"How Great Is Our God!"

INTRO.:  If someone were to ask you, “What is God like?” or “How would you describe this God whom you Christians worship?” what would you say?  Obviously, there are so many ways we could answer those questions because the Bible tells us so much about God.  But perhaps no part of Holy Scripture tells us more about him than the 9^th Psalm.  As I was looking at this psalm a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but notice all these different attributes and characteristics of God that David presents to us here.  And I thought, “I need to share these with my people.”  And what better day to do that than on Trinity Sunday, a day in which we especially focus upon the nature and character of this Triune God that we follow and worship and serve.  And the way I’m going to do it is in the form of 8 sermonettes that will be interspersed with some great hymns.  So let’s get started with v. 1 of Psalm 9:

 I.                   Ps. 9:1-- I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders.

HE IS A WONDER-WORKING GOD.

A.                Gen. 1:1 reminds us of that right off the bat:  “In the beginning…”

B.                 Show slides of pictures from the Hubble telescope.

C.                 Scripture consistently testifies to the wonders of God:  the parting of the Red Sea, the destruction of the city of Jericho when its walls came tumbling down, the miracles of Christ.

HYMN:  519 (LW) – “How Great Thou Art”

 II.        Ps. 9:4 -- For you have upheld my right and my cause; you have sat on your throne,

 judging righteously.

HE IS A JUST GOD WHO FIGHTS FOR ME.

A.                David was speaking from personal experience here:

1.                  Goliath – “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." I Sam. 17:37

2.                  Saul

3.                  His own son, Absalom

B.                 God has not changed.  He still fights for you and me.  Whether your battle is with

health problems, financial problems, marital problems, work problems, family problems, God is on your side if you are on his side!  Rom. 8:31-32-- If God is for us, who can be against us?   He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

            HYMN:  228 (HS) – “The Battle Belongs to the Lord”

 III.       Ps. 9:5 -- You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked; you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.

HE IS A HOLY GOD.

A.                The word holy means absolutely perfect, flawless, sinless; so much so that he is in a class all by himself.  And because he is so perfect, flawless, and sinless he cannot and will not tolerate sin.  To do so would go against his holy nature.  He must deal with sin.

B.                 This he did in the person of his Son Jesus Christ whom he offered as the supreme

sacrifice and payment for sin.

C.                 Through faith in Christ we not only receive forgiveness, but also his holiness, his righteousness, his perfection which in turn makes us pleasing and acceptable to this holy God.  Isaiah 61:10 – “He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.”

D.                Woe to those who do not receive Christ’s holiness by faith and his payment for sin as their own, for the writer to the Hebrews reminds us in chapter 10:31 that “it is a dreadful thing for an unholy person to fall into the hands of the holy and living God.”

 IV.       Ps. 9:7-8 -- The LORD reigns forever; he has established his throne for judgment.  He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice.

HE IS A RULING AND JUDGING GOD.

A.                The world has seen great rulers, great kings throughout history:  David and Solomon; Nebuchadnezzar of the Babylonians; Alexander the Great of Greece; Julius Caesar of Rome.  And even in our modern times, there have been rulers who possessed and exercised incredible power:  Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini.  Yet their kingdoms all crumbled sooner or later.

B.        Note v.7:  “The Lord reigns forever.”  How important it is for us to remember that because the devil may seem to be having a hey-day in our world today, but we already know the end of the story:  Rev. 20:9-10 – “They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

 V.        Ps. 9:9 -- The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

HE IS A PROTECTING GOD.

A.                David speaking from personal experience here:  Goliath; on the run from Saul.

B.                 The 3 men in the fiery furnace; Daniel in the lion’s den.

C.                 David wrote about it elsewhere:

1.        Ps. 46:1 -- God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

2.        Ps. 61:1-3 -- Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.   From the ends of the   

        earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is   

        higher than I.   For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.

3.    Ps. 62:1-2 --  My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him.

        He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be

        shaken.

            HYMN:  30 (HS) – “He Hideth My Soul”

 VI.       Ps. 9:13-14 -- O LORD, see how my enemies persecute me! Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death, that I may declare your praises in the gates of the Daughter of Zion and there rejoice in your salvation.

HE IS A SAVING GOD WHO IS WORTHY OF OUR PRAISE.

A.                This is a recurring theme throughout the O.T. – “the God who brought us up out

of the land of Egypt with great signs and mighty wonders.”

B.                 This same God is the One who has brought us up out of the muck and mire of our

sins by providing us with a Savior who could do for us what we could have never done for ourselves:  he lived, he died, he rose.

C.        And because of that, he alone is worthy of our praise.  Even heaven itself recognizes this.  Rev. 5:11-14 – “Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!"  Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!" The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped.”

C.                 My friends, if that is how all of heaven responds to our Savior, should we not do the same?  Not only in our praises that we offer in a public worship service like this, but also in all that we do in our daily lives.  Like Paul says in I Cor. 10:31 – “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

HYMN – 36 (HS) – “His Name is Wonderful”

VII.     Ps. 9:18 -- But the needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish.

HE IS A GOD WHO IS THE CHAMPION OF THE WEAK.

A.                Who was Jesus always attracted to when he walked this earth?  The religious elite?  The well-to-do?  The power-hungry people of his day?  NO!  In fact, he was always getting into trouble with those kinds of people because he had a tendency to associate with the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the low-life’s, and the so-called sinners of his day.  But like he told the Jewish leaders on one occasion, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”

B.                 Listen to Jesus’ words from Luke’s Gospel where he gives what we sometimes refer to as his Sermon on the Plain and notice how he comes down on the side of the oppressed and afflicted, the meek and humble.  He says, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.  Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. ‘Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.’”

C.                 So whether it was a hated tax collector named Zaccheus; or a formerly demon-possessed woman named Mary Magdalene; or a group of 10 lepers who were the outcasts of their day, Jesus was always the defender of the downtrodden, the hero of the hopeless, the champion of the weak. 

VIII.    Ps. 9:19-20 -- “Arise, O LORD, let not man triumph; let the nations be judged in your presence.  Strike them with terror, O LORD; let the nations know they are but men.

            HE IS A SOVEREIGN AND VICTORIOUS GOD.

            A.        Sovereign means “ruling, regal, chief, greatest.”  He is Lord over all.  All the   

rulers of this world are but mere men, as the Psalm says, but God is, well, God is God, and no one can compare to him.  No one can compete with him.  No one can control him.

D.                And because he is all that and much, much more, he is a victorious God.  Mention Battle Royals in professional wrestling.  When all is said and done with this world, my friends, there will be only one Conqueror left standing.  And I guarantee it won’t be Satan; it won’t be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran or Hugo Chavez of Venezuela; it won’t even be the President of the U.S., whoever that is at the time.  Rather, it will be God and God alone.  And the great news for us today is that we—as undeserving as we are of it—we have the privilege of being on that winning team by simply placing our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord.  Let’s sing about that victory in the words of our next hymn, “Victory in Jesus.”

HYMN:  109, vv.1,3 (HS) “Victory in Jesus”