Easy As A Psalm

Announcements

Let me know if you want to go to the escape room we’ll get it scheduled and go from there.

Next Wednesday will be the last Wednesday night for 2 weeks. I’m having a procedure done and I have to lay around for 2 weeks afterwards.

So there is no big D-now like normal, but Valley View and Northside Baptist Church are doing one and invited us to it. It would not be like any other. We would have worship time, a video speaker, and that’s about it. COVID has really messed things up.

Prayer Request

Prayers in the Psalms

We’ve been talking about prayer for the last couple of weeks. We went over the model prayer that Jesus gave us, and broke it down.

Last week we looked at our motivations when we pray.

We saw how our motivation should be to bring God glory no matter what.

We all may have things we want or need and God knows those, but when we pray, our goal should be to pray in a way that will bring Glory to God.

Tonight we’re going to learn how to pray in a way that keeps us grounded in God’s word so we have Him in mind, and focused on Him the entire time.

Tonight, we’re going to look at Psalm 30.

We’re going to use this Psalm, and a couple of others, as examples of how to keep focused when we pray.

So I need everyone to pull out a Bible. I’d really like for you to pull one out of the pew, but if you have one on your phone that will work too.

The book of Psalms is 150 different prayers to God.

We know that King David wrote a good amount of them and some we are not sure who wrote.

Each of these Psalms are pure heart and raw emotions.

You can find every emotion you can think of in at least one of the Psalms. Matter of fact I’d say a good majority of them you can find every emotion.

Personally, I think one of the biggest personal connections to the Bible is in the book of Psalms.

Just because we deal with and go through all these same emotions on a regular basis

There has been days where I’ve gone from joy, to fear, to sadness, anger, and back to happiness again.

I can almost guarantee each of you have as well.

Psalm 30 Says:

What’s our problem

So how hard is it to pray?

In theory, it shouldn’t be that hard right? We’ve gone over the model prayer that Jesus gave us and it’s pretty straight forward.

But do we ever really follow that? No of course not.

I’m about to make each of you and those at home watching feel not alone anymore.

How many of you pray like this: Example randomness

If every Christian is honest, that’s probably what our prayers sound like

Even more honest, if we pray before we go to sleep, while laying in our nice warm beds, we usually don’t get passed the first sentence before we fall asleep

This is something that I have struggled with and in all honesty still struggle with from time to time. There are many times where I pray and I can’t use one of the Psalms to pray because I’m doing things like driving, and I can’t just pull over. So I get side tracked with 50 million other things going on.

It’s extremely frustrating. I get to the point where I feel like a failure as a Christian, I feel like God’s disappointed in me because I can’t even talk to Him right.

One of the things that causes this is the fact we are boring.

By boring I mean we say the same thing over and over again.

Think about it, how many times do you say the exact thing over and over? Would you want to watch a TV show that played the exact same thing over and over 24 hours a day 7 days a week?

I’d be bored with it after the second or third time.

When you get bored with something you don’t feel like doing it and when you don’t feel like doing it you can’t concentrate on it.

So you may think well wait didn’t you say a couple of weeks ago we are supposed to pray about the things that we need and that are important to us?

Matthew 6:11 Jesus said Give us this day our daily bread, so aren’t we supposed to pray about the things we need and we’re thankful for?

Yes we are. But how can the things that we need or that are important to us be boring?

Well those things we need and the important stuff isn’t what’s boring, it’s the words we use that get us bored.

Thinking back again to what you pray on a daily basis Does it sound like this

Monday: Thank you God for my parents

Tuesday: Thank you God for my parents

Wednesday: Thank you God for my parents

Thursday: Thank you God for my parents...

See how we can be thanking God for something important but it be boring all at the same time?

So how do we fix that? How do we change it?

What’s the Fix?

We can fix it by taking God’s word and using it as our guide.

You want to take the Psalm and go line by line

Let’s look at how to do that with Psalm 30.

You would start with verse 1: I will exalt You, LORD, because You have lifted me up and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me.

Read the verse out loud and then follow up with what is being laid on your heart.

As example

For those who are believers, the Holy Spirit is in you and will lead you to exactly what you need to say.

John 14:26 Jesus says “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you ll things and bring to you remembrance all that I have said to you.”

We’ll say exactly what needs to be said.

Then move down to the next line, verse 2 Lord, my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me

example

You would continue on all the way through the Psalm.

So what happens when you come across a verse that you don’t understand or that may not apply at this particular moment?

Simple read it and go right now to the next.

But this also gives you an opportunity to mark that verse and go back later on to see if you can figure out what that verse truly means.

So not only have you prayed, but you’re now growing a little because you can dig deeper in God’s word.

How do we know what verses to use?

The last part I want to discuss for tonight is how do we know what verses we should use?

After all there is 150 different chapters in Psalm and you also have the rest of the Bible as well.

You can use any part of the Bible to pray through, just some areas may be more difficult than others.

For example, it would be extremely difficult to pray through all of the lineage sections. Not impossible, but difficult.

Psalms is your best place to pray through because it’s nothing but prayers and praises to God anyway.

Best way to come decide what chapter of Psalms to pray through is follow this formula

Whatever day of the week it is, add 30 five separate times.

There are 150 Psalms and average of 30 days a month

150 divided by 30 is 5. That gives 5 different chapters we can choose from

So today is the 20th

We can start with chapter 20

+ 30 is chapter 50

+30 is 80

+30 is 120

+30 is 150

So you have those 5 chapters to choose from when it comes to praying. Some may be more towards how you’re feeling others may not.

So if you remember, I gave a bit of homework before we left last Wednesday. Now it’s about to come into play

I want you to turn to your favorite Psalm, and I want you to practice praying through it like we discussed.

You don’t have to pray out loud, you can pray silently.

If you have questions, don’t understand something raise your hand let me know and I’ll come work with you.

If you have questions, don’t understand something raise your hand let me know and I’ll come work with you.

I’m not going to know if you are really praying or not. This is entirely on you. The only one that will know is you and God.

So take this time, use it to work on a new prayer skill and then I’ll close us out in prayer in a few minutes.

Those joining us on Facebook live, thanks you for joining us, We’ll keep it open for a few moments so if you have any prayer request, concerns, or questions write them in the comments.