In preparation of my own heart for preaching a second message on the psalms, I perused one of Jonathan Edwards’ sermons on Psalm 89:6. It is entitled, “God’s Excellencies.” I recommend a read of the whole sermon. It details how God, and his specific attributes of excellence, should motivate us to respond to him in repentance and in worship. Below is merely a few excerpts that might prove helpful as God’s people prepare to gather together to worship God in his excellency on the Lord’s Day.
For who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord, and who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord?Psalms 89:6
This book of Psalms has such an exalted devotion, and such a spirit of evangelical grace every[where] breathed forth in it! Here are such exalted expressions of the gloriousness of God, and even of the excellency of Christ and his kingdom; there is so much of the gospel doctrine, grace, and spirit, breaking out and shining in it, that it seems to be carried clear above and beyond the strain and pitch of the Old Testament, and almost brought up to the New. Almost the whole book of Psalms has either a direct or indirect respect to Christ and the gospel which he was to publish…
The infinite excellency, greatness, and glory of God is the foundation of all religion, for except we believe the perfections of God, we shall never worship him and love him as he ought to be worshipped and loved; except we believe his power and justice and holiness, we shall not fear him and stand in awe of him, and be afraid to violate his commands; except we believe his omnisciency, we shall not act as under his all-seeing eye, and as those who are to be judged by him. Except we believe his mercy and goodness, we shall not praise him with a grateful sense thereof, but if once our eyes were but opened, and God makes a discovery to our souls of his own gloriousness and excellency, how should we reverence all his commands and be afraid to sin against him; how should we abhor ourselves and repent in dust and ashes; how should we love the Word of God, religion, and religious persons, and everything that hath [the] least shadow of the divine perfections!
From the final words of this sermon:
To all true Christians: you have heard what a superlatively excellent being your God is. His excellencies are all matter of joy and comfort to you; you may sit and meditate upon them with pleasure and delight. The thoughts of the greatness, power, holiness, and justice of God is matter of terror to the wicked, and will be matter of horrible amazement to them forever; but it is all comfortable and rejoicing to you. The most terrible and dreadful of all God’s attributes need not to be terrible, but comfortable to you. You may think of his great power, of his terrible majesty, of his vindictive justice, with joy, as well as of his mercy and goodness; you may think of his being a consuming fire joyfully, as well as of his being the Rose of Sharon and Lily of the Valley, for all his attributes are on your side: his justice and holiness, as well as his pity, love, and compassion. You may think of his descending from heaven to judgment in his dreadful majesty, and all the world rent to pieces before him with earthquakes and thunder and lightning, and devils and wicked men trembling in inexpressible horror and amazement at the sight of him, with as much comfort as you may think of him hanging upon the cross. You are delivered from the wrath of this dreadful Being, are got into Christ, a safe refuge from all danger, and where you never need to fear the feeling of His vengeance. His wrath is to be poured out on his enemies, but you are safe and need not fear: you are out of the way of that stream of brimstone which kindles hellfire, and are come to Mount Sion, the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than the blood of Abel.
This God, to whom there is none in heaven to be compared, nor any among the sons of the mighty to be likened; this God who is from everlasting to everlasting, an infinitely powerful, wise, holy, and lovely being, who is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, is your God: he is reconciled to you and is become your friend; there is a friendship between you and the Almighty; you are become acquainted with him, and he has made known himself to you, and communicates himself to you, converses with you as a friend, dwells with you, and in you, by his Holy Spirit. Yea, he has taken you into a nearer relation to him: he is become your father, and owns you for his child, and doth by you, and will do by you, as a child; he cares for you, will see that you are provided [for], will see that you never shall want anything that will be useful to you. He has made you one of his heirs, and a co-heir with his Son, and will bestow an inheritance upon you, as it is bestowed upon a child of the King of Kings.
