The Centrality of God's Empty Hands Text: Psalm 115:1-3
Introduction: The Great Inversion
We live in a world that is obsessed with glory. It is a ravenous, bottomless hunger. Men want glory for their nation, for their team, for their family, and most of all, for themselves. Our entire culture is a vast, noisy machine for generating and distributing little scraps of glory. We call it fame, or influence, or legacy, or self-esteem. But at the bottom of it all is the ancient, serpentine lie whispered in the Garden: "you will be like God." You will have your own glory.
Into this desperate and pathetic scramble for self-adulation, the Word of God speaks a bucket of cold, clean water. This psalm begins with what can only be described as a violent rejection of all human-centered glory. It is a declaration of war against the cult of self. It is the great inversion. The world says, "To me give glory." The church, when she is healthy, cries out with one voice, "Not to us, O Yahweh, not to us."
This is not a suggestion for a more humble posture. This is the fundamental orientation of reality. God alone is the God of all glory, and therefore all worship, all attention, and all honor must be directed to Him. When we attempt to divert any of that torrent of glory toward ourselves, we are not just being arrogant; we are being foolish. We are like a man trying to catch a waterfall in a thimble. We are attempting to steal what we could never hold and what does not belong to us. And in the process, we make ourselves ridiculous.
This psalm is a polemic against idolatry. But we must understand that idolatry is not just a matter of bowing to statues of wood and stone. The most insidious idolatry is the worship of the self. And the psalmist here provides the only true antidote: a radical, joyful, and relentless focus on the glory of God's name. This is not about crushing human dignity; it is about establishing it on its only proper foundation. We are mirrors, not lamps. Our highest purpose is to reflect a glory that originates outside of ourselves. When we try to generate our own light, we find ourselves in a very deep and very dark cave.
The Text
Not to us, O Yahweh, not to us,
But to Your name give glory
Because of Your lovingkindness, because of Your truth.
Why should the nations say,
“Where, now, is their God?”
But our God is in the heavens;
He does whatever He pleases.
(Psalm 115:1-3 LSB)
Glory's True Address (v. 1)
The psalm opens with a double, emphatic rejection of misplaced glory.
"Not to us, O Yahweh, not to us, But to Your name give glory Because of Your lovingkindness, because of Your truth." (Psalm 115:1)
The repetition is like a man pushing away a poisoned dish. "Not to us, not to us." This is the essential starting point for all true worship. Before we can give glory to God, we must first recognize that it does not belong to us. We are not the source, we are not the object, and we are not the point. This is a frontal assault on the pride that is endemic to our fallen nature. We are born believing that the universe revolves around us. The first cry of the regenerate heart is the cry of dethronement. My kingdom must fall so that His kingdom can come.
But this is not a cry of despair. It is a cry of liberation. The burden of generating your own glory, of maintaining your own righteousness, of justifying your own existence, is a crushing weight. The gospel invites us to lay that burden down. "Not to us" means we are free from the need to perform, to posture, and to pretend. We can finally exhale.
The glory is then sent to its proper address: "But to Your name give glory." God's name is the summation of His character, His reputation, His revealed nature. To give glory to His name is to acknowledge Him for who He truly is. And why should we do this? The psalmist gives two bedrock reasons: "Because of Your lovingkindness, because of Your truth."
The Hebrew for lovingkindness is hesed. This is covenantal love, steadfast loyalty, undeserved favor. It is the love that pursues us when we are running away, the love that binds itself to us with an oath. The Hebrew for truth is emeth. This is faithfulness, reliability, and firmness. It is the rock-solid reality of God's character and promises. He is who He says He is, and He will do what He says He will do. These two attributes are the pillars of our salvation. His hesed is the reason He saves us when we are unlovable, and His emeth is the reason we can trust that His salvation is secure. Our salvation is not grounded in our worthiness, but in His character. Therefore, He alone gets the glory for it.
The Taunt of the Pagans (v. 2)
The psalmist then reveals the immediate context for this plea. Israel is being mocked by the surrounding nations.
"Why should the nations say, 'Where, now, is their God?'" (Psalm 115:2 LSB)
This is the classic taunt of the unbeliever. It is a jab aimed at the heart of Israel's faith. The pagans had gods they could see, gods they could carry around, gods made of gold and silver. Their gods were tangible, manageable, and predictable. The God of Israel, Yahweh, is invisible. He cannot be manipulated or controlled. And so, when Israel is in distress, when it looks like God is absent, the nations pounce. "Where is your God? If He is so powerful, why isn't He doing anything? Perhaps He doesn't exist. Perhaps He doesn't care."
This is not just an ancient problem. It is the perennial question thrown in the face of the church. When the wicked prosper, when sickness strikes, when the culture descends into madness, the world smirks and asks, "Where is your God now?" They see our invisible God as a liability, a weakness. They mistake His patience for absence and His transcendence for indifference.
Notice the psalmist's response. He doesn't answer the nations directly. He turns to God. The plea "Why should the nations say..." is an appeal to God's own reputation. It is a prayer that God would vindicate His own name for the sake of His glory. The psalmist is saying, "Lord, they are not just mocking us; they are mocking You. Your honor is at stake. Act, so that the whole world will know that You are God." This is the essence of God-centered prayer. Our primary concern is not our own comfort or reputation, but the hallowing of His name.
The Unanswerable Answer (v. 3)
The psalmist then provides the definitive, knockdown answer to the pagan taunt. It is one of the most potent statements of divine sovereignty in all of Scripture.
"But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases." (Psalm 115:3 LSB)
This is a two-part answer. First, "Our God is in the heavens." This establishes His transcendence. He is not a localized, tribal deity like the gods of the nations. He is not down here in the mud with the rest of us, subject to the whims of fate or the machinations of men. He is enthroned above it all. He has the high-ground, eternally. This is why He is invisible to the nations; they are looking in the wrong place. They are looking for a god they can put in a box, and our God is the one who made the box.
Second, and flowing from the first, "He does whatever He pleases." This is the doctrine of absolute sovereignty, stated with breathtaking simplicity. God is not constrained by anything outside of Himself. He is not reacting to us; we are reacting to Him. His will is the ultimate cause of all things. As Daniel would later put it, "He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand or say to Him, 'What have you done?'" (Daniel 4:35).
This is the great chasm between the God of the Bible and the idols of men. The idols are the work of men's hands; they do whatever their makers please. The true God is the one who made the hands that make the idols. The idols are impotent; they have mouths but cannot speak, eyes but cannot see. Our God speaks, and worlds come into being. He sees, and nothing is hidden from His sight. The pagan gods are utterly dependent. Our God is utterly independent. He does whatever He pleases.
This truth is either the greatest comfort in the world or the most terrifying. If you are in rebellion against Him, then the fact that God does whatever He pleases is a horror. It means you have no leverage, no bargaining power, and no place to hide. But if you have bowed the knee to Christ, if you know that His pleasure is driven by His hesed and emeth, then His sovereignty is the softest pillow on which you can lay your head. It means that nothing in your life is random. It means that no pagan taunt, no personal tragedy, and no cultural collapse is outside of His meticulous, sovereign plan. It means that the one who does whatever He pleases is the same one who loved you and gave Himself for you. And that changes everything.