“Obedience Is Our Proper Response”

Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45

Some selected and slightly edited lines from today’s Prayer of Confession: “Fearful of the future, we forget what [God has] done for us in the past… help us to remember [his] wonderful works [and] trust [his] gracious provisions…” We must never forget what God has done – and is doing – for us. We must never forget his wonderful works or his gracious provisions.

Today’s psalm is a hymn of praise that recounts God’s wonderful words and gracious acts from the days of Abraham onward. One of the most memorable of these acts is God’s deliverance of Israel from their cruel bondage in Egypt. “Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he has uttered…” Thank and praise him. Give witness to his wonderful deeds. Rejoice. Seek his presence. God has done great things. Do not forget them.

Odds are that when long-married couples share the histories of their marriages, they focus on the good things, the good times, and the blessings they have received from one another. The fusses, fights, and feuds will not be recounted. The sometimes conflicted adjustment periods through which all married couples go will be a hazy memory. The focus will be on their thankfulness for having found and stuck with one another.

That doesn’t mean that there weren’t tough times or rough patches along the way. Those listening to them will know that such things were part of their marital history. Such things are implicitly understood to be part of married life. They, however, are not to be the focus.

So it is with today’s psalm. The Lord and his chosen people went through some rocky times. They often doubted him and his promises. There was much moaning, groaning, and complaining on their part when their desires were not instantly gratified. There were long stretches of disobedience. Such things are dealt with in other places, but the focus of this psalm is on the goodness and graciousness of the Lord toward his people.

The main theme of the psalm is how over the generations God has kept the promises he made to Abraham. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” That is the promise God made to his chosen people – his elect. That is the promise he kept.

I will make your name great, God said. I will bless you. But this wasn’t entirely an open-ended promise. I will do all those things, said God in order that you will be a blessing. I will make a covenant with you, my chosen people, in order that you will serve me, and through that service be a blessing to the whole wide world. You cannot serve me unless you trust me to be your one and only God. You cannot fulfill your calling unless you obey me.

Which brings us to the last two verses of the psalm: “He gave them the lands of the nations, and they took possession of the wealth of the peoples, that they might keep his statutes and obey his laws.” If they would obey God they would be blessed. Furthermore they would be a blessing to others as they served as conservator of God’s truth, exemplar of morality, and the pattern of devotion to the Lord.

If we are in Christ we are counted among God’s chosen people – his elect. Remembering all that God has done for us in Jesus Christ, we are to give him our thanks and praises. We are to worship him, with the highest form of worship being obedience. Obedience is our proper response to God. The Ten Commandments are to be kept and not broken. The Sermon on the Mount is to be followed not as some unreachable ideal, but as a pattern for living. We are to be salt and light in a dark and tasteless world. As we are blessed we are called to be a blessing.

Along the way we are to serve this age as the conservators of God’s truth in a world of lies, the exemplars of Christ-like morals and ethics in an “anything goes” culture, and the visible pattern of devotion to the Lord at a time when faithfulness is an almost forgotten and mostly derided concept. In essence we are to be different than the world around us, a counter-cultural and life-giving movement in a dying world.

To briefly sum all of this up, we are to pay heed to Peter’s words in his first epistle: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Amen.