Psalm 113



"Praise the LORD!"





Lord, help me with this project...

O God, I just need 10 minutes of peace and quiet...



How often are my prayers focused on myself and my needs?





And we think we are doing well if they sound like,

"God, please be with Uncle Bob in his surgery today..."

"Lord, bless my children that they might grow up to be faithful and wise..."



But how often-

and be honest here-

how often do our prayers sound like Psalm 113?



The Psalms are full of prayers for the needs of the day,

but they are also full of praise.



It is not as though we need to stop praying for ourselves and others.

Rather, we need to start by remembering who it is that we are praying to!



It is in this way that God reorients our lives through prayer.

Too often we treat God like a cosmic magician

who waves a magic wand and makes everything better.

But you cannot manipulate God into doing what you want.

It will do no good to wheedle or cajole him.

Rather, God reorients you through prayer as you see him in his glory and majesty.

If you treat God like the cosmic genie,

then you will grow increasingly frustrated

as your prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling.

But if you are talking to the God of heaven,

then you will begin to see your life in a different perspective.



Psalm 113 helps us to see ourselves differently in the light of the one

who dwells above the heavens.



1. Praise the LORD! (1-3)

Praise the LORD!

Verses 1-3 find 4 different ways to say this.



First, praise the LORD!

Okay.

This is a common way that many Psalms begin,

so we are likely to overlook it.

So the Psalmist adds the second:

"Praise, O servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD!"



In these three verses we hear the name of Yahweh five times.

And in the last three instances, we are told to praise the name of Yahweh.

Yahweh is the covenant name of God.

This is the name that he revealed in its full glory to Moses.

While it appears that the name had been used before that day,

it was only when he delivered his people from Egypt that the name "Yahweh"

was truly understood.

"I AM WHO I AM"



And when the Psalmist addresses the "servants of Yahweh"

he is speaking to those who have been delivered from bondage

and have been brought into covenant with God.

And the servants of Yahweh are to praise the name of Yahweh.

You are his people, the sheep of his pasture-

therefore since God has revealed himself to you, give him praise

and bless his holy name.



And so our third call to praise the LORD is found in verse two,

"blessed be the name of Yahweh from this time forth and forevermore!"

As Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name!"

We saw last time from Psalm 67 that God has blessed us.

Now we hear that in response to his blessing,

we are to bless his name.

How can this be?

Is it not the case, as Hebrews 7 tells us, that the greater is supposed to bless the lesser?

How can we "bless" the name of the LORD!?

We do not bless the LORD as though we were condescending to give him something!

Rather, we bless the LORD in response to his blessing.

We declare that his name is blessed-

not because we are adding to his glory,

but because we are acknowledging his glory and blessedness.



It is a remarkable thing that the most blessed God,

who is high and exalted, and does not need our blessing-

yet delights to hear us sing his praises.

It is not because he needs you.

It is because he loves you!



And that is why we sing, "blessed be the name of the LORD from this forth and forevermore!"

Because God Most High has called you to be his servants-

and as Jesus has taught us, no longer does he call us servants, but friends-

indeed, better than friends, he calls us his children!

You are not merely a servant of the LORD,

you are a son of the Most High!

And as a father loves to hear his children call his name,

so also our heavenly Father delights to hear us.



And as verse two declares God's name blessed throughout all time,

so also in our fourth call to praise the LORD,

verse three calls us to praise the LORD in every place:

"From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the LORD is to be praised!"



"Jesus shall reign wheree'er the sun doth his successive journeys run..."

The LORD's name is to be exalted under the whole of heaven.



And as we saw last time from Psalm 67,

so also in Psalm 113 there is a universal scope to God's sovereign purposes.

God is not just the God of Israel-

he is not a local deity who reigns over "us."

He is the one exalted over all the earth.





2. Where Is the LORD? (4-6)

And so in verses 4-6 we hear of where God reigns.



The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory is above the heavens!

Who is like the LORD our God, who is seated on high,

who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?



We often think about heaven as the place where God reigns.

But Psalm 113 has a different view.

God's glory is above the heavens.

He looks far down on the earth, it is true, but he also looks far down on the heavens!



The biblical world view is of a three-tiered universe.

The created world consists of

the heavens above (the sky)

the earth beneath (the earth)

and the waters under the earth (the deeps).

Where does God dwell?

He does not dwell in the heavens, but above the heavens.

The heavens are a picture of his dwelling place,

but you can travel the galaxies and never find God.

The vast expanse of the heavens-the great firmament that he created-

is never confused with the eternal dwelling place of God.

Solomon says in 2 Chronicles 6:18,

"Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you,

how much less this house that I have built!"

God says through Isaiah in Isaiah 66:1,

"Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool;

what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?"



God created the heavens and the earth as a place where he could dwell with his people,

and yet the whole of creation cannot contain him.



The LORD is high above the nations and his glory above the heavens!

There is no other god like our God.



Through telescopes and space exploration we have come to realize the vastness of space.

We know now that the stars are giant balls of fire-many of them far larger than our sun.



And yet our God is so high and exalted that all the stars of the heavens

are like Christmas tree lights to him.

What we consider the vast expanse of space,

God sees as an itty bitty living room.



A place where he can dwell with his people.





3. Where Are We? (7-9)

Because even as Isaiah says in the very next verse (Is 66:2)

"But this is the one to whom I will look:

he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word,"

so also the Psalmist says that this same God who is exalted over the heavens and the earth

is the one who raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap,

to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people.



Immediately after establishing how high and exalted God is

the Psalmist, like Isaiah, uses this very exalted picture of God's greatness

to simultaneously demonstrate God's nearness.



It is precisely because God is so glorious and so exalted

that he can be so tender and so gracious.



Why is it that people in power are so stand-offish?

Why is it that they portray this uppity attitude?



It is because they are afraid.

They are afraid of losing power, and so they put on airs.



God is not afraid.

God is not concerned about losing power.

He loves us without fear that we will "take advantage" of him.

How do power struggles start in the home?

It starts when parents become afraid that their children won't love them.

It starts when parents do things in order to "win" their children's affection.

Then the child quickly figures out, hey, I'm the boss around here!

God sets for us a glorious picture of true fatherhood.

He is not afraid of what we think of him.

He loves us, disciplines us, trains us-without fear-

in spite of the fact that we are not particularly obedient children!



And notice how he does this:

does he wait for us to come to him?

No.

He comes to us.

He lifts us up.

He raises the poor from the dust.



Remember the first man that he raised from the dust?

There is an echo of Adam here!

He lifts the needy from the ash heap.

And he makes the poor and needy sit with the princes of his people.



God raised Adam from the dust of the ground

and made him the ruler of the whole earth.



God raised David from his low estate as a shepherd boy,

and made him the shepherd of his people.



God raised Jesus from the dust of the ground-from the depths of the grave-

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.



And God still calls us up from the dust of the ground.

He calls us who were dead in our trespasses and sins,

and give us life.

He raises the poor and the needy to exalt those who believe on the name of Jesus.



Jesus speaks of this in his parable of the wedding feast.

The high and mighty are too busy and too self-centered to come to the feast,

and so the king calls the poor and needy from the highways and byways,

and welcomes them to the feast (Mt 22).



Where are we?

We have been raised up in Christ and seated in the heavenly places in him.

We have come into the heavenly holy of holies-

far above the highest heavens-

the place where Christ sits at the right hand of the Father.

We have been seated with the princes of his people-

the Prince of Peace himself.



Verse 9 then turns the gender around:

He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children.



He did this for Sarah and Rebekah, and Rachel.

He did this for Hannah, for Samson's mother, and for Elizabeth.



Barrenness in the OT was considered a curse.

The barren woman had no future-

both for the practical reason that she would have no children

to care for her in her old age,

and for the theological reason that God had promised

that it would be the seed of the woman that would bring redemption-

and so if a woman had no children,

then she could not be the one through whom the blessing would come.

And yet throughout scripture it is the barren woman

who becomes the symbol of redemption:

-the barren woman who finally gives birth.



Speaking of the restoration of Zion, Isaiah 54:1 calls upon the "barren one" to

"break forth into singing and cry aloud,"

because "the children of the desolate one

will be more than the children of her who is married."

In the era of the kings, Zion was barren.

Jerusalem was a desolate city.

She was supposed to bear children for the LORD,

but her children followed after other gods.

But a day was coming, the LORD told her,

that he would bring joy to his city-

not the earthly Zion, but his heavenly city.

The day would come when the barren one would give birth,

and as he says in Isaiah 66:7-8

"Before she was in labor she gave birth;

before her pain came upon her she delivered a son.

Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things?

Shall a land be born in one day?

Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment?

For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children."

All this came to pass when the virgin conceived and bore a son.

For who is more barren than a virgin?

Note the order of events in Isaiah 66:

first a son is born,

and then a nation is brought forth in one moment.

Mary as a symbol of the heavenly Zion brought forth Jesus,

and then at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost,

Zion brought forth a nation in a moment.

We honor Mary because God gave her a unique role to play in redemptive history:

she was the one who bore in her womb the Word made flesh.

She gave birth to the Son of God.

And in her giving birth to the unique Son,

we see the fulfillment of the promise to the woman-

that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.



Indeed, it was through the barren woman bearing a son that salvation has come to God's people.

And so now the once-barren Zion has given birth to a nation.

The heavenly Zion is the joyful mother of children-

the Jerusalem that is above, she is our mother!

And in the church, barren women become mothers.

Sure, Mrs. Mould has children and grandchildren-

yet she is a grandmother to every child that has come through that 2-3's class!

And in Paul's instruction to the "older women" we see a sort of spiritual mothering:

"They are to teach what is good

and so train the young women to love their husbands and children,

to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind,

and submissive to their own husbands." (Titus 2:3-4)

There are Christian women who are barren.

In some cases they are single, in other cases married-

in some cases they choose to adopt, in other cases they do not-

but the barren woman in Christ is not a fruitless vine.

In Christ she has a home.

In Christ, the church becomes that home

where she may be the joyous mother of children.



In Christ the seed of the woman has come.

In Christ the household of God has been established.

Jesus even tells us that the one who does the will of God

is his brother and sister and mother.

Think about that for a moment.

How can Jesus say that you are his mother?

It is because you are a part of the heavenly Zion.

You are a part of that spiritual city that God has established

as the mother of his people.

In as much as you did it to the least of these my brethren,

you did it to me.

(We will be looking more at gender and society in our Sex and the City of God study this fall)





But having shown us how our God is exalted above all the heavens,

and yet is also near to the poor and needy,

the Psalmist concludes back where he began:



Therefore,

Praise the LORD!

Praise God for what he has done in Jesus Christ.

Praise him raising you up from the dust,

and giving you a home.

And as you praise our great and glorious God,

you will find that your perspective on your situation has changed!

You used to see yourself as the most important person in the universe.

Now you see that God is the most important person in the universe.

And you see yourself as this little pile of space dust adrift in an obscure corner.



But you can't stop there.

Because the most important person in the universe

has set his love on this little pile of space dust!

And he has raised you up and exalted you in Christ.

Praise the LORD!