Psalm 145:8 – 14 reads, “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, And His tender mercies are over all His works. All Your works shall praise You, O Lord, And Your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom, and talk of Your power. To make known to the sons of men His might acts, And the glorious majesty of His kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And Your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord upholds all who fall, And raises up all those who are bowed down.”
Have you ever witnessed this attitude from others or yourself? “I’m sure glad we know that we deserve God’s love. I mean look at us…. we have so many good things going for us. We give our resources, energy, and time to the church. We come Sundays and worship God. We try to live good Christian lives every day. We love our friends and families so well. Yes, we sure deserve all of God’s loves and blessings. Aren’t you glad that we do?
Of course I am not saying that we are perfect. Is anybody? Sure, I might want to spend most of my time and money on other things. I might want to miss half the Sundays during the summer because I want to relax and enjoy it. Sure, I know I often do what God doesn’t want me to but I know that God loves me. I know I love my family so when I say something or do something that might hurt them, they’ll get over it. I know we’re not perfect but aren’t you glad that we deserve God’s love?”
I hope by now you realize I am not speaking how I really believe our faith with God is. I am sure you realize that we really don’t deserve God’s love. We really don’t deserve anything but a good knock on the head because in truth, we sometimes are pretty pathetic in the way we treat our families, our church, and ourselves. Sometimes we think we don’t need anyone. That we can, like the preschooler, “do it all by myself.” And pretty soon, as we continue to congratulate ourselves over and over, we start believing that we can do it all by ourselves. Isn’t it amazing that the ones we love actually put up with us? Isn’t it amazing that God puts up with us?
In Psalm 145 this morning the good news is that God is gracious and full of compassion. The good news is that God is slow in getting angry with us and full of mercy for us. Has there ever been a time when you know you deserved worse than you received for something you had done? I can sure remember a time when I was growing up that I deserved much more than I received.
The Star Wars movie, “Return of the Jedi,” had come out the summer before I entered the ninth grade. My brother Quinn and I wanted to see it in the worse way. There was a slight problem getting in the way of enjoying this special effects treat at the theater. Money. This was also a time in our family’s life when we didn’t really have any money since my father hadn’t been home for months. But the urgency and desire to go to this movie was overwhelming.
My friends had already seen it, some twice. I was going crazy with not being able to see the movie. So I did what I shouldn’t have and took twenty bucks from my mom without her knowing it. What was worse was that I dragged my brother along and we rode our bicycles at 7 o’clock at night across town to the theater without telling her. I paid for the tickets with the stolen money and we went in and started to watch the movie. About fifteen minutes into the movie we heard over the intercom, “Would Aaron and Quinn Kilbourn please come to the main lobby, your grandparents are waiting for you.”
Quinn and I looked at each other and gulped at the same time. We know our turkeys were cooked. We walked out to the lobby and were immediately ‘escorted’ to the parking lot by my grandfather’s strong hands. Before we loaded up in the car my grandfather said, “You’re lucky that I’m not going to whip you town right here in the parking lot.” We got home and Mom was waiting for us. We got grounded and we worked to pay the money back, but that sure beat getting whipped by Grandpa in the parking lot.
That was a lesson in mercy for us. I never took anything from my Mom again after that and I sure remembered why. Mom didn’t blow her top, she didn’t yell at us for the rest of the night. Even though we had punishment it sure wasn’t what we deserved.
In the psalm today we see that same merciful attitude God gives to all that He has made, all of His works. The psalmist writes that God is, “slow to anger.” The literal translation from the Hebrew is that God is, ‘long in the nose.’ ‘Long in the nose?’ What does that mean? Have you ever seen a bull when it gets ticked off? What do its nostrils do? They flare up. They get bigger because the bull is so enraged. I guarantee you, you had better get out of the way of the bull when his nose is, ‘getting long.’
That is what the Hebrews meant when saying God was slow to anger. God doesn’t flare up right away. He doesn’t explode with rage when we do things that make Him angry. No, God is slow to be angry with us and even more so; He is, as it is written, gracious, full of compassion and good to all. God is good to us and He blesses us continually with His great love and mercy.
Even when we stray from Him he reaches out with compassion. Much like a story I ran across from Max Lucado’s book “No Wonder they call Him the Savior.” The story is about a poor, young teen-age girl who was longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood. Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent with a home having only a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city.
One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother’s heart. Know what life on the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter, Maria hurriedly packed to go find her. On her way to the bus top she entered a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat it the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black and white photos she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro. Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew her daughter was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that were before unthinkable.
Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes. She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture—taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note. It wasn’t too long before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village.
It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended to hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far away.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation. “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.” She did.
And so it is with God our heavenly parent. He has tender mercies waiting for us when we leave Him thinking that we’ll find something better outside of Him. Can you recall a time when you felt God comforting you? Maybe it was when someone close to you passed away. Maybe it was when you felt so very alone and God came. Maybe it was when you knew you blew it and looked for His forgiveness. Maybe you felt God caring for you when you came to Jesus for the first time.
So what do we do when we have felt God caring for us? What do we do when we know He has saved us from something awful? Do we keep it to ourselves like a music box that we open only once a year? Do we try to hold on to that moment, all by ourselves, for as long as possible? The answer is in the Scripture this morning. We have no other choice. We have to talk about it, we have to share it, we have to thank God for what He has done.
Can you remember the last time something good had happened and you couldn’t help but tell someone? Remember the pay raise? Remember the new baby in the family? Remember getting over a sickness that kept you in bed? Do you remember the phone call from a friend you hadn’t heard from in a while?
All of these and more are worth talking about. And I bet most of us do talk to someone about these good things that happen to us. I think of the café downtown or the after – church catching up we do. We should be glad for the great things that pump us up and make us happy. But the question is, “Are we as willing to share how these good things are from God?
The psalm we are looking at this morning is the only psalm labeled, ‘A praise of David.’ This psalm is intended to show us how to be thankful and how to praise and worship God for His goodness to us. I don’t see anywhere in this psalm where it tells us to keep our blessings to ourselves. No where does it say that we shouldn’t let others know of how good God is to us. In fact it says, “They shall speak of the glory….And talk of Your power….To make known to the sons of men (that’s everybody) His mighty acts….and His glorious majesty.
These great, cool, and wonderful, fantastic, happy, joyful things are supposed to be spoken of. All creation can’t help but say something good about God. Jesus tells us about praising Him when He says in Luke, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” Why should we keep silent? Let us speak for ourselves because we are the evidence of God’s goodness and mercy. We have been saved by Christ. We have a real, authentic relationship with God that so many do not. We have a God who is loving to all and everyone.
Do you seen in verse fourteen that God helps us when we fall and He lifts us up when we are bowed down in sadness? Are we thankful? Are we happy that He is at His best when we have felt our worst? Le us look up and see Him and recognize Him and thank Him. Let us be the evidence that speaks for itself. Let us talk and speak and sing about Him. Because we have seen His goodness and we can’t help but testify and praise Him. I Can See because we have seen Him work in our lives it should take all that we have not to talk about Him. Because we have seen his goodness let our lives sing about Him – “I Can See"
