What a Difference a Difference Makes

Hey everyone, I‘m Josh Pollard and I’m the Adult Ministries Pastor here at Renovation Church. And welcome to the Last Sunday of 2020! They say hindsight is 2020, but I think we all just want 2020 in our hindsight, am I right? What a crazy year it has been. One thing after another threw us for all loop. But I also think it was a great year for our church to deepen its faith and trust in God and ask once again what it means to follow Jesus. This year, when I would lose heart about what was going on in my personal life or in the world at general, there is a psalm that I could to go to because it would remind me of one very important and powerful truth. And that truth is that God is so different than us. There are so many things that I don’t like about the world and life and myself, and God is not like any of that! His very nature, though intimately accessible to us, is completely different than us. That psalm, that is a stabilizing truth for a Christian in a crazy world, is Psalm 33. [Bible App, middle of Bible] While you’re getting that out, remember that one of the main things that the Psalms do is to show us who God is, what our God is like, and how he relates to humans. So as I read it I want you to think of this past year in all its craziness in light of who this psalm shows our God to be. [Read it][Put it up on the screen as I read it] Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him. 2 Praise the Lord with the harp; make music to him on the ten stringed lyre. 3 Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. 4 For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. 5 The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. 6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. 7 He gathers the waters of the sea into jars[a]; he puts the deep into storehouses. 8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. 9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. 10 The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. 11 But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. 12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance. 13 From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; 14 from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth— 15 he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. 16 No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. 17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. 18 But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, 19 to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. 20 We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. 21 In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. 22 May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you. Let’s Pray [Pray] In this Psalm we see three things that are different about God that make all the difference in how we experience life. The first and most obvious difference is his power. If 2020 did anything, it did a good job of making people feel powerless. No matter who you are I bet you can think of several things from this year that you desperately wish you could have changed but just couldn’t. As one of your pastors I know what many of you have personally gone through this year and how you would have given your right arm for your life to have gone differently this year but you didn’t have the power. But just look at how this passage describes God’s power. [Put it up on the screen as I read it] 6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. 7 He gathers the waters of the sea into jars[a]; he puts the deep into storehouses 8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. 9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. What a beautifully poetic way of simply saying that God’s Words are powerful. This is a verse you should memorize as a Family. His’s word are pPowerful enough to create the whole universe. When our human powers find their limits, and we encounter something that we can’t readily change, we can have an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. But that is not even a conceivable issue when we talk about the God of everything! His Power is so different than ours. Our power has limits which means the trust we put in our power to help us and change our lives and save us should be limited at best. But His power is unlimited, which mean that we can fully trust in his ability to fulfill the promises he’s made to us, like he made in Matthew 280:20 when he promised that He would be with us always. Another thing we see here that shows us how different God is to us is in his vantage point. He can see more of what’s going on than we can. He knows more than we do. [Put it up on the screen as I read it] 12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance. 13 From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; 14 from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth— 15 he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. God isn’t like us in that we can only see a little bit of what’s going on around us at any given moment. This generation depends so much on surveillance of our world, we’ve got smart phone trackers, google alerts, security cameras. We don’t like that we just don’t know everything that’s going on all the time. We know that it makes us vulnerable to not know things. Knowledge is power they say and it’s true in many ways. Our God is not like us in that he doesn’t have to go look around and find stuff out, He knows what’s going on at all times. And not just out in the world but right in people’s heart. He knows the heart of the people you meet and so we should keep that in mind when we talk with them. He knows your heart very well, even better then you do. He’s been there with you for every good and bad moment and thought and emotion and action that you’ve ever had. He knows where you’ve been and what you’ve been through, He knows every little thing that’s going on in the world. Nothing gets past the God of Truth. Jesus even says it like this in Matthew 12:6 “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” We only see a limited view of life. But He’s different, because he has a different vantage point for looking at the everything. So He’s differs from our world in Power, in vantage Point, and lastly in plans. We had a lot of plans this year that all got tossed out, we still can’t hardly make plans and man! is that difficult. But the Psalm tell us that… [Put it up on the screen as I read it] 10 The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. 11 But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. This is why this Psalm is so good to us. Not only is God present with each person’s heart moment by moment but He’s active in the big picture throughout all time! I think that this is probably one of the most encouraging verses in the whole Bible for me. If I believe this verse it means that I never have to worry that God’s plan is in danger. I never worry about Christianity disappearing If we don’t do a good enough Job as pastors or something like that because I already know how the story ends. Jesus is coming back for those that love him and that death is not the end. Our plans to stop bad things and sin and death are worth working hard on but they eventually all find their limits. but God’s plan to conquer all of those things is already succeeding. And there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. God’s plan will happen, and every plan that is not his, won’t last. Remember that the next time you watch the news. So what do we do about this difference between us and God? Notice something very important at the very start of the Psalm, It says sing Joyfully to the Lord you righteous, it is fitting for the upright to praise the Lord. Why does it say that it’s fitting for the upright and righteous to Praise God? Who are they? The Bible teaches us that the only way to be upright is that we must be held upright by Jesus’ sacrifice. When we believe in Jesus, and the authority and wisdom of what He said, and the Truth of who He is and when we submit our lives to that and its the is the most important thing in our lives then it makes since to praise him. And why doesn’t it say “sing joyfully to the Lord everyone, it’ is fitting for everyone to praise the Lord.” Why does the writer make that distinction? Notice that Verse 8 tells all the earth to fear the Lord, but verse 1 it only tells the righteous, the upright to also praise him. Perhaps the distinction helps us to realize what true praise comes from. It comes from absolute surrender, complete dependance on God mercy. It’s fitting to celebrate the birth of the Savior when we know and believe what His death and resurrection did for us. It’s fitting for us to praise the Judge of the world when we believe he is always right and true and faithful. Because then you know that He is to be feared, but He can also be trusted. It makes no since for people that who do not fully trust God to fool themselves by saying how great he is. They should fear his judgment rightfully so. Sometimes we Say Jesus is great, God is great, but then there is no fruit of that in our lives. Jesus said it like this to us in Matt 7: “21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Why praise a God that you only see as a weekend activity. Why praise a God who you don’t believe is wiser than you? Why praise a God if your actions say he’s not worth the effort and time that you are putting into other things? Because your actions say well He’s not that Great. Or maybe He’s great, but I fear what my friends think more. Or Jesus is so wise, I love Him So much, but if I can just cut around this corner it’s going to save my career and I fear losing my career too much. To Praise God, without first fearing Him, without first viewing him with overwhelming reverence, without first knowing, believing in every cell of your body that His opinion is the only one that matters, that His kingdom is the only one with Any lasting Power, That His words are the only right and true way to live, and that He knows every little thing we’ve ever done and that he never sugar coats our sin but calls it for what it is – Evil and Fatal!, and that the only hope we have is to be held upright by the power of Him dying in our place out of his unworldly love, otherwise we would be completely hopeless Infront of his judgment, because we are so sinful… Well. Until we can fear him rightly, it doesn’t make much since be excited about him. It’s not fitting to praise God’s mercy if we don’t first fear him. As one pastor said it, “There is nothing amazing about his grace if there is nothing fearful about his holiness.” If we praise God without first fearing Him, then we don’t actually know the God we’re trying to praise. It’s like a vegan saying Culver’s butter burger is the better then in n out’s double double. Their praise is empty because they don’t actually know anything about what they’re trying to praise. For our praise to actually make any since, we’ve got to know that the only hope we have is to clings tightly onto the Jesus’s birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and promise to come again. He is true to that promise, and That is worth of praise. Once you cling to this more than anything else and trust him more than anything else, it tell you to sing and dance and shout for Joy! It says, [Put it up on the screen as I read it] 20 … wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. 21 In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. Do you know what Holy means? It means set apart, different. He is different than you and that is so good because it means that When you feel trapped, God is not trapped. When you feel stuck, God is not Stuck. When you feel lost, God is not lost. When you feel confused, God is not confused. When you feel just done, God is not done. When you feel like your sin is too much to handle, It is not too much for God to Handle. Praise God for being so Different than us. Let’s pray Copyright: Josh Pollard Renovation Church in Blaine, MN You may use this material all you like! We only ask that you do not charge a fee and that you quote the source and not say it is your own.