let me ask as we close…
Are you listening?
Have you stopped listening because you think you know what God says? I recently heard another pastor give the advice of turning to a new translation of the Bible if you’re someone who has read the Bible for years and it feels stale. Sometimes the different wording or phrasing might spark curiosity and the imagination in places where it feels stale. I’m quite confident we won’t exhaust the Scriptures –– I remember teachers I had in grad school and seminary – Scholars who spent their entire lives focusing on one book or one section of the Bible – and they’d be the first to tell you – there is still more depth to unpack, to consider, and hear.
OR Have you stopped listening because of something in God’s word that offends you? let me encourage you that perhaps you’ve not fully understood what God is saying OR maybe you’re running into the reality of the real God who thinks differently from you – listen well and let him show you and lead you into truth.
OR Have you stopped listening because other things in your life, other voices, other goals and aspirations have taken center stage or life is so busy you can’t listen? – If this is you, and if you’ve heard this Psalm rightly – we have to make time for this – even if we have to say “no” to something good to say “yes” to something better.
This morning, hear this call to listen – to take in the depths and the riches of what God has said to us in his word and in Jesus – to hear the proclamation of this God who reigns in truth and grace and to respond with rejoicing.
Let’s now turn to a time of prayer. We do this every week – very much trying to practice what we just considered together. God has spoken, we have listened and considered what he has said to us, now having heard we can turn to God in prayer – confessing our sins – the ways we’ve perhaps failed to hear, the ways we’ve lived as if what God has said doesn’t matter – he graciously welcomes us through Jesus to turn to him and to receive mercy and help. So let’s spend a few moments in silent prayer and then I’ll close us in prayer.