All right, Psalm 113. Take your Bible, go to Psalm 113. The title of the message is, Praise the Name of the Lord. Praise the Name of the Lord. Maybe a familiar Psalm to you. And if it is not, Hopefully by the end of the evening, you'll say, wow, I want to memorize that psalm. It is such a great, great psalm. Follow with me from the beginning. Praise the Lord. Praise, oh servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forever, from the rising of the sun to its setting. The name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations. His glory is above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God? Who is enthroned on high? Who humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He makes the barren woman abide in the house as a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord. Our God is the God who is glorious, exalted, lifted up, sovereign, unrivaled, transcendent. While at the same time, our God is a God who is near, father-like, tender, compassionate, and very caring. Who is like our God? Who can be compared with our God? You have in your notes a couple of verses from a wonderful hymn. I absolutely love this hymn, written by Henry Light in the early 1800s. Praise my soul, the King of heaven, to his feet thy tribute bring. Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, evermore his praises sing. But then there's another stanza. Father-like, he tends and spares us. Well, our feeble frame he knows. Now ponder those lines that I have just read. Think about that in your outline tonight, that we have the king of heaven, that we bring all of our worship to the feet of the king of heaven and earth. And yet he's a father who cares for us. And he knows everything about you. And he's involved in your life. And he is one who knows your feeble frame. He can relate to you. We come to Psalm 113, which teaches both the transcendence of God and the nearness of God. Psalm 113 is a remarkable Psalm because you see in your outline there, it begins a section of Psalms that are often called the Egyptian Hallel Psalms. If you have a Jewish friend, you can say, oh, we're studying the Egyptian Hallel, and their eyes are gonna get really big when you know the Egyptian Hallel. It's a collection. Psalms 113 to 118. It is a series of Psalms that the Jewish people sang at Passover at the mealtime. At the mealtime. And they would sing some of the Psalms, 113, and following before the meal, and then they would sing a few of the Psalms after the meal as well. What is so neat about Psalm 113 is it teaches the transcendence of God. God is big, holy, awesome, transcendent. He has his throne in the heavenlies. We take off our shoes. or the place that we are standing as holy ground. While at the same time, the psalm teaches the imminence of God, that God is near, that He is caring, that He is involved, that He is concerned about your life and my life. The psalm teaches the majesty of God and the mercy of God. What a God. Who is like the Lord our God? Now, I want you to look in your Bible at the very first phrase and the very last phrase of the entire psalm. You know the Hebrew. The Hebrew is hallelujah. Praise the Lord. It begins that way and the psalm ends that way. And that's the theme of the psalm. Praise the name of the Lord. And what I want to do tonight with you is I want to ask a number of questions about that so that you and I will understand this psalm and be drawn to worship of our God. Let's ask the question. Number one, who? Who is to worship and praise our God? Look at verse one. Praise the Lord. Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Let me begin with the phrase, name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord, Job said. Even here in our psalm, praise the name of the Lord. The name of the Lord refers to the fullness of that which makes God to be God. Whatever it is to be God is all confined in this phrase, the name of the Lord. All of his character, all of his attributes, all of his person and his work, the revelation of God, and the redemption of God, and the providence of God, and the power of God. When we talk about praising the name of the Lord, It would be like saying, let's just list off all of the attributes of God. And let's praise God for the fullness of who He is. And who, who should praise Him? Look at verse one. Praise, O servants. Now, I suppose when we get to the Psalms of Ascent and the Psalm 130s, we could make the argument that this might refer specifically to the priests and the Levites, the temple worshiping leaders. And that may be included here as well. Although all believers are certainly included because Jesus said in John 4 24, the father wants those who worship him in spirit and truth. If you're a believer, you are included right here in verse one praise oh servants of the lord did you know that even creation creation is called upon to praise god in psalm 96 even the trees and the fields exult and rejoice in god for they even are god's servants the angels Well, they are ministering spirits sent out to do God's bidding. According to Hebrews 1, even the angels are to bless the Lord. Psalm 103, verse 20. And then remarkably, David says in Psalm 119, verse 91, all things are your servants. So everything is to praise God. Let everything that has breath. Psalm 150, praise the Lord. Let's go one step farther. there is the capitalist servant of the Lord. according to the book of Isaiah, and he is the Lord Jesus. Hebrews chapter 12 talks about the Lord Jesus singing praise in the congregation. Jesus is the one who praises the Lord. We are to praise God. We join in this chorus with creation and angels, even the Son of Man himself in praising God. Praising God. We praise the name of the Lord. I remember that story. Boys and girls, certainly you remember this story of David and Goliath. Remember that story of Goliath, the Philistine champion, this mighty nine foot tall man, and he was a warrior and he comes to the battle line and he's taunting David and he's taunting the Israelites and he's taunting the God of Israel. He's mocking the God of Israel. David, David comes to the battle line. And he says, you, Goliath, you come to me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord God of armies. 1 Samuel 17, 45. We praise God just like, just like David did in every area of life, every season of life, every situation of life. Who should praise him? You and I as servants of the Lord. We praise the name of the Lord. You and me. Let's praise his name together. What about number two? When? When? When do we praise him? Well, not only who, verse one, we as the servants of the Lord praise him, but verse two tells us when. Verse two, blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forever. Verse three, from the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised. From now until forever. From the rising of the sun, from morning all the way until evening, the setting of the sun, all day long, it's the worship and the praise of our God is to be continuous. All day, every time, everywhere, in every place, our God calls for and our God deserves continual praise. Now ponder, ponder with me for a sec. How do you start your day? How do you start your day in the mornings? Whatever hour you get up, whatever time that may be, how do you begin your day and how do you fill your day? And what role does the praises of God have in your day? With what do you fill your heart and your mind and your thoughts? How do we spend our evenings? How do we talk and converse with other people? Maybe ponder this thought. Is there something that you can do practically, tangibly in your life, in your daily routine to help you and to aid you in your praises of God from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun? For example, Something that has helped me in my personal walk with the Lord is having on my app, on my phone, an app of hymns. I have my hymnal on the floor near where I kneel in the morning. I have my Gatsby hymnal there as well. A hymns has a regular part in my morning time of prayer and Bible reading and worship. It helps me. It helps me refocus. It helps me begin the day with God. I don't do it every day, but many days I do. The worth of God is continuous, and the character of God is constant, and the mercy of God is unending, so the praises of God should be unending as well. Remember David's words in Psalm 145. Every day I will bless you. Every day I'll bless you. And I will praise your name forever and ever. What a great mantra for our life. Every day. So, that is who should praise God in verse one. That's us, the servants of the Lord. Verse two, well, when, when do we praise God at all times from early morning until evening? In your outline, number three. Why? Why? Why do we praise God? I mean, somebody might say, mom and dad, why do we have to praise God again? Why do we have to go to church again? Why do we have to sing again? Why do we have to do family worship again? Why do we have to praise God again? Here's the answer. It's right here in verse four. Do you see it in your Bible? Here's the reason. The Lord is high above all the nations. and his glory is above the heavens." Now, verse 4, the word high. God is high above. The Hebrew word means lifted so high above, when it refers to God, it refers to his unparalleled greatness. There's nothing like our God. There's no one like our God. He is unparalleled in his greatness. Bring the best thing in the world and put it next to God and God far surpasses anything and everything. God is high and lifted up and transcendent and unreachable. and exalted and elevated. And verse four, if you see it in your Bible, the Lord is high above all the nations. Currently, there are 195 countries in the world. The Lord is above all of them. There are 17,000 people groups in the world. The Lord is above all of them. There are 7,000 living spoken languages in the world. The Lord is high above all of them. There are seven continents. I think seven, if that's the best number. Seven continents. The Lord is high above all of them. Asia, 4.5 billion people. Africa, 1.5 billion people. Europe, 750 million people. And the Lord is high above all of them. All of them. All of the galaxies, all of the vast systems of stars and gases and matter, many of which have billions of stars. God is high above all of them. The same word in verse four, the Lord is high is the same word found in Isaiah chapter six. When Isaiah had that vision, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. That's our God. Our God is lifted up. And his glory, verse four, is above the heavens. One of my projects in a master's degree was studying the ancient Near Eastern kingship, the customs, the culture of the ancient Near Eastern kings. And one of the things that I learned was how the, the ancient Near Eastern kings that the monarchs would, would often have these, these thrones that were elevated. They were high. They were lifted up. They were, they were ornate. They were beautiful. It would be a symbol, a symbol of their power, a symbol of their authority, a symbol of their own divine connection with their God. It would be a throne of ivory, a throne of gold, a throne of wood, with all these ornate carvings in all the thrones. And often the kings in the ancient world would have attendants and servants and royal audiences surrounding their throne. And verse four says, guess what? God is highly exalted above all of that. He is highly exalted. This is the great doctrine of the solitariness of God. There is none like our God. He is unrivaled and unmatched. He is unparalleled and unequaled. God is supreme. Why? Why? Men and women, boys and girls, why do we worship God? Why do we sing to God? Why do we gather with the family of believers? Why do we open our Bible? Why do we hear the preaching of the word? Why? Because our God is high and lifted up. He is highly exalted above all nations. His glory is above the heavens. He is great and greatly to be praised. That's the transcendence of our God. Now, in your outline, you now come to a fourth point. Not just who should worship and when do we worship and why do we worship, but now, number four, what? What has God done? I mean, what has he done? We worship him. We know why, but what has this God done? Verse five. is like the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high, who's like this God. Verse six, he humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth. He's a personal God, and he's an incomparable God. He's an exalted God, and yet he is involved. Check out this verse. Isaiah 57 verse 15, thus says the high and exalted one who dwells on high. And then he says he dwells with the contrite and the lowly. Wait, he's the high and exalted one, but he loves to dwell with the lowly. What does this God do? Did you see in verse 5, who is like the Lord our God? He is enthroned on high. He is exclusive. To whom would we liken God to be his equal? Well, how great is he, verse 6, he humbles himself to behold the things in heaven and on earth. You know what this verse teaches in verse 6? God stoops down to behold the things in the heavens and the earth. It reminds me of the Tower of Babel. Remember that story when, when the, the peoples come together and they want to build a high tower to make a name for themselves? And then that amazing little humorous phrase, the Lord came down. They wanted to make a tower to reach high into heaven. The Lord came down. God had to come down, but our God, according to verse 6, humbles himself. He humbles himself. Keep your finger here. I wonder if Paul had that in mind in Philippians 2. Would you turn there real quick? Go to Philippians 2. Now, as you're turning to Philippians 2, let me tell you what Paul's doing. In verse 1, Paul is saying to the Christians, don't, don't be selfish. Don't be prideful. Don't be self-exalted. Don't be inflated. Don't, don't be conceited. Don't have selfish ambition. But what we need to do is be humble and we need to consider others. That's verses one to four. And then beginning in verse five, Paul says, here's the ultimate example of humility. Philippians 2.5, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ, who, although he existed in the form of God, he existed in all of eternity in the form of God because he is God. He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped or held on to. Well, he could have stayed in heaven. He could have. The son of God, the second person, the triune God, could have stayed in heaven. But he didn't hold on to that prerogative. In fact, what he did, verse seven, is he emptied himself. Theologians call it the doctrine of the kenosis because it comes from the Greek word for emptying. But careful, we can't fall into heresy here. The emptying does not mean that he lost anything. It's sort of unfortunate that in our English mind, we think, well, if he emptied himself, he lost something. He didn't lose anything. Ironically, in the Greek, he emptied himself by addition. He gained something, human flesh. Like the hymn, Veiled in Flesh, The Godhead See. He is fullness of God, real God, genuine God, true God, all that there is to be God, and yet he is clothed with real humanity, flesh and blood. Verse 7, he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus, Jesus humbled himself. He came with the limitations of real humanity. The God who creates the womb was conceived in a womb. And he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the very woman that he created. Born as a baby, he grew in wisdom, he obeyed the Father perfectly, and then he died a gory, bloody death on a cross rejected by his own people that he came to save. And then he took our sin, and he took our wrath, our punishment, and the judgment from God that we deserved. What humility! What a God who is lofty and transcendent, and yet he, back to our psalm, he humbles himself. As you're turning back to Psalm 113, remember that psalm by Thomas Kelly? Stricken, smitten, and afflicted. See him dying on the tree. He, the Christ, by man rejected. Oh, my soul, tis My soul, tis he, he the long-expected prophet, David's son and David's lord. See, the author of creation, he the true and faithful word. What a God, that our God is transcendent and lofty, and yet he's humbled himself Our psalm says in verse 6, to behold the things that are in heaven and the earth. You say, psalmist, like what? What does God do? You tell me that God is involved. What does that look like? Now, if you look in your Bible at verse seven, do you see it there? Psalm 113 verse seven, he raises the poor from the dust and he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes. That is a word for word quotation back from 1st Samuel chapter two. You know what I love about the psalmist here? He says, let me prove to you how great our God is. Let me just quote earlier revelation back. Remember the lady Hannah? Remember that mother of the boy Samuel and she would pray and she would call out and she would cry out for a son. And then God heard and God gave and God answered. And what did Hannah do? Hannah prayed, and she said, God raises the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash heap. He makes them sit with princes. Now, be careful. When you look in verse seven, you see the word poor. Maybe in our American culture, we think poor equals little money. Wrong association. In the Hebrew mind, it has nothing to do with money. It has nothing to do with your status and your wealth. Maybe a better way to think about it is you're an outcast. You're shamed. God is so involved and so near to you in such a way that he shows amazing grace to the shamed ones, to the outcast ones. Like Paul says, didn't God choose the foolish of the world to shame the wise? Didn't God choose the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no man may boast before God? Isn't that what our God does? And then doesn't God raise us up and seat us with Christ in the heavenly places? Isn't that what our God does? Isn't our God full of compassion on the outcasts like the leper? Like the tax collector? like the town prostitute, like the widow, like the Samaritan, like the children, like the unclean and bloody ones. Jesus is so merciful. He is the exalted God. And he's also very near to the brokenhearted, as Psalm 34 puts it. Oh, this is so helpful because, because this is the gospel invitation for any and all. This is the gospel invitation for any sinner to come to Christ. For any outcast, for any who has been shamed, for any who feels poor and dejected and rejected, for the drunkard and the adulterer and the fornicator and the immoral and the selfish one, the self-righteous one and the angry one and the anxious one, and the hypocritical one. God says, come, come. I will lift you from the dust. I will lift the needy from the ash heap. And he can take ashes and make it beautiful. Can make it beautiful. You see that there in the psalm. You say, yeah, but psalmist, can you give me an example of that? And that's how the psalm ends. Look at verse 8 and 9. Look at how the psalm ends. Look at the compassion of God. Verse 8, he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He makes the barren woman abide in the house. Real quick, we gotta pause. A barren woman. If you're a married woman and you have no children, In the ancient Near Eastern world, it would be the height of embarrassment. You would be a social ostracized outcast. People don't want you. Your husband would be ashamed of you. You would be humiliated. You'd be a disappointment to your husband. You'd be a disappointment to other women. You'd be a disappointment to yourself. And you would think, I have no children. But didn't God provide children for Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist? What a God! What a God who is so exalted and lofty, but he cares for the needy. He cares for the outcast. He cares for the humiliated. He is transcendent and imminent. I think there's an appropriate application here. Maybe if someone's here tonight, and you feel rejected by others, and maybe like people you share the gospel with, They know they're not good. They know our world is a mess. They know their life is a mess. Could God accept me? Could God forgive me? You may be rejected by others, but you can be received by Christ. You may be shamed by the world, but you can be embraced by God as a loving Heavenly Father. Perhaps someone may be an outcast to many, but God invites you in through faith in Christ. What a psalm, because the psalm brings our unrivaled God right to our attention. Verse 5, who is like the Lord our God? He's high and lifted up, but he's very near. He's very near to the brokenhearted. In your outline, you have a conclusion, and I just want to close with this before we pray here in a moment. John Frame, and I think I even gave you the link there as well, he has a wonderful essay on both the transcendence and the eminence of God. It's superb. Really, really good. He said this, quote, divine transcendence and eminence are the related Christian doctrines that while God is exalted in his royal dignity and exercises control and authority in his creation, he is by virtue of this control and authority very present to his creation, especially his people in a very personal and intimate way. Ponder this. God is king over us. but he also came to live as Emmanuel, God with us. And we say, amen. Who is like the Lord our God? Father, thank you for your word and the power of it, the clarity of it. We marvel at your unrivaled, transcendent, imminent being and personhood. Now, as we lift our hearts together in prayer, we pray that you would fill us with the joy of the Lord as we worship and praise and exalt you in this prayer meeting together. In Jesus' name.