Singing the Songs of Jesus - The Book of Psalms

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Singing the Songs of Jesus - The Book of Psalms

Psalms 1-2

June 13, 2021 • Andrey Bulanov

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Main idea:
- The Psalms as a whole penetrate to the deepest aspects of our hearts to connect us to the heart of our Savior and his story that is at work in our lives.

Outline:
1. The Psalms tell a story
2. The Psalms are medicine to the heart
1. They teach you to see everything through the lens of God’s Word
2. They invite your participation
3. The Psalms connect you to the heart of Jesus

Scripture references:
- Psalm 1-2
- Psalm 139:23–24
- Psalm 22:1
- Hebrews 4:15

Application:
- Read the Psalms as a story. Allow them to take you back to the grand story of Scripture, of God's promise and his faithfulness to his people. Allow yourself to be transported into that story to know that you are not alone and that your struggles are not unique.
- Learn to pray like the Psalmists pray. Learn to soak your prayers in the promises and truths of Scripture itself. Allow God's book of prayers to empower your own prayers, to teach you what to ask for and how to wait.
- Meet Jesus in the Psalms. See in the Psalms the heart of your God and Savior. See that he walks with in through the highs and the lows. See that he has truly come to redeem and rescue you.

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Book recommend: the Songs of Jesus, Tim Keller, ESV and CSB study Bibles

Truly throughout the ages, the books of Psalms has been one of the most prized and special parts of the Bible.

Throughout the history of the church, the reading, praying and singing of the Psalms has been a central practice of both private and public worship.

It is a place of great comfort and encouragement. It is rich in truth about God and about ourselves. It is honest about the reality of our struggles.

Martin Luther called the Psalms a "mini Bible".

At the same time, the Psalms can easily be abused as a "quick and easy" solution to our lack of depth in Scripture. In our modern fast paced life it is often the book that we open to in order to get a quick nuggets of emotional boost to make us feel better about ourselves even if we know we lack spiritual depth and discipline.

"The Psalms" are the typical answer of that one kid in the youth group who does not read his Bible.

And so because of that, due to our laziness, the Psalms can become a spot in which we get disconnected from our Bibles because we come to it for a cheep and quick emotional fix.

Over the last few months we have spent time looking at the deep struggles of the heart. Now we follow up with a series in the Psalms to help us land some of those truths in a deeper more personal way.

We will take the summer to soak in the riches of the Psalms as a spiritual practice to teach us to walk in the midst of our struggles with our Savior.

Our goal today is to enter in to the gateway of the Psalms - to take a closer look at what this book is and how it is meant to work in our lives, how it is that we can extract the maximum strength and blessing from it.

What we want to see today is that the Psalms as a whole penetrate to the deepest aspects of our hearts to connect us to the heart of our Savior and his story that is at work in our lives.

1. The Psalms tell a story

The book of Psalms was written and arranged to the people of God in order to call them to worship God, remember his truth and his saving works, be encouraged and remain faithful in the midst of trails.

The book of Psalms is not an isolated random collage of old prayers and songs. It is actually arranged with purpose and care to communicate a point.

- 150 Psalms,
- About half of the Psalms have explicit notes that David as the author, but we also have others including, Solomon, Moses, Asaph and others.
- They are arranged in 5 books
- You can see this in the notes between the Psalms

- Book 1, Psalms 1–41
- Book 2, Psalms 42–72
- Book 3, Psalms 73–89
- Book 4, Psalms 90–106
- Book 5, Psalms 107–50

These devisions were created as the book of Psalms were being arranged over the course of their writing and finalized sometime after the Babylonian captivity.

Is there a reason that the Psalms are arranged in 5 books?

When we pay close attention to the progress of this book, we also see that many of the Psalms have little notes or superscriptions that tell you who wrote the Psalm and why. This give us a clearer picture of the purpose of the Psalms.

When we zoom out and see the how the whole book connects we see that there is a pattern to the book as a whole. This has been well supported and demonstrated in the work of Dr. James Hamilton at SBTS.

- Book 1 focuses on David’s rise to power through affliction.
- Book 2 sings of David’s reign down to the time of Solomon.
- Book 3 then reflects the time of Solomon to the exile from the land.
- Book 4 consists of exilic reflections on Yahweh’s past deliverance of Israel.
- Book 5 looks beyond exile and hopes for Yahweh’s future deliverance of his people through the agency of the Davidic king, who is seated at Yahweh’s right hand until he puts all his enemies under his feet.

In this sense, the book of Psalms retells the whole story of God's salvation and God's people.

And it does that not from a bird's eye view but from the reflections and struggles of the people of God from the ground level.

If the other parts of Scripture retell the story of God from the perspective of a newspaper reporter retelling the facts of a war, the Psalms give you notes from the soldiers in the midst of the battle.

Psalms 1-2 are the gateway to the whole book. They set the stage for the whole story.

Psalm 1 - pointing back to God's instruction to the kings of Israel that the key to their joy and prosperity was that the King spend his life in the Word of God. It points back to Genesis 1 and the garden of Eden by showing that it is only by the Word of God that our life can have a green and thriving character. It points to the temptation of the false promise walking in false ways that only lead to death.

Psalm 2 - points to the promise of God to establish a perfect and eternal kingdom, to the victory of God over all evil, to the struggle the the faithful person experiences as he seeks to follow God in a world that opposes and hates God.

One of the keys to digging into the richness of the book of Psalms is NOT just that this book understands you and your problems.

Rather, this is a book that pulls your story into the common story of Scripture.

It pulls you into the drama in a very personal way (like the superbook cartoon) and it helps you see your life and your problems in light of the overall story of Scripture.

Our need is not just to be understood - it is to be returned and reminded again and again of the story that we are part of.

"Pain without a story is just pain. Pain in the midst of a story is grace."

We do not struggle alone. We do not struggle without a purpose.

When we read the Psalms, we need to learn to let them take us back into the story that THEY are telling - into the lives of the saints and the struggles that they faced.

We need to enter the story of the Psalms before we let the Psalms enter our story. Often times we skip this crucial step and make it all about us finding a little nugget of truth here and there.

One of the most powerful encouragements we can receive is not just to have someone speak into our life, but to discover that our lives and our battles are part of a bigger story, a bigger song that spans the ages. We are members of a family of saints and we share in this story together.

2. The Psalms are medicine to the heart

a. They teach you to see everything through the lens of his Word

Why are the Psalms so helpful and dear to the church?

• They are richly packed with truth about God - who he is, what he is like, how he relates to the world.
• It has been noted that almost every other biblical teaching found in other parts of the Bible is found in the Psalms

"Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction,
and he meditates on it day and night."

The key to all happiness, the key to all success, the key to coming to God correctly, to responding to our stressors - is to be saturated in the Word of God and to allow it to shape how we see all things.

The anchor of joy to the believer is rootedness in the Word of God.

We have a deep problem in our time of shallow christianity, shallow spirituality - all because many christians live their lives on a very shallow knowledge of God's Word.

Notice how the whole 2nd Psalm flips on a clear and shocking statement about GOD -

"Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth take their stand,
and the rulers conspire together
against the Lord and his Anointed One:
...
4 The one enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord ridicules them.
5 Then he speaks to them in his anger
and terrifies them in his wrath"

You cannot pray correctly, if you don't have a deep knowledge of God!

You cannot understand yourself correctly, if you have a shallow knowledge of God!

You cannot respond to your challenges correctly, if you have a shallow knowledge of God!

This is why we place a high priority on theology and doctrine and knowing Scripture - not because we just want to be smart - but because we are DESPERATE to know God, because he has spoken to us in his word and he has taught us rich and beautiful things about himself - and we want to know those things!

The Psalms teach you to come to God in prayer through a rich lens of truth. They teach you to pray his own truth back to him. They teach you to inform your perspective of your dangers and your difficulties through a thick lens of truth.

This is why, at the very gateway, the entrance to the Psalms, we meet this person, who is truly joyful, evergreen, strong, rooted - because his delight is in knowing, prizing and meditating on God's word.

This is why the Psalms are medicine to your soul. Your spiritual life, your prayer life, your ability to stand up in the midst of daily struggles can only be supported and equipped by the power of God's Word. The Psalms train you to do that by showing you the hearts, prayers and meditations of fellow saints just like you seeking to do just that.

But theres another reason that they are a medicine -

b. The Psalms invite your participation

"The Psalms are note meant to just be read, but to be done." Tim Keller

Because the Psalms are prayers and songs from man to God, they are meant to be DONE, not just read. We are invited as participants in the Psalms, not just spectators.

"We are, in a sense, to put them inside our own prayers, or perhaps to put our prayers inside them, and approach God in that way. In doing this the psalms involve the speaker directly in new attitudes, commitments, promises, and even emotions."

"When, for example, we do not merely read Psalm 139:23–24—“search me . . . test me . . . see if there is any offensive way in me”—but pray it, we invite God to test our motives and we give active assent to the way of life called for by the Bible."

"The psalms lead us to do what the psalmists do—to commit ourselves to God through pledges and promises, to depend on God through petition and expressions of acceptance, to seek comfort in God through lament and complaint, to find mercy from God through confession and repentance, to gain new wisdom and perspective from God through meditation, remembrance, and reflection."

Keller, Timothy; Keller, Kathy (2015-11-09T22:58:59). The Songs of Jesus . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

You don't read the Psalms and think, "That is so interesting that thats how David talked to God..."

You read them and think, "This is how I am invited to talk to God."

In this sense, the Psalms must constantly function in our own prayers as "onramps" to prayer - you follow the model of the Psalm you reflect on how the Psalmist is pouring his heart out to God and you make that prayer your own.

In the Lord's prayer Jesus teaches us WHAT to pray about, but in the Psalms, through many rich examples, we learn HOW to pray.

3. The Psalms connect us to the heart of Jesus

Notice how Psalm two has God speaking to the King whom God calls his own Son. Here we have an echo of God's promise to David in 2 Sam. 7 when he says that he will establish through David's descendants an everlasting King and an everlasting Kingdom - and he will be a Father to David's son and David's son will be a son to God.

This was only partially fulfilled with Solomon. But we obviously know that Solomon went astray from God and the kingdom was divided. So throughout the whole story of Scripture we have this hanging promise of God restoring the world through the everlasting kingdom of the son of David.

Psalm 2, as the gateway Psalm establishes that hope firmly.

Interestingly, Psalm 2 tells us that all kings and people's of the world must bow to the Son, to be afraid of his wrath that will crush them - but then the call is to take refuge IN the Son. So it warns us of the wrath of the Son, but it also calls us to take refuge IN the Son.

As New Testament readers of the Psalms we can clearly see that this is not just speaking of some human king who is a descendant of David. We know that it is speaking of Jesus, who, though he was the eternal Son of God, humbled himself and entered our world to become the Son of David who can sit on the throne and never fail us.

Notice what Psalm 2 does for us - it shows us that Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of the promised Son of David who will establish the everlasting kingdom of God.

This theme in Psalm 2 connects to all the themes of the Psalms where the author is looking forward to the promise that God will come through, God will rescue us. At New Testament readers we see that God HAS PROVIDED that fulfillment in Jesus. He has come. His kingdom is working. He is redeeming his world as we speak. In this way the whole book of Psalms is connected to the fulfillment that we have in Jesus.

What is interesting is that the author of Psalm 2, though he is the reigning promised King, is also the suffering saint. He is asking the question - why do the evil people of the world come against me? He is experiencing the trails and hatred of the evil world against him.

This sets the theme for all the psalms of the trials and difficulties of the person who is seeking to follow God in a world that his hostile to him. Not only is Jesus the answer to our hopes - he is also the suffering voice in all the Psalms, he is the one crying out for God to come rescue, he is the one experiencing abandonment, he is the one hoping in God in the midst of darkness.

How do we know that? Because that is what Jesus did. On the cross Jesus cries out, "My God my God, why have you forsaken me??" That was not just his feelings in that moment. That was a direct quote of Psalm 22:1.

In the darkest and most difficult moment - Jesus was praying the Psalms. Not just because they are nice words - but because these words are his very own heart. Though he is our hope and our fulfillment, he is also the suffering servant who has known our darkest pains.

Because Jesus came to suffer in our place and pay the penalty for our sin with his life - he can be the main character at the center of the Psalms - he is the suffering servant, he is the King who will judge the world and rescue us, AND he is the one in whom we take shelter.

Because of this, the Psalms become a place where your heart and your emotions become a place where you connect deeply with the heart and emotions of God himself. When you read the Psalms you see how the words connect to your experience.

"I cry out to you Lord..."

"I feel trapped..."

"I feel alone.."

"I want to praise God for his answers to prayer!"

"I am so amazed by the glory and power of the Lord!"

At the same time, you meet in the Psalms a fellow traveler on the road, a fellow servant, a friend, an older brother who has gone the same path as you, but without sin - you realize that the Lord, the great Redeemer that you pray to is not just up there, far away - he is right here with you. Walking the road.

The Psalms are the songs of Jesus and they connect you to the heart of Jesus.

He is both your rescuer, your Savior - AND he is your companion. He is walking with you. He is reminding you of the story of his salvation.

What is your approach to the Psalms today? Are you benefiting from this rich treasure chest of grace?

Practical pointers from today

• Read the Psalms as a story. Allow them to take you back to the grand story of Scripture, of God's promise and his faithfulness to his people. Allow yourself to be transported into that story to know that you are not alone and that your struggles are not unique.
• Learn to pray like the Psalmists pray. Learn to soak your prayers in the promises and truths of Scripture itself. Allow God's book of prayers to empower your own prayers, to teach you what to ask for and how to wait.
• Meet Jesus in the Psalms. See in the Psalms the heart of your God and Savior. See that he walks with in through the highs and the lows. See that he has truly come to redeem and rescue you.

The Lord Who Reigns! - The Book of Psalms

August 29, 2021 • Andrey Bulanov • Psalm 97

Main Idea: • Real faith is rooted in seeing God for who he really is: as exalted, mighty and holy King over all things. This vision of the true God must make us both tremble and rejoice. 1. See the glory of the King a. God is all powerful and has full control b. God is holy 2. See the judgement of the King a. He Works Unstoppable Justice and Righteousness in the World 3. See the gladness of the King Scripture references: • Psalm 97 • Romans 1:21-23 • Ps. 33:10-11, 13-16 • Ps. 99:1-3 • Hebrews 12:28-29 • Rev. 6:15-17 Key Concepts: • God's glory • God's lordship and sovereignty • God's holiness • God's total justice and judgement against sin • True peace, joy and gladness only comes to those who tremble at his glory Application Questions: • What is your view of God? ○ Does your view of God bring BOTH trembling and fear AND gladness and joy? ○ Here's the thing - unless he is a God that makes you tremble, he is also not going to be a God that makes you rejoice, because he is not powerful enough. ○ But also, unless he makes you overflow with gladness and joy, then you have a wrong view of his holiness, power and justice. If all you do is tremble and fear - but have no joy in this God then you failed to see that he is the God who has USED HIS POWER to come to your rescue. • Do you worship this God? Do you view the Jesus of the gospels as also the exalted LORD of the universe? • Do you base your christian on your emotions? Or do you allow the unstoppable FACT of his power and glory to be your foundation? ○ Yes, the resurrected Jesus is not sitting physically with you at the breakfast table to have a cup of coffee - but do you realize that his Lordship and Reigning presence as your King is JUST AS PRESENT?? ○ The fact that we fail to see him as King in our daily lives does not make him less so. • Is your view of God reflected in the dangers and threats that surround you in life? ○ All the hype today is the laws, the government overreach, the fear over vaccines and COVID. Yes lets talk, let's do our homework, let's think and do our best to make decisions - but let's not allow these things to cause us to change our view of God - Jesus reigns supreme, he is holy, righteous and unstoppably in control. He comes to the rescue of his saints. He brings gladness to our hearts. ○ Learn to bring in the power of this truth into those battles, into the greatest troubles of your heart. ------- We live in a time when it is very popular to talk about self improvement. Fitness, health, therapy, diet, supplements - its popular to talk about how you can take control of your life and how your whole life flows out from the choices that you make. And this is true to an extent. But it's not the full truth. The Bible teaches us that "the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom/knowledge". In other words, our view of God, our relationship to him and our perspective of him is the beginning of all correct thinking and living. In other words, deep down at the foundation of all of your behavior is your perspective on God. Speaking of the work of sin and sinful motivation in the human heart, Paul says this in Romans 1 "21 For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles." Notice how the whole outflow of idolatry in the human heart flows out of a knowledge of God, and a desire to avoid giving him thinks and worshipping him. As human beings we are born with a built in awareness of God and his law - and everything that we do, every one of our actions is in some way connected to that knowledge. For example, when we say something like, "You know, of course I believe God is holy and he is King, that he is the most important one, but I just don't read my Bible or pray much because its just really hard to stay focused and honestly I just get bored with the Bible" - you are actually telling me a lot about what you think of God. You believe he is important, but not THAT important that he gets your attention. If I live my life with a very shallow intake of truth, and I have not deep alarms in my heart, I am actually showing that even though God and his truth is important, I am OK without it. You would never admit that or even agree with it verbally, but the undeniable evidence is in your daily behavior - if you are living your life and you feel OK you are proving that you actually think its OK to live without submitting to God and his truth. This is also connected to a false view of our emotions. We think that if I try to read the Bible, and if I am bored, then that is just a fact - the bible is boring, and I can't really change what I feel about it. YES YOU CAN. Your feelings only flow downhill from your convictions. Your feelings are not as permanent as you think. Here is a simple test - if Jesus appeared to you in the flesh as you are making your morning coffee and asked to join you - your feelings would get in line really quickly. You would not be bored. All of a sudden you would not think your phone is so distracting. You are confronted with a fact - and your feelings get in line with it. EVERYTHING we do is a reflection of what we think about God. We are ALL theologians - we all have a view of God that makes our lives possible. Our tendency as sinners is to make God small - to make him fit into a box that allows us to live as we want. This is why when the Bible calls us to see God for who he is, to renew of vision of God - it calls us to look up, to see his greatness, his power, his authority, his supremacy. We have a deep need to be confronted with the fact of God's exalted and holy nature. We need our perspective to be invaded with the greatness and power of God. 1. See the Glory of the King 1 The Lord reigns! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coasts and islands be glad. 2 Clouds and total darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 3 Fire goes before him and burns up his foes on every side. 4 His lightning lights up the world; the earth sees and trembles. 5 The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord— at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. 6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness; all the peoples see his glory. Notice how this whole Psalm is revolving around the proclamation of a FACT: The Lord reigns! In many ways this is the message of the whole Bible. The Bible is not trying to sell us the idea of God and his kingdom. Its trying to warn us about the unstoppable reality of it. Most of the time, God's immediate glory is not visible to us. The Psalmist is trying to give us a series of human images that give us a sense of what would it be like to come into the presence of the pure and unstoppable power of the God of the universe. Have you ever thought about what it would be like to face the power and glory of the God who created and upholds all of reality? The molecules that make up your face, your hands and your brain - are held together by SOMETHING. And that something is the God who created it all out of nothing. God is presented here as the Lord who reigns - the absolute King who sits on a throne above all creation. Clouds, darkness, fire and lightning. It's like, when you just a glimpse of who he really is, the very fabric of reality begins to be torn apart and starts to melt. Mountains turn to wax. The earth trembles. The Psalmist is emphasizing two things about God here: a. God is all powerful and has full control. Clouds and total darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 3 Fire goes before him and burns up his foes on every side. 5 The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord— at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. when have you experienced power in your life? • a fast car • a big check • an AR-15 Imagine pure, total, infinite and unstoppable power. God's power is unstoppable. He is the true King over the world and no one and nothing can stand in the way of that. It is easy for us to think that we live in a world of choas. It is easy for us to beleive that governments have power. Its easy for us to be overwhelmed today by the various powers that surround us in the world. Nuclear weapons, billion dollar companies, artifial intelligence, terrorist groups... But on a very foundational level NONE of them really have any power. There is only One who is in charge. There is only One throne in the whole universe - and God sits on it. Ps. 33:10-11, 13-16 10 The Lord frustrates the counsel of the nations; he thwarts the plans of the peoples. 11 The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart from generation to generation. 13 The Lord looks down from heaven; he observes everyone. 14 He gazes on all the inhabitants of the earth from his dwelling place. 15 He forms the hearts of them all; he considers all their works. 16 A king is not saved by a large army; a warrior will not be rescued by great strength. Fire goes out on all sides and consumes his enemies. The mountains melt like wax. The earth sees and trembles. Of course we do not understand all his ways. Why does he allow evil leaders and governments to prevail at times? When will he execute justice? We don't know. But part of our submission to him as Lord is submitting ourselves to him even though we don't see all the answers. Our God is a God of pure and completely unstoppable unending power. We are small. God is King over all creation. He rules all things. He sees everything. There is no escape from his power and dominion. b. God is Holy This is a concept that is often foreign to us today. The biblical concept of holiness has two parts - something that is totally separate and above everything else, AND something that is totally pure and perfect. "clouds and total darkness surround him..." A lot of the images in this Psalm are directly pulling from the story of when God showed up to meet with the people of Israel in the desert - he descended onto Mount Sinai in a trembling cloud of darkness, fire and lightning. When the people saw this they fell to their faces and were sure they would die. God totally unlike us - he is totally and utterly pure and perfect in every way, and he is completely other, he is nothing like us or anything in the world - he MADE all of reality. He is totally outside of everything that is made. He is not constrained by anything in this world - and when he ENTERS into it with even a slight hint of his true self - the creation starts to fall apart. Ps. 99 "1 The Lord reigns! Let the peoples tremble. He is enthroned between the cherubim. Let the earth quake. 2 The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted above all the peoples. 3 Let them praise your great and awe-inspiring name. He is holy." “The clearest sensation that a human being has when he experiences the holy is an overpowering and overwhelming sense of creatureliness. That is, when we are in the presence of God, we are humbled and become most aware of ourselves as creatures. This is the opposite of Satan's original temptation, "You shall be as gods.”" R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God Isaiah's vision of God's holiness in Isaiah 6 reminds us of this as well. I am just a creature. I am made. I am dust. And I am dirty. He is creator. He is eternal. He is perfect. Have you ever had that moment of realization of God's holiness? 2. See the Judgement of the King a. He Works Unstoppable Justice and Righteousness in the World Because he is a King of total power and perfect holiness it is inevitable that he has a response of perfect justice and judgement upon all who stand against him. "3 Fire goes before him and burns up his foes on every side. ... 7 All who serve carved images, those who boast in worthless idols, will be put to shame. All the gods must worship him." it is the nature of God that cuts all creation into two categories: those who acknowledge him and those who do not. Blessing and judgement. Idolatry: not just actual idolatry. If you do not see God as Lord, if you do not see him as the Holy King who is over you - you will automatically be bowing down to something else, some other thing that takes control of your heart. Notice the emphasis here is not JUST that all those who worship idols will be judged. Verse 7 ends with a declaration: all gods must worship him! gods: supernatural beings - angels, spirits, demons. Notice that the emphasis here is, Just like his power and his holliness is UNSTOPPABLE - it means that ALL will come face to face with him. All WILL acknowledge him sooner or later. The massive difference is the timing and the outcome: See him today, bow to him, worship him - and live in his gladness and joy. Or you run from him - and you still meet him. But then there will be no where to run. And it will end in judgement, death and destruction. All the gods will worship him - all the spirits, all the powers, all the angels, all the rebels, all the governments, all the rulers. Hebrews 12:28-29 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire. Rev. 6:15-17 15 Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the generals, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 because the great day of their wrath has come! And who is able to stand?” There is no neutrality here folks. There is no such thing as "almost christian" or "kind of christian". You are either worshipping the king, or you are worshipping idols - your selfish desires, your pride, your plans. Kids - especially those who grew up in the church: do you understand that Jesus is not just Savior who calls us, he is also the Holy Lord who rules all things? Do you understand that you are either following Jesus or you are following sin? Do you understand that you are either worshipping Jesus or you are rebelling against him? Jesus is not just a product that we are trying to sell. He is a Lord, a King who is COMING and we are trying to warn everyone! Run to him today before its too late! One of the reasons we think that our temptations are so big and powerful, one of the reasons we think our desires are so hard to battle - is that we have forgotten the justice of our holy God. He is HOLY. He is with us always. He sees all. And he will come to judge all sin. In his presence none can stand. In his presence all our stupid and foolish desires melt away. what is your view of God? If your view of God does not make you tremble, you've got the wrong god! 3. See the Gladness of the King One of the ironic things about this Psalm is that even though it is presenting God in this terrifying and powerful sense - the response that it calls out in those who believe in him is gladness and joy. Yes we fear this God and yes we tremble - but that trembling and fear is also accompanied by the mind-blowing realization that this God, this King - is OUR King. What does God use his power, lordship and strength for?? He uses it to save. To redeem sinners to himself. To bring lost sheep home. To rescue the weak from the evil. He is OUR rescuer. He is our hope. He is our protector. "10 You who love the Lord, hate evil! He protects the lives of his faithful ones; he rescues them from the power of the wicked. 11 Light dawns for the righteous, gladness for the upright in heart." Yes the night is dark, yes we will face evil and difficult things. Yes we will have to endure battles. But know this - as certain as the rising sun - light dawns on the righteous. What is the meaning of a sunrise? it is to remind you that victory is coming. Your King reigns. As those who read this Psalm from the perspective of the NT and the death of Jesus we see an even richer encouragement - every sunrise reminds us of the sunrise of the third day, when Jesus rose in victory over death. His resurrection is the gaurentee of ours. The King who reigns as Lord over all creation, the Holy and untouchable one - is the King who left his throne to suffer in our place. This might Lord is the one who paid for us with his own blood. This is a King who makes us tremble. But more than that, this is the King who fills our hearts with the song of gladdness, freedom and joy!!!!! Application: • What is your view of God? ○ Does your view of God bring BOTH trembling and fear AND gladness and joy? ○ Here's the thing - unless he is a God that makes you tremble, he is also not going to be a God that makes you rejoice, because he is not powerful enough. ○ But also, unless he makes you overflow with gladness and joy, then you have a wrong view of his holiness, power and justice. If all you do is tremble and fear - but have no joy in this God then you failed to see that he is the God who has USED HIS POWER to come to your rescue. • Do you worship this God? Do you view the Jesus of the gospels as also the exalted LORD of the universe? • Do you base your christian on your emotions? Or do you allow the unstoppable FACT of his power and glory to be your foundation? ○ Yes, the resurrected Jesus is not sitting physically with you at the breakfast table to have a cup of coffee - but do you realize that his Lordship and Reigning presence as your King is JUST AS PRESENT?? ○ The fact that we fail to see him as King in our daily lives does not make him less so. • Is your view of God reflected in the dangers and threats that surround you in life? ○ All the hype today is the laws, the government overreach, the fear over vaccines and COVID. Yes lets talk, lets do our homework, lets think and do our best to make decisions - but lets not allow these things to cause us to change our view of God - Jesus reigns supreme, he is holy, righteous and unstoppably in control. He comes to the rescue of his saints. He brings gladness to our hearts. ○ Learn to bring in the power of this truth into those battles, into the greatest troubles of your heart. The key to maintaining sanity in our crazy world is to tremble and be glad before our King.

The Lord is my Shepherd - The Book of Psalms

August 22, 2021 • Aleksey Khizhnyak • Psalm 23

Sunday Service - Aug 22nd

The Psalmist’s Prayer Habits - The Book of Psalms

August 15, 2021 • Andrey Bulanov • Psalm 62:8, Psalm 22:14–15, Psalm 139:23–24, Psalm 42:5, Psalm 6:4–5

Main idea: We must learn to look to Scripture of a living model for our spiritual life, especially our prayers. When we learn to follow the habits of the Psalmists, we invite God into a deeper walk with us and enrich our experience of his presence. Outline: Full transparency - bring to God the entire contents of your heart Internal awareness - examine your heart in the presence of God God centered orientation - pray for his glory and his kingdom in all your requests Application Questions: 1. What are your prayer habits? Have you ever examined them? 2. Are there parts of your life that you don't tell God about because you think they are insignificant? 3. Do you tell God everything? Do you act like he is your Father, who is looking over your shoulder at all that you do, with a desire to guide and lead? 4. Do you see God as the only one who can truly help you see yourself and your blindspots correctly? Do you invite him to do this regularly? 5. Do you think of God's will as something separate or detached from your everyday interests and concerns? 6. Is your greatest goal in life to live with a confidence that you are running fully in line with God's callings for you? Key Concepts for Discussion: • Our experience of God's work in our lives • Prayer habits impact our relationship with God • Developing a deeper awareness of our hearts tendencies and battles • Emptying our hearts to God • Seeing God as the only source of self knowledge and understanding • Having a correct relationship to God's will Scripture references: Ps. 62:8 Ps. 22:14-15 Ps. 55:4 Ps 57:7 Ps. 139:23-24 Ps. 19:12-13 Ps. 42:5 Ps. 6:4-5 ------------------------ Perhaps one of the biggest ways that we miss out on a deeper spiritual life is in the area of prayer. One of the typical responses that we have to various issues is: "Just pray about it." But perhaps one of the things that we don't think about as often is a lot of our prayer habits themselves may be unhealthy. We pray, but HOW do we pray and WHAT do we pray for? This is why we often have a disconnect in our knowledge ABOUT God and our daily experience OF God. We say we believe he is Lord over all things. We say we believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts at all times. But our lifestyle often feels distant from him. Why? One of the answers to that is our practice of prayer. The question is not simply how much we pray, but also HOW we pray. The beauty of the psalms is that they are a massive opportunity for us to learn from many many different examples of genuine prayer and genuine people working through struggles, that are also God's revealed truth. Think about that. This is what makes the Psalms unique. I think sometimes we read out Bibles as a sterile display item. But the Psalms especially, remind us that the Bible is written by real people, in the midst of real difficulty and real joy - expressing all that to God. And at the same time as being deeply human, the Psalms are God's Word - they are the work of the Holy Spirit guiding the true experiences of men, in such a way that the result is real human words, as well as genuine Words from God. We see this very perspective in Jesus when in Matthew 22:43 he says that David wrote the Psalms under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to listen in on the prayers of Charles Spurgeon, Augustine, Calvin - the apostle Paul? That would be truly instructive and fascinating. Perhaps some of their prayer habits - exactly WHAT they pray about and how they talk to God. But in the Psalms, we have a whole book collection of prayers of saints, prayers that also inspired by God himself, prayers that are perfect because they are the work of the Holy Spirit through men. If we understand this we can have a different habit as we read the Psalms throughout our lives - we listen in more carefully on how they pray and we learn to pick up on them more specifically. Three characteristics of the prayers in the psalms: 1. Full transparency - bring to God the entire contents of your heart Ps. 62:8 "Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts before him. God is our refuge." One of the most encouraging thing about the Psalms is the depth of transparency of emotions, experiences, worries, needs and joys. In this verse David is calling the nations to trust in God, but then he gives a very specific expression of that trust. He doesn't just leave it at that. He says, trust in him at all times and pour out your hearts before him. Notice the call here. Pour out your hearts before him. This is the very opposite of a set of rules or formulas. Thats one of the problems in prayer is that we get into specific formulas, specific topics or areas of our lives that we talk to God about, but the rest we just never go into. Here he is inviting us to dump out the full contents of our hearts. Is there stuff that we are or are not allowed to say? What is the stuff that we tend NOT to say to God? But does he really care about all the small stuff? Does he really care about the details? Who told you that he doesn't?? This is one of those areas that we run into a flaw in our theology that we might not realize we have. We say we believe God is sovereign and Lord over every detail of life. But when it comes to the smaller daily details or life or our inner world, we assume he has nothing to do with them. Notice how the Psalmists consistently bring a total emotional transparency to God. Ps. 22:14-15 14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; 15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. Ps. 55:4 "My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me." Ps 57:7"My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody!" I am not saying we sit on the side of the bed and ask God which sock we should put on first. I am talking about bringing him into every aspect of our true concerns and experiences. If we are honest, we will find that we live a lot of our lives in a functional atheism. We bring God a lot of our main concerns but we don't pray in little moments. But the issue is that most of your life is little moments! “Kingdom praying and its efficacy is entirely a matter of the innermost heart's being totally open and honest before God. It is a matter of what we are saying with our whole being, moving with resolute intent and clarity of mind into the flow of God's action.” Dallas Willard What about pouring out to him moments when we feel like our hearts are not right - when we are deeply angry, or frustrated, or impatient...? The sin grows when it is isolated from his presence. but it is sanctified and transformed when brought to him in honesty. Think about the difference between your 5 year old child stomping away to their room in anger, or sitting next to you telling you about how angry they are. When we withdraw from God in our worst moments the darkness grows. But when we learn to freely be his children in his presence, his Fatherly care has a way of both convicting and restoring us in grace. Think about Jesus in the garden. In his humanity - he did not want to go to the cross. He got to the worst moment and he said, "Please if there is any way to avoid this, let's avoid this." Was that wrong for Jesus to pray? Of course not. The problem is that we often feel embarrassed to be our full selves in the presence of God. We think we offend him by bringing our messy frustrations and emotions and weaknesses. Are you angry? Hurt? Frustrated? Stressed? Joyful? tell him about it. talk to him. be angry in his fatherly presence. Don't think that you need to transform your emotions into a perfect state before you can pray. Don't be embarrassed to be a messy child in the presence of your Father. God is an infinitely more caring and present Father than we can ever be to our kids. Learn to pour out your hearts to him! 2. Internal awareness - examine your heart in the presence of God Ps. 139:23-24 23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way Ps. 19:12-13 12 Who perceives his unintentional sins? Cleanse me from my hidden faults. 13 Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins; do not let them rule me. Ps. 42.5 Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God. One of the greatest paradoxes of being human is that we are so often a mystery to ourselves. We are very bad at diagnosing our own problems. We are very bad at interpreting our own states. We tend to be very blind to our biggest flaws. This is the danger of sin - it disrupts, not only the knowledge of God and the world - but also knowledge of self. What is the solution? Notice the psalmists consistently find clarity on self in the presence of God. They are aware that they do not fully know themselves, and they know it is only God who can clearly show them who they are. We live in an age of psychology that always promises various kinds of tests to give us clarity on ourselves. The latest trend in pop culture is psychedelics. In the 60's the hippies were advocating drugs as a means of escape. Today the rhetoric is COMPLETELY different - drugs are a way of deeper knowledge of self. The psalms consistently show us that we must learn to come to prayerful, Scripture soaked reflection of ourselves in the presence of God. The difference between this point and the previous one is that in the previous point, we were saying that we need to come to God to pour out our whole heart, to welcome him in to every struggle. The attention is God. Here we are saying that we need to come to God even to get a proper perspective on self. There are two forms here that we see. Firstly we see a prayerful invitation for God to teach us to expose to us our blind spots - for him to expose the since and problems that we are unaware of. We admit that we are our own greatest danger and we admit that we can't even figure ourselves out. We want to live in a lifestyle where one of our prayers is for the Lord to work in us, to help expose our issues and give us that ability to walk in the light. The second form here is of biblical self examination. "Oh my soul, why are you so depressed? Hope in God for I will still praise him!" Here the author is pausing, in his prayerful state, to ask himself some questions - why am I so upset? Why am I so stressed? What truths am I missing in my life?" And then he is supplying biblical truth into his self reflection - "Hope in God, for I will again praise him..." He is interrogating his own heart, in the presence of God and his truth, he is trying to get a deeper sense of why he is not living out the truth that he says he believes. This has been a very helpful habit for me to get into. Personally I am not super good at looking at my struggles. Certain aspects of my life I am constantly analuzing - my productivity and stuff. But when it comes to pressure points or weakness, I really have to stop and ask myself - why am I struggling with this? Whats going on in my heart and life? There was a season a few years ago when I was much more prone to getting frustrated at home with kids were being loud and disobedient. Just in time for that there was an assignment in seminary that made me take a closer look at one area of my life. For me this was very helpful because it helped me see that I was seeing home life as a retreat and source of comfort in way that was becoming unhealthy. Therefore, when I came home from work I wasn't coming with a mind to serve and give but to rest and receive. Its been very helpful to include in my prayer and Scripture reading a routine of regularly asking myself what my struggles are and pausing on that to invite God's truth to give me clarity. Is this going to make us fully aware of all our problems? No. We will always have blind spots! And this brings us to the first reason why it is so important to cultivate a prayerful self awareness. One of the most powerful realizations we can ever come to is how deeply broken we are - and yet that our heavenly Father is here to guide us through life. Secondly, it cultivates a deeper sense of our basic sins and struggles. We need to know our battles. We all have our own battles. We need to watch the battle zones and pray for God's healing work. We need to walk carefully in those areas of life. Thirdly it teaches us that God is the only one who can teach us who we are. The light of his Word and his Spirit - thats the only source of self knowledge. When we cultivate internal awareness in our prayers, when we routinely ask God to show us our hidden faults, when we routinely ask ourselves as we read our Bibles - whats going on in my heart this week? - this teaches us to cement the conviction that the Lord is the only source of understanding for ourselves. 3. God centered orientation - pray for his glory and his kingdom in all your requests We know that we need to learn to pray according to the will of God, but what does that mean? How does that look? What is the point of praying for any of our needs, if at the end of the day the only thing we pray for is the will of God? Why not just cut to the chase and pray for his will? These questions expose the fact that in our hearts, there is often an undetected flaw in our prayer - we view God's kingdom purpose and our own life purposes as two separate things. So i pray for my stuff, but then at the end i just say, "But not my will by your will be done." And in the chance that my desires intersect with Gods, lucky me! he will answer my prayer. This exposes the fact that we view God's kingdom purposes as totally separate from the things that we are genuinely interested in and the things that we care about. When we say that we need to learn to pray according to God's will we are saying that we need to reexamine OUR whole set of goals and objectives for life, and we need to realign our goals with the goals of God's kingdom. when we see the Psalmist asking God for help, they are not just saying, "your will but done.." Instead, they see God as actively working his kingdom purposes in and through their lives, in the daily battles and struggles that THEY are facing. And they are asking for God's help, because they believe that by helping them, he is working his work in the world - he is accomplishing, not just THEIR goals but also HIS goals. Ps. 6:4-5 4 Turn, Lord! Rescue me; save me because of your faithful love. 5 For there is no remembrance of you in death; who can thank you in Sheol? This kind of prayer is ALL OVER the psalms. "God, please help me! If you don't help me, then I can't glorify YOU in my life!" Notice there's two elements here. First of all, we understand that as those who are saved and redeemed by God, he is actively at work in our lives TODAY. He has put you into the life that you live , the family, the friends, the church, the interests that you have - and its all their for a unique way that he is using you and inviting you in following him daily. The second aspect here is that we are his people, are actively adjusting our daily goals and interests more and more closely to God's kingdom purposes that he has clearly revealed in his Word. Why do you want your kids to be saved? Your business to grow? Why do you want to get married? why do you want the things that you want? - is it so that God's purposes may be magnified through your life? One of the biggest misconceptions is that seeking God's will and living for his kingdom is some totally disconnected, far off thing that is completely separate from our real lives and interests today. “Many people have found prayer impossible because they thought they should only pray for wonderful but remote needs they actually had little or no interest in or even knowledge of. Prayer simply dies from efforts to pray about ‘good things’ that honestly do not matter to us. The way to get to meaningful prayer for those good things is to start by praying for what we are truly interested in. The circle of our interests will inevitably grow in the largeness of God’s love.” Dallas Willard God's will is for you to be an agent of his grace and love right where you ARE. Every daily battle we face we are either seeking our own kingdom and comfort, or God's. When you are parenting your kids and you're praying for God to make them obedient - is it just for your sake and your comfort? or is it for him to be glorified in their lives? When you are trying to get a work deadline met, are you praying for you to just have less stress and more comfort? Or are you praying for God to make you successful and fruitful so that you can be a witness in the community to his goodness? When you are for a godly husband or wife - are you praying that for your own sake and comfort? Or are you praying because you are honest with God about your desire for a family and you want to fulfill your God-given calling to glorify God and enjoy him in the beauty of family life? Praying for God's will is not just about praying for mission and evangelism in other nations or things like that - it is about learning to see your everyday life as a battlefield for his kingdom and glory versus your own. It teaches you to think about all your needs and your whole lifestyle in a new way. And it teaches you to have a habit of constantly coming to God and asking him to work HIS purposes in your life. This truly sets you free from the anxiety or stress of expecting certain results. But it also gives you boldness to keep going - to pray for guidance, to do your best and keep working. This is what gives the Psalmist the boldness to argue with God "Why would you let me die? How will I praise you when I am dead??" This exactly what Jesus did in the garden. "Father, if there is any other way - pass this cup from me. Yet, not my will but yours be done." He is actively submitting his desires in the moment to the bigger will of the Father. Only because he did that, there is such a thing as resurrection. The beauty of his victory was the product of his self conscious submission to give himself for the purposes of the Father. This is what we are called to do everyday. Do you want to see resurrection power in your life? Do you want to see God working through difficult situations and changing your life and the lives of people around you in beautiful ways that you never thought possible? Learn to align your hearts desires and interests with his. Make his passions your passions. Make his values your values. Make his dreams your dreams. Application: 1. What are your prayer habits? Have you ever examined them? 2. Are there parts of your life that you don't tell God about because you think they are insignificant? 3. Do you tell God everything? Do you act like he is your Father, who is looking over your shoulder at all that you do, with a desire to guide and lead? 4. Do you see God as the only one who can truly help you see yourself and your blindspots correctly? Do you invite him to do this regularly? 5. Do you think of God's will as something separate or detached from your everyday interests and concerns? 6. Is your greatest goal in life to live with a confidence that you are running fully in line with God's callings for you? When we learn to adjust our prayer habits (not just do this once) to what we see in Scripture, we will also experience a thicker sense of God's guiding presence and lordship in our lives.