One Year Of Bible Study - Psalm 117 -Sunday Notes - 4-11-21

 

Our past year

Join me in prayer…

Dear Lord ,

Bless our bible study ministry this morning. Helps us gain a deeper understanding of your word and of ourselves in relationship to you. Be with our brothers and sisters this morning who are struggling… Guide our fellowship this morning so that we may better support each other and collectively enjoy your love and faithfulness that you have promised all of us..

We ask these things in Jesus’ name…

Amen

It seems that we have accomplished much over this past year but there is much to be done, much to be learned and much joy to be had as we study the scriptures together, have fellowship with our lord Jesus and come to understand the power and nature of God..

To briefly recap and give our work prospective, the ground we have covered as per bible study assignments shakes out this way:

We began in Matthew = 28 chapters .. it took us 7 months to complete this book…

Mark = 16 chapters… This occupied 4 months of our study

Luke 24 chapters .. we have done 9 presently – And we have spent just over 2 months on Luke already..

We have 53 chapters in all which Marks our accomplishment for our study of the scriptures over the last year, in terms of numbers. This of course is not counting our Sunday morning meetings when all manner of subjects from various parts of the bible were discussed and studied… and our incites, revelations, and epiphanies have been incalculable. We have expanded our idea of who we wanted to be as a bible study, how we wanted to structure our time, and an evolution has taken place which has not shaken the world but it has effected ours…

Over the past year we have had people come and go..Start and restart.. We have had to set some regulations to preserve a reasonable protocol and we have formed an informal advisory committee comprised of regularly attendees.. a committee formed essentially by default… We have found our way to doing communion and baptism even though, or perhaps because of our adversities. We have and informal prayer request protocol and have begun an outreach that everyone can participate in by just calling a brother or sister who cannot meet with us for fellowship. We have accepted all peoples from all nations who believe in Jesus Christ regardless of former church affiliations… We have a website, an email address, Facebook pages and our new Google meet platform where we can play our hymns and have many other features which makes our fellowship more full and more enjoyable.. We have also done this all on zero budget, so far, with God’s blessing upon us…. So as a individuals and as a group we have been blessed truly ,over this past year..

Did you know there are

260 chapters in the NT ?

929 in the OT

A total of 1,189 chapters in all

It averages 18 per book

Psalm 117 , the shortest chapter

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter of the Bible. Five books are a single chapter: Obadiah, Philemon, 2 & 3 John, Jude.





Psalm 117

1 Praise the Lord, all you nations;

extol him, all you peoples.

2 For great is his love toward us,

and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord.

Lets talk about this in a few minutes…

You may not have been aware that..

These 2 verses of Psalm 117, known by the opening words in Latin as Laudate dominum (translated "O, Praise the Lord" or "Praise ye the Lord"), has been set to music by a number of composers, including William Byrd, Johann Sebastian Bach, Herrn, Heiden, , Mozart and Strassburg, Just to name a few..



Here is a beautiful rendition of psalm 117
by none other than “the first Baptist church of Jacksonville” ..I don’t know for certain but I believe it is Jacksonville,

Florida….

https://youtu.be/8CtklBKvLDM



Judaism

Psalm 117 is one of six psalms (113-118) of which Hallel is composed. On all days when Hallel is recited, this psalm is recited in its entirety. Hallel is a Jewish prayer, a verbatim recitation from Psalms 113–118 which is recited by observant Jews on Jewish holidays as an act of praise and thanksgiving.

Christianity

In Psalm 117, the gentiles are invited to join in praise of God. Christians view this as a fulfilment of God's promise of mercy to the gentiles, pointing to God's promise that all nations would be blessed in the seed of Abraham, who they believe is Christ, as described in the Letter to the Galatians. Galatians 3:16 says "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ."

Catholicism

In the Catholic Church, the Rule of Saint Benedict assigns this psalm to the Office of Vespers on Monday. Vespers (Evening Prayer)… We pray for those who govern our country that they may exercise their office with justice and compassion;. However, this psalm is currently used in the Liturgy of the Hours on Saturday of Weeks I and III. The psalm may be sung after Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, a ritual performed in Catholic and some Anglican churches as well.

So Psalm 117 is a very short Psalm.. It’s only 2 verses and we’re just one other Psalm away from the longest psalm…That we won’t get to this morning but this is a very very short Psalm , a very simple psalm with an equally simple message. And the message is basically a call to all of the peoples of the earth to praise the Lord and the psalmist simply says praise the Lord all Nations and so you can see that this word goes beyond the Jewish people or the Jewish culture which in this psalm was written and it calls for peoples of all Nations ..of all the world to praise the Lord. The thing is that the Jewish people were the only ones, were the only nation to praise God.. All of the others were worshiping idols…they were worshiping false Gods… The sun the moon ..the stars.. Remember the golden calf??....So Israel is the only nation, of the time, worshiping God but this psalm says “all nations”…. We see the reason that Israel was saved in this psalm so that Israel could be a light ,example and encouragement for others to put away their idolatry and serve God also… We see in this, the bridge from the ot to the Nt… Jesus offered the gentiles their first opportunity to be saved.. Jesus said many times to the gentiles “ by your faith you are saved “….So even before Jesus declared I am the light of the world the principles imbedded here indicates that God sought to also shine his light through the nation of Israel so that all nations might also praise God…

It goes on in verse 1 to say “extol” Him ..and you know the word extol isn’t in my daily vocabulary ..I don’t know about you but I don’t use that word.. But it means to enthusiastically praise ..Kind of like when your football team is coming through the tunnel onto the field and their announcing each one of the players one by one and people enthusiastically cheer and praise these guys as they run onto the field… and so on.. That is to extol and that is what the Lord is telling to do in this psalm to enthusiastically praise him…and then in the 2nd verse..the last verse 2 reasons are given for this praise ..first of all its says for great is his “steadfast Love “ toward us and of course the word steadfast means dependable or committed ..so he says praise God for his dependable love ..Have you ever thought about God’s love as dependable? You can depend on it ..right? My love as a human being isn’t always entirely dependable..because sometimes I get so full myself..and so full of my own fears and my own concerns that I forget..I forget to show love for the people around me..Have you ever gotten like tired…Like really tired and you bite someone’s head off when they really didn’t even really deserve it…but you were maybe mad at somebody else for one thing or another?? So your just tired and you kind of forget..? Well…. that happens with you and I because our love isn’t a 100% dependable but God’s is…It always there.. always always there ..God’s love is there even when God is exercising judgement his love is present..Do you understand that God never suspends part of his attributes or part of his being in order to exercise another part ..see you and I have to do that ..If I’m angry at someone and I’m going to tell them how angry I am I have to suspend certain parts of my personality in order to express that anger..If I’m going to be compassionate and kind to someone I have to suspend other aspects of my attributes or my character in order to express that compassion or kindness.. God never does that ..He never suspends any part of his being ..He is always perfectly in balance ..When there is judgement being expressed there is love, kindness , compassion equally being expressed… When kindness and love is being expressed judgement is equally being expressed…God’s love is always there even when he disciplines us ..even when he take us to the woodshed..His love is there…It is steadfast”…That’s the first reason the psalmist gives for praising the Lord..Look at the 2nd reason..It says and the faithfulness of the lord endures forever ..which is to simply say that his faithfulness has no expiration date..We can all be grateful for that…My faithfulness can have an expiration date..So can yours because we ‘re human.. we pray that God would make us continually faithful to the people that we love and to a ministry that we have been given..but we’re still human beings and we fail ..But God’s faithfulness never fails and it cannot expire ..what a beautiful thing that is..and I really believe that faithfulness is one of those attributes of God that you could and probably should spend time meditating on because it will change the way you think..I love what Paul said to Timothy .. 2nd Timothy , chapter 2 verse 13 it says if we are faithless and that does happen from time to time he still remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.. and the reason I love that statement that Paul made to Timothy so much is that it tells us that faithfulness is not simply that God does…. it is something that he is..I can be faithful..I can do that act or do faithfulness but only God is faithful ..He is faithfulness ..right?... Just like God is love..or God is justice…and so forth..those aren’t simply expressions..they are part his essential being …God is faithful..that means he can’t be otherwise….he cannot be unfaithful…when we say God is Love it means he can’t be otherwise…its not possible..It s like you trying to be a different being than you are…But you are who you are and God is what he is .. He is the essence of all attributes which comprise goodness and rightiousness….so the psalm ends with the very simple words of Praise the Lord…..Which is exactly why we’re here….

Lord we thank you for the opportunity of gathering together this morning and we are thankful for all of the blessings that you have bestowed upon us. We are grateful for our answered prayers. Thank you Lord for our opportunities to help others who are less fortunate along the way. Help us to minister more effectively and guide us so that your word will open up to us.

We ask these things in Jesus’ name

Amen