Dear friends in Christ,
Pride has a way of ruining everything. Pride goeth before the fall, the old adage says. It is often called the first and chief sin. Satan told our first parents, You can be like God if you eat this fruit. Why be his servant when you can be like him?
If we are honest with ourselves, it infects and corrupts everything we do. We do any kind of good deed, and pride says, What a good thing you did. People should take note of me. We go to church, sing our heart out, do our best to listen, take the Lord’s Supper, and pride ruins our worship when I look around and see all the people who should be worshiping, or when it tells me that other people should be noticing me, or I think that I’ve done something for which God should take notice. I love to preach and teach the Word of God, but pride is always there to tempt me into thinking that I can either do better than others, or that I simply hope that people will like me for what I do.
We all have to confess our sins of pride, no matter what they are. Thank God for the new creation that he has made us, who can rightly confess, not to us, LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory. TO YOUR GLORY, O LORD.
Our Psalm for today is one of the Psalms that God’s people sang at their celebration of the Passover. That yearly celebration allowed them to look back at the great acts of the LORD God that freed them from Pharaoh’s vice grip: how he passed over the homes that had blood stains on the doors of their homes and spared them the wrath of the angel; how he divided the waters of the Red Sea and let them escape Pharaoh’s charging army; and how he provided a heavenly meal in the barren wilderness of the Arabian desert.
Lest they get a big head about their existence as the chosen people, the Psalm taught them to say, Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name give glory. Reviewing their history reminded them that they the problem, not the power, behind those mighty events. They grumbled, they complained, they even wanted to fire their leaders, Moses and Aaron, and they so often wished they could be eating cucumbers back in good old Egypt.
Because of your mercy, because of your truth. As they celebrated the Passover, they thought about the LORD’s undeserved mercy and love, and the truth that their LORD was one who kept his promises to them.
When they settled in their homeland - a land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - they were given towns to occupy, ready made field and vineyards, and water wells that they didn’t have to dig themselves. What did they do? Their history was one of rebellion, of turning to gods that were crafted with wood and stone and metal but who could not talk or listen or act in their behalf. They set up altars to those gods, they offered their crops as offerings, and at times even their children. Their pride cried out, We can worship whom we please, gods who make us happy and carefree.
The cure for pride was, and is, loving discipline. Throughout their history, the LORD’s hand pressed down on them and taught them that there is only one Savior and God. His mercy and truth led them to cry out for forgiveness. That mercy and truth led them back to the song, not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name give glory.
The king of Assyria surrounded the city of Jerusalem with an army of 185,000. Things were going well for God’s people at that time. Hezekiah was a god-fearing king. He followed the LORD and taught the people to put their trust in their LORD. But now the people were in trouble. Hezekiah took the document that outlined the terms of surrender into the temple and laid it out for the LORD to read. The king of Assyria had warned Hezekiah that no nation had a god that could conquer him. So he begged and pleaded with the LORD to save his people. That night, the angel of the LORD went through the camp of the Assyrians and killed 185,000 enemies of God. Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name give glory because of your mercy, because of your truth.
That’s why this Psalm says, Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. Israel, trust in the Lord—he is their help and their shield. House of Aaron, trust in the Lord—he is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord— he is their help and their shield. The Lord remembers us. He will bless. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear the Lord—the small with the great. May the Lord add blessings to you, to you and to your children. May you be blessed by the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
As wonderful as their perspective was, ours is so much greater. Our look back includes all that they longed for: a Savior who fulfilled all the promises of the Old Testament; a Servant who put on the bones and blood of humanity and lived life to the letter of the Law; a Substitute was whipped and beaten, and was willing to stand before the divine Judge and face his raging sentence of separation and punishment for the world’s rebellion and pride, and all the acts that flow from it; a Victor who walked out of the grave and says to us, I left your sins in the grave; you are forgiven and free. In his mercy and truthfulness he has blessed us with every blessing in Christ.
That, dear friends, is why we are here today. That is why we gather to worship. We don’t deserve his mercy or his faithfulness. As Luther says, We daily sin much and deserve nothing but wrath and punishment. But only the love of Jesus can take us from the depths of despair and raise us to be new people. It is not the dead who praise the Lord, nor any of those who go down to silence, but we are the ones who bless the Lord, from now to eternity. Praise the Lord.
Today we celebrate a historic event in the life of our congregation and church body. A hymnal tells a lot about what a gathering of people like this congregation and synod believes. New liturgies will guide us as God comes to us in Word and Sacrament, and allow us to give glory to the name of God. A new body of hymns - old and new - as well as the prayers and devotions in this book offer us an opportunity to express our faith and trust in the God whose mercies are new every morning. The new hymnal allows us to come humbly into the LORD’s presence to say, not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name give glory.
We know our own pride. It’s easy to be smug and think that life is good because we make it good. It’s easy to blame God when we walk over the hot coals of suffering, or when we don’t feel in control of our own lives. It’s easy to latch on to our own idols of money or fame or personal pleasure or self reliance or relying on sinful leaders. Our life is one constant struggle of giving ourselves the glory, or wanting others to give us glory.
Each week we have an opportunity to gather with a book that turns our attention to the book, the Word of God, and put some proper perspective back into our lives. Someone once said people like to say that we can come to church as we are, but then never tell people what they are. May this new hymnal remind us that we are dust, and unworthy of any mercy and grace from our Creator and Judge. But even more may this hymnal turn our hearts back to our God who does not treat us as our sins deserve, but according to merits and mercy that is ours through his Son. May it equip us to grow in faith and trust, and share those blessings with those we love and those we don’t know. Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name give glory.