We're now in Psalm 146. We're coming to the end game. We're now in the conclusion of the book of Psalms in these last five Psalms. All five begin and end with the same word. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. And this is a fitting conclusion then to this book. The focus is on praising the Lord. Praise to our God. Now, this group of five Psalms, of which 146 is the first, have no title, no attribution to an author. They don't appear to be a Psalm attributed to David, unlike the preceding Psalms that we've been considering just recently. And they're not linked then to any specific events in history as such. But one commentator on the Psalms, Bob Godfrey, suggests that they form a conclusion to the book of Psalms. And he indicates that these last five Psalms effectively sum up each of the five books of the Psalter. Each returns to and fulfills the key themes of the section of the Psalter it sums up. And so using this approach to understanding these themes is quite helpful because this focuses our attention upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who is their fulfilment. The focus is on the King in these Psalms, just as the book of Psalms began with a focus on the King, whom God has established in Psalm 2. So, we're concluding with a focus on the King. The king of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ, he is the fulfillment of these Psalms. He is the king who is in focus here. And so Psalm 146, then taking this approach, sums up book one of the Psalter, which is Psalms one to 41. And that can be summarized or concerns the king's confidence in God's care, the king's confidence in God's care. And at the core of this Psalm 146, verse 5 to 6 declares, blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob who keeps faith forever. Psalm 46 is praise for God's care. Christ is the Lord and King who cares for his people, giving justice to the oppressed. Food to the hungry, freedom to the prisoner, sight to the blind, as we read in Isaiah 35. So as we come to these concluding Psalms, we come to Christ. We need to see Christ here. We take an exalted view of our King here in these Psalms. He is the object. He is the grounds of our praise. As each Psalm of these Psalms begins and ends, Praise the Lord. It is praise to our King. Praise to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our focus. Now, in terms of the links between the Psalm 146 and the first book of Psalms, I'm not going to go into the details there, the linguistics, the themes, and so on. You can read Bob Godfrey's book, Learning to Love the Psalms, for that detail, and I commend it to you. Psalm 146 is a psalm of praise for God's care for and of his people and specifically the care exercised by the king, by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this psalm begins by the psalmist addressing his soul. Did you notice that? Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh my soul. I will praise the Lord. as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. There's a commitment then to praise the Lord here. And he's speaking to his soul. Now, do you speak to your soul? Do you speak to your soul? It sounds like you're speaking to yourself perhaps. But it's a good thing to speak to your soul. We sung Psalm 42, which is another Psalmist speaking to his soul. Why are you cast down? Oh, my soul, put your hope in God. We need then to speak to our soul in this way, we need to stir up our whole being to praise our king, our God, our savior. So singing praise to our king, singing praise to the Lord, can become and can be a mere routine, a mere ritual, without any real meaning, just words that trip off the tongue. You may sing the words with gusto. You may even sing them in tune. But unless they come from a transformed heart, from a soul united with Jesus, the words you sing actually will condemn you because you're saying things that are not true, that you're not thinking about, they're not real to you. Hymns like, or praise to God like, mine, mine, mine, I know you are mine. Savior, Lord, save Jesus, I know thou art mine. Well, you can't sing that unless you're a believer in Jesus Christ. You've got to think very carefully about what you're singing so that you're not saying things that are not true. You see, singing, singing praise to God is something that we all do every Sunday morning and evening. We sing praise to God and it can become a mere routine, but it must not, it ought not to become. a mere routine. It's something that we need to engage our whole being with. And we tell our soul, sing praise to the Lord. I will praise my God. As long as I live. For those of us who are in Christ. We can become careless, can't we? We can become very careless and reckless in our singing of God's praise. We stand up and we sing. And yet our hearts can be fully distracted and our heads can be completely somewhere else. And again, it's just words that come out without engaging our soul, without engaging our whole being. Friends, we need to guard against that. So we need to take our soul, as it were, into hand and tell ourselves. Praise the Lord, O my soul, I will praise the Lord as long as I live. You see, your soul is your inner being. It is your inner reality. It's what makes you you. It's the real you in that sense. It's who you are. And you need to tell your soul then how to act, how to respond. As the Psalmist in 42 says, why are you cast down, O my soul? Why, why, why are you in this position, soul? Why are you cast down? Put your hope in God. We need to bring ourselves back. We need to keep ourselves at the cross of Christ. We need to keep our focus upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who is risen, ascended and seated at God's right hand. Set your affection on things above where Christ is seated. And this has to be a deliberate act. And the praise that comes out from that has to be, must be a deliberate act. It doesn't just happen. Singing praise to God does not just happen. It must be intentional, directed to the Lord from our whole being, to our God, to our King, to our Saviour. And so we are committing to singing praise to God for as long as we live, as long as we have our being, as long as we are living in this body on earth. We need to take our soul into our hand and direct ourself in this deliberate act. And there's a reason for this praise. The reason for this praise is the care of our King towards us. And when you consider the care of your King towards you, the care of the Lord Jesus Christ, you realize just how inadequate your feeble praises are. and you say again to your soul, oh my soul, praise the Lord. Take my whole being, I want to give my whole being in a sacrifice, in a life of praise to the Lord. I will sing praise to the Lord for as long as I live and while I have my being. Well what's so special about the care of the King, the care of Christ, well firstly, It's not like the care of men. And the Psalmist goes on in verse three, put not your trust in princes in us in a son of man in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. On that very day, his plans perish. So putting your trust in the care of a man will firstly disappoint you and secondly, destroy you because there's no salvation in a mere son of man. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. He is but dust, and to dust he returns, and his plans perish on that day. You know, you can make great plans to go here and to go there, and then you die, and what happens to those plans? They perish. A mere man cannot save you. may bring temporary relief. The help of a man may bring temporary relief to you. And some people put an awful lot of trust in man or state or government, in princes. They expect the state to provide for them, to care for them, to keep them healthy, to feed them, to maintain justice. They trust in princes. But people disappoint, don't they? They disappoint us. Homes don't get built. Resources promised for health care never seem to be enough. The cost of living is always going up. There are countless miscarriages of justice. Crimes go unsolved, unprevented. There are never enough police, regardless of promises made by successive governments or princes. And you know, you know, the welfare state promises support from the cradle to the grave, but you'll be disappointed because there's never enough and there's never enough to go around. But even if there were to be a gold-plated welfare system and poverty was abolished and everyone could see a doctor at the moment, a moment's notice, and there were no waiting lists for hospitals and life was very comfortable and every crime was prevented and there would, that would only concern this life for years, three score years and 10. And afterwards, if you're trusting in man, that's where it ends, you see. There is nothing afterwards, you perish, you're destroyed. If you're trusting in man, if you're trusting in man for salvation, if you're following cleverly devised myths and fables, You've got a workspace system to make sure you're doing all the right things, the right way, at the right time. Oh, you're all right. You're ticking that box and you've ticked the other box. Or perhaps you've bought into the lie that there is nothing after death and we just cease to exist and cease to have any consciousness. That's a lie. And if you've bought into that, you're on the brink of hell. And on that day, the day that breath departs from you, your last breath, all your plans perish and you will face an eternity under God's wrath and condemnation. And on that day, you will be found naked with nothing. No one to answer for you because you've trusted in man. You trusted in men. They said it would be all right. They said it'd be all right if I did this and didn't do that. You trusted in their philosophies, you trusted in their ideas. Perhaps you trusted in yourself. You trusted in your own Bible reading plan. You trusted in your praying. You trusted in your attending church. You trusted in your family heritage. You trusted that you'd been brought up in a Christian home. All of this is akin to trusting in princes. Putting your trust in a son of man in whom there is no salvation. That's what the psalmist is warning us here. And there's also the danger of trusting in big names, in even in our evangelical world. And when those big names fall, people's hopes and their trust are dashed and they feel betrayed. Friends, don't idolise any man. Put not your trust in princes and a son of man in whom there is no salvation. Don't idolise anyone in whatever pulpit, Every man who stands before you to bring God's word to you is a man. And he will return to dust. Don't put your trust in the people who stand in front of you. We will let you down. Put your trust rather in the son of man, the son of God, the king of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ. Put your trust in him for salvation. Trust in him alone. Let no other trust intrude. Come then to Jesus because he offers and provides salvation and cares for all who come to him because unlike men and unlike rulers and princes and governments, he reigns as king through all generations. And so, The psalmist goes on to say, blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is the Lord, his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry, who sets the prisoner free, who opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners. He upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. Blessed is he whose help is in this God, this king, this saviour, this Lord, because this God and saviour is the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and who keeps faith forever, who executes justice and so forth, as we've seen here. You see this list in verses seven through to nine uses very similar language to Isaiah 35 that we read. These blessings are brought by the Messiah, as Isaiah 61 affirms. And Jesus quotes from Isaiah's prophecy of future messianic blessings at the beginning of his public ministry. In Luke 4, 18, he says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Do you see the echoes here of Psalm 146? Do you see the links then between Jesus and his ministry and this Psalm? You see Christ here. You see the King of Kings here. You see the Lord of Lords here. You see Jesus Christ here. You see the only savior of sinners, the son of God, the son of man, the Lord Jesus Christ. is the agent of creation. In the beginning, says John, was the word. The word was with God. The word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. And without him was not anything made that was made. And Hebrews one. begins long ago at many times in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in his last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making justification for our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. You see what a blessing it is to have such a God, such a savior, such a king as our help and our hope. He who made all things, rules all things, whose plans you see unlike princes and a mere man whose plans are established, whose plans are fixed, whose plans are yes and amen. His plans don't perish. He didn't return to dust when he died on the cross. He was raised from the dead on the third day and he is risen and he is an ascended. with all things now under his feet. He is ruling all things for the good of the church. Brothers and sisters in Christ, he is ruling for your good. He is ruling all things for your good now. And nothing can thwart his purpose for you now, today and tomorrow and the next day. Isn't that a wonderful comfort? Isn't that a blessing? How blessed it is whose help is the God of Jacob. the Lord Jesus Christ, whose hope is the Lord our God. Not in a son of man, not in princes, but in God himself, the King of kings. He who is the son was made like his brothers, and since therefore children share in flesh and blood, Hebrews said, Hebrews says he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it's not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people, for because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. When temptation comes, don't despair. When temptation seduces you, and you're on the brink of giving in, don't give in because Jesus is able to help you. Jesus is able to save you, Jesus is able to Keep you, you don't need to yield to that temptation, you don't need to give in to those things. Put your trust in Christ because he has suffered, he has been tempted, he is able to help you. The Lord Jesus Christ you see is such a suitable, such a perfect saviour. Blessed is he whose help is in him. And he has sent us another helper, the spirit of truth, the spirit of holiness, to guide you and direct you, having made you alive and joined you with Christ. Blessed indeed is he whose hope and whose help is in God. And you know, he gives grace and help every step of the way. We're exhorted then to come to his throne of grace. And that's where we find grace. Hebrews four reminds us, we do not have a high priest unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace. that we may receive mercy, that we may find grace to help in time of need. You see, such a king, such a savior cares for you. He is able to sympathize with you in your weakness, and he gives grace for you to help you in your time of need. He cares for you, and he will give you sufficient grace in an hour of need. My grace, he says, is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in your weakness. And you see, every hour has its need, doesn't it? He will give you grace sufficient in the hour of need. It's not that you just come to God in calamities, but in every circumstance, in every day, we need this grace to help us. You come to him and you ask him to help you. the hour in which you rise from your bed, help to wake up, to focus your mind and attention and affection on things above. Now, some of you may be able to roll out of bed and instantly find yourself fully awake and capacity then to come to God straight away, straight to God and his word. And you need help to find to fix your mind that may be buzzing with the day's activities. If you're someone who wakes up all bright eyed and bushy tailed, you might be buzzing with what's ahead. You need God's help to fix your attention upon him, to set your attention on Christ. Others of us are less bright eyed, and distinctly unbushy of tail, we need a little bit more time to get over the sleep inertia. We need a bit of physical stimulation to re-oxygenate the system and freshen up before our minds are in any real state of consciousness to be able to fix our minds upon things above where Christ is seated. And so we need help. Grace in that hour. So that we don't get sidetracked, we go and get some fresh air, we don't. But we need to make sure that we come back to our God. Don't get sidetracked into the rest of the day. We need grace in that first hour then, don't we? Each of us needs grace to help us in the first waking hour of the day. That we begin the day with the Lord. And then there's the hour that we leave for work. or we begin the chores, we come to him, we ask him for help, the grace for the day, strength to do all things well, to do all things to the glory of God. Even it's a job we don't want to do. There are things today that we don't want to do. We don't want to be there. But God has put us there and God has given us those things to do. And so we ask him for help to do them and not to do them reluctantly, not to do them grudgingly, but to do them for his glory, because we are serving Jesus Christ. We're serving our king. So we need grace, strength to do all things for the glory of God. And then we those hours in the in the day, in the midst of our duties, grace to help and strength to keep us from becoming self absorbed or people pleases. And then the hour we return from work. Back to home we go and in a day when our plans may have all been spoiled and meetings have been over long and someone has cut you up if you're in the car driving home or someone has knocked you off your bike, nearly knocked you off your bike or actually knocked you off your bike. Grace then to help and strength to in every circumstance give thanks to God and be the loving husband. or be the submissive wife, or be the obedient child when you get home. And then the hour you return to your bed, grace to know peace with our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of our sins and all of our failings of that day have been dealt with by the Lord Jesus, and that we lie down in peace Because he who is your Lord and your Saviour, your God, your King, who upholds all things by the power of his word, has offered himself to ransom you from your sin and death and hell, and give you a peace with God that passes all understanding, because he cares for you. And he is faithful then. He is faithful, he will never leave you. He will never forsake you because he cares for you. Nothing can separate you from his love. He executes justice for the oppressed. Although once oppressed by sin, it cannot rule, it cannot reign over you. That old master has gone, been done away with by his all-conquering death and resurrection. And we are joined with Christ. And we we saw this in the baptisms last week, didn't we? We saw that that visible sign of being of dying with Christ, being buried with Christ. The old nature is is plunged into the into that into that water. And the new nature, the new person rises with Christ to live with Christ. The old nature has been done away with. The old nature is gone. It cannot reign over you anymore. Jesus Christ has conquered by his all conquering death and resurrection. So you live in his kingdom now because he cares for you. He feeds and he fills those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. And he gives each one our daily bread because he cares for you, your spiritual needs, your physical needs. He never disappoints. He sets the prisoner free. Those held captive by sin, those benighted, dead, without hope, without God, alienated from God's people, he has set free. And John says in chapter eight, well, Jesus says, if the son sets you free, you shall be free indeed. You're free. You were a prisoner and now, the prisoner of sin, and now you're free from that slavery. because he cares for you. He opens the eyes of the blind. We once were blind in our condition without God, but now we see we have the illumination of the spirit of God. We see that we were by nature dead in sin. And now in Christ, we have eternal life. We see the wonderful work and the reality of life in Christ by his death on the cross. You see. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind because he cares for you here. He lifts up the those who are bowed down. You find yourself burdened with a load of care. Do you find yourself weary? Do you find yourself struggling? Do you find yourself downcast? Well, look again to Jesus. Look again to your King. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is the Lord his God. He cares for you. He lifts up those who are bowed down. He cares for you. He is able to sympathize with you. Don't be anxious. Don't be full of worry. Come to him. in prayer, and he will lift you up. He will deliver you from every bondage of your soul. Trust in Christ alone, then, because he cares for you. And he loves the righteous, not the self-righteous, but those made righteous by his saving work on the cross, whose sins have been dealt with by coming to him in true repentance and faith. whose life is bound with his, who are joined with Jesus, whose righteousness, therefore, is Christ's imputed righteousness. It's that righteousness that has been given to you in Christ, by Christ, the moment you believe. God cannot then fail. to love those who are one with his beloved son, because he cares for you. You see, the Lord loves the righteous, his children. He counts each one in Christ as righteous, just as though you've never sinned and just as though you had always obeyed. He loves you. He watches over the sojourners, verse nine. We're on a pilgrimage, aren't we? A journey, we're far from home. Often, we're always, in fact, in the wilderness of this world. There are dangers on every side, aren't there? But he leads us in that narrow way. Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. And he's going to lead us home. because he cares for you. And so he watches over your sojourn. He watches over your journey, your pilgrimage, and he will keep you because he cares for you. And he upholds the widow and the fatherless, the weakest, the most impoverished of society can find refuge in this king. because he cares for the weakest and the poorest. None are excluded. And he will ensure that his people are vindicated and that justice is seen to be done on that last day. He upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin because he cares for you. And just as a reminder, then, for who it is that is caring for you, verse 10 points us to the eternal reign of our sovereign God and King and Saviour. It is the Lord who will reign forever. Your God, O Zion, to all generations, praise the Lord. You see, it's the Lord who made heaven and earth who keeps faith forever, he will reign forever to all generations. His reign is unending. It is eternal. And so, believer, he cares for you, not just here, not just now, not just the next day, but for all eternity. He cares for you. And when you pass from this life, you pass into his eternal presence and his care continues. He keeps your soul and he will reunite your soul with your resurrection body on the great and final day of judgment. When Christ returns to inaugurate that new heaven and new earth and in the new heaven and new earth, his care continues and it continues and it continues as you dwell with him forever. So praise the Lord of how he cares for you. Let's pray. Our gracious God, we thank you for this psalm. We thank you that it points us to the Lord Jesus Christ who cares for us so intimately, so affectionately, so lovingly, so graciously, so mercifully. Oh Lord, how we thank you for such a savior as Jesus Christ. He who is the exalted king, he who is the creator of the heavens and the earth, and yet deals with us with such compassion. Oh, how we thank you, Lord Jesus, for being such a saviour. We pray that any here this evening who do not know you would yet come to trust in you and to find you to be the one who, the only one, who cares for their soul. Lord, have mercy here that no one here be putting their trust in man or their own selves. Turn each one of us, oh Lord, to put our trust fully and wholly and more and more upon the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be all the glory. For we ask in his name. Amen.