“The Relational God”, looking at ‘How God’s Recognition Brings about our Transformation’
The text for today is Psalm 33:18.
18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love
Story
A friend of mine shared with me a story of her experience growing up in a large church. After service, a line of people would form in order to speak briefly with the pastor. As a child, she would wait in line to see the pastor, and after waiting, when she finally got to the front of the line, she would give him a hug.
You see, she had some sense of fear, some sense of reverence toward this pastor as she didn’t want to interrupt his interactions with others, but she had yet to reach the point of trusting fully in his love toward her. Would he get angry with her for cutting in line to give him a hug? Or was his eye looking for her, his heart inclined toward her to receive her hug? She knew that he was an eminent man worthy of respect, but she wasn’t sure if she had immediate access to him…She didn’t know the full truth of his character. But then this pastor spoke to her parents and told them, “Sharon doesn’t need to wait in line to give me a hug.” Her parents relayed the message to her, and so her knowledge of his character and his heart toward her increased. But it was still only knowledge. She had to be willing to step out in faith to experience the truth of the pastor’s words in her life.
Let me tell you church, you don’t need to wait in line to give God a hug; the way to God has been opened to us through the blood of Christ. Many people today recognize who God is and have some sense of fear before God, and I absolutely agree that a right understanding of God is vital. But head knowledge doesn’t bring life. We must move into the second part of verse 18; not just knowing that God is great and that He is worthy of reverence, but living out our hope in His mercy, living out the truth that He is merciful in the midst of His greatness, that the inclination of His heart is toward His children, and that we can run toward Him with confidence when we need a hug, because we all need outside validation, and life-giving validation comes from God alone. Authentic fear of God and genuine hope in His steadfast love transforms how we view ourselves and revolutionizes how we live.
Henry David Thoreau, an American philosopher in the 19th century, had this insight – He said, “It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate”. What you, as a man, as a woman, as boy, as a girl, think of yourself, will determine how you live. And it is vital that we see ourselves from God’s perspective and not our own. It is His Recognition that brings about our transformation.
If you know that you are beloved, you’re going to live from a place of strength, knowing that your uniqueness is valuable, that you have something to offer, that God has given you purpose; in other words, you know that your voice is worth hearing, and you will speak, and use your gifts and your talents to accomplish the purpose that God has for you in your generation.
So I want to examine this text today, not simply in an academic way, but really consider what it means for our lives today. We’ll begin with a brief background of this Psalm to give some context.
Background/Context of the Psalm
If we were to categorize Psalm 33, it would be considered a Psalm of Praise. It’s not attributed to David, though other Psalms (13, 34, and 52) ascribed to David contain similar language to express that the Lord takes pleasure in those who hope and trust in His steadfast love. The Psalmist begins by commanding the righteous to praise the Lord, to sing to Him a new song, and then goes on to declare that God is right and faithful in all His ways, and that the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. Next, he proclaims the greatness of God. ‘By His Word the heavens were made’, ‘He spoke and it came to be’. The Psalmist then contrasts God’s strength with the inability of man to save himself. ‘A warrior is not delivered by his great strength, The war horse is a false hope for salvation’.
And then, in verse 18, ‘Behold!’ In the Hebrew language, this word ‘Behold’ can carry the meaning of “‘certainly’, ‘surely’; something newly asserted, recognized, or discovered.” It is as if the Psalmist is saying, ‘Now that I have shown you the worthiness of God, who is perfect in love and power, ‘Surely, Certainly! The eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love, Discover it for the first time! Or recognize it anew!’
This verse, along with verse 19, is in some ways a climax of the Psalm. The author led to this point by declaring the works and love of God, and then let the reader know to Behold, this is how God feels toward His children!
And while the Psalms are not intended to teach doctrine explicitly, they may reflect doctrine. In this particular case, the author’s original intent was to implore the righteous to praise God. In doing so, he highlights truths that are clarified as we study the whole counsel of God: Genesis 1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”; John 1:3: “All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made”; Colossians 1:16: “For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth…” This knowledge of who God is and of His greatness should lead us to the worship of God. Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones, who pastored Westminster Chapel in London during the 20th century and taught systematically through the book of Romans for years, was clear that the study of the doctrine of God should lead us to worship. Our study of doctrine should lead us to doxology. Right doctrine, in other words, knowing the truth about who God is, or as Paul puts it, knowing the truth as it in Jesus (Ephesians 4:21), should lead you to worship.
We see this in Paul’s writings where he shares deep theological truths and then immediately goes into doxology. In Romans 11, he exclaims, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! Or in 1 Timothy 6, when he is exhorting Timothy to pursue righteousness and godliness, he allows his emotions to soar as he declares the truth of who God is: “He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”
Does your theological knowledge lead you into worship and communion with the living God?
This Psalm, like others, invites the reader to praise God and commune with Him because He inhabits the praises of His people Israel. So I invite you this morning, even in the midst of the sermon, to commune with God. If there is a word that Holy Spirit is impressing upon your heart, meditate upon it, rest in it. Don’t worry about missing something I say if you have an opportunity to commune with God, for that is far more precious and life-giving than mere human words.
What new song can you sing in your heart to the Lord this morning, this afternoon, this week?
So with that, let’s dig into the text for today, focusing first on the Reverence that God demands:
What does it mean to fear God, to give Him the reverence that He is rightly due?
A right understanding of the character of God is vital to growth in the Christian faith. We cannot neglect growing in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Charles Spurgeon, considered by many to be the prince of preachers, stated, “Many of the fears of Christians would be driven away if they knew more. Ignorance is not bliss in Christianity, but misery, and knowledge, sanctified and attended by the presence of the Holy Spirit, is as wings by which we may rise out of the mists and darkness into the light of full assurance.” I can testify that greater knowledge will require greater wrestling, and grappling with tough issues, but it’s vital to our growth that we do this. In 2 Peter 3:16, Peter says that “there are some things in Paul’s letters that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction”. It’s no trifle to willingly refuse to righty divide the word of truth, to refuse to study to show ourselves approved.
So let’s take this opportunity to look at a few attributes of God that can help lead us into a deeper reverence for and fear of God.
God is unchanging. God only is, He does not become. He is not the God of antiquity, He is the God of eternity past, now, and forevermore. God is everywhere (Colossians 1:17 – in him all things hold together, He is omniscient, or all-knowing. God not only knows all things that currently exist, but He knows every possible outcome of every possible decision that every human being has ever considered, things that are knowable, but that never happened. I can’t even wrap my mind around that.
And God is holy!
Before Isaiah the prophet cries out “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips”, he describes the Seraphim, the Angelic Beings who are crying out to God, saying, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” He says they have six wings, 2 to cover their feet, and 2 to fly, and 2 to cover their faces. These are angels who have never sinned, yet they cannot even look upon God, because His holiness is on a whole nother level. If these pure, sinless creatures cannot even look upon God, what does that say to us? We would do well examine our posture, our attitude as we come into the house of Lord, to remember that it is not about us, but about Him; to recognize that there are times we just need to get on our knees, get on our face before the Lord, to shut our mouths because there should be a sacred stillness in the presence of the living God.
Now, this is only scratching the surface of looking at who God is, but this fear of God leads us into greater awareness that we are in need of a Savior, for who can enter into His presence? Recognizing our frame, our frailty, and our inability to save ourselves, leads us to the necessity of placing our hope in Someone greater than ourselves, Jesus Christ.
Let’s continue on to the second part of this text, looking at the Hope that God Delivers:
The Hope that is offered in Christ Jesus is sure and steadfast, an anchor for our souls. Sure, because God and His Word are true, and steadfast, because this hope does not fade or end, but continues on forever. Yet simple knowledge of this Scripture and others will not only not save you; it will not give you peace and hope; Jesus said, ‘You search the Scriptures for eternal life; it is the Scriptures that speak of me’. Hold the Scriptures in high esteem, yes…and also look to Jesus, who is the author of our salvation and let His Word wash you and speak to your soul that you may be refreshed, not by dead doctrine, but by the living Word of God enlightened to your soul by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Being rooted in God and spending time with Him; doesn’t mean you’ll never be sad or hurt again; But He sympathizes with us in every weakness.
Even in your weakness, you are accepted. Jesus didn’t say, ‘Blessed are the perfect and tidy, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’. But rather, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” In order to be transformed and receive this sure and steadfast hope, we must reach that poverty of spirit that Christ speaks of in Matthew 5, and place our trust in God. Do you recognize that your abilities are a false hope for the future? Do you trust your Heavenly Father fully?
Do you trust Him enough to cut in line when you need a hug? Do you desire to simply be in His presence and experience His love? This is not selfish: God is infinite; He has enough capacity to satisfy you and every other human being on earth to uttermost. In fact, He is the only one who can satisfy the deep longing of our souls.
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and philosopher in the 17thcentury, when speaking of God being the only one who can satisfy the eternal desire of our souls, put it this way: ““What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”
God alone can satisfy, and the question we need to ask ourselves today is: Do we have enough confidence in God to trust Him with everything, even when there is pain all around us, assaulting the very fabric of our souls? Not just saying we trust Him, but surrendering our life, our dreams, our finances, and waiting expectantly upon Him even in the midst of deep pain, hurt, and rejection, even when the circumstances in our lives are dire?
The year was 1989…
It was a normal day in the country of Armenia, a country located almost halfway across the world from where we sit today. It’s a small country located just east of the Black Sea, bordering Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iran. All of the sudden, the unthinkable happened. A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Armenia, killing over 30,000 people in less than 4 minutes.
In the midst of this wreckage, a father left his wife and hurried to the school where his son would have been studying, quickly discovering that the building had been leveled. After his initial shock at this discovery, he remembered that he had made a promise to his son: “No matter what, I’ll always be there for you!” Tears welled up in his eyes. He surveyed the debris; hope faded…but he kept remembering his commitment to his son.
He began by focusing on the area where he walked his son to school each morning. He knew his son’s classroom would be in the back right corner of the building, so he hastened there and began to dig through the rubble.
As he was digging, other despondent parents arrived, clutching their hearts, saying, “My son!” “My daughter!” Other well-meaning parents tried pulling him off what was left of the school, saying:
“It’s too late!” “They’re dead!” “You can’t help!” “Go home!” “Come on, face reality, there’s nothing you can do!” “You’re just going to make things worse!”
To each parent, he responded with one line: “Are you going to help me now?”
And then he proceeded to dig for his son, stone by stone.
The fire chief showed up and tried to pull him off the school’s debris, saying, “Fires are breaking out, explosions are happening everywhere. You’re in danger. We’ll take care of it. Please go home.”
To which this loving, caring Armenian father asked, “Are you going to help me now?”
The police came and said, “You’re angry, distraught, and it’s over. You’re endangering others. We’ll take care of it. Go home.”
No one helped.
Courageously, he proceeded alone because he needed to know for himself: “Is my boy alive, or is he dead?”
He dug for eight hours…12 hours…24, and 36 hours. Then, in the 38th hour, he pulled back a boulder and heard his son’s voice. The man screamed his son’s name, “Armand!”
He heard back, “Dad? It’s me, Dad! I told the other kids not to worry. I told them that if you were alive, you’d save me, and when you saved me, they’d be saved. You promised, ‘No matter what, I’ll always be there for you!’”
“There are 14 of us left out of 33, Dad. When the building collapsed, it made a wedge, like a triangle, and it saved us.”
“Come on out, son!”
“No, Dad! Let the other kids come out first, because I know you’ll get me. No matter what, I know you’ll be there for me.””
What tremendous love this father had for his son! But’s let not miss another aspect. This child had great confidence and trust in his father’s ability to rescue him and also in his father’s desire to rescue him. So great was his confidence that he insisted, even in the midst of a painful situation, that the other children come out first because he knew that his father would rescue him. He waited expectantly for his father to save him; he hoped even when it seemed all hope was gone.
You worship God, you attend church, but do you have confidence in the mercy and steadfast love of God in your workplace, in your home, with your friends, with your co-workers? Do you live as one whose hope is set on God in the midst of pain and rejection?
And with that we return to the opening of the verse, the promise that the eye of the Lord will be on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love. And let me show you that He will not despise those that come to Him in humility, with reverence and hope.
God desires relationship with us, so let’s examine the Intimacy that God desires:
In using the word ‘eye’, the Psalmist is using metaphorical imagery to illustrate the Fatherly affection of the Lord; that He cares about us in a personal way and He wants us to know that we are seen and understood and valued by Him. How many of you who are parents, have heard your children say, “Daddy, see me! Mommy, watch me!” Or, as a child, or even an adult, you long to have someone watch you to see what you are capable of, to value you by giving you their attention? God gives attention to His children who turn to Him with a broken and a contrite heart.
Luke Chapter 15, the Story of Prodigal son; sidenote: if you’re ever wondering what truths from God’s Word on which to meditate, Luke Chapter 15 is good place to start. Many of you know the story: the younger son asked for his father’s inheritance, squandered it on sinful living, got a job feeding swine, which would have been a very low place in the Jewish culture, an unclean place to work since pigs are considered unclean animals. Yet, this son ‘came to himself’, and he made a decision to turn toward home, hoping that he would be able to work as a servant in his father’s house. He feared his father and wasn’t sure if he would be received as a son, but he had some hope that His father would be merciful to him, and so he began to walk toward home. He didn’t clean himself up; he just hoped in his father’s mercy. Luke tells us that while he was on the way home, and still a long way off, his father saw him and began to run toward him.
Allow me to pause here and say this: you don’t notice someone from a long way off unless you are actively looking for them. This father was not going about his daily business and then taken by surprise when his son arrived. He was actively looking for his beloved son. His eye was upon His son, who had turned from his previous life and decided to come home. When he saw him, he didn’t wait for his son to arrive and grovel at his feet to earn forgiveness. No; he made himself vulnerable, he made himself of no reputation…He ran to his son and embraced him…
before his son even had a chance to say the words of confession…the son’s actions…demonstrated his hope in his father’s mercy.
God desires intimacy with us. His love toward us proves this desire for communion. In John 15:9, Jesus says, “9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love (ESV)” offers.
The word used at the beginning of this verse, ‘as’, means ‘according to the manner in which or in the degree in that’, meaning that Jesus is saying that in the same way the Father has loved me, so also have I loved you. John uses the same word again in John 17:23 to show that God loves His children in the same way that He loves Jesus. Beloved, that is a powerful statement and one worthy of our meditation. This same God, who said of Christ, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”, loves you in that same way.
I hope you didn’t miss that – “According to the manner in which God has loved Jesus, He has loved you, His child. If you have trusted Christ, you are His beloved and in you He is well pleased…not because of your righteousness, but because God has credited the righteousness of Christ to your account. You who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13).
Today is the anniversary of D-Day; 77 years ago today, thousands of American Soldiers gave their lives so that Europe might be free. There can be no freedom without sacrifice. Just as the sacrifice of these Soldiers obtained freedom for many in Europe, Jesus Christ emptied Himself that those who trust in Him would be brought to God. And if you are the one who is far from God today, you too can be brought near to God by the blood of Christ, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Behold, The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. Christ came into the world to save sinners. You don’t have to clean yourself up to go to Christ. You do have to clean yourself up to come to God, but the beauty of the gospel is that Christ died for you while you were yet a sinner and He will wash you who come to Him, that you may be saved, and have access to the Father.
You are not so far from God that you cannot be brought near. He created us to commune with Him for eternity. In fact, He has desired intimacy with His people since the beginning of time, as evidenced by the fact that you see Him walking in the garden of Eden, in the cool of the day, calling out, ‘Adam, where are you?’ This is after Adam and Eve had already sinned – The first thing out of His mouth was not: ‘What have you done?’, but rather, “Where are you?” This parallels Jesus’ words to the woman caught in adultery: He begins with “Neither do I condemn you”, which is followed by “Go and sin no more”. And then in the book of Hosea, a prophetic book in the Old Testament, we see a picture of God’s love for His people. Israel had turned away many times, but God kept pursuing her; even though there were consequences, God went to redeem her. And in the 3rd chapter of Hosea, God commands Hosea to go and buy back Gomer, an adulteress whom he was commanded to marry. He first buys her, then he tells her that she must dwell with him for many days, that she must not play the whore. Sin has consequences, but yet love covers a multitude of sins. All three of these passages demonstrate that God’s love and mercy did not change from Genesis to Hosea to Christ, and He is still the same today.
God is worthy of your trust and He desires to be in communion with you. He is not simply worthy of you praying a prayer to receive Him, He is not simply worthy of you spending 5 or 10 minutes with Him in the morning, an unfortunate by-product of the quiet time mentality of our Christian culture. I don’t say this to shame you, because I’m preaching to myself as well, but to encourage you, that you have an opportunity to connect with God, and re-connect with Him again and again. We, as Christians, need to learn to dwell. A baby knows its mother’s voice. But do you know why? That baby didn’t stop by to spend 5-10 minutes a day with Mom during pregnancy; that baby dwelt in its mother’s womb and learned to recognize the voice of its mother. Even so, we must learn to recognize the voice of God. In John 10:27, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” May we learn to distinguish His voice in the midst of many voices.
As you recognize and grow in the truth that He is worthy to be feared and you place your hope in His steadfast love, the promise remains that His eye will be upon you.
Whether you’ve been in the depths of sexual sin like David, if you confess and repent, His eye will not fail to find you, ‘for whom He loves He corrects’, whether you’ve been in the depths of denial like Peter, if you surrender your reputation to go again to be with Him, His eye will not fail to find you, whether you’ve been despised by others your whole life like Mary Magdalene, if you humble yourself, His eye will not fail to find you, whether you’ve been stricken with health issues like the woman afflicted by chronic bleeding, and you seek to simply touch his garments, His eye will not fail to find you. He is the God who sees; he knows the intricacies of each one of your individual stories. He knows the physical abuse, the sexual abuse that you have suffered, the emotional neglect that you’ve been through, the deep pain you’ve experienced because of the brokenness of your family, and yet He loves you still.
There have been special moments in my life when I felt the love of God in a powerful way because, by His grace, He made me desperate for Him, for His presence, to know His love, and He has never failed me. May we always be desperate, may you always be desperate, for as the lyrics to the song go, “there is a table only the hungry find, only the beggar will have the currency, when need is all you need” (Caroline Cobb). Come to Him, for He does not despise the lowly. He is so patient, giving time for repentance. It is His kindness that leads us to repentance. Come, whatever your circumstances, for the promise still stands: ‘Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you.’ Amen, and Amen.
Benediction
Recognizing that we can’t invoke this hope on our own, we must cry out to God for grace to draw near to Him. In that vein, I close with a prayer from Romans 15:13: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
