Psalm 111
Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them.
Full of splendor and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures forever.
He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered;
the Lord is gracious and merciful.
He provides food for those who fear him;
he remembers his covenant forever.
He has shown his people the power of his works,
in giving them the inheritance of the nations.
The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy;
they are established forever and ever,
to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
He sent redemption to his people;
he has commanded his covenant forever.
Holy and awesome is his name!
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever!
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, song, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The psalm for Sunday, January 28, is Psalm 111. Praise the Lord. I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart. In the company of the upright in the congregation, Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them, full of splendor and majesty is His work and His righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and merciful. He provides food for those who fear him. He remembers his covenant forever. He has shown his people the power of his works in giving them the inheritance of the nations, the works of His hands are faithful, and just, all his precepts are trustworthy. They are established forever and ever to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness, He sent redemption to his people. He has commanded His covenant forever, holy and awesome is His name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And all those who practice it have a good understanding, his praise endures forever. Here ends the reading. Let's dig into the Psalm. And I think we'll go through it verse by verse to see what's going on here. It begins with praise. Praise the Lord, I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright in the congregation. This psalm begins with a proclamation of praise, and pointing us to praising God together in the congregation. And what I love about the way the Psalms praise God is very often most of the time when they praise God, they don't just say, you're amazing, you're awesome, you're powerful, you're super cool. What they do is they point to God's actual works. And so they say, they talk about what God has done. And that's what this psalm is going to do. It says, in the congregation, I'm going to praise you. And it points to his works. It says, Great are the works of the Lord studied by all who delight in them, full of splendor, and majesty is His work and His righteousness endures forever. So this points to the works of the Lord. And these are things that the church remembers, and the church at that time would have as well. When Israel looked back at the works of the Lord, they would have thought primarily of the Exodus, pulling God's people out of the out of slavery in exile, they would have then thought about all the ways that God has saved them as they went to the Promised Land, how he carved out a nation for them, and how he protected the judges and the kings and all this time. And so that's the splendor and majesty is God's work to protect them. And it goes on. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and merciful. Again, it points back to the history of Israel and all the ways that God has protected his people. And we can look back and say that God has caused his works to be remembered amongst us as well, of course, the great work, the most amazing work that God did, is the work of sending His Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, who comes to be among us and live among his people, and then die and rise and ascend into heaven, and promised to return. Ancient Israel looked back to the days of the Exodus, and the wonder, the wandering through the wilderness and the conquering of the promised land and the kings, we look back to our great King, Jesus Christ, whose throne was a cross with a crown of thorns on his head, and is now seated on at God's right hand in heaven. And we remember that amazing wondrous work to give us eternal life. Verse five, He provides food for those who fear him. He remembers his covenant forever. One of the things that God promised in the covenant with Moses on Mount Sinai, and with Israel as they entered into the Promised Land, was that when they followed the covenant God would provide for them. The Promised Land was this place that was flowing with milk and honey supposed to be this amazing place filled with great produce. And when God's people came to the Jordan River and sent spies into it, that like yes, it is an amazing land flowing with milk and honey. And the promise in Deuteronomy that God gave in his blessings curses was that if they went in, they would have plenty of food, if they kept the covenant, and if they served other gods, God would send famines and enemies. And so here, this is recalling that He provides food for those who fear him. He remembers his covenant forever. Now for us as Christians, the amazing food that God provides for us is Christ's Body and Blood, which is not a food that sustains us for tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. It's not something that fills our bellies, but it st sustains us to eternal life, so that God's covenant is remembered even through death. When he raises us up on the last day. Verse six, he has shown his people the power of his works in giving them the inheritance of the nations. So again, we point to in Israel, the inheritance that he had given was the the land, the promised land that they had conquered, taken from the nations around them and given as God promised Abraham. And that land was expanded in God's promises through time until Israel expected to inherit the whole earth, which we see in Christ, who is our king, who comes on the last day, to remake the heavens and the earth and provide resurrection for his people so that we live forever with Him. Or seven, the works of His hands are faithful and just and his precepts are trustworthy, they are established forever and ever to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. So God's works are faithful and just, and his precepts, the ideas that he commands are trustworthy. Now often we think of the precepts and the commands of the Old Testament, the things that are performed with faithfulness, and uprightness, just to be God's commands. But the first five books of the Old Testament, the Torah, the covenant that God made with his people, is not just about what he said, tells Israel to do. It is also about his love, and His promises to his people. And so there is this back and forth between the law and the covenant, and the sacrifices and the sacraments of the Old Testament system, where God delivered his grace and brought them back from their sin. And so you get even in the Old Testament, this law gospel dynamic going back and forth between Israel. And sometimes we think about Jesus as just someone who gives us commands. Like, we're supposed to be good people we're supposed to serve, and we're supposed to love and that's at the heart of being a Christian.
But the precepts are not just that, but also God's grace. That He gives us His love. And that's the foundation for our relationship, so that we serve not to please God, but out of God's love for us, it flows into other people. And his his works are faithful and just his priests reps are trustworthy. We know that we can trust this promise. So we don't have to worry about God's love for us. We let that love flow into the lives of others will continue with verse nine. He sent redemption to His people, He has commanded His covenant forever, holy and awesome is His name. Here again, we see the pairing of the the covenant commands with redemption. So He sent redemption to his people, he pulled them out of Egypt, he gave them this covenant, he gave them a land and protected them. But it is also then paired with God has given them command. This is what you are to do as my people. And so God's law and gospel was given to ancient Israel, just as God's law and gospel is given to us that in our baptism, we are redeemed by Christ pulled out of the power of sin, death and the devil, and given a joyous duty to serve Christ and everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness. Holy and awesome as his name is right, the last verse, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it, have a good understanding, his praise endures forever. We've seen this phrase, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom in other places. It is one of the one of the chief lines of Proverbs. And what it reminds us is that if you don't have faith in God, all the wisdom of the world doesn't matter. The only way to truly understand reality is to begin with the the knowledge of God and the fear and faith in him. Which means that if we don't know Christ, if we don't understand who he is and what it means that he came and died and rose, you can never truly understand reality. You can measure the effects of gravity and figure out how much electric how electricity works and you can learn how to build bridges, but reality still is outside of your grasp. Because behind it all is our Savior, Jesus Christ who died and rose and is coming back. And without that, you do not have true wisdom. Without that you do not truly understand your role in creation. And you might think that you can make it up on your own. That is why all prayer all those who practice it, have a good understanding. So we need to know Jesus to truly under understand who we are. That's all I have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai