Small But Mighty 2.0 - The Smallest Chapter

Intro: There’s an old Latin phrase, Parvus Sed Potens, that means “small but mighty”. Today, we would say that little things mean a lot or “something small can have a big impact.”

This could be good or bad.

It could mean that someone is in need, they may be quarantined or sad and you stop by with a thoughtful gift. That’s a good thing.

Or it could be a little mistake makes a big difference. A couple of years ago, there was a snowstorm that lasted about a week and a group of social workers were asked to stay home for safety, but get as much work done as they were able to do. One worker wanted to show how faithful he was being to getting some work done, so he took a selfie of himself at his computer and posted it on Facebook.

A co-worker saw the picture and realized that he had been working on personal records of some clients and had accidentally taken a picture of his computer screen in the background with very personal information about a client that included some of their personal medical information along with a mental evaluation diagnosis.

Good news: He immediately deleted the post and

informed his employer about the mistake.

Bad news: He still lost his job for an ethics

violation.

Fortunately, looking at small things in God’s Word is a win/win for all of us. We get to look into lesser known pieces of the Bible and learn MIGHTY principles that will last us a lifetime. That sounds like a good deal to me.

For todays look at the Small But MIGHTY we’re going to turn to Psalm 117. It’s the shortest chapter in the Bible and only has 2 verses.

When I was a kid in grade school, we had a Sunday school teacher who challenged us to memorize 1 chapter in the Bible. I was going to memorize something in the New Testament until my buddy Matt Beach pointed out that we could memorize Psalm 117 in about 20 minutes and call it day. SWEET!

Little did I know that, when we went to quote it to the teacher, he was going to ask us, “Okay, now what does it mean?” AWWW, MAAAAN!

God has a way of wrapping up a LOT of value in small package and He put meaning in these Bible verses like Amie puts sugar on deserts. You put a little on the bottom, a lot on top and bake a WHOLE LOT into the middle.

Let me tell you, God bakes a whole lot of value in these songs of David.

Psalm 117:1-2 (KJV)

1 O praise the LORD, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people.

2 For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the LORD endureth for ever. Praise ye the LORD.

I don’t know if you have ever thought of this before, but each passage of the scripture was written with a context of what was happening during that day.

People who heard this song being played would have understood it within what was happening at that time.

The awesome thing about this is that not only can we look back into history and see what it would have meant to them, but we can also see what it has meant throughout history and what it means for us.

Look what v.2 says, “and the truth of the LORD

endureth for ever.”

What truth? What truth endures forever?

I. This chapter, then.

A. It’s undisputed that this chapter, this song is one that was written by David.

B. It is known by the title Laudate Dominum simply means the Praise/Honor the Lord Psalm

C. There are six chapters in Psalms that are recited on holy days and they are called Hallel, Psalms 113-118.

Hallel is Hebrew for praise. (Psalm 136 is called The Great Hallel.)

Hallel is recited on the first night of Passover (Pesach).

D. Part 1 is v. 1 and it’s a general call for everyone to Praise the LORD.

1 O praise the LORD, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people.

1. With so many people now calling for unity, it

would be nice if they could get unified on this.

2. It will never seize to amaze me that with all that

God has done for us that people still want to blame

Him for everything.

a. The govt. is God’s fault, the weather is God’s fault,

racism is God’s fault,

b. God has given us life and people want to do everything to thank Him for it.

c. If there is anything that we should be able to

come together on, it would be that we are made

by God, in His image and that He loves us.