Power and Love — Philippians 4

0:02 Well, morning. It's a pleasure to be with you. I don't know about you, but I'm sure you have felt this, that the last number of years have just felt pretty crazy, haven't they? Felt really, really crazy. And I love just this passage that we're going to look at this morning because I think it speaks to some of the issues that we have experienced in our world, in our country, in our own hearts as well.

0:36 If you'd like to turn with me to Psalm 29, we'll look at Psalm 29 together. And it has just felt so so chaotic the last number of years, the last two years or so. And part of the question that maybe we are feeling is does God speak into that chaos? Does God speak into the chaos of our world? Does God speak into the chaos of our hearts?

1:07 And what Psalm 29 will will give to us is it will show us just how wonderful and beautiful God is. And it gives us a vision for God's power and his character. This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. And we'll talk about this a little bit more as we work through the passage. But I just...

1:33 I love this idea that God is both all powerful and all loving. And if you only have one of those two sides of the equation, you have either an all powerful God who has no, like, disposition to use that power to our benefit. And that becomes a very scary sort of being. And if you have a God who is only love and does not have all that power, that's nice that he loves me but he can't do anything for me. But our God is both of those.

2:13 He loves us. His very essence is love. And he has all of the power in order to utilize and to show us that love and to work into our lives. That is who our God is. And so as we look at this psalm, Psalm 29, we're going to see that here it's going to be talking about three reasons.

2:37 It's written by David and David will give us three reasons why we must honor God, and this... The desire of this passage is that it would bring reform and comfort in our own hearts. Because we frequently will treat God as on one side of those poles. We see him as being powerful, but does he really love me? Ever felt like that?

3:01 Does the Lord really care for me? Is the Lord concerned about what I'm going through, the chaos that I'm going through at this time? Or we know that he cares for us, but we're like, is he actually going to do anything for me? And this passage gives us three reasons why we should honor the Lord and to reform our hearts back to who he is and to comfort our hearts in times of chaos. So why don't we read this passage together?

3:44 Worship the lord in the splendor of holiness. The voice of the lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful.

3:59 The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Syrian like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.

4:17 The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kaddish. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forest bare. And in his temple, all cry glory. The Lord sits enthroned over the flood.

4:36 The Lord sits enthroned as king forever. May the Lord give strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people with peace. May the Lord bless the reading of His word. So here we have in Psalm 29, three reasons why we must honor the Lord.

4:55 So we see in verses one through two, we must honor the Lord because He is worthy of that honor. And then in verses three through nine, kind of the main core of the Psalm is that we must honor the Lord because He is superior. And then finally, the third reason, verses 10 through 11, which summarizes the whole thing. I love this whole psalm, but I really just love how the psalmist concludes this. It's beautiful.

5:29 And here, we must honor God because he is our king. And so here, if we begin starting up in verse one, why must we honor the Lord? Because he is worthy of it. So notice here of how it begins. Here we have praise psalm.

5:46 There's three main different types of psalms. There's lots of different types of psalms, but there's three main ones. You have Thanksgiving psalms, which are for giving thanks. Here, something specifically has happened that the Lord has done and you want to thank the Lord for it. You have lament psalms when you're going through a difficult circumstance of lamenting before the Lord.

6:07 And about 60 of the psalms are lament psalms. And then you have praise psalms. And this is a a a typical praise psalms and it has its own sort of regular format that it would fall into. And it begins kind of with a a call to praise and then the reasons why we would praise the Lord. And most praise psalms would fit into that kind of format.

6:54 Think of a of a staircase, a series of steps, if you will. And each of these lines is one step. And you need all four of them to get the whole thing. So it just continues on until the very end. So notice here, verse one, ascribe to the Lord.

7:12 We don't know what we're to ascribe to the Lord yet. We'll get that in the second line of verse one. But notice of how... Of where this command is directed. Ascribe to the Lord, oh heavenly beings.

7:25 And here the direction, he is speaking directly, not to us. He's not saying, hey JC, hey Christians, hey Israel, make sure you ascribe this Lord. He's speaking to the spiritual beings, thinking of all of the spiritual hosts, thinking of angels, of all those that God has created in the spiritual realm. This is directed to them. And as we'll see towards the end of the psalm in verse nine, that it does come back around to us as humans.

7:54 What I love is that it is first pointed to to the angels, to these spiritual beings as you must recognize God's greatness. That he is not just another being in some pantheon of gods, is that he is far superior than all other beings. And this is part of the the power of this psalm. This psalm is maybe not a unique psalm, but it is different than a lot of other psalms in that it takes a lot of its cues and how it is written from... And this is kind of kind of an odd odd thing, from Baal and Canaanite mythology.

8:36 And what what the psalmist is doing and what David is doing here is he's taking sort of themes and ideas that worshipers of Baal would... What they would do to praise Baal. And what he does here is he takes that and he utilizes some of that language, some of that format, and he's going to take it and adapt it, and then subvert it. So what you have on one one level here is you have the explicit idea of praising God. That God is honor.

9:12 That is worthy of honor and that we must give him that honor. But on a implicit level, is that Baal is not worthy of honor. So is that one point saying, God is the most powerful, wonderful being in the universe and it's like just stepping bail down. He ain't it. So here you have just a very positive assertion of God's majesty, his power, his honor, his glory, as well as this subversion against anything that goes against who the Lord is.

9:49 And so you'll see that you have this quite a bit throughout the Psalm and as we'll see this as we go through. So it begins with this with this command to to the heavenly beings, but also as we'll see in verse nine to us as well, ascribe to the Lord, oh heavenly beings. Then we get what are we to ascribe? Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. And so here, this word glory is maybe a difficult word for us to conceptualize here.

10:19 I don't know about you, I have a weird imagination perhaps. No comments. But when I think of this word glory, it's difficult for me to like to define if you will. And so when I think of this, I think of like the glory of the Lord. His like, I don't know, he's just like his majesty.

10:36 Right? That that's kind of what I think when he's talking his glory. So how do I ascribe that to him? How do I give that to him? I think what's better is that the idea of this word is is probably better of honor.

10:49 And in ancient Israel, they... Their culture was very different than our culture is. And their culture was more on a... Emphasized more honor and shame. Now all cultures have honor and shame elements in it.

11:04 But ancient Israel, as many traditional societies, have a much higher emphasis on honor and shame. Honor is all about value. The adherence of the values of a community. And when someone would continue in the values of the community, they would be elevated. They would be honored.

11:26 They would be seen as, oh, this is someone that has value to our community because they hold our values. Whereas someone who does not hold to these values, they are shame. They have negative value, if you will. So here we have not just like a describing... A description of God's majesty, his his his glory, if you will, but describing his worth.

11:51 So here when it says, ascribe to the Lord, oh heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord honor and strength, it's describing the... It's giving us this command to ascribe to the Lord the value of what God is. To analyze, think about who God is. What is he truly worth? And do you value the Lord in that way?

12:21 And when I think of... For for me, when I when I look at this passage and I think of it that way, to me that completely changes the the equation here. Is that it's not just that isn't he this just magnificent being, but now I must see him as this magnificent being. And I must reorient my entire life as he is the one of supreme worth and value. That's the idea.

12:47 That's the command that he gives us here. It is not Baal. It is not me. It is not anything else. It is him.

12:56 He is the one who must be honored and I and we as the church must give him that honor. Ascribe to the lord glory and strength. You notice verse two, ascribe to the lord the glory due his name. His reputation, not just like what his name is, but his very reputation. What is the reputation that god has?

13:20 How does he... How has he acted with his people? How has he acted with us? I was reading this passage this morning during the breaking of bread in Revelation when Christ comes again. And it says that written on, I'm gonna botch it up now, written on his thigh is the name faithfulness and true.

13:42 Isn't that a great description of our Lord? He is faithful and true. I am not faithful and I am not true. Our world is filled with faithlessness and falsehood, but our Lord is faithful and true. So when we look at this, when we look at our Lord, ascribe to the Lord the honor, the glory, do his name, do his reputation.

14:10 Think on who the Lord is. Think of how we view him. And the need that we have to reorient our lives back to him. I'll just be very honest with you and just give you my heart. I'm so concerned for for our for our church, for the church in general, is that we have been so lulled to sleep away from the Lord.

14:47 And we have been so lulled to honor things that are not honorable. To give value to things that are just not worth anything. To see things and people as that's what will give us success. That is what will give us prosperity or flourishing. The psalmist David is reminding us to reorient our hearts back to the Lord.

15:13 He is the one who is worthy of our of our devotion, of our love, and our honor. And I love this as well. The final line here of verse two, ascribe the Lord the glory due his name, worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. That's how the ESV renders it. Another way...

15:33 So the way the ESV renders it and a lot of other English translations do as well, is it describes the way in which I'm supposed to come and worship the Lord. But what might be a better way to understand this line is not of how I should respond to God in holiness, but to respond to him because of his holiness. So worship the Lord because of his holiness. And I think that further emphasizes just the value of who God is. That he is set apart.

16:04 That he is unlike anyone else and anything else. And he is deserving of our praise. And so as we think of these beginning lines into the into the Psalm, do we truly see God as who he is? Do we give him the value and do we praise him and ascribe to him that value that he deserves? Does it shape and reform every aspect of our life?

16:39 So we see here that we are given this reason to honor the Lord because he is worthy of it, and then also because he is superior. We see this in verses three through nine. And I like this section. And notice some quick observations here of how many times you have this this line, the voice of the Lord. Right?

17:02 And so the word Lord, Yahweh, is used in these 11 verses something like 18 times, which is another just kind of like punch in the nose to to the Baal worshipers. Just like, it ain't it ain't Baal. It's the Lord. It's Yahweh. He is the one true God.

17:37 What the psalmist is doing is he's playing on a couple of different levels. He he wants us to think of this image, if you will, of of a thunderstorm that starts in maybe the Mediterranean Sea and then is going to move across into Israel, into the northern areas of Lebanon above Israel, and how this storm affects his creation. But it also, he's he's speaking into that world view of Israel and the culture surrounding him, surrounding Israel. And he's adapting, he's utilizing, adapting, and as well as subverting. And so he chooses this picture of this thunderstorm intentionally.

18:18 It's it's it's an intense move that that David and the... That the Lord has led David to make here is because who is the storm god? It's Baal. But here, who is depicted as being that storm, as moving and influencing and having all of this power and worth, it's not Baal. It's the Lord.

18:42 So again, it is explicitly praising the Lord, but implicitly shoving Baal down. It's a polemical sort of use here. And so here, you have this line, the voice of the Lord repeated over and over again. It becomes the drumbeat of the of this section of the song. The voice of the Lord.

19:01 The voice of the Lord. The voice of the Lord. So it begins, the voice of the Lord is over the waters, the God of glory thunders, the Lord over many waters. And so here, he is again playing with this idea of the of the cultural framework of Israel and those cultures around them, of thinking that these storms or these areas were ruled by different deities. So Baal was the storm god.

19:30 You have Yam, he's the sea god. And not one god was over all of them, but different points of nature were ruled by different deities. And here you have Yahweh, the one true god, the god of Israel, is over all of those areas. He shows his superiority over all of those deities, over all of those chaotic forces. That he is superior.

19:58 He is the one of supreme worth. And so I I love this that he sits over the waters. He sits in rule over those forces of chaos. Notice verse four, the voice of the Lord is powerful and the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. It continues in verses five and six.

20:21 He shows us not only that he has this, his superiority because of his strength and his honor that we saw in verse four, but also his power that he has in verses five five through through nine. The voice lord breaks the cedars. The lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon. The cedars of Lebanon, think of when Solomon builds the temple and he gets... He's gonna get the primo building materials.

20:49 Right? Where does he get his wood from? His cedars? From Lebanon. And so here, he's he's taking like these massive trees that are these pictures of strength and have this like almost deified sort of idea of the surrounding cultures.

21:03 And the Lord comes and he rips them to pieces. It is no match to him. He is supreme. He shatters them. He makes Lebanon, this entire region, he makes it the skip like a calf, and Syrian like a young wild ox.

21:23 Then you see further in verses seven through... Seven and eight, the voice of the Lord. Notice again that voice of Lord, that drumbeat of it's the Lord, it's the Lord, it's the Lord. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness, the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

21:41 So you have all of these different spheres of the world, all these areas of nature, and the Lord is superior to them, and the and the world responds by recognizing his greatness. And if it comes to this culmination in verse nine, the voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forest bare. Some translations read differently in that first line, but the the idea here is the same, is that every aspect of nature, whether it is just like just nature or if it's the animal world, all are responding to the power, the majesty, the honor of the Lord. The voice of Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forest bear and here's the final culminating line of this section. And in his temple, all cry glory.

23:02 He is worth. And again, thinking of does our heart respond? We think of God's superiority, his power that he has. The whole point of this in three through nine is to... Is is like God flexing his muscles, if you will.

23:22 To show that he's the top dog on the street. Don't mess with the Lord. No one can top him. And if no one can top him, why would we ever go to anything else? Why would we ever desire anything else?

23:41 And so he does... So he shows us that we must honor Lord because he is superior. That our response must be there is no other response for us but to cry out glory. He is to be glorified. Then verses 10 through 11, we must honor God because he is king.

24:07 We see again, he is using this imagery of the flood and of water, speaking of chaotic forces. The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. An ancient Israelites and many in that that time and then in that area would have thought of the flood as like spiritual forces, chaotic forces. And here you have God sitting over it. And not just sitting over it, but as king.

24:34 He is enthroned as king. The Lord sits enthroned as king forever. That is just such a powerful concept for us to think about is that the Lord is our king. He deserves and demands our allegiance. None other.

25:09 Is Christ your king? Is he the king of your heart? When we look at this world, we look at our political world, and I'm not interested in politics. But many times we trade, and I think there's such a danger for the church right now is that we have traded politics for the Lord. What will give us flourishing?

25:44 If we have whoever is elected. I have friends on both sides and they say the same thing and go like, it's the Lord. Can there be pros and cons for both of these? Absolutely. But it's the Lord.

25:57 The Lord is our king. The Lord must hold our allegiance. And none other. Because you see here as David depicts this, as the Lord depicts of how he is, the Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned as king forever.

26:17 He reigns. And we long for the time when he will come, and we will fully experience his reign as king. I cannot wait for when his righteousness, his peace, and his justice will rule. That is the that is the promise of our Lord. That is the promise of his coming and his return, is that, he will right every wrong.

26:49 All the injustice, all the evil in this world, he will restore. Isn't that wonderful? It's not just like, well, Lord's just gonna like, well, it's too bad. I guess earth didn't work out. He's gonna come and he's going to rule.

27:10 There'll be peace and righteousness. And that is the hope that we have from Christ's resurrection. And that is the hope that we look forward to of when he returns. But as we wait, when we wait for his kingdom, for we wait for his return, our hearts must be fixed on his kingdom and him as our king. I love verse 11.

28:14 Notice of how it reads. The ESV reads like this, may the Lord give strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people with peace. Now, I really like the ESV, but other translations do this better. In the ESV, it's like, hopefully the Lord will do this.

28:32 Right? But I think it's probably better as some other translations have it as, the Lord will give strength to his people. Do you need strength this morning? Do you need strength in your life? The Lord promises to give you his strength.

28:57 And he's just spent this entire psalm emphasizing of the strength that he has, and now he comes to the very end, and the last thing that he wants to remind us to leave in our hearts is that all that strength he gives to us. Isn't that wonderful? This is the thing I love about being a Christian and about Christianity is that it's like totally a win at every point and it's totally the Lord at every point. He's like, I cannot save myself, He saves me. I cannot live a Christian life, He empowers me.

29:34 Everything is by His gift, is by His grace. He gives us the strength that we need. This is what Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter one. You can turn there or just listen. But in Ephesians chapter one, he says this.

29:55 Ephesians chapter one verse 19, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe? What is that? According to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. That is the power of Christ's resurrection. The power of Christ's ascension and ruling from heaven is the power that he gives us by his spirit right now.

30:29 And he desires that we would come to him, and we would be strengthened by him. To not be strong in ourselves, but to be strong in the Lord. You know, I love the Lord because he doesn't get annoyed with us. You know, he's not just like, oh, here's JC again. Gotta ask another thing.

30:54 Maybe I have, like, a coworker or something like that, where just, like, they just come and they... You've told them the the whatever, the code for whatever, and then, like, they still don't remember it. And, here it is one more time, pal. That's not how the Lord acts towards us. He delights and he desires to give us his strength.

31:16 And then the final line, flipping back to Psalm 29 here, the very final line. Again, same situation of this promise from the Lord. He will, the Lord will bless his people with peace. And I love of just the very last word of of that of this psalm is that peace, that shalom, that flourishing that God desires for us to have. He promises that he will give us that peace.

31:48 Isn't that what Jesus says, peace I give to you, not as the world gives? He gives us his peace, this flourishing in our hearts. We need that peace. I love that passage in Philippians chapter four, where Paul says this again in Philippians chapter four, of why we will go to the Lord, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Verse seven of Philippians four, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

32:29 It protects us, it guards us. And this is the peace, that flourishing, that shalom that God would desire to give to us. So here we have this picture of God. We have this picture of him being all powerful and being all good. And the Lord's desire is that we would see both of those attributes of him.

32:59 Not just one or the other. That we would turn to him. That we would rest in him. That we would rest in his strength. That we would rest in his peace.

33:11 And praise the Lord that our God is a great God like this. So we've seen here of these reasons why we must honor the Lord. And he desires that we would reform our hearts and be comforted based on who he is. May we rest in him as our king, because he is superior, and because he is worthy of it. Why don't we close with a word of prayer?

33:43 Father, we thank you so much for your love. We thank you that you are such a good god. Father, we thank you that you are not like all of the other gods who are nothing. Father, forgive us when we have gone after other things. Forgive us when we have made idols in our hearts.

34:09 Father, bring our hearts back to you. Help us to live for you, lord. We thank you that you're a god who is all powerful and a god who gives strength and a god who gives peace. We thank you for your son who made that peace for us on the cross. We thank you that he is alive today and it gives us hope for right now.

34:39 We love you, Lord, and we ask that we would just live for you, and that you'd bring our hearts back to you. We ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen.