North Bible Recap
Walk through the Bible, each week, with clear explanations and practical takeaways.
North Bible Recap
Episode 34: Matthew and Lamentations
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In this episode, Pastor Rodney and Pastor Samson unpack the unique perspective of the Gospel of Matthew—showing how Jesus fulfills prophecy as the promised Messiah—and contrast it with the raw grief of Lamentations, where hope is found even in deep suffering through God’s faithful love. They also highlight how trusting God personally, worshipping corporately, and living missionally through Psalms and Proverbs ultimately point us to a life anchored in wisdom, hope, and a testimony that draws others to Him.
Good day, everyone, and I am so happy that you have joined us for North Bible recap. And thank you, Pastor Sampson, for sitting down with me. Well, excited to be here. It's gonna be good. I'm looking forward to this conversation. We're covering a lot of information today.
SPEAKER_00There we go. Like we do always.
SPEAKER_02It is true. It is true. It is true. And so please, please do this. Please uh let listen to this whole episode. Give us some of your feedback. Um, like the subscription, subscribe, um, love it, uh, send it out to some of the other people. It helps us out. Uh, also it gets it out to other people. We want other people to share um in the hard work that we've put in and the prayers we put in. And I believe it also be a great way for you to be able to partner with others and to be able to learn together around God's word. So today we're looking at this episode, which is number 17 of 2026. Okay. And so we're looking at the book of Matthew. We're gonna have an intro of that, and then the book of Lamentations. Yep. We'll cover five chapters of Lamentations, which is all of them, uh, first three chapters of Matthew, and then also the book of Psalms, uh 62 through 67, and then also Proverbs chapter 9. So why don't you just lead the way, dive into? Let's go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So uh Matthew is the first gospel in our New Testament. Uh now uh this kind of brings up the first question. Uh, and uh coincidentally, I asked this question to my Hermenu's class, the beginning of the semester for our ORU class. Um, and I asked the question, why are there four gospels? Right. And so there's a lot of answers to that. Um, and I think of it this way, right? Sometimes people are like, well, you know, it's four different perspectives, and I think it's absolutely accurate, it's four different perspectives. That's true. But I think of it like this, you know, Pastor Rodney, you've preached on have you probably have preached on almost every passage of the Bible by this point, right? Or pretty close to it. Pretty close.
SPEAKER_02Pretty close.
SPEAKER_00Like uh let and let's say just on your the most popular path, John 3.16, right? You probably preached on that a number of times. Uh like, you know, we wouldn't come to you. I wouldn't come to you and say, well, you know, why are you preaching on that? You know, you know, Stephen, whatever, uh, or you know, Craig this, or somebody else has already preached on this. There's already a sermon on it. Like, why preach on it again? And the truth is, while others may have preached on this, and you probably download a video clip of that, uh, you still have a flock that you are shepherding and that you are discipling. You have a unique audience that you are reaching. And so the biggest reason there are four gospels is because there's not only is there four different perspectives, but there are for Matthew, who we're talking about today, he has a unique audience that he is speaking to that have unique questions that he is trying to answer through his gospel. And so that's the whole point. Uh, and that brings us to what's called uh the synoptic problem, right? And it's kind of like the the chicken and the egg problem. Okay, it's like which gospel came first, right? Was it chicken or the egg? Was it Matthew, Mark, or Luke or John? Which came first? Uh, and there's a whole bunch of ways people kind of split it up. Some people say, well, you know, Mark came first because it's the shortest gospel. Um, the early church fathers uh believe that Matthew came first. Uh, and so early on, that was kind of the belief, and that's kind of why it's number one uh in our New Testament. Um, we don't know exactly which one came first. Uh however, we know that there's three what we call synoptic gospels, right? So there's uh Matthew, Mark, and Luke, those are synoptic gospels, and then John. John is kind of an outlier on his own little island, okay? But Matthew, Mark, and Luke uh all share about 45% uh of the same material, almost word for word, the same stuff. Uh, and then there's obviously variations and differences, uh, that they have their own unique perspective, but they are giving you uh their own take on Jesus' story, and they're speaking to a different audience. And so as we look at Matthew, we're gonna figure out that he's speaking to his own audience and no that that that's so good.
SPEAKER_02Uh I want you to clarify synoptic. What is what is, what makes it you know, I think you kind of said it, but you more define it. But then also, um uh you know, when you talk about the four gospels, uh it's but it's it's kind of like you you said everybody's giving their own perspective. And I mean, just and sometimes we can read it like, well, that story doesn't line up with that story and that gospel. It seems like, well, it'd be kind of like if you had four people that witness a car crash. Okay, and they could be standing right next to other or different places, which they usually are. Every one of them will tell a different perspective. And if you just point it out, it may sound different, but the end is that there was a crash. This is what happened, but each one of them is telling from their perspective how they saw everything go down. Yeah, and they're not in um in they're not against each other, they're actually supportive of each other. It actually you take all each one of those four and you get a bigger picture and a more clear picture, and that's what you have in the gospels, yeah, is you have each one of them give you a different picture from a different lens of a person who sees it, and uh, and it makes for the beauty of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Yeah, and the reason we call it the synoptic gospels is because those three gospels so closely parallel uh each other. They're they're they're very similar in their uh in what they're presenting. Uh, and what it gives you is this idea that the teachings of Jesus was so important to early Christians that they not only did they you know internalized it, they memorized it and they would teach it verbatim uh to other people. So one evidence of we have of that, or some of it, um, is you know, Paul quotes Jesus in you know in his letters, but Paul would have written his letters before Matthew or Luke probably would have written down their gospel. And so what is who is Paul quoting? He's quoting the teachings of Jesus that the early church has preserved through what we call oral transmission. So they are verbally passing around these teachings, and this was the way that they taught. And so uh they are teaching uh these sayings of Jesus. Uh, and what the gospel writers do is that they are coming down, they're sitting down and they're taking all these things of Jesus, and they're giving us the rails, the context to all of those stories. Uh, and so the synoptic gospels run really parallel, they share a lot of the same sayings. Um, and ultimately, when you look at John, we looked at John already at the very beginning of this year. Uh, John is so different in that John is trying to answer a different set of questions by that point. And he's probably the last gospel, right? But let's jump into Matthew, okay?
SPEAKER_02Uh so and and I think that that's important. Most everybody agrees that John is the last one. Yeah, that's not even really really much debate about that. It's just about the other three, which one came first. Yeah. So go go ahead.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So then who is Matthew? Okay. So uh Matthew was obviously one of the 12 disciples. Um, and uh he has obviously a very unique perspective.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he was he was on the spectrum, too, if you don't know that. Yeah, if you watch the chosen, which I actually liked. I mean, I I love the chosen and I really enjoyed it. And I really thought it was neat how they kind of characterized Matthew. Oh, yeah. Was that legit? We don't we don't know that for sure. In fact, maybe not, but but it's still interesting how that uh they did. And obviously, he was really probably a scribe that was taking a lot of information down. That that would probably pretty much know.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Yeah, you know what? As we describe Matthew, you're gonna figure out actually the chosen might be more accurate than what we assume. Yeah, because one, Matthew is a tax collector, and that was like a hated job. Okay. Uh, and then uh he's also seen to be a very detail-oriented person, he knows all of these scriptures, uh, and he is just like spitting them out. And then the in the other gospels, he's referred to as Levi. Uh, and some scholars say the reason he's called Levi is because he was part maybe a Levite. I mean that he is from, you know, like the priestly line, um, which would be crazy to find a Levite who is also a tax collector. Like, that's like, you know, I'm a Cowboys fan. Okay, if I learned that Pastor Rodney was actually an Eagles fan, that would be the ultimate, that's a moral betrayal, okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, I am not an Eagles fan. Let me just give you comfort. Yeah, but I am a New England Patriot fan. I'm willing to let that go. How many Super Bowls Cowboys have? Which is they got a pretty good franchise, but compared to holding it up against you know, don't kick us all over the count, though. Don't kick us all over Cowboys fans.
SPEAKER_00Uh, but uh so it was the ultimate betrayal uh to to be this. And so you you might Matthew might have had some level of social disconnection where he's okay, seems like, uh, being rejected because he was rejected by his people. Um and however, Jesus sees him, and so he provides for us an eyewitness testimony of the events of Jesus' life, and that's partly what why we have Matthew's gospel, is that Matthew is giving you an eyewitness account, and also Matthew's wanting to give a unique perspective about who Jesus is. Um, and so because it seems like Matthew's audience is primarily Jewish, the reason we know that is because all the other gospel, for example, Luke, whenever it talks about something about you know the issues in the temple or whatever, Luke goes out of his way to explain, you know, what this is, why Jewish people did the practices, why they washed their hands. Matthew doesn't explain any of those things. Matthew just assumes that his audience knows Jewish customs and practices. And so, because of that, we we it's easy for us to assume and believe logically that Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience that he believes knows all of these things. Um, and so he's writing and he's trying to show them that Jesus is uh the new and greater version of Moses, and we'll see that kind of play out. In fact, we can actually jump right in if that's okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, let's go.
SPEAKER_00So uh Matthew 1:1, the very first verse, uh, it says this this is the record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, the descendant of David and of Abraham. Now, two pretty important people right off the bat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh one is David and one is Abraham. Uh, and so this shows us who Matthew is really trying to address, right? Uh, because David matters to all to a Jewish people, and Abraham is the father of the Jewish people. And so this is a pretty important thing. And uh in this time period, the Jewish community is waiting for a king, they're waiting for the promised king that has been prophesied. Uh, and so Matthew is helping us see uh and helping his audience see that this is this Jesus is this Messiah, the Jewish king that we've been waiting for. He is from the line of David, and he is of the lineage of Abraham. However, this is really important. Uh, you see that the gospel of Matthew starts with Abraham, right, in the Jewish line, but it ends with all nations. What does Jesus say? I want you to go into all the world and preach the gospel. And so Matthew is going to point us, and he's gonna point his Jewish fellow Jewish believers to the trajectory where Jesus is taking uh the kingdom, and the kingdom is meant to be for everyone, Jews and Gentiles, to the Jew first, but to the Gentiles as well. And so you're seeing this uh play out, uh, and you're seeing the why uh of Matthew's gospel, uh, that he wants to answer the question Is Jesus the promised king? Is he the Messiah that we've been waiting for? Um, and so uh if you look at verse 22, same chapter, chapter one, it says, all of this occurred uh to fulfill the Lord's message through this prophet. And I just want you to clue in on that. Matthew is gonna use this a lot. He's gonna talk about and this fulfills the prophet, and this fulfills the prophet, and this fulfills the prophet. Matthew's constantly gonna quote the prophets, uh, and then he quotes Isaiah right there, and he says, Look, the virgin will conceive a child and she will give birth to a son, and we shall call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us. And this is another major theme of Matthew. Matthew is wanting to point out that God is with us. In fact, that's actually how the Gospel of Matthew ends. Jesus tells his disciples, Lo, I am with you always. I just quoted in the King James.
SPEAKER_02It sounds more anointed.
SPEAKER_00But that is where Matthew is taking us. He's starting with Jewish culture and Jewish faith, and he's expanding the gospel to include Gentiles that everyone is welcome into the kingdom. Uh, and that brings us to chapter two. Yeah. And chapter two is the the nativity, right? Kind of the the story of Jesus' birth. And Matthew is the one who gives us the unique perspective of the king of Israel at this time, uh, which is Herod. Now Herod wasn't really a the king of the Jewish people, but he liked to play that role. Um, kind of what happened is um during a time of political turmoil, Herod kind of takes over, uh, and he's kind of a really good political maneuver person, okay? And so he takes over. Uh, he's actually uh uh from kind of the line of Esau, and so he's not actually a Jewish person by birth, and so Jewish people don't accept him as the king. However, he knows how to make the Jewish people happy, and so he decides to build the temple or really add on to the temple that's what was there and really make it nice, and he knows how to make the Roman people happy, so the Romans are fine leaving him as a ruler, and so uh this Herod is really loving the idea of him being the Messiah, the chosen king uh of the Jewish people, even though Jewish people don't believe that. Uh and you're seeing the beginning of the story of Herod really challenging Jesus as this new king. And you see two things. One, you see once again that universality of the gospel. The gospel is not just meant for Jewish people, it's meant for everyone. So that's why you see wise men coming from the east. Uh, they're coming to worship or celebrate the newborn king. But then two, you're seeing a parallel to Moses. Now, Pastor Rodney, are you watching the playoffs right now?
SPEAKER_02You know what? Actually, I had I have not. Even like last night there was a game, and um for time's sake that uh the Thunder swept the um the series with uh the Phoenix Suns. And uh, but I did not watch it. I realized I needed to get some uh sleep, and um but I was but I would check my uh uh box score as I was studying, I was studying and reading, and I would check. So I'm following it, but I just haven't been set in front of the TV as much as I would like to, actually, because I really enjoy watching the Thunder.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I was watching the end of the game last night, and um I was noticing something, and I've been noticing this for a little bit, is all of the SGA and Michael Jordan comparisons. Yeah, there's regular, and they pulled up a stat, and sports stats are funny like this, or like, you know, this is they're counting the number of first round sweeps that a player has, and they're seeing which teams, and you know, of course, Michael Jordan and the Bulls, you know, they're up there with the number of first round sweeps or whatever. But the reason I bring that up is because in Jewish culture, Moses is like the Michael Jordan, right? He he is the the the greatest of all time, and Jesus being compared to Michael Jordan, you know, to Jewish people can that seems a little offensive, right? Yeah, but Matthew is not only comparing Jesus to Michael Jordan, okay? Matthew is saying, no, no, no, he's actually even greater than Michael. And so this is why this idea, this concept of Jesus as this, you know, like Moses, but greater than Moses, is such a big deal because Jesus is doing things that better than Moses would do, right? Moses has the five first five books, Jesus for five major teachings uh in Matthew. Um, Moses uh has um you know miracles where he feeds, you know, with manna. Jesus feeds the five thousand. So you're seeing these parallels right away, but you have to imagine for Matthew's audience, this is like you know, oof, okay, I'm I'm I'm trying here, Matthew. Right? Uh and that brings us to Matthew chapter three, which is where you see why Jesus is so different than Moses. Um in Matthew chapter three, uh, it says, after his baptism, Jesus baptized by John, uh, as he came up out of the water, verse 16, the heavens opened up, and he saw the Spirit of God descending, uh like a dove settling on him, on Jesus, and a voice from heaven saying, This is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy. And this is Matthew giving us the Trinity. Right? Who is Jesus? This is why Jesus is so special, like he's greater than Moses in every way, because he is God with us, and you see the the manifestation of the Trinity, heaven kissing earth, as you talked about a few weeks ago. This is that moment where the Holy Spirit comes, the Father speaks, and Jesus is coming up out of the water. And you see this beautiful moment where heaven kisses earth, and we're celebrating the dearly beloved son. This is not just a messenger, a prophet like Moses. This is God Himself, God's own Son coming to the world.
SPEAKER_02And everything according to Scripture is confirmed by two witnesses. Come on. And so it's interesting, Jesus speaks to who he is, yeah, but it is validated by God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Love it. Great, great start here. Come on. Okay. Well, let's let's let's um go into the old testament now. Let's look at Lamentations.
SPEAKER_00Lamentations. Uh Lamentations is a very happy book.
SPEAKER_02You know, it is it it is an amazing book. Um I don't want to steal some of your stuff because I don't know if you have this in your notes, but um but throughout the Bible, tons of lamentations. Yeah, it's that crying out to God, it's that weeping, it's the desperate plea for help or response for an answer that you find throughout the Psalms. Numbers of Psalms are laments, poems of lament. Uh the book of Job, most well, as a as a whole book, it pretty much is a lament. Um, but that really, you know, there's parts of it that are very much um lamenting. Um Habakkuk is lamenting. Um throughout the scripture, lots of and then you know, Jesus would be lamenting on the cross and in the garden. And so here's the here's the thing we live in a world that always wants to just have the good, feel good, the thrills and the stuff, but life does not afford us that. Life has a lot of pain, heartache, and disappointment. If you have not experienced it yet, you will. You will. And you say, You're supposed to be encouraging, but I am encouraging, yeah. You're gonna experience it. The question is, are you gonna do it without God or not? And if you do it with God, then um it's gonna be great. And God's gonna get you through. That doesn't mean everything's gonna be easy, hunk of dory, but it's it's it means that you will get through this. And we're looking forward to a day where there will not be any more tear tears, and that's in heaven. Right now, we're gonna experience the pain and the suffering of this world. So there you go ahead, you take over.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So uh lamentations gives us a unique look into people or into the suffering of God's people. So just to kind of give you the setting of where lamentations would occur, right? Where this book would occur, um, you have to kind of understand the line of kings. So after um, you know, the King David, right? And that during King David's time is when the what I'd call it the time the United Kingdom, right? The the kingdom is consolidated under David. Everyone, all the tribes are following one king. Uh, and then you see Solomon is his successor, and this is kind of the glorious kingdom, uh, where the kingdom is kind of in its golden, golden ages, right? And Israel is as big as it's ever, ever going to be, it's as powerful as it's ever gonna be, and it is blessed uh in all sorts of ways. And then after Solomon's death, uh there the kingdom is divided. Uh, and so Rehoboam, Jeroboam, uh, two, they're not brothers, but they're two, you know, two divided kings. Uh, one takes the northern kingdom, the other one takes the southern kingdom, uh, and the kingdom is divided. And from that point, the the two kingdoms of Israel kind of go in two different trajectories. Their northern kingdom is called the kingdom of Israel, the southern kingdom takes on the name of the biggest tribe of its kingdom, which is Judah. And so Judah is the southern kingdom. Um, and so the northern kingdom falls to the nation of Assyria in 722 BC, uh, and then the southern kingdom falls after. That uh to the nation of Babylon in 587 BC. At this point, at that fall, and that is utter destruction. Like God's there's no longer God's people in God's land anymore. Um and so Lamentations comes after the fall of the Southern Kingdom and its capital city, Jerusalem. And it is a deeply difficult time. And most likely, um, Jeremiah is the writer of Lamentation, or that's what Jewish people believe. Um, and so Jewish tradition leans towards Jeremiah as a writer, and I think that makes a lot of sense. Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet. Um, and he he was the prophet who was there during all of this time. During the time of kings, God would send prophets to prophesy and to call the children of Israel back into repentance, and they never listened. And then Jeremiah is the final prophet who endures the suffering with the fall uh of Jerusalem. Um, and so he is there for all of it. So that is the setting of lamentations.
SPEAKER_02That's good. Now, and you mentioned Jeremiah, but again, there is no author attached to this book. Um, and and a lot of the books of the Bible, that may be the case. Um, some of them it's very clear that we know that this person said, I wrote this, or this, you know, but then you have um in this situation there's not. But again, what you have the Jewish people, my goodness, if you they've got their genealogy, genealogy, genealogy, genealogy, all the way down for generation upon generation, and knowing it is pretty phenomenal. Yeah, and for them to be able to stake it upon this is this person, yeah, and this is going to back centuries, yeah, many centuries, millennia, yeah, uh, that they are pointing to Jeremiah's artist. And we got to lean in and say, Jeremiah. And then also it just fits his script. Absolutely. Um, as you said, the weeping prophet, yeah, and how he would have responded if and this time frame, he was right, he should have been alive during this time frame. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And so Jeremiah chapter one uh starts with the destruction of Jerusalem, right? It says verse one, chapter one says, Jerusalem, once so full of people, now deserted. She who once was once great among the nation, now sits alone like a widow, once the queen of all the earth, now she is a slave. Uh, and then I'm gonna skip down. It says, verse three, Judah has been led away into captivity, oppressed with cruel slavery. She lives among foreign nations and has no place of rest. Her enemies have chased her down, and she has nowhere to turn. And so Jeremiah, the author, is describing the fall of Jerusalem and its utter defeat. Um, chapters one and two really kind of lean in on this. Chapter one kind of focuses on the destruction of Jerusalem, and chapter two paints the picture of God as the enemy of Israel. Um, and this is you know, this is really hard to hear and read at times because we we love God, right? And we love to think of this loving God who's benevolent and always kind. But here's a you know, pretty upset, emotional Jeremiah presenting God um and as the enemy of Israel. Um Pastor, I remember many years ago, um, I hope was uh my wife uh was uh helping a couple of friends at the same time go through some really hard situations in their life. Um and she said something that really stuck with me. She had one friend who was a believer, um, and then another friend who wasn't a believer, both going through, you know, some very significant tragedies in their life. Um the one that was a believer really had a hard time and she was angry with God. The other one, you know, really didn't talk about God much. And she asked her, because she was, you know, wanting to come to church and all that kind of stuff. She asked her, he said, Hey, you know, are you are you upset with God at all and all this? And the one who wasn't a believer was like, No, I really haven't thought much about God in this. You know, I don't really I don't really feel like you know he did anything wrong. I don't feel any sort of way about him. And then it kind of hit her, and she said something so profound to me. She said, sometimes we look at the person that's angry at God and we're like, why are they angry at God? The reality, the reason they're angry is God because they believe deeply in God. Because they believe that God exists and they believe in the goodness of God. And so when you endure pain, it challenges you to ask deep questions about God. It's it's okay as a believer to be upset at times with God, because it shows the reality that you believe in the reality of God. I'm sure you've seen that play out.
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely. You know, in in the text, not only here, but then not but um also different parts, it says that God is slow to anger. But that means God will get angry, but He He is always wanting us to repent before He has to intervene in a situation. I had one of my mentors, you've heard me talk about before Armin Newbrin, uh, but he used to say to a young minister that's going through a difficult time, made some wrong choices, like they made wrong choices, and he's trying to help them navigate back onto the right road and make some right choices. He would say, put their arm around them, his arm around them, he would say, I will be your best friend if you let me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I think that's what God does to us too. He says, I'll I'll be your best friend if you let me. But what Brother Newman's also saying, he said, but if you choose to continue to do this, I'll also kick you in the backside and straighten out, you know. He will, if you push him, he will have to do what's the right thing. And that's a just thing. And a God who is just and righteous is going to be our best friend. Yeah. But he will also at some point let that you know that that leash go so far, and then there's gonna be a yanking, yeah, and there's gonna be a pulling, and it's no fault of God's. Yeah, it's only the fault of us. That's what has Israel here is that God is allowing his judgment to come um through warring enemies. Yeah, God didn't want that, but God really will allow pain and suffering in our life and great struggle if it will get our attention back to him. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we all love justice until it happens to us. Um and then that brings us to chapter three, and this is the the golden moment, the center of uh lamentation. I'll let you read it, Pastor Rodney, uh uh verse 19 through 27.
SPEAKER_02Okay. The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this. The faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness. Amen. His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, the Lord is my inheritance, therefore I will hope in him. The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. And it is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of his discipline.
SPEAKER_00And so there you see Jeremiah is offering us hope in the middle of pain, and hope is really at the center of this book. Uh you know what's interesting about Lamentations is in Lamentations actually written as a series of acrostics. And so every verse, um for chapter one, two, and four, every verse starts with a letter of the Jewish alphabet. There's 22 letters, so every verse starts with a letter, and then chapter three is actually a little bit more complex, is it's in three sets of verses, each letter of each line starts with the same letter, or each word starts with the same letter, and it does that. So verses one through three uh starts with the same alphabet letter, right? And so you're seeing this really complex poetry expressing this very raw pain. And in the middle of it, they find Jeremiah describes hope in waiting for Yahweh. And it reminds me that you know, sometimes, you know, whenever I'm going through pain, there's always this desire inside of me to somehow escape by you know doing the things that are like self-medicating, you know, you sit in front of a TV for hours and you're just trying to blank and not think about anything, or you're just staring off, you know, looking at you know, YouTube or whatever is on your phone. You're just trying to, you're just trying to like get by, but there is something healthy in expressing your raw emotions to God in structured and ordered ways.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So a great example that I thought of was, you know, uh many years ago, a friend of mine, Jeannie, had lost her husband, Steve, uh passed away to cancer, and Jeannie was trying to figure out how to go through this pain. You know, that she she didn't know how to go through this in the right way. And so she started and actually became part of a grief share group at our church. And she became part of it, she did it the first year, she's part of it. And the next year, she actually ended up leading the group. And she would, she would help other people go through the same suffering. And she would have all the same raw feelings, all the same raw hardship. Uh, we still have that grief share group as a part of our church to this day, but it reminds me that there is a way that we can go through suffering where we can be absolutely raw to God, but at the same time choose structure in order to express it. And they're not mutually exclusive, right? We need both of that. So for that, for my friends who are going through suffering, I would say don't stay away from church, don't stay away from healthy, you know, small groups in your life. No, lean in towards it. That kind of structure, that kind of order helps us. Those are the places you can express those raw emotions to God.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02I like it. Um hope. There's always hope with God. And that our hope should fuel hope for others.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Come on. And ultimately, lamentation ends with a prayer.
SPEAKER_02Uh Jeremiah prays for the and also let me just say this: it doesn't end the way I I would want it to end. Yeah. Let me just say that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I'll let you explain that because I think that so many of us want the ending to be clean, sweet, nice, and uh feel good. And kind of like the, you know, we grew up here in movies. It's like you got the start of this thing, this movie, or story life and pain, suffering. We all can, but then there's live happily ever after. And it doesn't quite end this way.
SPEAKER_00It doesn't. The last four verses go like this but Lord, you remain the same forever. Your throne continues from generation to generation. Why do you continue to forget us? Why have you abandoned us abandoned us for so long? Restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again. Give us back the joys we once had, or have you utterly rejected us? And the last line, are you are you angry with us still? And so, yeah, it doesn't really end on a happy note. It ends on this question, are you still angry with us? And you know, I think especially when I read books like this in the Bible, where it just doesn't have that peaceful ending that you think it should. It's a reminder to me that it's pointing us towards Jesus. Jesus is that answer to the question, are you still angry with us, God? And then when you go to the cross, you realize God has poured out all his wrath, all his anger upon himself on the cross. And so now we could say, No, he's not angry with us anymore because Jesus has taken that suffering.
SPEAKER_02Love it. Great, great, great. Okay, there we go. We got Matthew, we got um the whole book of lamentations.
SPEAKER_00There you go.
SPEAKER_02All right. I remember a few years ago, just before we move on into the uh um Psalms, is I have a group of uh residents that we have that go through young people. And I remember asking them, what is a topic that you think I need to preach on? This was several years ago, probably eight years ago. And they said, um morning, weeping, suffering. I was like, I was actually kind of surprised that a group of young 20-somethings would want to hear me preaching. You don't think they've experienced enough life then?
SPEAKER_00Were you already sad?
SPEAKER_02We want to know about this thing we've never experienced. Um but no, it was really um uh refreshing for me to hear. Yeah, and then I did a series from the Book of Lamentations back then. That was several years ago because of their interest. Okay, yeah. So all right, so let's let's dive into Psalms 62 through 67. Um, interesting to note 62, 63, 64, 65 were written by King David. Okay. Uh 66, 67, it does not have an author tied to it. Very well could have been David. Obviously, as we've said before many times, it it was definitely influenced by him. Okay, so it's key to know this is very um much a theme throughout the Psalms, but the Psalms here move from at the start of 62 from personal trust in God to learning what it means to corporately worship God, yeah, to ultimately go into the nations with God. Okay, and that should be the theme of our life, too. Is it the personal, corporate, personal worship of God and devotion and trust in God that naturally inclines for us to be involved with a other believers that share the same desires and wants, and then we share in a corporate fellowship together. Yeah, that's called the church. Yeah, you know, come on. That's the church. Then that church, the synergy of that group of people, the ruach that's in them, the desire to be light and darkness goes out to the nations. Yeah, and so that's what you have here. And I'm and I'm not gonna have time to go through all of these, but let's look at chapter 62, just to start off. Kind of the theme for this is God alone is our rock. Again, David is writing this, it's about undivided trust in God. And even talking about the lamentations we just came out of, it really it's it's a test of our of our hope. Yeah, where are we gonna put our trust? Are we gonna put our trust in God or in things going good?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, so verse number one, he opens up just by saying, Truly, my soul finds rest in God. My salvation comes from Him. Period. That's it. Come on. Just that alone, if you just lay hold of that, it it will it will be your source of hope, strength in the darkest of nights, come on, in the valley of the shadow of death. Yeah, and throughout this, he continues to re-emphasize uh the theme God alone is repeated multiple times. Okay, and he would really lean upon David as contrasting God as a rock, as a salvation, as fortress. Um, and he's he even contrast the people that are wealthy and seem to have it all together in the power as unreliable and temporary. Yeah, and so really he emphasizes almost in this chapter be silent before God, posture your heart and allow there to be a deep trust. And that's not passive, yeah. It's a very active thing that he's talking about here. It's letting God work deep inside of you. And he reminds us that it's not a partial thing to trust God, it is a complete thing. Because if you give just partial, do you do you really trust that? If you just give a little bit there, but you're like you're really holding some back. And he's reminding that we've got to give everything to him. And the application is simply what are our functional saviors in our life? What are we leaning into? What are we what's the anchor of our identity? Uh, is it in security? Him alone. Yeah. Okay. So 63 is really a thirst for God. I love this. Um, verse number 63 and verse number one. Do you have it there? I do, yeah. Go ahead and read that first.
SPEAKER_00So see through verse one says, Oh God, you are my God. I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you, my whole body longs for you in this parch and weary land where there is no water.
SPEAKER_02Isn't that beautiful? Come on, it's beautiful. And it really speaks to this aching of our soul, this hunger of deep inside that we're crying out for him in a wilderness in times of desperation, that he's the only one that can really quench the longing, the thirst. Of course, Jesus would show up and he would say things like, Drink of this well, and you'll thirst again. Drink of the waters that I will give you, and you will never thirst again. Eat of me, and you'll never hunger again. Those are stuff that we got through my chapter 64 is really God defends the righteous. And just let me just stop there. Just really um rest in God to be your defender.
SPEAKER_01Come on.
SPEAKER_02Rest in Him. You don't have to fight back. Um there's very few times ever that we have to defend our name. God can do it, God can take care of you, God can protect you. So chapter 65 is he emphasizes God, the provider, now that he provides for everything in our life and all that we have need of. And um 66 is come and see, um, come and hear is kind of the emphasis. It's like uh verse number five of 66 is come and see what the Lord has done. Come and hear, let me tell you what he has done for me. And I think this is so important. I think that's what is it like church, come and see what God's doing. Yeah, you're you're telling people, come and experience. We I just you know finished a podcast with Pastor Clint on the prison ministry of what God's doing. Yeah, what God's doing in Solomon Porch with the homeless people in our church, what God is doing each week with baptisms in our church, God's healing marriages, he's delivering people. Come and see what God is doing. And your life is a testimony, should be a testimony of God that you just tell people like I have had trusted Him with my life. There's been a transformation, and I want publicly to share that with others.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm a witness of God's goodness and grace.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_02And uh chapter 67 is really a mission to the nations. Okay. Um go ahead and read verse number seven, if you 67, verse number seven, if you can.
SPEAKER_00It says, Yes, God will bless us, and people all over the world will fear him.
SPEAKER_02You know, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier about um even Abraham and then Moses and moving on. But Abraham was get the promise that your seed will be like the sand on the seashore, like the stars in the sky, like what he only had one kid. Yeah, I mean, well, he had two children. Not the plan that God had, but but Isaac came, but one, but he was speaking to this is more than even just the children of Israel. Yeah, this is more than just the twelve sons of um of uh Jacob, yeah, and how that and they would spread. No, no, this is about what would come through Christ into the ends of the world, that all people will hear this news and all people will come to Christ. That's right.
SPEAKER_00Come on.
SPEAKER_02It's a blessing. Uh the blessing of God is missional, it is a command of us, and God's heart is always for the nations. That's right. It always has been because that's his sons and daughters. Yeah, I was talking to somebody this past week that had a um newborn. There was their second child, and I just said, Hey, do you love this one as much as you love the other one? That's a ridiculous question for um to be able to ask, but I do that sometimes just to kind of see the response. And she just looked up at me, big eyes, she says, I know. I love this one so much. And then you're just like, How can I love the next one as much as I love this one? Yeah, and then all of a sudden they have two, and they realize I love this one everyone as much as I love the other one. Absolutely. How does that happen? It's that's what God thinks of us. He loves all of us equally, yeah, as much. Yeah, He doesn't compare. Pair. He doesn't know, oh, this one's smarter, this one's that. I love this one more. This one has better features than that one. This one has, you know, walked faster than this one. And so I love this person more, or this one's accomplished more. That's not how God looks. He looks at the nations and says, They're all mine. They're all mine. They're my children. And I want my children to know of my love, my goodness, my mercy, my compassion, my salvation, and that I want to spend eternity with them.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Amen. That's good.
SPEAKER_02So here's a teaching summary of the what we just kind of covered. We covered a lot. Okay, so um, and this is just in the Psalms part. When we fully trust God, deeply desire Him, we and recognize His provision and justice, our lives become testimonies that draw the nations to worship Him. Amen. Amen. Okay, and I think that we have a proverb, right?
SPEAKER_00There we go. Proverbs nine.
SPEAKER_02Proverbs, and then Proverbs is dealing with wisdom as it usually is. And I just want to give uh one. This goes back to my writing. I typically for the Psalms pull out some I've written, and you're welcome to speak into this if you want. Um, but go ahead and read verse Proverbs chapter nine and verse eight.
SPEAKER_00Verse eight. So don't bother correcting mockers, they will only hate you, but correct the wise and they will love you.
SPEAKER_02Come on. So I wrote this in my response, my daily devotions. Every day I've been doing this now for many years. But in fact, I've written almost, I mean, I can't tell you how many verses, but it's a lot over many years. So I'm covering a lot of the Bible now. But Proverbs chapter 9 and verse number eight is the one I picked for this day. This was in October the 1st, 2020.
SPEAKER_01There you go.
SPEAKER_02About six years ago almost. Desire wisdom is the title off of the verse you just read. Nothing more practically and powerfully impacts our lives than wisdom. The appropriate judgment, insight, and discernment at the right time and in the most fitting way is more valuable than all the world's gold. Ask for wisdom, pursue wisdom, and seek wisdom's correction.
SPEAKER_00Come on.
SPEAKER_02That's it. That's good. Any final thoughts? No, that was good. Okay.
SPEAKER_00That's great.
SPEAKER_02All right. Hey, keep reading with us. Each week we preach from what we're reading, right? Every single week. And not just in the auditorium uh where the big big kids are, but also in our North Students. We are preaching right along with whatever we are reading. I hope that you're reading with us. Let us know what you think. Give us some feedback. We'd love to hear from you. And please share this with somebody and let's talk about it together. We'll look forward to seeing you next time on North Bible Reading.