SPEAKER_00: That we're members of one another.
SPEAKER_00: And what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: That we're interdependent.
SPEAKER_00: We're not independent.
SPEAKER_00: On our own, we're essentially worthless, a hand laying on its own.
SPEAKER_00: But in the body, we're interconnected.
SPEAKER_00: We need one another.
SPEAKER_00: We're members of one another.
SPEAKER_00: We're also the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We're also the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: We are the temple of God.
SPEAKER_00: And that we talked about as the church, this is what God has ordained.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many times I've been in church.
SPEAKER_00: I've probably even said it.
SPEAKER_00: Where I said, Well, I don't feel like this is my family.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like I'm a member here.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like, you know, this is the temple of God.
SPEAKER_00: It we don't get to decide.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has ordained it.
SPEAKER_00: He has declared it.
SPEAKER_00: He says, as my body, you are the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: You are members of one another.
SPEAKER_00: So it's us aligning to what God has established as the church.
SPEAKER_00: We are the church.
SPEAKER_00: If we're calling this church home, we are family of one another.
SPEAKER_00: We're members of one another.
SPEAKER_00: We're the bride together.
SPEAKER_00: We're the temple who hosts his presence.
SPEAKER_00: We also talked about as a church, we are, what was our three things?
SPEAKER_00: The church.
SPEAKER_00: We're going for 2026.
SPEAKER_00: Passionate worshipers.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the second one.
SPEAKER_00: Becoming like Jesus, living on mission.
SPEAKER_00: Passionate worshipers becoming like Jesus, living on mission.
SPEAKER_00: And just talked about why we had a vision Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of times, especially if we've been in church for a long time, we kind of slowly forget why we're coming, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Or we all come for all kinds of different reasons, but it's just reorienting us to why we are gathering as the people of God, that we're the church as the people of God, and we're gathering to become passion worshipers, becoming like Jesus, living on mission.
SPEAKER_00: This week we're going to start a new series in the book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: I'm calling it a treasury of devotion and just seven weeks through Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is that we grow in our devotion and experience of God together.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know, but Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk before he became this legendary Protestant reformer.
SPEAKER_00: And as an Augustinian monk, he had committed his life to live in a cell, to know God, to be with God, to wrestle with God in poverty, committed his life to poverty.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people think that the seedbed of the Reformation was the book of Romans because he talked about it so much later in life.
SPEAKER_00: But really, it was Lutheran scholars will tell you the two years leading up to the Reformation, he was studying one book in particular.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone guess what a book he was studying, teaching?
SPEAKER_00: He was teaching the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: The Psalms, which is why Lutheran scholars call the Psalms the seedbed of the Reformation.
SPEAKER_00: Because the two years he was studying, he was teaching the book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Why did the Psalms so radically transform Martin Luther's life, where he became the man who was convinced that he was in need of the grace of God?
SPEAKER_00: As he went into the monastery, you know, he believed that God was very, very tough, very difficult, watching every move he made.
SPEAKER_00: He had to commit 20 hours a day to prayer and fasting and be very diligent because God is very, very tough, very difficult.
SPEAKER_00: He's weighing his merits.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther struggled with this, trying to outweigh his good, outweigh the bad with his good, get to present God great merit.
SPEAKER_00: As reading through the Psalms, he saw a totally different expression than what he was experiencing personally.
SPEAKER_00: He saw people dependent on God, desperate on God, begging for his mercy in a place of weakness.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have merit to bring, they had nothing to bring, they only had a begging plea for the mercy of God, which is where he began thinking we're only saved by grace alone, in faith alone, through Christ alone.
SPEAKER_00: The seed beds of the Reformation really became through his own personal devotion as he was reading, wrestling through Psalms, which is why he later called the Psalms the Little Bible, the little Bible, because he said it contained a perfect, condensed summary of everything a Christian needs to know about the gospel, the work of Christ, and the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: So that is our hope today that the Psalms through the next seven weeks will just be a place where we grow in our personal devotion, like it was transformative in Martin Luther's life, that it could be transformative in our own life.
SPEAKER_00: With that, I will pray and we won't get started.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord Jesus, we do just thank you, God, for your book of hymns, the book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for Lord, just the ancient wisdom in these books, these letters, Lord, is pray that you speak to us, be present to us today.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, just that you would grow us in our own devotion, individually, corporately, as a family.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Psalms, I don't know, it's the longest book in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the technology, I it, you know, we just overdone it.
SPEAKER_00: But Psalms is the longest book in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: As most of you know, it's 150 chapters.
SPEAKER_00: It has the longest chapter in the Bible, which is 119.
SPEAKER_00: It also has the shortest chapter in the Bible, which is 117.
SPEAKER_00: 117 has two verses.
SPEAKER_00: 117 is also the middle of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The middle of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It was a British guy in Paris who was writing a commentary, and he said in his commentary, he thought it'd be easier if the Bible was numerically divided.
SPEAKER_00: So he added chapters so that people could read his commentary more easily.
SPEAKER_00: They can know what section of what book he was referencing.
SPEAKER_00: That was in the 1200s.
SPEAKER_00: Then in the 1500s, a printer was forming a concordance.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever used a concordance, it would be very hard to use a concordance if you just have vague chapters.
SPEAKER_00: So he added all the verses, whether it's intentional or not.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 117 is now the center of the Bible where it says, Praise the Lord, all nations, extol him, all peoples.
SPEAKER_00: The Psalms was written over a thousand-year period.
SPEAKER_00: And from beginning with anybody know the first Psalm?
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 90 was Moses, the man of God.
SPEAKER_00: Continued on through David, the sons of Korah, the temple worship.
SPEAKER_00: It also continued in exile.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 137, by the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept.
SPEAKER_00: And it continued beyond the exile when they returned to Jerusalem, Ezra, Nehemiah, Psalm 126, when the Lord restored past tense the fortunes of Zion.
SPEAKER_00: Most people think the last five Psalms, the hallelujah Psalms, were also written post-exile.
SPEAKER_00: So the Psalms cover the breadth of Israel's history from Moses passed through through the returning to the land.
SPEAKER_00: 116 of the 115 Psalms carry a superscription.
SPEAKER_00: In Christian Bibles, we largely ignore it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're like me.
SPEAKER_00: We just script this, skip the superscription, go to verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: In Hebrew Bibles, verse 1 is actually the superscription.
SPEAKER_00: They read the superscription because they think it's important to know who wrote it, what was the occasion, and they actually consider that the editors were also inspired in what they wrote.
SPEAKER_00: So consider reading the superscription.
SPEAKER_00: Fifty-five of those superscriptions are dedicated to the director of music.
SPEAKER_00: Several more were written for specific parts of the temple worship service.
SPEAKER_00: Twenty-four are connected with temple musicians like the sons of Korah.
SPEAKER_00: And the point is the psalms reflect the prayer and the praise of ancient Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They are prayers and songs.
SPEAKER_00: The word psalm comes from the Greek word psalmos, which is a translation of the Hebrew word means more, and both words mean a psalm accompanied by music, particularly a harp.
SPEAKER_00: So the psalms were the hymnal of ancient Israel, starting from Moses all the way to returning back to the land prior to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And they the the psalm book, the hymn book that they used in their temple worship.
SPEAKER_00: The psalms are divided into five different books.
SPEAKER_00: There are five books of Psalms, and how do we know that?
SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of each book, there's a type of doxology.
SPEAKER_00: It's very similar in each one.
SPEAKER_00: And it's evident that the book is coming to a close and a new one is beginning.
SPEAKER_00: And all of our translation, it tells you book one, and it starts with book two and it continues, book three, book four, book five.
SPEAKER_00: In Jewish traditions, these five books parallel the five books of Moses: Jewish, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_00: The five books of Moses formed the core of the Torah or the teaching or instruction of God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jewish thought everything else became a commentary on the on the law, which would be the writings and the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Their point in that, in their thought, the psalms are revealing the human response to the complete Torah.
SPEAKER_00: The human response to the complete Torah put in five different books.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout the years, Christian theologians have called the Psalms the school of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The school of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: There's a story of a boy.
SPEAKER_00: We're all learning to pray, right?
SPEAKER_00: And there's a story of a boy, young boy, with his with his parents sitting at a table, his grandparents, and his parents try to encourage him to pray.
SPEAKER_00: He prays, okay, thank you, God, for dad.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God, for mom.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God for grandma.
SPEAKER_00: And God, I really need a bike.
SPEAKER_00: And he screams it out.
SPEAKER_00: I need to really need a bike.
SPEAKER_00: To the mom's like, jumps up, like, well, okay.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God can hear you.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to scream.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, he's not deaf.
SPEAKER_00: And his boy's response was, Well, well, I know, but grandma's deaf.
SPEAKER_00: You know.
SPEAKER_00: And the point is, like, we're all learning to pray in different ways.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're praying the wrong things to the wrong people, but we all pray.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I've loved about men's groups is at the end of every group, I have everybody pray.
SPEAKER_00: And I've had guys that are just full on atheists say, I don't believe any of this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, I don't know what I believe.
SPEAKER_00: And you don't know how many times people tell me, man, I have never prayed out loud before.
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, Great, now's your first time, you know, and like, or I'm not good at prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I'm very uncomfortable in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And it kind of reflects the question: well, how do we learn to pray?
SPEAKER_00: How do we learn to pray?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's very uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, okay, I'm supposed to pray for these people around me.
SPEAKER_00: I've never prayed.
SPEAKER_00: How do we learn to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Or many theologians through history have called the Psalms the School of Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the Psalter the Great School of Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The great school of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: His commentary on the Psalms, he wrote, If we were dependent entirely on ourselves, we would probably only pray the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer, which is what?
SPEAKER_00: Give us this day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_00: And he's right.
SPEAKER_00: When we are dependent on ourselves, that's all we pray.
SPEAKER_00: God, I need this, I need this.
SPEAKER_00: He continues, but God wants it otherwise.
SPEAKER_00: The richness of the word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.
SPEAKER_00: And his point is that in the Psalms, this great school of prayer, we can learn the breadth of praying, not just praying, Lord, give us this day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_00: Eugene Peterson calls the Psalms God's gift to train us in prayer that is comprehensive and honest.
SPEAKER_00: So Psalms as the school of prayer, there's three ways I think the Psalms become our tutor in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: First is in the Psalms we can know the heart of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We can know the heart of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There's at least three Psalms that Jesus directly directly references and identify himself with those psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Famous when he's coming down the Mount of Olives, Passover Sunday, he blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And he later says, The stone the builder is rejected became its cornerstone.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 118.
SPEAKER_00: He's identifying himself with Psalm 118 on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: He cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 22.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 31.
SPEAKER_00: Many theologians, including Luther and others, think that the Psalms express and demonstrate the heart of Christ beyond just these three.
SPEAKER_00: For example, Psalm 69.
SPEAKER_00: Those who hate me without reason number the hairs of my head.
SPEAKER_00: Many are my enemies without cause.
SPEAKER_00: Those who seek to destroy me, I am forced to restore what I did not steal.
SPEAKER_00: It continues on.
SPEAKER_00: The point is that these psalms are revealing the heart of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Many of the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Simultaneously, Christ's words and the prayers of believers who participate in Christ's experience through them.
SPEAKER_00: In heaven, he ever lives to pray.
SPEAKER_00: So in the Psalms, we see the mind of Christ, the heart of Christ, the prayer of Christ, the the unction of Christ, of his praying, Christ our life, the ever-interceding, we learn the heart of Jesus as through these Psalms as a school of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, in the Psalms, we can discover God and ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We can discover God and ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: John Calvin and his institutes, famous institutes.
SPEAKER_00: Does anyone remember how it begets?
SPEAKER_00: Nearly, it's one of his famous, most famous statements.
SPEAKER_00: Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts.
SPEAKER_00: The knowledge of God and of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Accordingly, the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find Him.
SPEAKER_00: He was fully convinced that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are mutually reinforcing rather than sequential or independent.
SPEAKER_00: They go together.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we're learning how God sees us.
SPEAKER_00: We're learning the truth about ourselves, about God.
SPEAKER_00: And it's mutually reinforcing as we grow in the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: We learn about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We currently live in an era where we are all told to discover ourselves, be real to ourselves, to know and to celebrate ourselves, which is really just a way to say we define ourselves by whatever we feel.
SPEAKER_00: If we want to be a dinosaur, we can be a dinosaur.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever we feel, we can define ourselves, which is not at all what Calvin is getting at.
SPEAKER_00: Calvin is getting at that God is has is the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And he defines the truth of who we are, who he is.
SPEAKER_00: And we can know the truth of who we are, who he is, and it mutually is reinforcing.
SPEAKER_00: He calls the Psalms as a result of that anatomy of all the parts of the soul.
SPEAKER_00: There is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here in the Psalms represented as in a mirror.
SPEAKER_00: Contains the full spectrum of human experience before God.
SPEAKER_00: So with for Calvin in the Psalms, we're discovering God and ourselves, not in a self-discovery of who I can be, but in the discovery of who God has said I am, our need for God, our desperation for God, our dependency on God.
SPEAKER_00: We're growing in the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms as the school of prayer, an anatomy of all the parts of the human soul.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, Psalms is a school of prayer and our communion with God.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is communion with God.
SPEAKER_00: We get the word communion from 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And is not the bread that we break a participation in the blood body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That word that we're translating, participation is koinonia.
SPEAKER_00: In Latin, it's which we transliterate to communion.
SPEAKER_00: But if you remember, maybe the second or third week I was here, we talked about coinania, which is fellowship or partnership or sharing of life and resources.
SPEAKER_00: Sharing of life and resources.
SPEAKER_00: So prayer is our communion with God.
SPEAKER_00: In the Psalms, we can commune with God.
SPEAKER_00: We're sharing of our life, of our resources in communion with God.
SPEAKER_00: We commune with God in two ways.
SPEAKER_00: One, we know God, we experience God, we encounter God, we wrestle with God.
SPEAKER_00: Luther in this quiet, cold cell, right?
SPEAKER_00: This monastic cell, wrestling with God through these Psalms, communing with God, discovering God, experiencing God, learning of God, the seed bed of the reformation.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we commune with God by participating with him in his mission.
SPEAKER_00: We're praying for the things he's wanting to do.
SPEAKER_00: We're aligning our will with his will, our hopes, our dreams with his agenda.
SPEAKER_00: Communing with God, both in our participation with him in his mission as well as our knowing God.
SPEAKER_00: So, how does Psalms serve as a school of prayer?
SPEAKER_00: One, we know, do we see the heart of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Luther was convinced.
SPEAKER_00: We when we look through the Psalms, we first must see, look to how does this demonstrate, portray the beauty of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: What does it say about Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: What does it say about his reign, his rule, his heart, his character?
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we discover God in ourselves, as Calvin taught.
SPEAKER_00: It's mutually reinforcing.
SPEAKER_00: And third, we commune with God, we experience God, we have a relationship with God, we hear from God.
SPEAKER_00: So this summer for seven weeks, we're going to be doing summer in the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: The encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't currently have a Bible plan, maybe you're already reading the Bible, maybe you already have another plant, then you don't have to do this.
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't have anything to do, the encouragement is that you read three psalms per day.
SPEAKER_00: Three psalms per day starting tomorrow, it's five to ten minutes per day.
SPEAKER_00: If you get the Psalm 117, it's a short, you know, short prayer.
SPEAKER_00: But Psalm 119, it might be a longer day.
SPEAKER_00: But read three psalms per day starting tomorrow, Psalm 1, and then we'll finish altogether August 2nd.
SPEAKER_00: Then we'll have seven Sundays just looking at the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: The hope in that is that we would increasingly become a devoted people.
SPEAKER_00: Like Luther, in the devotion, the wrestling, the discovery, the pursuit, the hunger, the emotional connection with God through the Psalms, in the revelation of Christ in the Psalms, our heart, our devotion will grow individually and communally.
SPEAKER_00: The seabed of our reformation, where we grow in our worship.
SPEAKER_00: Believe the more that we as a church focus on Jesus, that we meditate on Jesus, seek Jesus, pray with Jesus, love Jesus, commune with Jesus, participate with Jesus in knowing the heart behind his mission, the more we will grow personally, individually, and corporally.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the call for us, the encouragement to us.
SPEAKER_00: Read three Psalms a day, not just in a matter of duty, but in a matter of devotion, a matter of desire, a matter of pursuit.
SPEAKER_00: We'll start with Psalms 1 today.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give a short introduction, but Psalms 1 is the introduction to the whole Psalter.
SPEAKER_00: It sets the tone and sets the stage for the whole book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms 1.
SPEAKER_00: It's also known as a wisdom psalm.
SPEAKER_00: I'll discuss it more next week of how people differ diagram the different types of psalms, but this one is known as a wisdom psalm, which the emphasis is on revealing truth that may seem hidden to most.
SPEAKER_00: In this Psalms, we will find that there are two kinds of people on earth, and there are only two outcomes in life.
SPEAKER_00: That in itself is hidden to most.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when I first was started seminary?
SPEAKER_00: I thought I was smart, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I sat down and I had this my bringing my wisdom to the discussion.
SPEAKER_00: A professor, you know, there's not enough nuance in theology.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, the the world is so complex and people are so complex, and and the social structures and the cultures are so complex, and the Bible is so complex, and all this different history is complex, and we don't like fully know, like, but theologians are so black and white.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're black and white.
SPEAKER_00: This is truth, that's not.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, we need more nuance.
SPEAKER_00: We need more nuance.
SPEAKER_00: There's not enough nuance in the church, not enough nuance in the pulpit.
SPEAKER_00: I was telling him this.
SPEAKER_00: He listened, he said, Oh, well, you know, maybe that's a little bit true.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, he's like, Well, I find in the Bible, especially in the wisdom literature, there there's there's two ways.
SPEAKER_00: It's often a dichotomy.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, you might not see black and white, but it seems God often does.
SPEAKER_00: And it a lot is true.
SPEAKER_00: The wisdom literature often functions in a dichotomy, which is very hard for us to realize.
SPEAKER_00: In this psalm in particular, the argument is that there's two groups of people on earth, there are two outcomes in life, and there's nothing in the middle, which is shocking because the way that we function is that we look out on the world and we don't see it that way, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like life is complicated, people's stories are complicated, people are mostly good, or they've had their their situation for why they're in the situation they're in, or what they're they've they've come to the place they're in through through life circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of nuance.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms 1 is not a book of new, not a not a chapter of nuance, it's a chapter of dichotomy.
SPEAKER_00: Contrast between two distinct groups of people with two outcomes available: those who are righteous, those who are wicked.
SPEAKER_00: There is no in-between, and there's no other option.
SPEAKER_00: It starts with the word blessed.
SPEAKER_00: This word in the Hebrew is not the typical word that we translate blessed, barak.
SPEAKER_00: This is a word that more likely means happy, which is why when Jesus in the Greek in the Greek we read New Testament, he's giving us the Beatitudes, he's using also a Greek word for happy.
SPEAKER_00: Happy in in the Hebrew, happy is the man who walks.
SPEAKER_00: I find it fascinating that we are encouraged or even expected to seek our happiness and benefit.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we're all doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone is in pursuit of the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: If you really think about it, we are pursuing happiness.
SPEAKER_00: For a lot of us, that might be removing discomfort or pain or attaining some level of status or wealth or influence.
SPEAKER_00: Or for some of us today, especially up here in the mountains, maybe it's all about becoming finding a place of inner peace to attain, that we might be we are told to be positive, um, own ourselves, have deep, meaningful conversations, smile, be thankful, all in this grand pursuit of happiness.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is, the point is, we are all pursuing a vision of happiness.
SPEAKER_00: When we are young, we believe, at least for me, happiness is just beyond the next great trip.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna do this grand European trip.
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, and or it's just beyond this next job, this next promotion, or this next purchase, this next computer I can buy, this, this, this car that I can have.
SPEAKER_00: Happiness was just beyond.
SPEAKER_00: It was just there, it was always attainable, it was always right there next.
SPEAKER_00: As life gets older, it can feel like it becomes a grind that we survive.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty standard surveys for Americans in the U.S.
SPEAKER_00: say that 50% are at least somewhat happy.
SPEAKER_00: I know what somewhat happy means, but guessing that in that somewhat, there's a lot of people grinding, you know.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people grinding.
SPEAKER_00: But I found it fascinating when I was going through Psalms 1 and regen through this last week.
SPEAKER_00: I wrote in my little booklet.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Almost exactly this that I feel like God is blessing, but the blessing must come some other later day, in eternally.
SPEAKER_00: The life here on earth is a grind.
SPEAKER_00: I wrote that out.
SPEAKER_00: Life on earth is a grind, the blessing will come some other day eternally.
SPEAKER_00: And then I read through this thinking, I needed a reformation.
SPEAKER_00: I needed a reformation.
SPEAKER_00: Happiness is available today.
SPEAKER_00: Blessing, happiness is already given by God as an invitation.
SPEAKER_00: His and he's inviting us to sit at the table and eat, he's given us the way, he's blessed us in the sense of the more common Hebrew word, barak, which is bestowing favor.
SPEAKER_00: He's already bestowed the favor.
SPEAKER_00: How do we respond in happiness?
SPEAKER_00: Let's see if the pen works.
SPEAKER_00: So blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
SPEAKER_00: Walk, stand, sit, three verbs to describe the full breath of living from morning to night.
SPEAKER_00: It's how we live in every situation and moment.
SPEAKER_00: And that happy is that man who walks not in the counsel or advice of the wicked, nor stands in the way or manner of life of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, like the translation, talking fools.
SPEAKER_00: There's a dichotomy of two groups that are beginning to take shape.
SPEAKER_00: There's the blessed man, the happy man, who is not heeding the advice and the lifestyle of the wicked, those talking fools.
SPEAKER_00: He does not think like the wicked, he does not behave like the wicked, he does not identify with the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: The dichotomy is beginning, but his delight is in the law of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: His delight, the word is very clear.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a good translation, but delight, it's his joy, his pleasure, his chief desire, his hope, his obsession is in the law of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes, for me, the the the law of the Lord becomes a duty.
SPEAKER_00: It I lose sight of it becoming my chief desire, satisfaction, dream.
SPEAKER_00: The law of the Lord, the Torah, the instruction of God revealed to us.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation comes from God for the purpose of us helping us live in harmony with God.
SPEAKER_00: And we are given that revelation in the word of God, our Bibles or Scripture, and that word is fulfilled in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So happy is the one who takes his joy, pleasure, chief desire, his satisfaction, his delight, his dream in the fulfillment in Christ that Jesus has demonstrated.
SPEAKER_00: And happy is the one who doesn't take the advice of the world, but instead finds his pleasure, comfort in the beauty of Jesus, and on his law, he meditates day and night.
SPEAKER_00: The men's groups are going through a book called Disciplines of a Godly Man, and on meditation, so anybody remember what it what it was, what he he describes it as.
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew word is kind of like animals muttering.
SPEAKER_00: Murmuring, murmuring through everyday life, day and night.
SPEAKER_00: It's not merely a Sunda morning or even just a quiet time in the week.
SPEAKER_00: For a long time, I thought of meditation as just getting everything completely quiet for five minutes, and I'm going to meditate.
SPEAKER_00: The word is no a murmuring that's ongoing day and night, a meditation, a muttering that continues, not merely just a Sunday morning, but it is a constant reflection of the beauty of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jonathan Edwards had a little awakening earlier in his life.
SPEAKER_00: And he describes the after effect where he would go through his life meditating on the beauty of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The appearance of everything was altered.
SPEAKER_00: There seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory in almost everything.
SPEAKER_00: God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity, his love seemed to appear in everything.
SPEAKER_00: In the sun, moon, stars, and the clouds, blue sky, and grass, flowers, trees, and the water and all nature.
SPEAKER_00: I used to sit and view the moon and in the day spend much time viewing clouds and sky to behold the sweet glory of God in these things.
SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, singing forth with a low voice my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer, meditating, murmuring, muttering continually throughout the day on the beauty of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This man is like a tree planted by streams of water.
SPEAKER_00: Tree deeply rooted by streams of water, constantly moving, refreshing water, not stale.
SPEAKER_00: It's not yesterday's bread and communion, but it's goodness and nourishment in God each day that is ongoing.
SPEAKER_00: That it yields it fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.
SPEAKER_00: And all that he does, he prospers.
SPEAKER_00: A couple weeks ago we talked about someone encountering God.
SPEAKER_00: And in the encounter of God, you know, one of the the statements was that he could grant us success.
SPEAKER_00: My friend sent me a message.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, this is prosperity gospel you're preaching.
SPEAKER_00: Have you gotten off the wagon?
SPEAKER_00: You're saying he grants us success.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, Psalm 1 and all that he does, he prospers.
SPEAKER_00: The word is actually succeeds.
SPEAKER_00: He succeeds.
SPEAKER_00: We translate it prospers.
SPEAKER_00: And it it it it it in all that he does, he prospers, he succeeds.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is our vision of success, which I tried to communicate two weeks ago, is not necessarily his vision of success, prosperity.
SPEAKER_00: Here, the tree, it's kind of like the idea that streams of living water, regardless whether there's heat, blight, drought, this well-watered tree continues to thrive.
SPEAKER_00: Its soul is satisfied and happy, and it does, in fact, yield fruit in its season at its proper time, as long as that rooted tree remains well watered, and all that he does, his soul prospers.
SPEAKER_00: First John kind of plays off of that.
SPEAKER_00: But the wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
SPEAKER_00: In contrast, again, in the dichotomy, we have two types of people, two outcomes.
SPEAKER_00: The wicked are not rooted, they fly away with the winds of circumstance, drift on the emotions of the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the wicked will not stand.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of translations rise.
SPEAKER_00: The wicked have no future with God, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows or watches over or protects the way of the righteous.
SPEAKER_00: Two outcomes.
SPEAKER_00: Those who rise in the final judgment with the congregation of the righteous, at the wedding feast of the Lamb to eternally reign with Christ, knowing and celebrating the beauty of Christ in complete, perfect satisfaction, complete happiness, joy, satisfaction, then there are those who perish eternally, forever separated from all that is good and beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: A stark contrast, a dichotomy, scary reality.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we might hear it and kind of wonder, okay, well, how do we do we follow in this way of meditating on the law of God, delighting in the law of God?
SPEAKER_00: And as I say most weeks, it's very simple in Romans.
SPEAKER_00: The way of salvation is clear.
SPEAKER_00: If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that simple.
SPEAKER_00: Through faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone, we are saved into the righteousness of God that we can be happy, blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Those who do not are the way of the wicked, they will not stand in the judgment.
SPEAKER_00: They will be the sinners outside the congregation.
SPEAKER_00: Again, a stark contrast, a scary reality.
SPEAKER_00: The encouragement for us again is that through this this this summer, the next seven weeks, we would grow in our devotion and our love and our admiration for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We would wrestle through the psalms personally, corporately, individually, um, together.
SPEAKER_00: And in that, we would be reformed in whatever ways, find life, find joy, find peace that we need.
SPEAKER_00: Villem Tielnik was in was kind of a founder of Dutch Reformed Church.
SPEAKER_00: And he learned from the Puritans that you can have a lot of great doctrine, but that doctrine has to be applied.
SPEAKER_00: English Puritans were excessive on applying this doctrine, right?
SPEAKER_00: They are excessive.
SPEAKER_00: He took it to continental Europe, was it kind of later led into German Pietism?
SPEAKER_00: But he he he has this quote the Lord has delivered us from the errors of paupery.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying we now know the truth, especially in where he was at.
SPEAKER_00: So the true doctrine is taught in our churches, praise God.
SPEAKER_00: But if we look at the lives of most people, we must confess the true practice of godliness is sorely lacking.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, a firm further reformation is necessary, which does not alter the doctrine, but reforms the life.
SPEAKER_00: Became a theme throughout reformed churches of always be reforming personally, one we because we our lives need to be reformed.
SPEAKER_00: It's not good enough just to know what is true, our lives need to mirror it.
SPEAKER_00: So the hope is that in this this summer through the Psalms, that we each individually, corporately, we just continue to be formed into the like-mindedness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: How are we going to do that?
SPEAKER_00: We're going to meditate, we're going to delight in the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: So, my encouragement to you this summer, discover the beauty of Jesus in the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: See Christ's beauty, his suffering, his kingship, his victory throughout the Psalter.
SPEAKER_00: Let the Psalms expose your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Allow God's word to reveal what needs reforming in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Pray the Psalms, don't just read them.
SPEAKER_00: Turn the Psalms into conversations with God.
SPEAKER_00: Replace self-talk with psalm talk.
SPEAKER_00: Fight fear, anxiety, discouragement with God's truth.
SPEAKER_00: Recover a delight in God, a joy, a satisfaction, a hunger in God, seeking not only his gifts, but his beauty and his presence.
SPEAKER_00: Bring your whole self to God, coming honestly with joys, fears, doubts, and struggles, discovering personal reformation, allowing God to use the Psalms to reform your heart, your home, your walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Even in just preparing one sermon, Psalm one, I felt reformed and just coming back to a place of celebrating the blessing that the bestowing of favor has been given by God, and we can walk in the happiness as we delight ourselves in the beauty of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so just coming back to the simple place of finding joy, satisfaction in the beauty of God, the beauty of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: With that, I will pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we just thank you, God, that um you've given us the Psalms, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I just pray that we as a community would just be our hearts would be awakened with hunger and joy and just amazement and Lord, just love for you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, as we discover you in the Psalms and Lord, just grow in our devotion with you, devotion to you, God.
SPEAKER_00: I just thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.