Our Scripture reading this morning is Psalm 92. You know that there are a few people in this congregation who keep the ministers on their toes because they note in the margins of their Bibles what texts have been preached by whom and when. And to those, I say, I know I've preached this psalm before. But I find every time I return to it, I discover things I haven't seen before. So I want you to know this is a new sermon, especially the treasurer. I want him to know this is a new sermon. And I marvel at how the Word of God keeps speaking so freshly to us.
Psalm 92. Let us hear God's own Word. A psalm, a song for the Sabbath. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to Your name, O Most High. To declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night. To the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hands I sing for joy. How great are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep. The stupid man cannot know. The fool cannot understand this, that though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever. But you, O Lord, are on high forever. For behold your enemies, O Lord, for behold your enemies shall perish; all evildoers shall be scattered. But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox. You have poured over me fresh oil. My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies. My ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants. The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord. They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. So far, the reading of God's Word.
Well, it's a new year, and the years keep rolling by. I think the older you get, the faster they roll by. It seems to me, and this is one of the sad confessions of an old man, that we were just talking about entering a new millennium in the year 2000. It seems like yesterday to me that we were talking about the dangers of Y2K, all of which passed away without any kind of problem. And now we're already a quarter of the way through the new century. It seems hardly possible. Time just keeps moving along. And we mark time, don't we? We mark it by years, new years. You know, in the good old days, that's another danger of being old In the good old days, we always had an old year's service and a new year's service. It was the conspiracy of the Dutch Reformed clergy to keep people from having too much time on New Year's Eve to misbehave. But I think it's because you all have improved so much that we don't worry about you as much and can trust you to spend New Year's Eve in responsible ways.
Well, we mark the passage of time, don't we? We mark it by years. We mark it by days. We mark it by months. But we could say that the Lord calls us especially to mark it by Sabbaths, by weeks, by the recurrence of a day the Lord has blessed and set aside to bless us, to encourage us. And so at the very heart and center of our piety as Reformed people has been setting aside a day which the Lord from creation has blessed and sanctified in order for us to gather to worship, for us to rest from many of our ordinary activities so that we may focus on Him and concentrate on Him. And it has always been it's striking to me that in the whole book of Psalms, which we use so much to cultivate our piety, which we use to give praise and thanks to the Lord, there is only one reference to the Sabbath day in the Psalms. Now, you'd think in light of the importance of the Sabbath that there would be frequent references, but there aren't. There's only one reference to the Sabbath in the whole Psalter, and that's in the title to this psalm that we're looking at today: Psalm 92. And that uniqueness, it seems to me, should cause us to focus in a particular way on this psalm. If this is a psalm for the Sabbath, if this is the weekly psalm, if this is the psalm to help us mark our days, if this is the psalm to give shape to our lives, how important is it? What is the Lord going to say to us in this critical psalm, this central psalm, this crucial psalm? What would He have us take away when He gives us a song for the Sabbath?
And on the first glance, what He's given us is a very joyful psalm. The psalm begins with the word "good." Good. Now, the setting of this psalm that we often used to sing goes, "It is good." I always thought that was a failure of poetic imagination. The psalm doesn't begin with the word "it." That's not a very good place to begin, is it? "It." And indeed, even the tune we used to sing it to, we could have sung, "Good it is, to praise the Lord." Good. That's what the Lord wants us to think about. That's what leads us on to a more and more joyful reflection on the Lord. Good it is to give thanks to the Lord, and to praise Him, and to reflect on what He's done for us. So this is a very joyful psalm. It wants to create in us a sense of joy in the presence of the Lord, a sense of joy because of who the Lord is and what He's done. But it's also a very serious song. And I think we're given an indication of that by the last words of this song: "There is no unrighteousness in him." That's a slightly surprising thing to say, isn't it? "There is no unrighteousness in him." How many people came into church this morning thinking that there is unrighteousness in God? Not a single hand raised. Of course, it's not a Baptist crowd. "There is no unrighteousness in Him. Why does the psalmist even think to say that?" And this psalm answers that question as we look at it carefully. It's a very serious psalm, as well as a very joyful psalm, because the challenge of life, the challenge of living in a fallen world, is that there is a temptation to think that maybe God is not always righteous.
Luther called this psalm "the psalm that justifies God." Now, that's a strange way of putting things, isn't it? A strange way of speaking and thinking. Does God ever need to be justified? He doesn't need to be justified in the way that you and I need to be justified. But what Luther is really saying is it's a psalm that vindicates God's righteousness. It's a psalm that vindicates God's ways, and God's ways do need to be vindicated in a world that not infrequently seems to be running amok, a world where it's not entirely surprising that somebody might think, "Why does God do things the way He does them? Why does God do things the way He does them?" And this psalm is a very careful reflection on that. And in that reflection, the psalm is helping us be renewed and refocused and reoriented to the way we need to think so that we'll know how to rejoice and to give thanks to the Lord.
And so I want to look at this psalm with you with that thought in mind. What does this psalm teach us? How does this psalm redirect us? As we enter a new year, what is the way that we ought to think about God's ways in the world? That's what this psalm calls us to. And it begins, in the first place, by teaching us to rejoice in God's works. To rejoice in God's works. And that rejoicing is, first of all, in the context of worship. We're called to worship. We're called to worship individually, and we're called to worship corporately. Did you see that there? "For your works, O Lord, for you, O Lord, verse 4, have made me glad by your work. You've made me glad." Worship is always in the heart. Worship is always in the individual. Are we, as we come to worship, thinking, "It is good to give thanks to the Lord. It makes me glad to reflect on the works of the Lord"? And then we're called to experience that corporately together. When we read of praising the Lord to the music of lute and harp, to the melody of lyre, that's almost certainly in the context of coming to the temple to worship. That's where the instruments were played. And the reference to the declaring your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness at night is the context of the temple where morning sacrifice and evening sacrifice were offered. Here's the context of worship, both individually and corporately, coming together to reflect on the Lord and to thank Him, to thank Him and to praise Him, to glorify Him for who He is and what He's done.
Verse 5: "How great are Your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep." The works of the Lord flow from the thoughts of the Lord, flow from the purposes of the Lord. And this psalm is saying, everywhere we look around us, we see the Lord at work. And we're called to praise Him and to thank Him for the work that He is doing. We got in the car to drive over here, and I said, "Boy, it's cold today." And I looked at the car thermometer: 57 degrees. My son Robert is in Pennsylvania expecting snow. He probably would think, 57 degrees. "Boy, it's out warm." The Lord is working the weather, and it's marvelous to behold. I think more marvelous where we live, but nonetheless, it's marvelous everywhere to see the Lord working out His works and plans in creation and, above all, in redemption.
And this psalm wants to focus on two particular aspects of who our God is and what He does. And we read that in verse 2: "To declare your steadfast love in the morning." To declare your steadfast love in the morning. This is the word that's sometimes translated "mercy." To declare your mercy in the morning. Your kindness to us, O Lord. That's another old translation: "your loving kindness," "your steadfast love," "your mercy," which reaches out to us. And this, of course, turns our minds immediately to the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It's in Jesus that the loving kindness and the mercy of God comes to the clearest expression and the greatest fulfillment. It's Jesus who is our mercy. It's Jesus who is the steadfast love of the Lord for us, and so we come to give thanks to the Lord for our Savior who has redeemed us, and we focus on that great work of the Lord, that great thought and plan and purpose and accomplishment of the Lord, that He is a merciful God to His people.
And then in the evening, we think about the faithfulness of the Lord. The God who is merciful is faithful to His promise of mercy. Isn't that wonderful to contemplate? What a terrible thing if He were merciful in the morning and merciless at night. Where would that leave us? What kind of people would we be? What kind of confidence could we have? But here the declaration is that He's promised to be merciful and He's always faithful to His mercy. Steadfast love in the morning and faithfulness by night. How can a minister not pause and say this shows we ought to be in church at night as well as in the morning? I don't want to disappoint you. But the great point here is that the whole Sabbath day is bracketed by reflections on the character of God, the character of God as merciful and as faithful. That should fill us with joy, shouldn't it? It is good to be able to come and thank God for His mercy and for His faithfulness, and to know that we can trust Him. That's what this psalm really is ultimately all about. It's, of course, what the Scriptures are all about: we can trust our God. We can trust Him to be merciful. We can trust Him to be faithful.
We are called in the first place by this psalm to rejoice in God's works. But then there's a sharp transition at verse 6. You probably noted that. Having talked about God, having rejoiced in God, having thought "how great is God," then we come almost to the shock of verse 6: "The stupid man cannot know." You know, when I was growing up, my mother told me not to call people stupid. This is meant to be shocking. This word is a strong word. "The brute cannot know." And here, we're called to remember God's warning. Just as we're called to rejoice in God's works, we're called to remember God's warning about a third of this psalm talks about the wicked. Because God wants to warn us. He wants to warn us about what the wicked don't know, but what we need to know. And what God wants us to remember in this warning is that things are not always what they appear.
Things are not always what they appear. You look around at the world and it sometimes appears that the wicked are the successful, that the wicked have it good, that the wicked are flourishing. Now when I was young, it was a big deal to be a millionaire. I think it's still a kind of big deal to be a millionaire. But in this world, 25% of the way through 2025, it's a big deal to be a billionaire. And if we made a list of the billionaires that are in the news, how many are noted for their righteousness? How many are noted for their worship of God? How many are noted for the holy lives that they live? It would be very tempting to say, "Look at how those people who ignore God are flourishing. They live in bigger houses, and they wear better clothes, and they drive nicer cars. And they probably don't drive cars at all. They are driven in nicer cars. They fly in their own nice planes. Clearly, they're flourishing. They're getting ahead." But temptation becomes to the godly to be envious. To think, "Why can't I have it like that? They have it so good. Why can't I have it like that?" And even more seriously, we may be tempted not just to envy the wicked, but to wonder, "Where is God in this? This doesn't seem just. This doesn't seem right. This doesn't seem upright, but God allows the wicked to flourish in the way they do. Is God neglectful? Is God uncaring? Where is God?" That's what's implied in all of this. This is the temptation that we face. To think that the world really goes on its own way without any reference to God or to His righteousness.
And what this psalm wants to say to us, the way this psalm wants to redirect our thinking, is to say, "That's not true." The truth is this: that the righteous may appear to flourish for a time, but they are like the grass, the grass that is green one day and withers and is gone the next. This is an advantage of living in Southern California. We see grass doing this. People who live in parts of the world where it rains all the time, they don't understand about grass the way we do. Brass is green today and it's brown tomorrow. It's transitory. It's passing away. It may appear to flourish, but it doesn't really. That's what this psalm is saying to us. That's what God is saying to us. And And the promise is: judgment is coming. Judgment is coming.
It's an amazing thing that is said here. Verse 11: "My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemy." Judgment comes sometimes even in history. Some of the oldest among us can remember when Adolf Hitler declared that he would begin a thousand-year reign and for some years seemed to be successful in what he was doing, flourished. But the older among us lived to see the downfall of that wicked man. You don't have to be quite so old to remember how the world lived in fear of Joseph Stalin. And yet we live to see the downfall of Joseph Stalin. More recently, we saw the power wielded by Mao in China and all the evil that he did. And yet we saw the downfall of now. There is judgment in history. There's judgment that God brings in history. The challenge for us is God's timing is not always our timing. We would do things differently. And maybe we should pause right there and say, probably not better. Definitely not better. But more significantly, this psalm reminds us there's a great judgment coming at the last day. No one wants to hear about that. I don't really particularly want to talk about that. But it's what the psalm talks about. That wicked will perish forever. Remember, says the Lord. Remember, says the Lord. Don't envy the wicked. They will come to nothing. Don't doubt the Lord. He will accomplish His righteous purpose. Remember the warning of the Lord.
And remember the very center of this psalm. At the heart of this psalm, at the center of this psalm, is this one simple verse: "But you, O Lord, are on high forever." "But you, O Lord, are on high forever." You're on high above the wicked. You're on high to receive the praise of the righteous. You're on high to exalt Jesus Christ and build His church. You're on high forever. And the fact that this little verse stands at the very heart and center of this psalm is very intentional. This whole psalm is put together with the greatest possible care. The covenant name of God, the Lord, appears seven times in this psalm. That's very intentional, to remind us of the completeness of God's purpose and the sovereign power of God to bring about His will. That the thoughts of God always come to fruition in His works. And that the thoughts of God are preeminently mercy and faithfulness for His people. Don't let what appears to be going on in the world direct you. But let the Word of God redirect you to confidence in Him, to certainty in Him, to joy in Him.
And so this last part of the psalm says, "Don't just rejoice in the works of the Lord and remember the warnings of the Lord, but rest in the ways of the Lord." Rest in the ways of the Lord. Because the ways of the Lord in your life, this psalm says, is to exalt you. Verse 10: "But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox. You've exalted me. You've lifted me up." This reminds us that the ways of the Lord are individual with His people. He has each one of us in mind. Now, this psalm, that verse may in part be giving voice to the King of God's people. Certainly we reading it think of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we see the work of God to exalt His Son, to raise Him from the dead, to vindicate the work and teachings of our Savior. But He's saying to all of us, "I will exalt you, I will lift you up, I will refresh you. You have poured over me fresh oil." We're paraphrasing that. We might say, "I'll give you a good hot shower. Renew you. Strengthen you." And then the psalm says, "Look around. As you rest in God's Word, look around at what God is doing for His people."
The righteous, verse 12, flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Palm trees, the commentators tell us, are graceful and beautiful. Cedars are strong. Both have deep roots. They're contrasted, you see, with the grass. The grass withers in a moment. These trees live for decades in strength and in beauty. That's what the Lord is doing for His people. That's the way of the Lord that we're to rest in. They are planted in the house of the Lord. We're near God. We're always near to God. That's the promise of this psalm. Near to God in His courts, in His presence, under His protection. And therefore, we can always declare: "The Lord is upright. The Lord is upright." This whole psalm is almost a meditation on Deuteronomy 32, from the Song of Moses, where we read, "For I will proclaim the name of the Lord, ascribe greatness to our God, the rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice, a God of faithfulness, and without iniquity, just and upright is He." Moses declared that. The Psalms declare it. The whole Scripture declares it. Our God is a God to be trusted. Our God is a God who is upright. Our God is a God who is a rock to His people. We can trust Him because He will not be moved. And therefore we can say with confidence: no matter what the world looks like, there is no unrighteousness in our God. He does all things well. He does all things to glorify His own name, and He does all things for the good of His people, that we might have confidence in Him.
So I think we ought to sing this psalm every Sunday. I don't think I'll probably prevail with that good advice offered to whoever's in charge, but I think we could all read this psalm every Sunday to be reoriented to be refocused to be renewed in not letting the ways of the world direct our thinking, but the ways of God direct our thinking, so that we might have confidence in Him, to live for Him, to rest in Him, to be renewed in Him. May God grant us that blessing in this new year. Amen.
Let us pray. O Lord our God, how thankful we are for Your Word that comes to build us up, to encourage us, to redirect us, to remind us that not all is as it appears, but You are at work among Your people to build them up, to build Christ's church, and with the promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And so bless us and draw us to Yourself, O Lord. Bless us and draw us to Christ with assurance that His mercy and faithfulness will ever be our hope, our rock, our assurance. And throughout this new year, as we face temptations, as we face lies, as we face those who would call us away from trusting in You, help us always to return, to rest in Your Word and its certainty for us, and to build us up and hope in believing. Hear us, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.