Praying the Psalms

Intro

Throughout this series we are looking at the foundations of what it means to be a praying church. I deeply love prayer, there has been nothing in recent years that has formed, shaped and sustained me in my life and ministry like prayer. We are going to be looking at petition and intercession, we are going to be looking at night and day prayer. And today the focus is on personal prayer. How do we grow in a personal prayer life.

Most of us have the basics of all prayer

Help

Thanks

Wow

And If I am honest, you don’t move past that really, you just go deeper into it. It is like so many things in our life, we need to understand the foundations, the basics. Then as we stick close to that we can move into a depth.

When you look at the life of Jesus, his life is grounded in personal devotion and prayer. Here is a quote I love from Tim Keller.

‘Jesus Christ taught his disciples to pray, healed people with prayers, denounced the corruption of the temple worship (which, he said, should be a ‘house of prayer’), and insisted that some demons could be cast out only through prayer. He prayed often and regularly with fervent cries and tears (Heb. 5:7), and sometimes all night. The Holy Spirit came upon him and anointed him as he was praying (Luke 3:21–22), and he was transfigured with the divine glory as he prayed (Luke 9:29). When he faced his greatest crisis, he did so with prayer. We hear him praying for his disciples and the church on the night before he died (John 17:1–26) and then petitioning God in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Finally, he died praying.’ Tim Keller.

Our lives are never straight forward, there are twists turns, complexitiies and challenges that we all face and therefore in the prayer life of the christian you are going to need to develop a richer and deeper prayer life for the different circumstances of life. When we talk about personal prayer, we can cover so many different areas and topics. But I really felt like I should share a bit on the prayer book of Israel, the book of Psalms.

It is important to say, our ability to pray elegantly doesn’t change our standing before God. When we hear the first words from the mouth of a child, they are precious and valuable. And it is the same with God, the simple prayers of a child are precious to God. But as the story of your life with God goes through the ups and downs, the highs and the disappointments, the complexities of the human exsistence. You will find the ability to bring all of that to God in prayer is so important. The psalm help us to do that like nothing else.

‘ I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God. It changes me.’ CS Lewis

‘If we wish to develop in the life of faith, to mature in our humanity, and to glorify God with our entire heart, mind, soul and stregnth, the pslams are necessary. We cannot bypass the psalms’ - Eugene Peterson

The book of psalms is a beautiful school of prayer. We love the Psalms because in them we encounter God, we understand and know him more. Learning to pray the psalms is an essential part of the christian life and learning to do so will equip you for all of the different types of prayer that will help you throughout your life.

Here are three ideas as to why this is so important.

1) The Psalms give you a Lineage You're praying the prayers Jesus & the church prayed.

When you pray a psalm, you're not starting something. You're joining something. This is your lineage, the prayers Jesus prayed, the prayers his people have prayed for three thousand years, and you're stepping into the line, you are stepping into the story of prayer.

We love Jesus, we want to live like him and be inspired by him to life fullness of life. Psalms are 150 poems and prayers at the centre of our bible. It was the song and prayer book of the people of Israel that has been shaped and edited into the 150, songs, poems and prayers that we have now. Written by multible authors, across a diverse set of circumstances. Mostly addressed to God.

They were core to the worshipping life to the people of Israel. Jesus would have known many if not all of them off by heart. The psalms are quoted consistently throughout the new testament. What does the father say when Jesus rises from baptism? (Matthew 3) ‘This is my son in wholm I am well plesed’ - It is a quote from the Messianic Psalms 2 & Isaiah 42:1 , it is a reference to Jesus as the messiah.

When challenged about children praising him in the temple, in Matthew 21 , Jesus responds, ““From the lips of children and infants, you Lord have called forth your praise” Which comes from Psalm 8:2.

John 2, when Jesus cleanses the temple. The disciples remembers that it is written ‘Zeal for your house consumes me’ that is Psalm 69.

In the Garden of Gethsemene, Jesus says ‘my soul is very mournful even to death’ this come from Psalm 88:3, and incredibly powerful Psalm of pain and lament. (I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death.)

Jesus’s language is shaped by the Psalms, he says these prayers of Israel as something so important in his own prayer life. In the high times and in the challenging times, Jesus turns in personal prayer, to the Psalms to give language to his prayers.

On the cross, Jesus quotes twice from the Pslams. He shares the beginning of Psalm 22. They would often share the first line, and when you share the first line, it invocates the full psalms. Psalm 22:1 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?”

Then he says ‘into your hands I commit my spirit’ Which is Psalm 31:5 The church did the same. We see it here in Acts 4:24–26 “And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “ ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’ Which comes from Psalm 2.

The disciples reached for the Psalms in the middle of the persecution. It helps them to find their suffering within the purposes of God. Jesus and the apostles reached for the Psalms as their primary expression of prayer.

As we pray the Psalms we do the same, we find our story in the bigger story of God, the purpose behind our suffering.

2. The Psalms give you a LANGUAGE ‘There's a psalm for that.’

The Psalms give you language. Words for the days you can't find your own, for the joy and the grief and the rage and the fear you don't know how to bring to God, the Psalms hand you the language to pray it.

Back in 2009 at the launch of the App store, apple launched the marketing campaign - Can you remember the phrase - ‘there’s an app for that’.

We learnt last week, that God isn’t like Amazon delivering us answers and blessings packaged up in next day delivery, he isn’t a phone that will give us a dopamine hit and that you can’t pull a lever and expect an instant answer. But let me say, in the same way, Apple gave us an app store - and said, no matter what you need ‘There’s an app for that’. Maybe I could say this, no matter what you are feeling, what challenge you are facing, what emotion is building in your life ‘there’s a psalm for that’

Over the course over your life you will experience seasons of joy and seasons of dispear. Has everyone experienced that? There are seasons of newness and excitement, and seasons where everything feels stale and repetitive. Seasons of health and strength, and seasons of illness and weakness. The Psalms have words for every one of them.

Walking with God through the moments of life means finding words for what we're actually going through. Not just having the experience, but being able to name it, articulate it, bring it into words we can pray.

It isn’t for God’s benefit - he knows what is going on. But it helps us.

We don't need words because God is waiting to be informed. He knows what's in us before we do.

We need words because that's how we get hold of what we're carrying and actually turn towards him with it.

Think of any relationship that matters, if in a moment of pain, challenge or frustration I was to say to Becky ‘You already know how I feel so I don’t need to tell you’ that’s not particularly healthy communication. It’s no substitute for saying it.

There’s an intimacy being built in relationship as we put words to the feelings, emotions and expereinces we face. God knowing already doesn't make our words unnecessary, it sets them free, we're communing with him.

And when we can't find the words ourselves, when the feeling is too big or too tangled, the Psalms hand us the language, so the thing we couldn't express becomes something we can pray.

Have you ever been so challenged, hurt or confused that you’ve found it hard to articulate the words to pray? Let me tell you, ‘there’s a psalm for that’. The psalms invite us into a depth of feeling in our prayer life.

Have you ever felt spiritually dry, going through the motions, longing for something you can't quite reach? Psalm 42:1-2. "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?" So take this, pslam and pray it over your life when your faith feels dry.

Have you ever cried out and wondered if God was slow to hear? Psalm 130:1-2. "Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy." Often life, isn’t mountain top moments, but maybe instead of the top of the mountain we find ourselves at bottom looking up. Wondering if anyone sees, hears or notices us. This is a Psalm that shapes that moment.

Have you ever been gripped by fear, needing somewhere solid when everything around you is shaking? Psalm 46:1-2. "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea." Get a hold of this Psalm and you can find stability in any storm.

Have you ever wondered whether anyone really knows you, all of you, and would stay? Psalm 139:1-3. "You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways." So much of the fear we can live with is the fear of rejection, that when we are fully known people wont want to know us. Well this Psalm, walks with us right into that ache of abandonment, and tells us that we are never abandoned, that we were welcomed and formed in a family.

Have you ever been so full of gratitude you didn't know what to do with it? Psalm 103:1-2. "Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits."

There is room in our prayer life for all of our emotions, our pain, our highs and our lows. It is the Pslams that help us to brings words and depth, healing and life to these prayers. And if you are thinking, but I don’t know where to start - well there is an App for that. Lectio 365, is such a helpful app and resource. It leads us into praying the bible each day, and it always begins with praying a psalm. We are going to look more practically in a bit but use that App. It is great.

Can I push this one step further, because there's something deeper here than finding the psalm that matches your mood.

Sometimes the psalm you need is the one that doesn't fit you at all. You pray "bless the Lord, O my soul" from Psalm 103 on the morning, that the coffee has run out & the kids have woken you up too early and your soul feels like blessing nothing. This is probably where I am more often then not!!

You pray the confidence of Psalm 23 through gritted teeth on the days that you feel every water come against is a storm that’s trying to take you out!

And here's what happens: the words go out ahead of your heart, and slowly your heart follows them. The Psalms hand us words to pray before we mean them, and the praying is how we grow to mean them.

Bonhoeffer said The richness of God’s Word ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our hearts. So as you turn to the Psalms in prayer your feelings are no longer the ceiling of your prayer life.

The Psalms don't just give you words for what you already feel. They teach you to feel what you don't yet.

So we’ve looked at joining with Jesus and the Early church in the lineage of prayer. We’ve looked at how the Psalms give us a language to give to help us pray through all the feelings and emotions of life. And finally…

3. The Psalm Gives you a landscape. They are a map that helps us grow

Left to ourselves, most of us pray a tiny patch of ground. The Psalms hand us the whole landscape, country we'd never have found on our own, and they show us the way through it.

Left to ourselves, most of us pray in a small patch of ground. I don’t know if you have ever met someone that has never really left their town. When Becky and I both moved to Portsmouth, we experienced this and remember finding it so strange. We’d left home at 18 for university, moved to Portsmouth as newly-weds and then came across people that had lived in the the same homes, space and neighbourhoods their whole lives. It was just different for us, and if we aren’t careful our prayer life can be similar. We develop a prayer life around the same few phrases and spaces.

If we aren’t careful we can pray the same few sentences, the same corner of the field, over and over.

We don't even know how much country there is.

The Psalms are a map of the whole landscape of prayer. They show you there are heights you haven't climbed and depths you've been afraid to go down, and they tell you where you are when you're completely lost in your faith.

They name the terrain of grief, of exile, of joy, so you know your location. But a map on its own just shows you the country, it doesn't get you there. So here's the better news. These aren't unmarked wilderness. Every one of these psalms is a path, worn smooth by three thousand years of people who prayed their way through this exact ground before you. You are not bushwhacking. You're walking trails that are already there. The map shows you how much further there is to go, and the paths show you you're not the first to go there. I don’t know about you, but I love google maps, I am one of these people, that will use google maps to cross town, to pick up the kids, to drive to work. Why? Because I want to be quick and efficient. I want to see where the traffic is, and I want to avoid it, I want to know what route is getting me from A to B, quickly. We can sometimes act like this in prayer. What is the most efficient way to pray, that will get me the answer I want. But the beauity of praying the Psalms, is that they are expansive, they are winding paths, they take you land, places and terrian that you may not have been in before. They are help us to grow in our prayer life.

Tolkien gives us a picture of this. At the start of The Hobbit we meet Bilbo Baggins, and Bilbo wants one thing: to be left alone. His armchair, his full pantry, his second breakfast, no surprises. When a wizard turns up at his door with an adventure, Bilbo is appalled. Nasty, uncomfortable things, adventures, make you late for dinner. His whole life is arranged to avoid exactly the journey he's about to be dragged into.

And he goes. Out the door, down the road, into country he'd never have chosen. And the Bilbo who comes back is not the Bilbo who left. Braver. Wider. Deeper. Home could never have done that to him. Only adventure could.

Most of us want the armchair. We want prayer comfortable, familiar, predictable. The same few phrases, no surprises, home in time for dinner. And the Psalms won't let us have it. They're the knock at the door that drags us out onto expansive road, through country we'd never have picked, the grief and the doubt and the rage and the wonder, and the person who prays them is not the person who started. They are formed & shaped at a deeper level.

Every psalm you pray is a step, and they all go the same direction.

Because Jesus prayed these prayers. He prayed them in the temple. He prayed Psalm 22 from the cross, and Psalm 31 as he died. These were his words. So when you pray them, you're not just learning to pray. You're walking the exact ground he walked, praying the exact words. Pray the laments, and you're on the road towards him. Pray the praise, and you're on the road towards him. Pray the ones that frighten you, and you're still on the road towards him.

PRACTICAL

Three ways we can do this. This is from Eugiene Peterson in his book ‘praying with the psalms’ 1 - Pray the Psalms.

2- Pray through the Psalms

3- Pray from the Psalm

1 - Pray the Psalms

Choose a Psalm and memorise it. My Zach loves poetry and he can just remember poems so well. So have a psalm and just pray it fully, without stopping or editing. Each morning I sit in my chair in quiet, and I read a Psalm and as I read it I pray it. I tried to have 1 psalm I read every week. I like that kind of structure. But that shapes my prayer life.

2 - Pray through the Psalm

You have the choosen psalm. And as you read it, pause and expand your prayers. So during my week of looking at a Psalm, I might take my psalm and after each verse pause and pray. Using each sentence to guide how I pray that day. Psalm 4:1 “Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!” 3 - Pray from the Psalm

Finally pray from the Psalms, you have some psalms in your mind and you take a verse or a nugget from the psalm and it becomes a springboard for your prayers for the rest of the day.

Finally, set time aside, use the psalms or use the Lectio 365 app, to slowly grow in personal prayer and encounter with God.