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Come and See What We Treasure! The God Who Helps! A sermon on psalm146 from Concordia
Come and See What We Treasure!
The God Who Helps!
Psalm 146
† In Jesus’ Name †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ reveal to us all the ways God helps His people!
Our treasure—that shines through our brokenness!
The theme for this month is the treasure of God that shines through us, bringing its light to shatter the darkness of our community. It’s based on Paul’s words to the most broken of churches in the scripture, the church at Corinth. He wrote them saying,
7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. 2 Corinthians 4:7 (NLT2)
That is the way outreach works at its best. When through our brokenness, people are able to see the power of God helping us, whether it is helping us endure, or helping us help others, it is incredible, and it is something we need to treasure, just as we treasured the fact that God is near us.
We get to hang on to this truth, that God is our hope, because He is there helping us. That is the reason why we praise Him, just as the author of the Bible passage we are looking at today did.
- We trust and put our hope in powerful people.
As the Psalm begins praising God, even to his dying breath, he quickly inserts a warning, “Don’t put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there.”
If there was any doubt that the scripture is relevant to us today, this verse should prove it. I don’t care whether it is religion, politics or business, people seem certain to put their trust in people.
Or perhaps more accurately, they put their trust in the people that oppose certain people.
But when one’s hopes and dreams, or one’s fear and anxieties are based on the actions and work of a certain person or group of people, there is certain danger!
We’ve replaced God with a person when we do that. If we’ve chosen to define our lives by them, or their affiliation, then we have, to an extent, made a God out of them or their ideology/identity.
And we’ve effectively kicked God out of our lives.
And when or we breathe our last, the psalmist says, “they return to the earth, and all their plans die with them.”
If our confidence had been in them, it would be crushed, as would our dreams and hopes. Even if they were successful, who would care or remember a dozen years later?
So why do we set up such idols? Why do we place our confidence, our hope, our faith in people, or even what they stand for, or say they stand for?
- God helps those who need it.
Instead of encouraging to depend on this group or that, on this person or that one, Scripture tells us something radically different.
It says, “But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the Lord their God.”
Contrary to popular belief, God doesn’t help those who help themselves. He helps those who need help, that is why they respond with incredible amounts of praise!
This God of ours, credited with creating heaven and earth and everything in them, we are told helps those:
who are oppressed!
Who are hungry!
He helps those in prisons!
He opens the eyes of the blind!
He lifts up those having incredible burdens!
The Lord helps the foreigners, some translations use the terms aliens. It means those not like the ones living here.
The Lord Helps the Widows and Orphans,
This is the God who helps us!
In the middle of whatever can break us in life, He is there, bringing to us comfort, and healing, and hope—not just for this life—but for eternity.
- We are joyful as we realize the assistance of God.
This is why the psalmist praises Him—with more enthusiasm than any Superbowl or Olympic stadium ever heard. The Psalmist talks about doing so as long as he lives and until his final breath.
Then He says these amazing words, the key to the sermon today.
But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the Lord their God. (verse 5)
And then
10 The LORD will reign forever. He will be your God, O Jerusalem, throughout the generations. Praise the LORD! Psalm 146:10 (NLT2)
How incredible did the Psalmist think the help he witnessed was, that his ancestors witnessed, this God who sees us, who helps us.
And this was before God’s help was clearly seen.
It was before the cross; it was before the time in the grave; it was before the resurrection and ascension.
Can you imagine what the psalmist would have written it the say after the resurrection, or the day of the Ascension? How much more would the praise ring out? How much more would hands be raised high in praise?
How incredible would the Alleluia’s be when someone believes and is baptized, and the promise of eternal life made sure?
How much more would they celebrate the feast of victory that is the Lord’s Supper?
This is why we talk about celebrating these things. Because we see the promises of God to help us with our biggest struggle—against sin and Satan.
We have to know this—without this help the cross and resurrection provides, we would spend eternity in Hell.
And we would not have any comfort or hope in this life, for we wouldn’t know the love of God, revealed in Christ Jesus.
The very thought of dwelling in the presence of God, of sharing in His life and His glory forever—that why we worship Him, that’s why we praise Him, and that is what we should treasure more than anything!
Amen!
Is There Life Beyond Today?
Concordia Lutheran Church – Cerritos, Ca , at dawn on Easter Sunday
Devotional Thought for our days…and our future:
10 My brothers and sisters, try hard to be certain that you really are called and chosen by God. If you do all these things, you will never fall. 11 And you will be given a very great welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:10-11 NCV
“Life’s” destination lies beyond this life because it depends on “Someone” with a capital letter. All this is rooted in the hearts of our people, even if they are unable to express it conceptually.
There are times in my life, where surviving the evils of this day is my only goal. Where i just try to hang on to God, and His presence long enough to help this person or that one. Where I deal with these problems, those challenges, this person’s sin, or worse my own.
I drag myself home, climb the stairs, and hopefully remember to thank God that He carried and dragged me through the day…..only to have another day come all too soon.
I do not think I am alone, not by any means.
We need to learn to live for something more, something that is glorious, something that is perfect. Something that is beyond us, this destination that Pope Francis speaks of, the place where we will find Him, our “Someone”. A place that is truly home, a place of incredible, unbelievable peace, a place of joy, a place where tears, sorrow, weariness are unknown.
Francis is correct about our not knowing how to express it conceptually. We don’t know how to talk about heaven, we don’t know what it will be like, and to talk about it, sooner or later, we might have to talk about death and dying. We really don’t want to talk about that. NOT. AT. ALL.
But heaven is our reality, dwelling with God, in His glory, in His peace, in wonder and awe that He wants us there, that is what Christianity is about. An eternal, everlasting relationship that we can’t even begin to conceive of (see 1 Cor. 2;9)
But we know we shall be with Him.
At the end of the day, that is what matters,
At the beginning of tomorrow, we need to realize He is still here…revealing to us His love and mercy, comforting us, healing us, and preparing us for life with Him.
A life that began when we were baptized into His death, into His resurrection.. and given the promise of the Holy Spirit to dwell with us, keeping us til then.
Pope Francis. A Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections from His Writings. Ed. Alberto Rossa. New York; Mahwah, NJ; Toronto, ON: Paulist Press; Novalis, 2013. Print.
