Dan: [0:01] Hi everyone and welcome to Training for Life Redeemed. I’m Dan, I’m here with my father, Dr David Jackson.

We’re diving into Psalm 66 today.

Dad, this is a fantastic psalm looking at lots of praise and worship towards God really the whole way through, telling God’s story all that kind of stuff.

So let’s read it and then we’ll dive into it.

We’re diving into Psalm 66 today.

Dad, this is a fantastic psalm looking at lots of praise and worship towards God really the whole way through, telling God’s story all that kind of stuff.

So let’s read it and then we’ll dive into it.

Psalm 66

⁰ For the director. A song, a composition.

 ¹ Raise a shout to God, all the earth.

² Set the glory of his name to music.

Set out the glory behind his praise.

³ Say to God, “How feared are your works in the greatness of your strength.

Your enemies are forced to surrender to you.

⁴ All the earth bows down to you,

and they make music for you.

They make music about your name.” Selah

 ⁵ Go and see the works of God,

fearful actions upon the descendants of man.

⁶ He turned the sea into dry land.

They crossed the river on foot.

There we rejoiced in him.

⁷ Ruling in his strength forever,

his eyes stay focused on the nations.

Stubborn ones better not rise up against him. Selah

 ⁸ Bless our God, peoples,

and cause the sound of his praise to be heard.

⁹ The one who places us among the living,

and he does not let our foot slip.

¹⁰ For you examine us, God.

You refine us as one would refine silver.

¹¹ You brought us into the net.

You restrained our legs.

¹² You caused a man to ride at our head.

We entered fire and water,

And you brought us out to overflowing abundance.

 ¹³ I will come into your house with whole burnt offerings.

I will fulfil my vows to you,

¹⁴ which my lips initiated,

and to which the word of my mouth committed me.

¹⁵ Whole burnt offerings of fatlings I offer up to you,

with the smoke of rams.

I will do an ox with a billygoat. Selah

 ¹⁶ Go, listen, and I will recount all the fearfulness of God,

The things he did for my life.

¹⁷ With my mouth I call out to him,

and praise is under my tongue.

¹⁸ If I had seen guilt in my heart,

my lord would not listen.

¹⁹ But indeed God listened.

He paid attention to the voice of my prayer.

²⁰ Blessed is God who does not turn aside my prayer,

or his covenant faithfulness from me.

 Dan: [2:21] Alright Dad, the psalm starts by talking to everyone to basically just praise God, really. It’s just raise a shout, all the earth, let’s glorify God. [2:34] Why are we starting like that?

David: Well, one of the things we miss when we do psalms is we miss the sequence in the psalms.

The psalms aren’t just randomly, you know, all tossed in a hat and then printed. They’ve been selected to go this one with that one. And so the last psalm we looked at starts off, Silence for you is praise. And we remember David sitting there going, huh, it’s over, peace, shalom, quietness, yes. And I’ve raised a shout. And this one starts with raise a shout all the earth.

[3:14] You know, you sort of picture, I don’t know, I picture mums who get to the end of Friday and the kids are in bed. And mum just sort of sits down with a little glass or something and says, ah, the week is done. I particularly think of single parents at that point.

But you’ve got, there’s this sense of, yeah, I’m silent and I’m reflecting, but it doesn’t end there. That’s just me having a moment.

This is big stuff. This is what God has done is huge. And so you want to get into the assembly of God’s people and you want to make a noise. You’re excited about what God has done.

And so David comes out of it. You can picture him coming out of that tabernacle.

[4:08] You know, all the victories are won. He’s been enthroned. The people in Israel have accepted him. The Philistines and the Moabites, they’re all paying taxes. And he’s finally the man. He’s finally God’s anointed where he belongs.

And he comes out and you can just imagine crowds and crowds of people standing around and he says, yes, and there’s the big roar, you know, raise your shout and the whole thing explodes.

Dan: The gladiator moment.

David: It is that gladiator moment, isn’t it?

[4:37] But it’s the glory, it’s not the glory of David.

So David, it says, put the glory of his name to music. [4:48] And so the glory of God, you’re putting into the voices and the musical instruments and the whole thing, so that we can tell the story to one another and to the world.

And this line here in verse four, all the earth bows down to you, and they make music for you, because of your name.

That’s picked up in Philippians.

Dan: Yeah, this actually, you know, being a sports person, yeah, I always think, you know, whenever the Bible starts talking about raising shouts and this kind of massive amount of praise that comes, always makes me think of, you know, when you go to watch a football match with a real crowd, not a…

[5:35] To offend lots of people here, not a rugby league match, or even the cricket, right?

David: Oh no, an Indian cricket game.

Dan: Maybe, I don’t know, I haven’t been there. Go watch the cricket.

But if you go and you watch soccer, football, and particularly if you’re in England or Europe or South America, even in Australia we do do it.

If you sit in the right section of the stand where all the home crowd supporters are, You just, you’re surrounded by the singing and the, like they’re all singing and praising the team in front of them, essentially, and egging them on.

Like, and I feel like there’s an element of that as we praise God, and we sing to God, because we’re also egging him on. Like, we’re like, come on, God, keep going, keep going. You know, like it’s-

We’re enjoying this.

This whole song goes back, like we were talking about, you know, we’re gonna talk about all the actions of God.

See his works, right? Just gonna keep going through, See how he turned the river to blood, see how he brought us out of Egypt, see how he got us into the promised land.

The sun stood still and we killed a whole bunch of people, but actually it was God killing them with hail stones.

You know, it’s like God’s done all this amazing stuff and it’s like, yeah, what’s next?

What’s next on the list?

David: And we’ve arrived.

[6:51] And you find this since, like you talk about sport, it’s interesting watching the founding of a team like the Western Sydney Wanderers. Because Western Sydney is pretty much, you know, Eastern Sydney looks at us and says, I wouldn’t go that far on a holiday, it’s too far from the beach.

[7:08] You know, people who live out there are all bogans and they’re hopeless and you don’t bother educating them. You know, nobody wants to work out there. You know, we’d rather be in a traffic jam at Rozelle.

[7:21] But here we are and it’s all multicultural and, you know, all of a sudden we have a soccer team. And the next thing you know, half of Western Sydney is in the street wearing the right gear, marching down the street, waving flags, saying, come on, bring your Eastern suburbs team out here, we’ll have you.

Um, and the Penrith Panthers do the same, which is, you know, the redeeming feature of rugby league, I think.

Um, but I, you know, watch the Aussie cricketers go to India and play in the world cup and there’s 130,000 people in the stand chanting and singing.

And I’m sitting back there, I guess, as this weedy little guy who didn’t play sport, going, yeah, but that’s just sport. You know, you win a game. What difference does that make?

It makes an emotional difference, maybe. It maybe puts, you know, Western Sydney on the map, for example, or, you know, some team in England or Europe that’s, you know, Liverpool, needs all the help they can get.

[8:31] But they’re thought of as the povo, working class part of town.

Here is the rejects of the world, whom God has chosen and brought out of Egypt, the slaves, the underclass, the nobodies.

Dan: Clarify, he switched over to Israel at that point, we’re not talking about Liverpool anymore.

David: No, no, no, no. But he’s brought Israel out of Egypt, where they’re nobodies, they’re slaves, you can kill them off, they’re just a waste of space.

God owns them, brings them out great victories, great signs, the world is going, what on earth is happening?

And here they are in Jerusalem, David is now the king, a nobody on the throne, Jesus is on the throne, a homeless person.

All these images of God intervening in a world that we ruined and bringing back the world that he created, the way he created it.

[9:24] We call this series Training for Life Redeemed because we’ve gotta unlearn the culture, of a world that told God to go jump and learn how to live in God’s world, God’s way as God’s image for God’s glory because that’s the way he designed it. If you live that way, it works. If you don’t, you break it and you break yourself and your life ends up down the toilet.

And in comes God and he saves us from that And here’s your song. [9:52] That basically is coming out going, this is better than the grand final, this is the eternal grand final.

Dan: Yeah, and there’s the call for everyone to join in, which you were talking about the Wanderers, and the Wanderers have that cheer where they actually are calling to particular parts on the other stadiums, so they sit there like the main fans sit behind the goal, right, and so they’re going to call out to this crowd over here and get them to stand up and to chant back to the people who are here and they call them back and they call them back and then they do it to the other side and then it’s the whole stadium there and everyone’s going. And it’s what we’re doing,

As Christians, as we look at what Jesus has done and what God is continuing to do. [10:38] It’s one thing for us to, if I turn a song on in my car and I’m singing at the top of my lungs, that’s good, but when you get together with God’s people, There’s nothing like, I remember the days where I used to go up to men’s convention and stuff regularly.

Oh, men’s convention.

And it’s just shifting from, you know, there might be 50 to 100 people at your church, or if you’re at a large church, you might go up to 1,000, then you go up to this place and there’s 2,000, 3,000 people gathering together.

David: 5,000 men singing the gospel. Singing together.

Dan: Yeah. And it’s a different vibe.

David: I had the great privilege when I was 17, Billy Graham came to Sydney, so you’ve got 100,000 people, well 80,000 whatever it was at the showground. [11:25] And I’m in the Billy Graham Choir. Of course, I like to sing. And we’re in there with this fellow teaching us to sing in harmony. And you’re singing with 50,000, 60,000 people in harmony, and you can actually hear each other sing.

You’re not being drowned out by the group out the front. Sorry, all you muse-o lovers.

But the voices are the volume, not the musical instruments so much, and the words are the substance, and the emotional load of that is huge. And it is, it’s proportionate to what God has done.

[12:08] That sense of excitement. I remember, I go to some churches and you’re sort of sitting there and people are singing and it sounds like you’re at a funeral and, you know. Yeah. Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. There’s some dreadful experiences of church music.

But to have that number of people and those voices together singing this stuff is great.

What do you do if you, you know, you go to a football game, you go to your team and they win, and it’s the grand final, what happens afterwards?

Dan: You’ll go to the pub.

David: You’ll go to the pub, okay? What do you do when Yahweh has won the victory?

You’ll go to the pub. Okay, and we sort of look at that and go, well, I know we’re Christians, we wouldn’t do anything like that, would we?

The Bible’s full of celebration, though. And that’s right, you look at this and you go, maybe because we don’t go and celebrate with people like that, we don’t connect with our community, maybe. But that’s where you tell the stories.

That’s where people are listening. That’s where people are talking and getting into discussions.

For the church, what’s your celebration? Jesus has risen? [13:25] How do you celebrate that? Well, Philip Edgcumbe Hughes was my New Testament lecturer, and he used to say, you can tell everything you need to know about a church by the way they celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

And I will tell you that it’s a long time since I’ve seen the church celebrate the Lord’s Supper like anybody won a victory.

Dan: Yeah, any kind of celebration. Any kind of celebration.

David: You get this silly looking cup. Don’t get me started. It’s not, you know, here’s my glass of wine, here’s my food, yes. Pass the cup along, you know, let’s all get into it.

That, we’re all sitting there staring at our navel going have I not sinned enough to be here. The celebration element’s gone.

One of the joys we had when we were in church together, we had the local church here and we could do the Lord’s Supper differently. [14:21] Was this, you know, when we started passing the elements around, I’d say to the kids or the congregation, what do we want to sing?

And this little hand would go up, 104, 104, Majesty.

I wonder who put his hand up for that one?
Dan: I don’t know. Some little kid with blonde hair.

David: Some little kid with blonde hair in the front row every week, Majesty.

[14:45] This idea of we want to get into this celebration, and here’s your song.

David’s talking about, you know, what is it? I’ll bring you an ox and a billy goat.

Dan: Well, that’s on top of his ram. He’s already smoking the rams.

Oh yeah, we’ve got the rams. The rams are smoking, I’m gonna add an ox and chuck a billy goat on there too.

David: And when Solomon, you know, you get these interesting passages in the, when Solomon opened the temple.

Dan: I think it was a thousand, 10,000 cows or something.

David: Thousands and thousands of oxen and sheep and everything are getting slaughtered on the, and we read that and say, they’re killing these animals as sacrifices.

And we’re going, hang on a minute, what, 10,000 oxen in 14 days? To feed people.

It’s a barbecue. It’s a feast.

Yeah. This is, Yahweh is finally in the temple and we’re bringing in the musicians and we’re bringing in the crowds. And for 14 days, the king is throwing a party. Dan: It’s a festival.

David: Everything is offered to Yahweh first and then from Yahweh to the people.

And so, you know, if your church doesn’t have a culture of, you know, a luncheon or a meal together, with the singing and all the rest of it going on, you’ve got to reestablish from the book of Psalms this culture of celebration.

And David, you know, who’s bringing the ox? Who’s bringing the billy goat? Let’s go.

[16:12] It’s exciting. And I, to be honest, um…

[16:17] One of the great blessings to Anglos in Australia is to see people from other cultures come. They know how to party.

[16:25] You know, go to an Indian wedding, go to a Greek wedding, you know, bring on the food, bring on the party, and this, how much more for the celebration of what God has done.

Dan: The psalm’s gonna end, Dad, by essentially, whoever’s writing it, talking about how they’re gonna tell their story as well. And I think when I read the psalm, I’m like, yeah, that’s right. God hasn’t stopped working. We have to continue to tell the stories of what God’s doing in our lives.

I loved when we were going to the community church just in Cambridge Park, whatever it was. And they used to constantly just have these testimony times of people just getting up and telling stories about what Jesus is doing in their life now. And it could be overcoming a particular temptation, it could be the opportunity to share the gospel with someone, like there was lots of things that they were sharing, but it was God’s continual action today as he works out and expands his kingdom.

David: You see enemies reconciled, you see broken marriages fixed, you see people basically down in the gutter coming back.

At MBM, we’ve had people get up there and tell us stories about being transsexual prostitutes and all kinds of terrible stories about what God has done to bring people back.

[17:48] And young people and children committing their lives to Christ. This is what it’s about. And if we can’t celebrate that, we don’t understand what we’re doing.

Dan: That’s right. Bring on the celebrations.

That brings us to the end of this episode. If you would like to grab the study notes, you can head off to trainingforliferedeem.com slash 129.

Get all the stuff you want there. Hit the subscribe button, all that kind of stuff.

If you’re watching this or if you’re listening to this, make sure you come back and join us again next week. Dad tells us we do have a couple more weeks to go. So do come back and enjoy that with me and Dad and enjoy the rest of your week.