1024-08-18 - Covenant CRC - Sermon Only - Joel Kok

2024-08-18 Covenant CRC - Sermon only - Joel Kok

Psalm 111

Transcript

Psalm 111

 Well, as mentioned earlier, and in relation to our opening song, our reading this morning is Psalm 111. So I invite you to turn there. And we will trust our Lord to give us the illumination of his Holy Spirit as we listen to these words.

So hear the word of the Lord, beginning at Psalm 111, verse 1. Praise the Lord. I will extol the Lord with all my heart in the counsel of the upright and in the assembly. Great are the works of the Lord. They are pondered by all who delight in them. Glorious and majestic are his deeds and his righteousness endures forever.

He has caused his wonders to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and compassionate. He provides food for those who fear him. He remembers his covenant forever. He has shown his people the power of his works, giving them the lands of other nations. The works of his hands are faithful and just. All his precepts are trustworthy.

They are steadfast forever and ever, done in faithfulness and uprightness. He provided redemption for his people. He ordained his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All who follow his precepts have good understanding. To Him belongs eternal praise.

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, friends, as we just heard, today our Lord is going to lead us with the word fear. And as only God can do, God can work through that word fear to lead us into an eternal praise that emerges from an everlasting joy for eternity. that flows from that fear.

Now, of course, when it comes to the word fear, we know that on its own in all kinds of ways, that word can sound like bad news. Most of us don't want to feel fear, but we also know that in our reading it is in the context of that phrase, the fear of the Lord, which is going to make it into good news and to start to get that good news that comes from God, even through the word.

fear, what we can do is just look at the kind of thing God does, which is he connects words to other words. He leads us in what we call a narrative or a story. And to get just a glimpse of that, we could look at the final two verses, verses nine and 10 in our reading, because in Psalm 111 verse nine, we read that we've got a holy and awesome God and that his name is awesome.

So we've got holiness, we've got awesomeness, and we've got the name of our Lord, thank God, because only if the name is attached to that holiness and awesomeness can we go into verse 10, where the fear of the Lord is this good news that leads us into a wisdom and into eternal life. Praise. Because friends, if we just take the word fear by itself, obviously it can be bad news and be scary.

But even words like holiness, or awesomeness, or even just the word God. We know that if people encounter a holy God, it can be like a fire that they fear is going to consume them. We know that when people experience an awesome God, they can just want to run away in terror. And so thank God our holy and awesome God also reveals his name, which is his character.

And so when we think about God's holiness, We know that it comes from the character of a God whose name reveals that he's merciful and compassionate. When we think of how awesome God is, his name reveals that he is so awesome that he forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin, that he has an abounding, steadfast love for people who need a Savior.

So there's just a glimpse of how God can work through all kinds of words. Like holy, awesome, name, God. All those things are going to be part of the fear of the Lord that's going to lead us again into wisdom. So those are two key words that we'll be thinking about today. Fear and wisdom. And to see those words going together in a good new sort of a way, we can, as we always want to do as we study the word of the Lord, Attach it to the story of the Lord, and specifically, we'll look at the story of Solomon, because the story of Solomon is also a story of wisdom.

Because in the story of Solomon, and this connects to our psalm as well, and the word fear. In the story of Solomon, we meet him when he's a young king, and he's feeling a lot of fear. about what it takes to be a king, to rule over all God's people. And then thank God when he takes that fear to our Lord in a way that can help us take our fear to the Lord.

The Lord responds in a way that leads him into. So maybe you remember the story from 1 Kings 3. By 1 Kings 3, Solomon is beginning to rule following the death of his father David. Solomon is beginning to rule. And it's kind of a mixed rule that he's doing. I mean, he's getting involved with other gods and other nations a little bit, but he's also turning to our Lord in worship and thank God for that worship.

Because as Solomon is going through this mixed time, he really needs a compassionate God, and that is the God who comes to him. And our Lord appears to Solomon in a dream, and then again he passes on some remarkable words. Because how does the Lord speak to this young, struggling king in this dream? Our Lord says to him, Ask.

Whatever you want me to give you. Ask whatever you want, the Lord says to Solomon. And then Solomon's struggle here is so deep that even as he hears those amazing words, how does he respond at first? Solomon holds off his request, and he just protests about his fear. Because, and this is kind of a preview of the Prophet Jeremiah, it's really an echo of Moses and others who are afraid to serve the Lord in some ways.

What young King Solomon says to our Lord is, You've made me king in place of my father David. But I'm just a little child, he says. I mean, he's a young man, but he calls himself a little child to the Lord. And then Solomon says, I'm such a little child, I don't know how to go in or how to come out. I don't know the first step to take in ruling as a king over all your people.

And then, this is the Lord speaking to us through this story. As Solomon expresses his fear, as he protests, as he prays honestly, He does then get to that wonderful good news that he can ask God for whatever he wants. And do you remember what he prays for? He says, Lord, as someone who can ask you for whatever I want, I ask first and foremost for a discerning heart, which can also be translated as an understanding mind.

And there we get some more words from our compassionate Savior, God. Because what the Lord says to Solomon says, Well, since you've asked for this, since you've asked for wisdom and understanding before asking for worldly success or a long life or all these other things that most everybody wants, Since you've asked for that, the Lord says, I'm going to do what you ask.

I'm going to give you a wise and an understanding mind. And then along with that wisdom, I'm going to give you all kinds of other blessings that you could have asked for as well. And these blessings will come to you. The Lord says, and here he attaches another central word for today. He attaches as you obey me.

In other words, as you work with me, I'll be able to work with, and then you to bless you in all these ways as you ask for, and as you receive. Wisdom. So friends, as we hear that wonderful message from God to Solomon, and as we know, we're worshiping the same God and we're in the same story, let's pick up on that theme of fear.

And let's just ask ourselves, what is the place of fear in my life? When I think of the word fear, when I use the word fear, do I attach it first of all to the fear of the Lord? Or do I have other fears going on? I can tell you when I started new school years, especially when I moved to new schools, I had a lot of fear going on.

And as we look ahead to our nation and to the whole world with the politics and the, the, the, the conflicts going on, how can we feel? We can feel a lot of fear. And of course, fear, it's not the only thing we feel, but it can be involved in everything we feel. And so, thank God, our Lord is speaking to us about fear in our worship service this morning.

This compassionate God is coming to us with the kind of grace that he showed to young Solomon. And so, what we can do there is, again, connect these words. Fear. Not of failing, but fear of the Lord, which then leads to wisdom, and part of wisdom is obedience. That's a way in which we can work with God as God works with us, with respect to wisdom is obedience.

And here, when the Lord emphasizes obedience to Solomon and to us, that's a theme that Jesus emphasizes as well, and it also comes out in the Apostle Paul in a way related to to our passage with respect to Jesus when he gives his his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount when he tells us the wise way to live at the end He explains he is in fact a wisdom teacher because Jesus says look if you just hear my words and don't do them Well, you're pretty foolish.

You're sort of like someone building a house on a place where it's just going to get knocked over. But if you hear my words and then you actually obey them and live by them, obedience, that's going to make your house strong because storms are going to come, but your house is going to stand. That's your life, of course.

So that's Jesus connecting fear of the Lord with wisdom, with obedience. And again, the Apostle Paul makes that same connection in Philippians chapter 2, where Paul, right after he's been praying about the mind of Christ, which is the wisdom Christians need, we have the same mind of Christ, Paul says, and then he expressed that by continuing to be obedient, because then that obedience, Paul says, as you work out your salvation, do you remember how we work it out?

We work it out with fear, we work trembling. We have questions. We have struggles. We work it out with fear and trembling, and we bring that fear to our Lord because He comes to us with the healthy fear that leads to wisdom, that leads to obedience, in a way in which God can actually do the good things that God wants to do in and through us.

So that's an initial Uh, message from the story of Solomon. If we're struggling with fear in all kinds of ways, we can turn it into a fear of the Lord, which again brings wisdom, which gets expressed in obedience. And now to explore the blessings that can come with that wisdom and obedience, let's just go back to the story of Solomon.

Because when we do that, we see God giving him wisdom in a way that leads to really astonishing blessings. But we do also receive a bit of a warning in the story of Solomon. So it's a good story for us to review. Because what happens is when Solomon asks God for wisdom, And when our Lord gives Solomon that wisdom, it begins to get expressed in his reign as king over Israel.

Right away, he makes some judgments. You know, there's the famous one about the two women claiming the baby. He makes some judgments that astonish people with how wise he can be to bring about the right thing. And that wisdom of his judgment gets out to other nations around the world. So people start coming from other countries to hear the from this wise man.

So he's really becoming a remarkable leader with wisdom. And then on top of that, just wisdom as a King, he goes on to build a temple, a house for the Lord. That is just a remarkable place to meet with God for worship and the prayer that Solomon offers when he dedicates that temple. It's in first Kings eight.

I would just say, if you want an inspiring prayer, read that prayer too. So we've got Solomon making wise judgments and teachings. We've got Solomon making a temple for people to meet, and that includes, he stresses, people from other nations. They can come and meet the Lord there, and then we can just add that Solomon becomes the father of a part of the scriptures that we call the wisdom literature.

part of the scriptures. Now, this is sort of like Saul or David with respect to the Psalms. David did not write all the Psalms or anything like that. We're not sure exactly what David wrote, but we do know that David was a Psalm prayer and that became a source and a guide for the collecting of the Psalms.

Well, when it comes to Solomon, again, we don't know everything he wrote in Proverbs and all that kind of thing, but we do know that he was such a respected wisdom teacher that he helped shape the book of Proverbs. And Proverbs is much wiser than some people think. Some people think it's just simple minded.

Oh, if you're a good guy, you get all this good rewards. There's, you know, some themes about if you do good things, that often does bring good results. And that is true in our, even in our broken world, but Proverbs has a lot of simple mindedness. subtlety to it. It has a lot of wisdom to it. And then Ecclesiastes, which in some ways is inspired by Solomon, that adds even more to the complexity of people who do good things and they maybe not only don't get blessings, they could also suffer in terrible ways.

So Ecclesiastes, which is connected to Solomon, that adds to it. And then the book of Job is just part of wisdom literature. And what that teaches us is part of understanding God and knowing the wisdom of God is to know that in the most terrible times in our lives, we can still experience God in a way that leads to new life.

So there's all kinds of beautiful things coming out of the wisdom literature that flows from God working in and through Solomon. And that's the good news about the story of Solomon. But then there does come the warning. So let's just think to ourselves, you know, what can happen when people really become successful?

So What can happen when people really reach the top of the place? Often, they can get distracted from God. And that's what happened to Solomon. The scriptures tell us, towards the end of the Solomon story, that he was, in effect, drifting away. That this man who had asked whatever he could get from God and asked for wisdom, now he's starting, basically, to ignore the one true Lord.

He's starting to worship God. Other gods, he seems to want to just be successful in his country and amid all the nations of the earth. And as the Lord starts to, or as Solomon starts to ignore the Lord, our holy, compassionate God also can feel a righteous anger. So in that righteous anger, the Lord starts to warn Solomon, and that becomes a warning to us again about what success and blessings can do for us.

And the Lord starts to warn Solomon. Solomon, that as he ignores the Lord, God's people are going to drift from the Lord as well, and they're going to drift towards division. There's just going to be all kinds of problems that happen. And that's where the Lord explains to Solomon and to us, if we didn't have this covenantally compassionate God, if we didn't have this Lord who, when he made a covenant with David and said, you know, if your sons, if your ancestors, uh, uh, if, if they go astray, I'm going to have to discipline them, but I'm never going to remove my steadfast love and faithfulness to them.

That's the only thing that keeps the people of God going under Solomon and beyond. But again, that's something for us to think about because if we asked earlier, well, what is a fear? What is that light in my life? Am I connecting that to the Lord? Now we could ask something like, am I drifting? Now, in a way, I'm preaching to the choir here.

I thank God that you have come here to worship, but I think even if we're in church or watching online or just all of us need to ask, are we making the most important thing in our lives, loving God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbors as ourselves, or are we drifting from that? Kind of feeling, well, I've done so much, I've got this high, you know.

We don't really need prayer, worship, community, things like that. That is the warning that the Lord is giving us through Solomon. So, having heard about Solomon and wisdom, having heard about Solomon and blessings, but also a warning, we can go on to one more aspect of prayer. the story in the scriptures related to our psalm, and that is to say that we can emphasize even more a word we mentioned earlier, which again is this word obedience.

Because as we take our fears and bring them in a fear of the Lord that brings wisdom, again that's going to express itself in obedience. And what one more story to mention brings out is We need that wisdom and obedience, not just in relation to fear, but also in relation when maybe we're feeling proud that we're never afraid.

I have no fear. We can go into an arrogance. And that happens with Solomon's son, who is a King named Rehoboam. And we meet Rehoboam in first Kings 12. And there we meet what maybe in some ways a very brave man, Rehoboam. But he had no fear at all. He had no fear of his people, but he also had no fear of the Lord.

Because when his people came to him, and when they indicated further, you know, Solomon as he drifted, had kind of become not the best king. They said, look, King Rehoboam, Your father, King Solomon, he was starting to burden us heavily. He was giving, making us and going to forced labor. He was just making us do anything he said.

He was almost becoming like a pharaoh, King Solomon was. And so they're urging Rehoboam to drift away from that. And there's some advisors who had worked for Solomon saying, look, Rehoboam, they're right. Solomon did sort of lay a burden on him, so you should serve your people. Well, how does Rehoboam respond?

No fear of his people. He doesn't care what these other people in the people of God say to him. He just goes on with arrogance. And he says to his people, along with some friends who were sort of encouraging him to build up his worldly success and wealth, he says to them, look, you think Solomon was a tough guy?

I'm just, I'm stating it a little bit differently, but he says, I am twice as tough as Solomon. You know, he whipped you a little bit, well, I'm going to hurt you even more if you don't do exactly what I say. And so there is a disobedience, an ignoring of God, a contempt for other people. And that leads to the opposite of wisdom, which is foolishness.

And foolishness leads Rehoboam and his people further into disaster. Because Rehoboam starts losing battles, ten tribes in Israel split away from Israel so that we only have Judah and a little bit of Benjamin left and the people of God that come to be known later as the Jews. There's just all kinds of things happening.

And there again, that can speak to us, where we can ask, well, if I think about fear and nothing comes to mind, should I think about arrogance? Should I bring all these struggles to the Lord to seek a fear of the Lord that leads to wisdom, that I express an obedience so that God can do amazing things in and through us?

And so there's lots to think about in terms of words and in terms of all the stories. And here's, I think, something that we can bring home, just try to let all this material sink into us and lead us a little bit. So let me just ask you to consider. This question. If God came to you in a dream or in any kind of direct encounter, and if God said, ask me for whatever you want, what would you ask?

What would you ask if God said, ask me for whatever you want? And I can share, instincts in me say, you know what I really want? I want worldly success. And pastors have a version of that. We want numbers. We want praise. We want worldly success. When our Lord gives us that statement, that question, what would you say if the Lord said, ask whatever you want?

There we can learn from the young Solomon and we can ask for wisdom. And wisdom, as was indicated implicitly in some of our readings. Wisdom is a person in God whom we come to know as the Son and the Holy Spirit. These are our sources of wisdom. And so we can think about the Lord saying to us, ask me for whatever you want.

And as we try to struggle, what would I ask of the Lord? Here's one way we can respond to that. We can say, you know what I want most of all, Lord? I want to hear Lord Jesus say to me, Well done, good and faithful servant. In other words, I want enough wisdom and obedience that the Lord is working in and through me in a way that He will amazingly praise by saying well done, good and faithful servant.

And do you remember what he adds to that? When he says, it's in Matthew 25, to servants who have had the wisdom and obedience to serve him well. He says, well done, good and faithful servant. Now, enter into the joy of your master from which will come that eternal praise. Which is the kind of life that we can want.

Because that's the life that God wants for us. And so when it comes to that eternal praise, let's recognize that this God we praise, He is beyond all praising, but He still accepts our praise. So let's express that by raising, rising to sing our song of response. Oh Lord, beyond all praising, let's rise to sing.