'Praise the Lord ! Yes, give praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord!
Blessed be the name of the Lord now and forever.
Everywhere—from east to west— praise the name of the Lord.
For the Lord is high above the nations; his glory is higher than the heavens.
Who can be compared with the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high?
He stoops to look down on heaven and on earth.
He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump.
He sets them among princes, even the princes of his own people!
He gives the childless woman a family, making her a happy mother. Praise the Lord!'
As I prepared to look for Jesus in the Psalms, I watched the video by the Bible Project on the Psalms. They suggested (and I have found it to be true in 113 Psalms so far!) that the Psalms have two large themes woven through the structure of its five books: the theme of the Word of God and the theme of the Messianic King of God. That is, there are templates for prayer that:
1. call for praise as we are blessed and strive to obey the commands of God and trust His promise of love and provision of a Messianic King, and there are
2. calls to join in the lament that comes from the pain of life and also the striving to obey the commands of God and trust His promise of love and provision of a Messianic King.
Psalm 113 is a call to praise and these calls to praise often instruct us as to how the Messianic God King will rule His people.
The position and authority of God is embodied in four aspects:
God’s name reveals His authority (vv 1,2,3)
God’s position on high establishes His authority (vv 3,4,5,6,7)
God’s works demonstrate His authority. (vv 6, 7, 8, 9)
God’s servants praise His authority. (vv 1, 2, 3, 4, 9)
You know there is no other Messianic King enthroned on high in the Heavens except for Jesus, so I will take you through places in the New Testament that reiterate that Jesus is the God King of Psalm 113. What might surprise the person praying through this Psalm are the unexpected changes in position of the people God recognises and blesses.
Poor people in terrible circumstances are made princes of God’s people.
Barren women living in shame and without a future are given a family.
Main Point: Jesus is the God King worthy of praise, enthroned on high and benevolent to His people. In Jesus’ Kingdom there is a great inversion.
So we can see the two themes and the two templates for prayer in the upside-down unexpected nature of the king's rule.
You may be on a garbage heap at the bottom of the socio-economic scale or you may be destitute with no future and feel a failure at all of society's measures of shame and honour, but the King in heaven notices.
The King in heaven comes down.
The King in heaven changes your circumstances and alters your status and attitude.
One day two brothers, John and James were thinking about Jesus' future as a King. They had been lowly fishermen, something that the religious and political leaders of the day did not fail to notice and mention. So being friends with the king seemed like a good way to bring Psalm 113 to life. And they asked for a promise of promotion to a position of status. And Jesus told them the path up was in fact down. And Psalm 113 actually shows us this as the King up high stoops down.
Jesus said it this way.
“But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant,”
Don’t try to skip this step. Jesus didn’t.
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many."”
But of course that is not the end of the story. And although in the lifetime of the disciples it may not look like they were fulfilling the role of sitting on a throne, in fact they were, in ways Jesus had predicted.
“And just as my Father has granted me a Kingdom, I now grant you the right 30 to eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom. And you will sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
The disciples do show that Jesus had fulfilled Psalm 113 in their lives; look at Acts 4.
“12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. 13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. 14 And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.”
See the name mentioned in Psalm 113 is the name of Jesus. And see that the garbage heap guys are in some ways princes healing the lame and speaking the words of God in high places and showing they had been with the King.
Conclusion:
Jesus is the king who stooped down and made the lowly people of importance, and His route for us is the same. We are to serve the lowly as He did, and this is a reason for praise for everyone. And that changes bad situations into situations worthy of praising His name.
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| Handwritten Psalm 113 |
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