Why Should God Bless Us? (Through the Psalms) Psalm 67

Welcome to through the saw a weekend ministry of the truthful overtime will study all 150 songs with pastor Don Greene from Cruz Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio were glad you're with us is over the Psalms that as we join our teacher in the truthful Psalm 67 is our text this morning.

Those of you that have not been with us on Tuesdays throughout the past couple of years we've been we've been studying through the songs we began in Psalm one and were working our way through all 150 and in our sequence of that were at Psalm 67 and I have been meditating and studying this on for a number of weeks. It's really gripped my heart as I thought about our church.

As I thought about our future and it's so gripped me that I wanted to bring it to the full church, not the smaller subsection of those that come and be with us on Tuesdays.

There are so many good things that happen on Tuesdays and our midweek study. And if there's any way for you to make that a priority in your life schedule. I would encourage you to do so is an important part of the life of our church. But today we come to Psalm 67 on Sunday because it is such a magnificent Psalm because it meant so much to me and has for many weeks. I really wanted to share with you as the overflow of my heart wouldn't let me do anything else to be quite candid.

So in Psalm 67 let's read it here as we begin the inscription reads for the choir director with stringed instruments. A song a song verse one God be gracious to us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us. Selloff that your way may be known on the earth. Your salvation among all nations, let the peoples praise you oh God, let all the peoples praise you let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you will judge the peoples with uprightness and guide the nations on the earth selloff.

Let the peoples praise you oh God, let all the peoples praise you.

The earth has yielded its produce God, our God blesses us, God blesses us that all the ends of the earth may fear him last Sunday we looked at the great commission for Matthew 28 go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father the son and the Holy Spirit. You know the text. It's quite striking to me that in the providence of God, our sequence of the songs, which began over three years ago brought us to this particular Psalm at this particular time in the life of our church.

It speaks of taking this real and true God to the nations. It's really a prayer that God would enable us and help us to do that and it raises it raises this question, it sets our it sets our aspirations and our goals to the farthest horizons of the inhabited world and encompasses every nation that has ever walked the face of the earth and its scope. And yet at the same time it causes us to stop and ask the question most searching of all, why is it that we want God to bless us know. I assume that you are like me you in various ways.

You asked for God to bless you want God's help in your trials you want. You want God's blessing on your family. You want your loved ones to come to Christ and it's all good that we do that we are intended to live a life of dependence upon God.

He invites our prayers. He welcomes us as a loving father would welcome his children to the dinner table. We are blessed to serve a God like that the beloved.

There comes a time in the life of individuals in your life today, there comes life in comes a time in the life of the church. Whereas, as we pray and we ask God deepen and broaden our impact. There comes a point where we simply have to ask the question why are we praying that way and the truth of the matter is, is that it's very easy for us to pray these things and ask for God's blessing for purely selfish reasons.

Of course I want God's blessing I want I want life to go well. I want life to be easy for me. I want more of what this world has to offer and I believe that God can give it to me and I've been taught to pray this way. Beloved. There just comes a point in today is the point in life of our church.

The life of ourselves individually where we asked this question. Why is it that we want God to bless us.

We want God to bless us simply for the sake of our own happiness. Do we want God to bless us so that we could have the good life for ourselves who want God to bless our church just so that we can feel good about what's happening and we see a few more people in the pews is that it well when you take that mindset and put it up against Psalm 67 what you find is this is it. Psalm 67 calls us to much loftier aspirations.

He calls us to higher goals and in an oversimplification, perhaps just a bit of the overall message of Psalm 67 you could see this being coming out of the pages of Scripture by the authority of the word of God. The psalmist having given us a model for the mindset in which we seek the face of God. And it's this we seek the blessing of God so that he might use us to extend his salvation to others. The blessing of God is simply a means to another end as we see God as we pray to God there is to be in our mindset cultivated that there is there is something beyond me there something beyond the walls of this church that greatly matter and it is all of those who do not know him. It is all of those who do not give God the praise that he is due. God deserves glory from all the earth because he is the God of all men. He is a God. Overall, the universe, and by right of creation. He deserves the worship of every man woman and child that ever walked on the face of this earth, we look at that we look at the situation we say.

But that's not happening in our love for God compels us all God work in a way that would extend your praise. There extend your salvation so that others would join that which rightly should happen that which consumes my heart. Father, I want others to participate in. There's also the sensitive of humility and human compassion. That should that should motivate our thinking about things that would forbid us from collapsing into a purely self centered approach to walking with Christ, we look about us we think about it and we say all you know what I was once a lost sinner I once was doomed to destruction. What did God do we had grace on me. He led me to faith in Christ.

He saved me, not through anything that I had done, but not out of a sheer act of mercy that he had determined to do before the beginning of time. He showed mercy to me that I did not deserve. Christ came for a sinner like me, and he worked in my heart and led me to faith in Christ and now all of my sins are forgiven through sheer mercy and I look out I say there are so many around me that are just like I was, yes, they're guilty. Yes, their lives are perverse and godless, and all of that but I was just like that, God, if you I don't I don't want this. I don't want to keep this just for myself, God, if you've been good to me like that I desire others to share in the blessings that you've given to me the spiritual blessings that you've given the forgiveness of sin, the knowledge that heaven awaits.

Father, I would have everyone share in the goodness that you shown to me so Psalm 67 calls us to think outside the walls and Psalm 67 takes it to the lofty goal of thinking about nations as we think this way you know God first laid this foundation. This first thought of the expansive nature of his rule and his kingdom in the very beginning of his people in the Old Testament will get back to Psalm 67 in just a moment, but I want to take you back to Genesis chapter 12 term back to Genesis 12 so that you would see that that this consuming passion for the nations that we find in Psalm 67 was nothing new that this was inherent and embedded in the promises that God made to Abraham when he first spoke to him. In Genesis 12 when he first made lofty promises to Abraham about the blessing that would come through his seed and look at the call that God made to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 verse one. He said now the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which I will show you and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great and so you shall be a blessing and he goes on this. These are great promises to Abraham staggering that an individual man would be on the receiving end of grace initiated by God toward him with promises that extend far beyond his lifetime, and as we see in verse two, he goes to his seed and an end as we see in verse three. Beyond his seed to all of the earth. In verse three God said, I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed when God called Abraham out and establish the start of his people through his seed would come through Isaac, Jacob, the 12 tribes of Israel and on down through the centuries, until culminating in the coming of Christ, the true one great seed of Abraham. What I want you to see is that is that Scripture is is premised on the beginning of the people of God. You could say in a sense is premised on a promise that from the very beginning, had all the families of the earth in mind, had all the families of the earth as intended objects of the blessing of God that has consequences that has consequences. The people of God in the Old Testament, the nation of Israel were intended from the beginning to be priests that would proclaim the glory of God to the nations can see a little bit there were there were times where this happened so often they fell short of it. Jonah the reluctant missionary turned out to be one proclaiming this one true God to the people of Nineveh in the book of Jonah.

In chapter 3, the whole city repented three and four.

They all turned repented of their idolatry and turn to the one true God, the Queen of Sheba heard of the glories of Solomon came and saw that but in large part, the nation failed in that objective. They became self-centered. They became exclusive so that by the time of the coming of Christ. They hated the Gentiles and wanted nothing to do with them and had had become a people that had utterly missed the point of their existence. Well beloved Christ did his work. Christ lived his life conducted his ministry. When it was all said and done, he had been crucified. He was raised from the dead, as we saw last week what was on the lips of Christ, having done his work. What was on the lips of Christ.

He says go into all the nations, and you see Christ restoring the people of God back to what the original call was it Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 to bring an international's perspective to the gospel and to the purpose of the existence of the people of God.

Now the kind of ministry that we become accustomed to over the past several decades have conditioned us to lose our focus as men have told us that we need to seek our best life now and teaching us to to focus on your purpose and your experience with God and this idea of those outside our walls and those outside the sphere of our own little lives gets lost. Well here's the thing.

Here's the thing, as the people of God is those who have been on the receiving end of great mercy in our Lord Jesus Christ, we naturally and speaking to you as Christians, not assuming that each and every one of you are Christian because that's just not the case. There are some within the walls of this room, the need to repent and come to Christ. But speaking is the gathered people of God as we come together here.

Here's the thing we love this Christ, who saved us. We love this one who gave his life and shed his blood on our behalf to cleanse us from our sins and we love him so much. The here's the thing we want to identify ourselves with his purpose with his mission with his view of the nations with his view of what the purpose of his salvation is we want to think like him. We want our heart to beat in rhythm with his. We want to be people that want what he wants, rather than simply being concerned with what we want and this is revolutionary really this is so counter to everything the conditions you in the fleshly carnal motions of your own heart of that which the world conditions you to think, to demand what is yours to get what is yours and to fight for it.

If you have to, that which the devil would condition us to to draw us away from from Christ and from his purpose and and to replicate the selfless giving nature of Christ as he gave himself to us. The devil would draw us away and make it self-centered rather than thinking about giving ourselves up for the benefit of others for their spiritual good for their salvation. Psalm 67 is going to give us a great dose of correction for this and I realize that for many of you, there's probably very few of you that have read Psalm 67 recently so I sympathize with you as we come to it. Let me just point something out to you to kind of familiarize yourself with the text.

There were going to consider here this morning. I want you to see as an in kind of an overview fashion before we go through verse by verse I want you to see the emphasis of this song on the nations and on the People's look at verse two. The purpose of his prayer. Lord I pray this way so that your way may be known on the earth. Your salvation among all nations.

Verse three. Let the peoples praise you.

He repeats himself or emphasis let all the peoples praise you can you can sense that there is this growing surge of of of passion that animates what is writing he says let the peoples praise you oh God, now let all the peoples praise you. Is it just bubbles up within his heart, let the nations first for the nations be glad to guide the nations. Verse four verse five what the peoples praise you.

Verse five.

Let all the peoples praise you.

Verse seven.

Let all the ends of the earth fear you do see it, beloved, you can't read this song without realizing that you are being introduced to a realm of thought, a call of God, a cry of a godly man that encompasses that his arm stretched somehow supernaturally around all of the earth and embrace them in the scope of this prayer.

That is the emphasis of this song and when we realize as we saw last week that the emphasis of Christ before he ascended into heaven was go into all of the nations. We realize that our view in our scope of the purpose of our existence has been greatly greatly expanded.

Notice the repetition. I pointed out briefly, but let me point you to the repetition that is in the Psalm verse three. Let the peoples praise you oh God, let all the peoples praise you. Then he says it again in verse five.

Let the peoples praise you will God let all the peoples praise you now for those that are spiritually dull and and and slugger Lee in their thinking and say you know you said it wants what you need to keep saying it well. The reason that he needs to keep saying it is saying it wants didn't exhaust the fullness of what was on his heart or the urgency of the content of his request. We know when something is important to you. You'll talk about it repeatedly. When something is on your mind and something engages you.

You get animated about you repeat yourself is your talking about it. Well, if you can do that on earthly things. Then somehow let us enter into sympathetically they the passionate urgency of this almost 2 repeats himself again and again. Lord I ask you again and again and again. Let all the peoples praise he's showing his urgency and underlying it all. Underlying it all.

This hymn writer from the nation of Israel. Ultimately what he's saying is Lord. This blessing that we have is your people. I can't keep it for myself. I can't keep it to myself, others need to share in this goodness achieve bestowed upon us. This is the reason that we exist, the scope of those who are praising you the range of people praising you needs to expand for the sake of your own ascribed glory for their sake of God. Let them praise you and so that's the spirit of the song and it's going to challenge us here today in the 21st century as we go through it. Ever so quickly this morning. Let's look at the first point, which is found in the first verse here in Psalm 67.

The prayer for blessing the prayer for blessing. He opens up praying for blessing in verse one, when he says this look at the text with me. God be gracious to us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us and I want you to see something right from the start and to see the way that this prayer opens the Psalm opens, it's framed completely as a request market is framed as a request for undeserved favor. He saying God be gracious to us. God expand and extend favor and goodness to us, which we don't deserve Lord we forfeited any claim on your blessing. I have no right to demand this. I'm asking instead in the realm and on the premise and on the basis of your grace and of your favorite that's what I'm asking for in that tone of his prayer. Is this the essence of it is this God.

We are your people. We belong to you. You have already given us so much and we ask a noncom and I'm asking for even more as we approach you here today.

I'm asking you to extend it even further. Now this prayer for those of you that have read your Old Testament. This prayer you might say this. This reminds me this is an echo of something that I've heard elsewhere in Scripture.

If you have that sense. Good for you.

This prayer is is adapting the blessing that God commanded the priests of Israel to use on the people that came to give sacrifices in numbers chapter 6, you don't need to turn their big numbers chapter 6 verses 24 and 26 God commanded the priest to use this blessing that I'm about to read to you upon the people as they offered their sacrifices. The priest were to respond with this. The Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace.

And so this was a priestly blessing given for the good of the people of Israel as they carried out the sacrifices that God had appointed in that divine dispensation. The shining face is a metaphor for divine favor.

You can think the mom is smiling at her child. You know that she's ready to give that child whatever he asks if a king looked on his subject and had a smile on his face. There would be an assurance in the subject. The king is favorably disposed to me he's ready to give me what I ask so I shining face a :-) a bright countenance is an indication of someone that is ready to receive you and to receive you well and to give of themselves for your benefit and so here in verse one of Psalm 67 he saying God be gracious to us.

Bless us shine your face upon us receive this prayer with favorable God now there is a word set law there on the margin. If you see it there so laws a word that calls for applause and the thought stop and think about what has just been said, meditate give some thought to what's been said before you move on to the rest of what is written so the pause here is accomplishing this. He's just made a prayer that you and I can all relate to. God bless us God be gracious to us. Shine your face upon us. We want your blessing when you pause when you think about your own prayer life in light of this pause, beloved, there comes a point where spiritual growth. The glory of Christ compels us to say why my asking this. Why am I asking for the blessing of God. Why do I want the blessing of God on my life will once you've asked that question and an unsettling question. It is and you realize. Okay, what's the purpose of this you're ready for to move on to point number two here you're ready.

Having gone through the prayer for blessing.

Point number two. Now we come to the purpose of blessing. The purpose of blessing and this this particular verse, verse two the beginning opening word of verse two is what really stops us in our tracks. That little word that that indicating purpose.

Then, let's just step back for just a second. We use the word that to express the reason that were doing something, quite often I could say so Tim, why are you going to the store right now while I'm going to the store in order that I might get groceries. I realized him wouldn't answer the question exactly like that. You see the pattern of grammar that's in there I'm going to the store that I might get groceries. That's the purpose for which I go to the store. The word that expresses it here.

It's translating the Hebrew infinitive of purpose showing the purpose of the prayer that was just given in verse one say okay here comes the purpose on the end of it. God I'm asking for you to be gracious. Why verse two that your way may be known on all the earth. God show your blessing to us.

God bless us, so that the glory of your saving character.

The glory of your saving power would be known to others throughout all of the earth.

That's why I'm asking for blessing God. It's not because I want the good life now. God it's not that I could see peace and prosperity that I could go through life, unhindered by challenges, even though my Lord suffered. Even though the apostle Paul suffered and was rejected in and despised Lord. I don't want to identify with them. I just want your blessing so it goes good for me and I can sail on smooth seas until you bring me to heaven.

Do you see in light of the suffering of Christ. Do you see in light of the suffering of the apostles who delivered the message to us. Do you see in light of the martyrs who spilled their blood in order to help pass the faith once delivered for the saints, and we sit on the receiving end of all of that truth that is been delivered to us through suffering, preeminently of Christ and then of those who served him faithfully, do you see how it is so selfish and so wrong for us to think about our prayer life to think about our approach to God what we want from God to simply to be for our own well-being. God I want to salary. That's a little bit more than what I've got right now. God I want this problem to go away so that I don't have to deal with it anymore.

Do you see beloved, how we so easily take God's grace and blessing for granted and turn it into something that's just all about you and me. That's what we want to get away from want to move away from the psalmist was not praying in that sphere. Verse two with me again.

He says that your way may be known on the earth.

Your salvation among all the nations to ask for God's way to be known is a prayer that his character in the way that he deals with men would be understood in broader rounds and they are as he prays that men would see this recognize it and acknowledge it and think about it my friends brothers and sisters in Christ. Here's the way that we need to be thinking about who is God and what is his way what is his manner with men.

God will answer my own question God, the God of the Bible that God is a saving God.

He is a God who delivers men from their dilemmas delivers them from their disease. More importantly, gathered together here in the 21st century as the people that have been saved by Christ. We know that that is who God really is is he is a God who delivers men from sin and from death. That's who God is and what we want is for that greatness of his beneficent character. His great greatness and his good goodness. We want that to be no more broadly than it is. As we stand here today. That's why were gathered together, that is why we exist. That's the content of our prayer.

God let your name spread. Let your fame be known. God let your that the great goodness in the good greatness of who you are known more broadly than it is to stand here today in God.

If you would somehow order your blessing on my life on our lives so that that greater objective would be occurred would be achieved.

That's why I'm praying Lord is not for me it's not for me, is for the sake of your glory and that others might know. See beloved, when we talk about the God who delivers men from sin and death, God who is able to intervene in and help people in their dilemmas, especially their spiritual bondage to sin and Satan. What we realizes this what we realizes this, there's always going to be wars and rumors of wars, there's always going to be wicked people carrying out acts and captivate the attention of men long enough until the next act occurs. What we realizes we see the the drifting flotsam of human history, the refuse of human life and human misery and human sin continually coming up on the shores of human existence. What we realized is that the God that you and I know is the God who is the answer to that miserable human condition, the God that is revealed in Scripture is the God who can deliver men and nations from that darkness the God that you and I know in the Lord Jesus Christ is the God who should be praised everywhere. He is the God that should be sought by sinners in their darkness by men on their deathbed by children in the early years of their life.

Saying why is this life been given to me and what can I do with my life that would actually matter rather than seeking my own fulfillment. The God that the psalmist is praying to in Psalm 67, the God revealed incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ, the God who if you are a Christian has saved you is the God who is the answer to everything, and because he is so great because the human condition is so dark it should be that that the captive thought of our heart. Oh God, make yourself known and somehow enable me to be a part and aspect of the spreading of that knowledge of you that your greatness might be known, and that men might find mercy in their miserable condition.

That's the way that we should be. That should be the condition of our hearts. Every one of us that know Christ consumed with his glory and thinking beyond our lives to the sake of those who don't know, and so having stated that this is why I'm praying for your glory, for the sake of the nations he repeats himself. He emphasizes it in verse three he says let the peoples praise you will God let all the peoples praise you. Verse four. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you will judge the peoples with uprightness and guide the nations on the earth, says God God. As I look out at the nations and I see them in the darkness of dire idolatry.

I see them I see them rightly under your judgment, because they forsaken the God is revealed himself in creation. I see them I see them pursuing that which you can then God, my heart can't stand it. My heart aches so God I ask you to to to seek them to pursue them to make your name known father I would have. I would have all the nations know of your greatness have all the nation saved up and have all the peoples praising you and joining me where I am now in the sphere of your blessing in your goodness. See part of what he saying here's this, he recognizes that the nations don't realize who the one true God is.

He realizes they refused to acknowledge him.

The language of Romans one.

They suppress the knowledge of God. There bondage is so great that they are dead in trespasses and sins. They are blind and it's not just that they're in that condition. They are also dominated by Satan under the wrath of God and what is more, they refuse the very light that would deliver them from their miserable condition. This is this is a horrible position for the great nations of the world to exist in and so he appeals to the one person in the universe who can address that sad situation. One person who has the power to change it. Oh, God, do a work so that they might know God at work of your grace is needed for the truth to be received. You need to open hearts are they will will remain locked in prison with no key to escape the dungeon at some point, beloved, we need to care about that more than we care about our own individual lives.

This is why the martyrs could lay down their lives by the could willingly spill their blood. While men could stand while men could burn at the stake. And as they were their dying breath is escaping their nostrils and to pray out of God open the eyes of the King of England. It's because we realize the great supremacy of our God and the great darkness in which people live in and work were caught in a tension between the two belonging to this God and yet sharing humanity with those that are in darkness and the tension of that causes us to rise forth in prayer. God glorify your name bring salvation to these people and father somehow use me in the process and all my littleness of faith in existence as you read the song verse four you see that he lays out the reasons why the nations should praise this God look at the end of verse four with me. He says for let the nations be glad and sing for joy. Why, for because this is the reason that they should be glad and sing for joy for you. Oh God will judge the peoples without brightness and you will guide the nations on the earth. Why should the nations praise God. Why should they praise the God of Israel, and forsake every other God that they've ever known. Why should everyone in every corner of the of the Hindu peoples.

Why should the people in Muslim nations forsake more Mohammed first, and others forsake Buddha others forsake their materialistic atheistic worldview. Why should they forsake that because there is one true God is revealed in Scripture, and he is the God. Overall, the nations. He is the God who will judge nations as well as individuals. He is the God who guides nations with righteousness and with goodness and according to his purpose. He is the surpassing God.

He is the transcendent God and because he is over all of the nations. All of the nations owe him their praise their obedience because they derive their existence and individuals derive each breath from him.

They should be glad that their destinies are in the hands of a good God and upright. God is sovereign God who has the power to right wrongs and has the power to judge evildoers so that they do not have the final word in the realm of human existence of God like that should be praised everywhere God like that should be loved everywhere you see what the song teaches us beloved is that God's sovereignty is his universal is not just the God of Israel.

He's not just the God over Christians today. He's the God over all, in a God who is universally over all is a God who should be universally praised and that's the heartbeat of the song as we bring it back into this room. Those of you who are resistant and rebellious to Christ and have not bowed the knee to him understand that you are you are kicking against the goads of the universal God who demands universal praise and that includes you. And no wonder Christ is righteous to say, repent and believe in the gospel. Here's what I want to see beloved is what we need to think about at this point in the Psalm notice at the end of verse four. There's another set law.

There pause for meditation.

Think about what has been just said, think about the universal scope of this prayer all the people all the peoples God all the ends of the earth all the nations, it is impossible to think of a prayer that is more expansive in its scope. This is one of the greatest prayers and all of the Bible. And here's what I want to see about as we look at this prayer in Psalm 67, here's what I want to see the preeminently Psalm 67 is a very unselfish prayer.

It is a selfless prayer dominated by a passion for God's glory. Beloved market.

I say it sympathetically because the shortfall of what I'm about to say applies to my own life so much as well. Psalm 67 shows a passion for God's glory and the welfare of nations in a way that makes our usual prayers for earthly ease seems so meagerly unselfish by comparison doesn't God mean mean mean to bless me, bless me, bless me, what if what if the whole spirit of our prayer life is change. God your glory, your glory or glory.

Bless others.

Bless others.

Bless others and all God.

Incidentally, bless me, but only for the sake only as a means to this greater in the consumes my heart. What if that motivated us in life and before the throne of God.

He wants men to come to faith he wants. He wants these men who are not currently in faith these nations.

He wants them to come to faith in the one true God. Today we want them to come to true faith in Christ for salvation and then and then not just that but we want we want the aftermath of true faith to be shown in them expanding and offering their own praise to God so that others would join in the spirit and there would be an exponential expansion as more come to this kind of faith.

This concern for the glory of God. This concern for the nations that there would be more and more echoes of people having this mindset the earth rather than the selfishness that our own hearts in the world conditions us and teaches us that is actually the right way to be when nothing could be further from the truth you live, my friends, for the glory of God.

You exist for his glory. The chief end of man is to enjoy God and glorify him forever. That should be reflected in the way that God bless us simply to call attention to yourself, grant us to be human instruments to spread your glory to others that are now in on belief well was looked at the word. The prayer for blessing. The purpose of the prayer for blessing point number three will look at the proof of God's blessing, as he states it there in verses five and six. He repeats the call to praise and gives another reason for people to respond verse five. Let the peoples praise you will. God let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its produce God, our God blesses us. It's possible that the song was written in response to a an abundant harvest that the psalmist was experiencing. And in those days where harvest was everything the days without grocery stores and all that the harvest was a guarantee of a provision for the next year. It was no small deal to have a good harvest. What he's doing easy's calling out his word to the nations look at the harvest of God are that our God is given us. You see that he is blessed us. He is provided again.

You see, he will bless you in similar manner if and as he's blessed us.

He blesses all of the people who come to him with his goodness, wouldn't you want to share in the goodness that we have so becomes an occasion to repeat the call to to praise calls them away from their false gods and then the psalmist goes on to explain to others the reason for the blessing.

Look at verse seven he says God blesses us that all the ends of the earth may fear him. This particular verse could be understood in a few different ways because of the nature of the Hebrew verb that's at stake here. Some of you those of you that are reading the English standard version will see that it's listed in the future tense, God shall bless us here in the Naz be at stated as a present tense. God blesses us. That would explain why the harvest is been good, but beloved. The grammar also allows this to be understood as a prayer as well. The context of all of the Psalms prayer.

The grammar allows for that although I understand that your English translations don't show that to you so clearly. But if it's understood as a prayer you can see that is closing where he began saying in a sense. In verse seven. May God bless us.

May God bless us that all the ends of the earth would fear him, and if that's the sense of the closing verse of Psalm 67 and every commentator you read will say don't be too dogmatic here but if that's the sense of it. Verse seven simply concludes and reinforces the spirit of the prayer that has animated everything that is said God. I'm asking for your blessing God made you bless us. So the greater purposes could be achieved friends. It's okay to ask for God's blessing God is pleased to bless his people, so we ask for his blessing. And that's great but what Psalm 67 does is it takes us by the hand as it were, and says come further, come further in the reason that you ask for his blessing and understand that God's blessing on you is not something that's meant simply for your sake, as if you were the center of the universe as if you were net a nation and of yourself. You see yourself as having a part of something much bigger and that the purposes of God transcend your individual life and your your spirit of prayer to God is to identify with him and his transcendent eternal purposes that he is working out rather than simply simply only being contained to your sphere of concern in what you are doing in your life and how your life goes, a transcendent God has saved us. We exist for his glory. That means that our mindset in our prayers and everything about us starts to identify lookout for something greater, rather than our own stuff and so it is within the life of a local church as well that the Godhead look God has blessed our congregation God has blessed our church and I'm grateful for that and I think him for it.

I trust that you do to. But after 5 1/2 years or so were the point where we need to realize and understand and more consciously deliberate on the fact that this blessing has been given not simply so that we can enjoy the life of the local body within our own circle of relationships inside these walls, God has blessed us. God has purposes that would transcend that would make us a platform for others to hear and to know that is essential for the health of the church to embrace that to know that and to understand. It was said about Martin Luther, the great reformer and I quote here and I love this quote says that Martin Luther was many things, but he was never selfish with the grace of God and the glory of the gospel. What does it amount to.

He asked in a soul-searching way that we have the gospel in this little corner just reckon that there is no gospel in all of Asia and Africa and that the gospel isn't preached in many parts of Europe. In Greece, Italy, Hungary, Spain, France, England, or Poland as the world existed in his day. What is it amount to that we have the gospel in our little room when the whole world.

The rest of the world doesn't this writer said about Luther so we learn our final lesson from him. Not only should we be steadfast for the gospel.

We must be unselfish with it as well and so I think about you and I think about our church and in the spirit of response to the song we say God bless us, but then we hasten to say, not for our sake, but for the sake of your glory. God bless us not for our sake, but that others would come to know Christ. Now, as a practical matter, we have some things were working on to expand the scope of our ministry. When these things come out in the days to, trust that you have a responsive heart toward the opportunities at the present. We want to act on these things we want to act on the spirit in the coming days. The call to all of us right now is to search our hearts and to identify with this outward looking spirit that would bring glory to God and would be committed to being whatever vessels we might possibly be to spread the knowledge of this great saving Christ to others who have not heard bow together in humble prayer. My friends, the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news. It tells us what God has done for ruined sinners like you and me in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ who is God incarnate, left the glory of heaven to be born of a virgin, and during his earthly life he lived in perfect obedience to the law of God. The gospel is the good news that sinful men rejected him and crucified him.

But as he suffered on that cross. He took the sin of men on his shoulders, endured the wrath of God, and died in place of sinful men.

He was buried on the third day God raised him from the dead, and in that resurrection God has declared for all to know that he has accepted the death of Christ as the payment percent for the wages of sin is death.

Death has been conquered in the resurrection of Christ, God has shown that he is accepted Christ in the place of sinners. Jesus has satisfied all the demands of God's justice he has borne the full wrath of God, and now today he's ascended to heaven where he sits at the right hand of God representing his people before God so that they may have free unhindered access to him. Why is that good news for you my friend. The gospel declares that all who confess their sin and come to Christ will be saved. God will forgive all of your sins, he will declare you righteous. He will give you eternal life so that you may have your sins forgiven escape eternal damnation and live in heaven forever.

My friend that is the good news. It's the only good news there is, on the basis of the gospel, my friend. I asked you. Have you personally believed in Christ for your salvation invite you to come. He promises to receive you, there is nothing that hinders you from heaven other than your own rebellion and unbelief. They land aside laid aside my friend and come to Christ and be saved today, this moment of God may be so with everyone under the sound of my voice and now being reconciled to you our father we ask you to bless us, not selfishly, is perhaps we've asked in the past we ask for your blessing. Whatever you determined to be best not for our sake, so that Christ may be known by other throughout all the earth and the greater glory would be ascribed to your matchless in your holy whole holy name of Christ. Well, my friend. Thank you for joining us on through the songs you know if you're enjoying this podcast I think you would love to join our church on our lifestream on Sunday mornings at 9 AM Eastern or 7 PM Tuesday evening. Also, Eastern time.

You can find that lifestream link@truthcommunitychurch.org again our lifestream link is found at truth community.we hope to see you there God?

Thanks, Don and Fred.

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