God is worthy of praise because of His exalted nature and His condescending grace. Worship is an active declaration of God's worth, not a passive reception, and it should be a continuous activity at all times and in all places. Psalm 113 highlights God's greatness, being high above all nations and heavens, yet He humbles Himself to lift the poor from the dust and give a home to the barren woman. This divine condescension is exemplified in Jesus Christ, who, though God, humbled Himself to become man and die for our sins, enabling us to be made rich through His poverty.
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Good morning. It's nice to be with you again this morning and I would like you to turn in your Bibles to another psalm. These mornings we are looking at the Book of Psalms and I would like you to look at Psalm one hundred and thirteen. Psalm one hundred and thirteen. One of the things that characterizes the Book of Psalms and it is the reason why I think the book of Psalms has always been one of the favorite books of so many believers is that it deals with fundamental areas of our spiritual life, deals with areas of worship and prayer and joy and sorrow, persecution, depression, things like that.
This is a psalm of worship. Psalm one hundred and thirteen there are many voices which are being raised today saying that one of the things that is lacking in the evangelical church is a proper emphasis on worship if you look at many evangelical churches they're strong on doctrine there's a great emphasis on Bible teachings They are strong on evangelism. Much is said about prayer.
But if you go to the typical evangelical church, there is little place for worship. If you look at what is called the worship service in many churches, it is more of a teaching service. Or sometimes it will be an evangelistic service. Or sometimes it will be a service of exhortation, which we stir up the believers to be doing something. But what is called a worship service is often not a worship service. And A.W.
Tozer called worship the missing jewel of the evangelical church. Now, if anyone should worship God, it should be those of us who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ. Those of us who have our sins forgiven. Those of us who have become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. If anyone should be a worshiper of God, we should be. And what you have here in the book of Psalms, in many Psalms, is an emphasis on worship and I think it's most instructive to us because these Psalms can teach us how we should go about worshiping Psalm one thirteen begins with a call to worship and then the Psalm shows us something of what is involved with worship and it also shows us why we should be worshiping let's let's read psalm one thirteen praise the lord praise those servants of the lord praise the
name of the lord blessed be the name of the lord from this time forth and forevermore from the rising of the sun to its going down the lord's name is to be praised the lord is high above all nations and his glory above the heavens Who is like the Lord our God who dwells on high, who humbles himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth? He raises the poor out of the dust, and he lifts the needy out of the ash heap, that he may sit him with princes, with the princes of his people.
He grants the barren woman a home, like a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Verses one to three are a call to worship. We are called to be a worshiping people. And there are three things that I would like us to notice in these first three verses. First of all, worship is an active thing worship is an active type of activity you notice the psalmist here calls on other people to praise the Lord he is calling on them to do something he three times in verses one in verse one we have this call to praise the Lord praise the Lord Praise, O servants of the Lord.
Praise the name of the Lord. Two more times in verses two and three. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Verse three, the Lord's name is to be praised. There's something that we are supposed to do here. He is saying that we are to praise the Lord. What this indicates is that worship is not a passive thing. It is an active thing. A lot of people go to church to receive something. They want to get something out of the service. They want to be taught.
They want to be built up. They want to be edified. Some people even go to church because they want to be entertained. And there are churches that are doing that for them today. but a lot of people will come out of church and say I didn't get anything out of the service this was not a very worthwhile experience for me or I didn't find the speaker this morning very interesting and this where therefore this was not a very worthwhile service what you see here is the mentality of a recipient somebody who is seeking to receive something somebody who is seeking to get something this type of person is more passive in this kind of church service now I don't think that there's anything wrong with wanting to receive something I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to get something and there's nothing wrong with wanting to Be
passive like that. Right now, I am doing something, I am preaching. But before I preach, I want to receive. I want to be taught. I want to get something. I spend an awful lot of time studying the Bible so that when I teach the Word of God, I have got something that I really know is from the Scriptures. I do not want to give out unless I have first taken in. And when I go and listen to a sermon, I want to get something out of it.
I want to be taught. I want to receive. So there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. But, and this is the point, that isn't worship. that is not worship something worship is is it is an active thing where we declare the worth and the glory and the praises of God every one of us is to be involved with worship in declaring his praise and his glory now one of the one of the great blessings that you have here in this emphasis in this assembly is that you have an emphasis, a genuine emphasis on worship.
When you come together to celebrate the Lord's Supper, the purpose of that meeting is worship. Those of you who have been raised and spent all of your life in meetings like this, do not realize what a wonderful privilege this is. Many churches do not have the same kind of opportunity for worship. The Lord's Supper here is a true worship service. It's not a preaching service. It's not a preaching service where you are being taught. It is not a prayer service where you are asking God for something.
It is not an evangelistic service where you are seeking to present the gospel to someone. It's not a meeting where you are trying to urge the believers to be faithful in their walk and in their life. It's not a service where you're trying to rebuke the saints for their failures. It is a worship service where we are seeking to remember the Lord Jesus, particularly in his death. and what he has done for us and as we remember him our hearts are drawn out to praise and worship and glorify him we are we are remembering Christ and giving him the worship and praise of our hearts in fact What you have here in this worship service is really what many churches are seeking when they have a call for renewal in the church.
Many of the calls for renewal that are being made today are called, first of all, to have a true and proper emphasis on worship. Many churches realize that there is a lack of emphasis on worship and there is a call to renewal of that basic and fundamental activity of worship. Many churches are in their call to renewal, are calling for a greater emphasis on what they call the laity. All that means is that they want to have every person in the church involved, everyone participating.
in in their call to renewal they want a greater freedom in the church well that's what you have here in the Lord's Supper the whole service is devoted to worship it's not just a little extra thing that is tagged on to the regular preaching service the whole hour is devoted to to worship it is centered not on man It is a service that is centered on God. There is a spontaneity. There is a freedom. One person gives out a hymn. Another person reads a word of scripture.
Another praise to God, thanking Him and praising Him. And it is not only when someone is speaking that we are worshiping, even in times of silence, as we're thinking about Christ, we are worshiping. this is a service for praising and worshiping God. Worship, what we are saying, worship is an active thing. We are giving to God, giving him the praise and the glory and the thanksgiving and the adoration that is due his name. It is very different from many of our other activities in the church where we are are principally seeking to receive something.
So first of all, worship is an active thing. Second thing that we see in this call to worship in verses one to three is that worship involves praising God for who he is. It involves praising God for who he is. We see that in these verses in the emphasis that we have here on the name of God. You notice three times in verses one to three, we have a mention of the name of God. Verse one, praise the name of the Lord.
Verse two, blessed be the name of the Lord. Verse three, the Lord's name is to be praised. You notice that? Now why does the psalmist say praise the name of the Lord? Why doesn't he just say praise the Lord? He does that, but why does he particularly say praise the name of the Lord? Well, one of the ways that God has revealed himself in Scripture is through the names that are ascribed to him. The names of God that we have in Scripture tell us something about the Lord Himself.
They tell us something about His character, something about His attributes, His perfections. They tell us something about God Himself. He is Elohim. The Hebrew word translated God is normally the word Elohim. In Hebrew, that means the strong one, the mighty one. Our God is a mighty God. He is Eleon. He is God most high. He is the most high God. He is Yahweh. Ah, Yahweh refers to him as the eternally existing one, the self-existing one, the one who causes all things to come into existence.
He is Yahweh. He is Jehovah Jireh. God, the Lord will provide. The Lord will provide. He is Adonai. He is the sovereign one, the sovereign Lord. These are just a few of the names of Scripture, the names of God that are given to us in the Old Testament. You see how each one of the names reveals to us? shows to us some little different aspect of the character of God, who He is. The name of God is a summary of all that God has revealed Himself to be in Scripture.
The name of God is a description of what God is like. Now, When we have these Psalms of praise in the Old Testament, as you read through the Psalms, there are two different kinds of Psalms of praise. This Psalm is a Psalm that praises God for who he is. There are other Psalms that praise God for what he has done. If you look at some of the Psalms, It will say, praise the Lord. He delivered his people out of Egypt.
He led them through the Red Sea. He destroyed the army of Egypt. He conquered these mighty kings on the other side of the Jordan. He led us across the Jordan and into the promised land. Praise be the Lord. There are Psalms like that. and what they're doing is saying we should praise the Lord because of what he has done and those songs often those Psalms often declare his mighty deeds sometimes these are called Psalms of declarative praise because the psalmist is declaring what God has done this kind of Psalm is sometimes called a psalm of descriptive praise because what is done here is is not declare the things that God has done but rather is describing who God is and what he is like now whether you remember the names declarative praise and descriptive praise that's not important what is important is
we recognize these two basis that we have in the Psalms for praising God, the two kinds of praise that we should give to Him. We should praise Him for what He has done to us for us, and we should praise Him for who He is in Himself. Actually, those two ideas are very closely related. Let's suppose you are depressed and discouraged. And a friend comes by and starts talking to you, spends time with you, helps you, and works you through this period of difficult period of time in your life until you are past your discouragement and after all of this is finished you say to that friend thank you thank you you were a real encouragement to me you were a real
help to me and I may come along and a couple of days later I meet somebody else and I say you know this person really helped me that person is a wonderful person for the way that they helped me in this particular incident. You are praising that person. Why? Because of what they have done for you. That would be the kind of declarative praise that you see in some of the Psalms. Now, after a while, you begin to see this person not only helping you, but you see him helping this other person and another person and another person and then you begin to talk about this person and say you know he is a kind person he is a thoughtful person he is a helpful person you may point to specific incidents but what you are really saying is this
is the kind of person he is and you were looking at the character this psalm is praising god for the kind of person that he is uh... he has revealed himself in many specific incidences but he is the kind of god that makes him worthy of praise here We said, first of all, worship is an active thing. Secondly, one of the important aspects of praise is praising God for the kind of person that he is.
We see that here in this psalm. And then you will notice, thirdly, in this call to worship, God is to be praised at all times and in all places. He is to be praised at all times and in all places. Verse two, blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. We all know this. Worship is not something that is just to be limited to a church service. Worship is not something that is to just be done on Sunday morning.
It is not something that is just to be done once a week. We are to praise God at all times. It is to be a continual kind of activity. And you know something? It is going to go on for all eternity. Look at a very familiar passage. Turn over to Revelation chapter four and five. It's striking when you look at these chapters which give us a scene in heaven. When we look into heaven in these chapters, Revelation four and five, it is striking when you notice what is being done there, what the people, the inhabitants of heaven are doing.
In verse eight of chapter four, it says, The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within, and they do not rest day or night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and his to come. What are the four creatures doing? Continually, day and night, they are holy. worshiping God. Verse eleven, or verse ten, the twenty-four elders, fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.
For you created all things, and by your will they exist, and were created. The twenty-four elders are praising God. In chapter five, you have in verses nine and ten, the two groups are taken together, in verse eight, the four living creatures, and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made his kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth.
They're worshiping God. Verse twelve. Or verse eleven, I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders. And the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. All of the angels of heaven are continually praising and worshiping God. And then in verse thirteen, every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and such as are in the sea and all that are in them, I heard saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power be to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.
All creation will be occupied throughout eternity worshiping God. What should you and I be doing now in this lifetime? Our worship of God should be a continual activity. God is to be worshipped at all times. And in verse three, he also says that God is to be worshipped in all places. From the rising of the sun to its going down, the Lord's name is to be praised. From the rising of the sun, go to the east. Till it's going down all the way into the west.
He says, from one end of the earth to the other, the Lord's name is to be praised. Where should we worship Him? Everywhere. When should we worship Him? at all times how should we worship him we should remember especially who he is because the Lord is is to be praised what's striking here about verse three is that in the in the land of Israel here the psalmist is is breaking out beyond the boundaries of in Israel he recognizes that God is the creator of the whole earth and he is to be worshipped everywhere by all people by all creation by all men everywhere he should be he should be worshipped even those who do not recognize him receive countless blessings from him this reign is a blessing not just for believers here in this area of Florida,
but for all of them, all people here. And God is to be praised. So we see here in verses one to three that worship of God is an active thing. It involves praising God for who He is as well as for what He has done. it involves a continual activity we worship God at all times and in all places now there are a lot of Psalms that begin the same way Psalm one thirteen does it's a call to worship and it's a call to worship God for for who he is now what we have in these kinds of psalms is a continued a continued message which tells us why we are to praise god the next step is to tell us why we are to praise him and this psalm says that we
are to praise god because he Our God who is so high and lofty and exalted, that's the kind of God that we have, a God who is high and lofty and exalted. Yet this God has dained to stoop down in His grace to lift up those who are weak and lowly. A God like this, deserves our praise. In verses four and five, we have a description of His greatness. The Lord is high above all nations, and His glory above the heavens.
Who is like the Lord our God who dwells on high? God is great. And a God like that deserves our praise. But what is so wonderful here is seen in verses six to nine that a god like that who is so great condescends so low as to help those who are in need it's this combination of talking about the greatness of god in verses four and five and his condescension here in verses six to nine That is what makes this psalm unique.
That is the distinctive message of this psalm as to why he is to be praised. And you really need to look at these two together. If you are going to appreciate the greatness of God, you also have to see how low he was willing to stoop. And you will never appreciate his condescension in stooping so low in you unless you you realize just how how great he is how great is he in verses four he is exalted above all creation verse four the whole creation is considered the Lord is high above all nations the nations of the earth at least some of the nations of the earth are powerful But the power of the nations is insignificant compared to the Lord.
He is high above all of them. As far as the material creation is concerned, He says here His glory is above the heavens. We look at the material creation. We look into the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars. and they seem to be so high and so distant. The psalmist says the Lord is high above all of them. Now, he didn't have the telescopes that we have. He didn't know just how far away those distant stars are, whose light, whose distance is measured in the distance that light travels in a year.
And he didn't know that those stars were thousands and thousands of light years distant. The universe is much greater than the psalmist considered. But the greatness of the universe is insignificant compared to the greatness of God. He is high above all of them. In verse five, he asks the question, who is like our God? That's not just a question, that is a challenge. Can you answer it? Who can you compare to God? What can you compare to God? The answer to that question is silence.
There is nothing that can be put in comparison to God. Who is like our God? No one and nothing. Name any comparison you want. It is insignificant. and inadequate in comparison to God. He sits on His throne on high. Now we live in a trivializing age. Heroes are inflated. Everything that we have is basically inflated.
Heroes and stars are products of press agents and media hype. But our God is truly great. His press is always inadequate for describing what he really is like. Our greatest thoughts and our greatest descriptions of God are really... Little dips in the ocean in our trying to comprehend the greatness of our God. Now what this psalmist is saying is that God is great, but his loftiness is not aloofness.
He is not proudly sitting on high, ignoring us in our loneliness. This God, who is so great, humbles himself to help us in our needs. If you look back at the pagan philosophers, they could consider, they could conceive of the greatness of God. But their conception of God was one that was so lofty, so great, that he could not be bothered by the trivialities of our life.
They could never imagine what is said here in verses six to nine, who humbles himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth. He humbles himself. He humbles himself. and there are two examples of this that are given of how he humbles himself it says in verse seven and eight he raises the poor out of the dust and he lifts the needy out of the ash heap that he may sit him with princes with princes of his people you see here the poor and the needy sitting in the dust and ashes they were like Job they were like Job sitting outside the city on the dust heap, on the ash heap.
Because of their affliction, they were considered to be outcasts because of their disease. They were considered to be outcasts because of their downtrodden condition. They are sitting outside as outcasts on the dust and the ashes. These are the people who were considered by men to be insignificant. And so they were ignored and rejected. But do you see what are you saying? They are not insignificant to God. We are not insignificant to God. You are not insignificant to God.
There is no one. who is insignificant to God. As far as those who are considered insignificant by the rest of the world, God loves the insignificant person. The young people would say today, God loves all the nerds. He loves all of the Rodney Dangerfields, those who get no respect. He loves the needy, the poor, the hungry, the suffering, the lost. He has great compassion on them. And that is what he is saying in verses seven and eight. He uses another illustration that's interesting here in verse nine.
It says, this is the illustration of the childless woman. And it says, he grants the barren woman a home, like a joyful mother of children. women in the ancient world who did not have children did not have a secure position in the home a husband could divorce his wife cast her out if she did not bear him children now we don't see this in in the United States today we don't we see an awful lot of divorce but I haven't seen as a stated grounds of divorce that my wife did not bear me any children.
But if you go over into some of the Muslim countries, that is not an uncommon thing. Now we don't hear an awful lot about it unless it turns out that it is a prominent Muslim leader. One example I remember was quite a few years ago when the Shah of Iran, now that takes us back before the late seventies because when they had that revolution there, but I remember the Shah of Iran had married a woman who did not give him children, so he divorced her and married another. She had no secure position in the home.
What the psalmist is saying is that God's grace is superior to human law and human practice. He stoops to meet the needs and to give a settled position to this kind of person like this barren woman who is mentioned here. What's the outcome? Look at the end of the psalm. You have those words, praise the Lord. You want to learn some Hebrew today? You actually probably know some Hebrew. The word praise in Hebrew is hallelujah. And then the word for Lord is, in this verse, Yah, short for Yahweh.
And those words there, praise the Lord. Hebrew says, hallelujah. Those are the first words of the psalm. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. The end of the psalm. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. God is to be praised because of the kind of God that He is. He is such a God who is so exalted and so high, and yet He is willing to condescend so low to help those who are needy. Now, this is a great message. about our God but you know when when when the psalmist wrote this psalm back in the Old Testament he hardly knew what he was saying he hardly knew what he was saying he could I am sure that this psalmist could not conceive just how great God's compassion and love for us was.
He had no idea how far the Lord was willing to condescend. He did not know what the Lord Jesus, God the Son, would be willing to do, that he who was so lofty and so exalted was willing to humble himself to come into this world as one of us. That He who was God Almighty was willing to humble Himself and become a man for our sakes. And if that was not enough, He took another step of condescension and He who had become man was willing to go to the cross to die for our sins.
This is God the Son, the one who created this universe and who is high and lofty above this universe. Yet He came into this world for creatures, for you and me to meet us in our need. Our need of cleansing from sin. Our need of forgiveness. Our need of salvation. He who was willing to do this. He who was rich.
So very, very rich. For your sakes became poor. So very, very poor. that we might be made rich you know another interesting thing here in conclusion when the Jews celebrated the Passover in New Testament times we know this from all of the Jewish literature as part of the Passover service they would sing Psalms one thirteen to one eighteen before the meal they would sing psalms one thirteen and one fourteen and then after the meal they would sing psalms one fifteen to uh one eighteen the night before his crucifixion the lord jesus celebrated the passover with his song with his disciples and he sang this psalm with his disciples they came into the upper room And as they gathered in the upper room, the first thing that he did was take off his tunic and
take a basin of water and a towel and begin to wash the feet of the disciples. And in that act of humiliation, doing the work that only a slave would do, in that act of humiliation he was acting out this message of he how he their Lord and Master was humbling himself that they might be cleansed and then right after he did that he sang this Psalm with them of how God who was so exalted and so lofty humbled himself to to meet the needs of the lowly.
And he was saying to them that he, in his greatness, had seen their need and was coming to be our Savior. He who was so great, stooped so low, to rescue us from sin. First Peter II says that you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
That you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Have you been called out of darkness? Have you seen the light that comes to us in the Lord Jesus Christ? Then the call and the requirement for you and for me is the call that this psalmist is giving to us. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Let's pray. Father, what a wonderful privilege it is that we have the opportunity of praising you.
It is our rightful duty, we know. But you have condescended to act towards us. in such a way that worship of you is a natural thing. Gratitude to you is a natural thing. We are overwhelmed by what you have done for us.