Psalm 67 - Liturgy and Harvests

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We are in a bit of a shorter Psalm today.

This particular Psalm is only seven verses, so we might not have a 24-minute episode like we did last time.

We are in Psalm 67, and the inscription for this Psalm reads this, for the choir director with stringed instruments, a psalm, a song, and this appears to be another one of those Psalms that would be utilized at harvest time, maybe around the feast of

first fruits as people were harvesting their grain, something that you would sing out to God at a particular time. And there's a kind of concept in church life and in worship of God that has occasionally not been super great, at other times has been

phenomenal. And it's the phrase liturgy. It's just how things are done. And certainly there's some aspects of liturgy that are like how things are done in church.

And sometimes that might be for certain people just like an order of service.

And it might always be that you start the service off with a song and then you have like an opening reading and a prayer and then maybe announcements, some more songs, maybe a special, then a message, then an invitation, and then more announcements,

and then a song at the end, and that might be your liturgy. You might have something that's kind of more involved, maybe something that's tied a little bit more to what churches have done over the past 1,800, 1,900 years of here's our affirmation of

our belief together, maybe something kind of like the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed or something like that, that you start off by saying, you sing together, you have a prayer of confession or prayer remembering what God has done, praying for

needs in the congregation, maybe you have a time of designated giving, you work through your statement of faith or something together, you say one portion of it all together, you have someone that does the reading for the message and then someone

preaches, so there's lots of different ways that churches have organized how their services are run. But, there's also a way that God's people have often operated, what's sometimes called like the church calendar year, and that would be during

specific times of year, you're thinking about certain passages of scripture, maybe you're singing certain songs as a church, and then as individuals as you're walking through your daily life, the two of these that irrespective of what kind of church

denomination you're in, that all of us still kind of hold on to is Easter and Christmas. That during those times of year, we're thinking about Palm Sunday, we're thinking about the resurrection, we're thinking about how Jesus came to earth, the wise

men, all of that kind of stuff, that is still kind of in our vernacular. So Psalm 67 here, there's this thought of, okay, every time harvest time comes around, we want to be thinking specific thoughts about God and about His provision for us. And I

want to encourage you, like maybe there's specific times in your life that maybe you can incorporate some prayers or some Psalms or some readings or different things about your relationship with God, maybe certain times of your year that you can

implement specific things to remember truths about God. Maybe it's like in a vacation time that you would intentionally have a couple Psalms that every year as you go on vacation, you're remembering, God, you have provided for me, you have given me

family, you have given me this amazing world to live in, and maybe you'd read through Genesis 1 and 2. Maybe you would worship along with Psalm 9 or Psalm 8. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork, and you would

remember as you look at the night sky, you're camping with your family, and you go, God, you are so good to me, you have provided for me, you have made this amazing world. You'd read through some of the sections in Job, where God talks about how he

created the stars and the constellations, and you'd just be amazed at God and intentionally remember him. All of that, I just wanted to maybe put in your ear something that God's been reminding me of. Sometimes we can view things that we do

consistently, we can view them as boring or, oh, I guess I have to do this, but sometimes it can be healthy to have rhythms in our life, regular ways in which we think about God and talk to him, sing to him, and that our bodies just know, hey, when

it gets to this time period, here's what I'm thinking about the Lord and incorporating him into all parts of our year, not just Christmas and Easter. One thing that I've been doing with my kids recently is every single night, I think I've mentioned

this before on the podcast, every single night, we have a hymn or a worship song of the month that we're singing through. Right now, we're singing through the song Abide by Aaron Williams, and it's just a great scriptural song, and then I've been

praying through the Lord's Prayer with him, and hopefully as soon as B kind of gets to the point where he can say it and he can repeat it, that he has heard it often enough that now he can recite it as well, then I'll move on to another one of the

kind of scriptural prayers, or one of the things from Psalms or something like that, but I want to instill repetition helps us remember. Repetition helps us to drive truths deeper into our souls than if we just like did it once and then hope we

remember it into the future. We learn things as we repeat them over and over and over again. It's why you can sing, you know, the ABC's song. And so here this would be one of those Psalms that people would sing every single year as it comes around.

Verse number one, we're actually going to now dive into the Psalm. That's where a couple of minutes in. It says this, May God be gracious to us and bless us.

May he make his face shine upon us so that your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.

Here, kind of a call back to what Moses instructed Aaron to bless the children of Israel and the priests with, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and give you peace forever. Here, for God to be gracious to us.

He doesn't give us what we do deserve, and he gives us what we don't deserve.

His favor, his blessing, his Holy Spirit, our church family, all of our possessions, our health, all of it is God's grace to us that he loves us and he gives us amazing things that we didn't have to earn.

He just gave it out of the goodness of his heart and he blesses us. He makes his face shine on us that we are the focus of his attention. What a wonderful truth that is.

I know there are times where we wish that someone else would pay us more attention, whether that's a spouse or a crush. Maybe we wish our kids would pay us more attention.

What a wonderful truth that God's face is shining on us, that his attention is devoted towards us. And we don't ever have to worry about if he sees us or if he cares about us. He always does.

And what a comfort that is. Verse 2, so that your way may be known on earth so that God's laws, God's character, God's nature, God's gospel, that that would be published out to everyone.

All over earth, people would know who God is and what his ways are. His salvation among all nations. That's the whole goal of evangelism and missions.

That God's salvation would be known not just in America, not just Europe, but in deepest, darkest Africa or Southeast Asia, or in the islands in the Pacific Ocean or in the Amazon, that God's salvation would be known.

Verse number 3, let the peoples praise you, God. Let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations rejoice and shout for joy, for you judge the peoples with fairness and lead the nations on earth.

Salah. God is the one that oversees nations and peoples, and certainly there's a future aspect to this, that when Jesus returns and sits on the throne of his father David, that he will judge all the peoples with fairness.

He will lead the nations, and in that day, there will be no injustice ever again. But for the injustice that does occur here on earth now, we don't have to worry about if it is bypassing God's attention.

He sees it, and he is the one that, as he did with Israel, as he did with Egypt and Babylon and Medo-Persia and Greece and Rome and every nation before and since, God has done what is right.

For those nations that have done evil, that have treated people in bad ways, God has made it so that their evil has come right back against them. For the crimes in God's sight that they have committed, there has been justice executed.

And we can know that what God has done in the past, He will continue to do in the future. Verse number five repeats that chorus again. Let the peoples praise you, God.

Let all the peoples praise you. The earth has produced its harvest. God, our God, blesses us.

God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear Him. What a wonderful truth that God gives us our provision that we need each and every day.

And I'm thankful for the truth that we learned in Psalm, I think it's about 37, where David says, I've never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging for bread. And that's something that we can always go to the Lord for.

Think too about this harvest. Certainly we can think about our physical needs that need to be met, but our primary need as Christians is to see spiritual harvest and spiritual food.

This coming Sunday at Tabernacle, we're going to be looking at what Jesus says and the harvest that he cares about.

And I'm going to read just a couple of verses from John 4 of Jesus talking about this, because I want us to kind of end today with a focus on not just God's physical provision for us, but the spiritual provision that he wants to make both for

ourselves and for others. John 4 31, in the meantime, the disciples kept urging him, Rabbi, eat something. But he said, I have food to eat that you don't know about.

He says, there is a satisfaction in a provision that even though I am hungry and tired and thirsty, that God is caring for me and that I am happy about his provision.

Verse number 33, the disciples said to one another, could someone have brought him something to eat? Like they went into town to buy things. They went into a town of a people group that they hated so that they could get him food.

And they're like, who had food that gave it to him? Verse number 34, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work, Jesus told them. Don't you say there are still four more months and then comes the harvest?

Listen to what I'm telling you. Open your eyes and look at the fields because they are ready already for harvest. The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.

For in this case, the saying is true. One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap what you didn't labor for.

Others have labored and you have benefited from their labor. So here Jesus is talking about, he sowed the seed of the Gospel with this woman at the well, that he told her about eternal life, that he was the Messiah.

And she went and she told all the townspeople and the townspeople were on their way back to hear from Jesus, to hear about the Messiah.

And the disciples were going to be a part of that, that they were going to be able to tell the message of Jesus and the good news of the kingdom and what that new life with Jesus entails.

They were going to tell it to people that even though they had just been in the city, they weren't bringing out any people to hear the Messiah with them. But this woman, she went in and she was bringing the whole town with her.

And so Jesus says, you're going to reap what you did not sow. And you're going to enjoy the fruit of someone else's labor, of Jesus' labor and of the woman.

That there is a spiritual harvest, that God is working in the hearts of people, that the Holy Spirit is working to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.

And that we are entering into what God has already done and what other people have already done. And we are called to win souls to Jesus, to reap a harvest that God, it is God's field.

We are just the laborers in the vineyard letting other people know about Jesus. So who can you tell today about Jesus? Who can you invite to church?

Who can you tell about the Gospel, about what Jesus has done for them and invite them to accept Jesus? Who can you do that for today? And maybe you might not be able to, if you will, seal the deal.

You might just be planting a little bit. You might just be watering a seed a little bit. And you don't know who God will eventually have to reap that seed to have that harvest happen.

But let's thank God for the harvest that he does allow to take place. Let's thank him when we are able to plant a seed. Let's thank him when we are able to water.

And let's be faithful to be involved in that every single day of our lives, because people are worth it. And the God who loves people, who calls us to obedience, he is worth us following him in that way.

So let's thank the Lord of the Harvest, both for providing for our physical needs and for him continually working in his world to save souls. And let's be involved in that work.

I've attached a song, May the Peoples Praise You, from Keith and Kristyn Getty. An amazing song that takes some of the thoughts and the specific phrases from this Psalm.

And hopefully that song will help you to learn a little bit of God's Word in that way. Thank you for tuning in today. Looking forward to Psalm 68 with you tomorrow.