Praise the Lord, all nations! Glorify Him, all peoples! For His faithful love to us is great; the Lord’s faithfulness endures forever. Hallelujah!
Psalm 117
I think it’s time for some good news; how about you? We are in a season of political division, cultural division, social division, and racial division. Many deep and embedded issues that stem from generations of falsely held beliefs and insensitive viewpoints continue to divide and hurt others in today’s fragile society.
I know what you’re thinking. What does that have to do with Psalm 117? I think it has everything to do with it.
When we focus intently on the same things in life, there is no room for division. The division becomes less critical, and the focused worship of the Lord becomes the important activity.
Political candidates will come and go, and while they are essential for our government in the United States, we have to have a higher perspective than the next eight years. Eight years is only a grain of sand in the hourglass of eternity. How should we look at so much divisiveness in our country? We should first look at ourselves and do everything we can to live in a spirit of love and compassion towards others while keeping eternity as our foundational perspective. We should live with eternity in mind. “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Praise the Lord, All nations!
This Psalm most definitely causes us to think about the day when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). Is that where your vision is fixed? All nations mean all nations. This passage, in many ways, gives us a command and then explains why. All nations and all peoples are to give praise and glory to the Lord. That is easy to do, but sometimes we become distracted by the division among us. Whether you’re in church or not, the division is a reality. The cure is praise. We praise the Lord.
Turn up the music. Turn off the television. Remove the distractions. Live a life of praise. We don’t praise the Lord for all the stuff we have, but we praise the Lord because of what verse 2 tells us about the Lord.
Praise the Lord because He is faithful
Verse 2 tells us the Lord possesses a faithful love for us that is great. It is a covenant love that is not broken by His feelings about our failures or messiness. His passionate love for us is faithful love. I recently performed two weddings where I tried to explain that marriage is a covenant between the husband and wife, and between God and each couple. This love is unbreakable covenant love.
Why do we praise the Lord? It’s not because He does stuff for us, but because His love for us is a covenant love that endures forever. That forever is an eternity with an hourglass that never runs out. The sand continues to drop through the glass without end.
This morning, as you think about this 2 verse chapter, think about how our praise is sometimes selfish and depends on what we can get from the Lord. That is absolutely the wrong way to look at the Lord. If the Lord never gave us another thing, He’s already given us the best thing.
He gave us His Son, Jesus, who walked a perfect life and died on a rough and splinter covered cross while bearing every sin you would ever commit. He paid the price that you owe for your sins. However, the only way we can receive the forgiveness of those sins is to pray and confess our sins to the Lord while turning from those sins and to Jesus.
If Jesus dying for our sins is all the Lord ever did or ever will do for us, it is worthy of our neverending praise and covenant love towards Him.