The Way of the Psalms
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Introduction
Introduction
The way of discipleship is hard.
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.
How do we actually pull that off?
There is a whole book for that.
This is the book that Jesus used. He quoted it more than any other book. He understood everything he was doing through that book. These are the words that came from his mouth in the most joyous, triumphant times, and the very worst.
But how do the Psalms help us to walk the hard path of discipleship?
Today we are going to start our series by reading the first psalm, as the key who all the psalms.
Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
Question: Why bother with this book?
Big Idea: the Psalms NOURISH us so we can FOLLOW God in good times and bad.
Big Idea: the Psalms NOURISH us so we can FOLLOW God in good times and bad.
To be truly happy, we must ACKNOWLEDGE our place as CREATURES of God. (v. 1, 4-6; Revelation 4:10-11)
Define wicked and righteous
the one principle of hell is--'I am my own. I am my own king and my own subject. I am the centre from which go out my thoughts; I am the object and end of my thoughts; back upon me as the alpha and omega of life, my thoughts return. My own glory is, and ought to be, my chief care; my ambition, to gather the regards of men to the one centre, myself. My pleasure is my pleasure. My kingdom is--as many as I can bring to acknowledge my greatness over them. My judgment is the faultless rule of things. My right is--what I desire. The more I am all in all to myself, the greater I am. The less I acknowledge debt or obligation to another; the more I close my eyes to the fact that I did not make myself; the more self-sufficing I feel or imagine myself--the greater I am. I will be free with the freedom that consists in doing whatever I am inclined to do, from whatever quarter may come the inclination. To do my own will so long as I feel anything to be my will, is to be free, is to live. (George MacDonald)
Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
The wicked are like chaff: because they have no roots in reality (because they have nothing but themselves) they are easily blown away.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
Notice, God gives them both what they want. He acts as a creator to the righteous, and gives the wicked their independence.
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.
Lewis, C. S.. The Great Divorce
They are also wrong: one day we will not be able to deny who we are, and who God is.
the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.”
How will you be able to join in this song, if you have never (would never?) acknowledge God as king? This is why the psalmist says,
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
The problem is that they are not the right kind of people. They have not become the right kind of people. They don’t even want to be that kind of people.
I willingly believe that ... the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man “wishes” to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free. Lewis, C. S.. The Problem of Pain (p. 107).
WHat’s worse, they try to bring us along. That’s the danger:
Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
So what difference do the psalms make?
The Psalms NOURISH us—they give us the strength to HONOR God in good times and bad. (v. 3; Ps. 92:12-15, 137:1-4, 44:13-26, 22:1)
We see this in verse 3:
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
The torah is God’s instruction, not just “law” or the Law of Moses. In this case, it refers first and foremost to the psalms.
We are transplanted. But where? The imagery reminds us of the house of the Lord.
Compare to Psalm 92:
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the Lord,
they will flourish in the courts of our God.
The tree is in the house of the Lord—the temple, the Garden of Eden.
But what does it mean to produce fruit? Psalm 92 helps there as well:
They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
proclaiming, “The Lord is upright;
he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”
Bearing fruit means giving honor to God. The author of Hebrews uses the same image:
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.
This is the challenge, because there are times when it is really hard to give honor to God. and the Psalms are the first to admit this:
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?
It’s important to remember that honoring God does not mean complimenting him, or being happy about what he is doing. Honoring God really means acknowldging him as king in whatever you are feeling. And a lot of the psalms are about honoring God in very dark feelings:
Psalm 44:13-26
Psalm 44:13-26
In fact, Jesus did this very thing on the cross:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
I will declare your name to my people;
in the assembly I will praise you.
You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.
The psalms have all kinds of perspectives, topics, etc. But they all honor God as king.
So how do we gain this nourishment?
The psalms NOURISH us when we RECITE them with an OPEN heart and mind. (v. 2, Acts 4:23-30)
[Happy is the one] whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
What does it mean to delight and meditate on the psalms?
Meditation is easy: it means “to mutter,” like a person learning their lines.
Meditating on the psalms means reciting them, both individually and together.
“Delight” means leaning your heart toward.
You cannot choose to enjoy the psalms, but you can choose to read them sympathetically.
Read them as something you can learn from.
We too easily dismiss the psalms when they confuse, bore, or repel us. But when you read them sympathetically (how are they about me? What can they teach me?) you can find the meaning they have for your life. You can find nourishment, the way Jesus did.
Jesus quoted the psalms all the time. They gave shape to his life. They helped him make sense of what was happening in his ministry. And the New Testament church did the same thing.
His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
Read Acts 4:23-30
Read Acts 4:23-30
Next Steps
Next Steps
So what now?
This summer we are going to look at psalms that help encourage and equip us—that nourish us for our journey as Christians.
The church existed for decades without the New Testament, but never without the Psalms.
Acknowledge your place as a creature before God.
Put down your wickedness.
Commit to pursuing wisdom, righteousness—a life grounded in the reality of God.
Start reading the Psalms as part of your scripture discipline.
One per day, 60-day reading list, 30-day reading list, etc.
