Songs of Experience - Psalm 67 - Nat Charles

Psalm 67

Part of a series on the Psalms, Songs of Experience.

This week: Blessing: In our final sermon in the series, Nat Charles explains the 'what,' the 'why' and the 'so what' of blessing.

Please note: this is a recording from our Sunday service currently meeting on Zoom.

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TRANSCRIPT to follow

Songs of Experience - Psalm 96 - Rob Palmer

Psalm 96

Part of a series on the Psalms, Songs of Experience.

This week: Joy

Please note: this is a recording from our Sunday service currently meeting on Zoom, as well as socially distanced in church. Everyone is welcome to join us, for Zoom details see our home page.

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Transcript

We’re going through a series in the Psalms looking at various emotions, and this week, we’re looking at the subject of joy.

I looked up the definition in the Collins dictionary: Joy: a feeling of great happiness… but that seems inadequate to me; joy is one of the most wonderful experiences, as well as happiness, it brings a sense of peace, a comfort, wellbeing…

I wonder how you’d respond if I asked you what brings you joy – maybe seeing friends, enjoying live music/theatre, good food…

I think I experience most joy when my football team West Ham are winning games – which unfortunately is not very often. 

Maybe you too feel that your experience of joy is pretty infrequently?

If I’m honest my more common emotions are stress, irritability and anxiety… but I would love to experience joy more. 

Well, I hope as we look at this Psalm, we’ll see where to find joy… and a joy that is better, more reliable, and more sustained.

This is an unusual Psalm as it comes up twice in the Bible, once here in Psalm 96, and then again virtually word for word in 1 Chronicles 16, and that’s useful because it gives us the context - we know that it was written by King David as he and the people of Israel witness the Ark of the Covenant being brought into Jerusalem for the first time. 

The Ark was made in Moses time, and contained a few sacred objects, including the tablets of stone which had the 10 commandments on them. The Ark was the physical symbol of God’s presence with his people. They’d brought it with them through the desert. It had to be carried with huge care/respect, and was housed in a tent (the tabernacle) to set it apart from the people. It was carried on poles, and couldn’t be touched (one account of Uzzah touching it when the oxen stumbled and he died as a result). But God’s power was seen through it, for instance the River Jordan dried up and formed a passage as the people approached it… 

We saw a modern day vision of this in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark:- the Nazi Germans wanted the ark, as they believed its presence with them would give their armies invincibility, but found it and tried to open it – they all burnt up under the weight of God’s holiness

So you can imagine what a huge moment this is for David and the rest of God’s people as they witness it after all their travels, that it finally enters its permanent home in the city of Jerusalem.  

This is a Psalm of great rejoicing and praise to God.

You’ll see in v.1-2: David repeats the word ‘sing’ 3 times, ‘sing to the Lord a new song’, ‘sing to the Lord all the Earth’, ‘Sing to the Lord, praise his name’. and then in v.6-7: the word ‘ascribe’ 3 times. Ascribe means ‘give unto’, and it’s saying here give unto God – glory

So these vs are a call to God’s people to sing praises to their God, to rejoice and give Him glory.

I’ve got 3 headings: the source of joy, the result of joy and the culmination of joy.

The source of joy

What is it that brings David and the people of God such joy and jubilation as this wooden crate is carried forward. 

Well, the reasons he lists to give God glory and to sing his praise are sandwiched in between these verses:

- who He is

- what He does

These perhaps are the obvious things that come to the forefront of his mind as David watches the Ark being brought into Jerusalem, he recalls some of these attributes of his God

- Who He is:

- a God of glory v.3

- v.4: He is great and most worthy of praise

- He’s the one true God v.5

- v.6 He’s a God of splendour and majesty

- v.7: glory and strength

- splendour of his holiness v.9

The people of Israel would have recounted the stories of his splendour and majesty – they’d be thinking back to God coming to them at Mount Sinai – the whole mountain covered with cloud, and surrounded by thunder, lightning and fire; they’d recall the pillar of fire that went before them at night in their exodus from Egypt and cloud by day

What He’s done:

• V.5: he made the heavens: He created all things

• ‘marvellous deeds’ v.3: 

• V.2: his salvation

They’d have seen his acts, in creation, in the wonderful deeds He did among them as he brought them out of Egypt, parting the seas to allow them passage, providing food for them from the sky and water from a rock, to name but a few examples, and endlessly providing for them and show them goodness through the desert and into the promised land… And they’d have known his acts of salvation – as he saved them from their enemies numerous times, most recently against the Philistines.

It's clear why David would want to rejoice in his God. 

What about us? Maybe that’s easy for David and the people to sing and praise God in that setting? How do we relate to this? – our situation is very different, this was a long time ago… 

Well, maybe it should be easier for us.

David could look at the Ark to remember God’s goodness, love and provision for his people – can we not see this even more clearly in the life and death of Jesus. At the cross, we can see to a much greater level, the depths of his love for us, his children. This same God of power and splendour gave up his position in heaven, to became human, and eventually to suffer the most unimaginable pain and suffering as he was nailed to a cross in our place, to take the punishment for our sins. Are not these ‘wonderful acts’, this ‘salvation’ much greater than any David had seen at that time.

And I think this Psalm is meant to be read this way, as a prophecy of this greater salvation – you notice it says ‘sing to the Lord, all the Earth’, ‘sing of his salvation’ – if it was solely speaking about the salvation that David and Israel had from their enemies at that time, then it’s hard to see how the whole Earth would rejoice in that, only Israel. The Philistines, the Canaanites, the Egyptians wouldn’t have much to sing about, and rejoice in. No, this is meant to be understood in the light of the gospel of Jesus, to open up salvation to the whole world, to any who turn to him.

I hope that deep down we recognise that we as Christians have so much to be joyful for, but why is joy not a daily experience for us? 

Have you seen the movie Emoji? It’s not the best! It’s an animation featring lots of emoji’s, and the hero is the emoji ‘Meh’ – Meh is a sort of bored, disinterested, no-plussed type reaction.

If I’m brutally honest, my reaction to who God is and what He’s done can be more of a Meh than one of joy very often. 

And certainly, if we’re in the middle of a stressful day at work, or children arguing, or feeling lonely or flat, it won’t come naturally, to feel joyful, to praise God and to sing. David too had hard times in his life, and he’s writing these words as a reminder, so that he can look back on them at times when he isn’t witnessing the Ark coming into Jerusalem, when things are feeling tough. 

It’s not that Christians are expected to enjoy hardship, or to be smiling cheerfully when stressed or anxious, but instead to hold onto a deeper joy and satisfaction from remembering who God is, and what He’s done – He died for us, we are loved and forgiven children of God.

A few weeks ago, my daughter Sophie had her cousin to stay – she lives in rural Suffolk, where it’s very beautiful, lots of fields, trees, sheep, but  coming to London is always exciting; the city, with its buildings, theatres and the internet! And Sophie’s room is on the top floor and she said ‘look out my window, in the distance, you can see the skyscrapers from the city, Canary Wharf tower, but when they went to do that, it was clear that the tree outside our house had blocked the view. 

And I think the same can happen to us, other things can come in the way to stop us seeing who God is, and what He’s done, that can transform the joy in the Lord into ‘Meh’

Our application for tonight if we want to be joyful people is how to find ways to keep looking at Jesus, at the cross – we take some responsibility for that, in how we use the time in our days. I’ll come back to that at the end to think practically how we might do that.

So that’s my first point – the source of joy: who God is, and what He’s done. In case you’re nervous here that I’ve been speaking for ages and am only a third of the way through – that’s not the case. Two smaller points to make…

The second point is The result of joy

If you look back at the text, you’ll notice that, although this is written to the people of Israel as they celebrate God’s work towards them, that this is not a private celebration. 

This is to be done publicly: 

v.1: ‘sing to the Lord all the earth’

v.2 proclaim his salvation - 

v.3 ‘declare his glory among the nations 

Martin Lloyd-Jones, a preacher in the early 20th century said ‘There can be little doubt that the exuberant joy of the early Christians was one of the most potent factors in the spread of Christianity’. Theirs was a deep joy that came from knowing who God is and what He’s done, and it was resilient through persecution, poverty, suffering…

If we can re-capture that deep joy that comes from knowing Christ, we’ll naturally want to speak about it with others we come alongside, and that is going to be hugely attractive to outsiders. 

While those around us might appear very happy and comfortable, if they don’t know Jesus, they won’t have this deep, eternal, resilient joy that’s spoken of here. v.5 ‘He is the one true god, and that all the gods of the nations are idols’. 

And conversely, it will be hard for us to tell people to ‘come and be glad in the Lord’ unless we’re glad in the Lord.

So our application here is the same – it’s not a command towards a guilt-ridden evangelism, again it’s to clear things out the way so we can see Jesus and find joy in Him, and that deep joy is likely to result in our sharing the message of Jesus with others, proclaiming his salvation and declaring his glory among the nations.

My final point from these verses is The culmination of joy

If we move on to v.10-13 - this looks to the future

You can see it starts in the present tense, v.10: ‘the Lord reigns, the world is firmly established’ – now – a reminder of his control and his hand over all that happens.

But then the rest is the future tense – v.10, he will judge, and again v.13: he comes (he is coming), he will judge. And the verses inbetween are a beautiful scene: v.11: let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; it goes on: the seas, the fields, the trees: v.13: ‘they will sing before the Lord’, it’s a picture of all of creation celebrating and rejoicing.

And what are they rejoicing for? v.13: ‘for He comes’– this is looking to the return of Jesus, and he comes to judge: this also means to rule / reign. And his reign will be one of justice (v.10), truth and righteousness (v.13).

This is a picture of the new creation, with the earth renewed and restored – the way it is meant to be, all of creation living under God’s authority, giving him praise for who He is and what he’s done – this is the culmination of our joy. 

This probably doesn’t feel much like the world we know, all our daily stresses, anxieties and pain. I am sure that everybody here to some degree is feeling the pressure of life in some way, particularly how things have been in recent months, it’s hard. But we mustn’t lose sight of these promises, if you’re a follower of Jesus, this is our future, that Jesus will return one day to establish a new creation: a perfect world where all of creation lives in harmony, and all live under God’s rule.

We need to continue to look to his return, to trust his promises that He is coming back one day – I hope that this perspective too will help bring us joy, and enable us to sing praises to our God for who He is and what He’s done.

So briefly, in application, how can we be people of joy? Well, a start is establish routines and disciplines that will help us to be able to see Jesus, to clear the other stuff out the way, so we can be reminded of who He is and what he’s done. Some of those disciplines may be while meeting with other Christians and some may be how we spend time on our own.

One thing I read recently and found really helpful was in a book called the ‘Ruthless Elimination of Hurry’ by John Mark Comer, he said:

‘90% of us check our phones immediately upon waking. I can’t think of a worse way to start my day than a text from my work, a glance at email, a quick scroll through social media, and a news alert about that day’s outrage.

That is a sure fire recipe for anger, not love, Misery, not joy…’

Maybe there’s some truth there. Recently I’ve been trying to delay looking at my phone until after I’ve spent 15-20 minutes reading about who God is and what He’s done, and spending some time praying and meditating on this. Perhaps a way to try to clear things out the way so we can see Jesus.

I’m going to close and pray now, and then we’ll sing ‘The Joy of the Lord is my strength’. And may this be our prayer for SBD, that the joy of the Lord would be our strength, through the darkness, the tears, we’d continue to sing to our Lord, and that the joy of the Lord would be our strength.

Pray:

Lord, we thank you that we have so much to sing about and rejoice in, to you our God of power, majesty & glory, who has done marvellous deeds and brought salvation to us your people. Help us to be people of joy, a deep joy that endures despite the struggles and pressures of daily life, and may we live out and share that joy with others we come alongside. In Your name we pray. Amen

Songs of Experience - Psalm 73 - Dave Cawston

Psalm 73

Part of a series on the Psalms, Songs of Experience.

This week: Doubt. Dave Cawston walks us through Psalm 73. How can we keep journeying towards God when we become distracted and can feel our foot slip?

Please note: this is a recording from our Sunday service currently meeting on Zoom, as well as socially distanced in church. Everyone is welcome to join us, for Zoom details see our home page.

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Transcript

Good afternoon. My name is Dave and I’m a member of the congregation here at St Barnabas. Last week we started our summer series – “Songs of Experience” from the Psalms and this week we turn to Psalm 73.

Psalm 73 was written by a man called Asaph who was one of the leaders of music appointed by King David. Asaph is in the grip of a spiritual crisis. He’s hit with the problem of why wicked people seem to prosper and this causes him to question his faith and his path in life. In Asaph’s words, in verse 2, it almost caused him to lose his “foothold”. During Lockdown my youngest son, Franklin, has continued to develop his love of climbing. Trees, walls, pretty much anything vertical (including me!) Frank will scale it. I was cleaning his bedroom the other week. I looked out of the window and there, outside, almost face to face with me, was Frank 6 metres up clinging to the branches of our silver birch tree and grinning like a Cheshire cat!

In Psalm 73 it is as if Asaph is climbing, journeying up towards God. But he’s distressed and distracted. He loses his focus and his foot starts to slip.

In the first half of the Psalm from verses 1-14 Asaph opens his heart to God and pours out his feelings and his complaint. The second half of the Psalm, from verses 15-28, finds him recovering his faith and returning to God.

So, let us look at these two halves of Psalm 73 together. Firstly at Asaph’s spiritual complaint – the situation, thoughts and feelings that cause him to question his faith - and thenSecondly at how he answers these questions. How he returns to find strength, hope and faith. How he stops his foot slipping and continues his climb towards his God. 

So first, What is ASAPH’S SPIRITUAL PROBLEM? WHAT CAUSES HIM TO SLIP?

Asaph says in verse 3: “For I envied the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked”. He is envious of the success of others. He looks around and sees people who are enjoying the pleasures of this life: They are pursuing riches. – look down at verse 12 where they are described as “….always carefree, they increase in wealth”.  And they are fit and healthy – in verse 4 he says “They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills”.All of that contrasts pointedly with Asaph’s own situation. While his peers enjoy life he is suffering. He writes in verse 14 “All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.”We aren’t told what specifically is wrong with him. His earlier envy of other people’s health suggests that he’s suffering physically …… but we don’t know. And perhaps that is the point. It allows us as readers to place our own daily struggles into Asaph’s narrative.

So…. Asaph is struggling and his peers are succeeding. They are healthy. They are building their little empires and getting richer and richer. They are enjoying life. And these people are popular. In verse 10 Asaph indicates that even God’s people are being seduced by their success and turning to follow their ways. He writes: “Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance”. So, when Asaph says in verse 21 that his “heart was grieved and my spirit embittered” we know that he’s got that bitter taste of jealousy on his tongue. 

But that’s not all. What really grieves Asaph is the morality of these people. In verses 6-9 he tells us that they are arrogant and proud. Their boastful attitudes lead to violent actions, because they think they can ‘get away with it’. They threaten others and daringly talk as if they are God himselfas if the-  whole world is theirs. The King James translation of these verses reads : “Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out in fatness: they have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.”These people ignore God. Their disobedience and disrespect towards Him is clear to Aspah and yet………God seems to reward them with the good things in life.To make matters worse, here is Asaph, in comparison a good man, and he has no worldly reward. He is suffering. How can God be so unjust? If He is truly good then perhaps He simply can’t see these injustices? Or doesn’t he care? Or isn’t He there at all? Asaph complains in verse 13 “Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence”.

So Aspah is in spiritual turmoil. He’s questioning the very basis of his life. Is all the effort and suffering involved in following God worth it? Has he backed the wrong horse? Is a just and good God even there?My son Franklin’s climbing hero is a man called Tommy Caldwell. Caldwell is one of he world’s best free climbers. That means he climbs sheer mountain faces, the most treacherous routes in the world, without ropes. There he is, hundreds of feet up. One slip would mean he would fall to his death. And his hands and feet are clinging to small, millimeter deep undulations (not cracks or crags – undulations) in the rock surface.In verse 2 Asaph says “my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold”. He’s like Tommy Caldwell, clinging to the face of the mountain. Asaph is, if you like, climbing up towards God. This is his pilgrimage, and it’s hard. It takes effort. Every sinew is straining. And then he looks around at the other peaks. People seem to be scaling those with ease Many of them are cheating and using easier routes. There are crowds on the slopes cheering them on. Asaph is distracted and his foot starts to slip from its hold. Perhaps he should give up on this treacherous hard climb. Perhaps God isn’t there waiting for him at the top………

That’s the first half of Psalm 73. Asaph lays bare his problem before God…. And before us. And in doing so he poses us some questions:- Are we envious of those around us?- Do we get distracted in our faith by yearning after success or pleasure in this world?- Do the apparent injustices of this life makes us angry or doubtful?Let us look to the second half of Psalm 73 where we kind find some spiritual solutions to these problems. Because from his perilous position clinging to the mountain and then starting to slip and lose his foothold, Asaph manages to find FOUR key holds that enable him first to stop his slide and then to continue on his faithful climb towards God.

The first hold is a small one. Just a little undulation in the rockface. And we find it at the start of Aspah’s recovery in verse 15. He says “If I had said, “I will speak thus,”  I would have betrayed your children”Asaph is ready to blurt out his doubts to his fellow believers but he knows that doing so would hurt a lot of people. He lays out an uncensored complaint to God but realises that he needs to think through and process his thoughts and feelings before sharing them with others.There was a time a few years ago when I really struggled to attend church. I arrived at the service in a grumpy mood, I sat through creche in a grumpy mood and I left in a grumpy mood. None of that is to my credit. Actually, the only thing that kept me coming to St Barnabas each week was the effect it would have on those around me if I didn’t. My boys wouldn’t be able to come to church. Hannah, my wife wouldn’t be supported. Perhaps it would have discouraged my friends when they learned that I had stopped attending. Here Asaph doesn’t know what’s going on but he, if you like, grabs hold of a negative. He stops thinking only of himself and thinks about the people around him. And that’s enough to stop the slide.

Incidentally, you could argue that the first step in Asaph’s recovery is actually his emotional openness before God. In pouring out his complaint in prayer Asaph is able to work through his emotions and thoughts. In the Old Testament this process is seen as a spiritual strength rather than the weakness we might take it for. Job is the obvious example of this. Job curses the day he was born. He complains to God. But rather than turning away from God because he thinks his emotions are unpalatable he pours them out to his Maker and at the end of the book he is deemed “faithful”.In a similar way, it is helpful to consider that Asaph’s feelings of envy and anger at injustice are not necessarily a sign of emotional or spiritual weakness. In fact the more we try to faithfully follow God the sharper these kind of worldly inequalities are going to cut. The more self-sacrificial our lives the more likely we are to be stung when we look around and see others enjoying what we have forsaken. So if you identify with Asaph’s feeling here be encouraged.

So, Asaph’s foot is giving way but he manages to find a small handhold to stop his downward spiritual spiral. And then he reaches up and grabs another……. 

The second of our four hand holds or steps in his recovery is there in verses 16-17: “When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me til I entered the sanctuary of God; then understood I their final destiny.” Asaph is weighed down by his thoughts until he goes to the “sanctuary” which for him meant the temple. Asaph goes to church. In the midst of his spiritual crisis he is able to keep going with his spiritual disciplines. For us these could include going to church, reading God’s word, praying, meeting with other Christians and acts of service. It is not these things in themselves that help us. They are means to an end. They bring us into the presence of our God. And notice also why he goes to the sanctuary. We can often think that going to church when we are down or suffering will make us feel better. And that might be true. The aesthetics of the building or an inspiring sermon or the beauty of the music may lift us up. But Asaph goes to “get understanding”.  When I was a student up in Newcastle I often used to go to church in a state of stress and confusion. Lots of issues were on my mind and I went to church to find answers. But I didn’t get the answers to my worries. What I did get was a whole new set of questions and challenges that made me consider God and His priorities. And thinking through and understanding those challenges actually brought me a kind of peace. You could say that  in Christianity you feel better when you start to think properly. My worries weren’t answered but they were put in perspective.

And that brings us onto Asaph’s next handhold to recovery…….Asaph’s third reach up the mountain is to see the Bigger Picture.:He says in verse 17  “…I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin”Asaph comes into God’s presence and God reminds him of the Bigger Picture. In this case that the success of the wicked is temporary. It is they who are on slippery ground, not Asaph. God takes him out of the micro and shows him the macro.

During Lockdown, to help deal with the stresses and strains of each day I developed a routine. At sunset I would climb up onto our house’s roof. This is a fairly risky process of squeezing myself through a velux rooflight and then pirouetting (gracefully), grabbing onto the top ridge of the rooflight and then scrabbling up our pitched tile roof whilst hoping not to slip off and fall three storeys into our front garden. At this point I would hear Hannah’s voice echoing up from below “Please don’t die Dave, you are looking after the kids tomorrow”. Having reached the summit I would sit on the rear flat roof and look west towards the setting sun. The vastness and beauty of the sky, the slowly moving clouds and the relative smallness of London lit by the last rays of the sun often helped me to restore some perspective on the events of that day. Perhaps it is similar to what is happening to Asaph here. God is reminding him that in the big scheme of things worldly success does not matter. The wicked and their achievements will have no lasting worth. In the words of verse 20: “They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies”. God is telling him that following God with a pure heart and innocent hands will bear lasting fruit. And that ultimately all evil will be brought to justice. It encourages Asaph to keep climbing – he is on the right mountain!

I was reminded of the Parable of the Wise and Foolish builders in Matthew 7:24-27: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on a rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

Asaph’s fourth and final handhold as he recovers from his spiritual slip and continues climbing is that he asks the Ultimate Question. Look down with me at verse 25. Asaph says “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you”.He has finally come to the realisation that the things he envied others for having are nothing compared to what he has in God. He knows that God alone can satisfy his desires. In verse 26 he goes on to say “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever”. Knowing and being with God is enough for Asaph. That’s quite a change from his previous state of mind. When he complains back in verse 13 “Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence” what he is really saying is ‘what’s the point of obeying you God if you don’t give me what I want?’. That’s often how we can treat God isn’t it? Imagine a couple who are dating. Early on in the relationship the man reveals that his family are millionaires and that he receives a generous trust fund. Their relationship becomes serious but later, as the wedding approaches, the man learns that this fund has been revoked. He tells his fiancee and she leaves him, cancelling the wedding. The man’s fiancée loved his money more than him. She was in the relationship for what she could get out of it materially rather than simply wanting to be with someone. That is how we treat God sometimes. Rather than coming to Him and obeying Him simply to be with Him because we love him we often come to get something – success or wealth perhaps. In verse 26 Asaph says “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever”. God is enough for him. God is “his portion”. And that gives him a firm foothold in life. It means that with Paul in the New Testament he can say “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.”   So…. Asaph is able to stop himself slipping. He grabs hold of a negative and considers those around him and he goes to the sanctuary. And there, in God’s presence he gets perspective on earthly success and injustice. And he gets an answer to the ultimate question: “Whom have I in heaven but you?”. He comes to the realisation that God is good and that He is his portion forever. Hopefully that gives us some ways to keep climbing when we are tempted to be distracted. And of course we are not alone on the climb.

I spoke earlier of my son’s love of climbing. Over the summer Frank’s grandfather made him a climbing wall from a large sheet of ply, 2x4s and colourful, blob-shaped, climbing holds. Frank climbs up and if he gets stuck or starts to lose his grip he looks back and says “Daddy?” and I reach up and lift him down. Asaph, in verse 23 says a similar thing: “Yet I am always with you (God); you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterwards you will take me into glory.” On our own spiritual climbs Jesus is with us. It’s as if he’s the lead climber and we are roped onto him. If we slip he is strong enough to take our weight at the other end of the rope and stop us falling. In the New Testament book of Hebrews 12 Jesus is described as “the pioneer…. of our faith”. Jesus has gone ahead of us and found the route and selected the hand and footholds. He knows the way to the summit and he has promised to get us there. Let’s pray.

Father, You are our God, our portion and our living bread. Please help us when we start to slip to come into your holy presence. In Jesus name, Amen 

Amen  

Songs of Experience - Psalm 8 - Nat Charles

Psalm 8 and Hebrews 2 v5-9

Part of a series on the Psalms, Songs of Experience.

This week: Purpose: Nat Charles encourages us to look up, look back and look forwards to find our meaning and purpose as humanity.

Please note: this is a recording from our Sunday service currently meeting on Zoom. Due to a computer issue during the recording this video is audio-only.

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TRANSCRIPT

This afternoon we’re beginning a new sermon series in the book of Psalms. I wonder what your experience is with the Psalms?I grew up in a tradition where the Psalms formed an important part of the weekly worship of the gathered congregation. Every Sunday, at least one Psalm would be chanted as part of the worshipping life of the congregation. And depending on how well the congregation knew the Psalm, it could feel like a serene, reflective, almost ethereal moment in the weekly service.

Yet that often felt like a sharp contrast to the content of the Psalm that we were singing. There is an emotional depth and honesty to the Psalms, to the point that sometimes we struggle to know what to do them.

But the reason that the Psalms have formed a significant part of the worshipping life of the people of God over millenia is that they teach us how to bring, and direct our own emotional life before and too God. The Psalms are a gift to us, because they don’t only give us information about God, although they do that, they help us know how to respond to God and to life in his world. They help us to tune our hearts, shape our prayers, and give us a vocabulary for our own Christian life and experience.

So over the coming weeks, as we work through a selection of the Psalms we’re going to be thinking about life as it is for us so often. We’re going to exploring issues like joy, security, doubt, envy. And this afternoon, in Psalm 8, we’re going to think about our purpose, and how we ought to think of ourselves, as human beings.

Questioning the value and meaning of your life might not feel like an everyday concern. But we live in a historical where it’s a deeply important question. And there are two views of humanity that you would find at work in the world at the moment.

The first is deeply optimistic. I read a book at the start of this year, written by a journalist who explores why the concept of liberal democracy is under pressure and in retreat at the moment. He starts by telling the story of an overnight drive that he had with his friends from Oxford to Berlin in 1989, to be present when the Berlin wall fell. And he writes that at that moment, as the wall came down, it seemed as though there wasn’t any problem or obstacle to human progress that couldn’t be overcome by human spirit and technological ingenuity. Communism was in retreat. The nuclear threat was fading.

But thirty years on, things are much more complicated. In fact, the pendulum has swung. And now, people think of humanity in a much more pessimistic way. As we try to come to terms with our colonial past in this country, we’re confronted with uncomfortable questions about ourselves. And most troubling of all is the question of whether we are so compromised and complicit we just don’t know how to even begin addressing the conversations we should be having.

In the midst of all that, Psalm 8 speaks with piercing, ringing clarity. How do we find our meaning and purpose? The answer of the Psalm is that it’s in living before a majestic, creator God. Three things to notice. Look up, look back, look forwards.

LOOK UP

First, look up. The beginning and the end of the Psalm root everything in the reality of who God is. Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

The Psalm is profoundly God focussed, theo-centric. How majestic is your name. And the first verses tell us that we live in a world that is profoundly God focussed. You have set your glory in the heavens. Which means that the whole universe speaks to and witnesses to the presence and reality of God. God is the defining reality of the universe, humanity is not.

We may carve the likeness of an American President into the side of a mountain, but the whole universe speaks to the presence and reality and grandeur of God. We’re living in his place, not the other way around.

And that’s visible on the broadest scale, but also on the smallest. In Vs 2, David reflects on the power of praise. There’s an irony at play here – when someone that would have been considered weak or inconsequential praises God, a child or infant, it’s enough to silence the enemies of God and his people. Such is God’s glory and splendour that it completely transforms our notions of power and weakness.

If you want to know what our purpose is and where meaning is found for humanity, start by looking up.

That might sound like it belittles humanity. But I wonder whether that perspective is actually liberating. If we know that we live in a world that is charged with the grandeur of God, we’re freed from the impossible burden of believing that we have the responsibility of fixing everything, and making the world perfect once again.

Of course we find that a burden. We can’t do it. Which isn’t a reason to not get involved, but does give us perspective on what can be achieved by human effort alone.

LOOK BACK

Look up. But also, look back.

The tension in the Psalm is driven by the fact of God’s majesty. The heavens, so vast and enormous to us, are God’s handiwork. The moon and stars, beyond measure to us, God set in place as you or I might lay the table. 

But knowing God’s majesty troubles David. He puzzles over why humans matter to a God like this. Vs 3, ‘what is humanity that you are mindful of them, human beings, that you care for them?’

And his answer to that question comes by looking back. He draws on the Scriptures, and the foundational narratives of Israel, the early chapters of the book of Genesis. In vs 5-6 David reflects on Genesis chapter 1, which pictures God as the immense and vast creator of all things, installing human beings in his creation to steward the world. To fill the earth and subdue it. 

In other words, we matter because we are made by God, we are in his image. And we’re made to steward his creation. ‘You made them rulers over the works of your hands’ says David ‘You put everything under their feet’.

At times, a sentiment like that has been used by some within the Church as a charter for abuse, whether abuse of the environment, or abuse of other humans and an opportunity to exert power over them.

But rightly understood, David sees the role that humans play in God’s creation as a means of service. Humanity is steward God’s creation, in recognition that creation rightly belongs to God, and ruling is an act of service to him. So to rule in any other way, would be an abuse of trust and position.

So as he wrestles with the question of purpose and meaning, David holds two things together. Humanity is not central in the universe. We are not at the centre of the gravitational pull of the world. God is. We are in his orbit.

And yet, he has created humankind with a high calling in his world. To rule and reign for the good of the creation.

LOOK FORWARDS

Look up, look back. Also, look forwards.

Of course, we don’t see any of this in the world as it is at the moment. As you and I look at the world, it appears as though it is ruled by other things. By illness and disease. By structural and institutional injustice. By greed. Ultimately, by death.

We live in a world that looks as though it is ruled by other powers.

Which is why the Hebrews directs our gaze to Jesus. We don’t see humanity living out it’s God ordained purpose. But we do see one who is. Who through his death, and resurrection and ascension in to heaven is ruling over all things in his humanity. And because we are joined to him in his death and resurrection, where he has gone and what he is doing now is our future hope. Where he is we will be. What he is doing, we will also do. Not in degree, but in character.

Psalm 23 - Joel Patrick

Psalm 23

Joel Patrick

Joel Patrick speaking on Psalm 23.

God is our provision, our protection and our passage.

[Apologies, there is no transcript available for this sermon.]