Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Participation Paralysis | The Writings | Psalm 117

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Is plot paralysis keeping you from participating in God's story? Are you living as if you're the main character? Do you know your part within God's story? In today's episode, Jeff shares how Psalm 117 encourages us to participate as conduits of God's steadfast love in our world. Prepare your heart this Advent with the 2024 TMBT Advent Calendar! Each day, receive a new prompt for Scripture, prayer, and reflection—designed to help you slow down and reflect on the Hope, Love, Peace, and Joy that Jesus offers. Sign up now to receive your free Advent calendar! Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 117

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. Imagine that you're prepared to go on stage for a major theatrical performance. The audience is watching the lights are shining, and your fellow actors are awaiting your line to continue the plot. And yet, as you step into the scene, you realize that you don't know what to say. You don't know where the story has been or where it's going.

Not only do you not know what to say, you don't know who you are. You don't know who your character is. And amidst the absence of your awareness, there is this presence of piercing eyes fixed on you, demanding that you make your move. But you can't. You don't know the plot or your place in it and you're paralyzed. This scene is played out a handful of nights every year in my dreams. Bad dreams, to be honest. As I awake from my confused state of mind,

my panic turns to relief, as I realize I'm not paralyzed on a stage, clueless about where the plot is going and what my place is in it. As much as I'm glad that it's just a dream and I'm not actually on a stage suffering from a kind of plot paralysis, I do have to grapple with a lingering question about whether or not I may be playing out this exact scene in my day-to-day life following Jesus. Here's what I mean. Each of us can be prone to live with a kind of plot paralysis and the drama of faith without any awareness of our lines, what we're meant to say or do, what our place on the stage is, where the scene is going, what our place in the whole drama actually is. What are we doing here? This dynamic is especially

pervasive in the time of exile when we're surrounded by a cacophony of competing plot lines, voices, and characters, alluring us with the offer to participate in a different drama. In those strange dreams where I'm frozen on stage, confused about my setting, I often find myself wishing that someone would just point me in the right direction with some kind of reminder or prompt about who I am, where the story is heading. what I'm doing there. I need a prompt to alleviate my plot paralysis. In a significant way, Psalm 117 functions as a reorienting prompt like this. This brief Psalm serves as a kind of shorthand reference for God's people living in exile,

reminding them who the main character is, what direction the drama is heading, and how they have a place in it. As we approach God's word, let's slow down and ask for His grace, his steadfast love, to move through our time together. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life and breath in this new day. God, thank you for your word. Jesus, help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in Psalm 117. As we read these words, let these words read us and restore us.

and draw us into your story. In Jesus' name, amen. Psalm 117 is the shortest chapter in the Psalms. It's the shortest chapter in the Bible, composed of only two verses. But don't make the mistake of thinking that the short length of this Psalm somehow denotes a small degree of power. The famous Old Testament scholar Derek Kidner says this about Psalm 117. The shortest Psalm proves, in fact, to be one of the most potent and most seminal. Let's begin exploring the power of this short Psalm by reading the two verses that make up its content,

and then we'll make three observations about how it serves as a guide as we live in the drama of God's work. Psalm 117 reads, Praise the Lord all nations. Extol him all peoples. For great is his steadfast love toward us. And the faithness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord. First, let's observe how Psalm 117 doesn't cast you or me as the main characters

and the drama of God's work. This Psalm begins and ends with praise to the Lord, to the God who made and saves his people. Not only is Psalm 117 bookended with praise to God, it also includes the core descriptor of God's character, going back to Exodus 346. And it's referenced here, his steadfast love toward us is great.

His faithfulness endures forever. In the confusion of plot paralysis, the thing that plagues God's people, generation after generation, Psalm 117 doesn't emphasize who you and I are, important as the issue of our identity is. Instead, when the Bible calls God's people back to their role in the scene, it breaks the power of plot paralysis by reminding them who the true main character is, the Lord himself. Now, the effect of this reminder is twofold. First, it humbles us to realize that.

that we're not quite as big of a deal as we tend to think. We aren't the main characters of the world, or the main characters of our days, or even our lives. Yet, just as we are humbled by this truth, we're also empowered by it. Because once I'm humbled enough by the truth that I'm not the main character in the drama of life, once I stop pretending like I can be God over my own life

or in the lives of others or over the world, then I can begin playing the role that I was meant to play. This is the first prompt that awakens us from the confusion of plot paralysis. It's cold water on the face that says, Stop acting like you're the main character. Be humbled so that you can be empowered to be a part of something bigger so that you can be a part of something that matters. We can praise God as the author, the director, the main character

in the scenes of our lives because of his love, his love that's far greater than we can imagine, and his faithfulness that lasts far longer than we can measure. Psalm 117 doesn't stop with stirring us from plot paralysis by reminding us who God is. It starts there, but it also goes on to reorient us to the trajectory of the plot line that we're in. It answers the question, where is this drama heading? The question is answered in verse 1. We read this. praise the Lord all nations, extol him all peoples. This proclamation should strike us as very

interesting, because it's a word of praise uttered by the people of God while they're surrounded by nations that don't love or serve the Lord as king. And yet here in Psalm 117, the nations and the peoples are invited to praise God. This is both a present tense invitation, but also a future-oriented promise, because one day, the people who seemed far off from God will be held in the palm of his hands. This is a shout out backward to the mission of God's people in Genesis 12.3, when they're blessed by God to be a blessing to the nations. It's no surprise that when the Apostle Paul celebrates the fullness of God's family, including both Jewish people and Gentiles, in the future in Romans 1511, he cites these words from Psalm 117. These phrases, all nations and all peoples, they seem

simple, but really they point us to the grand finale of the story of redemption. It's a glimpse of what will experience fully, as Revelation 7 describes, where we'll live in a restored world, praising God as a great multitude that nobody can number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. Now, a quick comment on these phrases about all nations and all peoples. Many people think about these phrases as references to those in faraway countries. Now, of course, we shouldn't think less than that when we hear these phrases. Those people in faraway places are absolutely included in the scope of God's concern. And yet, we also need to be stretched to see that for God's people living in a time of exile, the nations and the peoples aren't simply people who are far away on the other side of the world.

This is talking about people down the street, in your neighborhood, on the other side of the office, two doors down in the dorm. Those are the people that we're meant to impact in the narrative of God's work as he makes all things new in Jesus, the people that God has put into your proximity, who may seem like unlikely candidates to praise him now, well, those are the very people that he wants to restore and redeem through the power of the gospel played out in your presence. That is the vast scope of the drama God invites us into. That's the plot line that we're in. That also guides us into the final observation that we can make in Psalm 117. We've seen how these two verses powerfully prompt us to see God as the main character in the drama of life

and how they give us a sense of the masterful plot line at play in the universe. Yet, they also remind us of our place in the story. Verse 2 says, For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Notice here how the people of God are recipients of his steadfast, never-ending, relentless love. Great is his steadfast love toward us. And yet, given the end of the plot line as described in verse 1, this love that we receive

does not end in us. It is meant to overflow into the nations, into the people surrounding us. So we are both recipients of God's steadfast love, and we are conduits of God's steadfast love. That's who God has called us to be in the immense, masterful drama of redemption. When Israelites would sing and hear this short Psalm together, it would be their collective way

to be prompted and reminded of the story that they're in. It would awaken them from any kind of plot paralysis they were stuck in. It reminds me about a line about improvisational acting from a guy named Stephen Book. He says this, once you know your part in the whole scene, you can make choices that actually have you playing your part. Read that one more time. Once you know your part of the whole scene, you can make choices that actually have you playing your part. That's kind of what Psalm 117 is trying to do for you and me.

It's giving us the whole scene of God's story so that we can know our part in it, so that we can make choices. that have us playing the role we're meant to play as recipients and conduits of God's steadfast love. So as you get ready to continue living into whatever God has for you today, consider where and how you might be experiencing a kind of plot paralysis in your relationship with God and others. Are there ways that you're confused or inconsistent in the way that you're living out God's calling in your life? How might the simple yet profound truths within Psalm 117 move you from paralysis to participation in God's drama of restoration? God's steadfast love is meant to meet you where you are and move toward the people around you. So how can you participate in the movement of his love today?

Heavenly Father, we praise you for who you are and for the story of life and love that you give us in the gospel. Jesus, we praise you that steadfast love is not simply a concept, but a concrete historical truth displayed in your cross and resurrection and reign today. Holy Spirit, we praise you for the ways that you prompt us to participate in the work you're doing so that one day all nations and all peoples will rejoice for your glory. God, your steadfast love toward us is great. Your faithfulness enduers forever. Would your love extend into our lives and through our lives in this new day?

In Jesus' name, amen.