All right. How many secular songs are written longing for love? How many pages and books of poems are filled with people longing for love? How many people want someone to love them with genuine, real love? How many people grew up in families where that just never existed? Maybe some of you have. Do you ever wish that someone would love you for who you are? That you didn't have to hide something from them to get them to love you? If you're one of the 100% of the people in this world that want someone to love them, despite their problems and shortcomings, then I have good news for you tonight. Because tonight we're gonna look at the shortest chapter in the Bible. It's only two verses. But those two verses, they pack a punch. Tonight we look at the chapter that is immediately in the center of your Bible. Tonight we look at a psalm that was central to the worship of the Israelites. And this psalm is quite amazing. The text is Psalm 117. Please stand for a brief minute as we read it in honor of God's word. I will be using the English Standard Version tonight for this psalm. 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. You may be seated. The outline's up here if that helps you to follow along or helps you in your notes. So number one on the outline is the call to worship. Verse one, praise the Lord, all nations. Extol Him, all peoples. A, this is a global call. Praise the Lord, all nations. Notice that, first, this is not an option. It is a command. Praise the Lord is a command. It's an imperative. And when commands are given, it's important that we understand the command, that we understand who the command is given to, And if we don't understand those things, like if we don't understand really what the command is, we may do something that wasn't intended. And if we're confused about who it applies to, we may get really messed up and do the wrong thing. For instance, if we read the account of Noah in Genesis and don't understand that that command to build the ark was given to Noah, we might find ourselves in our backyard building some massive boat waiting for a big flood. A lack of understanding of knowledge of how the Ark of the Covenant was to be transported caused a well-intentioned man named Uzzah to reach out and stop God's Ark from hitting the ground and God struck him dead on the spot because he didn't understand the directions or he didn't know them. Either way, God held him responsible. It's important to make absolutely sure that the commands given are understood. It's so critical that on the fire ground we have what we call an order model. It is in the valley. And this model basically is our radio communications. And so when an incident commander gives a command to an engine company or whoever captain to go do something, that person has to repeat that command back to them verbatim. It does two things, it makes sure they heard it correctly, they understood it, and then the instant commander can hear it. And sometimes, there's been times when I've been in that position and the command is repeated back to me and it's wrong. So what they heard was not what I said. So you can correct it at that point in time. So communication's important. And understanding in that situation, the fire ground, understanding that clearly can certainly be a life or death situation. But how much more important is it that we understand God's commands, which are not life and death on this earth, but life and death for eternity. The command here is praise the Lord. So the Hebrew word for praise is halal. This word means to make a show of, to boast in something, to rave about it, to celebrate, to praise, to glory, or extol the greatness of something or someone. It's a big deal. There's excitement, there's energy, there's exuberance in that praise. The object of our praise here is the Lord. This is the Yahweh, the unpronounceable One, the Almighty from the Old Testament, the Holy God. He's the object of our praise. Nothing else is. So when we gather on Sunday to praise God together, We're not there to praise or admire the musicians, the music, the emotions, the light show, the pastor. We're there to praise God and God alone. And none of that other stuff should be preventing us from doing that. So next we need to understand who the command is given to here. And this is where it gets a little bit fascinating to me. This command was given to all nations. The Hebrew word means people or nation. It means large group based on geographical cultures. Many translations also would say Gentiles, which in the context of the Israelites is substantial and correct because it basically means all nations except for Israel is what it's speaking to. The Jews knew that they were to praise God, but here it's the non-Jewish nations that are in mind. Think about the ramifications of that. Here's the Jews, thousands of years before Jesus, singing a psalm that commands all the Gentiles, all peoples in this world, to worship the one true God. How big a deal is this? Well, let me tell you. This is one of the psalms that was sung at every Passover celebration. So if you just ponder that for a minute, what that means. This is the celebration where the Jews were worshiping God and remembering him from redeeming them from Egypt, from slavery, from those powerful king, the most powerful nation on earth. And it was done by spreading the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of their house. And then the angel of death would pass over and not kill their firstborn son. Why? Because a lamb was killed in his place. clear foreshadowing to Jesus Christ, who would shed his blood on the cross for all who would believe in him. And it's Jesus' blood that causes the judgment of God to pass over those he saved. Same words. And this psalm was sung by the Jews each year at this important celebration, the Passover. And it speaks clearly that salvation was going to come to all peoples in the world, not just the Jews. Doesn't that blow your mind? We serve an awesome God. His plan has never changed. His plan started before he created the world. And he knew that he would send Jesus to save his people from their sins. And all that stuff in the Old Testament was driving towards the key point of the scriptures, which is Jesus on the cross, paying for our price. This psalm is a global call to worship God. It's the call of the gospel to every nation on earth. That's why foreign missions and getting the Bible translated into languages is so important. Our God is worthy and he deserves the worship of all of those kinds of people. Praise God for Brother Marr and his family who devote their lives to bringing that to an unreached people group, the Tatamata people in Mexico, who have never had a church planted there. And why is that important? Because God demands their worship, and God is worthy of their worship. And one day, there will be Talmudic people worshiping God before the throne. Praise the Lord, all nations. But it doesn't stop there. It's not just the nations that are to praise God. Let her be the personal call. Because now he says, extol him all peoples. Here's another command. It's actually a variation of the first. The word extol or to laud, as some translations use, is similar to the word translated as praise. This word means to glorify or to make exuberant statements about the excellence of someone. It means to commend or address in a loud voice with praise and triumph. And notice that this command is given to individuals, to people, and specifically to every person. Not just Jews, not just Christians. All people on earth are commanded to extol and to praise the one true God. All people are called to worship God. They're called to bow the knee, to bow their will, to submit themselves to God and God alone. Paul makes it clear in Romans 1 and the psalmist makes it clear in Romans 19 that all men are without excuse because God has made it clear to them in His creation. And who's the most important person to worship God? You. You. All nations and all people are commanded to worship God. And although it would be perfectly acceptable for God to say that the reason for you to worship me is because I said so. Close the book, end of story. He could do that, couldn't he? And he would be right in doing that. There would be nothing wrong with him doing that. But he doesn't do that. Because number two, he gives us two reasons for worship. For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. So like verse 1, verse 2, we again see an example of what is called Hebrew parallelism. The phrase is repeated with a slight alteration, in both to emphasize its importance and to shed and deepen a little bit of understanding of what the meaning is. So anytime these parallelisms are found, Had a hard time with that. Anytime these parallelisms are found in the poetic sections of the Old Testament, they would be great passages to pause and meditate on. Because God has made it clear that these are important. In this verse we see two reasons to worship God in this passage. His love and His faithfulness. First, his love, for great is his steadfast love toward us. The New King James says, merciful kindness. When we look at the Hebrew, what we find is chesed. This is used many times and refers to God's loyal love, his covenantal love, his unfailing love and kindness, his devotion. It is God's favor, his mercy, his affection. And all this is referring to God's steadfast, enduring, eternal, covenantal love for his people. And the passage says that his love is great. Well, I don't know about you, but when I think of the word great and I casually read over that word, I think it's large. It's bigger than the mountains. It's bigger than the ocean. It's bigger than the world. It's bigger than anything I've ever known or can see or witness. And although that's true, there's more to this word than that. Because the Hebrew word is gabar. And in this context, it's a verb. And it means to rise or to flood. It means to overwhelm, to inundate, to be flooded over. It means to win over or to triumph over. Genesis 7 gives the account of the worldwide flood and Noah's ark. And after Noah and his family were in the ark and the rains came and flooded the ark, we go to verse 17. And I'm going to show that word used here. So verse 17, the flood continued 40 days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark and arose high above the earth. The waters prevailed, Gabar. and increased greatly over the earth. And the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed, Gabar, so mightily on the earth, and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed, Gabar, over the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land, and whose nostrils was the bread of life, died. Notice I emphasize those words, prevailed. It's the same word as used in this other text, Gabar, describing God's love. Do you remember? Here's another example. Do you remember the story of the Israelites' battle against the Amalekites? This is the one where Joshua was fighting the battle and Moses was up on the hill with his rod in his hand. And as long as he held that rod up, the Israelites would prevail. And when his hand fell down, they did not. So starting in Exodus 17, verse 9, So Joshua did as Moses said, and fought with Amalek. Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And it was when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed, Gabar. And when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed, Gabar. But Moses' hands became heavy, so this is when he took a stone. He sat on the stone, and the two other guys helped him hold his hands up, because that's the only way they're winning. That same word, Gabar, they're winning. They're prevailing over their enemies. That's what God uses for His love for us. God's love for us, His love prevails. It prevails, it overcomes, it triumphs. God's love prevails over our stubborn, hardened hearts, softening them and replacing them with hearts of flesh. It prevails and overcomes our sin, clearly at the cross and at the point of our salvation. And it prevails over sin today, over the power that sinners are in our life. His love overcomes our weakness. It overcomes our sin. And His wrath is replaced by His love. He prevails over our stubbornness. He prevails over our resistance to Him, and He saves us. His love prevails over judgment. The Bible says mercy triumphs over judgment. God's love wins. It wins the battle over sin in our lives throughout our sanctification and takes us all the way to our glorification when we will be with him in heaven for all when that ultimate victory over our sin will be won. And it will be won by God's love. His love is strong. His love is great. It's steadfast. It's immovable. And His love never stops. Do you believe this? What about when you sin? Does this love stop then for you? No, no, no, no, no. A thousand times no. His love overcomes all obstacles in your life and in mine, for those who know Him. Paul says in Romans 8, which Rob's going to show us tomorrow, that not one thing in heaven and earth can separate us from this love of God. He is the Almighty, all-powerful One, and His love is mighty. Have you seen a video of a tsunami? These massive waves crash onto an island, demolishing everything in sight. Have you also seen some of the cardboard houses that people in some third world countries sleep in? And maybe even some homeless people in Phoenix? Now picture that cardboard house at the edge of that island when the tsunami comes. Those massive waves crash into it with tremendous force and completely obliterate it. That house is your sin, laid at the feet of Jesus at the cross. Jesus' blood comes down and overwhelms your sin. It obliterates it. There's nothing left. You're completely forgiven. All sin, past, present, future. No sin too great, no sin so disgusting that he can't forgive it. No sin powerful enough is powerful enough to stand against. The flood of Jesus' blood. This is the love of God on display for all the world to see. How about after the cross as you get beat up and beat down by the world and the flesh? How about the sins we commit or get drawn into once we're saved as believers? Can they stand against the flood of Jesus' blood? No! Jesus' blood obliterates them. You're forgiven. A foul mouth, forgiven. Bad temper, tempered by the tempest of God's love. Addictions, no match for Jesus. God's love triumphs over sin in our lives. Jesus says in John 15, 13, greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Now that's an amazing love, isn't it? But think of God's love. Think of Jesus, who came, who laid down his life, not for his friends, for his enemies. Ephesians 4, Paul says he's praying for the Ephesian believers, starting in verse 14. He says, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. You know what struck me on that, as I was reading that, is Paul prays that they would have strength to understand is God's love. Why do they need strength? Because understanding God's love is a lifelong pursuit of Jesus and getting to know him, getting to know our God and his love. His love far surpasses our mental capacity. It's limitless. It's eternal. It's immeasurable. God's love overcomes all our sin. So the question is, has God's love prevailed over you? That's really the question that we all need to ask. If not, you must know Him today. You're commanded to worship Him. Please don't wait. Please don't wait. It's the love that everyone wants. It's the love that all those songwriters write about. It's the love that all the poems are written about. They just don't know it. Next, another reason to praise him is for his faithfulness. and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Some of your translations, including New King James, use the word truth here. The word can be used to mean truth or faithfulness, or a few others. So the question is, which is more correct, the truth of the Lord or the faithfulness of the Lord? I pondered this. Which one was I going to use? They're both excellent translations, New King James, ESV. Both are true of God. Both can be backed by a multitude of other scriptures, both Old and New Testament. Both characteristics are worthy of our praise, and certainly both characteristics make great preaching points. So New King James gives two reasons to praise God, his love and his truth. The ESV basically gives one that's emphasized again differently, his faithful love and his faithfulness, which also includes an aspect of truth. So what does the Hebrew word mean? It can mean either. It kind of means both. They're closely related. So I'm going with the faithfulness today. So one of the reasons I use that is because of the use of parallelism in the Hebrew poetry and the use of parallelism in the first verse. So it makes sense he would use parallelism in the second verse as well. So by doing this, he's repeating the phrase, emphasizing the statement. And second, by using a slight variation, he broadens that meeting and draws our attention to the expanded meeting. So these verses fit into that. The faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. This is his faithfulness to his people and his covenant specifically. His chesed, his steadfast, faithful, enduring love. And in case we didn't get the point, he states it again. It endures how long? Forever. God's faithfulness, God's steadfast love, it endures, it lasts. It endures hardship, it endures hatred, it endures sin, it endures through all our stupidity and selfish ambitions, and it conquers all. His steadfast, enduring love is an overpowering, conquering love that conquers our sin, our fears, and our doubts. Our God is a God who never changes. He never lies. He never doesn't follow through. Our God's faithful. He will never give up on you. He's faithful to see you to the end. All peoples and nations are called to worship God. We worship him for his amazing love and his eternal faithfulness. Number three, the big question, how will you respond to his love? Praise the Lord. The only right response is to worship. What does worship mean? It means to attribute worth to something or someone, in this case, Jesus and God. The triune God has more worth than anything else on earth, and His love toward us that was poured out on the cross and then throughout our lives is one of the reasons we're commanded to worship Him. Praise the Lord, right? The use of praise the Lord is different here than it is in the opening of this psalm. The word praise is the same, it means halal, but the word Lord is not the same word. The original statement was praise Yahweh, this one is praise Yah. And this is where we get the term hallelujah from this phrase. That exuberant word, hallelujah, that's sung so greatly with such pomp and excitement in the Handel's Messiah's hallelujah chorus, right? That people can't sit on their seats, they stand up and raise their hands, and they might not even know Christ, but it's so exciting, right? It's that. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. This should be our response to the truth in this shortest chapter in the Bible, which is only two verses, but has the message of the gospel from Genesis to Revelation. The salvation of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, all worshiping before the throne of God. Revelation chapter 5 opens with a view of what this looks like in heaven. And this is what we're going to be closing here. The elders are around the throne, and they're looking at the scroll. And no one's worthy to open the scroll. They want to see what's in it. And a lamb steps up. That's Jesus. And he opens that scroll. I'll start in verse eight. When he, Jesus, had taken that scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have made them a kingdom and priests of our God, and they shall reign on the earth. Then I looked, and I heard around the throne, and the living creatures, and the elders, and the voice of many angels, numbering myriads and myriads, and thousands upon thousands. That means an untold number that no one can count, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who is slain to receive power, and wealth, and wisdom, and might, and honor, and glory, and blessing. And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, to Jesus be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. Our God is worthy of our praise. He's worthy of your praise. His steadfast, enduring, overwhelming, accepting, loving, kind, compassionate, adopting, redeeming, triumphant love for you is clear and it is powerful. It is powerful. This is God's love. It was most clearly displayed at the cross. When Jesus died for your sins, paid the price you owed, took the wrath that was designed for you and took it on himself. If you don't know this love, you don't know God. If you don't know this love, please talk to someone. Come to Jesus tonight. Come humbly. Cast your sin on him. He can forgive it all. And he will. Believing in his sacrifice and his sacrifice only. Please do it today. Don't delay.