Psalm 117
July 17, 2016
preached by Doug Cooper
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“Truth is quick to post warning signs and guardrails at the top of the cliff. Yet it fails to empower people to drive safely–and neglects to help them when they crash. Grace is quick to post ambulances and paramedics at the bottom of the cliff. But without truth, it fails to post warning signs and build guardrails. In so doing, it encourages the very self-destruction it attempts to heal.”

~ Randy Alcorn (1954-present), American Protestant author

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”

~ Elie Wiesel (1928- 2016), writer, professor, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor

“God’s love is precisely what the first Christians did feel. They had experienced Jesus’ love and had become convinced that Jesus was God incarnate. Once that love reached them, it could not be stopped. Melting the barriers of fear, guilt, and self-centeredness, it poured through them like a torrential stream and heightened the love they had hitherto felt for others to the point where the difference in degree became a difference in kind. A new quality, Christian love, was born. Conventional love is evoked by lovable qualities in the beloved, but the love people encountered from Christ embraced sinners and outcasts, Samaritans and enemies. It gave, not prudentially in order to receive, but because giving was its nature.”

~ Huston Smith (1919-present), writer and religious studies scholar

“He that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without affection, never is engaged in the business of religion.”

~ Jonathan Edwards (1703-­1758), American pastor, philosopher and theologian

“Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God’s saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God’s mercy and grace.”

~ Timothy Keller (1950-present), American pastor, theologian and apologist

Sermon Passages

Psalm 117 (NASB)

¹Praise the LORD, all nations;
Laud Him, all peoples!
²For His lovingkindness is great toward us,
And the truth of the LORD is everlasting.
Praise the LORD!

John 1:14-18 (NLT)

¹⁴ So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

¹⁵ John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’”

¹⁶ From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.