Eleanor Roosevelt Associated with the Lowly

People in high positions don’t usually associate with those in low positions.  People with fame and money and power don’t usually hang out with people who’re unknown and poor and weak.  There are exceptions to this rule.  Eleanor Roosevelt is one of the most well-known ones in our country’s history.

Eleanor Roosevelt was born in 1884.  Her father was one of Teddy Roosevelt’s brothers.  Eleanor grew up in a wealthy New York family known for their family connection to Teddy, the most popular president since Abraham Lincoln.  She attended a private boarding school in England.  When she returned home in 1902, there was a ball thrown for her at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City, one of the most prestigious hotels in the world.  In 1905, she married her fifth cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  FDR became one of the most popular and important presidents in United States history.  Eleanor is considered by many to be one of the reasons why he was so popular and so effective as a politician.

Eleanor wasn’t a typical politician’s wife.  She wasn’t a typical wealthy person who distanced herself from the needs and concerns of everyday folks.  She was extremely popular and influential in her own right because she gave her life to engage the marginalized and the vulnerable.  Her passion was social service.  She worked hard to improve conditions for women and for African Americans.  She convinced Congress to improve housing conditions in Washington D. C.  She always let FDR know what was really going on in the country, especially concerning those still devastated by the Great Depression.  Her secretary said that Eleanor “lived to be kind.”  A fisherman in Maine described her like this, “She ain’t stuck up, she ain’t dressed up, and she ain’t afraid to talk.”  Eleanor actively engaged the lowly and the marginalized.

Those with high positions and power and wealth, people like Eleanor, usually don’t and won’t associate with those they consider lower than them.  The highly exalted ones in our society are usually unapproachable by us common folk.  They’re usually not interested in approaching those who don’t live in the same circles they do.  And, in order to avoid hypocrisy, we should all confess that we do the same thing.  We also gravitate toward those like us, toward those we think are in our class or our circle.  We typically distance ourselves from those we deem less than ourselves.  We move away from those who we think are inferior to us.

Something Is Wrong with Us

This reality stands as more evidence that our nature is fallen in sin and that there is something fundamentally wrong with us.  This reality should tell us that we’re not like the God who made us in his image.  God made us to reflect himself to the world, but when we move away from the poor and lowly and vulnerable, we’re not reflecting the God who made us.

The Bible teaches that God draws near to those who we usually draw away from.  As one scholar says, “The Most High cares for the most humiliated.”  God’s holiness doesn’t keep him from associating with the humble. 

A King Who Is Kind

This is the message of Psalm 113.  The psalmist tells us to praise the Lord for his greatness, but the interesting thing is that it tells us that the Lord’s greatness is accompanied with kindness.  The Lord is a king who is kind.  He should be praised for his greatness, but he should also be praised for his kindness.

This Psalm has three distinct sections.  There’s a call to praise the Lord and then two reasons why we should praise him.  Our study this morning can be organized around these three sections.  First, the call to praise the Lord (vv. 1-3).  Second, reason number one, the Lord is praised for his greatness (vv. 4-6).  And third, reason number two, the Lord is praised for his kindness (vv. 7-9).

Call to Praise the Lord

The psalm begins with a call to praise the Lord in verses 1-3.  The repetition here alerts us to the urgency of the task.  The verses say four times that “praise” must be given to the Lord.  This repetition is meant to shake us out of our praiselessness.  The Lord wants praise and we must be stirred up to give it.

An unbeliever doesn’t give God any praise.  But Christians sometimes also live lives of muted praise to the God who made us and saved us.  John Calvin calls this “criminal apathy.”  We refuse to do what we were created to do.  This is “criminal” because we owe God praise for who is and what he’s done for us.  So from time to time we need to be exhorted to “praise the Lord,” to give God what rightly belongs to him.

Servants Should Praise the Name

Notice that in verse 1 the psalmist specifies who should praise the Lord and what should be praised.  “Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord!”  The “servants of the Lord” should praise the “name of the Lord.” 

The Lord’s “servants” are those who’ve willfully and joyfully submitted to him as the Master of their lives.  Making Jesus Lord and Master of our lives is what it means to be a Christian. 

This is more than saying the words.  Our confession of his Lordship is confirmed or denied by our lives.  Our lives are the most obvious indicator of who we serve.  If our time and energy and money and gifts and abilities are all focused on our pleasure and promotion, we worship the King of Self.  If focused on pleasing and promoting Jesus, we reveal that we worship King Jesus.

The “servants of the Lord” should “praise the name of the Lord.”  The “name” of the Lord stands for all that he is.  His “name” is his reputation, a reputation based on his character and his actions.  When people hear our name, they think of us based on who we are and what we’ve done.  Our name carries our reputation.  So it is with God.  His character and actions have given him a reputation worthy of praise. 

The Lord’s name will be praised by a vast company of worshippers.  There is and will be a never-ending and worldwide worship service for the Lord.  His name will be “blessed” throughout time and eternity, “from this time forth and forevermore” (v. 2).  There will be no end to the worship of God.

The Lord’s worship will also be throughout the world, “From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised!” (v. 3) The Lord’s name is not yet praised among thousands of people groups.  These people groups will keep worshipping idols and living in darkness until thousands of men and women courageously leave the comforts of home, learn a new language, and live in a different culture in order to tell them about the God who is King over all things and who loves them and sent his Son to die for them.  May God raise up many from our congregation who’ll give their lives to promote the worship of God among the unreached peoples of the world.

Praised for His Greatness

The second section of the Psalm shows us the greatness of the Lord (vv. 4-6).  When the Bible talks about God being “on high” (v. 5), it’s not referring to his altitude.  The word picture is meant to tell us of his greatness.  He’s high above everyone and everything.  When we stand before mountains, we look up in wonder at their greatness and majesty.

It’s the same way with God.  He is infinitely above everything in the universe.  He has no equals or rivals.  There’s no competition about who’s the greatest in the universe.  It’s God.  LeBron James is arguably the greatest in the NBA, though Michael Jordan would have something to say about that, but he’s just a little speck of dust compared to God.  He’s like a drop of water compared to the waterfall of God’s greatness. 

These verses tell us that God is greater than anything.  His glory transcends the heavens and the earth, meaning his glory is above, or bigger and better, than any other glory in the universe.  The psalmist asks a rhetorical question in verse 5, “Who is like the Lord?”  The obvious answer is, “No one.”  No one comes close to God’s glory.  Presidents, athletes, actors, moms and dads, kids and grandkids, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives all fall short of the greatness of God.  This is why it’s foolish to idolize people in our lives.  People make bad gods.  “Who is like the Lord our God?”  No one.  Therefore, our praise belongs to him alone.  Our ultimate delight and joy and hope and trust belong to him.  Our life must center around him.  God must be the sun in the solar system of our lives.  He’s the only One great enough to keep everything in its proper orbit.  If we put someone or something else where he belongs, things will spin out of control.  We were made to worship God because only God is truly great. 

Praised for His Kindness

As I said earlier, the highly exalted ones in our society are usually unapproachable and usually don’t leave the orbit of their lives in order to enter the orbit of the poor and weak.  Thankfully God isn’t like that.  He’s highly exalted and he comes near to the lowly.  He is great and he is kind.  This is what we learn in verses 7-9. 

The contrast between these verses and the previous ones is striking.  God is King.  His throne is firmly established in heaven.  He is greater than everyone and everything.  Yet he concerns himself with his creation.  He “stoops down” (v. 6) from his throne and comes down to his creatures.  God isn’t a King who’s aloof or detached or snooty.  He’s not too proud to lower himself and come near his subjects. 

He doesn’t just come down to hang out with the cool kids.  He doesn’t come to be with the rich and famous and good looking.  He comes down to be with the vulnerable.  “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.”  “Ash heap” can literally mean “dunghill.”  The psalmist is describing those in a degraded social state.  There’s nothing attractive about these people in the eyes of the world.  They live in dust and dung.  No one wants to see them or be near them, much less touch them.  Yet, God “raises” them up.  He goes where no one else wants to go and does what no one else wants to do.  God comes to the aid of the poor and raises them up from their lowly estate.  He makes the last to be first, and the first to be last. 

Like Eleanor Roosevelt, God lives to be kind.  He ain’t stuck up or dressed up or afraid to engage people where they are.  God is great and God is kind.  And his kindness is a great kindness.  Look what he does with the poor.  He “makes them sit with princes” (v. 8).  God raises the lowly and puts them in places of honor.  God turns shame into glory. 

Some here may think that God could never use you because of who you are or what you’ve done, but God is in the business of raising the lowly.  Some young men in our church feel called to full-time vocational ministry or mission work.  If you’re anything like me, you feel a weight of fear and unworthiness and unqualifiedness.  You feel like there’s no way God could use little ole you.  You’ve lived in the dust and the dung and you think you’ll always live there.  But God is able to “raise the poor from the dust and lift the needy from the ash heap.”  He’s been using the weak to shame the strong for thousands of years.  He called Gideon who was hiding in fear in the threshing floor.  He called David from the sheep fields.  He called fisherman to turn the world upside down in his name.  Why could he not do so with you?   

Verse 9 seems out of place.  Why does the psalmist mention the “barren woman”?  Verses 7-9 all look backwards to the story of Hannah.  Hannah was a barren woman in Israel who cried out to the Lord and the Lord gave her a son.  She named him Samuel and dedicated him to the Lord.  Verses 7 and 8 are a direct quotation from the prayer Hannah prayed after she gave birth to Samuel (1 Sam. 2:8).  The psalmist is reminding us of her story to make a simple point: the Most High cares for the most humiliated.  The point of this psalm is that God’s glory is “above the heavens” and at the side of the lonely and hopeless and forsaken.  God is great and God is kind.  One of the ways he displays his greatness is by drawing near to the hurting and the destitute.  This makes him infinitely worthy of praise.

We Must Be Marked with Kindness

One of the ways we bring praise to the Lord is by living lives marked by kindness.  Kindness is a part of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), meaning that it’ll be present in any true Christian’s life.  A Christian who is habitually mean and unkind needs to reevaluate their Christianity. 

A follower of Christ must be marked with kindness.  Let me give you three practical ways to do this.  First, build a friendship with someone in your life who is ignored by everyone else.  Draw near to someone who isn’t like you.  Second, find a way to use your gifts to serve in the church.  Give your time and energy for the good of others.  Third, share the gospel with someone this week.  This is the kindest thing you can do for someone.

The church of Christ must also be marked with kindness.  I want to ask our church to join me in praying for someone to be the point person for our local mission efforts.  My prayer is that our church would grow in zeal for mercy ministries.  We need to give ourselves to showing the kindness of God to those in the “ash heap” of our city.  There are numerous ways we can be involved in this work.  There are gospel-centered ministries all around us that need our help, like Children’s Hunger Fund, Refugee Services of Texas, Prestonwood Pregnancy Center, Mission Dignity, Refuge House, and various nursing homes.  We need a person who’ll mobilize our church to serve the vulnerable and forgotten in our city.  This would probably be a deacon-type position.  If you’re interested in serving in this way, please come and see me.

As we have opportunity, all of us should show the kindness of God to those the world would rather ignore.  We need to actively love and serve the immigrant, the refugee, the poor, the hungry, the widow, those moving here from all over the world, and the elderly. 

God Became Poor

If God isn’t too proud to leave his high position to raise up the lowly, then we shouldn’t be either.  This psalm tells us that God is worthy of praise because, though he’s great beyond compare, he’s also come near to the poor and replaced their shame with honor. 

Does this sound familiar?  “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).  The gospel tells us that God doesn’t just care about the poor, but that he became poor in order to share his wealth with us. 

The God whose greatness and glory is above everything humbled himself, put on human flesh in Jesus Christ, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross for our sins.  On the third day he rose again guaranteeing that his words were true and his work was sufficient.  He now offers the riches of his grace to anyone who’ll receive them by faith.  His grace is only for those who admit that they’re spiritually poor and unable to save themselves.  This is what Jesus means when he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:3).  His riches are for those who’re broken by the burden of their sin.  Jesus goes on to say, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (v. 4).  His riches are for those who’re willing to admit they have none, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (v. 5).  Everyone who confesses their sinfulness to God and places their trust in God’s Son will be saved.  The great God of heaven and earth will come down and take up residence in them and give them a place in his everlasting kingdom.

Psalm 113 tells us to praise the Lord for his greatness and for his kindness.  The Lord is a king who is kind.  He should be praised for his greatness and praised for his kindness.  In Christ, we see his great kindness toward those in the dust and the ash heap.