This evening, we're gonna be looking at Psalm 113, and there's a couple reasons for this. Obviously, I'm preaching the evening service tonight, so wanting to continue on with the occasional studies in Psalms, but also then we're going to use Psalm 113a for the Psalm of the month, for the month of, So, Psalm 113, and we'll hear these nine verses of this psalm. Praise the Lord. Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. From the rising of the sun to its going down, the Lord's name is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high, who humbles himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth? He raises the poor. out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the ash heap, that he may seat him with princes, with the princes of his people. He grants the barren woman a home like a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord." Praise the Lord. Well, in terms of its place in the book of Psalms, it's Psalm 113 coming right on the heels of Psalm 12, which Psalm 112 reminds us that God is to be praised because he is transforming us into the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, into the trajectory of Christ. And while we might sing or think about Psalm 112 and think, well, therefore, that means that my trajectory is one of exaltation and of all sorts of good things, verse 9 of 112, as righteousness endures, forever his horn will be exalted with honor." Psalm 113 says, hold on just a second. Let's remember what it means to be conformed to the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is actually truly unique about God is that, yes, he is exalted, but that he humbles himself to know things in our earth, and to speak to us of the incarnation, in a manner of speaking, there in verse 6. And we'll get into that a little bit more as we go along. But it's a psalm that calls us as we meditate on the character of God, as we praise God for who he is, particularly to praise the Lord, who humbles himself in knowing and then raising up those who are needy. We, as the servants of God, are called to praise the Lord, who humbles himself to know and to lift the needy. Now, the psalm really breaks down nicely into three sections, each made up of three verses. And the first section, from verses 1 through 3, calls us to praise the Lord at all times and in all ways. places. If you just read Psalm 113 and say, well, what's the first thing that stands out in this psalm? What's the emphasis? You would rightly and pretty quickly come to the conclusion that the emphasis is one of praise. It's one of these praise the Lord sandwiches, the hallelujah sandwiches that we find repeated several times in the book of Psalms, a psalm that opens and closes with that sentence, that command to praise the Lord." But then the first couple lines of the first verse, praise, praise, blessed be the name of the Lord. And then at the close of verse 3, the Lord's name is to be praised. So, five times here in this first section, or five times in the psalm, we are told to praise four times in these first three verses. And what's the content of that praise? Well, specifically, our praise is to be directed to and focused on the name of the Lord. Now, of course, when we think about names, we just think of our first, maybe our middle, and our last name. But you know that, biblically speaking, when we talk about the name of the Lord, the name of the Lord is, of course, his names, his attributes, and his works by which he makes himself known, by which he has revealed his character, the way in which he operates. That is all part of his name. And this is to be this praising, this blessing, the name of the Lord. Three times there, praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord's name, verse three, is to be praised. Well, what's the time frame for this activity? Well, we see in verse two that this is to be an everlasting activity. From now, from this time forth, and forevermore." Well, where… So that's an everlasting activity. And you might think mathematically, those of you who are maybe doing some geometry, you know, that a line extends infinitely in both directions. Well, this is talking about a ray, right? A ray has a starting point and then shoots off infinitely into space, as we are taught to imagine this by our geometry teacher. Well, that is a picture of the praise of God, from now and forevermore. Don't stop. That there's not to be a time when we say, well, now we take a one-year break from praising the Lord. No, from now and forever, this is to be the activity of God's people. Well, where are we to do this praise? Well, it tells us that this is to be a worldwide activity—verse 3—from the rising of the sun to its going down, and that in every place throughout the day, and also even as we see in the Bible that there's the picture of morning and evening of worship, worship that extends throughout the day from the rising of the sun to where it goes down. So wherever the sun is shining, whenever the sun is shining, and particularly as it comes up and as it goes down, praise the Lord. Who? Who is to be involved? See, we're just…the psalmist is giving us here a lot of the basic definitions. Well, what are we supposed to be doing? When are we to be doing this? Where are we to be doing this, and who? Well, it's specifically the servants of the Lord, is it not? All people, but specifically those people who are consciously His servants. We could say biblically, that all people who have been made by Him, all people who have been blessed by God, owe Him their service. And so, in that regard, the call here extends to all people, but particularly, we could say, those who are conscious of that calling. And as soon as we put worship in the context of service, that then reminds us that one of the great questions of our worship ought to be, how am I serving God in this activity? that the evaluation of our worship is not just merely, did I enjoy worship today? Was I happy to lead my family in family worship? Did I find the psalms that we sang or the prayers offered to be edifying? But to ask ourselves, was God pleased? Did God find himself to be exalted in the things that I did and said? And so we have this command to a worldwide praise of God, a continual praise of God that is to fill our lives, particularly those who are the servants of the Lord. And Christopher Ashe comments in his a commentary, what can be so stupendous and of such cosmic wonder that the entire created order in all places and all times can rightly be exhorted to praise? What is so wonderful, what is so magnificent, that it would necessitate this level of attention, this level of activity, for it to be appraised? Well, of course, the answer to that is the name of the Lord, and God goes on in verses 4-6 to give some definition to that. That the servants of the Lord are to praise Him at all times and in all places, yes, verses 1-3, but then verses 4-6, that you and I are to praise the Lord because He is high, and yet humbles himself to know your and my world." Just to look at verse 4, 5, and 6, and to say, well, what stands out here? The first thing that might stand out to you is that the Lord is high. Verse 4, the Lord is high, His glory above, who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high." And so it's referencing and pointing us to God's transcendence, the fact that God is unreachable, that He dwells on a higher plane than you and me, that He is higher than the nations around us. What a comfort that is in world history, when it seems like the nations of the world have all the power, all the authority. Well, no, there's a God who is above the nations, a God whose glory is above the heavens, that His glory transcends the created world all around us. and that he actually dwells in this high and lifted-up state, verse 5. God is incomparable. And the very center statement of the psalm is actually found then in verse 5, the hinge point which asks that question, who is like the Lord our God? And it's pointing us to the fact that God is high and lifted up, and that makes Him incomparable but then immediately on the other side of that hinge in verse six, that though he is high and lifted up, that he humbles himself to know and to beware of the things that are here below, here in the heavens and the things that are on the earth, that no one is like our God in this regard. that God could send servants, for instance. He could be like the centurion who we read about this morning, the centurion with his troops who said, well, I can send one, and he does this. I send another, and he does that. That God could send angels to be aware of the things on the earth, and they could bring him reports back. but that he makes himself aware of these things, and that these things are actually these great, spectacular things to you and to me, right? These great cosmic things, the paths of the stars, the paths of storms, and how storms function. How is it that thousands and millions of gallons of water fly around in these puffy things up in the sky, that a cloud has all this moisture in it and is tumbling around up there. How does that even work? And on and on we could go, that these things that we can get a PhD in, Things that we can get awards for if we know how to paint them well. Things that we can get awards if we know how to put the notes together well, and people will come and listen to our symphonies and our pieces of music. That these things that astound you and me are actually beneath God, in a sense. That he has to humble himself. It's like asking a room full of PhDs to, let's join together now and sing our ABCs. What are we doing? Why would we do that? That's so silly. But no, God is willing to humble himself, to listen to our baby talk, to know the details of our lives and our world. So, God humbles Himself. He's incomparable, but He humbles Himself to know these things. Now, we need to step back for just a second and to realize that those two things that I've just declared, that God is high and lifted up, and that He knows everything on earth, those are actually yes, true of God, but they would also be things that would be claimed by the false gods of the world, wouldn't they? That Allah, for instance, would, at least his followers, you know, those who have made up this religion, would say, Allah is high and lifted up, and Allah has perfect knowledge of everything on earth. Now, we know it's not true of the false gods, But there's one more component of verses 4-6, and particularly of verse 6, that is true of the triune God in a way that the false gods do not even claim. And that is that God not only is high and lifted up, and has a knowledge of these things on earth below, but that God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ took on flesh and dwelt among us. That He not only knows these things intellectually, knows them from afar, but that He knows them experientially as He entered into our world, as He entered into life with us, as He came as the God-man. And particularly, He has humbled Himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in earth, and the miracle of the One who became flesh and dwelt among us. And experience, then, even what we see in verses 7-9, the poverty and the neediness of human existence. Once again, though, so Jesus not only knows these things from afar, and then enters in and knows them experientially, but He came to earth, then we see, and you know this, He came not just on a field trip, Right? Not just to come and to stroll the streets and to say, wow, there's some needy people. Wow, there's someone who's hurting. There's someone whose life is not fulfilling. But he has humbled himself low to know these things, to know those who are needy, to know those who are barren, to know those who are poor, in order to raise them up. And so we could say in this third section, verses 7-9, that we are called to praise the Lord because He raises the needy to a place and a purpose. There's a lot of triples, a lot of three-fold repetitions in this psalm. Isn't it interesting that the God who is referred to in verses 4 and 5 three times above as being high and lifted up, above and high, He, in verses seven through nine, raises up, lifts up three times as well, giving to the barren woman a home like a joyful mother of children. And what it's telling us is that God sees those who are on the dust heap. who are down with the dust, who are part of the ash heap, the dung pile. And the Hebrew word here would be for the trash pile, the rubbish pile that would be outside of the city walls where something goes when it's of no use to anyone anymore. You know, when something is so bad that you don't even, can't even drop it off at the Goodwill for them to sell, that's what this is describing. And it's talking about people who find ourselves in such a state of uselessness, such a state of need, such a state of desperation that we are being excluded from society. Seinecker, a commentator on this passage, says, in the kingdom of Christ, He has mercy on us, helps us, and saves us and all who are weary and anxious. He raises the poor. He lifts the needy. He takes us and seats us with the princes, with the princes of His people. And so He lifts up and has a heart for those who are weary and anxious, those who are in the very lowest depths. And what He does for us is, having condescended to know us, to know us in our neediness, then he raises us up to, verse 8, a place, right? To a seat with princes. You can just think about what Christ has done for you in giving you a place, in giving you union with the Lord Jesus Christ, in saying, I now call you friends. I've invited you. I've prepared a wedding feast. And I've provided clothing for you, and I want you here with me at this feast. I'm making you a part of a royal priesthood, my own very special possession. I have a home for you. I go to prepare a place for you, he says, that he may sit him with the princes, with the princes of his people." Again, it's not just, well, I've been looking for a few good slaves for heaven, and you fit the bill. No, I want you to come and sit with the high people in my kingdom. He gives us a place, and He gives us a purpose as well. He takes the barren woman and gives her a purpose, not only a place in His world, a home, but also gives her a purpose as a mother of children, from fruitlessness to motherhood. And we've just gone over some of that in Isaiah 49, right, where a barren people are left saying, where did all these kids come from? Who has borne me these? And it's describing the fact that people have purposeless, unfulfilled lives, lives without even spiritual fruit. God gives fruitfulness to. Theodorette, one of the early church fathers in the 400s, so he's around the time of Augustine, wrote, you can see this truth more properly and truly in the case of the church. From being once sterile and childless, he, God, has made her a mother, rejoicing in children beyond number. And so we praise Christ because He has seen us in our neediness, He has stooped down, and He has lifted us up, giving us a place and a purpose. And He's done this by humbling Himself, by going to the cross, by going to the extreme bottom of the barrel, so to speak, Philippians chapter 2, in order to lift us up. And we read about this earlier in Hebrews 2, it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, Him who is infinite in glory, from whom all things and by whom are all things, and bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. What kind of a God humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth, raising up the poor, lifting up the needy? Well, your God, your God has done that. He has done that for you in taking note of you when you were low. His mercy lasts forever, lifting you up, giving you a place in his kingdom, giving you a purpose in his kingdom as well. And so, Psalm 113 is given that we might praise Christ in acknowledging our lowliness, and we praise Him as we rely on Him alone. One last thing, then, that this leaves us with, as we are called here to praise God at all times and all places as His servants, to praise Him because He is incomparable in His exaltation and also in His willingness to know us, to know things here in heaven and on earth. And we praise Him because He lifts up those who are poor and those who are needy. Well, then, lastly, we can say that we demonstrate that we believe that the Lord is praiseworthy when we enter into service of the neediest with joy. right, for us to sing these words and to say, well, God is so glorious and great, and that He's willing to sacrifice His exaltation, right, His comfort. It's so wonderful that He would sacrifice that in order to raise us up. But God forbid that I would ever do that. Well, then we've just said that this is not truly actually desirable, that it's not truly praiseworthy. That is James 2, that the men have just gone through this last week, that we're tempted to show partiality, to ignore the neediest. But if it's truly praiseworthy in Christ, then we will have a heart for those who Christopher Ash refers to as the desperate, the dejected, and the excluded. That if we truly are the servants of the Lord, verse one, that our lives will align with the priorities and the manner of ministry of our great God. I want to close by telling you about Reverend William French, who was one who did this. Reverend French was an Episcopal missionary from 1872 to 1895. And he was a missionary to a far-off island, actually not so much. He was a missionary to what was then called Blackwell Island, now Roosevelt Island, which is just across the East River from Manhattan, just a few hundred yards away. It's a little island that's never wider than 800 feet wide and two miles long, kind of running parallel to Central Park in Manhattan. just out into the East River. And in the 1800s, on what's now Roosevelt Island, there was a lunatic asylum. a workhouse for minor criminals, an almshouse for the poor and disabled. There was a hospital for those who were poor, and there was a penitentiary. It was an island of great darkness, sickness, overcrowding, starvation, and lots and lots of abuse of those who had been committed there or were inmates there in one way or another. Reverend French crossed the East River, he estimated, over 10,000 times. during his 23-year ministry to the hopeless and trapped on the island. And he estimated that every time he went to the island, that he walked over three miles around the island, visiting the different buildings, the different needy people gathered there. And he wrote, it's been my privilege to establish, actually one of his life work was to establish libraries in the hospital and penitentiary in the workhouse. But French's greatest gift, they say, was probably simply himself. Unlike most priests who primarily saw the members of their congregations once a week on Sundays, French was among the inmates on Blackwell's Island almost every day. He was the friend, family member, and spiritual guardian they either never truly had or once had and lost. For decades, he listened to the beaten, broken, and largely abandoned inhabitants as they voiced their regrets about what they missed in life and confronted what every human must one day face. When French died, they took his body out to the island, and it's said that hundreds and hundreds of old men and women slowly walked past the casket on either side, sobbing, we have lost our best friend. It's an example of incarnational living, the servants of the Lord humbling themselves low to know the things that are arguably beneath them. those who are the poor in the dust, those who are the needy on the ash heap, and yet those who would stoop down like the Reverend William French in order to know those who are in the asylum, those who are struggling in the workhouse, those who are in the hospital and too poor to pay for it. Now, that's true of Reverend French, in that we would honor his life and legacy for his years of service in that way. How much more? What a much wider river, so to speak, Jesus Christ crossed. and coming to earth, and how deserving of praise He is, who has humbled Himself from the glories of heaven, not just to cross the East River, but to come and to know us and our neediness and our frailty. And so may God lead us in praising Him as we sing this psalm through the course of this month, and as we sing to Him throughout the course of our lives as well. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your Word. We are so thankful that you are a praiseworthy God, a God who not only is infinite in your knowledge of all things, but also a God who takes note of and even enters into our impoverished state, our needy state, in the person of Jesus Christ. And we're thankful that you've entered in Jesus, not just to leave us behind in our sin and misery, that You've entered in, in order that You might raise us up and seat us in the heavenly places along with You. We pray, Lord, that You would minister that hope to us, and that we truly would praise You as a people who have been blessed beyond measure. And then, Lord, we pray that we would participate in passing on that blessing to others as well, that we would enter into the lives of those who are outcasts, those who no one wants to be friends with in our schools, those who no one wants to associate with in our workplaces, that we would look for opportunities in our neighborhoods and in our lives. to be like the Lord Jesus Christ, to enter into the poverty and neediness of those around us, in order that they might be raised up as well, and might receive the benefits, even the blessings, of being among the princes of your people. We commit ourselves to you, and we praise you for these things. In Christ's name, amen.