There's No One Like God

God is high above all

Look with me at verses four through six.

The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?

Here we see the majesty of God described.

The psalmist declares in verse 4 that the Lord is high above all nations. In those days, people believed in regional gods. They believed that Egypt had their own set of gods, and Canaan had their set of gods, and they believed that the power of these different gods was confined to those specific regions. But here the psalmist makes a claim of universal supremacy. He says that God is high above all nations.

His power is not restricted to a particular land or people or nation. He is not just the God of Israel. He is the God of the whole world. He is high above all nations, all peoples, all rulers, and kings. He has the power to harden the heart of Pharaoh, and he has the power to stir the heart of Cyrus. God's hand can lay one nation low and lift another nation up. He reigns over them all with total sovereignty. And of all the nations, surely Old Testament Israel knew this best.

Think about their history. They were oppressed and enslaved in Egypt. They were unable to help themselves. But God defeated Egypt for them and delivered them out in the Exodus. But even when Israel came to the Promised Land, how is this weak little nation supposed to drive out enemies and nations far more powerful than them? certainly not by their own strength. We remember how they trembled in fear when they heard about the mighty inhabitants of the land. And yet, God fought for them. Israel conquered king after king, enemy after enemy, not because they were so mighty, but because God was on their side. The nations just could not stand against the power of God.

But we also remember the fall of Israel. How the people later grew prosperous and began to turn away from God. How they broke the covenant with their God and went astray after other gods. And so in response, God eventually gave them over to their sin. He allowed the kingdom to be divided. Then he let the northern kingdom be conquered by Syria and the southern kingdom by Babylon.

The very history of Israel shows that God rules over the nations. Throughout history, there have been many mighty nations, but each one of them has risen and fallen. All of them, their glory comes and it goes. None of them can compare to the eternal and unchanging God. As the prophet Isaiah says,

the nations are like a drop from a bucket, like dust on the scales.

God is high above them all.

And what that means is that we can trust God as he rules over the nations. There are often events in our nation, events in the nations around the world that can bring fear and worry and confusion into our hearts. We can easily look around at what's happening in society, at the direction the world is going, and we can wonder, what is God doing? We can see the nations raging against him and we can easily begin to despair.

But this verse reminds us that God is in complete control. We can trust him because he is the sovereign of the nations and he is bringing his perfect purposes to pass. And so the psalmist continues in verse four. He says, not only is God above all nations, his glory is even above the heavens. Here the heavens refers to the sky above. Mankind has always been fascinated by the heavens. From antiquity, people have worshipped the sun and the moon.

Today, we can send robots to explore other planets. We can look through telescopes at galaxies far away. At night, we love to gaze at the stars and the constellations that shine so brightly in the dark sky. There is something about the heavens that fills us with awe and wonder. They make us feel small, the way we feel when we look out at a vast ocean or at a high mountain peak. The heavens are transcendent. They're far bigger than us. They're far above us, far away from us. And so God has designed us, I believe, to rightly appreciate and marvel at the glory of the heavens. But God has also designed us to marvel at a far greater glory, at his very own glory.

Not the glory of creation, but the surpassing glory of its creator. Those are the only two categories, creator and creation. Creator and creation, God belongs in the first, and everything else belongs in the second. And between the creator and his creation, there is an infinite chasm. He is a completely different kind of being than anything in all creation. Astronomers estimate that there are up to two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Along with that, countless stars and planets.

But you put all of them together in all their beauty and brilliance, and they pale in comparison to the glory of God. Every one of them, God spoke into existence from nothing. Every one of them, God sustains by the power of his word. We can spend lifetimes studying and learning about the heavens, but even into all eternity, we will not even begin to scratch the surface of the unsearchable riches of God's glory.

His glory is far above the heavens. Creation is separate from its creator. God is all together in a category of his own. And so that naturally leads into verse 5. The psalmist asks a rhetorical question. He says,

who is like the Lord our God?

The answer, no one. No one is like our God. He is entirely incomparable. He is alone in his exaltedness. This rhetorical question here in verse five is at the heart of this psalm.

Who is like the Lord our God? When it comes to defining what God is like, who he is, none of our descriptions can really do him full justice. We can talk about the attributes of God, that he's holy and eternal and sovereign. We can understand God through metaphors that he's given us in his words, such as king or shepherd. But at the end of the day, every single one of our words falls short. Even in this very psalm, the author has told us about God, but in the end, he knows that God just cannot adequately be described. And so he is left to say, who is like the Lord, our God? As finite creatures, we cannot fully know an infinite God.

We have finite minds that have been darkened by sin. And while we cannot know God fully, we can know him truly because God has truly revealed himself to us. He has made himself known to us through his son and in the pages of scripture. And so as Christians, what a great privilege we have to know this God who is like no other. What a great joy it is to know him.

The psalmist goes on with a further description. He says that God is seated on high. The idea here is that the king is on his throne. And notice that he's sitting down. He's not standing or pacing around as if anything can threaten him, as if anything could come against his rule. He is seated in complete control over all things.

All power and authority belongs to God alone. He does not share it with anyone else. He alone occupies the highest place of honor and glory and majesty. There is no one higher than Him. There is no one greater than Him. There is no one like Him. He is so far above us, so far beyond us, so much greater than us. And yet the amazing thing is that this God, who is so exalted, would care for the things beneath Him.

Look with me at verse six. God, who is seated on high, looks far down on the heavens and the earth. We, as humans, dwell on the earth and we strain our necks to look upwards at the heavens and the sky above. God, on the other hand, stoops down to look far below on the heavens and the earth. Again, we see here the distance, the vast separation between us and God.

But at the same time, this verse also shows us God's care for his creation. It tells us that God is mindful of the world he has made. He looks down with interest upon the earth. In the 18th century, the religious philosophy of deism rose to prominence.

And the primary belief of deism is that God created the world, but he is no longer involved in it. They compared God to a great clockmaker who creates a clock, winds it up, and then lets it go. And so the deists rejected any notion of divine providence. They rejected any notion of supernatural miracles. But the God of deism is certainly not the God of the Bible.

The God of the Bible sustains all creation and governs it with complete control. All things happen according to the counsel of His will. From the sun that rises in the morning to the sparrow that falls to the ground, all things happen according to His will. He is wholly involved in all the matters of this world. God does not ignore what happens in this world. And he especially cares for people, for humanity that bears his image. And so that brings us to our second point.

God lifts up the lowly

God lifts up the lowly. Why is there no one like God? Because God lifts up the lowly. Look with me at verses seven through nine.

He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. To make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people, he gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord.

In the last section we saw that no one is higher than God. Here we see that no one is too low for him. Not only is God majestic, he is also merciful. He sits in the heavens with all glory and honor, and yet he concerns himself with his creatures here on earth.

And you would think that if there are any people on this world who God would be mindful of, surely it would be the important people of this world. Surely it would be the rich, the rulers, the ones who have risen above the rest with power and wealth and honor. Surely those would be the people that God would be mindful of. That's the way this world operates. The world pays attention to the brightest and the best, to celebrities, to people who make a name for themselves. But that is not the way that God operates. With him, it's the exact opposite. It's upside down.

God is mindful of the lowly, the helpless, the ones who have nothing to offer. And in particular, the psalmist highlights two categories here, the poor and the barren. The poor and the barren, these were considered the outcasts, the rejects, the nobodies of society. They would have been viewed by others as cursed and humiliated for lacking these blessings of wealth and children. And yet, in his mercy, God looks down from heaven with compassion. He looks upon the lowest of the low, not with disgust or reproach, but with love and pity.

He sees their suffering and their helplessness, and he does something about it. The psalmist says

he raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.

The dust and the ash heap are pictures of complete poverty, total disgrace. The ash heap was the place outside the city where people dumped their garbage. But God lifts them out from it. And he does not merely bring them out from it and restore their dignity, although that would certainly be a kindness in and of itself.

God goes above and beyond. He does far more than that. It says he lifts the poor and the needy

to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people.

God is generous, not stingy. He blesses us beyond, far beyond what we expect or deserve. He exalts the lowly to the places of highest honor next to princes.

We might think of Joseph, a man forgotten in prison, who God raised up to make him second in command over all Egypt. We might think of David, the lowly shepherd boy overlooked as the youngest in his family, who God chose to make king over all Israel. And think even of those humble fishermen from Galilee, far from the elites of society, who Jesus chose and appointed to be his apostles, to sit on the twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Time and time again throughout history, we see that God lifts the lowly. He exalts the humble. And we see this principle also in verse 9. Look with me there.

The psalmist says

he gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children.

God shows compassion not only to the poor, but also to the barren woman. In those days, barrenness was the ultimate mark of disgrace and shame for a woman. And yet, throughout Israel's history, we see stories of how God did not overlook these barren women. And in fact, God has often brought about his very acts of redemption by opening the wombs of barren women.

Sarah bore Isaac, and Rebecca bore Jacob, the patriarchs of Israel, the ancestors of the Savior. Rachel bore Joseph, who would go on to save Israel from famine. Hannah, who the psalmist quotes in verses 7 and 8, bore Samuel, the first prophet of all Israel. And this pattern of divine opening of the womb has culminated ultimately in the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born not of a barren woman, but of a far greater, a far more miraculous conception, the virgin conception. These women who were once humiliated, God has blessed them. He has exalted them by making them joyous mothers of children.

So we see in these verses how different God is from us. As humans, we often see suffering around us that we are unable to fix. We are finite and limited beings. And we just don't have the ability or resources always to help, to do anything. But God is utterly not like us.

He does not merely look down with sympathy. He actually has the power to do something, to help. And the reason that God is able to do that, the reason he can lift up the lowly, is precisely because he is exalted and sovereign. A God of mere sympathy but no ability to act on it would be worthless. But our God truly has all compassion and all power. And so we see in these verses how God uses his power to do what looks impossible to us. He is able to reverse circumstances that we cannot.

So Christian, is there anything that you've begun to think is impossible for God to do? Something that seems too hard for him to do? Maybe you're going through suffering and you just can't see how God could ever redeem it. Maybe you desire to see family and friends saved, and yet it seems that their hearts only grow more and more hardened to the gospel. Maybe there's a pattern of habitual sin in your life, and it seems like its power over you could never be broken.

These verses remind us that there is nothing Almighty God cannot do for his people. Nothing is too hard for him. He is able to do far more than we can ask or imagine. And with his power, he uses it for our sake. He holds all power, and yet he chooses to use it for our good.

So, brothers and sisters, let us not be afraid of asking big things of our Heavenly Father. Let us not content ourselves with only asking little things of God that we think he might be able to manage. Let us be bold in prayer so that God might be glorified in his powerful answers to prayer. He delights when we bring our requests to him in faith and dependence.

But at the same time, we also recognize that God does not always answer our prayers according to what we expect or hope for. Many of you, I'm sure, have longed for a blessing that God has not yet given. Perhaps wealth in a season of poverty, perhaps children in barrenness, perhaps marriage in singleness, or healing in sickness. Whatever it may be, it is painful. It is hard to desperately long for a good gift from God and not receive it. But in those times, we must remember that the lack of a particular blessing does not mean that we are somehow being cursed or neglected by God. We can never judge God's love for us by our earthly circumstances.

He is a loving Heavenly Father who never withholds anything that would be good for us from us. And He gives every perfect blessing in His perfect timing. On this side of heaven, God's will won't always align with ours. Just as God is exalted high above all, so also His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And so while these verses cannot be taken as universal promises, they do show us that God is never indifferent.

He knows the suffering that you are going through, even when it seems like no one else understands. You are not forgotten by him. You are not overlooked by him or neglected by him. And he does promise to redeem your sorrow and redeem your suffering and to work all things together for the good of those who love him.

And the truly amazing thing is that God doesn't need to do any of that. He is exalted high above all, and yet He chooses to care for the lowly and the cast down. He's like a billionaire who stoops down to pick up a penny off the street. He has no need of us. We add nothing to Him.

And yet He loves us because He loves us. He delights in us all the same. That is the great mystery that this psalm presents us with. How is this God so high and transcendent and yet so near and merciful to us? Truly there is no one like him. And so what should our response be to this God who is like no other? What is the right response to such a God as this?

God is worthy of total praise

The answer is total praise. This is point number three, God is worthy of total praise. God is worthy of total praise. We began by looking at verses four to nine first, which give the two reasons for praise. We saw that God is high above all and he exalts the lowly. Now we come to the beginning of the psalm and its central theme. Look with me now at verses one through three.

Praise the Lord. Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised.

The psalmist opens with this threefold call to praise. And in verse one, we see that the object of praise is God. And specifically, it is God's name that is to be praised.

You see that phrase, the name of the Lord, repeated three times there, once in each of these first three verses. And Lord is printed in all caps in your Bible to indicate that it's Yahweh. It's the covenant name of God that is being used here. It's I Am, the name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush.

Today, when we think of a name, typically all we mean is the word that we attach to someone to refer to them. But in the Bible, the name is far more than that. In the Bible, it's not just a mere word or title that we call someone by. Rather, it's the full embodiment of who a person is. The name represents their identity. It's the sum total of who they are.

And so when the psalmist says that the name of the Lord is to be praised, he means that we are to praise God as he is. We are not to worship God according to our conception of him. To praise God is simply to rightly acknowledge and adore him for who he is. So we must not worship God based off of what we think he's like. We must praise him as he really is, in spirit and in truth. And the good news is that we don't need to guess or hypothesize about what this God is like because he has told us. God is not some unknowable force or being. He is a personal God who has made himself known to us. He has revealed himself to us.

The fullest revelation of God's name

And what is the greatest way that God has done that? What is the fullest revelation of God's name? Not at the burning bush. not at Mount Sinai, but in the person of Jesus Christ, God the Son incarnate, God in the flesh. Jesus is the fullest and greatest revelation of God.

He's the visible image of the invisible God, the exact imprint of his nature. And he alone can say to his Father in the high priestly prayer,

I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave to me.

So brothers and sisters, do you see how Christ so perfectly exemplifies this psalm? Do you see how the fullness of God is displayed in him? Our Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God.

He was high above all. He possessed all honor and glory from before the world began. And yet, he did not just look down upon the earth. He came down to the earth. He took on a human nature, being born of the Virgin Mary. He walked on this earth, healing the sick, healing the needy, associating himself with the outcasts of society, with tax collectors and sinners. And he died a shameful death on the cross. He went to the lowest of the low.

But three days later, three days later, God exalted him out of his humiliation. On the third day, God raised him, not from the dust, not from the ash heap, but from the grave. And he seated him, not with princes of this world, but with the king of heaven at his very right hand.

Brothers and sisters, the truth of this psalm find their greatest expression in the person and work of Christ. His work, his mission was to lift fallen humanity out of its lowliness. He came down to identify himself with sinners like us so that he might bring us to God. So that as a substitute, he might bear our sins and satisfy the wrath of God by dying on the cross and rising from the dead. And in Christ, we too, we who have believed in him, are made alive with him, raised up with him, out of sin, out of death, out of condemnation, to be seated with him in the heavenly places. That, my friends, is the wonderful salvation that Christ has accomplished. That is why there is no one like him. That is why he is so worthy of praise.

So when this psalm calls you to praise the Lord, Does that resonate with you in some way? Can you say in your heart, yes, yes, he is wholly worthy of my praise? Or instead, is your heart indifferent? Is your heart even cold? Why is that? Why is it that so many refuse to praise this God if he is so incomparable?

The answer the Bible gives is sin. Every one of us has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It's our problem. Without exception, we have all rebelled against this God. We have all turned away from Him. You and I have not rightly praised the one God who is deserving of all praise. Instead, we have ignored him. We have pretended that he doesn't exist. We have suppressed the truth about him. And instead, we have praised ourselves. We have exalted ourselves in his place.

The Bible calls that sin. And the just punishment for our sin is the wrath of God. And yet the good news of the gospel is that Christ looked down on us with compassion and love. He who is high above all came down to the lowly to save them. To the spiritually barren who bore fruit that leads only to death, he came to offer his new life. To the spiritually needy who are unable to help themselves and fix their sin, he came to offer his salvation. And to the spiritually poor who are bankrupt of anything good in them that can commend them before God, he came to offer his righteousness and his kingdom. He who was rich became poor for our sake so that we, by his poverty, might become rich. And so the question is, do you see yourself this way? Do you see your spiritual poverty? Do you acknowledge your need for Christ? Even today, he stands ready to save you if you will only repent of your sins and trust in him. Well, we've seen that God is the one who is to receive praise, but verse 1 also tells us who is to render praise. It says, I notice there that it's plural.

Praise the Lord together

This is a reference to all the people of God. It is good and right for us to praise the Lord as individuals in our moment-to-moment everyday lives, but it is far better when we praise the Lord together. There is something far more special and wonderful and beautiful about the corporate gathering of God's people to praise Him. This is our great pleasure, our great privilege as a church. Every Sunday we get to sit under the Word of God together. We get to pray as one body together. We get to sing and lift up our voices to God and to one another in worship. Every Sunday we get to gather and experience a small preview of what heaven will be like. So let us treasure this weekly gathering. Let us prioritize this opportunity we have to praise God together as his servants.

Well, we've seen the who of praise in verse 1. Now we move on to verse 2, which tells us the when of praise. The psalmist says,

blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

In other words, God is worthy of praise at all times, not just on Sundays. There is never a day, never a moment when he is not worthy of praise. We should praise God when we rise in the morning and when we lie down to sleep. Our minds and our hearts should be filled with thoughts of praise as we go about our entire day.

Now this doesn't mean that we are always cheerful and happy, as if there is never sorrow or suffering in life. That's not what this is saying. There are things in life that should cause us to mourn, that should grieve us because we live in a broken and fallen world. So praising God isn't about minimizing suffering or pretending that it doesn't exist.

But it means that even in those times, we still determine to worship God. We still determine to recognize that He is worthy of all glory. It means that in spite of our circumstances, we actively choose to acknowledge who God is and praise him for it.

I think of the example of Job. Listen to what he did immediately after losing all his children and possessions.

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Even in our grief, God invites us to cry out to him. He invites us to bring our emotions and our needs to him in prayer. Some of you are going through a time of sorrow or suffering right now. The encouragement of this psalm is to remember who God is. He is good. He is kind. He is the God who is like no other, who is exalted far above all and yet cares for the cast down and the lowly. And for that, he is worthy of our praise from this time forth and forevermore.

Global praise

Well, the verse two tells us the when of praise. Verse three tells us the where of praise. Now look with me there at verse three.

From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised.

God is worthy of praise, not just at all times, but also in all places. From where the sun rises in the east to where it sets in the west, to everywhere in between, he is to be praised.

And we see this even in the Old Testament. God's plan was never only for the people of Israel to worship him. We remember that he promised to Abraham,

in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

We read in the Psalms,

let all the peoples praise you, let the nations be glad and sing for joy.

We hear in the prophets that his salvation will reach to the ends of the earth and that his name will be great among the nations. So God's plan is nothing short of global praise.

Now this is why the church pursues missions work. Because the ultimate object of missions is God, not man. The goal is not ultimately that lost people would be saved from hell. The goal is ultimately that God would get the praise he deserves from them. It's all about him.

So that's why we support missions work around the world. That's why we pray for the advance of the gospel. That's why we evangelize and make disciples even here in our local communities. And that's why those Moravian missionaries were willing to make the sacrifice they did.

They were driven by a consuming desire that God must receive the worship he is worthy of. And that desire must be what drives us in our everyday lives as well. Whether it's at home or work or school, whether we're grieving or rejoicing, whenever and wherever we are, we must strive to live in a way that God would get the worship and the glory that is due his name. And what a great joy to know that despite our imperfect efforts, that reality will be fulfilled.

One day, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. One day, the lamb that was slain will receive the full reward of his suffering. And on that day, we will stand among the great multitude before his throne with people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to worship him.

Oh, who can compare to such a savior? Who is like the Lord, our God? Brothers and sisters, how else could we respond but with the very opening and closing words of this psalm, praise the Lord. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, you are worthy of all of our praise. We pray that you would help us to give the praise to you that is rightly due your name. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.