The Ninth Sunday after Trinity

Jesse Jacobsen

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Last modified: (Sat Jul 23 21:23:33 2005)

1 Chronicles 29:10–13

Therefore David blessed the LORD before all the assembly; and David said:

“Blessed are You, LORD God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever.
Yours, O LORD, is the greatness,
The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty;
For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours;
Yours is the kingdom, O LORD,
And You are exalted as head over all.
Both riches and honor come from You,
And You reign over all.
In Your hand is power and might;
In Your hand it is to make great
And to give strength to all.

Now therefore, our God,
We thank You
And praise Your glorious name.”

Glory be to God on High

We have inherited a beautiful liturgy from our forefathers. Through it, God teaches us and serves us. Through it, we worship God in the finest way we can. So what is a liturgy? It's the order of service we follow each week, built over many centuries around two great gifts that God provides: His Word, and the Lord's Supper. There are great big books about the liturgy, but you don't have to read them to appreciate what we have. Simply pay attention to what it means. Let your words and actions join with those of our Lord's Church. Doing this on a weekly basis is like food for your faith, or like breath for your soul.

But sometimes it's hard to pay attention during the service, and I should know. As a post-adolescent college student, averaging between 5 and 7 hours of sleep daily, I found it hard to pay attention on Sunday morning. Also, the few times I've had the privilege of sitting with my own children in a service, I've found it hard to pay attention. Even when I'm not particularly tired or distracted with matters in my own pew, I find that the mind tends to wander on Sunday morning. The better the sermon, the stronger the impulse to think about other things.

Yet the liturgy gives us something familiar to focus on. Some of you may be relatively new to the Christian liturgy as we have it in our hymnary. Or you may be adjusting from one that's slightly different. But the theme of David's words, our text, can be found in all of our main rites of worship. It's our theme this morning: “Glory be to God on High!” All in heaven and earth belongs to Him, and He holds our life in the palm of His hand.

All in heaven and earth belongs to Him.

Remember our first main point this morning: all in heaven and earth belongs to Him. Not a comfortable thought, is it? Maybe obvious, but not comfortable. In the same way, it's not comfortable when our government sends and tells us that something like a tenth or a quarter of our hard-earned money now belongs to Caesar. If you work and earn a living, then you are required to pay taxes. It's an uncomfortable fact of life, but God Himself confirmed it. Jesus said, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.”

You may feel a little scandalized when Caesar takes his due, but consider for a moment what things really belong to God. It's in our first main point: All in heaven and earth belongs to Him. David prayed, “For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours.” Acknowledging this is part of having Him for a god. It's part of being a good person. But if we feel a little put out after Caesar's shakedown, then I really doubt that we enjoy the reminder that God rightly owns everything.

Most of the time, we don't have to think about it. Life goes on. We can eat, sleep, work, play, and even worship without thinking about the fact that God owns us, lock, stock, and barrel. We can go so long without realizing that everything we touch belongs to someone else, that we begin to think of it as our own. “I worked for this; I bought that; I suffered and sweated and even bled to get this.” So at those occasional times in our lives when we hear a reminder that our things, our families, and even our lives belong to God, it can be an unpleasant surprise. But if we wish to be good people, we also have to acknowledge that God owns everything in heaven and earth — even what we hold dearest.

Well, you can see why the topic of stewardship provokes such a negative reaction in most churches (if not all). The very threshhold of stewardship is the idea that all in heaven and earth belongs to Him. I guess our problem is that we usually jump to the conclusion that He wants most of it back, as soon as possible. But that's not the case. God's things are doing their jobs right where they are, though maybe we could put them to better use. If He wants to take something away from me or you, God won't do it through church stewardship. He has better ways. Floods and hurricanes come to mind.

We need to get past the false notion that Christian stewardship is another way to say “gimme your money.” It's false in so many ways, but the most uncomfortable is the fact that it's not really our money anyway. It's God's already, and He doesn't need a loan from you or me. He doesn't need anything from us.

So why do we talk about stewardship at all? Why have offerings? Who needs our money? You ask the question, and you are the answer. You are my neighbor. I am your neighbor. We have millions of other neighbors. God serves them all, but have you ever considered how? God cures their diseases when you and I help pay for their medicine and their doctors through health insurance, taxes, and the like. God provides them with food when you and I keep the grocery store in business. God provides them with paychecks when you and I patronize the places where they work. God brings them to their Savior when you and I speak the Gospel to them and lead them here. In short, God uses you and me and our resources to provide for our neighbors and for each other. That's how He uses our money every day, and it's how He uses our offerings at church. They benefit our neighbors.

It's a good thing that all things in heaven and earth belong to God, because I suspect that on our own, we'd be too selfish to help each other. But He doesn't leave us on our own. Sometimes He forces us to help each other. It may not always be pleasant, but it is a blessing overall. Our taxes are a good example. Through them, God provides us a measure of security and order in our land. So you see why David had so much to say about the greatness of God in heaven. We also ought to glorify Him, as the Church has done in her liturgy every week for thousands of years. Glory be to God on High, for all heaven and earth belongs to Him!

He holds our life in the palm of His hand

Remember our second main point: He holds our life in the palm of His hand. The first meal-time prayer I learned as a kid was this: “God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for our food.” It's a simple prayer, and very similar to what David says in our text. If there is a weakness in this prayer, it's not quite as specific as it could be. What do we mean by “God is great?”

God owns everything, as I've been saying. But that is not necessarily good news. It depends upon your own relationship to God. For example, if you knew that the taxes you pay to our government will result in total peace and security in the land, then it would be easier to pay the taxes. In the same way, if you know that God loves you and will care for you, and even give you eternal life, then you are inclined to think well of Him. But if you think God is against you, or even might be against you, then you won't like Him so well. So when you say, “God is great, God is good,” it could go either way. If He is not your friend, then it means you're in trouble.

But let's return to David's psalm. He's blessing God with all his heart. He ends by saying, “Now therefore, our God, We thank You And praise Your glorious name.” This is not something David could say if God were angry with him.

Remember our second main point? He holds our life in the palm of His hand. It sounds good, as long as God is your friend. The fact is, God also holds the life of His enemy in the palm of His hand. That's not something His enemy likes to think about. So we can be sure that David is not God's enemy.

Yet David also knew that he wasn't perfect. There are lots of people who aren't perfect, and yet still glorify the God who commands us to be perfect. How can that be? We disobey Him by simply being what we are! Just consider how we react when the topic of stewardship comes up at church. We're not up to His standards, and He holds our lives in the palm of His hand.

How, then, was David able to praise God with a joyful heart, while knowing that he was completely at God's mercy? For that matter, how have Christians been able to do the same thing for nearly 2,000 years? The answer is simple: It is not a bad thing to be completely at God's mercy, when God is full of mercy.

David knew that God is merciful, because God had promised that a certain descendant of Abraham would bless all the nations on earth. David even wrote prophetic psalms about this Savior, who would be his own descendant, too. David's entire point of view was defined by the mercy of God in that Savior. For him, it was a very good thing that God has all the power and glory, the victory and majesty. It was a very good thing to honor and glorify God. David knew that God had earned his undying thanks, because David was a sinner, while God is merciful.

In the same way, if you realize that you aren't perfect; if you know you haven't handled God's things in your life as you should; if you know that you've begrudged Him the honor of being God, then you need to know something else. He has had mercy on you, too. David's special descendant was born in Bethlehem to the virgin Mary. Mary was His mother, but God was His true father. Jesus lived as we should live, and then He died as we deserve. His perfect life was the atonement that secured the mercy of God for every sinner on earth.

In our natural birth, God gave us life. Through Jesus, God has given us life again — an even better life that begins with Jesus and never ends. God's mercy in Jesus is the reason we have such blessings on earth. But even our homes and families really belong to Him, and we only have them on loan for a while. God has lent us everything we have, including life on earth. But our Savior is a gift, not a loan. We receive the gift through His Word, through Baptism, and through His Supper. Forgiveness is ours, with the new life that will never end. God truly holds our life in the palm of His hand. Therefore I say again: Glory be to God on High! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Listen online at www.grace-els.org.

This document was translated from LATEX by HEVEA.