“I Will Tell of Your Name to My Brothers”

“The family in the home, men and women at their daily tasks, were recognized as [Reformed Christians] [by Catholics] because they were heard singing Psalms.” ~ Louis Benson

Psalm 22:22-31 (text); Hebrews 2:10-13
August 3, 2014 • Download this sermon (PDF)

Introduction

Congregation of Christ: If your boss wanted you to inflate the results of your students’ achievement tests; if your mother-in-law meddles in your family’s affairs; if your pastor lords it over your church; what would you do? Among many evangelicals, the response would be the question, “What would Jesus do?” as if the New Testament is a code of ethics. But no one in the church asks, “What would Jesus sing”? Would he sing “Celebrate, Jesus, Celebrate!” or Hillsong’s “From the Inside Out,” or any of those romantic ditties that evangelicals love to sing?

One of the big reasons why many of the evangelical youth leave the church after high school is that they have no connection with the past. Their knowledge of church history goes back at the most to memories of their grade school activities in their church. And even what they have learned during their young days are quickly gone because of the culture of the “new and improved.” Every youth group gimmick, song and game lasts only a few months at best.

What they sing in their youth group’s “worship” lasts but a few meetings, to be replaced by a new song learned from the latest youth camp or worship seminar. Therefore, very few among today’s 30- or even 40-year-old churchgoers know even a few of the beloved hymns sung by Protestant churches for centuries. The obsession with “pizza party” youth groups has also led to ignorance of very basic Christian doctrines such as the gospel, justification, sanctification, and worship. This ignorance is also evidenced by a lack of knowledge of Christian creeds and confessions. Worse, many evangelicals exhibit a handicap in public praying as a result, and in most cases, not even knowing how to pray the Lord’s Prayer.

How do we as individuals and families in our churches recover these historic doctrines, creeds and confessions, prayers and songs? In our current series on “A Little Church in the House: Raising and Strengthening a Godly Household,” we are trying to address this problem. We learned that the three marks of a true church can also be the three marks of a “true home.” We learned about the great need of teaching the true gospel and sound doctrine in our churches as well as in our homes. Today, we will focus on the value of teaching Psalm-singing to both adults and children in the church and home.

And what better way to teach the value of Psalm-singing than to study a psalm that looks forward to our Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 22, a psalm of David. The New Testament, especially the Gospel of Matthew, uses this psalm in narrating the sufferings of Christ, the innocent Savior, before and during his crucifixion at the hands of the Jewish authorities and people, and of the Roman soldiers. Look at how Matthew 27 uses Psalm 22:1-21 to tell about Christ:

verse 35 ⇒ Ps. 22:18 (dividing his garments by lot)
verse 39 ⇒ Ps. 22:7 (wagging heads over him)
verse 43 ⇒ Ps. 22:8 (mocking for God to rescue him)
verse 46 ⇒ Ps. 22:1 (Jesus crying out to his Father)

But Jesus’ life story does not end in his sufferings. There is also vindication and joy. Our text in Hebrews 2 says that Christ declares, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise’” (verse 12). This is a quotation from Psalm 22:22. Not only will Christ proclaim God’s name in the congregation; he will also proclaim it among “all the families of the nations” (Psalm 22:27-28).

So our theme this afternoon is from Psalm 22:22-31, “I Will Tell of Your Name to My Brothers,” under three headings: first, In the Congregation; second, In the Families; and third, In the Nations.

In the Congregation

At the end of the psalmist’s lamentation due to his sufferings in verse 21, he prays to the LORD, “Deliver my precious life… from the dog” “save me… from the lion.” Then he declares, “You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!” (verses 20-21). After suffering at the hands of his enemies he calls dogs, lions and wild oxen, the LORD rescued him and restored his kingship.

In his sufferings, King David is a picture of Jesus his Son who was mocked, tortured and crucified by his enemies as our Sacrifice. He suffered and died for our sins, but he was vindicated from his enemies when God resurrected him from the grave. In his resurrection, his Father declared that his sacrifice was perfect and pleasing to him.

So in verse 22, David sings, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.” After the LORD rescues and vindicates him, he will proclaim to his brothers—and sisters—in the congregation that the LORD rescued him. The psalms of praise and thanksgiving that the congregation always sings in the morning and evening sacrifices will have an even more profound meaning to him.

The preacher of Hebrews uses this verse in Hebrews 2:12, where Jesus himself is pictured as leading the congregation, whom he calls “my brothers,” in singing God’s praise. Since he was “made like his brothers in every respect” (Heb 2:17)—human flesh and blood—he is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters, since we are his Father’s adopted children.

So in our worship services, we do not have worship leaders. We have one Great Worship Leader—the Lord Jesus Christ himself! After he shared bread and wine with his disciples on that last meal before he was crucified, he led them singing the Passover hymns, “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives” (Mat 26:30). These hymns are usually Psalms 113-118 or 136.

In the Temple and in the synagogues, which Jesus customarily attended, the Psalms were the only songs the congregations sung. In Acts 4:24-26, the apostles and disciples sang Psalm 146:6 and Psalm 2:1-2 when they were gathered in prayer for Peter and John who were beaten and imprisoned by the Jews. When Paul exhorted the churches to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” to edify one another, he was most probably referring to Old Testament psalms (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16). And James encourages those who are happy, “Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise” (Grk psalleto) (Jas 5:13).

The Psalms were prominently sung during the first few centuries of the early church. What’s striking is that as the church became more and more corrupt during the medieval age, man-made hymns and instruments became more and more prevalent. But when the Protestant Reformers saw the need to restore the purity of doctrine, worship and practice in the church, they also saw the need to restore psalm-singing—without instruments! In fact, Reformed churches sang only Psalms in their services. One church historian says about the Reformed psalm-singing, “The singing of Psalms became the Reformed cultus [worship], the characteristic note distinguishing its worship from that of the Roman Catholic Church.” [ref]Louis Benson, quoted in the “Report of the Psalm Singing Subcommittee” of the 21st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, 1993, Appendix D, Attachment 1, 362-6.[/ref]

This is why the Psalms take the most portion of our singing on the Lord’s Day. The Church Order of the United Reformed Churches puts this prominence in this way, “The 150 Psalms shall have the principal place in the singing of the churches” (Art 39).

But Psalm 22 does not only mention the singing of psalms in the congregation. It also mentions and implies the singing of psalms in Christian homes.

In the Families

In verses 27-29, King David shifts his focus of singing psalms of praise to the LORD from the congregation to the nations, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you” (Psa 22:27). In verse 29, he paints the whole earth as prosperous worshipers of the LORD, “All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship.”

Although the picture of the whole earth as prosperous nations worshiping God will not be realized until Christ returns at the end of the world, it is also a picture of the advance of the Gospel throughout the world. There is a remnant being redeemed by Christ from all nations.

And within these nations, families, households, clans and tribes are being redeemed. You and your families are part of these “families of nations.” In our previous studies, the Bible commands you to teach your families and households the wondrous works of creation and salvation of his people. In this way, your covenant families will continue unbroken from generation to generation.

King David knows this very well. This is why in verses 30 and 31, he tells the people, “Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.” All the children of God’s people, the coming generations, those who are yet to be born, will worship him. God’s gracious and righteous works will be proclaimed without end to our children and our children’s children. This is the blessedness of those families whose heads of households worship God and teach their children in their homes.

We teach God’s mighty works to our children by the reading and memorization of Scriptures and catechisms. But in our family worship, we can also teach them God’s Word by singing the psalms. What better way to memorize Scriptures than singing them? Again, the same church historian said of the Reformers, “The family in the home, men and women at their daily tasks, were recognized as [Reformed Christians] [by Catholics] because they were heard singing Psalms.”[ref]“Report of the Psalm Singing Subcommittee.”[/ref]

Each family in our congregation should have a copy or two of the Psalter Hymnal. The psalms we sing every Lord’s Day can be practiced and learned in your family devotions before and after the Lord’s Day. You can download the tunes to your computers, notebooks, tablets and phones. You can listen to them while you’re driving or commuting in traffic. Children, do you remember how you learned the alphabet so easily? By singing the “Alphabet Song”! In the same, you can learn to memorize God’s Word by listening to and learning the Psalms while you’re doing your chores and homework.

But some people think that the Psalms do not speak of Christ. Far from the truth! Most of the Psalms, like Psalm 22, are “Messianic,” that is, they tell us about the Person and Work of Christ. In addition to Psalm 22, a few other examples of these Psalms are: 2, 16, 24, 33, 40, 45, 47, 66-68, 72, 96, 102, 110 and 118. The resurrected Jesus himself told the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “Everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luk 24:44, 27). To point this out to the congregation, the Reformers added the singing of the Gloria Patri[ref]“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end! Amen! Amen!”[/ref] at the end of the reading or singing of a psalm and other Old Testament passages in their worship services.

One last reason why psalm-singing must be prominent in our worship, whether in the congregation or in our families, is that we find all kinds of human emotions in the psalms. It covers our full humanness. In the words of John Calvin,

There is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated.

As each of you and your families begin to love psalm-singing, the whole congregation in turn would learn to sing praises to God by singing psalms. And as psalm-singing takes the principal place in the singing of more churches, the worship of God by his people according to the Scriptures alone will spread to all the nations.

In the Nations

As mentioned before, King David ends the singing of Psalm 22 on a high note: “all the families of the nations,” the whole earth, will worship and praise the LORD. This is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3). David’s personal sufferings are only part of God’s overarching plan to save his people. In the end, the suffering of God’s people from all nations will be turned into prosperity, “the afflicted shall eat and be satisfied… all the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship” (verses 26 and 29).

All throughout their history, the Old Testament Israelites sung about the nations of the world worshiping the God of Israel:

“I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever” (Psa 45:17).

“All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name” (Psa 86:9).

“Praise the Lord, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!” (Psa 117:1)

This is why when the new heaven and new earth comes, Christ the Tree of Life will bring healing to the nations (Rev 22:3). Christ the Light of the Word will be the light of the nations, “and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it… They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations” (Rev 21:24-26).

How will this come to fruition? It starts from godly homes where families worship God and parents teach God’s Word to their children. It continues in the church, where sound doctrine is preached and the sacraments are faithfully administered. And then the Gospel spreads outward to cities and to all the nations of the earth.

Dear Family of God: This promise from the Scriptures of nations worshiping and praising God will be accomplished by God himself through you: as individuals, families and congregations in the whole world.

Many of the Psalms also speak about the continuing persecution of God’s people by his enemies even from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, the serpent at war against Christ, the Seed of the woman, and his people. Jesus and his apostles warned us of sufferings, afflictions and persecutions in this world until he returns. In recent years, God’s enemies seem to be winning the battle, especially in the Middle East and Asia.

But do not fear that the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ seem to be powerful and prosperous. If we establish our families in the faith in Christ, through the Word of God in sound doctrine, catechism and psalm-singing, they will be secure in their faith. They will be able to resist the enticements of the world and persecutions from our enemies. Then our church will also be firmly established against false teachers.

In the end, God will rescue us, as he rescued David from his sufferings. The psalmist’s promise is sure, “God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!” (Psa 67:7)This blessing also comes to you from the Lord’s Table, as the psalmist promises, “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD! … All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship” (Psalm 22:26, 29). So come, eat, and be satisfied!