Dear Church family,
I pray that you are glad today as a result of praising Jesus for all that He is to us and all that He has done. As you know, this was the tone of yesterday’s message in Psalm 67. It was a song of passion for all the nations to praise Jesus for His saving power and to be gladded by His perfect leading as a result.
I hope and pray that you caught the fire that Psalm 67 possessed, a fire of passion and praise meant to spread to all the nations. I will admit for myself that I have never in my whole entire life felt the kind of passion for God’s mission to the world, nor the clarity for why I should want every nation to praise Jesus like I do now. Psalm 67 ignited a new flame in me for God’s glory to spread to every corner of the globe.
And the primary reason that God fanned into flame my desire for the nations is because of the purpose of God’s mission: to praise/glorify Him…”let the peoples praise HIM, oh God, let all the peoples praise HIM!”
This is the grand purpose of everything we do: to praise Him. 1 Corinthains 10:31, Romans 11:36, Ephesians 1:6 & 12 makes this abundantly clear: God designed everybody and everything to praise Him.
And the result of praising God is always gladness. Psalm 34:1-3 illustrates this wonderfully.
“I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth. (notice Psalm 67:3)
2 My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad. (notice Psalm 67:4)
3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me, (notice Psalm 67:5)
and let us exalt his name together!”
Psalm 34:1-3 is a personal example of Psalm 67’s global desire. I would call Psalm 34 stage 1 and Psalm 67 stage 2 within the mission of God.
Psalm 34:1-3 explains how we should personally be praising God with the outcome of gladness that more and more people would join us in joyful praise.
Psalm 67 is the prayer that results from our experience of joyful praise to God: that the whole world would praise Him as well.
So while Psalm 67 is a prayer of world-wide joyful praise to Jesus, Psalm 34 is an invitation for joyful praise to Jesus.
Certainly, before we want the whole world to praise Jesus with gladness (Psalm 67), we need to know personally what it is like to praise Jesus with gladness (Psalm 34).
So as I said during Sundays sermon, worldwide missions needs to start with our desire to praise Jesus. It was John Piper who said, “savoring God precedes spreading His message.” Missions begins with our personal praise and a zeal for God’s glory.
I think this is what made me explode with my heart synchronizing to Psalm 67’s prayer: because praising God is the motive and goal for missions, I have no problem craving that for the world.
So do you feel numb to God’s mission to bring every nation under subjection to Him through a knowledge of His saving power displayed in His Cross?
The key to heating up your missional desire is desiring God’s praise.
So often, when pitching world missions to people, we make it a humanitarian focus: to save people from Hell through the saving work of Jesus. That’s a fine motive, but it hinges on your love for unknown people. The greatest motive for missions is wanting every nation to praise God (67:3!) because He deserves it! For me, I have a greater desire for God to be praised than people to be saved. And that’s because I know God and something of His greatness while I don’t know, nor can I fathom folks across the globe who I’ve never met. But the Lord knows them and made them and they should praise Him.
There is a difference between saying, “God should save people” and “people should praise Him!” God does not need to save people, nor will He save everyone, but everyone does need to praise Him, and that’s the goal that we shoot for and this is God’s mission too, for His name to be praised. Of course, in the process of His name being praised, people benefit too because they are made glad! (vv3-4!)
The bottom line is that Psalm 67 is not an arbitrary verse in the Bible. It is a unified note within the symphony of purposes presented in God’s Word that outline His mission: one day, “every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:9-11).
So I invite you, once again, to praise God everyday of your life. Marvel in His goodness, His creation, His beauty, His power, His sacrifice and His love to send Jesus, His only Son, to die in your place on the Cross, to become your sin and clear you of life sentencing guilt so that in the coming ages, you may experience God’s ineffable & superfluous gifts prepared for you!
But don’t stop there, feel zealous for God’s praise to spread across the globe, because He deserves it! He is Lord and King. And praise Him that the same power that saved us is the power that will finish His work in the world to bring every nation and tongue singing His praises someday (John 10:16). He will do it as He has promised, so let’s praise God & pray to Him together, shall we?
He will answer our prayers for the world to praise Him because the harvest is plentiful (Luke 10:2) and He tells us to pray. So adopt Psalm 67 with me, and pray it on repeat from the heart.
And if you are like me, as you pray Psalm 67, God will answer it and the blessings that He has given to you (Psalm 67:1), you will start using to fuel God’s praise among the unreached peoples in the world (67:2).
I pray that we would be a Church that praises God and whose praise to Him spreads globally.
As 1 Thessalonians 4:1, “just as you are doing, do so more and more.” Let’s let our praise to Jesus grow more and more.
With love in Christ,
Aaron
P.S. Psalm 34:3-5 could read this way: “praise Jesus (v3) to make the peoples glad (v4), and make the peoples glad to praise Jesus! (v5)”
& here’s a song that helps stimulate praise in me for the Lord and His glory:
