Praise the Lord!
"Hallelujah! It is good to praise our God, it is pleasant and fitting to sing praises to Him." (Psalm 147:1)
This morning, during the Saturday early morning prayer service, we sang hymn 204 ("Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken"). As I was singing this hymn and reading the English lyrics, I came across the phrase, "This is my story..." which made me stop and reflect. "My story"... What is the testimony in my story after almost 50 years? Especially as we approach the 25th anniversary of Victory Presbyterian Church, I took a moment to reflect on what the story of the church over the past 25 years might be. The faithful Lord, the gracious Lord, the merciful and compassionate Lord, the forgiving Lord, the disciplining Lord, and many more—these are the aspects of the Lord that we must praise greatly. With this heart, I proclaimed the scripture from Psalm 147:1-3 during this morning's prayer service, hoping that the 25th anniversary service of Victory Presbyterian Church would be a time to greatly praise the Lord. In particular, in the first verse of the passage, the psalmist says that praising God is good, pleasant, and fitting. I would like to reflect on three reasons why praising God is good, pleasant, and fitting, and from the perspective of our church's 25th anniversary, I want to meditate on three aspects of the Lord's will for us.
First, praising God is good because God is a God who builds.
Look at Psalm 147:2: "The Lord builds up Jerusalem..." Since the end of last year, our church, Victory Presbyterian, has been meditating on the book of Nehemiah during Sunday services. From what we have already meditated upon in the book of Nehemiah, we know that God used Nehemiah and the people of Israel to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. However, Nehemiah understood that the rebuilding of the Jerusalem wall was not something he and the people of Israel accomplished by themselves, but it was by "the good hand of my God upon me" (Nehemiah 2:8, 18). This is why Nehemiah confessed this truth. Similarly, we, the members of Victory Church, must also acknowledge and confess that our church has been built through the good hand of the Lord, who has faithfully fulfilled His promise in Matthew 16:18, where He promised to build His church, the Body of Christ. Therefore, we must experience the truth that praising God is good. As we offer this praise, we must join in God's good work of building His kingdom by His grace. The church that the Lord builds begins with us; He first shows us our brokenness and helps us be rebuilt. Then, through this process, we should serve one another in the work of building each other up. Especially after the 25th anniversary service of our church, we must unite with one heart in the Lord's work of rebuilding, taking responsibility for the restoration of broken individuals, broken families, and a broken church. If we do not build ourselves up, we cannot build our families, and without building our families, we cannot build the church of Christ. All of this is done by the fulfillment of the Lord's promise in Matthew 16:18, where the Lord Himself builds, and by tasting His goodness, we must offer praise to God.
Second, praising God is beautiful because our God gathers the scattered.
Psalm 147:2 says: "He gathers the outcasts of Israel." Throughout the Bible, we see scenes where God scatters the people of Israel when they do not repent after committing sin. For example, in Deuteronomy 4:27-30, God scatters the Israelites among the nations as a consequence of their sins, leaving a small remnant behind. However, after enduring suffering and hardship, the Israelites cry out to God, and through this, they meet Him. Ultimately, God leads them to return to Him and obey His Word in the last days.
This pattern of God's actions is still happening today. When we, God's people, commit sin and fail to repent, God scatters us. When sin causes division within the church, God scatters His people, and there are fewer of us remaining. The surprising thing is that even amidst hardship and suffering, we often fail to pray to God. The church, failing to be the light of the world and instead becoming a mockery, hiding God's glory and tarnishing His holy name, does not cry out to God amidst its pain, wounds, and suffering. As a result, we fail to meet with God and ultimately do not return to Him or listen to His Word. What then is our responsibility? We must join in the Lord’s work of gathering His scattered people. Too many Christians have been wounded within the church and, for various reasons, have left and scattered, wandering away. God desires to gather them back, and He wants to use us in this process. Therefore, as we see the beauty of God’s providence in scattering and gathering, we must enthusiastically commit ourselves to the work of gathering God's scattered people, doing so with a joyful heart. And, seeing the beauty of God, we must praise Him.
Finally, the third reason why it is fitting to praise God is that our God is a God who heals and binds up.
Look at Psalm 147:3: "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." In this verse, we see God’s healing ministry, where He first heals the brokenness within us, the brokenhearted, and then proceeds to heal our external wounds. How fitting is this healing work of God! But even more remarkable is the fact that God is the true "wounded healer" (as Nouwen puts it). The wounds of His only Son, Jesus, on the cross—those wounds He still bears even in heaven—are the very wounds through which He heals ours. Yet, we often refuse the hands of the wounded healer, the Lord. At least in the time of Hosea, the people of Israel said, “Come, let us return to the Lord…” (Hosea 6:1), acknowledging God’s work of humbling and binding them up. But today, we often run farther away from God. One of the reasons for this is that we believe God has wounded us. Of course, we may not say it outright, but deep inside, we may resent God for allowing us to experience pain and suffering. We may even be like Jonah, trying to flee from God in bitterness and confusion. But we have forgotten a very important truth. The wounded healer, our Father God, saw His Son Jesus suffer on behalf of sinners and did not stop it. The amazing thing is that God does not simply watch our suffering from a distance; He wants to heal and bind up our wounds. Therefore, we must praise God for His perfect and fitting work of healing and binding up our wounds.
We must greatly praise the great Lord for His great grace (Psalm 145:3, 7). It is good, beautiful, and fitting for us to praise our great God because He establishes us, scatters us, gathers us, and also heals and binds up our broken and wounded hearts. After offering praise and worship to God, we must participate in the three great works of the Lord: the work of establishing, the work of gathering the scattered, and the work of healing and binding up. In doing so, we must carry out the work that is good, beautiful, and fitting for God.
With a heart of gratitude to God, who has revealed to us through His word the works we are to carry out,
Pastor James Kim
(Hoping to be faithful in the ministry that the Lord has entrusted to us).