Psalms 67:1

God, be merciful to us and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us. Selah. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy! For you shall judge the people righteously, and govern the nations on the earth. Selah. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. Then the earth shall yield her increase; God, our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.

A psalm that turns an "audacious" prayer for blessing into a vision of every nation singing for joy in Jesus.

A Glimpse of the Multitude

It was one of those inspiring moments. There were 4,000 of us, maybe more, gathered in an auditorium with musicians and singers on stage, arms lifted up, singing in unison with a loud voice. In that moment, I couldn't help but imagine what it will one day be like. Revelation chapter 7 speaks of a multitude so large that no one could number it—people from every tribe, nation, and language group gathered before the throne of God, all worshiping, singing a new song to the Lord.

Four thousand people pales in comparison to a multitude that cannot be numbered. But we've all experienced a large gathering of people—maybe in a stadium, like the Harvest Crusade up at Angel Stadium these last few days—many people with one voice, singing together, arms lifted up. I'm sure that the psalmist who wrote the passage we're looking at today, some 3,000 years ago, a composer himself, had that same picture in view.

The Blessing Behind the Prayer

Psalm 67 carries the heading, "To the chief musician on stringed instruments, a psalm, a song." We're not entirely sure who authored it, but some composer had in mind musicians accompanying these words.

That last little word in verse 1, selah, is a musical and meditative pause. When I read it, the words that come to my mind are, "think about it." Just think for a moment: "God, be gracious or merciful to us and bless us; cause his face to shine upon us."

A reader 3,000 years ago would immediately recognize the connection with another Scripture—and if you've been part of Cross Connection Church for any length of time, you might hear it too, because I share these words almost every week as a benediction. They come from Numbers chapter 6, the Aaronic blessing.

Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, this is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them, the LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. So they shall put my name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.

This was the priestly blessing the priests were to pronounce over the worshipers of God. Now the psalmist, hundreds of years later, has this blessing in mind as he writes his song. But notice that he changes it. It was a blessing the priests pronounced—"The LORD bless you." Now he prays it as a request: "God bless us."

"God, Bless Me"

That sounds like an audacious prayer. I was talking with a brother in the church this week, and he said sometimes it's easier to pray for other people than for himself, because when he prays for himself he feels selfish. Have you ever been there? I tried to encourage him that Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread, so it's legitimate to pray for ourselves.

There is an out-of-balance way to pray, where all we ever do is pray for ourselves as if we're going through the In-N-Out drive-through: "I'll have this, and this, and this, animal style." That's completely self-focused and out of balance. But to never pray for yourself because you feel it's somehow selfish or arrogant is also not correct.

We're accustomed to say "God bless you"—even after a sneeze; one of my kids, when they sneezed, said "I bless you," because we always say it. But we've almost been trained to feel weird about saying "God bless me." The psalmist felt no discomfort: "God be gracious to us and bless us." (That word "merciful" in verse 1 is the same Hebrew word translated "gracious" in Numbers 6.)

So our first point: God's people should seek and expect God's blessing. And immediately the question follows: do you? Are you—in prayer, in obedience, in your way of life—seeking and expecting God's blessing?

A Reaction to the Prosperity Gospel

A lot of people in churches like this have a problem with that statement. I think one of the primary reasons is a reaction to what's commonly called the prosperity gospel, which in many ways originated in our nation. There are people who identify as Christians and preach this prosperity gospel, taking the promises of the Bible out of context and interpreting them improperly.

Many in churches like ours rightly have an aversion to that. But equally unfortunate is that in reaction to those who misapply the promises, we develop a hard time accepting ideas like "God's people should seek and expect God's blessing." The psalmist had no such aversion. He openly prayed, "God, be gracious to us and bless us."

The Abrahamic Origin of the Blessing

This blessing did not start with Aaron. It started hundreds of years earlier, recorded in Genesis chapter 12, where God calls a man named Abram to follow Him.

Now the LORD had said to Abram, get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you.

God called Abraham to leave everything common and comfortable and follow Him by faith. That's risky—he was 75 years old, with everything already set up. Why would he do it? Because of this:

I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Many people, for hundreds of years and even today, have interpreted this blessing as belonging to Abraham and his descendants only. But if we look at what's actually said in Genesis 12—and how the psalmist proclaims it in Psalm 67—we see that this blessing has a much wider scope than just Abraham and Israel.

"So That" — The Motive Behind the Prayer

Look at verse 2: "That your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations." Words matter, even little ones. That little word "that"—"so that" in some translations—is super important, because it identifies the motivation behind this audacious prayer.

"God be gracious to us and bless us, cause your face to shine upon us, so that your way will be known in all the earth, your salvation among all nations." The motivation is the glory of God among the nations—that all people would see and know His fame and glory.

So our second point: God's blessing is for all peoples. We are blessed to be a blessing. That was true of Abraham, the father of the faith—blessed by God for the purpose of being a blessing. And if you today are a recipient of God's blessing, you are blessed to be a blessing.

Three Tragic Outcomes of Being Blessed

There are three most tragic outcomes of being a recipient of blessing. Number one: to think you deserve it. Number two: to think it is exclusive to you. Number three: to hoard it.

First, to think you deserve it. God blessed Abraham because of grace. Notice in Psalm 67:1 that mercy comes before the blessing—"God be gracious to us and bless us." The further blessings of God are only accessible by His grace, not by your works. From Genesis to Revelation, God's favor comes upon people not by their merit but as unmerited, undeserved favor.

If you're a Christian, you received the blessing of salvation not because you're a good person but because God gave it out of His grace. And if you're not a Christian, don't think you have to do A through F before you can receive His blessing. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Second, to think it is exclusive. This is always man's default because we're fallen. God made sure Israel would not think this way. As they prepared to enter the promised land, He gathered the whole nation, and in the book of Deuteronomy—one long message—He said in Deuteronomy 7, "I don't want you to think I'm giving this to you because you're something great. I'm giving it because I love you." Unmerited, undeserved favor.

Yet by Jesus' day, many in Israel thought the blessing was theirs alone. Some of the things that angered them most were when Jesus said to Gentiles, "I have not found such great faith in all of Israel as I found in you." They cried, "How dare you—kill him! It's ours only." That was never God's intent.

Third, to hoard it—the logical outgrowth of thinking you deserve it and that it's exclusively yours. And it isn't only the Jewish people who fell into this. Many Christians do too. It manifests in saying, "This is the only right church," or "We and our family are the only elect, and the rest are reprobate." We always move, according to our fallen nature, toward exclusivity and hoarding. But God said to His disciples, "Freely you have received, freely give." We are conduits of this blessing.

Blessing Should Result in Worship

To summarize verses 1 and 2: the people of God should seek and expect God's blessing, and the result is that we should seek and expect to be a blessing to others—others not like us, outside these walls, in this county, in other countries.

The second result is in verse 3: "Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you." Point three: God's blessing should result in worship. If you're a recipient of God's blessing, it should stir you to praise Him—"Praise God from whom all blessings flow."

But it should result in global worship. Circle the word "all"—a small word with great importance. The psalmist understood that God's blessing upon Abraham and Israel was for the purpose of global praise. Any reading of the Abrahamic covenant as exclusively for Abraham and his descendants is a wrong reading of the passage. It is for the glory of God among all nations.

Blessing for Global Joy and Gladness

Verse 4 begins, "Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy." Point four: God's blessing is for global joy and gladness.

What exactly is this blessing I keep mentioning? Look back at the start. God blessed Abraham's descendants and the worshipers of God so that through them would come a blessing to all nations. What is that blessing? It is the way and the salvation. Who is that blessing? Jesus. The blessing that comes to and through Abraham's descendants is not the nation of Israel—it is the Messiah, Jesus.

That's point five: God's blessing is Jesus. He is the way, "that your way may be known on the earth, your salvation among all nations." The name Jesus means "Jehovah is salvation." A thousand years before Jesus came, the psalmist said the purpose of God's blessing is that the way—Jesus—and the salvation—Jesus—would be known to all nations.

How many non-Jewish people are here today? Look around. This prayer is being fulfilled, because the great majority of us are not Jewish. The psalmist, a Jewish person 3,000 years ago, prayed, "Bless us so that your way and your salvation would be known among all nations"—and here we are in 2015. If you read Genesis 12:1–3 and you miss Jesus, you've missed the point.

Working for the Joy of the Nations

How does Jesus bring global joy and gladness? First, by ushering in the gospel, which is good news of great joy for all nations. God became a man—the incarnation—lived a sinless life, died a brutal death, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. Jesus is the decisive fulfillment of this prayer of blessing, and He will fulfill it finally in His second coming.

So if you're a follower of Jesus, the purpose of your life is to extend, experience, and express joy and gladness in the world. The apostle Paul said, "I am a worker together for your joy" (1 Corinthians). As a Christian, your job is to make people happy in Jesus—primarily by giving forth the good news that brings great joy, the gospel.

Secondarily, we increase joy by doing good things—bringing fresh water to people who don't have it, fighting malaria, taking care of HIV in Africa, addressing social justice around the world. Those are good things the church should be committed to, because they increase the joy and gladness of the nations. But the primary thing is the declaration of the gospel. This work happens wherever God carries you—your workplace, your construction site, your campus.

Looking Forward to Righteous Judgment

The psalmist then moves prophetically to the future: "For you shall judge the people righteously, and govern the nations on the earth." There is coming a day when Jesus shall rule and reign with righteous judgment. We live in a great nation with one of the best justice systems in the world, yet even the greatest justice systems are sometimes unjust. We look forward to a day when He rules and reigns in righteousness.

This is pictured elsewhere—Isaiah 11:1–10 looks forward to one, the son of David, who "with righteousness shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth." That day has not happened yet, so the psalmist sings with joy as he looks forward to it.

Missions Exist Because Worship Doesn't

In verse 5 the psalmist returns to the chorus: "Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you." At that same conference in 2011 where 4,000 of us worshiped, the pastor who wrote Let the Nations Be Glad!—a book based on this very passage—stood up and spoke on Psalm 67. He begins that book with the line: "Missions exist because worship doesn't." The purpose of the church's endeavor to spread the gospel to all peoples is the global praise of God.

That's point six: God's people should seek to experience and extend God's blessing—until when? Until all peoples praise God.

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. Then the earth shall yield her increase; God, our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.

The psalmist looks forward to the day when God wraps all things up and brings global blessing among all nations.

The Unfinished Task

If you're a follower of Jesus today, you should be committed to experiencing and extending God's blessing through the gospel and through whatever endeavor increases joy in the world—with your time, energy, talents, and money. You may never go to a foreign country, and that's okay, because right here in this area is your task. People in San Marcos need their joy increased, and so do people in San Diego County. It doesn't come through a new Chargers stadium—it comes through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Many Christians look at the Old Testament only for what it says about future things. I know two things for certain about future things: number one, Jesus will come back; number two, He hasn't come back yet. Which means the task is not done. There are more than 6,000 distinct people groups who still do not know, hear, or have the gospel. There are a lot of unhappy people.

Closing Prayer

Father, we ask that you would stir our hearts to be conduits of blessing for all nations—that we would not think we deserve the blessing of salvation, or that it is exclusively for just this church, or that we would hoard it. Lord, we pray that the good news of the gospel would go out from this church and other churches in our area, so that the 3.2 million people here in San Diego County, more than ninety percent of whom are not part of an evangelical Bible-teaching church, would know the gladness of the good news.

Lord, cause this church to grow for your glory and praise, and cause Emmanuel Faith, Mission Hills, North Coast Church, Maranatha Chapel, and all the churches in our area committed to preaching the gospel to grow for your glory. May we see people continue to go to the unreached for your name's sake and for the joy of all peoples. Enable us to be conduits of your blessing this week, even in small ways, in an office building or on a school campus. In Jesus' name, amen.