History to Remember

for us.
This week, as you read Psalm 105 and next week as you read Psalm 106, they are long Psalms.
And so what I'm going to encourage you to do is to have a Bible in your lap.
Rather than look at the words in the bulletin, it's not printed there, so look instead in your Bibles.
Underneath you are Bibles.
On the big Bibles, there's bigger Bibles and smaller Bibles.
Don't Don't ask me why there are different sizes, but there are.
On page Page 596 in the big Bibles, you'll find some 105.
In page 503 in the smaller Bibles, you'll find some 105.
Would you turn there with me?
And we're going to remain seated as I read this long song, but I'm going to invite you into your history.
If you feel a little removed from the service at this point, I'm going to invite you to lock in and read this and imagine this is your family's story because if you're in Christ.
Oh, friends, it is.
Psalm 105.
Please give your attention to God's word.
It is written and given to you in love.
Oh, give thanks to the Lord.
Call upon his name.
Make known his deeds among the peoples.
Sing to him.
Sing praises to him.
Tell of all his wondrous works.
Glory in his holy name.
Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Seek the Lord in his strength.
Seek his presence continually.
Remember the wondrous works that he has done.
His miracles and the judgments he uttered.
Oh, offspring of Abraham, his servants, children of Jacob, his chosen ones.
He is the Lord our God.
His judgment The commandments are in all the earth.
He remembers his covenant forever.
The word that he commanded for a thousand generations.
The covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, to you, I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.
When they were few in number, of little accounts and sojourners in it, wandering from nation Nation to nation from one kingdom to another people.
He allowed no one to oppress them.
He rebuked kings on their account saying, "Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm." When he summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.
His feet were hurt with fetters, his neck was put in a collar of iron until what he had said came to pass.
The word of the Lord tested him.
The kings sent and released him.
The ruler of the people set him free.
He made him Lord of his house and ruler of all his possessions to bind his princes at his pleasure and to teach his elders wisdom.
Then Israel came to Egypt, Jacob's soldiers in the land of Ham, and the Lord made his people very fruitful.
He made them stronger than their foes, and he turned their hearts to hate his people.
He sent Moses, his servant, and Aaron, whom he had chosen, they performed his signs among them and miracles in the land of Ham.
He sent darkness and made the land dark.
They did not rebel against his words.
He turned their waters into blood and caused their fish to die.
Their land swarmed with frogs even in the chambers of their kings.
He spoke and there came swarms of flies.
and nats throughout their country.
He gave them hail for rain and fiery lightning bolts through their land.
He struck down their vines and big trees and shattered the trees of their country.
He spoke and the locusts came.
Young locusts without number which devoured all the vegetation in the land.
And ate up the fruit of their ground.
He struck down all the firstborn in their land.
The firstfruits of all their strength.
Then he was glad when they departed for dread of them had fallen upon it.
He spread a cloud for a covering and fire to give light by night.
They asked and he brought quail and gave them bread from heaven in abundance.
He opened the rock and water gushed out.
It flowed through the desert like a river, for he remembered his holy promise and Abraham, his servant.
So he brought his people out with joy.
His chosen ones were singing and he gave them the lands of the nations and they took possession of the fruit of the people's toil that they might I keep his statues and observe his laws.
Praise the Lord.
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but God's word stands forever.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Let's pray.
Father, oh, would you take us through your history in this long Psalm and the moments we have together.
Would you help us, Father, to recognize that worship this covenant memory?
So would you massage it into our hearts, we beg of you in Jesus name.
Amen.
There is a great deal of talk these days about history textbooks and public schools.
Are you clued into that story?
How do you frame the struggles, the sins, the difficulties of certain nations?
And it's not just the United States issue.
India is dealing with this issue.
Japan is dealing with this issue also.
How do you frame a history for people?
It's an important question.
Because what you say about a person's past determines their understanding of themselves in the present and their understanding of themselves and the present determines how they will then live in the future.
History is undoubtedly important to each of us and it was certainly important to the people of Israel.
And Psalm 105 invites us to see this redemptive story.
You can imagine fathers in the ancient Near East when they would tell of the gospel to their children, God's promises, his good word to them.
When he would walk with his son and talk about the patriarchs along the road and in the way and around the campfires and in homes, but how would they tell this gospel to their children?
They wouldn't just give their kids a list of rules to go and obey.
They would tell them stories.
The story.
They would fathers would mothers would tell their sons and daughters about Abraham and about Isaac and about Jacob.
They would tell them about Joseph.
They would tell them about Egypt.
They would tell them about the plagues and going through the Red Sea and the wilderness and the land of Canaan.
And you can almost imagine a father coming to the end of those stories and reminding them unless they become proud that this is our story not another others the fathers might say to them, for you are a holy people before the Lord and God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are of the face of the earth but it was not oh son oh daughter because you are more in number than any other people that the Lord said his love on you and chose you for you are the fewest of all peoples it was because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that he has brought you out with a mighty hand Deuteronomy 7 11:10.
Says, and he has redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.
So no, oh precious child, that the Lord your God is God.
He is a faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.
That was the moral that the fathers retold to their children week after week after week after week.
And oh fathers may it also be the story we tell our children.
And I know it's hard, I've got four kids.
It may the story that we elaborate from our lives not be about the things we own or the places that we live or what it's like in this world of technology, but let it be that we stand on the shoulders of giants.
Because this history, I know your ancestry.com history is really interesting and it is, but this, this is your history, friends.
And especially to you who are here that do not have strong families.
Welcome to the family that the only requirements for admission is the admission that you don't deserve to be part of it.
Because Jesus has done the work for us to bring us in.
Historical Psalms, there are three of them in this altar, Psalm 78, this one, Psalm 105, and next week Psalm 106.
Are there to remind us that this is our history.
It is a hymn of Covenant remembrance to celebrate God's faithfulness to his people.
When they were especially vulnerable and weak and threatened by foreign powers like Abimelech in Genesis 20, or Potiphar in Genesis 39 through 41, or Pharaoh in Exodus chapter 7 through 14, or existential crises like famine and hunger and thirst in the wilderness.
This is our story.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian once said that we pray the historical Psalms when we look upon everything that God once did for God's people as having been done for us.
And when we finally see the entire history of God's people with their God fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
In other words, if you are in Christ, this is your history.
These early chapters are chapters of your own story.
Abraham's God is your God.
The Covenant promises find their yes in Jesus, the Exodus is your redemption.
The mana points to your bread from heaven, the water from the rock points to the spirit pouring out upon us, the hope of the gospel by Christ's atoning work.
So Psalm 105 and sermon and sequence is this.
Because God remembers his covenant, we must remember his works and live as his holy people.
Because God remembers his covenant, we must remember his works and live as his holy people.
Psalm 105 breaks down really into two layers.
We remember to recount and then we remember to apply.
So first, let's remember to recount.
Psalm 105 begins with a summons to worship.
These first five verses are verses we often use for the calls to worship here.
It's one of the most famous calls to worship.
He says, "Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people." Notice the verbs.
There are 10 Hebrew verbs here and one jessa, which is a third person indirect verb.
Let us.
Notice what he says, "Oh, give thanks.
Call.
Make known.
Sing.
Sing praises.
Tell.
Glory.
Seek.
Seek.
Remember, do you see all those verbs?
It's as if the psalmist the saying, do not be passive when you listen to this history.
Don't merely admire it, but enter into it.
Sing it, tell it, remember it, build your life on it.
And notice one thing that it says, it says it begins with gratitude.
Dear thanks.
That is the order of discipleship growth.
Grace Gratitude emerges out of your life when you recognize God's grace and then obedience flows.
Grace, gratitude, obedience.
Isn't that astonishing?
You work really hard all week long to earn for your family, to do things, to earn a name.
But in the gospel, it is by grace it is given to you.
And our hearts are so proud that sometimes we reject it because we just want to earn it.
That is the beauty of the gospel.
God freely and graciously enters into covenant with his people and he is not obligated by anything outside of himself.
He loves us, Deuteronomy 7 says, because he loves us.
You are the fewest in number.
He chose you because he loves you.
He doesn't owe you grace, but he gives it to you freely.
He binds himself to us as his people by his own promise and he can't all the sins to us by his own covenant mercy.
And Psalm 105 says, "If you want to understand your life, begin with him, with God's character." Not with your religious performance, Christians, you must begin with his promise.
Not with your grip on him, Christians, you are the first to acknowledge his grip upon you.
Not with your memory, but with his remembrance of you.
That's why verse 8 says, "He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded to a thousand generations." One of the early Christopher Nolan films was Momento, anybody seen that old film?
In Momento, it's a story of a man named Leonard Shelby played by Guy Pearce who has no long-term memory.
And so in the story he is tattooing things to his body to help him remember.
He is putting notes and he is planting things in his life that will remind him of what is true.
And it's a very powerful movie because it reminds us that when our memory fails, we do not know how to live.
And Leonard Shelby teaches us that whatever it takes for him to remember, he will destroy whatever it Takes of his own body.
He will cover up tattoo after tattoo to help him remember his past.
And it's as though Psalm 105 was saying, "Tattoo these words upon your heart.
Tell them of your children, they are yours.
The covenant promise finds it's yes.
In Christ, do you see it?
If you forget who God is and what God has done for you, you will not know who you are and you will stare in your suffering.
You will not have any hope as you pray for your father, for your dad, for your friend for your children who are going through incredibly difficult health crises.
You will not know what it's like to be able to get out of bed when you're suffering from depression.
You you will not have the hope.
That comes only to us when we remember that this is our covenant story and though we often forget it, he never forgets us.
Hallelujah.
That is good news.
And it ought to radically transform your life when you let that news sink into your heart.
Because it is not your religious duty and moral performance or attendance at church.
Though all those things, of course, are important.
It is Jesus' work first for you to empower you to live with that kind of hope.
There are four movements of the history of God's people.
I'm going to go through these together in the Psalms because verse 9 through 15 tell us the first or move movement.
And we are to take heart that God protected the weak and the wandering patriarchs.
Take heart that God protected the weak and the wandering patriarchs.
Verse 12 says, "When they were few in number of little account and soldiers in it." The psalmist says our history doesn't begin with kings or nations or great empires.
It begins with one one small weak and very vulnerable family and they were sojourners.
They were resident aliens.
That means they had no citizenship rights.
Abraham didn't own a thing in the land of Canaan except the burial plot.
And yet God had promised him everything.
And that is attention of the Christian life isn't it?
God gives us this enormous promise and many often places us in circumstances that appear to contradict it.
In verses 9 to 15, it says Abraham has promised a land but he wanders.
Abraham has promised offspring but Sarah is barren.
Abraham has promised blessing but he is surrounded by kings that could destroy him.
And in verse 14 it says and he allowed no one to oppress them.
He rebuked kings on their account and verse 15 adds touch not my anointed ones do my prophets no harm.
And This is chapter 20, which is what's being referenced here.
God warned Abimelech not to touch Sarah, who Abraham said was his sister.
Do you remember the story?
So, Sarah was Abraham's wife.
And Abraham was called a prophet.
And here, Abraham and his family are called God's anointing ones, anointed ones.
In the Old Testament, anointed ones referred to priests and to kings.
But Abraham is referred to as an anointed one.
In fact, all of his descendants are set apart by God.
Though they are weak, they are holy.
Though they are wandering, they are claimed.
Though they are vulnerable, God says, "I protect you.
You're anointed." And this is the first lesson of the history of this Psalm.
Are you with me?
The church of God has often looked small, very unimpressive and fragile.
It looked that way.
way in Abraham's day, it looked that way, in exile, it looked that way, even as the kingdom split, it looked that way, in Daniel's day, it looked that way, they came back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the wall of Jerusalem and resettle.
It looked that day when a virgin named Mary gave birth to a child.
And it looks quite frankly that way today.
But don't you ever doubt God's promises because he always has a remnant.
And the gates of hell will not prevail against them.
He doesn't promise you that you will have a pain-free life.
He doesn't promise you that you'll be cured of cancer.
He promises you something better.
He promises that he will always be with you.
The smallness of God's people is no barrier to his faithfulness.
Hallelujah.
The world measures security by numbers and by status and by wealth.
The security of God's people and for us rests on something radically different that God remembers his covenant.
So Hide yourself in Jesus when you are weak and wandering.
Take heart.
May God protect us as weak and wandering patriarchs.
Verses 16 through 22, we are to be encouraged that God exalted Joseph through suffering.
The second act begins in verse 16 when he summoned a famine on the land and he broke all the supply of bread and he had sent a man ahead of them.
Notice the surprising language that God summoned the famine, God sent Joseph.
How did he send Joseph?
He sent Joseph through betrayal.
His brothers traded him in for 20 shekels of silver.
And through prison, through faithful service, the Lord rose Joseph up so that he became second in command in all of Egypt under Potiphar.
He was the one it said who made him the ruler of all of his possessions, verse 21.
And he was able to bind his princes at his pleasure to teach his elders wisdom.
The Lord made him the Lord of his house and ruler of all of his possessions.
And this I know some of you, you know the experience that Joseph had whenever he was taken into slavery because you're in the midst of it right now.
You know what it's like because you're living month to month to month and you're trying as hard as you can to get out of credit card debt.
You know the weight of spirit spiritual or sexual addiction.
Some of you are drinking too much and you know the way that you're drinking is carrying your marriage apart.
Like you know the way and the way out of that is to get help in a thousand different directions.
Yes, remember God's covenant promises.
Indeed, yes, that is the foundation.
We want you to be able to say to all of your brothers and sisters here, hey, I need all the help I can get.
Because himself also, didn't he?
Through God's amazing providence, through the work of others, he was able to get out of the prison and rise to Potiphar's right hand.
He didn't do it by himself.
We are to be encouraged that God exalted Joseph through his suffering in verses 16 through 22.
Joseph was the beloved son rejected by his brothers.
He was sold for silver.
He was falsely accused.
He descended into the pit.
He suffered, though he was innocent, and he is exalted to the right hand of power, and through his suffering salvation comes to the very people who betrayed him.
Because you remember the story, his father and his brothers, the same ones that sold him into slavery, when the Canaanites came to the land, where did they go for help?
They went into Egypt, which the psalm also refers to as Ham, as a reference to Egypt.
They went into Egypt.
And there, who was in power, but Joseph, in God's providence, Joseph was there, and he was able to deliver his own.
family.
And Joseph's story, of course, points us to Jesus' own work on our behalf.
The shadow of Joseph points us to the reality of Jesus.
At the cross, God's plan appeared appeared to completely fail.
Our crucified Messiah, God's plan hidden under the tragedy, the betrayal, of condemnation, of nails, of darkness, But the tune was not an interruption in God's covenant faithfulness all across the entire event with the evidence that God remembered his covenant.
God sent a man ahead of us, not merely Joseph, but our savior.
And so we can trust in God's providence in the midst of your suffering.
You can trust in God's providence in the midst of your suffering.
Be encouraged by your history, friends.
Just as God exalted Joseph, so also through Christ, God will exalt us spiritually.
Acts 3, we are to rejoice that God redeemed his people from Egypt.
This is verses 23 through 38.
Look with the text with me.
Verse 23, then Israel came to Egypt and Jacob's soldiers in the land of Ham, again Ham has a mened him for Egypt.
And the Lord God made his people very fruitful, stronger than their foes, and he turned their hearts to hate his people, that is Pharaoh, to deal craftily with his servants.
Verse 25 is tough.
He turned their hearts to hate his people.
That's a hard question.
How can God turn their hearts?
Augustine says that God does not make innocent hearts evil rather in his mysterious providence.
God governs even evil choices without being the author of evil.
He makes good use always of bad agents.
And he directs what is already perverse toward his holy purposes.
The Westminster Confession says it like this.
God ordains whatsoever comes in the past yet in such a way that he is not the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures.
That means that God is so sovereign that even evil cannot escape his purposes and God is so holy that evil cannot be charged to him.
And God sends Moses and Aaron and he performs signs.
Derek Kidner in his commentary on the Psalm says that the word for signs is also words.
He He assigns his message messages to Egypt.
And notice the signs, he gives the plagues.
You heard this story about locusts?
You heard all these things about flies as a reference to the plagues, but he changes the order of them in Psalm 105.
They're not the same order, darkness, that's plague nine, water to blood, that's plague one, the frogs, that's plague two, flies and nats, that's four and three, hail is seven, locusts is eight, the death of the first born, that's Play 10.
What is the psalmist trying to do?
The psalmist is trying to show that God pronounced judgment on Egypt, but he's also showing us the pattern of decreation.
In Genesis 1, God forms and fills the void.
He brings light, order, life, boundaries, he brings fruitfulness into the world.
In Egypt, those creational blessings are shaken and they're withdrawn.
And so, notice darkness replaces light, day one.
Light giving water of day two.
He references as the water that's turned into blood.
Creatures cross their proper boundaries in day three.
The land is ruined.
That's day six and all the first born die.
That's the fall.
The psalmist is taking the plagues and he is reconstituting creation.
He is showing a creation of God's enemies so that he might deliver his people and make them holy.
Stay with me in this act.
This act is to help us to rejoice to take joy that God has redeemed his people from Egypt.
We are of course to take heart.
We are secondly to be encouraged at three.
We are to rejoice that God has redeemed his people from Egypt.
Salvation always requires judgment.
And God cannot bring his people into new creation without judging the old order of sin and oppression and idolatry.
And again, the Psalm takes us to the cross, doesn't it?
Because it's at the cross where Jesus suffers our judgment for us.
The first-born son of God enters into judgment.
The true Israel passed the waters of death and Christ endured the curse of the people.
Could go free.
Do you see it?
In Egypt, the first born of the oppressors died so the Israel could be released at the cross.
The first born of God, Jesus died so that enemies like you and me could become sons.
That's the gospel.
At the cross, God's judgment and his mercy meet.
As you hear this history, this is your history, friends.
All of these things that happened through the acts of God's people in history is did your family history?
Take heart, be encouraged, three rejoice, four take comfort that God sustains his people in the wilderness.
Take comfort and God sustains his people in the wilderness.
Verses 39 through 41.
He spread a cloud for covering and a fire to give them light by night.
The Lord did not bring them out of the wilderness.
He put them in snack dab in the middle of the wilderness but he stayed with them.
He gave them cloud and fire.
He gave them mana.
He gave them water from the rock.
They asked and he brought quail verse 40.
He gave them bread from heaven in abundance.
Listen, the wilderness is where God's people learn that your self-sufficiency cannot redeem you.
God brings his people out of Egypt and he leaves them snack dab in the middle of the wilderness.
Some of you who have come to faith in Christ in recent days experienced the joy of having your sins forgiven in Christ's righteousness being given to you.
But your circumstances haven't changed.
Things are still hard at home.
The debt may still be there.
The joblessness may still await you.
I don't know whatever the severe circumstances is in your life.
But that's the point.
God is teaching us that your self-sufficiency cannot redeem you.
It's given you ways to remember that in each other people here not not just looking to the pastors and the elders of this church, or looking to your community group leaders, to your friends in this church to remind you that this is your history.
Do you own it?
We are to take heart, we are to be encouraged, we are to rejoice, and we friends are to take the incredible comfort because he has given us the hope in Christ.
Notice how the song ends.
The song ends and he says to us in verse 30 42 to 45.
He remembered his holy promise in Abraham his servant, so he brought his people out with joy and his chosen ones with singing.
Why did God do all this?
Verse 42 gives us the answer.
He remembered his holy promise.
He remembered his word the bar in Greek.
He remembered his word, his promise.
And so he brought his people out with joy.
The Psalm begins with joy.
That the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice and it ends with joy.
He brought them out with joy.
What is to characterize your life?
It is to have this deep sense of joy.
Not about your circumstance, but about the fact that you are have been redeemed from the curse of sin.
Hallelujah.
That is good news.
And it affects us Monday through Friday because as the psalm ends that they might keep his statutes, and observe his laws.
Grace provides a foundation for our gratitude from which our obedience flows that we might keep his statutes and observe his laws and the order is everything there.
Obedience in the Christian life is not the payment that purchases grace, it is the fruit that grows from the grace that's given to us.
So we We are to recount, we are to remember to recount the great movements in this song.
There's four great acts and we're also very briefly called to remember to apply it.
And how do we apply this?
Winston Churchill wrote in this book called The History of the English People.
He said that when people look at history, you can't understand it without relating long periods of time to the experiences of our own short lives.
Five years 50 years feels long to us when we're young, 20 years is about the horizon of most of our thinking.
50 years, Churchill says, feels like antiquity.
But when historians look across centuries and they see patterns of the people living today by day by day, could barely perceive, then you begin to understand how we are to live.
And when you're inside the story, you can't see what God is doing.
Abraham didn't see the whole story, Joseph didn't see the whole story, you don't see the whole story.
But he wants us first of all to remember You are to remember this history and you are to make it your own.
Secondly, you are to rejoice in the comfort that God provides for the weak and the vulnerable.
You, me, Thirdly, you are to tell God's past providences to your children and to your community group leaders and your community groups and the others.
We tell them.
Remember, rejoice, tell.
You are to You don't have to wonder what to do.
On those issues with which the Bible speaks, that's what we are to do.
You're to rest in that joyful obedience because God has remembered his covenant promises to you.
And out of gratitude, we are to run in obedience to him.
And lastly, this psalm, though it's unspoken, he leads it for us in verses 45.
We are to respond.
How do you respond?
At the cross, darkness cover the land.
Jesus cried out on your behalf, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Jesus was the embodiment of all of Israel's history.
And the message was not just recounting history, but the message was a person in the Lord Jesus Christ who was God's true word.
And friends, when you see the good news of what Jesus has done for you, he laid his life down for you having fulfilled all of God's covenant requirements, when he died in your place, then you're able to say as the Psalm ends, pray Let's pray together.
Father, we pray you help us to remember that because we are in Christ, you will make good on your promises to fulfill everything that your word says.
How ever dim our view may be in our condition today, would you help us?
Would you give us strength?
Would you give us resolve?
Would you melt our hearts to stop pretending and to give ourselves to you.
Lord, help us to recognize this is our history.
This is not just something we learn in church.
Lord, would you do whatever it takes to remind us that this is our family story and may we rejoice in the grace of you given us that provides for us the power and the presence of profound gratitude and it leads us to run in obedience to you.
And we pray, Lord, is one small act of worship as we give up our time and our offerings now that you, Father, would bless these gifts for your glory.
And that you would help us to recount, to retail, to remember your wondrous works in Jesus name.
Amen.

Sermon transcript is computer generated.