Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
It's our hope that these sermons will draw you
more into the life of following God, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. Please consider coming and
joining with us each Sunday morning at 10 a .m.
in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You can find
us online at secondcitychurch .org and on Facebook,
Instagram and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this
sermon. God bless. Let's pray again. Lord, we
do again thank you for your word. We pray as
we turn to it that we would be drawn to worship
you more and more because of who you are, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, because of what you have
done in our salvation and our preservation, Lord.
Draw us into greater praise and worship of you,
we pray. Amen. All right, good morning again.
We are back in the Psalms. Once again, and you
may be wondering when did we let off from the
Psalms? It was two summers ago because I wasn't
here with you last summer. But other than last
summer, we have been in the Psalms every summer
now for 10 years. I started this job actually
10 years ago this month. And we began with Psalm
1. And we are now to Psalm 66. And at this rate,
we will be done in about 12 years. Praise the
Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. I thought
because just occasionally I want to do this,
I thought I'd explain to you some of my approach
with preaching. So in the fall, typically what
we have done is we have alternated between non
-gospel New Testament texts and various Old Testament
passages. Then in Advent and Christmastide, we've
typically looked at various series that kind
of prepare us to celebrate the coming of Jesus
and then help us to celebrate the gift of Christ
and his incarnation. Then often in Epiphany,
which is the beginning of January, through to
Easter. Often Epiphany and Lent, though we've
done a couple of series just in Lent, like considering
the work of the cross and why Jesus had to die
and things like that. Typically during that time
we have been in the Gospels. So this year we
were in Mark, but for years we were in Luke during
that time. And then during Easter season, we've
typically taken a series. We've looked at the
fruit of the Spirit and our mission statement
as a church. This year we consider what does
it mean to be a body in light of the resurrection
of Christ? What does it mean to be the church
in light of these resurrected passages, how Jesus
engages with his disciples? But part of what
I wanna do with that is I wanna give you a diet
of the Bible. My hope is that if you're here
for a little while, you are engaging with a lot
of different passages from scripture. And we're
told that all of scripture is breathed out by
God and it's useful for correction and teaching
and training and righteousness and all of the
rest. And parts of scripture speak of God's authority
and his creative power and some of it speaks
specifically about his salvific works, his works
of salvation on behalf of his people. Others
speak about how he's guiding us on all of the
rest. But we know God best by considering all
of his words to us. And so my hope is that over
time we kind of seep into it if you're here for
a little while. And today we are in Psalm 66.
Psalm 66 is, there's a lot of different categories
for Psalms. Psalm 66 is a psalm of praise and
thanksgiving. So it's calling us to praise and
it's praising God for what he's done. So you've
probably turned the Bible a few times as Sylvia
told you different passages. to look up, but
I want to invite you to look at Psalm 66 this
morning. So you can turn there. If you brought
a Bible with you, you can open up that Bible.
If you don't, maybe grab the Bible in front of
you. If you don't have a Bible, please take that
Bible that's in front of you with you. We'd love
for you to have it, love for you to read it,
check it out, maybe ask questions of other people
and learn about the Lord from His Word. As you
open up, Psalm 66. What you immediately notice
though is this is this call to praise, right?
It says, shout for joy to God all the earth,
sing the glory of his name, give to him glorious
praise. If you actually jump down to verse eight,
it says, bless our God, O peoples, let the sound
of his praise be heard. And actually, if you
go down to the very end there, the last verse,
verse 20, again, it says, bless be God. It's
kind of clearly this Psalm of praise, this calling
others to praise Him, to worship Him, to adore
Him. And I want us to walk through this Psalm
together. And part of what I want you to see
is how it kind of takes this wide, expansive
call, and then it narrows it down. But also,
given that this is a the Sunday of the year where
we particularly reflect on the Trinity, I want
you to see how these movements actually call
us into praising God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It's large, it's expansive, and yet it's also
intimate and it's personal, okay? So I want to
sort of illustrate this a little bit with this.
One of the most dramatic symphonies, or actually
I would say sort of performative symphonies in
a way, is Haydn's Symphony 45 in F sharp minor.
I'm sure as I mentioned that you're like, oh,
the F sharp minor one. Maybe you aren't, but
maybe as I mentioned actually its other title,
you might recognize it. It's known as the Farewell
Symphony. And what's so remarkable about this
symphony is that it begins with all of the different
orchestral instruments, and the players are upfront
and they're playing along. And as it goes and
as it nears the end, you have different players.
stop playing their instrument and walk off the
stage. I would encourage you later on, not right
now, to look up this farewell symphony on YouTube.
There are some great performances. Some of them
are actually funny where one, I think cellist,
takes out a handkerchief and as though he's throwing
in the towel, throws it on the ground before
he walks out. Then this other lady, she's like
one of the last ones to walk out. She takes her
bow and she puts like a white towel at the end
and starts waving it as though it's a surrender
flag. It's kind of humorous, but the very first
time this was performed, the lanterns that illuminated
the music sheets of the musicians, they would
snuff them out. as they walked off the stage
and you can just imagine the drama as this whole
body is playing this beautiful piece of music
and then it narrows down and at the end there's
just two violinists there on stage as it ends.
But of course what's remarkable about this is
that the music is lovely in its grandeur at the
beginning. I mean it's a beautiful piece of music
and all the parts are playing together and it's
so lovely. And yet that beauty does not diminish
as it kind of narrows down to the end. It still
grabs your attention. It still sort of delights
the ears. The beauty and the importance of the
collective together and of the individual part,
okay? That's part of what's happening in this
psalm. And I want to suggest to you that's part
of what's happening in the psalm in terms of
the great call to all of us to praise the Lord
and the call of each individual to praise the
Lord. And it's also true in the psalm of who
God is in all of His plurality and majesty and
in the singular ways in which He works, okay?
So look with me again at the beginning of psalm
66. I'm gonna read these first four verses for
you. again. Shout for joy to God all the earth.
Sing the glory of his name. Give to him glorious
praise. Say to God, how awesome are your deeds.
So great is your power. Your enemies come cringing
to you. All the earth worships you and sing praises
to you. They sing praises to your name. It's
just expansive, right? Twice it says all the
earth, all of it. All of it is to worship. And
of course, part of that that's mentioned here
is because his deeds are awesome. They're awe
-inspiring. He speaks and the world comes into
being. His authority is over all things. His
power is so great that those who oppose him,
they come to nothing. All the earth, because
of how great he is simply by his being, his awesomeness,
is to worship the Lord. Then you have this word,
Salah, there. And quite honestly, the truth is
we don't really know what that means. I kind
of love that. I kind of love it like I love when
the New Testament author says, somewhere it's
written. And it quotes the Old Testament like,
I do that sometimes. It was written somewhere
this. And I can't remember the reference, but
it's there. Because it keeps us humble, right?
And there's words that the Bible uses that actually
we're not entirely sure what it means. That's
why we use the Hebrew there. But most people,
and with good reason, believe that Salah means
something like pause, wait, rest. Almost certainly
it's a musical term because it's a change in
the movement. There's some shift that's happening
and there's some way of saying, wait a sec. In
my mind, it was most likely because somebody
needed to grab the electric guitar and start
doing a solo. Or rather, David was grabbing the
lute or the lyre, which was more like one of
these U -shaped things with strings and going
like this. But the point is that the solo in
some ways is a little bit of a shift, it's a
little bit of a pause. And so there actually
is a little shift here. The collective, all of
the earth, the expansive collective, all of the
earth, begins to narrow down. And it begins to
narrow down from simply the God who is awe -inspiring
because he's over all things, to the God who
invites and actually our praise is demanded because
he has acted for the salvation of his people.
So we pick up in verse five. Come and see what
God has done. He is awesome in his deeds toward
the children of man. He turned the sea into dry
land. They passed through the river on foot.
There did we rejoice in him who rules by his
might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations.
Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Salah.
Let's say he turned the sea into dry land. So
the psalmist has moved right from this all -expansive
idea to this collective people of God, right?
He says, come and see what God has done. And
he turned the sea into dry land. It's like, oh,
think specifically of what he's done for you.
Think together, he's saying, about what God has
done for you, how he has saved you, how he worked
for you. Think about how he brought you out of
Egypt when you were slaves. Think of how he knew
how the Egyptians were coming and your fear,
looking at the waves and thinking, there's no
way that I'm going to be saved here. And yet,
even in the midst of that fear, he not only causes
you to come to safety, but he does so dry land.
Think about the amazing act of God's salvation
for you. And then it says, praise. And this praise
here, what I'm saying is that it moves from this
all expanse of everything to this collective
still. It's still a body that has been saved
together. So the praise in verse eight is this,
bless our God, O peoples. Let the sound of his
praise be heard. It's this everything, all creation,
all the earth, but he is our God. He has acted
for us. Now the next section has to do with being
tried and tested, but also being led, being guided,
being brought to safety. And here he's again
narrowing it down. It says repeatedly us, right?
He says, you brought us into the net. You brought
us in. also to the place of abundance. So the
trying is of God collectively. It's also bringing
the people of God collectively to a place of
abundance. Just like the reference to the Red
Sea here, it's a trying of God's people, but
it's the safety to which God leads them. And
this kind of movement, again, moves from the
our to the us, and then actually, eventually,
to the I. It leads to the praise of the individual.
There's a narrowing that's taking place. And
so when you actually get towards the end, verse
13, it says, I will come into your house with
burnt offerings. I will perform my vows to you.
I will offer you burnt offerings of fatted animals.
I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Do
you see how this is a narrowing down? And it's
a narrowing in some ways. with the ways that
God acts. First, He's over all things. Awesome
are His deeds. Then there's this collective thing.
He's brought us through the sea and on dry land.
And then it's specifically, He's tried us. He's
tested us. He's brought us to a place of abundance.
All the earth leads to our people leads to I.
I. Final statement of praise is, blessed be God
because He's not rejected my prayer. Each of
the calls to praise make this movement. All the
earth, blessed be our God, he's heard my prayer.
Steadfast love is for me. So, it's been mentioned
that this is Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is
the day in the calendar of the church where we
just reflect together on the revelation of God
as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that means
that last Sunday was Pentecost. Some of you were
here as we worshiped on Pentecost Sunday. And
that Sunday is remembering both the first Pentecost,
the 50 days after Passover when God met with
His people there on Mount Sinai, but also 50
days after the resurrection when the Spirit of
God descended in Acts chapter two on the disciples
and those there in Jerusalem. Anyway, today is
a day that we remember specifically this reality
that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, diversity
and unity. We're going to say together the Athanasian
Creed, and I'm telling you this right now because
it's not what we normally say and it's long and
maybe it's going to feel cumbersome for you,
but it's one of the great statements, creedal
statements of the Trinity. And maybe as I say
that, you have heard this said, hey, the Trinity
is not in the Bible. Maybe you've heard this.
You know, one of the great things about Christian
theology that's not even found in the Bible.
Well, the fact is, the word Trinity is not in
the Bible, but the Trinity is all throughout
scripture. You think with me just how Jesus says,
go and baptize in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit, or our Romans passage
talks about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit
all working together for our salvation. One God,
co -equal, co -eternal. And I want to suggest
to you that in a way, we actually have the Trinity
right here in Psalm 66, okay? I understand it
doesn't say, here's the Trinity right here in
Psalm 66, all right? But I think we have the
work of the Father, the work of the Son, and
the work of the Spirit here. And I think these
various aspects of the Trinity, the work of the
Trinity, actually reflects this sort of movement
from the grand down to the particular in a way.
So when we think of all the earth, shouting to
God for joy, for his awesome deeds, I think it's
right for us to think of the work of the Father.
We're told in 1 Corinthians 8, 6, yet for us
there's one God, the Father, from whom are all
things and for whom we exist. And then actually
in Revelation 4, 11, there's this worship of
the Father taking place. It says this, What we
have is this sense of all things should be worshiping
the Father, because He is awesome. He is over
all. We can say is that all the earth there is
to praise the fatherly reality of God God as
father But then what I said when it when it actually
when this psalm turns to say hey the people of
God the collective people of God Should also
be praising him. This isn't a call just to all
the earth but specifically to the church What
we see when we do that when we when we made that
turn is in psalm 66 What it's saying is you need
to do it because of how God saved you Remember
his acts in history to save you out of slavery
and to bring you to himself. Well, as Christians
we would say, that is the work of Jesus. The
great act of bringing us from being slaves to
bringing us to being sons is the historical work
of Christ on the cross and in the resurrection.
And so again, actually, we could look at the
very same passage, 1 Corinthians 8, 6. It goes
on to say, and one Lord Jesus Christ Through
whom are all things and through whom we exist
is what it says We exist as a body of the church
because of the definitive historical acts of
Christ for us. So we ought to praise him The
collective people of God exists because of the
work of the Sun and Actually, we could look at
the very next the very next passage in the book
of Revelation chapter 5 Not only is the Father
to be praised in Revelation 4, but the Son is
to be praised in Revelation 5, and he's to be
praised because of his works of salvation in
history. So this is what it says in that chapter.
Worthy are you, referring to the lamb there,
to take the scroll and to open its seals, for
you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed.
People for God from every tribe and language
and people and nation and you've made them a
kingdom and priests to our God and they shall
reign on the earth So you see the collective
people of God are to worship Jesus the son Because
of his works of salvation for them as a collective
people Okay, this big expansive thing is narrowing
down But also here's what I want to suggest to
you is that we see the work of the spirit here
also This psalm I think is calling us to praise
God as Holy Spirit also. And think with me about
how Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted.
What it says actually in that text there in Matthew
chapter four is it says the Spirit of God led
him there. But as he was tempted, the Spirit
of God led him through that and into a place
of abundance. Jesus tells us in John chapter
14, that the Spirit is our counselor, in John
chapter 16, that He's the one who will guide
us into all truth. This is the exact language
that is being used here in this psalm, here in
Psalm 66. We have a call to praise God because
He's awesome, because His works of salvation,
but also because He guides His people. And sometimes
He guides His people into trials. But through
those trials, through those valleys of the shadow
of death, He brings them into the place of living
water and abundance. What I'm saying is this
text here, it starts expansive. and it narrows
down to the individual. And in so doing, it's
actually calling us collectively and individually
to worship the Trinity who is collective, plurality,
and yet one unity. Part of the doctrine of the
Trinity is that it teaches us that God loves
us as Father, as the Almighty Father who's over
it all. That He loves us as Son. who redeems
us from our slavery to sin, historically, in
time and in space, but also that He loves us
intimately. Specifically. The doctrine of the
Holy Spirit is that God is with you, particularly.
He abides within you. He's made His dwelling
in you, individually. The fact is that all these
things together are all the more reason to praise.
The reality of God as Trinity should lift all
of our hearts all the more to offer Him our praise
and our worship. We were made in the image of
God. Genesis tells us that. It says, let us make
man in our image, the Father that was there ordering,
the Son there speaking, the Word is with God
in the beginning, the Spirit there hovering,
all creating. But also the Bible says that they
are all in recreation, too. God's love is for
you as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit. His
redemptive work is for you as Father, as Son,
and as Holy Spirit. All of it together is working
together to help us sing his praises. Live as
we are called to live. Worship as we are called
to worship. Let me circle back to music as a
way of kind of closing So you've probably heard
and I wonder actually if you've experienced this
That music actually is very good for your heart
health and Actually, specifically the beats of
music are good for your heart health and so you
can listen to certain Music and it actually your
heart will begin to beat to certain music. So
it can have a calming presence. It can actually
have a strengthening presence too, as it beats
in a certain way. There's been these remarkable
studies that have been done that music beats
can affect heart health. But you've maybe, because
I feel like maybe I mentioned this years ago
here. Of course, some of you were not there at
this time, but maybe you've also heard that there's
been some studies that have been done about the
effects of collectively singing. And specifically,
quite a few of these studies have been done with
regards to choirs singing hymns, actually, interestingly.
But in their various parts, as they keep beat
together, their hearts actually begin to beat
in unison. One of the articles I read this week
was from about 12 years ago. I don't know if
I'm saying that right. At the University of Gothenburg
in Sweden, they did a study a while back looking
specifically at the heartbeats of choir. And
so they would put this pulse monitor on each
individual singer. And what they found is that
at the beginning, they weren't beating together.
And then after a while, actually, the music would
cause their hearts to beat as one. Individually,
they're still themselves, and yet collectively,
they're working together. This is the call to
praise. It's an expansive call that's calling
each one of you in all of creation, and yet it's
calling you as individuals, right, to praise
this God. And as you think of this, I want you
to think about, this is exactly what God is doing,
because this is who He is. God, diversity and
unity. beating individually, acting individually
for us, and yet working collectively for us.
And this is what God calls you to, to praise
Him, to worship Him, and to let your hearts then
beat individually as one, praising God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit for who He is and for what
He's done. Let me pray for us. Lord God, We think
of this psalm that feels so big at the beginning,
and then it gets so intimate that it is us, individually,
one of us that matters, that our individual praise,
our individual offerings matter, that you work
as the Almighty God and as the one who is with
us as a church, and then further as the one who
is dwelling within each one of us as the Holy
Spirit. the guide, the counselor, the leader.
God, we bless you for this reality, that you
are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That you be
perfectly in your diversity as one. God, I pray
that as we lean into your praise, that we would
reflect your reality, that we would be a church
that loves our differences, delights in them.
yet beats as one because we reflect this reality
of those who have been saved by Almighty Father,
redeeming Son, Holy Spirit, in whose name we
pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to Second
City Sermons podcast. We hope this sermon has
encouraged you to worship God and to celebrate
the gospel of Jesus. Please consider subscribing
to this podcast and joining us in person each
Sunday at 10 a .m. You can find us online at
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bless.