The Spreading Circle
First B Jackson
2023-02-19

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Sitting over there.

Alright. Good morning, everybody. How are we? Good see you. Good to see you.

As as folks are walking through the door, how about we we worship in song together? Would you stand with me? And here's an encouraging word from Jesus in John. He says, my father is always at work to this very day, and I too am working. Be encouraged by that.

The Lord is working. Let's start by singing Waymaker. You are here. You are here. Yes.

We are on tomorrow. Mule music message at 06:00 down the hall there, and Jambalaya is on the menu tomorrow. And Mark eight is is where we'll be, where Jesus reveals what a messiah really means and what a follower of Jesus really is. So please feel free to come down the hall at 06:00. I got nothing, Ray.

I got nothing. That's it. I'm out of ammo.

I can make a couple of announcements back here too. I'll take it from you. There's the Ascent, which is high school. That's a youth group with churches just around the valley right there. There's also a young adult Bible study.

You can meet Erin Anderson. Erin's usually sitting somewhere near the back here. But if you're a young adult and wanna get a Bible study, there's if gathering. That's a woman's study that's international. Natalie Yates is here.

If you have any questions about that, she's waving her arms right over here. She can answer that. And then also, Brad Yates has an announcement as well.

Good morning, everyone. I've had the terrifying privilege of joining the Elder Board, and that's mostly y'all's fault. We had a meeting on Thursday, we were talking about priorities upcoming, one of the things that we're gonna relaunch again is community groups. So just be aware that that's sort of on the horizon, something that we're gonna continue to work towards. I've had a number of people come up to me over the last several months and say that they're interested in joining one.

I haven't been keeping track. So if you can contact me again or if that's something that sounds appealing to you, we're gonna start kinda putting together potential names for people that that wanna be in community together. It's nothing terrifying. I mean, it's studying God's words, living out the one another's of scripture, and just encouraging one another as as long as today is called today.

Amen. Under two minutes, I told you. Hey. Perfect. Alright.

Anybody else have anything? Would you stand and sing with us? Evidence. There it is.

Wanna hear one of my favorite verses from Jesus in Luke. He says to his disciples, don't be afraid little flock. Isn't it wonderful that Jesus calls us his flock? He's the he's the chief shepherd and we're his sheep. He says, for it gives your father great happiness to give you the kingdom.

He's giving it away. Giving it away. Well, how do we receive this? By faith. By faith.

Coming to him. It's in faith and humility. Going on. Here here I am. And here we are, really, just just as we are this morning.

Our our our mess is with us, and he says, come on, little flock. Come on, little flock. One more little word of encouragement here. I love how well that our songs and scriptures, they they go together. They go together.

And from Ephesians, now all glory to God who is able through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we could ask or think. Glory to him and the church and Christ through all generations forever. Amen. Amen. You can have a seat here for a moment.

This is the the worship through giving part of the service, and I'll ask the ushers to come on forward. We're gonna sing for your glory from John 17. Jesus says, father, I want these whom you've given me to be with me where I am. Isn't that good news, by the way? And then they can all see the glory that you gave me, Jesus' infinite worth.

We're gonna sing of it. Before we do, Ray, would you pray? Yep.

God, thank you for this morning. I gather together. Thank you for a congregation, Lord. People who have gathered together in your name with the intent and purpose to worship you, Lord, and to hear a word from you, to hear direction from you, from your word. God, I pray that we would would recognize the enormity of that blessing that you that you have given us given us propositional truth right in front of us, lord.

It can be read, studied. It can be taken in. It can be acted upon. Lord, would you give us direction this morning as to what you would have us to do, where you would have us to go, who you would have us talk to, lord. I pray lord that we recognize the blessings you've given us and be willing to put that into work for your kingdom.

In Jesus name, lord, I pray that you would bless the gift and the giver and that you multiply it so that we may be truly lord doing your will and your way. Amen. And it's time for children's church downstairs, and there they go. I'm just tripping all over myself this morning. Oh my goodness.

There's an extra microphone up here. Eventually, we're going to be all right. I got here early this morning. And we went through soundcheck and green lights were on and everything was good. All is wonderful.

And we're working through it. And we get up here as soon as I looked in the first song, and there's a red light coming out of my pocket, and I see it. I go, Oh, that's not good. Psalm 67. God, would you help us to center our hearts on what the psalmist is saying here this morning?

There are so many impediments to understanding, Lord, and I don't want to be one of them. Would you help me? God. Amen. The spreading circle.

Derek Kidner has written a really good treatise on the Psalms. It's really, really good. I just I just love it. So, Psalm 67, he nicknames it the spreading circle, and I really, really like that. So From this place, it starts right here.

It starts right here next to you in the seat next to you after it penetrates your own heart. There's this little circle, but it goes to the absolute ends of the earth and into eternity. So the spreading circle is a great Psalm. Here we go. I want to take it kind of slowly, one verse at a time.

It's only seven verses long. This is not Psalm 119. Fear not. God be gracious to us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us. What does that remind you of?

What's that sound like? What does it sound like? God, be gracious to us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us. This sounds like a fairly common benediction I use when it's at end of the service and I think, May God bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and give you peace and carry that and go out into the world. That's a fairly common I use it a lot of times.

I use it when somebody calls on me to say a blessing at the end of something that I don't know anything about, because it's always going be a good one, right? It is, yes, from Numbers six twenty four. It's the Aaronic Blessing. Y'all might have heard Carrie Job and a bunch of people, other people too. I remember her name.

I don't remember everybody else. They got together during COVID, and they did a version of The Blessing, which was just plain beautiful. We've sung it at various funerals and weddings and all kinds of things. It's beautiful. Numbers six twenty four to 26 says, May the Lord bless and keep you and make his face to shine upon you.

When you speak to the people of Israel, speak to my people and say this, Eric, say this, in a sort of a priestly role. But this psalm, and there it is. Sorry. Lord bless you and keep you. Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.

It's also the sevenfold I'm in. Have you all ever heard that? A sevenfold amen. We, in my family, sing that sometimes at gatherings. May the Lord be gracious, gracious unto you.

Amen. You know that one? No. It's so good. It rings in our ears.

That's the point of Psalms. So that's the point of singing it. If you can sing it, you can remember it. Right? If you can sing it, put it to a tune, and it goes into a different channel in your brain, it stays with you.

And so the Psalms are Israel's hymn book, and they are remembering the promises of God, and they're aspirational in a lot of cases. But I imagine somebody leaving out of a gathering of Israel And hearing this, the Lord bless you and keep you. They're dwelling on it. Like, we've been dwelling on the Lord's prayer since last week, that on earth as it is in heaven. Right?

Lord, be bless you and keep you. Lord, make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you or make his face to shine upon you. Lift up his countenance towards you and give you peace. And this one is, God be gracious to us.

So it's not a priestly role. It's not to you. I'm taking on this role and saying, I'm carrying God's blessing. I'm giving it to you. It's a it is a prayer for God.

God, be gracious to us and bless us and lift up your countenance upon us. Make your face to shine upon us, Lord. Us, us, us is what I see when I read that. But Numbers, if there are differences, then there are. Numbers says, Lord, the tetragrammation, the Yahweh, Yahweh, the intimate and personal name for God.

And Psalms uses Elohim, which is less personal and less intimate. It's sort of like Mr. God or Sir God. It's a little more formal. It could be said that it could be used for people who don't know him yet as well, okay?

That's a difference. Numbers says you, Lord bless you and keep you, and Psalm says us. And us kind of rings in my ears because I think that the church for a long time has been very good about praying for us. Me, my four, and no more, sort of thinking. But the spreading circle, the psalmist under inspiration of the Holy Spirit is praying a promise of God to Israel, but he's modified it to include others.

Now, for what we've seen so far, he hasn't. It just says us. Right? Praise praise God. Praise God.

Bless us. Bless us. If I were y'all and I heard this much bless us, bless us, I would be thinking, oh, this guy's a prosperity gospel preacher, and I'm gonna hit the door. Or you might be thinking, finally, he's gotten to what it's all about. God be gracious to us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us.

So Then it says, c'est la at the end. If you look up c'est la, and you look it up in 12 different places, you're going to get at least 12 different responses. I think it's beautiful. It's always at a place where you need to stop though. Pay attention.

Pause for a moment. Ponder that. Let it sink in. My definition that I think of in my head every time I see Selah, even if it's Selah Green, a young lady, Colin and Jen Green's daughter. When I see that, it's let it ring out.

Let it ring out. Be gracious to us. Bless us. Cause his face to shine upon us. So this so far, it's just one verse in, but is this an ungodly prayer for prosperity just for us?

I I would say it I'd have to go with it tends towards no because it's in the Bible, and it's never the case to just pray for yourself in the Bible. It is pray for us for a reason or to bless us for a reason. So Psalm two says this, Lord, bless us. Be gracious to us. Cause your face to shine upon us.

That, so that. In Greek it'd be henna. This is in Hebrew. But that is there. It's barely a little squiggly in the notation.

It's barely just It's that much. But it's there. And it says, so that your way, almighty God, so that your way may be known upon this earth as earth as it is in heaven. So that your way may be known on the earth, so that your salvation may be known among all nations. Oh, so good.

All of the nations. And it goes on from here. But think about that. It's everybody. It's every people group that we're praying for the blessing of God.

We're praying for the grace of God, and we're praying that he would show us who he is, show us his face so that we may reflect his glory on every other nation, people group. So the spreading circle. He modified it to include others. It doesn't just stop with those who are under the sound of my priestly voice. It is a spreading circle that goes from here outward.

It's an echo of God's promise to Abraham in Genesis, right? So, the first one, the first two verses, I think, recall Aaron's blessing and it would bring it up whether it brought it up to you or not, it would have brought it up to its original hearers, the ones who are originally singing this song on Sabbath. They would have heard in that the Aaronic blessing. But this also sounds like blessed to be a blessing is Abraham, right, from Genesis twelve one through three. Abram, God says, go forth from your country, from your relatives, and from your father's house, and go to the place that I will show you.

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great. And for those of you who've been doing the first b in the Bible, isn't it amazing to see what God does with Abram? Even though he trips up, seems like continually sometimes. He messes up. But God is with him, and he does turn him into a great nation.

He does bless him. He makes his name great. And typically what Abram does is he looks to God for what he should do. When he and Lot have a dispute or when there's not a dispute, a choice where you're going to go, give him the first choice. When you're, eating cake with your brother when you're little, do you have a wise mother?

Take the cake, the last bit that's left. One of you cuts it, the other one gets to pick. Boy, they're gonna get the micrometer out to get this thing exactly right. Prayerfully, equitably, what is the right thing that we should do that I should do, Lord? Show me your way, I'll walk in it.

I'll make you a great nation. I'm gonna bless you. I'm gonna make your name great. And so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you.

And the one who curses you may you go out blessing, but the one who rejects that, they will receive a curse. But it's what they're putting out there. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Every nation, all the peoples. Israel, supposed to be a light to the nations.

It's throughout the Old Testament. It's not just New Testament. This spreading circle. God chose Abraham to be a great nation and be a carrier of his blessing to all of the nations. And the psalmist picks that up.

Paul clarifies it for us too. If we didn't catch it in the Old Testament, Paul says that even so in Galatians three:six-seven, even so, Abraham believed God. He trusted him. He put his faith in him, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. God justified him.

Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are the sons of Abraham. It still matters. You can still you still have the choice of placing your faith in God or in yourself or in something else. Now that no no one is justified by the law before God, it's evident. The righteous one shall live by faith.

Still in Galatians three. In order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, to the nations. That's all of the nations. It's everybody who's not Jewish. The nations, so that we would receive the promise of the spirit through faith.

It is about faith. So if you have placed your faith in Jesus, then you're a part of this very same spreading circle that maybe David, different people argue over who wrote this psalm. It's a musical psalm. It's a musical psalm because it has a Selah in there. Let it ring.

It's a musical notation. If you place your faith in Jesus, you're part of this spreading circle of blessing that came from God through Abraham. If you're going to save a world, how are you going to do it? You got to start somewhere. He started with Abraham.

Did Abraham deserve it? Nope. But he did believe him. We don't deserve it, but we can believe him. We can trust him.

Psalm sixty seven one and two. Let's catch back up. God, be gracious to us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us. Selah, let that ring out. We are seeking your blessing, Lord, so that your way may be known on the earth, your salvation among all of the nations.

If you've placed your faith in him, you're a part of this spreading circle. So where does it go from here? Well, verse three. It's after one and two. Let the peoples praise you, oh God.

Let the peoples praise you. Now, in English, when we see this, let the peoples praise you, oh God. Let all the peoples praise you. That, in English, we look at it and think, allow it, Lord, that you would allow it. But it's a third person command.

It is a command to praise God for somebody who's not there. So third person commands. We don't usually do it in English. It's a let us pray is close, That second person, because I'm still including myself in that. Let these other folks who don't yet know you, who are not even in the room right now, let those folks come to know you in who you are and praise you.

So we don't do it in English. Command is something that's not present or not listening, and we translate it as let. I had somebody mouth something to me just a minute ago. I'll be interested to hear what that was. I saw it.

So this is proof that I'm a grammar nerd. Chiaastic construction, how many of you all know about this? I've been mentioning it for a while. Some of you knew it way before I knew it. Chiaastic construction is when there's an ABCCBA.

In this case, it's actually ABC and then D is right in the middle, and then CBA. It's the way that it works. It is a Hebrew way of thinking, but it's also a way in Greek that chiaastic is the key, the X is why we call it that. And the chiastic construction says all of this has been important, but it's been building up to something that's really important. In English, what we typically do is tell them what you're gonna tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them.

We just repeat it like crazy. But in Hebrew thinking, and even in Greek thinking to some extent, there is what's in the middle. The first and the last are important, but whatever's in the middle is the thing. Right? And so Psalm 60 seven:four, we've got A, C leading up to it.

This is D. And it's the main point of this whole song. Everything else has been a couplet, two line little thing, and then this one's a three line right in the middle, the most important thought that everything builds towards and then falls away from. And this is it. Has another Selah at the end to let it ring.

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. We want for them to experience you. Nations, be glad and sing for joy, third person command. For you will judge the peoples, Lord, with uprightness.

You are a righteous judge. Will not, my God, do what is right? You will judge the people with uprightness, and you will guide the nations on the earth. This is about God's goodness and his sovereignty and his righteous judgment. But under that, we want for the nations to find themselves and their identity in Christ and be glad and sing for joy.

Let that ring out. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you will judge the peoples with uprightness. You will guide the nations of the earth. Selah. Do you all hear the Great Commission in this?

Do you hear that this spreading circle is about the way that God has established? And it is from the people who know to the people who do not yet know. From it's not the West to the rest. It's from those who know him who are willing to recognize and go forward with it. A carrier of the blessing of God, a carrier of the message of God, a carrier of the gospel that has it a part of their life.

They look to God for the blessing so that they may be blessing others. Selah. Stop. Pay attention to that. Let it ring out.

Pause for a moment and think about it. And if you pause for a moment and go, Let the nations be glad, what do they have to be glad about? What do they have to be glad about? I know the comfort that comes with knowing Christ and I'm glad that I know that. But what about those who don't know the comfort of Christ?

What do they have to be glad about? The whole point of this psalm is not just that this circle is spreading. It is we have a role in the spreading of the gospel. But Romans one sixteen and one twenty, if you're wondering, one sixteen to 20 says this. I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

I mean, I I recognize it's the power of God for salvation. Everyone who believes who believes to the Jew first. They had the whole history of Abraham. They knew about belief from Abraham. It was four hundred years before they had the law.

Right? The Jew first. And also for the Greek, it's for everybody, to the nations. For in it, for in the gospel and we did that gospel in 10 words or less sermon a few weeks ago, and y'all have been contemplating this and thinking about it. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

It's about belief. As it is written, the righteous one will live by faith. Only be redundant when you need to say something more than once. God says this over and over and over and over and over again. Right?

The righteous one will live eternally by faith. The righteous one will be living by faith. Faith is what should be driving us. So in Psalm sixty seven three, we just heard, let the peoples praise you, God. Let all the peoples praise you.

Let the nations be glad. And then in Psalm sixty seven five, we have, let the peoples praise you, oh God. Let all the peoples praise you. This is the refrain of the song. This is exactly the same as sixty seven three, and it points to chiastic construction when that happens.

There's something in the middle that's really, really important. Let the nations be glad. I want for the nations to be glad and to worship you, Lord, to find their peace and comfort in you. That's what I long for. God bless us.

Lord, be gracious to us. Make your face shine upon us so that they may know. Let the peoples praise you, oh God. Let the nations beget. Let the peoples praise you, God.

Let all the peoples praise you. And it's nations, nations, peoples, peoples. It is individual, but we Americans tend to think individualistically. It is collective too. It is the peoples.

There are peoples that don't have an active witness of the gospel in their people group yet. Now, we know every tribe, tongue, and nation will be gathered around the throne. There is an end vision that God is moving towards. Let's keep going. Psalm 60 seven:five.

It's a repeat. Three is the same as five. Oh, gracious. Now, 60 seven:six says, The earth has yielded its produce. This is the only past tense in the whole psalm.

The rest of them are third person commands, and there's a please with God, pleading to be gracious and to bless, and make his face shine. But then this one says it, and it's a flatly, it says it. The earth has yielded its produce. God, our God, blesses us. It is in the fact that we have things, material things.

The earth has yielded its produce. It points to the fact that we have been given harvest. We have been given resources. God our God blesses us. He does.

It's just what he does. No. It's not a spiritual thing. It's it's not tied to material blessing. God has already provided us with what we need to be doing what it is he would have us to do.

Are are you with me? 677 a said, God blesses us. He just does. That's that's a recognition of, I am praying for you to bless me, Lord. I'm praying for you to be gracious to me, cause I know I don't deserve it.

Grace is unmerited favor. I'm saying, Lord, please bless and do it graciously. Let me see who you are so that other people can see who you are. God blesses us. It's a recognition that this is what God does with his people.

We want for that to extend to every tribe, tongue, nation. So why is it that he blesses us? And this will close out the Psalm. So that all of the ends of the earth may fear him. And fear there, it's used a couple of different ways in the New Testament and in the Old Testament.

Fear typically can breed terror or fright, and I don't think that that's what we mean. But God, that it should be terror or fright. But that is the most common way that it's used. That's why the angels always have to say, Do not fear. I'm a messenger, and I'm bringing good news of great joy.

Or, Don't fear. It's going to be okay. God sent me to you. I don't want to do anything to harm you. I understand your fear, but no need.

Don't fear. The second one is to place total trust in or to revere. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, to recognize that God has blessed. He has been gracious. He has shown us who he is.

And what we do with that is let others know what he's done. It's that simple. I love this. Lord, I place my total trust in you, and I revere you. And I'm looking to you to provide whatever I'll be needed for whatever you would have me do next.

God blesses us so that they and they can be any people group, right? May revere him. It can be an individual. And I think we put up a lot of false barriers, and I don't want to be guilty of putting up false barriers to the gospel. If you have someone listed as irredeemable in your head, Be praying this prayer that God would humble you.

God, I recognize that you have blessed me, and I did not deserve it. And it was completely unmerited favor. And anytime I get in my head convinced that I did deserve it or I do now deserve it because I'm so clean and righteous, God, would you convict me of my sin, bring me to my knees, and allow me to humbly walk forward? God blesses us so that the nations, ponta ta ethne in Greek is all of the nations. And ethne, you can recognize, is ethnicity.

It's family, ethnicity, race, its nations. Recognize that the other should not be scary to us and that the gospel should not be foreign to them. If we can trust God, process it, internalize it, and love him, and allow him to love others through us, that's what we need to be doing. So God's provided way. It's up to us to include the nations in the spreading circle, and I think, I'll ask the band to come back up.

I went long last week. We go short this week. We have some missionaries here with us, and they are actively carrying this. We have missionaries that are going out sometime soon, Florine and his family. We've got Anderson Brook here.

And we probably have others. We have people who are who their whole being is tied into this particular realm. And I pray that that spreading circle from these, that that'd be something that we're all catching, that we know that we're carriers of the blessing and the grace of God, and we can be extending it. I would say, and I stopped short, by the way, when I read Romans 16 through 20, I didn't go 21 through 25 because that is something that we used to beat people up with all the time. They should know better.

They know. Everything says this. They should know better. Damn them. That's a common way for us to think, and I don't wanna think that way.

I don't want for y'all to think that way. I want for us to know God and to make him known. Would you stand? We'll sing. Amen.

And now may the Lord bless you or us, both of us, all of us, all of y'all, all of us. May the Lord bless and keep you and make his face to shine upon you, but may you not be able to hide that fact. Lord, that only past tense in there is God has blessed us. The earth has yielded its produce. Lord God almighty, you have given us what we need for today to be doing this today.

Would you show who you are through us? Amen. Amen.