That song reminds us of, it's okay, I missed the last note at the, toward the end. So anyway, but that reminds us in the book of Psalms, we're looking at the Psalms right now and Psalm 113, Psalm 113 begins and ends with this declaration, Alleluia. which if we translate that into English means praise the Lord. Psalm 113 is about praising God and we've seen today that we can praise God even when we don't have instruments. We can praise God even when we're few in number because our God is a great God and he enjoys the praise of his people. Psalm 113 is the beginning of six Psalms, Psalm 113 through 118, that the Jews during the second temple period, after they've come back from exile and they've rebuilt their temple, they would use Psalm 113 through 18 as a way of worship during the Passover. And this was the beginning Psalm for the Passover Psalms. They would call these six Psalms together, they called them the great Hallel, the great praise. And so we're gonna look at this text that starts with hallelujah and ends with hallelujah. Psalm 113, beginning in verse one, says, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, you his servants. Praise the name of the Lord. Let the name of the Lord be praised both now and forevermore. From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord, our God, the one who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the head and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He sits them with princes, with the princes of his people. He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord. So this text The first thing that we see about it is that it exalts, it says to exalt the Lord at all times. We're encouraged to always be praising God and exalting Him. In Egypt, remember this is related to, they use this to help them think about the Passover. In Egypt, when they were slaves, they were crying out, they were moaning, they were suffering and sad. They were servants of Pharaoh, having to do whatever he told them to do. They had to work in the dust. When their numbers became too numerous, the soldiers came in and killed male offspring. Their life was hard. But this song says, you're not crying out with moans or cries, but instead Passover had changed everything. They now praise God because he had freed them. In Psalm 113 verse one, it says that the ones that are supposed to praise him are servants of the Lord. When they are no longer Pharaoh's servants, they were now God's servants. And they were to praise him because he had freed them. Three times in these opening verses, we see it talk about the Lord's name being praised. That the Lord's name was to be praised. When they would talk about the name in the ancient world, they were talking about your character. They were praising God because of who he was and who he was that they were seeing in the Exodus story was a faithful God, a God that loved people that were servants and slaves, a God that wanted to give them dignity, a God that had promised their forefathers, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, that they would have a land And now God was taking them to that land. He was fulfilling His promises to them. And so they were praising Him in their current circumstances. It says, praise Him both now and praise Him forever. Don't stop praising Him. How long do we praise Him? From the rising of the sun until it sets. All day long should be praise given to God. We're to exalt the Lord at all times. A second thing that we see in this passage is that it talks about the Lord and that He is the Exalted One. It first starts off by saying He is over all the nations. The other nations may have their gods, but He is over those gods. He is over all the nations. There is no one like Him, the psalm will say in other places. If you look at where it talks about in verse four, that he is exalted over nations, his glory, it doesn't say his glory is in the heavens. It says his glory is above the heavens so that he has to look down even to see the heavens. That is how great of a God, how exalted he is. The question is asked, who is like him? He sits on high, above heaven, above earth, as the king of the universe. And yet this king, sitting above the heavens, sitting above the earth, in verse six it says, he stoops down, he looks down to the heavens and the earth. He humbles himself. He is not afraid to lower himself because he cares for his creation, even though he's above it. He cares for it. He stoops down to it to look at it. And what does he look at? What does he see when he stoops down? We're told that the Lord is the one who exalts. He's not only exalted, but he's the one who exalts. What catches his eye in those final verses? The poor? Those who are in the dust? The barren woman who cannot have children? Those are the examples. There's lots of other things that catch his eye, but it's not the things that you might expect. People in the ancient world and many people today think that God's eye is on those that are rich and his eye is on those that are healthy and well. But that's not what the psalm says. God's eye is on the poor, God's eye is on the barren. We're told that He raises the poor from the dust, the needy from the ash heap is how my NIV translates it, but probably the better translation is the dung hill. I might get in trouble for saying this, but if your life is crappy, it's saying, hey, God knows and God is with you and he cares for you and he wants to pull you out of that. And what he does with those poor is he not only pulls them up from where they are, raises them up, but he puts them on level ground with princes, with royalty. God puts them on a level field. This is probably why when Jesus comes, Jesus, the image of God here on earth, He tells us the stories such as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, where Lazarus is laying out there begging, pleading, and the rich man's inside, but when they both die, it's Lazarus that goes to be with God. The rich man is, we're told, in hell. It's why Jesus was so attractive to the blind, and the lame, and the lepers, and the tax collectors, and the sinners. And He said, these sinners, these tax collectors, they're entering heaven ahead of you guys. That's what He said to the Pharisees, to the religious leaders. Because they knew they were needy, and they knew that God loved them. It was not the rich, it was not the powerful. Two of the main leaders of early Christianity, one was Paul, and Paul was a Pharisee. Paul had the best education you could have as a Jewish leader. We're told that he was trained by Gamaliel, who everything we know about him was he was the Jewish rabbi of that time period. It's like he went to Harvard, or to Oxford. But he was on the same footing with Peter, a fisherman, who as far as we know probably didn't have a lot of education other than what he learned from Jesus those years he was with Jesus. But they were side by side serving. Psalm 113 also talks about the childless woman It says, will settle in her home as a happy mother of children. This is probably a reference to the different stories of the Old Testament of these women who were barren, but God blessed them, blessed their wounds so that they had a child, and not just any child, but a special child, Sarah, Rachel, Samson's mother that we don't even know what her name was. Hannah. These women had these children. And they were important to the story, even though they were childless for a while. In fact, whoever wrote Psalm 113 apparently was thinking and reflecting on the story of Hannah, because you find quite a bit of similarity between Hannah's song that you find in 1 Samuel 2, where she is barren and she is crying out to God and praising God and talking to God about wanting a child. which you find in Psalm 113. In fact, that statement in verses 7 and 8, He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them with the princes. Hannah said that in her prayer. And she was a childless woman. So don't let people tell you that the Old Testament didn't care about women because The psalmist was thinking about her story as he wrote this psalm of praise to God. So again, the exodus story, I mean you can see these slaves who had been working in the dirt and working as slaves, being freed, lifted up. becoming princes in their land that they were going to. You can see the women that had maybe lost children right before when Moses had been born, they had lost children, but now they were being given hope, becoming happy women. And notice it says, that he makes the childless woman as a happy mother of children, it's not necessarily a promise that all the barren will have children. But in God, and in praising God, you can have that same settled feeling, you can have that same sense of fulfillment, with or without children. So, this Psalm, Psalm 113, It says a lot about who Jesus was. In the book of Philippians, Paul writes to the Philippian church, and in chapter 2, he quotes a psalm, a song that apparently the early Christians must have sung, because everything about it seems to be like one of these psalms. And he quotes it to them, and look at what it says about Jesus. Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, something to hold on to or grasp. That's what Adam and Eve did. The serpent came and said, don't you want to be like God? And they're like, yes, and they grab, trying to become like God. But it says, Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to take advantage of. Instead, he understood who God was because of Psalm 113. God is the God who stoops down. And so we're told that Jesus Rather, he made himself nothing. He stooped himself by taking the very nature of a servant. Being found in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. So he humbled himself all the way down to where he was in the dirt. He was dead. But just like the Psalm talks about that God takes those that are in the dirt and raises them and exalts them, the rest of this song is all about that. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place, to that very seat above the heavens and the earth and gave him the name that is above every name. It's not talking about the name Jesus. It's talking about the name in Psalm 113 that is praised over and over. The name of Yahweh. He is God. He is exalted. He's given the name Yahweh, the name that is to be praised. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue acknowledge or praise Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father. God's not jealous about that. God the Father wants us praising Jesus because He has exalted Him, raised Him up, just like Psalm 113 talks about. And remember, when was Jesus crucified and raised back to life? During Passover. And this is the first Psalm that they would sing all the time connected to Passover. So, Psalm 113 tells us about the life of Jesus, but it also tells us about our life as a church, as a Christian community. Paul, thinking about probably this Psalm, as well as other things, said to the Corinthians, Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of the earth and the despised things, the things thrown out in the ash heap the dunghill, because they're not worth anything. God chose those things, the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. Psalm 113 is all about giving glory to God. And God chose us. But He stooped down and He pulled us up and He has exalted us. And therefore, we don't boast about who we are and that we're in here and those people are out there. But instead, we know that only He is God and He loves those that are in the dunghill still just as much as us. And we're to go, just like Jesus, and humble ourselves and reach out to those people and bring them in. Psalm 113 is the story of Jesus. It's the story of the church, but it's the story of God. Who is like the Lord? Praise the name of the Lord. Praise the Lord. Let's pray. Father God, we want to come to you in these closing minutes, Lord. And Father, we thank you so much, God, that you are a God of love and mercy beyond comprehension, that you choose us Though we're in the dirt. Though we're mired in filth. And God, you raise us up and exalt us. And you call us to be your people, kings and priests. Lord, we just thank you, Lord, and we give glory to your name. We praise your name, Lord. We shout hallelujah for your gracious and loving God who is like you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And if you have any decisions today, you can text those. And in all my planning for today, I forgot to put in an invitation hymn. So we'll just take a moment to pray for the church, pray for next week. Next week, I really hope, is a good week to help us get some final information about who are we, who do we want to be in the future, what kind of pastor can take us to that place that God is guiding us. So, take a few minutes to pray about that, and then I'll close this in a prayer. Father, we come to you and we just pray that Lord You would go before us into the week ahead. Father, you would help us to think through the week about our church, to pray for it in the coming week. Lord, I just pray that you lay on our hearts what the mission you have for us here in Cahoma, what that is. Lord, I pray that you would Help us to begin to reflect on what type of a pastor do we need at this present time to help lead us in the coming days. Next week at 10, I just pray, Lord, that you would help us all together, together to sing your praises, to pray and share what you've been laying on our heart You would help us to to provide some feedback, Lord, that. That can be useful to our search committee as they begin to seek that pastor that, Lord, you've already. Begun to work in. That you've already began to lay on their heart this community. Father, we just pray that you would continue to work in that person's life. Lord, we pray that you would continue to work in each of us to help us be the men and women that you have called us to be here in Cahoma, that together we might praise your name, that together we might go out into our community to lift up your name that others might see our good works and praise You and come to know You, Lord. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.