All right, now I should be on. All right.
Hey, welcome again this morning. So glad that you're here.
I think notes should be arriving any second.
They should be walking into the door.
So we'll just handles out to those of you who would like
them. So maybe when Alethia comes in,
she can. If you'd like those, she will
pass those out to you. Again, that's great because
normally we have enough for want to print first service for
second service. That's a good sign that people
are eager and ready. All right, Tom's walking in with
them and he will be distributing the notes.
So as he's coming around, if you would like, maybe maybe there's
maybe there's Liz, maybe Michael, can you help Tom pass
those out? Maybe he's right beside you
there. All right, again, you know, this
isn't for the podcast yet, but I love that that you are eager to
take notes home with you on Sundays.
I've never been part of a church myself where the pastor did like
4 pages of really intensive notes.
But I love that as a culture, we're digging in and it's like,
OK, wait a minute. We're hungry to take this home
with us and wrestle with the truth that we're learning on
Sunday morning. So I want to be diligent and
take the time to and I make these every week.
By the way, this is something I put together, you know,
interesting enough, when I was in high school, I took this
random class called literary genres and technical writing.
It's a weird class, but it would taught you how to like lay out.
Chris, this would be interesting to you.
It taught you how to lay out writing.
It wasn't really judging. You weren't getting graded on
your content more so the way you laid it out.
So if you notice these, I center some things and I put some
things in color and I bold some things and I underlined some
other things. And the goal is that I want you
to be able to kind of scan the notes and and capture the
content and understand it and take it home with you.
OK, now let me just say that this series that I'm starting
this morning will be in for several weeks.
And I was going to start this a couple weeks back, but I
postponed it and pivoted because a few weeks ago after the Irena
Zurutzka killing in In the Carolinas and then after the
assassination of Charlie Kirk, I felt two weeks ago that I really
wanted to bring you truth in the context of what we were
navigating through as a country and other things that are going
on in our violence in other areas from both sides of the
spectrum, from both political parties, I must say.
So how do we navigate through? So I did a message 2 weeks ago
on dealing with evil. And if you're looking for a
political party or a political leader to help you navigate
through the spiritual deficit that we're in, then you'll come
up very shy. But I taught on how we as
Christians deal with evil. And if we send the news abroad
in a certain way, then it'll just sow more discord and more,
more violence, etcetera. So I taught on dealing with evil
2 weeks ago. If you missed that message, I do
encourage you to go back and get it because it was an important
message for our church and for us.
And I utilized the story of the Levite in the book of Judges and
it's concubine, and it's one of the most disturbing stories in
all of the Bible. Very disturbing story.
It's a rated R story, I would say, very challenging story.
But if you missed that message, I do encourage you to go back
because it was an important message.
But I was going to start the series that I'm starting today,
two weeks ago, but change that and we're going to start it
today. I'm very excited about it.
OK, let me just greet those who are online with this.
Good morning. If you're joining us, whether
live right now online or in weeks to come, we're so glad
that you're here and we invite you to come and be with us.
Live at North Life Church right here on Main Street in the heart
of the old downtown part of Gaylord.
Our services are at 9:00 and 10:30.
This is your invitation. If you're waiting for an
invitation, this is it. Come and join us in worship
sometime soon. We hope to see you now.
If you have your Bibles and you're here in the room or
online, please take your Bible and turn to Luke chapter 24.
Remember, if you're new to the Bible, Luke is in like maybe
like 75% or so, maybe 80% through your Bible.
It's in the New Testament. It's after Matthew, Mark, and
then before the book of John. Luke is one of the gospels and
the Gospel stories. If you're new to the Bible, the
Gospels are the stories of the life and teachings of Jesus.
So Luke chapter 24 is one of the tellings of Jesus's life, and
this is at the end of what we would consider Jesus's earthly
life. He has lived 33 in some years.
He has gathered disciples, he's taught, he's done miracles.
He offered himself as a sacrifice for us on the cross,
and he was resurrected. He spent time with some of his
followers giving them more teaching and interaction and now
he is going to ascend into heaven to be at the right hand
of the Father. And now we have the Holy Spirit
with us as New Testament followers of of the of the Lord.
We now the Holy Spirit is who abides in US and with us.
But as Jesus has ascended to be with the Father.
Now this is some of the last words of Jesus found in the
story of Luke. This is Luke chapter 24 verse
44. It says then he said to them,
meaning Jesus. Jesus said to them, These are my
words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that
everything written about me and the law of Moses and the
prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
Right before Jesus ascends to heaven, he references that he
fulfills the writings of the Law, which was of Moses.
And we know that the prophets prophesied about Jesus.
Yes, prophets prophesied about Jesus coming.
He says he fulfilled the prophecies, but he also
references right here towards the end of his earthly life,
before he ascends to heaven, he mentions that he also fulfilled
the Psalms. So this morning and in the weeks
to come, I want to start a series on the Psalms.
We're going to call it the OG playlist.
And this morning I want to introduce you to the Psalms.
Let me pray for us. God, we do thank you for this
day. This is a day that you have
made, and we want our hearts to rejoice and be glad in it.
And now, God, we have worshiped you, even coming into the lobby
and interacting with others, this worship to you.
And we've sung our songs, we've given our offerings, and now
we're going to turn our attention to your word.
And we pray that you would supernaturally speak to us and
ready us for the weeks to come as we dig into the Psalms.
Do something really beautiful in our church in the next weeks as
we lean into this very valuable part of the Bible.
Grow as we pray in Jesus name and everyone loudly said Amen.
Now Jesus speaks of the Psalms. And maybe you missed that in
your reading of the Gospel. If you've read through the
Gospels before, Jesus references the Psalms.
And maybe again, if you're new to the Bible, we always want our
church to be a place where if you're new to the Bible, you can
get it. And if you've been following
Jesus for decades and decades and decades, I still want to
teach in a way where you're learning things and you're being
challenged and growing. But I want to teach sensitive to
both. Those were seasoned in scripture
and those were brand new to the Bible.
Maybe you're seasoned in Scripture and you didn't know
that Jesus references that he fulfills the Psalms.
If you're new to the Bible then you're like wow, that'll be new
news to you that that Jesus CST fulfills the writing that this
found in Moses. There are a lot of images of
Jesus in the writings of Moses from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers to Neuronomy. Remember, in Egypt, the slaves,
the Israel, the Jewish slaves had been in captivity for
hundreds of years, slaves. And there's a picture of Jesus
as our deliverer in the story of Moses and the Pharaoh that he
is, you know, saying that Moses says to the Pharaoh, let my
people go. And eventually it's the blood of
a lamb upon their doorposts that enables the Angel of death to
pass by their homes and bring God's judgment to those who have
been disobedient to him. We see that story in Exodus, and
it's a picture of Jesus. Jesus comes to fulfill the law.
So many of the sacrifices and the traditions that are set down
by Moses in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, Jesus
fulfills those. And you know that he fulfills
the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah and other prophets in
the Old Testament. Maybe you're familiar with the
fact that, yes, Isaiah is going to prophecy.
He will be wounded for our transgressions and Pierce for
our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace is
upon him. By his stripes we're healed.
And if you're familiar with that passage, but Jesus is saying
here in Luke that yes, that he fulfills what the prophet said,
what Moses said, and he also fulfills the Psalms.
Jesus valued the Psalms and he fulfilled them.
Now what are the Psalms? To some of you, this will be new
information. What are the Psalms?
Well, the Psalms are a book in the Bible about 1/3 into your
Bible and it's the longest book of the Bible with 150 chapters
and it contains about 5% of the Bible.
So 5%, one in 20 of the Bible is is in the book of Psalms, again
about 1/3 through your Bible. And the word Psalm comes from
the Greek word Psalmos, which means a song sung to a harp or
stringed instrument. And I love this as a guitar
player. I particularly like this.
Right. So the term derives from the
word saline, which describes the act of playing a stringed
instrument. OK, so literally psalms, at
least from Greek means again a song sung to an instrument
played a stringed instrument. But before that, in the old
Hebrew Bible that we gather the Old Testament from initially the
book of Psalms was called Tehelum.
And it's it translates praises or songs of praise.
So what are the Psalms that you find a third into your Bible?
There's 150 chapters. Well, there's songs of praise
and the simplest understanding the song.
The Psalms are ancient songs that you and I can utilize today
in our devotions, in our prayer life and our understanding of
God's truth and theology and doctrine.
It's all there in the Psalms. OK, there are songs, but there
are songs that teach and give us again, prayers, etcetera.
So then I want you to understand this, that the book of Psalms is
grouped in the Old Testament with watch this because this
will be new to some of you, but I can't wait to give you this
information. So you'll get understanding of
this. The book of Psalms is grouped in
the Old Testament with with Psalms.
OK. So the Old Testament is set up
in this way where there are. Yeah, poetry, where the Bible,
if you try to read it from beginning to end, it's likely
that you'll find it a bit daunting or overwhelming because
when you go to read the Bible, understand that it's not one
book. If you think it was as one book,
it'll just, it's a terrible way to start reading the Bible and
think of it as one book because really the Bible is a library.
It's 66 books. And when you go to read it, the
cool thing is that if you see it as a library, you could go, OK,
I'm just going to, I'm going to go with this one book.
And once I get that done, I'm going to say I've finished a
book. Wow.
I read a book and some of them are quite short, some of them
are long, but if you look at it like 1 long book, you'll miss
it. It's really library.
My library, one of my libraries is there in my office.
I have, I don't know, a couple 100 books right there at home.
I have like 2500 books that many of them are fiction.
A lot of them are reference books to study the Bible.
And I have beautiful bookshelves at home and I love to go and be
in my library. And I would read as much as
people will let me write. People won't let me read as much
as I want to sometimes, right? I'm saying that facetiously, but
but so I love being in my library.
But but when your Bible itself is a library, look at it that
way. And one of the books in the
library of the Bible is the book of Psalms.
And the Bible is grouped this way.
You have the historical books that are early stories that are
factual and true, and they are again, stories.
So we have Genesis. It's the story of creation and
story of Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and
his brothers, right? That's in Genesis.
Then you have Exodus, and it's the story of Moses and the
slaves, of the Jewish slaves being Israel.
Then after that you have so you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges and Ruth.
Those are all mostly, mostly ancient stories.
OK, first and Second Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, first and second
Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.
OK, those all of those books are historical and I recommend this
about once a year. I pull these out like once a
year. And what these are, this is
interesting enough. This is a what's called a
reader's Bible and it's different than this Bible.
And I love this Bible. I love this Bible that I teach
from and markup. I love this Bible, but I don't
read this Bible from cover to cover because it's it has really
thin pages. And if I go to write in it, then
it's, you know, it's difficult. I tend to open this Bible to
certain passages and read that passage.
OK, I tend to go passage to passage, but I will tell you
I've not read this Bible cover to cover.
I have read some Bibles like this cover to cover.
However, what I'll tell you is that reading a Bible like this
to me is easier or listening. If you whenever I mentioned
reading the Bible nowadays, I'm also mentioned you can listen to
the Bible. You can go to YouTube or go to
Audible. There are lots of lots of
options with music and dramatization, but if you're
interested in getting the Bible as in its entirety, then look at
it as a library. So watch this.
This is the reader's Bible, and I've read through it and I have
when I read through this one, then I got myself a leather
edition and I read through that one.
But the book of Psalms lands grouped with other poetry in the
Bible. So after Ezra and Nehemiah and
Esther, then comes Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song
of Solomon. And all of those books are
beautiful ancient poetry. And the Psalms land grouped with
with the poetry of the Old Testament.
So, and there's poetry dispersed in other areas, even in Genesis
and in excess and in the profits.
But the books that are solely poetry, they're here and they're
after the historical book. So in my reader set here, and I
encourage, you could go to Amazon, you could go to
christianbook.com, you could buy the reader set.
This is the ESV. You can get them an NIV or
Living Bible or CSB. But to me, if you're interested
in reading the Bible from cover to cover, which I would
recommend you do, it's a worthwhile endeavor.
But just know that I have found it easier to read it like this.
OK, so then after the poetic books, then you have the
prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and all the the prophets lead all
the way up to the New Testament. And then in this collection, you
have a book that's just Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and Acts.
OK, So that's the stories of Jesus and the early church.
And then finally in this set, you have the letters that were
written after the book of Acts. But I wanted you to see that
that is how the Bible is grouped.
It's easier to see it in this in this shape, if you will.
Then here, this is a library and it looks like this if and these
do not have chapter verses, they read just like it would have
been initially written. And these are easy for me to
read. So I wanted you to envision
where the Psalms land in the Old Testament.
OK, again, whether you're going to read them or listen to them,
approach it like it's a library. OK, Now, so the Psalms so that
you know, they're grouped with the with the poetry in the Old
Testament. And 73 of the Psalms out of the
150 are written by David, who was the king.
He killed Goliath when he was a young man.
And then 12 of them are written by a man named Asaph.
And I did a Series A couple months ago.
If you're curious, you could go back and listen to it.
I did three weeks on the sons of Korra. 11 of the Psalms are
written by the sons of Korra. Korra was a man in the story of
Moses and the children of Israel coming out of Egypt.
And he was disobedient. He led a rebellion against Moses
and God judged him harshly and he deserved it.
But his descendants become these amazing writers of the Psalms,
and they were like a brother band, the sons of Korra, like
the Jonas Brothers or something, right?
So the sons of Korra, they wrote 11.
I did a series. I'll touch on them again as we
go through Psalms, but I kind of covered those a couple months
ago, which kind of led me to want to even dive deeper into
the Psalms. Then Solomon wrote two of the
Psalms, Moses wrote one, and the others are all anonymous.
So 150 of them. Now I want to read to you a
couple quotes from some Christian leaders you might
admire to let you know what they think about the Psalms.
I love them. I love the Psalms, I've just
cherished them. But watch this, Billy Graham
said. I read 5 Psalms every day and
that teaches me how to get along with God.
Wow, read them 5A day. Through the years I've often
been in seasons where I try to write read 5A day if there are
150 of them and think most months have roughly 30 days.
So if I I don't read 12345I tend to read like chapter 1 and then
like chapter 30 and chapter 60 and 90 and 120.
I tend to read through them that way.
OK, and I find that reading that way just seems to be a better
rhythm for me. But you might want to decide
that you want to read 5 Psalms a day in the next several weeks as
we study the book of Psalms. John Piper, who's one of my
favorite modern day teachers and preachers, he said that in the
Psalms, God gives us inspired words to pray back to him.
If you're looking to pray and you don't know what to pray to
God, there are several beautiful prayers in the Psalms and you
might want to find some of them. You can just Google and I'll be
teaching in the next weeks also, and I've got some even this
morning. But you might Google prayers in
the book of Psalms and you might find one that is befitting to
the season that you're in in your life.
And just praying it over and over and over again could be
really encouraging and uplifting to you.
And then the classic preacher Charles Spurgeon, who died in
1892, he said the Psalms are the heartbeat of the Bible,
heartbeat of the Bible. So let me let you know.
Interesting enough, the Psalms were written and you can see
this in your notes. And I made this little graphic
here with ChatGPT. I'm trying to say that, right?
So I'm like trying new things. I'm trying to stick with the
times. So the Psalms were written in a
period of 1500 years. Now imagine that our country is
about to be 250 years old. The Psalms were like the best of
1500 years of Old Testament songwriters and we think
scholars think that the Psalms were not compiled in the era of
David who was the king, even though he wrote a majority of
them. The songs were there, but around
around like 500 BC. So around 500 years roughly
before Jesus. We think that the Psalms were
compiled then into one book with the 150 Psalms.
And if you know your old system in history, I don't want to
overwhelm you, but you remember Moses.
Moses is like 1400 years before Jesus.
Then David is like 1000 years before Jesus.
So Moses writes some of the songs, David writes some of the
songs, then Solomon and other songwriters write their songs in
the 9 hundreds. Then there was a time of exile,
which I won't go into, but the Jews are taken to Babylon and
eventually Persia, and then they come back post exile.
And we think during that period of post exile, many of the songs
talk about like rivers in Babylon.
That wasn't David, wasn't Solomon.
No, that's like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
in that era. They were writing songs that end
up in the Psalms, and we'll look at some of those in the weeks to
come. But I wanted you to know that
the Psalms are 1500 years of the best songs.
Now, where did I come up with the name for the series, the OG
playlist? I love this.
Some of you are going to remember you're old enough.
And we're going to, we're going to do this exercise and it's
going to date you to tell how old you are.
And I'll let you know how old I am.
So my youngest music, that was mine, if my parents were
watching Christmas, I would have been like in the 6th grade.
You know, I got to the age where I was like requesting music and
my mom loves the story that I was requesting Christian music.
So I'm 55, I'll be 56 in November.
That the first music I ever really got that was my own was
on 8 track. How many of you remember 8
tracks? Right man, I was like cool with
my eight track and the 1st 8 tracks I got were how the West
was one. It was 28 tracks with Phil Kegey
and 2nd chapter of Acts. How many of you remember those
guys? Right?
Jane remembers them. OK, so that was my first music.
But then after that you got a little older and then cassette
players came out. And when cassette players came
out, what was cool about cassette players is you could
record, right? You could record from the radio.
So I have this little box right here.
It says hugs to you. It was a gift to me probably in
like the 6th or 7th grade and when I was when I was junior
high high school. Inside of this are cassettes
that I meticulously recorded with the radio and some of you
are going to remember this. So stick with me.
Remember like you'd sit by the radio and you'd wait for that
song that you wanted to come on and when it came on, you'd push
record and your cassette would record it.
How many of you remember doing that?
Some of you, OK, you'd have to be older like me, but yes,
remember and you sit there and when you felt so accomplished,
when you'd get your mixtape, it was like your playlist and you
get a cassette full of songs and they might not match up side to
side. You'd fit as many on this one
side as you could. And so this is some of these.
Look at here. And I drive a 9th.
I drive a 2001 Volvo wagon. I call it my geek mobile.
You know, it's like a totally wonderful geek car.
And it's it has a cassette player and ACD player.
Still. I don't have an MP3 player.
I don't have a USBN. So I keep these Jason's like,
when are you going to throw away stuff?
I'm kind of a pack rat, but I'm like, these are still really
valuable. These are my mixtapes from the
80s, and I could put these in my cassette player.
I worked hard for these. I'm not throwing these away.
So there you go, right? OK, Then after that period,
well, there goes my cassettes. I'm just going to break them.
OK, Then after that, remember the era?
Then it was like, no, then CDs came out, right?
And so when CDs came out, you weren't sitting by the radio.
You could take another CD and you could burn that song with a
Cdr to another CD and man, the world was a good place then.
How many remember that right, it got way better right, and so I
like in here I have let's see so I still have these.
I keep these in my car. This is a January 05
miscellaneous makes copy #2 I've got some great tunes on here.
And then I've got I think there's a Veggie Tales one here
back here. I've got a Veggie Tales mixtape
right here, the best of Veggie Tales.
And I've got Nat King Cole Mello and I've got for Rodger, who was
a friend of mine who passed away.
And this is 11/26 like A1 miscellaneous, right?
So watch this these, these were my playlist.
I felt so rich when I compiled them on and put them in a
collection. These were my playlist.
This is this was fun. This is, and I think this is
like 2000, maybe 6 or 7. This is Worship Leader magazine.
But then remember you could buy like a compilation of songs
where they would put like a mixtape together.
Somebody would put it together like Wow Worship.
If you remember Wow Worship or Time Life used to put out like a
collection of songs. So this was Song Discovery.
It was Worship Leader magazine. And I had a song on here like in
2006 called You've Won My Affection that I wrote right?
And I remember thinking, I made the playlist.
I'm in the playlist, right? It was kind of cool, right?
So that came out. And then, but then after that,
some of you were going to remember.
Now we're aging you. Some of you remember, like
Napster. I never got a Napster.
But how many of you did Napster, right?
Some of you did Napster. So you can take a collection of
digital songs and you can put them together in your computer.
And then the iPod came out. Remember when the iPad, I mean,
I got the iPod right away and now it's like 3000 songs.
We felt so wealthy, right, with our songs.
They were $0.99 apiece. Remember back then, that was
your playlist, right? But nowadays, those of you who
are young, you have it so good because you have Spotify and
Apple Music and YouTube. You can just go any song
anytime, combining in a playlist.
It's so easy. It's nothing like back in the
day when we were sitting there listening to the radio with our
cassette player, right? So you had you live in a good
time. Now, my point in telling you all
that is watch this. The Psalms are the original
playlist so so through the direction of the Holy Spirit in
the post exile period, after Daniel and Shadrach and
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and the arrow past Esther and
Nehemiah and Ezra, all the way towards the end of the Old
Testament. Even though it lands in the
middle kind of of the Old Testament, it would have been
compiled by that era of, of people following God.
The Holy Spirit inspires them to put these 150 songs into a
playlist. And it's the OG playlist.
Isn't that cool? So in the next several weeks,
what I want to do is I want to dive into this playlist that we
find that's called the Psalms, a gathering of 1500 years of the
best songs written in the Old Testament era that you and I can
gather devotion from prayers from theology, doctrine,
encouragement, all of these things land in the Psalms.
And So what I, this morning, I, this is an introduction for some
of you, you're quite familiar with the Psalms, but for many of
you, you're like, I didn't even know the Psalms existed.
And I saw them. I didn't know what they were.
Now I've told you their playlist and their songs and they're of
great value to Jesus. He references them and now you
and I can lean into them also. And we should Now let me give
you some examples of profound Psalms.
Again, there were 150 of them. Some of them are very short.
Some of them are like you could read them in 30 seconds.
Some of them are really long and in between.
But let me show you a couple examples of profound Psalms
found in the book of Psalms. Many of the Psalms present truth
and theology and doctrine. So Psalm 145, verses 18 through
19, it says the Lord is near to all who call on him.
Isn't that good news to all who call on Him?
In truth, He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him.
He also hears the cry and saves them.
If you're ever crying out to the Lord and you feel desperate and
you feel discouraged out of hope, knowing that the Lord is
near to all who call on him, that's a good truth to lean
into. We find it in the Psalms.
That is one that's worth memorizing, one worth reciting
out loud. Watch this great profound truth
in Psalm 119, verse 105. It says your word.
In other words, the Bible is a lamp to my feet and a light to
my path. So in the midst of great
darkness and evil around us, we have scripture to guide us.
When you're when you're wondering, God, how should I
respond? God, what's the next step I
should take in my life? Well, the Bible is there to
offer a light to your path and darkness, like your headlights
on your car leading you home. There were also profound prayers
in the Psalms. Psalm 61 isn't a great example.
And again, you can find prayers that that give voice to where
you are and what you're requesting of God.
Psalm 61, one through 4, it's so wonderful and profound.
The psalmist writes, hear my cry, oh God, and listen to my
prayer from the end of the earth.
I call to you when my heart is faint, lead me to the rock that
is higher than I for you have been my refuge, a strong tower
against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent
forever. In other words, let me dwell
God, where you dwell. Let me be in your presence and
let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings.
This morning there was a Carol, I think Chris took the picture
was in the first service. Chris was greeted this, there
was a, there was a bald eagle right behind our church this
morning on like one of the trees that could have got broken by
the ice storm. So the pictures showed this tree
broken off and there's an eagle looking out over.
I mean, you've seen the span of an eagle, right?
6-7 feet, right? So it gives the image of like
God, you hide us, you shelter us under your wings like, like a
young eagle. It's a beautiful picture.
Another profound Psalm. Often the Psalms present
encouragement to praise and to worship God.
Psalm one O 3 verses one through 2 says bless the Lord, O my soul
and all that is within me. Bless his holy name, Bless the
Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits.
And this occasion David is speaking to himself.
He's doing self talk to find a lot of self talk in the Psalms.
It's valuable. You're talking to yourself as
like rise up O soul, give God praise that he's worthy of.
Those are worth knowing and reading and loving.
Sometimes the Psalms present prophecy.
Jesus said he fulfilled the prophecy.
So many references in the Psalms.
Give us a picture of Jesus and you find this in Psalm 22 one
through 5. I'm just going to read part of
it. I have that in the notes for you
there to read more of it when you take your notes home.
But it's this is the psalmist saying, my God, my God, why have
you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving
me from the words of my groaning?
Watch this. I love this so much.
God is not threatened. God's not going to ZAP you or
even punish you. If you get to a place in your
life where you like, you sense God, I feel so distant from you.
I don't know where you are. God, where are you got to feel
so broken and so without you, God, where are you?
What's interesting is this is a lamenting song.
It's an honest Psalm, but also Jesus is going to quote this
Psalm and it's a fulfillment of prophecy in the New Testament in
Mark chapter 1534. You maybe you know this Jesus is
hanging on the cross. Two of the Gospel cite this
story and it says at the 9th hour Jesus cried out with a loud
voice, ILO ILO Lima sabakhthani, which means my God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Even Jesus in this moment, did
God forsake him? No, but he fell forsaken, being
honest about it. And Jesus gives us a model that
when we feel distant from God, it's OK to give voice to it, and
when you give voice to God can lift you out of it.
Now there are other psalms that are profound and that they
present lament. And maybe lament is a new word
to you. A lament is a poem or song that
expresses sorrow or suffering or worry or complaint.
You're going to find, and maybe this is new to you, that there
are several psalms that are complaints, an expression of
sorrow and disappointment and anger at God.
You might find yourself at a season, your life where you're
confused. You're like, God, this makes no
sense to me, God, this is unjust.
This is unfair. There are psalms that say that
and you're permitted to pray them to God.
But the beautiful thing is that those psalms, they don't stick
there. They ascend out of it.
But giving voice to your disappointment, your struggle,
your sorrow, giving voice to it leads and can lead to you
becoming out, coming out of it and lifting yourself to greater
faith. Now, I put your notes together
this week where there's more than I can cover in this
message, but I want you to take them home and to read through
them. The Psalms are divided into 5
books and the headings are there for you to see.
Okay, and every one of the Psalms, they end with a
doxology. Maybe you grew up in a church
where they said the doxology at the end, right?
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
How many of you had a church where you went and sang this
right? Praise them all creatures here
be though. So all of the sections of the
Psalms, the book one through book 5, they all end with
somewhat of a doxology type of greeting.
And I have them listed here for you.
In Psalm 4113, it says blessed be the Lord the God of Israel
from everlasting to everlasting, Amen and Amen.
That closes book 1. And there are in your notes
again, I won't cover this morning.
You can take it home and read it.
But there are there are things that are exaggerated, if you
will, or reference more in the books, OK.
They focus on some certain themes in book 1234 and five,
OK, And knowing that helps you to navigate through reading
through them. OK Psalm 72 is the ending of the
second book and it says blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous things, Blessed be his glorious name
forever. May the whole earth be filled
with this glory, Amen and Amen. And the prayers of David the son
of GFC are ended. And then Psalm 8952, similar in
nature, it says blessed be the Lord forever, Amen and Amen.
And then before close of Psalm one, O 6 verse 48, this is
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to
everlasting, let all the people say Amen, praise the Lord.
Each of them ends in similar fashion.
And then finally, the Psalms end in Psalm 150, where the psalmist
writes, let everything that hath breath praise the Lord, praise
the Lord. So 5 different books, all of
them with different emphasis. That was the word I was looking
for a little while ago. Emphasis, right?
And in your notes, if you take them home, you can read through
those which are good understanding before you
approach them. Now, I've also listed for you
reasons why the Psalms are so valuable.
They're invaluable. Like they're without, I mean,
they're just the value goes so great for Christians today.
There's so much that we could be encouraged by and strengthened
by in the Psalms. And my hope in the next few
weeks is again, if you're seasoned, believing you read the
Psalm several times, my hope is to increase within you an
appreciation and love for them. But if you're new to
Christianity and you're new to the Bible, then I, I want to
introduce you to them and I want you to start reading them in a
way where you understand how to navigate through them.
What are they, their prayers, their truths?
They are laments. There are there's so many that
are allow you to and you're going to find the ones that are
favorite to you. OK, and I encourage you in that.
Now let me show you something. I want to encourage you to as
you ready yourself to gather truth from the Psalms, grow in
your discipline of using them. I I say read them or listen to
them. And I try to say this often
because nowadays, again, you have so many ways of listening
to scripture. You can go to YouTube, you can
find King James. I teach out of the English
standard version, but the NIV is great.
The Today's Living Bible is great, the Christian standard
Bible with so many great translations to be had.
And you could find them on YouTube or other platforms where
there's music underneath. There's one called Pure Voice
that I love. There's also Kristen Getty is a
songwriter, her and her husband, Keith and Kristen Getty wrote
like in Christ alone and some other really renowned songs.
And there's, she's Irish and there's a version where she's
reading the entire Bible and I found that I really appreciate
her Irish accent when she's reading through scripture,
right. So I utilize that.
But I, I want to encourage you to find either an audio version
or maybe both and find, maybe you want to buy like this right
here. I, I have one that's marked up
and taped up that I've bent and the, the spine is broken on it.
This is a, this is a journal book of Psalms.
And maybe I'll leave this up here so you can see it in the
front of the church when it's done.
So what this is is it is the Psalms.
But look how thick this book is. Some of your Bibles are thinner
than this. This is only the Psalms and it's
really thick paper and it's made-up to where the text is
here on this side. And then this side is blank.
So I have one that I've written a whole bunch of things on this
side. OK.
And what I love about this is because the paper is thick, I
can use highlighters and pens and I can scribble on the words.
It helps me to understand and and remember what I read when I
mark things up. OK, so you could buy this on
Amazon or christianbook.com. It's like 7 bucks and maybe in
the next several weeks or in your years to come, you there
are better versions. Also, there's a Psalter that I
have at home that sometimes I read.
I have several different ways that I read the Psalms.
I read them in my Bible, right? But I also have journals where I
can mark up and make them more memorable to me.
OK, so this again is the ESV and this is called like the journal
Psalms, right? And actually, if you look at my
desk when you leave this one, you can walk in my office if you
want. But in my office, I have the
whole Bible like this, where every book of the Bible and talk
about a library, it's like this long.
So it's Genesis through Revelation, it's this long.
That's how it's a library, not just one book.
And so I could just pull out the book of John.
It's much thinner than this. And it shows me in perspective
how long each book of the Bible is.
OK. So my encouragement to you is
find a plan, whether an audible, there's the Bible app that you
can get that life church from Oklahoma City's put out Craig
Rochelle. That's a great app.
It has like endless versions of the Bible you can listen to or
read on your device or order a journal or take your favorite
Bible. But my exhortation and
encouragement to you is find a way in the next several weeks to
read through the Psalms and just start reading through them.
Next week. I'm going to start in chapter 1
and we'll start there and I'm not going to go through them.
I'll probably zigzag through them, but my hope and my
intention and my prayer is to increase within you and
appreciation and love and a utilization of the Psalms in a
deep and meaningful way in the weeks to come.
Now, as I said, next week we'll get into Psalm 1/4.
I put the start of that in your notes.
So you have that there. And we'll, I'll unpack next week
this idea. Blessed is the man who walks not
and the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way the
sinners nor sits. And this passage, there's a real
progression and I'm going to unpack it for you next week.
It says he's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields
its fruit and its season and its leaf does not wither.
And all he does, he prospers. So let me close with some
application and invitation. My challenge to you is for you
to step up to a commitment to read or listen to the Psalms, to
read or listen. I hope this morning I've
introduced you. You're like, OK, I'm in.
I hope you're in. I hope that you'll leave here.
And this week, tomorrow morning or tomorrow on your way to work
or tomorrow evening before you go to bed, take some of the
Psalms. You'll find you can read through
them or listen to them quite quickly.
Find a version reading or listening.
And then my challenge to you is it maybe order something.
OK, order or go online. There's nothing here in Gaylord
that's like this, but it's super easy to find on Amazon.
Again, order an audio book, subscribe to an audio book,
subscribe to some type of app where you can get the Psalms
before next week. And then I want to close with
this. I want you to invite the Holy
Spirit to meet you in the Psalms When you, when you, when you
open your Bible, whatever, however you're going to read the
Psalms again. It could be one, one book where
it is or it's in your Bible or in your on your iPhone.
You're reading your iPad or you're listening.
However you listen or read it before you do, would you just
pause and say God, Holy Spirit, speak to me?
My mind is open, my heart is open.
God, speak to me through your Word as you open any one of the
Psalms again, start wherever you want.
Google psalms of lament wherever you are.
Maybe you're in a lamenting season where you're in the midst
of sorrow or sadness. Or maybe songs of praise.
You want some exhortations. The ones that are songs of
praise or songs of ascent, those are the ones that start heavy
and they ascend out of it. Or maybe the songs with the
greatest truth, or maybe the psalms that represent Jesus.
Wherever you want to start, start there.
You can zigzag around and use it as a playlist.
The OG playlist, the original 1 put together by God, Me.
Pray for us, God. I'm personally excited for our
church in these weeks to come as we grow in our love and
admiration and appreciation for the book of Psalms.
And I do pray, Holy Spirit, that you'll meet us, meet us in the
book of Psalms as a church family, those of us.
Maybe we'll even walk through them with our our spouse or our
children or friends. Wherever we go with them, God, I
pray that you would strengthen our love for you, grow us in
your ways. Let your word truly become a
light into our path. We're hungry, we're ready and
meet us in the Psalms. We pray in Jesus name and
everyone said Amen. Great, let's all stand together.
Thank you for being here this morning.
And don't don't forget to check out Facebook or the web church
website for all the events coming up in October.
Lots of great events. Looking forward to seeing you
there. And if you didn't get notes for
this morning, I think there's still some back there.
Let us know. I can always e-mail them to you
if you reach out to me at curt@nlifechurch.org.
Before you go, I want to say a blessing over you.
So if you'll prepare your heart to receive this blessing before
you go. And now may the Lord bless you
and keep you, and may he make his face to shine upon you.
And may the joy of the Lord that is unspeakable and full of
glory, may it abound to you. And may the peace of God that
passes all understanding, may it surprise you in the midst of all
of the challenges that life brings.
And then may the mercies of the Lord, in other words, the
forgiveness of God, that's new every morning.
May it be especially new to you and your mornings to come.
And now, may the Lord Jesus Christ guard your heart and your
mind. You are salt and you are light.
Go now and be salt and light into the world.
You are blessed. We'll see you again soon.