Our scripture reading today comes to us from Psalm 117. So not only will our worship service be a little shorter because I inadvertently skipped the whole worship song, but we come to the shortest psalm in the scriptures for us to read, so we're going to be out of here in a jiffy. But in all seriousness, let's give heed to the Word of God from Psalm 117. Praise the Lord, all nations, extol Him, all peoples, for great is His steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord. And I have a New Testament reading as well from Romans chapter 15, verses 8 through 12. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again, it is said, Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him. And again, Isaiah says, the root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles. In him will the Gentiles hope. And may the Lord bless the reading and hearing and preaching of his word tonight. Well, beloved, in the Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 117 is the shortest psalm in the Scriptures, in the Bible, and even the shortest chapter in the entire Bible. It has only two verses, but yet it produces an almost unbelievable depth of doctrine and truth for us. It's been said that this psalm is a dew drop that reflects a universe, and that's an apt description because although it's few in words, it contains a lot, much in thought about our great God and about His great character. It is a little psalm, but yet with a big theme that calls us to worship him in spirit and truth. Now, there are only 16 Hebrew words in these two verses, and three of those words are commands of praise. Three of those words employ the covenant name of God, Yahweh, and you see that distinguished in the text by Lord in all capital letters. And the words for praise and Lord comprise almost 40% of the total words in this psalm in Hebrew. And this makes sense because the commanding theme of this tiny psalm is to praise the Lord. And so because he is the covenant-promising and covenant-keeping God of Israel, the one who is full of steadfast love toward his people, his elect people, he's the one also whose faithfulness is forever and so the 16 hebrew words which translates into 28 words in our esv translation in this psalm are awesome and they are very pregnant with meaning and not only are the words full of meaning but even the way they're structured is poetic as well There are a few parallelisms in this psalm. In verse 1, praise the Lord all nations, extol or praise Him all peoples. And verse 2, similar, steadfast love, the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. And then there's a kind of a third parallelism, although maybe not technically called a parallelism, but you look at verse 1 and verse 2 together. The first words of the psalm are praise the Lord. And the last words of the psalm are praise the Lord. And so, Psalm 117 ultimately teaches us to praise the Lord for spreading the gospel to all nations, for His steadfast love toward us in Christ, and for His faithfulness. And so, we want to think about these things this evening through just three points. So, first, let's learn about the command to praise the Lord. And second, let's reflect on the reasons for praising the Lord. And third, let's consider how we praise our Lord today. And so, in the first place, let's study the command to praise our covenant Lord. Here in verse 1, you see it says, praise the Lord, the first praise command, a Hebrew word that's probably familiar to you, halal. And one commentator gives the definition of this word as the original meaning of this word is to shine or to make clear or bright, and it comes to mean to glorify or, more generally, as the text says, to praise. And in the context of this psalm, there's actually a public dimension to glorifying and praising the Lord. The call to praise Him is universal and to be done openly. And then we see the second praise command is to extol him. Now, that's not a word we use very often, and it only occurs a few times in the book of Psalms, but in short, it means to loudly adore him and sing his praises, extol him. And so, really, we can paraphrase these two words together, and the psalm is basically saying, worship the Lord by publicly and loudly praising Him for His greatness, for who He is, and for what He's done for His people. And so, let me draw our attention here to something that is interesting that's going on in the text here in verse 1. The covenant title of the God of Israel is being used here, Lord, in all capital letters, and it's used here actually in relation to the entire world, beyond Israel. Praise the Lord, all nations. Extol Him, all peoples. And so, the command to praise the Lord here is a command that is given with a covenantal context in mind. And this is a command to praise our covenant-keeping God. And so the whole world here is being summoned. The whole world is being summoned to praise and loudly adore the Lord. And the question is, well, why? Didn't the Jewish people despise the Gentile nations and peoples? Why would the pious Hebrew who wrote these words even want to hear the Gentiles praising God if perhaps he thought they were ignorant dogs? Why has the psalmist included the Gentile nations and peoples in this call to worship the covenant God of Israel? And John Calvin asked the same question in his commentary on Psalm 117. How can unbelievers be qualified for praising God who are ignorant of his truth? He goes on to answer this question by saying, it would therefore serve no purpose for the psalmist to address the heathen nations unless they were to be gathered together in the unity of the faith with the children of Abraham. And so these words here are found, that are literally found in the middle of our Bibles are like a two-way lens. We can look through this lens all the way back to the covenant that God made with Abraham in Genesis 12, verses 1 through 3. It says there, I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and listen to this, and in you all the families or all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. And we see these things also taught in the New Testament as well, don't we? In Galatians 3 verse 8, in the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed. And so we see that the promise God made with Abraham from the start would end up being spread to all nations and all peoples of the earth. Even the Gentiles would be included in the Lord's redemption plan. And not only can we look back through this two-way lens given to us here in Psalm 117, we can also look forward to it, through it, and see its fulfillment in the time of Christ and also in the time of the apostles and even beyond to the consummation. Romans 15, verses 8 through 12 there, Paul the apostle quotes Psalm 117 as we read earlier for the scripture reading. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again it is said, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, there's the quote from Psalm 117, and let all the peoples extol him. And again, Isaiah says, the root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles will hope. We're talking about Gentiles, not just Israel. And so we can see also Psalm 117 being fulfilled even in the book of Revelation. Revelation chapter 7, verses 9 and 10, as it points us forward to the future consummation day, when the Gentiles from all over the earth will publicly and loudly praise the Lord. After this, I look, the text says, and behold, a great multitude that no one could 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. And so we can see that this little Psalm 117 opens a very big portal for us to peer through and marvel at the wisdom of God in his dealings with the history of Israel that ultimately leads to all nations and peoples praising our great God and our great King. So the psalmist of Israel really was a prophet. He was a prophet. He understood that all nations would be blessed through the covenant that God made with Abraham. And so this lens through which we peer through here causes us to remember the truthfulness of God to his covenant. It gives us an opportunity to reflect on how he promised the world. Even us Gentiles here today would be included in his plan of salvation and how he fulfilled that promise in Christ. And so this psalm, it also propels us forward to the last day when all of God's people from all times and all places in this world will be together and we'll praise and extol the covenant king of kings for all eternity in heaven. So even as we praise the Lord today, even right now during this worship service, we're getting a glimpse of the age to come. We're foretasting it even right now. The age to come breaks into this age during this time as we receive the Word of God and praise and worship Him in spirit and truth through true faith in Jesus Christ. And so the command to praise the Lord in this little tiny psalm gives us big things to think about, doesn't it? Now for our second point this evening, let's turn our attention to the first part here of verse 2 and look at the reasons given for praising the Lord. First, the object of the command to praise is God. The Lord Himself is the focus. The verse says, for great is His steadfast love toward us. The object of our praise is Him. It's the covenant-keeping God of Israel. He is God. Therefore, we ought to praise Him. Therefore, we ought to extol Him and Him alone. He has the right to make such a command from the entire globe because He is our Creator. And not only is the Lord our Maker, He's also our Redeemer, isn't He? He's graciously included the Gentiles in His plan of redemption as we just examined. So, we must never lose sight of the fact, loved ones, that the object of our praise is God Himself in Jesus Christ. And so the church in our modern age, especially here in the United States, seems to be perpetually locked into focusing on man and not so much on God Himself. And too often the doctrine taught in contemporary churches is filtered through the lens of how it makes us feel rather than through the lens of God Himself as He's revealed Himself in His Word. And so Psalm 117 here makes it real clear to us that the true object of our praise is not ourselves, but our Creator and our Redeemer instead. And so, loved ones, soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be the glory. And in verse 2, we not only learn here that the Lord alone is the focus of our praise, but we also see why we praise the Lord. We're given two motivating reasons to praise Him. The first motivation is the Lord's steadfast love, for great is His steadfast love toward us. And we hear in these words an echo of Exodus 34, 6, when the Lord proclaimed His great name to Moses in the cleft of the rock. You remember that. The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Now, some translations translate the words, great is His steadfast love for us in Psalm 117, great is His merciful kindness toward us. And it can also literally be translated as great is His high towering kindness toward us. And we can get a sense of this from other verses like Psalm 103, verse 11. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him. And so, loved ones, God's love for His people, it towers high. It is steady. It is steady, and it is fastened down immovably toward us in Christ. And so, we, His people, are unworthy sinners, but He, in His sheer goodness of His will, has decided to love us in Jesus Christ. So we as people are unworthy, but He has decided to love us in His Son. He decided to send His Son into this sinful world to redeem you. His elect from out of the whole world. And so in His grace, He decided to save you from your wickedness. And He did this by coming and taking up our flesh, the eternal Son, has taken up our human flesh with a real human body and a real human soul, yet without our sin, and He came to obey the commandments of His Father in our place, meriting for us the righteousness that we need to stand before a holy God. And then He offered up Himself as a sacrifice, as the Passover Lamb on the cross, shedding His blood to turn away the wrath of God that was against us so that all our sins would be forgiven and we would no longer be under condemnation. This is the work of Jesus Christ for us. And this is good news, is it not? This is the good news of Jesus Christ for you today. And it's wonderful. He decided to send His Son to redeem us. So, if the Lord did this, then His love for His sheep, it must be great. It must be great. The heels of God's love for you in Christ are dug in, and nothing can and nothing ever will move them. In fact, listen to John 17, 23, and I'm aware in God's providence, senior pastor has recently finished preaching through John 17, but listen to John 17, verse 23, and we're picking up right in the middle here of Jesus' high priestly prayer as he's praying to his father, and he's praying about his disciples, and he prays to the father, I in them, the disciples, and you in me, that we may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. That the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them. That's us, his disciples, as you have loved me. Think about who's praying to who here and who Jesus is talking about in his prayer. You can learn from this, loved ones. And I say loved ones for a reason, because you are loved by God the Father. You can learn from this that God the Father loves you as He loves His own Son. It's almost scandalous to think about that, isn't it? I mean, it is for me when I think about it for myself. I don't know about you, but it is scandalous to think that God the Father loves us as He loves His own Son. I mean, just let that, you know, hang on your neck for a moment. And he loves you as his own dear son because you are united to his son through faith alone. You are flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. You are the bride of Christ. And so great and mighty, high and strong is this love because it is God's love. It's not like human love, which varies depending on the circumstances. And those of you who are married, you certainly know what it's like to give and receive fluctuating love throughout your years together in marriage, right? And children, same thing, toward your parents and your parents toward you. Your love for one another goes up and down depending on circumstances, burns brighter at some times, and maybe dims out a little bit at other times. But God's love and merciful kindness is steadfast and immovable toward you and will never be changed. It's because He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the unchangeable one, and so therefore His love for us in Christ is unchangeable. As Romans 8, 38 and 39 says, For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, this is a long list here, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. I mean, Paul's really preaching it there. Nothing can separate you from the love of God for you in Christ Jesus. Now, that's a great motivation to praise the Lord, isn't it? And so, that's why we praise Him. And the second motivating reason, I mean, we could stop and just go home now and be edified, I hope. But the second motivating reason given to praise the Lord in verse two is that his faithfulness endures forever. The Lord is true to his word of promise. The love of the Lord is great, and this greatness is showcased by his faithfulness to keep his promises. And it's been said that God displays love in making promises and exhibits truthfulness and faithfulness and fulfilling them. And Philippians says that God is faithful to complete the work begun in you even until the day of Christ Jesus. And so, indeed, we've seen that this psalm draws our attention to the truthfulness and faithfulness of the Lord promised to Abraham and that all nations will be blessed through him. And we find the tangible fulfillment of this faithfulness in the gospel that has invited all nations and peoples to be saved from their sins. The fact that you are all here today, mostly Gentiles, who believe in Jesus Christ, the promised seed of Abraham, this testifies to the truthfulness of the Lord, to his promises in Christ Jesus. And so, in a glorious way here, the church, Jesus Christ's life and death and resurrection is a partial visible manifestation of the fulfillment of this command to praise the Lord. And so what a privilege. What a privilege we have as Christians to be included in God's redemption plan so that we can praise and worship Him without the fear of condemnation. And so this command to praise the Lord, when put in this kind of context and understanding, it isn't a drudgery. It's a delightful duty that we get to do because of who God is and what he's done gloriously for us in his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. And this brings us to our last point here this evening, having studied the commands to praise the Lord and having considered the reasons for praising him, let's now think about how we praise the Lord, how this command applies to us here today. What should praising the Lord look like in our lives today? Well, first of all, praising the Lord involves assembling together here corporately and publicly on the Lord's Day to worship Him. God calls His people from among the Gentile nations to worship Him as our covenant Lord on His day, Sunday. And it's here in this assembly that we receive the divinely appointed means of grace, the preached gospel, and the visible word of the gospel in the sacraments. And so these are the means that God has appointed to create faith in us and nourish it in us for our entire Christian lives. It's in the context of the church where our covenant God has promised to feed and sustain our souls. And so faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ, as Romans 10, 17 says. And this is why we encourage members of Christ's church to worship the Lord on Sunday, even twice on Sunday. And I don't need to preach that to you all. You're here for the second time. Praise God. And so it's here that we have the steadfast love and merciful kindness of the Lord declared to us twice on the Lord's day. And it's here that we get to taste and see that our covenant Lord is good. And so, when the means of grace are held out to us to learn more about this great God who has redeemed us in his Son, when they're held out to us, the gospel is held out to us, the sacraments are held out to us, why would we want to be anywhere else. And it's also here in the visible assembly of the church that we get to audibly respond to the greatness of the Lord's steadfast love for us in Christ. We get to sing his psalms back to him. We get to sing great hymns filled with the glory of Christ and the gospel back to him as well. And this is part of what praising the Lord looks like and extolling him. And it's also hear that we get to contribute to the advancement of God's kingdom through our tithes and offerings toward the baptizing and making of disciples through church planting and missions work both home and abroad around the world and so that the world may come to know the steadfast love of the Lord in Christ along with us. This is also a way for us to praise and extol the Lord. And so when we regularly receive the means of grace with true faith during the worship services on the Lord's Day, when we sing back to Him our thankful praise, when we give to the furtherance of the gospel ministry, we're praising the Lord for His steadfast love and His enduring faithfulness toward us in Christ. Well, praising the Lord not only involves worshiping the Lord corporately and publicly on Sunday. It also involves us as individual Christians living godly lives out in the world, and this is a way for us to praise the Lord too. And we do this as a grateful response to the steadfast love and merciful kindness that God has bestowed upon us in Jesus Christ. In fact, Scripture says that very thing. It even calls our attention to God's great mercy in Christ as the motivation for doing so. We hear an echo even of Psalm 117, perhaps, in Romans 12, 1 and 2, don't we? I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, and we could perhaps say, by the steadfast love and enduring faithfulness of the Lord, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Well, in conclusion, loved ones, that's a tall order to praise the Lord, isn't it? It is a high calling to praise the Lord. And perhaps you might be feeling and realizing that your praise to the Lord is a little weak, maybe a little feeble. Perhaps your singing might feel laborious, although maybe not so much tonight because we missed a song. But I trust you have experienced this and maybe you know this about yourself or you're in a season in your life where your praise to the Lord feels weak, feels laborious. Maybe it feels like your heart is far away from it, distracted by the cares and difficulties and vexations of this weary age. Or perhaps living in unrepentant sin for a season. That affects your praise. But the good news for you and I today is that Christ, thankfully, and this is the good news, and we think about how weak and feeble our praise often is for various reasons, the good news for you and I today is that Christ has obeyed this command to praise and extol the Lord in our place. He's the true and perfect singer of this psalm. and he is at the right hand of the Father in heaven right now, mediating our praise and worship to God, and thank God for that. His blood and his righteousness has covered all of our imperfect, failing praise. Through him, our worship and praise to God is acceptable. He mediates our praise. Thankfully, Jesus has done this praising for you perfectly, publicly, and loudly by his life, death, resurrection, and his ascension to glory. And so we sing this praise to God in and through Jesus Christ. And so, loved ones, may he aid us by his grace and spirit to praise the Lord with our whole hearts and our entire lives, both now and forever. Praise the Lord, all nations. Extol Him, all peoples, for great is His steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for this little psalm that calls our attention to such glorious truths about you and who you are and what you have done for us in your Son. Thank you for sending him to fulfill all your promises, Lord, all your promises, your gospel promises, and so that we might be included, Lord, in your redemption plan. Thank you, O God, for Jesus Christ. Lord, help us to praise you more and more. Help us to extol you more and more. by your Word and Spirit. For we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.