Summer of Psalms - Part 3

Psalm 122 - Our Approach to Worshipping God

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

All right, we are continuing in our series in Psalms. I want to start by bringing us back to, I think, a common experience that we've all had. I want you to think back maybe to your childhood at some point, and maybe around Christmas or birthday, and the excitement that you felt about something that you were going to get, that gift, whatever you had in mind, and maybe it's a specific Christmas or birthday for me. I loved Legos growing up, and I only got Legos at Christmas. And every Christmas, there was a new, like, big set, and I was like, oh, this is the best. So, you know, the weeks leading up, I just started getting excited like I know there's a big Lego set that is gonna be underneath that tree And that was my Lego set for the year, but there's a process that as you anticipate something first is this Anticipation right this excitement that's building as the days get closer to that thing happening. You just get more and more excited And then maybe it's Christmas or your birthday But when you actually get that thing whenever you got it just the excitement was at its peak you're like it is here I this is it. I finally I get to enjoy this thing and And then for the next couple days, maybe weeks, the excitement is still up there. You're waking up like, "Oh, I can't wait to play. I have this new thing. This is fantastic." And then weeks or months go by and the excitement starts to dwindle. Maybe the enjoyment is still there. You still love to play with... You used to play with that thing and it was there, but you don't wake up with the excitement anymore. It's just like, "Oh yeah, I have that. I love it. It's great." But the excitement is gone. I say that thinking back to it, kids, but I still have things in my life right now that make me feel that way.

So maybe you do too. It's a feeling that we have, and it is, you know what it's like to have that excitement at one point, and then that initial infatuation or excitement just tapers off. And I think that happens not just with things in our lives, but also in our Christian life. Maybe you've experienced something similar in your walk with Jesus, where if you think back to when you were saved, and there's this initial excitement and just obvious joy that you feel, it's almost tangible. As you come to know and accept Jesus and this initial life change is invigorating, you have new habits, new rhythms that you are just welcoming into your life. And it's almost effortless of like, what else is there? I want to do it all, this is great, being a Christian. And then after a time, maybe it's months or years, the aspects of the Christian life can become routine and maybe not in the best way. You know, reading your Bible, you're attending church, but you're just kind of going through the motions. You're just doing it and it's there, it's good, but you're not excited. You're not excited about it anymore. Why does that happen? If you've experienced that, maybe you can think back to when that is, or maybe you're in the midst of it right now. Why does that happen? Well, I believe it's a heart issue. Initially, our hearts are being reoriented and they're being devoted and we're committed to God. And there's a desire and a commitment to worship God with our everything. But eventually, the heart begins to lean away from God, to stray and to get distracted, begins yearning for other things. Another way of saying this is that our hearts want to worship something else or someone else. It's really a matter of the heart. Our hearts are initially so focused on God, straining towards God, being transformed, but sin is still a reality. It's still present in our lives. It's still present in the world around us. And initially what was so effortless and so easy to be devoted, to be committed to God now takes more effort and more intentionality.

So how do we get that excitement and that joy back as we walk with Jesus? How should we approach a life of following and worshiping God? That's our question for today. You may be encouraged to know that it's not a new issue. This is not something that just the local church in the last couple of hundred years has been experiencing. No, this was a reality for the Israelites in the Old Testament too. Back then, for the Israelites, their life looked different than ours, but they also had spiritual practices of worshiping God, and some of those could become routine. And so David writes this Psalm as a reminder to help paint the picture of the ideal heart, the ideal approach for the Israelites as they come to worship God. We're gonna be in Psalm 122 today, and this is a Psalm of ascent, which means this is a Psalm that was meant to be sung as Israelites made their way to Jerusalem to worship God. Jerusalem was the center of worship. It's where the tabernacle was until they built the temple and then the temple was there. And so this Psalm has a lot of Jerusalem descriptions and language. It's a Psalm that if you can kind of picture this on a day where, you know, maybe some kind of feast where everyone had to go to the temple, you could just see everyone from outside the city to inside the city making their way, getting outside their homes, closing their doors and joining in the streets and walking to the temple. And they're all doing it together. And they could sing this song out loud as a chorus. And it would help them as they approached where God's presence was in the tabernacle, help their hearts get in the right place. So I think it can do the same for us today.

Let's go ahead and read. You guys can follow along on the screen. It says, "I rejoiced with those who said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet are standing in your gates, Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built like a city that is closely compacted together. That is where the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, to praise the name of the Lord according to the statute given to Israel. There stand the thrones for judgment, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels. For the sake of my family and friends, I will say, Peace be within you. For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your prosperity." So this psalm, and I think it helps us, reminds us about our approach and where our hearts should be as we worship together. And that first reminder comes from the first couple verses. And it's that worship comes from joy. It's like that kid on Christmas who's excited about their gift, anticipation about what they're receiving, we should have this similar excitement, anticipation about worshiping God, about going to the place of worship. Now I know in other series we've talked about how worship is a more general term, and it means like all of our lives, Paul writes about this in the New Testament, that all of our lives are worshiped to God. But today I just wanna use that term like David is intending it, the place of worship, the house of worship. So we're talking about the temple or the tabernacle, or today we're talking about church.

And so that joy of going to church or going to this house of worship, and it first and foremost comes from recognizing who God is and what He has done. And for the Israelites, they praise God for being their savior, saving them from slavery in Egypt. And they recognize the grace that God had given them as He protected them and sustained them in the desert and helped them get into the promised land. They have all this in the back of their heads as they come to God, they say, "We couldn't have any of this. They were in the promised land with the tabernacle and the temple. We wouldn't be here without God." So many times Israel rebelled against God and yet He remained steadfast and faithful to them. The Israelites who were selfish and prideful, hard-headed, naturally bent towards serving themselves and who often got it wrong, they have been saved. And for a moment when they were at the tabernacle, they were accepted into God's presence. And that moment, as they approached, just thinking of that moment of being in God's presence, brought them so much joy. Now, today, for us, how much more joy do we have, knowing that we don't have to go to the tabernacle or to the temple, that we have the Spirit within us, God with us all the time. And that we, Jesus, gave us salvation and the grace that He gives us daily. He saved us from eternity in hell, gives us everlasting life. And we who are selfish and prideful and hard-headed and often bent towards serving ourselves, we were saved. And God loves us. And the Spirit is with us always. Just that, just that reality is enough for the believer to feel joy. Joy from God for what He has done for us. That reason, that joy comes from the truth. It's an act of redemption that Jesus has done for us so great that we will be rejoicing in heaven for eternity for what he has done. And so we believers, we can walk through anything. We can go through anything in life. A hard day at work, losing a loved one, shattered dreams, and we can stand firm, maybe even with tears in our eyes, and just say, "But I am saved. But I am a child of God loves me and I still feel joy.” We need to be reminded of that because as soon as we grow callous to the grace of God our hearts will begin to wander. Pastor and author Paul David Tripp says, "What a tragedy when we grow used to that grace. What a tragedy when it no longer has value to us. What a tragedy when we we begin to think that we actually deserve acceptance with God. And how important it is to remember that I will never have any other standing with God, but the standing I am given by means of His grace.”

As we approach church, as we approach God at any point, I hope that we feel this sense of joy as we remember what God has done for us. And the fact that we are even believers in the first place is owed to him, we owe him that glory. So we have joy because of God. David begins this Psalm with this all time important reminder that as we approach the place of worship, let us be filled with joy. And this is, all these points are kind of a chain reaction. So first we begin with joy, and then secondly, Our second reminder comes in verses three through four, and it's that we worship out of obedience. The Israelites were given a structure and a routine for them to obey. It says in verse four, "That is where the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, "to praise the name of the Lord "according to the statute given to Israel." This is referring back to in the desert, in Exodus and Deuteronomy, Jesus, or God, sorry, gave them instruction of how to be a nation, And part of that was how to worship Him. Israel had this history of being in Egypt. So they had seen how other nations had done. They'd seen how Egypt had worshiped. They've been in the desert, they've seen shins and how they worship their gods. And God is saying, "I don't want any of that. Do not worship Me in that way. I will tell you how to worship Me. And you will worship Me at this place and in this way." So Israel worships out of duty and out of obedience and responsibility, and it's because it's what is due God's name for what he has done for them. And at the root of this law is the command to love and worship the Lord their God and to keep his commandments. But as God gave this law to Israel about worshiping him, this isn't a new idea for the people of Israel, this idea of worship. Again, Paul David Tripp says, "Worship is your identity before it is ever an activity. You are by very nature a worshiper." See, God created humanity to worship Him. That's what He intended. Adam and Eve, He intended for them to worship Him, but then sin comes in, as we know this story, sin comes into the world and changes everything. And now, humanity can now, starts to worship the creation and start of the, instead of the creator. And whether we think about it or not, we, as worshipers, we are worshiping something or someone. And from that worship, we are drawing our purpose, our identity, and our security.

Those things are meant to come from God. God intended that you find your purpose, your identity, and your security in Him. But people who start to worship other things, that's where they draw their identity from. Oh, I'm really about this and I want you to know that. And so I'm gonna share this all about you. Everything about me revolves around this other thing. And I only feel secure if I'm good at this thing or if that is a success in my life and my purpose is to serve this other thing. That's how the heart naturally works. God intended that he would be that focus, that he would be that for our life and that we would find our purpose, our identity and the security in him. The Bible calls this having other gods, having idols in our lives. And we naturally, we're just good at making idols. You may not have heard that before, but you're good at it. And it's not a good thing to be good at. Pastor said this about John Calvin, theologian, says, "John Calvin saw that the human heart is relentlessly efficient, is a relentlessly," oh my goodness, sorry, let me start over. "John Calvin saw the human heart as a relentlessly efficient factory for producing idols. People want things to work better. They want a life that is more interesting. They want help through difficult times. They want meaning and significance in their ventures. They want a God in a way, but certainly not a jealous God, not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mostly they want it their way. They want to stay in control, but have ancillary divine assistance for the hard parts. I read that and I mean, spirit started convicting right away. We want God, but we have these other idols that we still want to be attached to. These other things in our life that are drawing, we're giving our attention, we're giving ourselves too, but when life gets hard, we want God to intervene. God, now I need your help. I've been doing this other stuff and I kind of got myself into a pickle here. Can you please, can you help me out? We tend to make idols out of things in our lives, sometimes even good things. Idols don't have to be bad. We can make idols out of family, out of providing for our family. We can make idol, whatever it is, we can make an idol out of it. But a great way to avoid that is to be obedient, to remain consistent in our regular worship of God.

And so we do that out of obedience. And it's not a begrudging obedience. I don't like this. we think of obedience as contrasted to something we want to do. We can want to be obedient. We can find something good and just, I don't think there's people out there like, "I don't steal because I'm begrudgingly following the rule that says I can't steal." No, we just don't steal and there's joy in that. It's like, "Yeah, that's not something I should do and I don't want to do that and I'm happy to not do that." And we can obey God in worshiping and have joy as we worship Him. And again, this is a chain reaction. So first there's joy, and out of that joy comes obedience. Thirdly, the next thing, so we have joy, we obey, and then in verses five through seven, we see that worship of God leads to a caring heart. If our hearts are filled with love for God, if our hearts are aligned with God's heart, then we will care about what God cares about, His people, His kingdom, and to see His perfect will carried out here on earth. Israel was meant to be a nation that carried out God's love and truth. And first and foremost, people would see that in how they loved God and also how they loved each other. As that was happening, other people would notice, man, this Israel is different. and this God that they worship is different than any other gods that we have. And it would be a distinct reflection of who Yahweh is. And the church today is meant to have a similar role. As we love each other and care for each other and worship God, people will take notice and be like, this is different. But how do we do that if our hearts are naturally selfish and there's this focus on our own lives, our own success, our own advancement or comfort, our own peace. Well, David says elsewhere in the Psalms, in Psalm 51, he says, "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."

So we know that it's the work of the Spirit within us. It's the work of Christ within us to lift up our heads from our own lives, from our own circle, to look up and to see others in the way that God sees them. How are we caring for those around us? Do we pray for them? Do you pray for the people in your life, not just your loved ones, which hopefully you're praying for the loved ones, but your neighbor who maybe is a cranky neighbor? Are you praying for your coworkers who you may not enjoy working with all the time? Are you praying just for the people in your life that need God? Do you meet their needs? Do you walk alongside them through whatever hardships they face? Do you pray for their peace and their prosperity that God would bless them? I know for me sometimes I prayed for them, but in a way that benefits me. God, can you help them be nice to me? Can you help them? Like my life is hard, God, so just help other people to make my life better. But that's not the prayers that David's talking about here. saying, "I want them. God, just bless them. Give them peace. Give them what they need to be closer to you." And so as we approach the place of worship, we should be reminded of those in our lives who we need to care for. Or for those as we are literally maybe even driving to church, as those who are passing. Those people need prayer too. Do we care for them? When we think about attending church on a Sunday, do you think about the people you are attending with? Do you kind of lift up your head from your, sometimes what we can do, just go to church by myself, I'm gonna say hi to people and do the small talk, but I'm just gonna go in, gonna worship, gonna listen, I'm gonna leave. We kind of keep our head down the whole time. Or maybe we should lift our heads up and interact with the people and care for them and pray for them and take an interest in their lives and want God to be a part of their lives. So maybe the prayer needs to start with, God, soften my heart towards other people, create in me a desire to care for your children, God. And this care for others also wonderfully fights against the consumer mentality that we have. Again, just slipping into church or these thoughts that are like, I just need to hear the sermon and the worship, just get the necessities and I'm gonna head out, I'm gonna be on my way. Got a busy week, I got a lot of stuff to do, so I know I need to do this, but it's about me. The church, if we're at the center of our church experience, we have a problem.

Part of true worship means seeing others. First we look at God and we recognize God, that's the joy, then we're doing this out of obedience, and then we're looking at others. God's people caring for them. And for the record, I think this church does a great job of that and I say this as encouragement of keep doing this. Let this be a strength of Spring Valley that people who visit would know that we genuinely care about each other. Not just in a, hey, I'm glad to know what's going on, but we are a part of each other's lives. So worship starts with joy. We do it out of obedience and it leads to a care for others. And lastly, worship of God creates community. Hopefully you see these dots connecting here. It says in verses eight through nine, "For the sake of my family and friends, "I will say, 'Peace be within you.' "For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, "I will seek your prosperity." David ends this psalm with the hope Jerusalem will prosper, that his people will prosper, and not for Jerusalem's sake, not for their sake, but for God's glory. And that can be our prayer too. There is unity and commonality found as we share our love for God. We all have this love for God. We are all being obedient to God. And if we all care for each other, we naturally are just, we're together now. We are a family. There's a community that's been formed. For Israel, that was the entire nation, the nation, all the people were heading to the temple. And as they look around, you can just imagine a very crowded space with smiles on their face as they get to be near the presence of God. This is a very unifying experience for them. Again, this is the reminder of what God has done for them from slavery to freedom. God has brought them blessing and fortune. God had given them the blueprint for how to live righteously together as a nation. And today we have the church, we have this family of believers from all different backgrounds, united in our love for God. And there is a deep sense of belonging, of family, of having a place and having a people. Some of you have a great support system outside the church. You have amazing family and friends, and that is truly a blessing.

For others, this church, this room, this is your biggest opportunity for community, for family, for connection. And this is why we love having moments like Morning Blend and Family Meals or the Popcorn Bar, just other opportunities for us to interact. But really, our desire is that it's beyond Sunday. It's beyond Midweek Group. We want you guys, we want all of us to be a family together that's interacting throughout the week, texting each other, grabbing coffees, grabbing meals, inviting people over for houses just to talk, going on walks around the neighborhood together, share life together, be a community together. And I guarantee you, people don't care if your house is messy 'cause of the kids, or if you have a dog that barks at every car that goes by. Welcome them in, bring them in, have people over. Be a community, be a family together. We wanna be a part of each other's life. as we worship God together. And it's not for our sake, it's not for selfish reasons, but it's for God's glory. So as we think about church and the Sundays and belonging to this church family, it's more than just one weekly occurrence. So much more than that. It's about a joy that comes from God's salvation and love for us. about being obedient to the life that God has called us to live. It's about caring for others as God cares for them. It's about living in community as a family.

I wanna paint this scene again. If it's helpful to close your eyes, close your eyes. Just imagine Old Testament Jerusalem and people from outside the city and there's a family waking up early and they're all excited because today they're going to the tabernacle. They get to go be near the presence of God. And as they leave their tent or their house, they see everyone else doing the same thing. And all of a sudden there's just this huge crowd. Every street is filled with people heading to the tabernacle. And there's a buzz around the city. And they start to sing this song. I rejoice with those who said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet are standing in your gates, Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built like a city that is closely compacted together. That is where the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, to praise the name of the Lord according to the statute given to Israel. There stand the thrones for judgment, the thrones of the house of David. And as they're walking up, they're seeing these people, all of them, together, and they care for each other. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May those who love you be secure. secure him, or there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels. For the sake of my family and friends, I will say peace be within you. For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your prosperity. They can't help but smile because they know that God has saved them, that he loves them, and so it's out of their obedience, not a chore, but just a joyful obedience that they come to the presence of God. And they worship him. And now we today don't have that same scene. We're not walking, if you walk today, that's fantastic, but we don't often walk to church, we're driving, we have a busy life, but it can be similar. And so I wanna paint this scene for you.

Maybe this is helpful. This is simply just an exercise that helps you in your walk with God great. But what if our weekly routine was this, Saturday night, and yes, it's important that church starts the night before, Saturday night, you start to think about the next day and what you're doing and attending church. And that gets you thinking about God and about what He's done for you. And all of a sudden that joy starts to grow within you. And as you're going to bed or waking up in the morning and you're thinking about church, you start to think about the people that you attend church with, the people in this room. You start to wonder, how's this person doing? I remember that person said this, and all of a sudden we just find ourselves praying for them now. We're caring for them. And then we're thinking of people who aren't here. The empty seats, the people who need to be here, who haven't gone to church yet. We start praying for them and we care for them. I pray that my coworker, man, I've been having those conversations about Jesus. I hope that he shows up. I invited him, I hope he's here. God, my neighbor, they need Jesus a lot right now. They're going through a hard time. So we're caring for people together. And then as we're here and out of joyful obedience, we praise God. And these songs that we sing, I mean, this is why we sing these songs, is to praise Him for what He has done for us, for the salvation that He brings. And we can have a deep joy, even if we've had a hard week, I think it's rare to come here and the week has gone just pure good. I mean, life is complicated, it's a mess, it's chaotic. So we can come here just as we are with all of those feelings and emotions, but within we have a joy, of a deep joy that comes from God. That's our prayer. That's what David desired for Israel and that's what God desires of us.

Summer of Psalms - Part 2

Psalm 19 - The Heavens, The Word & the Glory of God

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I have the pleasure today to continue in our Summer of Psalms series. We kicked it off last week, Pastor Andra did, and we're gonna be in Psalm chapter 19. So if you guys wanna flip, tap, click over to that this morning, we're gonna be in Psalm 19, but I love Psalms. And there's been a couple seasons now, I think we're in our third season of, in a rotation of summers of doing summer in Psalms. And what I love about the summer in Psalms is it's just, this is time to kinda take a little bit of a step back. I know we got a lot of people traveling, we got a lot of graduations, we got people going here and there. And I love about the Psalms is it's still kind of a giant overarching series, but at the same time, we just kind of dive into one chapter at a time and there's 150 of them. So it'll probably take us a couple summers to go through all of them alone. We could do a summer in Psalm 119 by itself if we wanted to one year. But the book of Psalms is so much different than any other book in the Bible. And what I mean by that is there are 150 chapters of Psalms. and divide it up into five different parts, or maybe you could call five different subgroups. And that they are over 40 to a dozen in each of these sub books in the Psalms. And there are so many different authors. That's what I love about this. There's so many different people's perspectives. There's so many different people's hearts and experiences they're having with God Almighty, from Moses to King David, King Solomon, to Asaph, to the sons of Korah, to Ethan, to Herman. And there's actually over 50 Psalms that there is no author attributed as well. And this time of this book actually spans about a thousand years, which when you think about that, you think, man, that's pretty incredible to have a book to cover over a thousand years of life. Big themes of praise, God's power, forgiveness, and it all sums up in a perfect little bow that I just absolutely my type A personality love. In Psalm 150 verse six, last verse in the entire book of Psalms, it says, "Let everything that breathes sing praise to the Lord." Praise the Lord.

That's what it's about. That's what life in itself, if you were to boil down everything that we in our life would just breathe praise to God almighty. That our life, how we live, how we love one another, how we care for each other, how we serve one another, how we go to our job, how we do school, how we go from places, how we grocery shop, how we go to Costco and deal with that parking lot, how we do everything would just bring honor and praise to God. There is this level of raw emotion in the Psalms that I just absolutely, sometimes we think maybe we have to pray a certain way. We're talking to big G God, right? I get asked all the time as a pastor, how do you pray? Teach me how to pray. And I was like, you're having a conversation with me, right? They're like, yeah, teach me how to pray. I was like, have a conversation with God. And they're like, well, you know, if I don't have like, if I don't speak in those right words, if I don't speak in King James, sayeth, loveth, shalleth, Lord blesseth, meeth, pleaseth. Like if we don't talk in King James and God doesn't hear me and I go, no, no, no, no, no, that's not how it is. You're having a conversation with a relational, loving, caring God who deeply knows you in the ways that even your closest confidant doesn't even know you. And we're gonna see that today in the book of Psalm 19, but this raw emotion, sometimes unpolished, sometimes not polite, sometimes not even PC. We see these Psalms in this book and I want us to remember and to be reminded that God's not afraid of our real life. God's not afraid of what we're going through that we can't get real with Him. He's a big God. He can take it. He can take it. And when we might find ourselves in life, and I've been there before when I just wanted to just punch God, 'cause I don't understand why He's doing what He's doing. He's just right there just to wrap you up in the midst that He loves us. And we see that in Psalms and specifically songs of men that we'll get to later in this series, but this honest, true, personal conversation that we get to kind of peek behind the curtain of people's personal relationship with God is such an incredible, incredible guide for our life in how we can have this relationship with God ourselves.

Last week, Pastor Andre kicked us off with Psalm 29. And he talked about this idea of reminding us to listen for the voice of God. And that we might find ourselves with people in our life that are trying to tell us that they are God and that they know the best for our lives. And they wanna either with hopefully good intentions, maybe not steer us in the right way, but that we know that there's people with bad intentions that try to pull us away, especially it talks about the enemy being one of great disguise, trying to pull us away from the truth of God's voice. In the Psalmist in 29, King David, he says, "Listen for the voice of God." Push in, fight with everything you have to hear that voice from him because only in him can we find the true voice of God, which brings strength and peace. And this kind of peace that we've said before that just is beyond understanding. This peace that we can only have when we rest in the truth of God.

And so today Psalm 19, this is a really unique Psalm. It's unique in the way that it's written in three different parts from three different authors spanning three different time periods. And yet has the same cohesive thought and theological truth drawing us in to the character of God. These three sections in verse one through six talk about creation and how creation speaks and gives praise to God. And then verse seven through 10 talk about this idea of the instruction for life, the speech of God and His word. The original Hebrew word here would be the Torah, the original Hebrew scriptures and how that speaks to God's truth for our lives. And then verses 11, 14, there is the shift that the author itself then becomes the reader servant in finding speech in a prayer to God on our behalf. And what I love about this is this big theme of this entire Psalm is on creation and God being the creator. This first part of the Psalm describes creation in praise to God. And it talks about this idea of joy that comes when we look at the created world around us. And then it pulls us in to the joy that is found in God's word. And then ultimately into the joy that is found in a deep personal relationship with God himself. And it talks about this word of God being our rock, kind of coming full circle of this idea of nature being revealing who God is himself. And we can understand God in so many facets in life. I think sometimes we think of this big dude upstairs, this God of heavens that is disconnected or as far from us, or is so impersonal to who our life is here today.

But the Psalmist here wants to remind us that that's not who God is. That God is not a hidden God, but he is more a revealed God in so many ways, whether it's the created world around us, whether it's his scriptures that he gives us in the Bible to read, and in this deep, honest, personal relationship that we have with him. And that is in this personal relationship that we find communion and relationship and intimacy through prayer. I wanna jump in this first section of Psalms. So you wanna turn Psalm 19, starting in verse one, it says this, it says, "The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they reveal knowledge. Yet they have no speech. They use no words. No sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens, God has pitched a tent for the sun. This first section here is so interesting because it takes us to this place where there's this beautiful duality and back and forth play between artistry and theology. and theological truth. The heavens is being the subject declare or are resounding being a verb, the glory of God who is the object of this entire Psalm. The work of his hands being God's hands, the object proclaim or is declaring verb, the skies, the subject of this. There's this theological balance and these two colas of this opening verse that go back and forth about how God dwells in the heavens and yet the heavens praise God glory. And at the same time, the skies, the created, the lower firmament, as you might know, or the level beneath the heavens, the sky, the moon, the stars, actually in turn praise the work of God's hands. So it's like this beautiful dance back and forth, all resounding on the glory of God. And then in verse two and three, there's the beginning to be this continued statement of repetition day after day, night after night, emphasizing that creation speaks a message about God and passes on this knowledge of God forever and ever and ever and ever, amen. It's only then in verse three that we shift to state that though this message is sent back and forth for all eternity, it cannot be interpreted in the traditional understanding.

What do I mean by that? Well, I mean, it's this fundamental paradox of God's creation actually resounds with a speech, but it is in a way that human beings can neither hear nor understand. There is no speech, there are no words, There is no voice particularly heard. And yet this knowledge of who God is in creation is personified and expressed. But not just any type of knowledge, it's knowledge specifically of the Lord God Almighty. I struggled to understand that at first. I was studying, I was like, how does this all this work? And I was reminded of that feeling you have maybe when you just sit on the beach and you just stare into the waves. To sit there and just to look out into complete total abyss. Or maybe you prefer when you find yourself sitting by the lake and the cool waters lapping on the shore and being surrounded in the shadow of tall, tall trees. There's just something there that speaks to our soul. There's something there that says we're not alone. That there's something else out there that put this together and put this on earth and made it happen in such a unique, intricate, specific, orderly, not a happenstance fashion. And there's just this peace that comes over us. My wife and I had the opportunity to sneak away for a few days, thanks to Papa and Mimi, to watch the kids for us for our 16 year anniversary. And we got to go up to Lake Tahoe. And we were able to be out there for two nights, but I remember the morning of the first day after we'd been up there. And I just got this chance to sit on the little deck outside of our hotel and just to be in the presence of just God in his creation and the cool breeze and the shadow of the trees and just the peace of God was in that space. And yet it spoke words to me and yet there were no words. You could just feel something there. And as the Psalmist said, we'll read a little bit, it refreshed my soul to just sit in that place with a cup of coffee and just talk to God. And honestly, not much was said. It was just a moment that I was able to have in that space that God knew my soul was growing weary and I needed His refreshment in me. And I just found myself sitting in this space without words, without verbal communication, just something that I knew He was there. And this is what the Psalmist is saying, that in space we can find something that is felt, that is experienced, that is heard deep within us. This is actually a little bit in contrast to the culture of the day when the Psalm first section was written because Israel's neighbors actually worshiped the sun, the moon, the stars as divine beings themselves. And the poem here of the Psalter is stressing that the created things that are the sky are not God, but they are merely something, a phenomenon of the creator God Almighty Himself, whose true end is to praise God, the one true God. and this voice and this tongue of nature as it may speak, not in the words that human beings that we can discern, it is something deep down in our soul that connects us to God himself.

The psalm continues in verse five. It is like a bride coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and it makes it circuit all the way to the other. Nothing is deprived of its warmth. The second stanza takes a little bit of a shift, even though still part of the first section brings us a narrow focus to the sun specifically. This idea of rising and going is this measure of the day and the night. In Hebrew culture, it is said that the sun was to have its tent in the heavens, that the sun was to rise and it was the sun was to go down and it was to have its tent in the presence of the heavens of God almighty. This going out and running its course or its circuit and to return home. In the ancient near East, the sun was worse, the God of justice. And the Psalmist here is playing on this cultural idea that a Sumerian hymn calls the sun god a hero, a strong man or a warrior, and that it goes out and it conquers all, and it returns home victorious to his wife. The writer here is playing off of these cultural polytheistic ideas that these gods or the sun being a god himself, but it isn't polytheism that the Psalmist is talking about, but rather reminding us, the reader, that the sun is not a God, but something created by God. And it is God who sets the sun in the heavens, not the sun itself. The sun runs a circuit, not for itself, as the ancient Near East would believe, but runs the circuit that God has appointed to it. And that the sun is said to rejoice as it runs its circuit in the songs of praise directed towards God himself. The son or the created is giving worship to its big C, creator. Verse six says that nothing is deprived from its warmth. I think this word warmth here is a little bit deceiving. It's the original Hebrew is actually talking about this idea of heat or wrath. If you're thinking the terms of the sun and the culture, that the sun god would be this god of justice, one that just tears through everything and it kills and it conquers, it consumes with fire, everything set before it. I felt that this week when the sun, anybody else? The wrath of a hundred degrees is upon us. This idea or imagery of extreme judgment, devouring thirst that nothing, even the ends of the earth as it says, can escape it. But there's a subtle message wrapped here in this stanza. The writer wants to remind us that God being above and over all of creation, including the Son, who the surrounding cultures see as a God, is actually declaring that God is in God's glory. And that God's glory comes to His holiness, sometimes seen as themes in the Old Testament of Hebrew scripture as a fire. We see that in the Israelites when they're first out of Egypt, that God is a pillar of fire by night. that this fire as seen by most cultures as this horrific, terrible thing that wants to kill and destroy you is actually seen as something that is holy, is refining, is a light guiding us darkness. And that sometimes even in the church, it's been misrepresented as the God of fire and brimstone. Repent or go to hell, preachers yelling at you. But there's this duality of this fire that yet, yes, it is burning and hot and consuming, but also at the same time, I think of a warm fire on a cold night that warms, that sustains life, that helps us, that cooks food for us, that sustains us, brings nourishment. And this idea of, yes, God is both judge, judge in his permanent, hard, there's no compromise. But at the same time, he is caring, he is loving, he is guiding, he is life sustaining. And the Psalmist here is playing on as we see a verse and we think, man, that's so harsh. How can God be so hard? I thought God was supposed to be loving. And yet there is judgment. He calls us out on the carpet at times, but it's only because He loves us and He cares for us and He wants the best for our lives. I see this in the fact that the sun doesn't change. God doesn't. Rather we, in our circumstances, our choices, Our decisions, our moments in life change. But God is there day after day after day, always coming back around.

The Psalmist continues, verse 7 through 10, “The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The three steps of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. the commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold. They are more than much pure gold. They are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.” This is where we shift into the second section of the Psalm, and the tone here changes, right? We just go from the sun being consuming and harsh, and just burning to this idea of then the scripture, the word of the Lord is refreshing to our soul. Like a drink of cool water on a hot day, just that ah moment. This is the word of God. There's also a change in the original word for God here. It goes from a generic L, meaning God of nature, to this more personal relational God that the Hebrew people did as Yahweh. To go from a God of just nature that is around us to a personal God who loves us. The word of God is said in these first six lines full of synonyms. Did you catch those? It talked about the law, the statute, the precepts, the commands, the fear, the decrees. Each of these in reference to the word of God better knows we had today the Bible and these verses and words and chapters and books are all instructions for us for right living. There is this connection now between the law or the nature of God and his created order into the law of God, His Word, the Torah, the Scriptures for our lives. There's connections here between talking about rejoicing as it circles the earth and at the same time the precepts of the Lord. The Scriptures are right giving joy to our heart. Joy is seen in created order and joy is seen in His Word for lives. The Sun shines over all creation, talking about light, and the commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to our eyes. The light from the Sun continues throughout all a universe. It doesn't just shine past earth and then just fade off, but light continues on through the vast expanse of the universe, and so do the fear of the Lord is pure and during forever. This beautiful imagery of the created order and and particular set emotion details isn't just creation but we find ourselves too in that creation being created in the image of God ourselves and God giving us his word to know who he is not just from a generic knowledge of the created order around us, but a more head knowledge of who God is in his character. Verse 10 closes this section. It says, "They are more precious than gold, much more pure gold. They are sweeter than honey than honey from a honeycomb." This verse continues to echo God's creation in the first six verses, affirming that the word of the Lord is more desired than anything in creation. Playing off of this imagery of the sun becoming both gold and honey, sharing this golden hue of the sun. It's beautiful picture here of this, but speaking more so of gold and honey as status in that day. If you had gold, you You were set. You were wealthy. You were beyond ready to eat on a regular basis. You were first class. You were top of the top. And the Psalmist here is reminding us that even the word of the Lord is greater than the greatest desired of life itself. Not just gold, but absolutely pure gold with no imperfections, which I don't even know if they were able to refine it that pure in that day. But talking about honey being something that does not spoil, does not fade, does not go bad, it lasts almost forever. And to have that to be consumed in sweetness and to have this joy and pleasure in eating that the word of God is even greater than any of all of that. Anything that you would want to pursue as the thing in life, God's word rises and sets above it all.

The Psalmist finished in verses 11 to 14. "By them, your servant is warned, in keeping them there is a great reward. But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins that they may not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.” The shift in poetic style as well. And that here the Psalmist himself becomes our servant to the reader in praying for us in his words and in his speech towards God. this beautiful shift and this idea of this coming from abstract speech from nature into the speech of God's word for our lives, into the speech of the scene for us in the way that we live out our life. Verses 11 and 12 there discuss the rewards. What does it say there? It says, "Great reward is found in the instruction of God." This isn't talking about this cause and effect of, "Okay, if I obey everything in the word of God, then there will be great reward for me. I will prosper. I will have everything perfect in my life. Nothing bad will happen to me." No. Talking about the fact of the opposite of that, when we follow the instruction of God, there is great reward in the life of God that is given to our soul. I think sometimes in life, we want God to bless us and then we'll be obedient. But God doesn't work like that. God asks and calls for our obedience and then his intimacy comes on to our life. That's how God works. And the Psalmist here is reminding us and saying this way that protect us in your salvation, God. See, we have on the backside of this, the great reward of knowing the story of God after this, Jesus coming to earth, dying for our sins, rising again, ascending to heaven and sending upon us, those who have accepted him, believe in him, the gift and leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This is the greatest thing that we ever asked for. The Psalmist here is praying for something like that, but not knowing what that thing is like. And yet we have that. So for us to see the revelation of God in this unspoken knowledge of God, to then see His word given to us to revealing who He is, God's character, His nature, His son, the Holy Spirit is then infused into our lives how we go about our daily life, living the way that God has called us to in ways that we know we need to make a right decision, talking about the willful choices, the willful wrongdoing, the willful right doing, but also as it says in here, these hidden places, these hidden spots where we might not know the details of God in this moment, we know because of who God has revealed himself in nature, who his scripture is and the truth and the word that he's given us, we know how we are to act and live and fulfill the life and calling that he has for each of us.

This author's prayer, I kind of rewrote it in my own words. And it would be, God, let your word of your truth speak over not just me, but also the reader. Let your holy light illuminate our errors as the sun, both hidden and unknown, willful and known. Let your freedom be found in the almighty God and not our sinful nature, in the desire to be blameless, removed from innocence of any transgression, to be holy God as you are holy, bringing you Father, Lord almighty, into our entire being through our words of our mouth, our souls, our hearts, thoughts, even before they become words. May we all do in our speech, finding revelation in the unspoken speech in your creation and your word become pleasing, something that you God would find full of rejoicing that my life would be a pleasing sacrifice, bringing glory, honor, and praise to you God, acknowledging that you God truly, The one and only is this character and this nature that you Lord are my rock. One where I can find refuge, safety, security, and freedom. And even the greater is the character of God, my Redeemer. The only one by which we are saved from being lost, gone, tossed out without any value. God picks us up, dust us off, even brings us back into value. we are called a child of Him. He is given our name. We have an inheritance in Him. We become a child of His. And when all hope seemed to be lost, God shows again and again and again and rescues us.

That's Psalm 19. In creation, the Creator that was once hidden is seen in plain sight. And in God's word, the Lord Yahweh comes to us in a personal way. We meet God in this gracious and merciful who is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, showing faithfulness to the thousandth generation. The heavens, the Word, the glory of God. So the question for us is what do we do with this newfound knowledge? Will we pursue God as as more precious than the greatest desires of our heart, more than gold, more than honey. God's not a hidden God, as some believe. God is a very revealed God in everything that is around us. We can know God in a vague, impersonal nature connection, but the good news is it doesn't stop there. We can have a personal knowledge of God in deep, deep intimate relationship. That's the God that I want. That's the God that I need. That's the God that I serve. Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you for Psalm 19. God, I'm so grateful for the sermons who wrote this Psalm for us to be reminded today that you, God, are revealed all around us. There isn't a place on this earth that we can go where we do not see or experience or see who you are. But it doesn't just stop there, God. You've given us the knowledge of your word, your scripture, your holy, holy instructions to show us how to live our lives, to show us how to worship you. God, I pray that we would be reminded today of who you are. You're not just the big guy upstairs, you're not some impersonal God looking to strike us down when we first mess up or to just have smash us because you can just for your own pleasure. God, you desire deep relationship with us. God, I pray for those who today might not have made that choice, that they would say yes to you, to say yes to God, come into my life. Forgive me of the things that I've done wrong and that I've messed up. Remove my sin, go in my place, redeem me, make me whole. Have your spirit come upon me, have your new life pour into my heart. and God that I would live in the calling and the purpose that you have for my life today and forevermore. Jesus we thank you for today. God we worship you, we praise you, and give you all the honor and glory that nature does as you being our great creator. We thank you Jesus. Amen.

Summer of Psalms - Part 1

Psalm 29 - Listen for God’s Voice

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Going to introduce a new series. One of the values here at Spring Valley Church is we have this goal of covering the entire Bible over several years. And primarily, we do that on Sunday mornings through covering different books of the Bible and also in our community groups. But we cover-- we want to cover the entire Bible. And one of those rhythms that we have is to cover the Psalms over the summer. And so we'll be doing this for many summers because there's 150 Psalms. So we've done it the past few summers. We're going to keep doing it. but we love this goal of just we want to cover all of God's Word and so summers in Psalm are great it's such a joy to be here in this book as we begin this series I just want to give a general overview again of the book of Psalms and I would encourage you if you want to know more go home YouTube Bible project Psalms and there is a great video it's like seven eight minutes long just summarizing the entire book and they do a far better job than I can do and There's cool animations so you can kind of see what they're talking about. But I'm going to do my best to kind of share what they say.

So Psalms, like I said, 150 ancient Hebrew poems, songs, and prayers that come from all different eras of Israel's history. And there's many different types of poems in these collections, but generally they can be sorted into two categories. Those of lament and those of praise. Poems of lament in psalms are poems that express—or songs or prayers— express pain and confusion and even anger of the poets, of horrible things that are happening to them or horrible things that are happening around them. And they draw attention to what's wrong in the world and ask God to do something about it. And there are a lot of lament poems in the Psalms, which shows, and shows us today, that it's an appropriate response to the evil and the darkness that we see in our world today. An appropriate response is lament, and to take that lament to God. So, lamentation can play an important role in prayer. Now, lament poems make up most of books one through three, which, by the way, in Psalms there are five books. It's kind of separated into five sections, and the first three are heavily, there's praise and lament, but they're mostly laments. But in books four and five, towards the end of the Psalms, you can see that the praise poems are more frequent. And these poems of joy and celebration draw attention to what's good in the world. And they retell stories of what God has done in the lives of his people, and they thank him for all his works and who he is. And so books four and five, praise poems outnumber the lament poems. And it culminates at the very end of Psalms in this five-part Hallelujah to God. And the shift from books 1 through 3 and 4 and 5 in Psalms, they show something about the nature of prayer according to what God wanted the people to go through and what they went through. So there were a lot of hard times, but in the end there should be this praise to God, and there should be this peace that God has worked, and his work is coming to a culmination of good in the world. So, hoping for the Messianic Kingdom, as the book teaches us to do, creates a lot of tension as we live in a world of tragedy, but we know that God is at work and there's a future of hope. And I'll quote this directly. This is from this video, this Bible project. They're very amazing scholars. It says, "The Psalms teach us to neither ignore pain, nor let it determine the meaning of our lives. Biblical faith and prayers is always forward-looking, anticipating the day when God will fulfill His promises and praise Him for the things that are to come. The Torah and Messiah lament and praise faith and hope. This is what the book of Psalms is all about. And so today, I know that we hold a lot of tension in our lives of things that are very hard, things that are hurtful or painful, or we're just around a lot of darkness, And yet we have Christ, who is a light and who is a hope. And there is a future that we look forward to that is hopeful. And so the Psalms really helps us to manage that tension and gives us instruction on how to walk through our day-to-day lives, holding both things as realities.

I want to go ahead and pray before we get into our Psalm. I just think we need - there's never too much prayer. I need prayer. Let's pray one more time. God, if we come before you, We come before you with all that we have, and sometimes that's not a lot. But we know that you accept us just as we are. And so I pray that in this time, through your word, God, that you would fill us up with your spirit, with your joy, your love, your compassion, your grace. And God, that you would give us what we need for this moment, for this day, and we'll just take one day at a time. We don't need to worry about the days to come and all that, all the details and chaos that may lay ahead, but just for this day, we pray that you would provide us with what we need. And in this moment, as we're gathered to hear your truth, that it would be empowering and encouraging for us. Give this time to you. in your name. Amen.

All right, there is tension. I talked about tension. There's tension of the sin in our lives, the sin in the world, and there's tension even in the voices that we hear. So when God created Adam and Eve in the garden, there was no tension. It was Adam, Eve, and God, and it was just a beautiful relationship, and it was perfect. It's what God intended. And as sin entered the world, then there there became all these sorts of tension. Tension in the human heart of what to follow. To follow sin and to follow selfishness and pride or to follow God. We can put that in another way of what voices to listen to. Do we listen to the voice of God? And when sin entered the world, now there are other voices, the enemy, and other things of the world that are vying for our attention and for our hearts. So the voices of the world, even for us today, can be very loud. things like money, success, worldly values, keeping up with appearances, social media, all these things that are speaking to us, whether we realize it or not, they want our hearts. It may not be a specific voice, as if Satan is just talking to you all the time, but really, Satan, the enemy, is content with any voice that is talking to you that is not God. Any voice that is grabbing your heart, getting your attention, He's fine with that as long as it means that you're not hearing God's voice. Whether it's something neutral or really evil, or maybe even something that in and of itself is actually good, but if we have too much of that good thing that keeps us away from God, Satan is saying, "That's fine. I don't have to work that hard. There's so much noise in your life, you're not able to hear God." In our community groups, we've been covering different spiritual practices, And in all of them, there's this focus of hearing God's voice. So whether through prayer, or silence and solitude, or fasting, or even Sabbath-ing, they are all providing more opportunity to hear the voice of God, to lessen or turn down the volume of all the noise and all the other voices in the world, so that we can hear God’s.

Another way of thinking about this, about the voice of God and the voices of this world, or are we taking time to hear God's voice? Do you hear the voice of God? Now, this is not to guilt trip anyone, and I think it's rare to actually hear the audible voice of God in our daily lives. But if we just think about our day and our routine and our week, do we leave intentional times of quiet where we are just listening for God? Or do we kind of just believe and think that if it's important enough, God will interrupt my schedule. He'll get my attention somehow, and He'll make it clear to me. But I'm just going to go about my day. I got a lot of things to do. And so God, if it's really important, just, you know, make it amazing and make it, you know, I can't ignore it. Which, by all means, He can do, and He does. But shouldn't we, if our relationship with God is just that, a relationship where we speak with God, but we also want to hear from God, do we leave time in our day to hear His voice? Would we even recognize the voice of God in the midst of all the other voices that we hear? In the midst of all the other noise that we have in our day. You know, from getting up in the morning, to going to work, to getting kids to school, to checking emails, social media, to reading the news, keeping up with family and friends, texting, and all those conversations that happen, to getting dinner ready, to getting the kids to bed, to watching the shows that you got to keep up with. Do we leave time in all that day to just say, "I listened for God"? Or is it we look back at the end of the day and we're just kind of saying, "Good night, prayer to God, God, great time today, that was fantastic. Hope you had a good one too, good night." I'm guilty of that sometimes. I'm just like, "God, I should connect with you," but I'm literally falling asleep right now. Like I said, it may not be commonplace to hear the voice of God, but the Bible lets us know about the voice of God, of who God is, and how He speaks so that we can recognize God. We can have this relationship. We can know who we are in a relationship with. And it's so important. The Bible, God wants us to recognize Him and how He might speak to us.

And so that's our Psalm this morning. We're going to be in Psalm 29. You guys can turn there. It'll be on the screen. I'm just going to go ahead and read our entire psalm first, and then we're going to go verse by verse and break it down. So Psalm 29 says, "Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. Or the God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic. the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon leap like a calf, Syrian like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning, the voice of the Lord shakes the desert, the Lord shakes the desert of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest bare, and in his temple all cry glory. The Lord sits enthroned over the flood, The Lord is enthroned as King forever, and the Lord gives strength to His people. The Lord blesses His people with peace. This psalm is divided into three sections. In the first section is a call to praise God. This is written by David. Like I said at the beginning, there are many different authors of different psalms. David, I think, is a third of the book of Psalms is written by him. And so this is one of His. And He wants us, He wants the readers, He wants Israel to approach God with a certain heart, a proper view of the Lord, which is praise. We should come to the Lord praising Him. And again, just more questions for us today. How often do we praise God? I know we praised Him this morning. We were singing songs of praise to Him. We probably praise God when things are going well in our lives. Something great has happened. We're blessed and it's good. We should have this reaction of praising God. But how often do we praise God unrelated to the good things that happen to us? And maybe a different way of asking that is, is our praise to God transactional? "God, because you've done this, now I offer my praises to you." And again, we should be offering praise to Him when good things happen, but not only when good things happen. Do we live with the belief that God is good all the time? Unrelated to what state we may be in or how we may be feeling, do we still believe in praising God? This is a lesson that David learned over and over and over again in his life, as he had the craziest stories of hiding in a cave from someone who's trying to kill him, or being on the run from the king trying to kill him, or being in enemy territory, surrounded, completely surrounded, and just trying to survive to being king, and having very bad days in the office as king, and still having to come before God with praise, even when things were terrible. And so the point of these verses is to show us that the Lord is deserving of our praise. Even the angels owe their praise and worship to God, the Creator of all, the Lord over all. All the time. And are we able to, no matter how our day went, no matter how tired we are, or how frustrated or angry or hurt or grieving, we may feel or maybe be going through, can we still see God as Lord of all? And have a moment of praising Him? It should be one of the main starting points as we approach God in that conversation with Him. Now, He accepts us, He wants us. If we're hurting, He wants us to just express that hurt. But in there somewhere, are we still praising Him for who He is and what He does? So, in these first verses, David invites us to praise God, and then he goes on to describe just how powerful God is, reminding us of who Yahweh is. Again, the hope, His hope is spurring greater relationship with the one true God.

Psalms 29:3 says, "The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty waters." I love this. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm sorry. Hold on. Keep that in mind. Keep those verses in mind. What we're about to read, what I just read, is in comparison, David, the people of Israel, He writes this this song because he knows that his people are starting to hear other voices around them, the other false gods that are in the surrounding nations, and their hearts are starting to be pulled to especially this false god named Baal, or Baal, of other surrounding countries. And Israel just has this tendency, you'll see it over and over again in the Old Testament, where they just, they're there, they're with God, they're following God, it's going great, and all of a sudden, just slowly, they just start drifting, and they're like, "God's great," but also this other God could be awesome. And they start bringing that God into their lives. And so David sees this and he writes this psalm about the voice of God so that he can tell them, "This our God, Yahweh, is greater than any of the other gods that are out there. You need to remember this voice, this voice of God." So that's why some of these descriptions of God over the thunder, we'll get to this, is trying to help the people contrast. Like, you think that God is great, that God of the sky, or that God of this land, or the God of the waters. You think that they have power, but they have nothing compared to Yahweh. All right, now I read the verse about God. "Of glory thunders over the mighty waters." And again, in Hebrew, in the Hebrew mind, all these verses, we read this in English, and it is beautiful in English, but in Hebrew, the beauty of it is more complex, and it's very deep, and it would challenge the listeners, the Israelites, to recall certain things in their history. So it may just seem very poetic, and it's like, "Oh, God is the God of nature to us. He's in control of everything.”

But in all these examples, David is recalling very specific situations that the Israelites would know and recognize. And so we hear the God over the waters, thunder, and a couple things would come to mind. First is creation. And in Hebrew, we have the Spirit hovering over the waters at the very beginning of time. And so we see that God, David wants the people to see that God has power over creation, as the Creator. Not just power over creation because He's that powerful, but because He is the Creator. He created everything. And then as thunder, the God of glory thunders, thunders over the mighty waters. This idea of thunder would bring the Israelites to God's voice in the desert with Moses. And in Exodus 19, 19, you won't turn there right now, you can go back and check out this whole scene where the Israelites were gathered at the base of Mount Sinai, and God called Moses up to the top of the mountain to give Moses the law. This whole scene in Exodus is Israel becoming a nation. They had no really law, they had no distinction to make them, besides they were all of the same family and their family was huge. But in this moment, at the base of Mount Sinai, God is giving them their identity. He says, "You are mine, here is my law, which if you follow this, it means that you are living rightly. You are living in the way that I intended you to live." And so he's hearkening back to that moment as Moses went up to the mountain, and as God was speaking to Moses, it says that the thunder grew louder and louder as God spoke. And so the people at the base, Moses is up on the top and the people are all gathered. And it's a very scary moment for Israel. They've never seen this before as God. Just the thunder on that mountain is like trumpets, loud, loud trumpets. And it's the voice of God. So as David writes this, they're recalling this. And so it's a voice that has authority. And it's a voice that demands obedience. And instead of just saying that, they're like, "Hey, God's voice demands this." He recalls this whole moment so that Israel is thinking of, "Oh yeah, God gave us a lot. God gave us, instructed us on how to live, and that was a terrifying moment. This God, Yahweh, was up on that mountain, and his voice was thunder." God's voice has authority and demands obedience.

Next, verse 4, it says, "The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic." So again, continuing to draw on God's power, but also this word "majestic" makes us think of the royalty of God. To the people of Israel who desperately wanted a king, there was a time, there in the desert, through the judges, that God was effectively Israel's king. They had no earthly... Moses was their leader, Joshua was their leader, but God was their king. And then, as we know in the Bible, the Israelites grew tired of not having a king. And they looked at all the other nations, they're like, "Hey, they have human kings, we want a human king." And God's like, "I am the king, and I'm better than any human king." They're like, "That's not good enough. We want a human king." And he's like, "Fine." And he tells them, "It's not going to be good. You are going to suffer. You're going to go through pain. These kings will not make good decisions. I am perfect. They are not." And they're like, "Yeah, we get it. We still want that human king."

And so David had a beautiful heart, and this is why David is one after God's own heart. He recognized his own failures as a king, and God was perfect, and he knew his shortcomings. And so He's reminding the people of God's royalty that He is the King. And first, how awesome God is. I don't mean that in like the surfer way, like, "Oh, so awesome." Like, it makes us full of awe towards God. His voice has a reaction in us as He is King. And we don't really get this, I don't think, in our Western culture, and definitely not, I wouldn't say, in America, but think like medieval times or even before that. The king's word was law. Whatever he said was truth. And that's the language that David is using here, that when God speaks, it is truth, it is law. It is something that we are to live by, and it is good. Unlike the earthly kings who, it could have been terrible, but because it was law that you had to follow it, God's word is true, it is good. And so that's all wrapped up in this word "majestic". And 5 and 6 say, "The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon leap like a calf, Syrian like a young wild ox." Now I read this, and I'm like, I don't know what's happening. What are we talking about here? Cedars making Lebanon leap like a calf. But we dive further in. It's again just referencing God's power, His power as Creator over creation. The cedars of Lebanon are trees that maybe we can think of the redwoods that we have in California. Just known for standing the test of time. They're huge. They're strong. Cedars of Lebanon are the same thing. Whenever the Bible says it was like something was made from cedars of Lebanon, it's supposed to help us be like, "Oh, that thing is like finest quality. That is up there." And so it points to God's power as Creator that He has power over His creation. that even the strongest thing on earth that we can think of, these trees, God has power over them. It's nothing for him. Or he makes Lebanon leap like a calf, searing like a wild ox. Again, just things that humans have no control of. No human could make that happen. God could make that happen. That is how powerful he is.

In verses 7 and 9, read, "The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert. The Lord shakes the desert of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest bare, and His temple all cry holy." David, again, is thinking of that foundational moment in Israel's history, of being in the desert of Mount Sinai, in that pivotal moment of Israel getting to know God. And he's reminding the people, again, of just how much higher and more powerful Yahweh is than any of the other gods that the surrounding nations worshipped. Then he brings in this place of Kadesh. And this is the place where the report of the Promised Land came back. Moses had come to the edge of the Promised Land, and he sent spies in to say, "Hey, are we able to go in? What does it look like? Let's see this land that God has promised. Let's see what it looks like." And the report came back, and you may know 12 spies went in, and only two said that God would give them the victory. The other said it's not possible. Too much. The people are too big. The fortresses are huge and they didn't believe. And so this moment of God shakes the desert of Kadesh, I think can be interpreted in a couple different ways. But I like that it's just bringing back this moment where God's voice wasn't listened to. God spoke to two of them strongly and said, "No, tell Moses that we can do this. That God will provide whatever is needed to go and conquer the Promised Land." But ten didn't believe and kind of ignored the voice of God. And then Israel's future was changed. They had to go wander in the desert for 40 years. And so we have this contrast of it's a voice that demands authority, or demands obedience and has authority. But we also have a moment of seeing the consequence of when it's not listened to, there are consequences. If God's voice is instruction, if you don't believe in who He is and what He can do, your life is going to be worse. And it brings to mind the wandering of the desert for 40 years. It's also a voice that brings judgment. And so as they wandered the desert for 40 years, and that was a punishment, God continued to sustain them. He didn't just leave them out there to die and say, "Now you got to go wander, and if you make it great, but if not too bad." No, He sustained them. He started bringing manna and quail, and He helped them in those 40 years.

And so it's a voice that, yes, brings judgment, but it's also a voice that sustains and provides and saves. Verse 9, there's a couple different translations here. Some say, "In the strips the forest bear, and in this temple all cry holy." And other versions that say, "The Lord makes the deer give birth." And this is a reference to Job. And God is just trying, David is trying to say that God has control, again, in ways that humanity does not have control. God has power over His creation in a way that as humans can become such experts in things, and especially today where we have a lot of control over things, and science is amazing, and does so many things. God is far beyond that. God has the Creator. This can't be stated enough, and I think Israel, this is why David just keeps harping on it. As Creator, God has control, complete control, and it's effortless. It's of such ease over all of creation. Nothing stresses Him out. Nothing gives Him like, "Oh, this was a really hard one for me." No, God has complete control. And all those who are in the temple, all those who are living in right standing with God, can recognize this, can see this, and the response is glory. Glory to God. Once you see God at work, once you see what He's doing, the response is one of praise. Glory to God. And so after describing God's power and the power that His voice has, now David describes Yahweh as King.

And in verses 10 through 11, "The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord is enthroned as King forever. The Lord gives strength to His people. The Lord blesses His people with peace. David puts in the reader's mind, in the listener's mind, Yahweh on the throne as King. And he says, "King over the flood." And now this word is only used in the Bible one other time. In the flood, back in Genesis, with Noah. And that flood experience, that flood story for the Israelites, is a mix of God's terrifying judgment and also his plan of salvation. The power that God had to flood the entire earth is scary. The fact that everyone could die and that God had control over that is, I mean rightfully so, that's a lot to take in. And at the same time, in that same story, we see God's rescue plan, his salvation plan at work by saving the family of Noah. And so He is, again in the Hebrews mind, they're saying, God has control over the most, like one of the most terrifying judgment experiences the earth has ever experienced. One of the most destructive forces, God has control over that. And yet He also works salvation through anything. And unlike earthly kings, David writes that the Lord is enthroned forever. Every earthly king has an end, has a beginning and an end. And David's writing this as a good king. He had a time of flourishing. His kingdom was a good one. And he even recognized that, well, this is going to come to an end. But God is king forever. We see David say that God gives people what they need. He gives them strength. and He gives them peace. So even though He brought up this flood, which would bring up maybe some anxiety for Israel, so like, "God, is God going to judge us? What kind of judgment are we going to face?" God also gave peace to Noah, and God gives peace to His people. It brings to our attention that God causes us to look towards God. It causes us to look heavenward, with awe. It helps us to look forward with faith, as we know that God is good and He'll give us everything that we need. And it reminds us of who God is, so that as we go about our day, hopefully we can recognize the voice of God. Whether it's through what He does, or things that are happening around us, all of that can be God speaking to us.

So I just want to remind us as we close, that Psalms is a prayer book for the people of Israel and for us today. And sometimes the point of prayer or a psalm Is simply to draw our minds back to God just to draw us closer to Him as life Really pushes us away from God and we feel that tension of I feel distant from God. I've been so busy And so the point of psalms and a prayer is just to simply bring us back to Him And so today and this week my encouragement would be for all of us to listen for God's voice For our minds to be drawn towards him and for us to praise god for who he is. So if there's a couple things It's can we approach god with praise despite how our day is gone when we've had the worst day the worst week Can we still praise god? And then are we making time to listen for god's voice? We want to be able to recognize it we may not hear an audible voice of god if you do Amen, praise god, please share. I would love to hear that Truly, that'd be amazing. But we will probably hear God's voice in other ways. Maybe through other people, through the reading of His Word, in the silence, just the nudging of the Spirit within us. We want to be attuned to that. We want to be ready for that so we can follow God with everything that we have. Let's go ahead and pray. God, thank you again for your Word that guides us, that is true, that is steadfast and faithful and never changes. And God, I pray that this week truly that you would speak to us. And really we know that it's really on us. We need to make time to listen. So I pray that you would help us to do that. That you would make that a conviction, a priority in our hearts. That there would truly be desire. And that we would make time, whether that's quiet time in the morning, or on our drive, or just a moment where we're just silent and listening. God, I pray that we would all hear how you are leading us and guiding us, calling us to live for you, to love others. Maybe it's just a voice that provides comfort as we're going through hard situations and difficult times. But God, I pray that we would feel closer to you, that we would feel in your presence, and the love and the peace that you provide in that time. Sustain us God, carry us this week. We trust you and we love you. We pray this in your name. Amen.