Psalm 67 | Subversive Spirituality

Listen to this week’s sermon, Subversive Spirituality preached by Pastor Justin Grimm from Psalm 67.

Transcript

Welcome, Prayer, And Psalm 67

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 0:06

Hello everyone, this is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to the Sermon Audio from New City Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.

Evan Pederson 0:22

If you would please stand with me for the prayer of illumination. Almighty God, you are the great provider. May your Holy Spirit open our hearts and our minds to the truth and beauty of your life-giving word. Through Christ we pray. Amen. Today's scripture reading comes from Psalm 67. May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face to shine upon us. That your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. For you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its increase. God shall bless us. Let all the ends of the earth fear him. This is God's word. You may be seated.

A Skeptical Family Meets Jesus

Justin Grimm 1:38

Some of the greatest joy that you will ever experience won't come from something that happens to you, but from something that God does through you. A couple years ago, I was pastoring a small church in Westerville, Ohio, and it was seemingly an ordinary Sunday when a new family walked in. Now, when this new family walked into worship with us, it's somewhat hard to describe, but they were putting off a little bit of a nervous energy, a little bit of an anxious energy, maybe if I'm honest, a little bit of an angry energy. And I couldn't quite figure it out. So I walked up to them, I introduced myself, I let them know as the pastor and welcomed them to church. And uh right away they open up and they say, Hey, we just want you to know that we have no understanding how, in a modern day, in modern times, anybody could believe these ancient fables and follow through on this. But we have two young children, and our oldest son, he really wants to be here this morning, and they're the and he is the only reason that we are gathering with you. Without skipping a beat, I looked at him and I said, Well, may the peace of Christ be with you. I let them know how welcome they were uh with us, and I said, This is okay. We're glad for you to uh experience what it's like uh to belong if this is something you are interested in. But there's no pressure uh to see what this is like for you. For the next two months, this family continues to attend worship every single Sunday. So I said, I want to meet with them. Uh the parents' names are Dan and Allie. And I said, Dan and Allie, can we meet and can we talk? This time the conversation went a little more smoothly. They said, Listen, for two months we have been with you guys and we have become endeared to this community. You guys are kind, you love each other, you love the people of Westerville. We still believe everything that we believe. That is, you guys are crazy uh to believe in this Jesus, to follow him in all this way. But at the end of the day, we think if we stick around, at least our kids will pick up some good morals. So we're in for a little while. I let them know one more time. Dan and Allie, you are welcome to be long before you ever believe. But I want you to know I'm going to be praying that one day you indeed will believe in the same Jesus that we do. For one year, Dan and Allie became a part of our community. That is, they attended worship on Sunday, they attended community group throughout the week, and they even jumped in and began to serve on some of the serve teams that we had. After one year, I get a call from Allie, and she says, Justin, we need to meet. We go to a coffee shop on State Street in Westerville, Ohio, known as Java Central. And Allie says, Justin, one year ago we became enthralled with this small little community. One year later, I don't know what is going on, but I am captivated by the Lord Jesus Christ. What do I do? I said, Ali, this is so good. What do you do? You can receive the blessing that God has on offer for you now by responding in um repentance and faith. In a small little coffee shop in a small little town in Northeast Columbus, Ohio, Ali Gerritsen prayed to become a follower of Jesus. And it was a holy and glorious moment. At the end of this moment, Allie said, Justin, this is going to be so disruptive to my family. Dan hasn't budged. Dan is not captivated by Jesus. Would you join me in praying? And I said, Allie, every Friday we are going to start fasting and we are going to start praying that Dan would come to know Jesus as Lord. Fast forward one year, it's the spring of 2024. I get a phone call from Dan. He says, Justin, we need to meet. Allie, we went to the coffee shop, Java Central. Dan, we went to the cigar lounge on College Street. As we smoke some cigars, Dan is saying, Justin, I can't believe that these words are about to come out of my mouth. But after two years of being a part of this community, I am uh enthralled with Jesus. He's calling me to something I don't know what it is. Can you help me out? I said, Dan, yes, I can. What do you need to do? You need to receive the blessing that God has on offer in and through Jesus Christ by responding to him in repentance and faith. And on a small little cigar lounge on College Street in Westerville, Ohio, Dan prayed to become a follower of Jesus. Yeah, we can we can clap on this. You see, unlike Allie, Dan had no exposure to the church, so he was never baptized. And Dan said, Justin, it's spring. Easter's coming up. Would you baptize me on Easter Sunday? And I said, Of course, we're going to make this happen. So Easter Sunday, 2024, I turned to my friend Dan and I asked him this question before our church. Dan, who is Jesus to you? And I still have his unedited written response. These were the very words that he read before our church. Jesus is the Son of the Living God, who was crucified for my sin, conquering death to redeem me from my sin. I am his child, and I am forgiven, and I will follow him. Jesus is important to me because through his life, death, atonement, and teachings, I have hope, peace. He helps me and my family live full lives. He guides us through trials and temptations, and I believe by his spirit he will grow us in our faith with him. This was Dan's confession before our church. In

Psalm 67 And The Joy We Miss

Justin Grimm 8:30

many ways, that story, I think that is what Psalm 67 is actually about. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let the nations be glad. Let the peoples praise you. You see, whether it's the peoples and nations that are gathered together in Westerville, Ohio, or the peoples and nations gathered in West Orange, in Conway, in Longwood, in Waterford, or right here in Central Orlando, there is a call that is on display that the people would respond and know who God is. This is a celebratory psalm. This is a vision and mission-oriented psalm. But can I say this is also a little bit of a tragic psalm? Why would I say that? Because at least for the original uh hearers of this psalm, it was only ever aspirational. You see, if we were to go through the entire story of the Old Testament, for the many sins and struggles and faults that the ancient people of God had, one of them was this. They were content in receiving the comfort that comes from being blessed by God, but they did not respond to the calling that God gave them to be a blessing. They were content with receiving blessing, but not being obedient to extend that blessing. And I wonder if we too are tempted by these very things. And if we are, if we're content with merely receiving blessing, but not extending blessing, what is really on the line? What can we miss out on if we do not participate in this calling that I believe that God gives to his ancient people and to us? One word, joy. I believe God's ancient people left joy on the table. And I believe if we don't extend this calling to others, we too are leaving joy on the table. So what do we learn here in Psalm 67? And what do I believe God would have us talk about this morning? I believe it is this. True joy is found not in merely receiving blessing, but in becoming one. And so this morning I want to unpack that for us by asking three questions. Why does God bless his people? What does this blessing produce, and can we trust God to do it? Why does God bless his people? What does this blessing produce, and can we trust God to do it? Those are the three things we'll look at this morning. So,

Why God Blesses His People

Justin Grimm 11:32

why does God bless his people? Well, the answer is right here in the text, so that his saving power may be known among all nations. Let's look at the petition and the purpose. First, the psalm begins with a petition. It's the very first word in verse one. May. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us. Does this sound familiar to you, New City? I hope it does, because if you've been with us for any little bit of time, this is the blessing that we pronounce over you after we wrap up every worship service. But this blessing, obviously, it's not original or unique to us. It's not even original to the psalmist. In fact, what is he doing? He's looking back in the story of Scripture to Numbers chapter 26, where, or excuse me, number six, verses 24 through 26. And this is known as the Aaronic Blessing. Now, if you were with us last fall, Pastor Ben, he preached, in my opinion, one of the best sermons that I've ever heard in my life. And I actually drew upon some of his content from that sermon. I commend it to you, encourage you to give it a listen again if you haven't heard it yet. What is God's blessing? Blessing is God's gracious declaration and gift of his covenant favor, his personal presence, and his life-giving goodness upon his people. Why do we need God's blessing? We need God's blessing because we were created to live in his favorable presence. And apart from it, we spend our lives searching elsewhere for security, significance, and satisfaction that only he can give. And if you know anything about Presbyterian and Reformed theology, the theologian John Owen has this statement: the indicatives come before the imperatives. And what does that even mean? Well, we see it actually right here in verses one or two. God blesses his people before he ever calls them to respond. At New City, how do we explain that? How do we describe that? Usually every single week, we receive from God, and then we respond out of what we've received from him. What do we receive from God? The blessing that we need from a heavenly Father that only he can give to us, that leads to a flourishing and beautiful life. But we don't merely receive, we respond to that blessing. Blessing comes before mission, but being blessed by God should always lead to mission. And so we see that's exactly what happens here. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us. That there is the petition. Now here's the purpose. That your bless uh that the nations that your way would be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. You see, what is the psalmist doing here? He's actually just taking us on a trip back in time. First, he went back to Numbers 6 with uh the Iranic blessing. Now he goes even further back in time to Genesis chapter 12, to the Abrahamic blessing. God blesses Abraham and he says, What? I will bless you so that you will be a blessing. The psalmist knows his Old Testament. We need to first receive this blessing, but then what do we do with it? We extend this blessing to the nations. That was the call of Abraham, who would, his family would grow and become Israel. And this was the call of Israel. And if we keep reading the story, we see this is the call of the church. Theologian Leslie Nubigan says it like this the church is not meant to call men and women out of the world into a safe religious enclave, but to call them out in order to send them back as agents of God's mission. Why does God bless his people? So that his saving power may be known among all nations. So what do we first learn here in Psalm 67? New city. Don't you see? You were made to receive God's blessing that you might personally flourish. But you were also made to respond to God's blessing so that the nations may flourish. You see, for us to extend the Abrahamic blessing to the nations, we must first receive it. In the Old Testament, it was the job of a priest to extend the blessing of Yahweh to the people. But in the Old Testament, every priest Israel ever had was ultimately insufficient to carry this blessing all the way to the nations. So which priest can actually qualify to do this? More on that in a moment. Before we answer that question, this takes us to the second idea.

Invitation That Multiplies Joy

Justin Grimm 17:25

Why does God bless his people so that the nations may flourish? What does this blessing produce? This blessing produces hopeful invitation and exponential joy. Hopeful invitation and exponential joy. Look at verses three through five. There's three imperatives. Let the peoples praise, let the nations be glad, let the peoples praise. Now, again, if you would bear with me for a moment before I can go into some Hebrew uh nerdum, uh these commands let, it's actually just the verb for praise, but it comes to us in the Hebrew Jessive form. And what does this actually mean? It means the psalmist gives these commands with a heart of longing. Let please God, let the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad. Let the peoples praise you. Who does this hopeful invitation go out to here in Psalm 67? The Amim, the peoples, and the Goyim, the nations. The amim is used five times. This is near peoples, this is ethnic groups, tribes, and uh neighbors who are the goim. They're the far-off. This is the broader, more distant nations word. The psalm uses both near peoples and far nations and longs, longs that they would join the song of praise. What a spectacular moment and time and city we live in. You see, for us, I hope we share in this longing, because at least here in Orlando, the here and now, the nations are not necessarily overseas. The nations are in all the places we live, work, and play. The nations are in West Orange, they're in Conway, they're in Longwood. What do we learn? Your neighbors are the nations. There is a hopeful invitation for your neighbors and the nations here in Psalm 67. And what does this invitation lead to? Lord willing, exponential joy. Verses three through five, they have a chiastic structure to them. Look, verse three, let the peoples praise you, O God, let the peoples praise you. Verse five, it repeats it. Let the peoples praise you, O God, let the peoples praise you. Sandwich in between three and five, verse four, let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth. In Hebrew poetry, whatever comes in the middle of a chiastic structure, that's the emphasis. That's the thing we need to put a magnifying glass on. So, Lord willing, if if Israel is extending this hopeful invitation, what does it actually produce? Joy and gladness. You see, in verse 4, the psalmist uses two words. Samak is a deep inner brightening, and Renan is an uncontrollable shout. That's what the psalmist and that's what God wants for your neighbor. Not merely just information about him. He wants them brightened from the inside out until it breaks out of them. You see, this is the motivation underneath the invitation. The nations experience their greatest joy, not in autonomy, but under God's leadership. Verse 4 says, For you judge the peoples with equity. And I know in our modern day and time, and maybe elsewhere even in scripture, judgment can be a bad thing. But what's literally being spoken about here, this word for judgment means leadership. What does this mean? When Israel actually reached out to the nations, when we reach out to our neighbors, what are we inviting them to? Not merely a religion, but we're inviting our neighbors and the nations into the truest flourishing events. Available to a human being. You see, the simple act of invitation, it reframes it from awkward obligation to a genuine gift. Exponential joy is what is on the table. Our joy, their joy, and God's joy. All three are activated by one act, the invitation. For those of you that know me, I didn't grow up going to church. In fact, I didn't grow up in a religious home at all. My junior year of high school, my next door neighbor, her name was Lindsay Dixon, and every single Wednesday night, she would shoot me a text message with a simple invitation. Hey, F3, which was our fun way of describing our little Bible study, F3's meeting at my house and in my basement, would love to have you join us. And this produced such turmoil in my heart. You see, at the time I was like my friend Allie and Dan, and I was very skeptical of the church and church people, but I was totally into Lindsay. So what was I going to do? And uh I slowly but surely responded to the invitation. And much like my friend Allie and Dan, I belonged to that community long before I ever started to believe what that community believed. Eventually, through a crisis in my life, I came to know the Lord Jesus. And that's a story for next time. Hopeful invitation leads to exponential joy. And would you bear with me for a moment? It started with a 16-year-old girl in high school who extended an invitation to me, which led to my joy, to her joy, our youth pastor's joy. But dare I say, the Lord, not because of anything in me, but because of his goodness and grace, has used me to extend this joy, maybe even here and now in this room. And do you see this is how the kingdom of God works? Who extended the invitation to you? How has joy been multiplied and uh gone forth in your life through your work, through your witness? What is the mission we have at New City to call, form, and send disciple makers? Psalm 67 gives the instruction. It leads with, it begins with invitation. Hey, we worship this really good God on Sunday. And even if you are if you are curious in the slightest, we'd love to have you join. Or hey, if that's too much, there's this community, and we meet every other week, and we would love to have you be with us. Just just come check it out. And do you see how this multiplies and grows? Lord willing, as we head into the spring, we'll be sending out a new congregation up into North Orlando so that what the joy might be multiplied. Why does God bless his people that the nations might be glad? What does this blessing produce? Hopeful invitation and exponential joy.

Trusting God For The Harvest

Justin Grimm 25:23

And can we trust God to do it? The answer is of course. You see, that's where this psalm ultimately wraps up. It wraps up with an assured confidence. Verses six and seven. God shall bless us. Let the ends of the earth fear him. Can we trust God to do this? Of course. Look at the harvest and the horizon. You see, remember back in verse one, it started with petition. May God bless us. Do you see how the petition has evolved by the time we get here to verse six and seven? No longer is it a petition, it is a declaration. God shall bless us. You see, at this point here in the Psalm, it's aspirational once again, but aspirational in the best of senses. Why? Because what God began in Genesis 1, remember, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, is clarified in Genesis 12, send this blessing out to all of the nations, is personalized in Deuteronomy 6. May the Lord bless you and keep you. Sung about here in Psalm 67, is commissioned in Matthew 28, go out into all the world and make disciples, is ratified in Acts 2 as this exponential joy starts to spread throughout the work, the world, and continues today through the work and witness of the people of New City. What does verse what is verse 6 talking about? The earth has yielded its increase, an assurity, a guarantee that your work and your witness matters. The very thing that God created us for, that sent us out to, even before sin ever entered into the story, well, the harvest, it will be reaped. Because God is a good planter, he is a good farmer, he will get what he intends to receive. That is the harvest. And how far does this harvest go? We'll look to the horizon. You see, the scope of God's blessing, it was never merely local. I've already said it, but I think that's one of the things that the ancient people of God most missed out upon. They were content with the comfort that comes from receiving this blessing, but they didn't spread it out. They weren't this blessing to the nations the way that they were called to. They didn't extend this blessing the way that God had called them to. So what do we do with this? How do we go from aspirational, which it was for God's ancient people, to actual?

Jesus Brings The Blessing To Nations

Justin Grimm 28:26

Well, we know the answer. Remember, it was the job of a priest to deliver this blessing to the nations? Well, we know ultimately who the priest is that we and the nations need. His name is Jesus Christ. In Galatians chapter 3, we are told that Jesus received the curse from God that we might receive his blessing. And Galatians 3, 14 says this, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. Hebrews chapter 12 tells us that it was for the joy set before him that Jesus Christ endured the cross. And what was the joy set before him? It was you, new city. You see, the nations and the peoples, it's not merely just your neighbors who are out there, but it's you. We're the Gentiles, we're the Goyim, we are the far ones who have been reconciled and brought in through Jesus Christ. And one day, this is where the story is going. Revelation chapter 7, verses 9 and 10. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one can number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. How do we get from Psalm 67 to Revelation 7? The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus uttered these words, it is finished. You may now receive the blessing that God has on offer. Your life may flourish as it only can from receiving this blessing, and you might respond by extending this blessing to your neighbors. What do we learn, New City? Our mission matters. We call form and send disciple makers, not just here on Sunday morning, but in all the places we work and witness. We do it at UCF, we do it in West Orange, in Conway, and one more time, Lord willing, very soon in Altamont and Longwood, through the people of Garden City. Go back with me one more time to Easter morning 2024. I know you did because you guys literally bursted into applause. When my friend Dan read his personal confession and was baptized, our congregation burst into uh praise and uh response to God. The joy that you felt when Dan read his confession, that eruption of praise, that's what Psalm 67 is talking about. That is what God is after. It started with a church plan in Westerville that decided their neighbors matter more than their comfort and contentment. This mission continues today when we, New City, decide that our neighbors, our networks, our friends matter more than our comfort and contentment. Do you see the work? It begins in your driveway. True joy isn't found when God's blessing ends with you. True joy is found when God's blessing reaches someone else through you.

Final Call And Closing Prayer

Justin Grimm 32:15

Let's pray. Oh Lord, we pray that that would be true of us, that we would be people who, not just merely intellectually, but emotionally, spiritually, we know this blessing that you pour upon us, that we are deeply rooted, we are deeply insecure, and the love that you have for us and have lavished on us through the person of Jesus Christ. But Lord, where our fathers and brothers in the past were willing to settle with just merely receiving that blessing, I pray that that will not be true for us here at New City. May this blessing motivate us to love, may this blessing motivate us to invite. May this blessing motivate us to uh have our neighbors, that is, the nations, join in this song of praise. We thank you for all the ways that you have blessed us. We ask that you would continue to do that now, and that we might respond to you. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.