For The Sake of Your Name

For the sake of Your name, O LORD, revive me. In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble. (Psalms 143:11)

I am working on putting my sermon together for this coming Sunday, and this verse may be a good cross reference. My pastor asked me to preach on the last Sunday of the year, and I was happy to give him a break when his children will all be home for Christmas break from college. I really want to plead with the congregation not to waste this cultural time of introspective investigation and resolution, and I am looking at the picture of God’s willingness to give what we ask Him for found in Matthew 7:7-11 as the primary text. And David’s plea to God on behalf of his own life perfectly focuses one of my main thoughts. David had a definite need of preservation from all of the problems and dangers that were swirling around him, and he asked God to revive him.

But the point that really made me sit back and think was that the weight of this request was not based on David’s health or well being in and of themselves, it was based and rooted in God’s Name and for God’s sake. This is the kind of attitude that accepts blessing and persecution from God, regardless of what we would like to have happen to us. I think that this model of asking for something, anything really, is the only viable model for making God honoring requests. Everything we do should be done in order to glorify God. And we can do this by loving and serving Him, loving and serving others, proclaiming His Word, and by following His many other commands in Scripture. May God be glorified, and may I receive grace when preparing this message.

³ And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations! ⁴ "Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; For ALL THE NATIONS WILL COME AND WORSHIP BEFORE YOU, FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS ACTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED." (Revelation 15:3,4)

I just loved this praise to God for the greatness of His works and that it affirms and esteems all of His ways as being righteous. I can just sit and drink in the truth that God alone is holy, and that all the nations will worship God because His righteous acts have been revealed. The revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His act of justifying wretchedly sinful people, so that He can be both just and the justifier, is staggering to me when I ponder it.