Beeson podcast, Episode 403 The Rev. Deborah Leighton July 31, 2018 https://www.beesondivinity.com/podcast/2018/The-Heartbeat-of-the-Redeemed Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy. Timothy George: Welcome to today's Beeson Podcast. We'll have the privilege of sitting here with my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Smith Jr. And we have the privilege of introducing to you a sermon we're going to hear today by Reverend Deborah Leighton. Deborah Leighton was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but she graduated from Wheaton College. She has a background in theater and the arts, and she brings all of these talents together in her preaching. This was a part of our series of sermons, the Psalter of Jesus Christ. And the sermon is based on Psalm 107 Dr. Smith. Tell us what we're going to hear from Reverend Debra. Robert Smith Jr: Reverend Leighton has passion that is fueled by the texts she preaches from Psalm 107, the heartbeat of the redeemed and the kind of sermon she presents, Dean, is a didactic sermon. It's a teaching sermon. And for her, the content is the most crucial thing, but the contour, how it is shaped is also very important. It's a word of encouragement. She reminds us that we're not the redeemer, rather we are the redeemed who can answer the calls and needs that others not in our own strength, but in the restraint though Christ our redeemer. The epicenter, that's her word. She presents the ministry of Christ, the redeemer as the epicenter and that is echoed throughout the Gospels, so Psalm 107, she gives us the word of the redeemed, of redeemer, and in the gospel shows us the works of the redeemer. She walks through this passage and ask three questions which are really crucial. Who are the redeemed? Who is the redeemer? And so what are we to do as the redeemed? And the four stanzas are also really crucial in terms of the form: a particular problem, a cry for help, the Lord's immediate deliverance, and the repeated refrain of thanksgiving. This is a sermon that is highly Christological, but incredibly practical when it comes to our response to what the redeemer has done. We give him thanks, oh give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever. Timothy George: It's also expositional, isn't it? Robert Smith Jr: No question. Timothy George: She really wrestles with this text and brings it to life. Reverend Deborah Leighton is a member of the Diocese of Alabama and serves on the staff of the Cathedral Church of the Advent here in Birmingham. Let's listen to our sister and friend Deborah Leighton speaking from Psalm 107: The Heartbeat of the Redeemed. Deborah Leighton: Father, we need you. We remember you this morning. We know we need you, and yet sometimes we find ourselves so crowded. Crowded out by all of the things in our life that would take the place of you. And so we ask Lord Jesus, that once again this morning you would reveal to us our deep need for you and would you reveal to us Also your great love, your love that came and died and rose again. And so we ask for it then that you would transform us into ones who give thanks to you continually, even as we remember our need before you. And so we ask that you would even now take my words, my human, frail, imperfect, faulty words, and yet Lord would you take them and let them be for each one of us a word of encouragement this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. I would say there are two types of people in this world and I'd like to say that the first type of person is the kind of person who really appreciate symmetry and order and structure, and then I would say that the second type of person in this world is the kind of person who loves to thwart the person who loves symmetry and order and structure. I happen to be the first kind of person. Even growing up was noticed, my siblings and my parents noticed this about me, that I love organizing things. I was the one of the four of us children that would organize things. I couldn't stand it even when our dog was shedding hair. I had to be the one to go groom the dog because heaven forbid that the dogs should shed its fur in an uneven way, so I was there instituting order into that kind of chaos and they've teased me about it mercilessly. Thank the Lord. I am one who appreciates order and not one who has to obsess over it, so I'm grateful for that. But so today with you all, I am grateful that I get to live out my love for symmetry, my love for balance, my love for good form and structure through Psalm 107. I feel so honored, truly honored to get to come and preach here this morning in this wonderful pulpit at the invitation of Dean George. I'm so grateful that he invited me to come and preach. And he also gave me a wonderful gift in suggesting a kind of psalm for me to look at, because there are just too many options for me to go towards. And he suggested that I look for a song that has to do with the steadfast love of the Lord. And so of course as I was reading and rereading all of these psalms and there were a lot of psalms that have to do with the steadfast love of the Lord, I was gravitating towards Psalm 107, because of its beautiful order, its beautiful symmetry. Here in this psalm that we've just heard read by many different readers. We find that the Lord causes both the form and the structure to speak to the content. The content is mirrored in the meaning of the psalm itself and also in the way the psalm is so beautifully laid out. The structure, this beautiful structure is present. We see it in the introduction, these first three verses by way of introduction, and then those first three verses are followed with four stanzas and the four stanzas were so wonderfully read by four different people this morning. They're making it easy on me, which is nice. So these four stanzas have an identical progression. They start with a portrait of a particular kind of trouble followed by a cry for help, followed by the Lord's immediate deliverance, and then the continually repeated refrain of thanksgiving and this refrain binds then all of these four different diverse situations, saying that the Lord has been faithful to deliver each one out of them. Following those four stanzas, then there are verses 33 through 42, break this structure of stanza and refrain almost the way a bridge breaks a contemporary song. I didn't plan this. I forgot that "Lord, I need you," has a bridge, but if you're like me, you're singing out the chorus and you know it by heart and your eyes are closed and then suddenly it comes to the bridge and you're like, wait a second, I've got to look back at the paper. I don't know these words or I don't know this tune, and so you have to stop, and the bridge makes us pause. The bridge in this psalm makes us pause because it shows this Deuteronomic theology of blessing and curse in a chiastic form. First there's curse, then there's blessing, then there's blessing and then there's the curse. Finally, the bridge is followed by a closing conclusion and this last, final verse, 43 shows that this psalm is not only to be a psalm of thanksgiving, but it also verges even into the genre of wisdom. So this psalm, this wonderful, beautiful structured psalm answers three questions. First: who are the redeemed? And second, who is the redeemer? And third, well, so what? What does that have to do with us? Or what do we do with this information? Why does this matter? Looking at our first question, Psalm 107 answered who are the redeemed by providing those for vivid word pictures that I mentioned in the psalm's four stanzas and these four stances illustrate two different kinds of people. Stanzas one and four show the powerless innocents, those who are lost and wandering in the desert and those who are in peril on the sea. They're at the mercy of the elements that are too great for them. And then stanzas two and three show those who are guilty but repentant. Those in stanza two who are justly in prison because of their rebellion against God and those who are physically ill because of their own foolish and sinful actions. Though these are four distinct situations, they're probably meant to cover the whole gamut of trouble and to which the people of God could fall. And so the people of God call out to the Lord. They call out though, when they get to the end of their rope. You see that these redeemed ones find their souls fainting within them. They fall down and there is none to help. They draw near even to the gates of death. They are at their wits' end. And then they call out, they call out to God for help. He doesn't chide them for not asking for help sooner. The help of the Lord is readily available, even though they cry out at the point where they've exhausted their own self sufficiency and all other potential means of assistance, still God in his mercy. Here's their cry for trouble. And he swiftly delivers them from distress immediately, almost as though he was waiting, just waiting for them to cry out. He brings the lost by a straight way to a city in which they may dwell. He brings those in bondage out of darkness and the shadow of death. The Lord sends out his word to heal the sick and deliver them from their destruction. And he makes the wind and the waves be still. He brings those who are in danger into a safe haven. And the reframe, then the redeemed are each called upon to thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man Again and again, verse eight, verse 15, verse 21 verse 31, the verbal content of that repeated call to thanksgiving seems to be present in the first verse of the psalm, which is repeated in other psalms as well. Psalm 106, Psalm 118. So then to answer our first question, who are the redeemed? Well, the redeemed are the ones that God delivers from all kinds of trouble who then go on to call out in thanksgiving. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Now for our second question, who is the redeemer? The psalm points out two major aspects of the character of the Lord: his unquestioned sovereignty and his redeeming love. The stanzas, those four stanzas of Psalm 107 shows that the one who delivers the redeemed out of trouble, he has complete control over the same trouble that they found themselves in. We see the Lordship of God Almighty, especially in stanza three, verse 20, where God has such control over human illness that he need only to say the word of command to bring about immediate healing. Sometimes, the Lord is even shown as being the one who sends the trouble in the first place. We see this in verse 12, where imprisonment and hard labor are the just judgment for the sin of rebellion, or we see it in the fourth stanza, verse 25, where the Lord is the one himself who commands and raises up the stormy wind seemingly just because he can, just because he is Lord over the wind and the waves, he can raise up the storm, even as he is also the one who can quell the storm. We see that the bridge, verses 33 through 42, elaborate upon the sovereignty of the Lord by showing him again to be the one here now who humbles the proud and then raises up the humble. The Lord afflicts the comfortable and the Lord is the one who comforts the afflicted. This absolute sovereignty is what the Lord, what gives the Lord himself the right to give the law to his people and then to impose judgment upon law breakers. This God of justice is one who is good. There's good news that we have a God of justice because it's good news for those who suffer unjustly because of the sins of others. The Lord almighty is a god of justice as well as a God of mercy. So about these verses and this particular aspect of the Lord's sovereignty, the great Charles Spurgeon observes, "We see how the Lord at will turns the wheel of providence, paying no respect to man's imaginary grandeur. He puts princes down and makes them wander in banishment as they had made their captives wander when they drove them from land to land. At the same time having ever a tender regard for the poor and needy, the Lord delivers the distressed and sets them in a position of comfort and happiness. This is to be seen upon the role of history again and again and in spiritual experience, we remark its counterpart. The self-sufficient are made to despise themselves and search in vain for help in the wilderness of their own nature, while poor, convicted souls are added to the Lord's family and to dwell in safety as the sheep of his folds." This undeniable sovereignty of the Lord to humble the proud and to raise up the humble, to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. This justice of the Lord is matched also by his character of steadfast love and mercy, and this is the final note of the Lord's character, upon which the psalm rests. All of the other aspects of his being are important, yes, but this is the refrain of who the Lord is. This is what the psalm is pointing to, that the Lord is one whose character is of steadfast love and mercy. We see this even in the psalm, how the Lord delivers so quickly when he's called upon, and the aspects of his deliverance that Psalm 107 paint involve all sorts of imaginable things, filling the hungry with good things, freeing those in bondage, healing the sick, rescuing those hapless humans who are in danger from forces they cannot control, never mind even understand. The Lord almighty demonstrates this loving kindness, this attitude of mercy through his decisive rescue. And we see that all throughout the Old Testament, this steadfast love or this Chessed was experienced by those in a covenanted relationship with the Lord, or even sometimes with each other. They experienced this kindness, these acts of kindness that speak of this attitude of love towards each other and this covenanted relationship. We see it especially in the Relationship between Jonathan and David or in the among the patriarchs between Abimelech and Abraham, there's a covenant based on the hospitality shared there. So this kind of covenanted love is ultimately attributed to the Lord. It is a kind of never-ending faithfulness, kindness, mercy to the undeserving. When the Lord even reveals himself to Moses on Mount Sinai in Exodus 34, he proclaims his name and his character and he says, "The Lord, the Lord, a god, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." The Lord shows that steadfast love to Abraham and the patriarchs to David and to the people of Israel in general. God's character of mercy is unchanging and is revealed all throughout the Old Testament, but as we know, his love is ultimately presented to us and to the world in Jesus Christ. Every facet of the deliverance mentioned here, even in Psalm 107, is taken on through Jesus in his earthly ministry. Going back to Psalm 107, we see in the first stanza, it is Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life by which wandering souls find rest and safety. He is the bread of life and his mother Mary would prophetically recognize this truth in her song of joy. When she heard the news of his impending birth, Mary sang that in him, God has filled the hungry with good things, almost as though she were quoting directly from Psalm 107:9 and again from stanza one, Jesus is the one who has the living water as he would say to the Samaritan woman in John chapter four, and whoever drinks of the water that Jesus gives will never be thirsty again. Stanza two. Do you notice that Jesus opened his earthly ministry by preaching his first sermon from Isaiah 61? And he announced then and there that the spirit of god was upon him to proclaim liberty to the captives. We hear that in Luke chapter four. When we understand this ultimate bondage as the bondage of sin and death then we see here, Jesus prophesied from the very beginning of his earthly ministry about the way his earthly ministry would end, because as we know it is through his death, it is through his resurrection that God delights to stand between his just judgment and us rebellious sinners. Through his death, God brings us out of the darkness of sin and out of the shadow of death. All of these other kinds of deliverance, we'll go on to talk about a couple more, but this stanza two, at the very heart of this psalm gets at the very heart of our own deliverance. Isn't it true that we experience God's mercy to us in Jesus Christ every hour of every day, every moment, as we need him, as we call out to him? Well, every kind of deliverance in the moment, every day, all of that hearkens back to the once and for all deliverance that we've experienced through Jesus's death on the cross. It is as though that is the epitome of God's deliverance. That is the epicenter of God's salvation of us, and then there are so many other benefits rippling out from that center point, and yet we always return to the center. We always remember that center because all of the other benefits that we receive through Jesus' passion and death and resurrection hearken back to that forgiveness of us rebellious sinners. That forgiveness that he extends to us though we do not deserve it. So continuing on, in stanza three, Jesus again, another facet of the way in which God's steadfast love and mercy is present in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Well, in his earthly ministry. This is an easy one, isn't it? Jesus is the one who healed the sick and he healed them not just by laying hands upon them, but also through the power of his word of command. We see this especially when Jesus heals the Centurion servant, in Luke chapter seven and this Centurion understands this ability of Jesus's as coming from his unique authority. Jesus shows this authority, yes, to forgive sins and yes to heal the sick and broken bodies of men and women, but Jesus also shows this incredible authority as the son of God, as the Lord over all creation, when he commands the stormy winds and waves to be still and they obey. Every Gospel bears witness to this reality of Jesus' ability, his divine ability. And John, the fourth gospel writer even tells us at another time that Jesus was walking on the rough sea coming to the disciples and that he was, after he had appeared to them, he quelled the storm and then he was able to bring the boat of his disciples immediately to their desired haven. That verse, John 6:21, I suspect echoes someone Psalm 107:30, perhaps even exactly, how marvelous that Jesus not only could quell the wind and the waves, but he could bring his followers into safety directly. Here we see God's unquestioned sovereignty present, also with his character of steadfast love. And so to answer our second question, who is our redeemer? Almighty God is our redeemer as most tangibly seen and known in the second person of the Trinity: his Son who comes and dies to deliver his people from the bondage of sin and death. This exchange, this deliverance from sin and death through Jesus' own death is the uttermost height of God's steadfast love. Nowhere else do we see his self-sacrificing, covenantal love more clearly displayed than in the cross of Jesus Christ, where God himself undergoes that just judgment for sin so that the rebellious transgressors would be forgiven and free. Our redeemer is indeed both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Well, so what? What now? What do we do with this? How now do we live the question that everyone loves to ask? After answering our first two questions about who are the redeemed and who is the redeemer, we find that Psalm 107 has more to say again, through both its form and its content. The Lord shows us how then we are to live as redeemed ones in the world. This is a question we delight to answer and there are a lot of different answers to this question. Some of us will say, and we are right when we say this, that we are to follow the example of Jesus to do as he did in his name. We do the work of ministry. We go out and evangelize the lost. We extend God's mercy to undeserving sinners. We pray for the healing of the sick and we point to the safe haven of all people in the God of justice and mercy, whose character is one of steadfast love. Yes, we do that and today all of you who are being trained for ministry, which is all of us, whether you're a student or a member of the community, you too are called to a kind of ministry. Every Christian is called to imitate our redeemer. And there are other places in scripture that talk about this calling and this answer to that question, what now shall we do? But Psalm 107 doesn't say that. Psalm 107 brings it back to the basics. Psalm 107, first and foremost, says that we the redeemed are to give thanks. The repeated refrain points to that number one task of the redeemed. Verse eight, 15, 21 and 31. "Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men." The other day, a friend of mine mentioned to me that she hadn't been to church in a while. It was a kind of confession, one of those confessions that happens when your cars pull up next to each other and you see each other and you try to roll down your windows and talk. And I'm sure she was apologetic on some level. Maybe she had noticed that I had noticed that she ... or she thought I had noticed that she wasn't there. But she mentioned she hadn't been to church in a while and she likened it to a time when she and her husband had done something wonderful for their teenage son. They had really given him an incredible gift and then they were dismayed because he never thanked them. They knew his heart and they knew he was thankful, but he never actually said, "Thank you Mom. Thank you, Dad for what you did. I see what you did." She was able to make that connection. She even said there, as we were in our cars with our windows rolled down, she said, "I'm like my son. I'm thankful for what the Lord has done, but I'm ashamed that I haven't been to church to express my thankfulness in the midst of the body of Christ." We are called to be ones who express our thanks publicly, repeatedly, continually. In Luke chapter 17, Jesus highlights this, the importance of this response of thanksgiving. If you recall this little story, he was passing between Samaria and Galilee and 10 lepers called out to him for deliverance from their distress saying, "Jesus, master, have mercy upon us." Only one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back praising God with a loud voice. He fell at Jesus's feet giving thanks and Jesus responds, "Were not 10 cleansed? Where are the other nine?" And then he turns to the man who he had healed physically, and he says, "Rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well. By his vocal gratitude, the leper has acted on his faith. He has responded to the grace that he had received through Jesus Christ. That act of faith confirmed the leper as one of those who numbered among the redeemed. Again, the content of that leper's thankfulness, echoes the contents of the thankfulness of the redeemed in Psalm 107. Why are we to give thanks, well we hear it also in Psalm 136, don't we? We are to give thanks because of the steadfast love of the Lord. Thank you for your patience in reading Psalm 136. It almost feels like someone trying to trick you and you're like, is this really? Are we really saying the same thing again and again and again? And isn't it wonderful? A wonderful psalm that underscores the refrain that is ever to be on the lips of the redeemed, interspersing that refrain line by line with the narration of God's creation and then his redeeming of Israel through the exodus and then through the entrance into the promised land. I love Psalm 136. I first got to know that psalm when I was in high school because of a book that I'd read called War in Heaven, written by Charles Williams. Charles Williams with a friend of CS Lewis, another member of that circle of inklings. Williams wrote just a handful of novels that some would call supernatural thrillers. The juxtaposed supernatural, spiritual warfare with a realistic depiction of London life at the time of publication. And so War in Heaven, is the first of those books I read. It imagines a supernatural battle to control the Holy Grail, which was thought to be the ordinary chalice that's used by this tiny country church in a village outside London. Williams describes the minister of this parish church, an archdeacon as a daft and chubby clergymen who wore gators and talked to himself, and this daft clergymen is up against horribly evil men who will manipulate and lie and cheat and even resort to violence to get their hands on the grail. Well, as it turns out, this so-called daft man is not actually talking to himself, but we find out that he's talking to God repeatedly, praying and reciting Scripture, and he's repeatedly praying and reciting Psalm 136. The archdeacon give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His steadfast love endures forever. Through this practice of thanksgiving, he remembers, this character in a book, the archdeacon remembers that no evil thing done by those evil men could change the character of the Lord, who'd be faithful to protect his people. This little chubby clergyman is not strong by the world's standards. He's a man of the cloth seeking certainly to minister in Jesus' name to others, and yet he is constantly aware of his own need for a savior. Again, we might think of ministers, and as ministers that we need to be those who are always strong for those we seek to help. But we are not the redeemer, just one of the redeemed. We dare not answer the cries of others for deliverance in our own strength. We can only point to the one who can save. And we do this best when we remember, when we tell our stories of our own need, every hour I need thee, every hour, my one defense, my righteousness. When we call upon the Lord to deliver us every moment of every hour, we are then poised also to give thanks to him for his continuing deliverance. So we too are called to give thanks to God for what he's done in the past and this giving thanks continually is meant to give us strength and courage to face whatever trouble and trials we will face today and tomorrow. There is a rhythm to this repeated refrain. Again, I love structure. I love a good rhythm. I have a history of loving ballroom dance. I love a good rhythm. And in my early twenties, I learned to perform Shakespeare on stage. My acting teacher actually had us gallop around the room to help us learn the structure of iambic pentameter and we would do that, like fools. We would gallop around the room, saying things like, the quality of mercy is not strained. "The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed. It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. It seems that Shakespeare wrote the way that he did. Because it speaks intuitively to the very rhythm of the human heart. "The quality of mercy is not strained." The structure of Shakespeare is the structure of every moment of our life. Do you hear that call and response in those iambs, those little feet as you call them in iambic pentameter? That's a foot. Each one is a foot and it feels, it feels almost like an abbreviated version of the call and response of every verse in Psalm 136 or the call to respond found in the repeated refrain of 107. This beautiful first psalm of the fifth book of the psalms tells its message again through its content and through its form, this pattern of telling on ourselves and thanking God for his character and deliverance creates a call and response, a two-step dance, a one-two rhythm that repeats for the rest of our lives. Just as the Lord Almighty is the one who sets our physical heartbeat in motion, he is our redeemer, the one who by his character of steadfast love sets in motion our spiritual heartbeat, this life of thanksgiving. So when we think about this do, this to do, how then shall we live? We remember we're simply responding. God is faithful to do it. He is faithful to deliver us and he is faithful to bring out that response of gratitude from our thankful hearts. So let us pray. Father, we ask once again this morning that you would give us the grace always to remember our need. Every hour we need you and give us the grace also to always remember your steadfast love that even as you have been the one to save us once and for all through Jesus, would you continue to deliver us day by day from the troubles that plague our life until the day that Jesus returns. We ask that you would cause our hearts to beat as a matter of fact with thanksgiving as the response of gratitude for your redeeming love. We love you, we thank you and we praise you and we ask this for Your glory and in your name Lord Jesus. Amen. Announcer: You've been listening to the Beeson podcast, with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson podcast at our website, BeesonDivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational, evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work, and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson podcast.