Psalm 68:19-23
 

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
    who daily bears our burdens.
Our God is a God who saves;
    from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.
Surely God will crush the heads of his enemies,
    the hairy crowns of those who go on in their sins.
The Lord says, “I will bring them from Bashan;
    I will bring them from the depths of the sea,
that your feet may wade in the blood of your foes,
    while the tongues of your dogs have their share.”

Here is a God we long to hear more about: who "daily bears our burdens" and provides a way to escape death. To bear someone else's burdens is to sympathize, identify with, and become involved in the person's life so they do not have to face it alone. In Christ, God literally identified with us, becoming human, bearing not only the sufferings of mortality but also the judgment we deserve for sin, a weight that literally crushed him (Isaiah 53:4-5; Luke 22:41-44). Death used to be just an executioner, but for those in Christ it is now a gardener, "an usher to convey our souls beyond the utmost stars and poles."

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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Psalm 68:7-18

When you, God, went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain, before God, the One of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance. Your people settled in it, and from your bounty, God, you provided for the poor. The Lord announces the word, and the women who proclaim it are a mighty throng: “Kings and armies flee in haste; the women at home divide the plunder. Even while you sleep among the sheep pens, the wings of my dove are sheathed with silver, its feathers with shining gold.” When the Almighty[c] scattered the kings in the land, it was like snow fallen on Mount Zalmon. Mount Bashan, majestic mountain, Mount Bashan, rugged mountain, why gaze in envy, you rugged mountain, at the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the Lord himself will dwell forever? The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands; the Lord has come from Sinai into his sanctuary. When you ascended on high, you took many captives; you received gifts from people, even from the rebellious—that you, Lord God, might dwell there.

This commemorates the exodus and the journey to the promised land. God fought for his people and ascended his throne when the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the tabernacle on Mount Zion (2 Samuel 6:12,17). Paul saw this as a picture of a greater ascension in which Christ delivers us from sin and death and then shares with us the gifts of the Spirit (Ephesians 4:7-16; Acts 2:33). We activate these gifts by using the Bible as a weapon in our warfare with temptation and doubt (Ephesians 6:10-20). If we do, we will find that God still fights for us.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Psalm 68:1-6

May God arise, may his enemies be scattered; may his foes flee before him.  May you blow them away like smoke—as wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God. But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful. Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds; rejoice before him—his name is the Lord. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

In the world "the strong eat the weak," as the saying goes. But God's strength is seen in his care for the weak, so we should be famous for sacrificially loving the poor and marginalized. This reflects the Gospel itself, for God does not call people to earn salvation by strength. He came in weakness to die for us, to save those who admit their spiritual helplessness. God also created people to thrive best in families (Genesis 2:21-25). But for those without spouse, parent, or children there is God's family, the church (Mark 3:31-35), united by the common "life blood" of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 4:4-6), providing fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and children (1 Timothy 5:1-2) for the lonely.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Psalm 66:6-12

He turned the sea into dry land, they passed through the waters on foot—come, let us rejoice in him.  He rules forever by his power, his eyes watch the nations—let not the rebellious rise up against him. Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard; he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.

Strikingly, the psalmist praises God for letting so many bad things happen to him and the people of God. God is seen as present in every one of the sufferings that are listed in these verses. He "preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping" in the midst of affliction. He is the one behind the prison, the burdens, the oppression, all summed up as going "through fire and water." But God allows them in order to refine us into something precious, great, and beautiful. Just as Joseph seemed to be handling his brothers roughly - but only as a way of breaking the ice over their hearts and saving them (Genesis 42) - so God's seeming rough handling is always grace.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Psalm 66:1-5

Shout for joy to God, all the earth! Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious. Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies cringe before you. All the earth bows down to you; they sing praise to you, they sing the praises of your name.” Come and see what God has done, his awesome deeds for mankind!

Everyone is called to praise God. The content of this praise is God's name - all the things he is and has done. The character of this praise is to be glorious. What is glorious praise? "Glory" has connotations of weightiness, dignity, magnificence, and beauty. Glorious worship is exuberant, never half hearted.  It is attractive, not off-putting. It is awesome, never sentimental. It is brilliant, not careless. It points to God, not to the speakers. It fits its great object - it seeks to be as glorious as the one it praises. So worship should be "never trivial, never pretentious." There is nothing more evangelistic, nothing that will win the world more than glorious worship.
Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Psalm 65:5-8 

 5 You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds,
    God our Savior,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
    and of the farthest seas,
6 who formed the mountains by your power,
    having armed yourself with strength,
7 who stilled the roaring of the seas,
    the roaring of their waves,
    and the turmoil of the nations.
8 The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;
    where morning dawns, where evening fades,
    you call forth songs of joy.

David is speaking prophetically about a time when "all people will come" and when all the "turmoil of the nations" - all the war, strife, oppression - will be ended. God is the Savior and hope of even those who live at the farthest ends of the earth. God's salvation began with Abraham's family, who then became the nation of Israel, and now has burst all boundaries of nations, race, language, ethnic origin, or geographical location. We must prepare our hearts for the rich diversity of heaven (Revelation 7:9) by showing love for all, and especially those of God's people on earth who are far from us socially, economically, racially, politically, or any other way.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Psalm 65:9-13

You care for the land and water it;
    you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
    to provide the people with grain,
    for so you have ordained it.[a]
10 You drench its furrows and level its ridges;
    you soften it with showers and bless its crops.
11 You crown the year with your bounty,
    and your carts overflow with abundance.
12 The grasslands of the wilderness overflow;
    the hills are clothed with gladness.
13 The meadows are covered with flocks
    and the valleys are mantled with grain;
    they shout for joy and sing.

God himself cares for the world he has made. He waters it and fertilizes it - the cycles of growth and fertility are grounded in his own life-giving nature. He is the author of all life - from the life of a flower to the new birth that saves eternally (1 Timothy 6:13). Since God's Spirit both preaches to hearts and cultivates the soul, the work of both the preacher and the farmer have divine dignity. God's people should be at the forefront of those who care for creation. In the final verses we get a vision of a great Spring, when through Christ all the world shakes off not just winter cold but sin and death.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,