Psalms Intro
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I am a church planning resident here at Mill City. I'm excited for the series we're in this morning. We're starting the Psalms. The goal of this series is that we would learn to delight in God daily in everyday life and that we would grow in our love for the Psalms.
So we're going to spend nine weeks walking through them. Today we're going to be in Psalms 1 and 2. So if you have a Bible, you can turn to page 254. Maybe we'll get to that in a second. All right, so back in the 70s, NASA sent a spacecraft into space with a record player and a record.
And that record had a list of songs. It had anything from Bach and Mozart and Beethoven all the way to Chuck Berry. And the goal was that they sent this into space that tens of hundreds of years down the road, an alien would discover it. And they would think, Earth has got a nice playlist. This is what humans listen to. And I guess not wipe us out.
I don't know if they left the address for Earth or what. But that was a real mission. That actually happened. So with that waste of taxpayer dollars, I thought we should double down. We should send another spacecraft. And this could include an iPod that covers the full range of human emotions.
So we have songs. We have playlists for different emotions if you're happy, if you're sad, if you're angry. So let's put this up there and send it up. So I thought this morning I put a pretty widespread of music together that we can go through that I think would be good to send up there. You can feel free to push back or you can celebrate it. You can give a grunt of assurance.
But here's a few different emotions and a few different songs that will match it. So if you're happy, here are a few songs we would listen to. ABC by the Jackson 5. Like that. You can't listen to that and not be happy. Hey Ya by OutKast.
OutKast, the greatest hip-hop group of all time. Hey Ya is just a fun, happy song. Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum, going back to the 70s. That song, it's a happy song. Here's a quirky one. I Believe in a Thing Called Love by the Darkness.
Who's heard of that song? A few of you. It's back in the 2000s. It sounds like it was made in 1983. But you listen to that, the guitar solos and the car, air guitar, that is a happy song.
All right, switching gears. If you're angry, you might listen to Down With This Sickness by Disturbed. Now you may think, I never expected to hear that in a sermon. But you would. If you like kind of harder rock music, Down With This Sickness is a pretty angry song. How about Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine?
Or for that matter, any song by Rage Against the Machine will work out some of your anger. If metal, if rock is too much for you, just wait until Taylor Swift has a breakup and she will have a song for you that you can work your anger out. How about when you're sad or emotional? Here are some songs that might be good for you. Johnny Cash has a cover of Hurt. It's a Nine Inch Nails cover.
That song Hurt is just, it's so good. It's emotional. It's somber. How many of you have heard of The Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics? Show of hands. No one.
One. Two. Two of you have heard of it. Okay, just when you go home, Spotify, Google, YouTube, whatever, The Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics will make you want to go hug your dad or your stepdad. It's just a, it's an emotional song. Fleetwood Mac's Landslide, another good one to listen to.
They have a whole genre of music called emo music. How many of you, like me, were in emo music back in the day, right? A few of you, all right? I'm thinking Hawthorne Heights, Ohio's for Lovers. Was anybody Hawthorne Heights 2006 down in Columbia concert? Anybody there?
I was. None of you? Okay. There's a whole genre. Some of you never left it. I'm thinking of maybe Josh Baboom.
But there's a whole genre of music for that. We'll end with this last one. Music that inspires you. Hey Jude by the Beatles. Man. In the early 2000s, Paul McCartney, Super Bowl halftime show.
The whole stadium joins in at the end. It just inspires greatness. The Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve. That's a 90s band, a 90s song, another great one. In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins. Maybe you're like me and you bought into the whole back story where Phil Collins was out at a lake one night and he saw this guy and that guy watched somebody drown and didn't help and he invited that guy to his concert and he sat in the front and the lights shone down at him and he sang in the air tonight and he was singing to him.
That's not true at all. It's a fake story. But I bought it. Do-do-do-do-do-do. The drum solo. It's money.
How about Wake, if you know who Arcade Fire is, Wake Up by Arcade Fire, another song that's just amped, inspires greatness. If you like hip-hop, Lose Yourself by Eminem. That is a, it's hype. We'll close with this. Peter Gabriel has a cover of Heroes, David Bowie's Heroes. Just, if you get a chance today, write it down.
Just watch it. Just listen to it. It's so good. It inspires greatness. We all have playlists and music for different emotions. If you're happy, if you're angry, if you're sad.
Maybe you have a workout set list. Maybe you have some study or workflow music and on down the line. In a way, God has given us a playlist for worship and we have that in the Psalms. God is teaching us how to relate to him, how to worship, how to be, how to pray, how to be angry, how to be sad. Some of you feel like you have to be happy before you come and worship God. Some of you may be angry.
You feel like you've got to just put that away before you come and pray to him. And I think the reason why we have these kind of issues is we lack the categories for how to respond to God. But the Psalms, they give us that. The Psalms are some of the most beautiful pieces of literature I'd say ever written. They're beautiful because they cover the full range of human emotions. They're beautiful because they relate to God in raw and seemingly dangerous ways at times.
They're beautiful because they're songs. They're songs that have been sung by God's people for centuries and for thousands of years. They're beautiful because they continually recount and remember the promises of God. A lot of the songs that we sing every week that remember God's promises are inspired by the Psalms. They're beautiful because they're prayers. They're prayers that have been prayed over the last 2,000 years by other Christians.
When you pray a Psalm, that is something that Christians across the globe for the past 1,000 years have prayed. They're beautiful because they're intentionally crafted poetry that covers subject matters like repentance and laments, remembering God's promises, joy, rest, and all these things that we're going to cover in the weeks to come. We're going to spend nine weeks covering these. And during this nine weeks, we want you to immerse yourself in the Psalms, which is why we have a devotional guy on the back. We want you to grab when you leave. Use it.
I've been guilty in the past of grabbing something like that, throwing it in the back seat, and then three months later remembering it was there. So actually take it, use it, wherever you might have a few minutes of the day to do devotion. Maybe that's at your house or your place of work. But here's why we want you to immerse yourself in the Psalms. We want you to grow in personally relating to God in everyday life. And we want you to grow in your love for the Psalms.
And if you do this, if you spend the next nine weeks doing this with us, it will dramatically change your faith. You can take that to the bank. So in order to do that, we've got to introduce the Psalms today. We're going to introduce Psalms 1 and 2. Psalms 1 and 2 are kind of the gateway by which we read the rest of the Psalms. So as we go through Psalms 1 and 2, you're going to see a lot of the other Psalms, the other 148 Psalms that follow that look similar to this.
And as we walk through Psalms 1 and 2, there is a framework that we will see. And that's this, that it is blessed to be, you are blessed to be God's people because you are like a tree rooted by streams of water. Unlike, which is contrasted, unlike the enemies of God who are called the wicked. So we're going to see that and we're going to walk through that. And the second thing we're going to walk through and we're going to see at the end is blessed are all those who take refuge in the King. So we're going to walk through that.
Before we unpack that, let's pray. Father, thank you that you've given us this word, that you've given us the Psalms. God, I pray that we would see them as beautiful today, that you would help us understand your word, that you would speak to us, and that we leave here seeing more of your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so before we jump into Psalms 1 and 2, we've got to do some background.
Now, the Psalms were written by many different people over the span of a thousand years. So Moses, he wrote one of the first Psalms we have back in 1500 BC. The last Psalms were written about 5th, 6th century BC. So they're written over a span of a thousand years. They're written by a few different people. We have David who wrote the most of them.
All right, so he wrote about 73 of them. Then we have Moses. Then we have a group of people called the Sons of Korah or the Sons of Korah. We have someone named Asaph who wrote a few of them. And then there are some people, some Psalms that we don't know who wrote them. They're unknown authors.
The word Psalm goes back to the Hebrew word for song. So these are songs that were sung by the Jews for years. This was their hymnal. Around the last time, around the last Psalm, the time the Psalm was written, the last Psalm that was written, they were arranged into a collection of 150 of what we now call the Psalter. And in the Psalter, there are five books. There are five sections.
They carry a few different themes. And we're in the first book today. We're in Psalms 1 and 2. Psalms 1 and 2 don't have an author in their heading. If you look at the Psalms, sometimes you'll see an author in the heading. But we know that David wrote this because in the New Testament it's quoted that David wrote these.
So let's start Psalm 1, verses 1 through 4. 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. So scoffers are mockers, those who mock. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. All right, so we'll stop there. One of the ways that we know that Psalms 1 and 2 are meant to be read together is through a literary term called an inclusio. That is a fancy way of saying that the first line and the last line have similar language and style, so what comes between them is meant to be read together. So Psalm 1 starts out as blessed is the man, and Psalm 2 ends with blessed are all those who take refuge in him.
So we know that these are meant to be read together. So the psalmist David, he starts out with a contrast between two groups of people, the wicked and those who delight in God's law, who he calls the righteous. Much of the Proverbs is set up like this. Much of wisdom literature like the Proverbs is set up like this. The wicked and the righteous. In David's context, the wicked are his enemies.
They're enemies of God. They're enemies of the nation of Israel. They curse God, and they curse David as king. They rob, they murder, they bring all kinds of violence. Much of David's life, he was under the threat of violence from this group of people called the wicked. The righteous are simply those who follow and delight in the law.
That's the first five books of the Old Testament. It's called the Torah or the Torah. So it's those who delight and follow the law. The rest of the Psalms flow out of that logic. Many Psalms we see are deep cries of justice against the wicked. Many are, a few of them are laments, deep cries of sadness because God's people have experienced all kinds of injustice and pain from this group of people called the wicked.
Many of David's Psalms were written while he, who was an anointed king at one point and then became the king, was on the run for his life. He's starving, and he's wondering where God was. I mean, David's doing everything he's supposed to do. He is delighting in the law daily while his enemies curse God and curse the king. And David, he's wondering why is it that his enemies, why is it the wicked prosper while he is doing everything he can as God's chosen king, why he suffers. And that's the position in many of the Psalms.
It's why the wicked prosper while God's people suffer. And I think if we're honest, I think we sometimes wonder the same thing. Why is it that the wicked financially prosper? Those who don't love God financially prosper, and those of us who love God, man, we suffer financially. I'm a real estate agent by trade, and I see often these days someone who bought a house in 2007, and 10 years later, they're going to sell their house, and they're taking a huge loss. After 10 years of paying their mortgage, they're having to bring cash to closing.
And the reason why is because back in 07, the houses were artificially at a high price because of the shady backroom Wall Street mortgages that were happening. And they were profiting, and it was building up, and the whole worldwide economy stalled into a worldwide recession, and people lost their houses. Some people lost everything and went bankrupt. There were suicides that happened because of this. And there are many people who love God, who lost everything, and are wondering, why is it that I'm suffering financially when the wicked prosper? Only one person from that entire mortgage corruption went to prison.
The rest, man out like bandits, man out with enough wealth to carry them through, to carry them through the rest of the recession. So you may be wondering, why is it that the wicked prosper? You may be wondering that when it comes to health. Why is it that God's people suffer in health, while those who don't love God prosper in health? I, so the people in our culture that we look up to as the glamorous are rock stars, and movie stars, and many of them explicitly say they're not Christians. They don't love God.
In fact, they mock Christians on a regular basis. And many of them live long, healthy lives. They might do all kinds of drugs and partying are crazy, and they live long lives. And many of God's people suffer sickness, and disease, and trials. Some of them are kids. They get cancer.
And many people, if we're honest, are left wondering, why is it that I'm suffering while the wicked prosper? It doesn't seem like I'm all that blessed. David and the rest of the Bible lays it out. Blessing is not circumstantial. The wicked often look blessed because they don't lack any material blessing. But blessing isn't based on your circumstances.
So David lays it out. You are blessed because you have eternal blessing and delighting in the eternal God. You are blessed when you delight in God's word daily because when you do that, you stare upon God's perfection. You gaze upon His beauty and His glory and His goodness. Now, I don't want to spend too much time there today. Chet's going to cover that next week in Psalms that meditate on God's word.
But the reason that we see here, the reason why that life is better than the counsel of the wicked, is that that's the only way that you can truly flourish as someone who's made in the image of God. Because the picture here is when you do this, you're like a tree planted by eternal streams of water, yielding fruit and its season. Now, some of you, you're in that season. Like, you're feeling it and it's joyous. You can look to Psalms like Psalm 100, which is a Psalm of praise. For the Lord is good.
His steadfast love endures forever and His faithfulness to all generations. Like, that is your heart and it's a joyous season. I have learned over the years as I've matured as a Christian to celebrate with people that are in seasons like that. I used to be really cynical and I'd show up to a community group where we're going to confess sin and I'd be, Psalm 51 would be kind of the season that I would be, Psalm 51 is a Psalm of repentance. It's David, he says, cleanse me with hyssop, which is a cleansing branch that I may be clean. Wash me, that I may be whiter than snow.
Create me a clean heart and I'm just wading through my sin and I come to confess sin and I pour out there my soul and then next guy gets up and he's like, well, I have something to confess to. He's like, my goal last week was to have seven quietness. Five times and I had six. It was a Wednesday and it was busy and I just didn't spend time in God's word and I just want to be held accountable to spending more time with God and I'm like over here and I'm looking at that, I'm like, what just happened? Like, this guy can't be real. He's got to be lying or hiding something like, like there's no way and I used to get really frustrated.
There are some people in this state that need to be honest and open about their brokenness and maybe they need to be more open but there are some people that just are in a season where they are joyous and they're delighting in who God is and I've learned to celebrate with them over the years. Some of you, that's not the season you're in. Some of you, this fruitful tree, this picture here of being planted by streams of water, man, that just didn't seem real and if that's you, man, know this, our faith, which we know is secured and given to us in Christ, that is the tree. You may be in suffering and sin or in sickness wherever you're at but you need to know that Christ is the one who secures that tree for us and as we go through the next couple weeks, we're going to cover Psalms of lament and Psalms of repentance and Psalms of remembering God's promises and this season, those Psalms can be a comfort to your soul but know that you're still near the living well.
You're still near the water. You are still a deeply rooted tree next to living water. The storms of this world may be raging against you like storms raging against a tree but you are firmly planted in the soil. You're not going anywhere. You may feel the heat of sin or of suffering like the heat of the sun on a tree but you're always near the water. You're always near the water.
You're rooted and you're secure unlike the picture that we're given here of the wicked which is the picture of chaff. Now the picture of chaff is when they harvest wheat they throw wheat in the air and the chaff would float away. I'm not a wheat farmer. You're not a wheat farmer so it's not as helpful for me. I'll give you a picture of what I think is helpful for me. I have a somewhat nerdy hobby.
I roast coffee. I roast it. I love doing it. Coffee comes from a coffee tree. It comes from these coffee cherries. They take the cherries they take the beans out they're green they wash them they dry them they send them all over the world and then people like me or Starbucks buy them and we roast them.
And so I roast them and as you roast them they start to turn brown and then eventually the whole the husk kind of breaks off and it's chaff and it's thin flaky almost like dandruffy. It floats up and I have a little chaff basket that it catches in the chaff basket and then when it's done I grab the chaff basket and I take it off and when I take it off the chaff almost some of it just blows away immediately and I take it and I throw it in the trash. That is the picture of chaff. And another thing it's just it's momentary it's there and then it's gone and that's what God says of our moment in time it's like dew in the morning he says it's here in the morning and then it's gone by lunchtime.
It's so momentary it's thin it's not rooted and when the fires come the picture we have here is the wicked are driven away. It's not rooted it's not secured when judgment comes the wicked won't stand. Verses 5 and 6 say this 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. Now you may be thinking you may be thinking at this point that's kind of intense language like you said the Psalms were beautiful and you mean to tell me it's filled with language like this. Yep.
All over the Psalms and as we see it all over the Bible and as Raz preached last week Christ one of his key features and characteristics is that he will be the judge that comes to judge everyone. So yeah the Psalms are filled with pictures like this and I think the reason why it's hard for me and hard for some of you to see pictures like this and to actually relate to them is because we in our culture in western culture we don't experience injustice like the rest of the world. Like global Christianity when they come upon when they come upon Psalms like this they find comfort in these and the reason why is because they experience all kinds of injustice financial suffering religious persecution I mean they experience all kinds of injustice and they find comfort in this and if I'm honest I feel like the reason why I struggle with this is not just because I'm western it's because I'm also white. We have black and brown brothers and sisters in our country who experience injustices all the time.
Man the only the main injustice that I experience on a regular basis is on I-20 and where they're doing the construction and somebody cuts me off and I'm like I want fire to come down on them I mean I get angry quick some of you are in the same boat no lie but that's the kind of injustice that I experience and that's not the injustice that many people experience that's why I think it's hard for us to relate to the Psalms
So at the end of Psalm 1 it's meant to be a comfort and it's also meant to be a warning it's a warning that God's justice is coming don't be tempted by the counsel of the wicked God's way is better so that's how Psalm 1 ends Psalm 1 starts with the counsel of the wicked Psalm 2 gives that metaphor a face so I'm going to read all of Psalm 2 it's 12 verses all at once
This may be hard to stay with me if you are having trouble staying with me grab the fidget spinner start spinning we'll work through all 12 at once alright verse 1 why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together so like David's writing this and the picture is the nations are surrounding him and they're plotting
Together and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us alright this is how God responds verse 4 he who sits in the heavens laughs the Lord holds them in derision another version says the Lord ridicules them then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury saying
Ask for me I have set my king on Zion my holy hill I will tell of the decree the Lord said to me you are my son and today I have begotten you ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession you shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel now therefore O kings be wise be warned O rulers of the earth serve the Lord
With fear and rejoice with trembling kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way for his wrath is quickly kindled blessed are all who take refuge in him so David spent most of his life being hunted down like the walls of his world were consistently caving as he was being hunted down and that was his life enemy after enemy rising up nation after nation
Rising up bringing threat against him and the picture here in this Psalm this is viewed by the generations of David that followed after him that this was the pronouncement of his kingdom that the line of David that king after king would come nations would come and rage against God's people against his kingdom and it would stand as verse 9 he would break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel but shortly after this
Shortly after David not you know a couple generations later the kingdom splits in two and after the kingdom splits in two because of civil war the Assyrians come in and wipe out thousands in the most brutal awful way that we see depicted in the scriptures the Babylonians come another pagan nation comes and slaves some and deports some and the Persians come
And nation after nation comes and the people who look at this Psalm are just they're baffled they're confused like what what was this supposed to mean I mean I thought David's kingdom was going to reign and nation after nation takes over and it's important to remember at this point that the Psalms are inspired scripture meaning
God is the chief author here God is using David's experiences and his language to communicate God's eternal word so the intent of the author which is called authorial intent that matters it matters in scripture it matters in music how many of you have heard the song by the police every breath you take most of us some of you that was your song back in the day with your woman
That's what you dance to you claim that that was your love song it sings like every breath you take every move you make every bond you break every step you take God be watching you and it kind of sounds sweet Sting the lead singer of the police comes out years later and he says it's not a love song this song is about stalking it's meant to be creepy so if it was read like it's supposed to it's every breath you take
Every move you make every bond you break every step you take I'll be watching you you ain't dancing to that song you ain't choosing that song to be the love song that you hold dear so I might have crushed that song for you that's okay I'll choose one more this will actually enhance this song there's a song by a semi-sonnet called Closing Time it's from the 90's and up until this week I thought this song was about closing time
At a bar it's closing time one last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or a beer that's what I've always thought it was when he says I know how I want to take me home I'm like oh like responsibility doesn't end driving maybe he's got a girl or a friend who wants to take him home that's really cool just real simple the lead singer came out years later and he said I wrote this song when I was getting ready
To have a son his only kid because I was getting ready to have a son and I wanted to write a song dedicated to him but I thought if I do this my bandmates will eventually hate it and they won't sing it so I hit this song in a song that looks like it's called Closing Time at a Bar so when you go back and you listen to the song and you hear lines like Closing Time turn out all the lights on every boy and every girl
Closing Time open all the doors and let you out into the world Closing Time every new beginning comes from some other beginnings and what he's saying is is that his world is getting ready to change we have a daughter but we're getting ready to have a son here in the next couple weeks it could be tomorrow it could be in a couple weeks and it just hits home for me like everything is going to change again every new beginning comes from some
Of their beginnings and the intent of the writer of the author it matters and the Jews sang from their psalter from their hymnal for centuries and then in the first century a baby is born in Bethlehem and 30 years later he starts performing miracles and he starts teaching and he starts quoting the Psalms and he starts quoting them and saying they're about me he starts quoting them about himself this Psalm and many others are forward looking to the one
Who was to come in Psalm 2-2 the Hebrew word for anointed is where we get the word Messiah it's where we get the word Christ the king here in Psalm 2 is ultimately Jesus the holy hill is the hill where he was crucified this Psalm is fulfilled in Jesus and this passage is quoted in Acts 4 the book of Acts is the first Acts of the church
Jesus ascends into heaven the church is commissioned out they start the church starts blowing up and then they start getting persecution and in Acts 4 this Psalm the first two verses is quoted Acts 4 verses 25-27 who through the mouth of our father David your servant so that's how we know David wrote this said by the Holy Spirit why did the Gentiles
Rage and the people's plot in vain the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed alright so there's the quote here's the interpretation verse 27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the Gentiles
And the peoples of Israel so kings like Herod leaders like Pilate the crowds screaming crucify him which is both Jews and Gentiles that's the ultimate category of the wicked that we see here those who hate God's law and then this group of people and then Peter brings it home and makes it even more personal in Acts 2
He's preaching to thousands of people who have come into the city thousands of whom were not there when Jesus was crucified and he says you're all guilty we are all guilty we are all the ones that put them there and the point is is that it's all of us and our sin that puts them there so when the category of wickedness is expand it's all of us it's all of us Romans 3 says
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God there is none who does righteous not even one we're all lumped into this category and that pride the same pride that we share with leaders like Herod and Pilate God responds in Psalm 2 4 he says he who sits in the heavens laughs the sovereign God the God who rules and reigns he stood in the heavens
And he laughed because their plot was in vain they thought the world Satan thought that they had stopped God's plan but it was God's plan all along that Christ would be crucified the father sent his son the king to die on a holy hill and because of his death and resurrection and because he ascended to the heavens and he sits at the right hand of the father
And the nations have become his inheritance because of that we get to see why the Psalms are so great for centuries they sang these Psalms not knowing who it was about and because of the gospel and because of where we are and what we know we get to look back at them and see what the author meant we get to see the full meaning of what's happening there and we get to sing them out of that perspective out of the perspective
Of the gospel so when we come to Psalms of lament which are important you need a category for how you can be you can be sad and mourn you're not if you have the picture that Christians are just supposed to be happy all the time chuck it that's not the case there are times there are seasons for mourning and sadness but 1 Thessalonians 4.13 says that you may not grieve as others who do not have hope we
Yes lament grow in lamenting but we don't do it as those who don't have hope we have the hope of Christ and we we can come to Psalms of repentance and pray them and sing them but we come from the perspective of Ephesians 2.8 it says for it's by grace you've been saved through faith we have a perspective of the gospel and we get to claim the promise at the end of this Psalm
When the psalmist says blessed are all who take refuge in him we get to take refuge in our savior and that's the point of the next nine weeks learning how to take refuge in our king growing in Psalms and learning Psalms of repentance and laments and remembering God's promises learning how to take refuge in our king so take the next nine weeks seriously
Like journey together as a church and let's grow in seeing the Psalms and their beauty and when we do this I'm telling you your faith will transform dramatically but I'll close with this some of you need to hear this call from the first time that we have a king who died on a holy hill so that you could be a tree eternally rooted by streams of water that's how much God loves us
You need to hear that call for the first time and for the first time you actually need to take refuge in him not in the things of the world not in the counsel of the world but in Christ take refuge in him place your faith fully in him and then take the next nine weeks and journey with us as we gaze upon the beauty of these Psalms the band's gonna come up they're gonna close this in a song
It's a song that some of you may know it's called ten thousand reasons it was written by Matt Redmond and in this song in this song he based it off of Psalm 103 the first two verses of Psalm 103 he read the first two verses of Psalm 103 and I'll read them here it says bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name bless the Lord oh my soul
And forget not all his benefits so he took those two verses and he started listing out his benefits he started listing out reasons why God is worthy of praise so we're gonna sing that this morning we're gonna sing why our God is glorious and why he's worthy of our praise let's pray Father thank you that you've given us these songs I pray that that we would journey together
As a church we would take the next nine weeks seriously that we would gaze upon the beauty of the Psalms and we would grow in how to relate and worship you God I pray if there's anyone here that has not taken refuge in him that they'd start today God bless you bless this time and bless our praise in Jesus name Amen