Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 28, 2015 | Route 66 - Psalms

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June 28, 2015 | Route 66 - Psalms · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:04
SPEAKER_00: Great enthusiasms.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: That's quite a song by uh Mr.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Josh Harris.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's it's both, you know, you realize the value that was the gospel.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: You get a free ride.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: And also, what?
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the gospel?
0:27
SPEAKER_00: And number two, it's Route 66.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting today, will you get a free ride on Route 66?
0:33
SPEAKER_00: We're on Route 66, 66 books of the Bible, and we're going through them one Sunday at a time.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: So we're calling it a road trip through the Bible, Route 66.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Josh was doing.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Josh was just singing you can have a free ride.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: How cool is that?
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: So um it's great to see you today today, to dur, and uh that's French for today.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: And um just wanted you to know it's great to see you.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'm really looking forward to this.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: We're in uh we're about halfway through uh the Bible in in amount of space.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: If you'd like flop it open and go ahead and do it, because you need to turn to Psalms anyway.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: People have been asking me all week, how are you gonna preach through 150 Psalms?
1:17
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is we're just gonna do it.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna start.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: You got all afternoon, we're gonna start, and we're just gonna read them.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, here we go.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 1.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: I can't hear you from across the street.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Come on, cab building, let's go.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: He shall be like a what?
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Planted by the rivers of water.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Stop there.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: By the way, the word in Hebrew is actually transplanted, because you see, once upon a time we were in a desert.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: We were far from God, we were far from the water of the word, and then we got transplanted close to it, isn't it?
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it great?
2:02
SPEAKER_00: By the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Now, Psalms is a great book.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: My goal this morning is primarily that you'll fall in love with this book.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: And you'll go away just loving, loving the book of Psalms, okay?
2:24
SPEAKER_00: This is also the book, if you have your study sheet in front of you, the first paragraph, the book of Psalms is the biggest and best known book in the Bible.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: It's quoted more times in the New Testament than any other book.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: It's also the most emotional book in the Bible.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Emo, yeah.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Written over a span, over a thousand years from Moses to Ezra Ed, explores the full range of human experience and emotions.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: No wonder we have such an attachment.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: It's got the most famous chapter in the Bible, right?
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 23, right there on the screen in front of you.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Let's say it together.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside still waters, he restoreth my soul, he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it awesome?
3:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the most beloved chapter in the Bible's in this book as well.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Now I think that the main theme of the book of Psalms is, as I've put in my title, come on, sing to the Lord.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: I wrote in the second paragraph on the front of the study sheet the Psalms are a unique combination of music and theology.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, they are music, Israel's songbook, 150 songs written to be accompanied by stringed instruments.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: They demand to be sung.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: In music, the psalms come alive.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: If you dislike music or you remain quiet while others sing these songs of praise, you'll miss the point entirely.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Your knowledge of psalms will remain detached and cold.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: So I begin with a compliment.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: You've already experienced and already started to live out the Psalms because you were singing this morning.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: All except for you back there in the corner.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'm going to get, no, I'm kidding.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: So I mean, because Psalms is meant to be experienced.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: There are, we usually say there are five books of wisdom literature: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Now the fact is, really, only three of those are true wisdom books.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Psalms is not one.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs are the three wisdom books.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Psalms is a hymnal.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: And yet the truth is that these wisdom books, these five books, tell us how to live skillfully.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Job, that was last week, tells us how to how to live a skillful life when you're in the midst of suffering.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: Psalms, how to live a skillful life of praise to God.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs, that's the next book, is how to live a skillful life in general, because it's the main wisdom book of all.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes, how to live a skillful life in the when life is just chaos and seems meaningless.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: And then Song of Solomon, how to live skillfully with love, all right?
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Which takes a lot of skill.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: So, but this is Psalms and this is a hymnal, and this is not an option.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to sing it.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: This, you know, people say, Oh, I'm just not a singer.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: People come up and they go, Al, you didn't see me singing past you, but I don't sing.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: I can't sing, I just don't.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Which reminds me a lot of when Adriel was about to get married and Melody, you know, broke on me the horrifying news.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: She said, You understand, honey, that at weddings, you know, after the bride and groom have their dance, that you're going to be expected in front of everybody to dance with your daughter.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: I said, Honey, I don't dance.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: And she said in her loving, if you know Melody, in her loving way, she said, just shut up and do it.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: And and which is exactly sort of what I think, what I think Psalms is saying.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't have a lot of patience.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: You say all you want.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't like singing.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to run people off.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: But the fact of the matter is, God says it's it's not an option.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, all the way through this book you have these imperatives.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh, singing to the Lord a new song.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Which for some of us, every time we sing, no matter whether we're singing a familiar song or not, it always comes out like it's new.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Sing to the Lord all the earth, Psalm 96.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh, sing to the Lord a new song.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: He's done marvelous things.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 98, Psalm 149.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Sing to the Lord.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Not an option, not an elective, not a choice.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: It's a command.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: You've got to do it.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Come on, sing to the Lord.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: And so uh I mean let's go ahead and talk about singing for just a moment because I know I'm swimming upstream on this one.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And New York Times had an article uh uh about singing entitled uh Where uh Has All the Singing Gone?
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And it was pointing out statistics that you know um people don't sing like they used to.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine what it'd be like if you had a party over your house and then as soon as you ate and everything, you you said, Hey, let's all go over and go over to the piano and let's sing.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can't imagine.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if people just look at you like, are are you crazy?
7:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh don't you have a radio or a stereo?
7:41
SPEAKER_00: Can't you put on a CD?
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And because we don't do that, we used to do it 40, 50 years ago.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: And you go back even further.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, imagine every covered wagon that passed through Kansas or Nebraska going west, though they may not have had much luggage, every single one of them had a hymnal, had some, had a songbook.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, we've gotten away from that today, and I think the Times, New York Times article was right that the reason is technology.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not just that we have radio, we have CD players, we have iTunes, we have everything else.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: We have now technology has turned us from singers into listeners.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: And so now today, primarily, am I right?
8:22
SPEAKER_00: We we are listeners and we're not singers.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: And and that and that's a sad thing.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: New York Times said, you know, and then that's too bad.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be uh Jeremiah Divine uh to know that that's not a completely healthy thing.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: That uh the Times uh writer said, you know, what we're missing out on is the physical and social benefits of music.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: And the physically, uh it said there's studies that show that you actually live longer if you sing.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think maybe people who sing actually there's other good things about them, maybe.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not sure it's just the singing, but you know, that's interesting.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: And then the social benefits are obvious that you get together, you sing together when when I go on when I take trips over Greece or Rome or whatever, these trips I take, lead trips every two years.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: We always sing.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, on the bus, it just sort of unites you together.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you come to the book of Psalms, it's not extolling singing for either physical or social benefits, but spiritual benefits, for spiritual benefits.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Which is why, by the way, I I sort of re- uh I sort of shudder, you know, when you go to a mega church nowadays, megachurches by definition, or any church over 2,000 people, but usually we think of churches of 5,000, 10, 15,000 people.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: And when you go to those churches, more likely than not, they'll sing maybe one song as a congregation.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Like Willow Creek expresses it right up front.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: Say, you know, we're trying to attract non-Christians who don't sing.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: They don't sing.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is the radio.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: And so if we're gonna, if we came in and did what UTBC did this morning, and we you drive them off.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: So we'll sing one short chorus as a congregation, but the rest of it's gonna be up front.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's by professionals and and so forth.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: So you listen.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: And that's and that's sad in a way, isn't it?
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Because Psalms makes it clear that there's great spiritual value in singing together as a group or as a congregation, or even as individuals.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Negatively, of course, you and I know that if you visit a church, say a small church, and there's no singing, if if they announce a song and it's just all super quiet, what do you think?
10:27
SPEAKER_00: You think this church is dying.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: And you'd be right, because dying churches don't sing.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: But the same is true of individuals as well.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes you will find that someone who comes to church and doesn't sing, there's there's a difficult.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: There's something, there's they're not where they where they used to be, or where they would like to be, or where the Lord would like them to be spiritually.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: If you've stopped singing, that's usually reflective of something deeper, something, something spiritual that needs getting healthy or getting fixed, because it's just really clear.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: God says, I'm not giving you an option.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: If your theology is helpful is healthy, then you'll be able to sing your theology.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And on uh, you know, so and on the positive side, people who sing out to the Lord are the are the people who are who do all the other kinds of things as well.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: They serve, they witness, and so forth.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I just wanted to you know put a guilt trip on you about singing, just like I did, you know, in the second paragraph on the front of your sheet.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Now you'll notice at the bottom of the sheet, after telling you the Psalms are not only uh music but theology.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: So when you're opening the book of Psalms, open to sing and study.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: The outline, most people are surprised to find Psalms actually a compilation of five hymnals, five ancient Israeli hymnals, one through 41, 42 to 70, 73 to 89, 90, 106, 107 to 150.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: So you have five books, and all of them end with a doxology.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: Remember, I've said the key word of Psalms is worship.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: It says that on a sheet.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 150 is the ultimate doxology, the finale, the closing doxology.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, flip it over because I want to answer the question: what is Psalms telling us to sing?
12:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what exactly should we sing?
12:19
SPEAKER_00: And I concluded looking at that.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a four main types of psalms.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: There are about seven or eight types total, but four that sort of encompass uh, you know, about 70, 80% of the psalms are songs of lament, songs, songs of praise, songs of thanksgiving, and songs of trust.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: Songs of lament basically are, and there's about 60, guess what?
12:46
SPEAKER_00: About 60 or 40% of the songs are songs of lament that go, life is hard, Lord.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: How long are you gonna let me suffer like this?
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Then there's songs of praise, God is good, this is the great theology, God, and then there's songs of thanksgiving.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Wow, God delivered me, and then there's songs of trust, so I'll trust him forever.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, what I want to do is go through these four and chat about them a little so that I can help you fall in love with Psalms.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: All right, so let's do that.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: First, songs of lament.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: Life is hard.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Now, this may come as a surprise, it should come as a surprise to you.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: That 40% of the Psalms are songs of lament.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: You should think, uh, I wonder how many songs of lament there are in our hymnal.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: You could spend the rest of this morning while I'm preaching thumbing through the songs and never finding one hymn that's a song of lament.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: Nor will you find hardly any songs of lament in our worship songs.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: We sang one a month ago, Warren was the name.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: I love it love it.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: It's called Warn I'm Warn, I'm tired, Lord help me.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: But uh now we sang uh blessed be your name this morning.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: A little while ago, you sang that, and in there is a little bit of lament, you know, even when life is full of pain, blessed be your name.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, but but you know, isn't it interesting that we sing so few songs of lament?
14:16
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you, people in the Old Testament, in the temple, in the going to the tabernacle, going to the temple, they did not go to the tabernacle and find that there was a worship leader there saying, I hope everybody's smiling today.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Isn't life grand?
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Isn't God good?
14:32
SPEAKER_00: And nor when they went into the temple.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Did they ever get brabbed?
14:35
SPEAKER_00: You're not smiling, you know.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: Some like in the old church I used to go to, little Baptist church, oftentimes some song leader, come on, let's go.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Because they were living the life of Job oftentimes.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And so oftentimes what was happening is they were suffering, and so as a result, most of the, I mean, it was a little bit, it was more like Negro spiritual.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: You've heard Negro spirituals, nobody knows the trouble I've seen.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Ah, sometimes I feel like a motherless child.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: We all love the Negro spirituals.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Why?
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Because they touch us where we're really at, which is we come in and we're depressed, we feel beaten down, we've been hurt, and so forth.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, 40% of the Psalms are songs of lament.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
15:22
SPEAKER_00: It's not just Jesus who said this, you know, on the cross.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: A thousand years of Israelites had been saying this, Psalm 22.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, I cry by day, but you don't answer.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: And by night, but I and I have no rest.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: That's a song of lament.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 42, one of the most famous songs of lament.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine, you know, going somewhere around the world and finding children whose father has just been killed by Isis and telling them to smile and praise the Lord?
15:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there may be a time for that, but but Noah, at the beginning, my tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, Where is your God?
16:05
SPEAKER_00: Or three verses later, I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me?
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy's oppression?
16:14
SPEAKER_00: So many of these songs of lament, you know, if they've the enemy has been chasing them and they're running for their lives, and they feel as though David feels as though Saul is about to catch him and he's hiding out in a cave, things like that.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: The ultimate of these songs of lament is Psalm 88.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Lord God of my salvation, I cry out before you day and night.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: May my prayer reach your presence.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Listen to my cry, for I've had enough troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm like the slain lying in the grave, whom you no longer remember, and who are cut off from your care.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Why do you hide your face from me?
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Notice it's you see why hymn writers and worship songwriters are scared to write something like this.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: It seems like it's so full of doubt.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Seems like it, you know, it lacks faith.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and uh, and there is a way, of course, of lacking faith.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard the story about the young pastor who was visiting, a country pastor, and he drove to a farmhouse where the he'd heard the guy hadn't come to church in in a long, long time.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: So he drove back the driveway, and he could see that the farmer was underneath his tractors, repairing his tractor behind the barn.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: So he drives his car around the barn, and right as he got out of his car, the farmer's hands are greasy and slipped and the bar fell and hit him hard on his foot, and he let out with some uh some language, you know, that was inappropriate for church.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: So we say, John said the pastor, you really shouldn't curse like that.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Farmer was equal to the occasion.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: He said, Pastor, if you can if you can show me a better way to curse, I'd be glad to use it.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, Proverbs shows you a better way to curse, or actually a better way to handle that, that you don't curse at God, but you go, you go directly to God and you yell at him and you say, How long does this have to last?
18:07
SPEAKER_00: How long do I have to run for my life?
18:09
SPEAKER_00: How long do I have to suffer?
18:10
SPEAKER_00: After all, I'm one of your children.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Lord God of my salvation, I'm crying out before you.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: And the next psalm, Psalm 89, and by the way, Psalm 89, a great example of a psalm that's got a song of lament in it, and a song of praise and a song of trust and so forth.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: But the lament part of Psalm 89, how long, Lord?
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Will you hide yourself forever?
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Will your anger keep burning like fire?
18:36
SPEAKER_00: A lot of these psalms are like, God, hurry up, because I'm in real trouble right now.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: God, deliver me, hurry to help me, Lord.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: I love that part of these songs.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I'm it's not that I'm impatient, it's just that I'm giving you about 15 minutes, and then I'm gonna be in real trouble.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: And when I saw this picture of the cat chasing the mouse, I thought, that that mouse right now is praying, God deliver me, hurry to help me, Lord.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Now, in these songs of lament, you generally find three parts, and almost in every one of them, uh cry for help, specific requests, and then a closing with some confidence.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Let me just show you in one of the great lament psalms, really quick.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: The last psalm I'll show you.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, six verses long, Psalm 13, begins with this cry for help.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Lord, how long will you forget me?
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Forever?
19:33
SPEAKER_00: How long will you hide your face from me?
19:35
SPEAKER_00: And you can hear David just repeating the agony.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: How long, Lord?
19:39
SPEAKER_00: How long, how long, how long, how long, how long, how long?
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Forever?
19:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just keep crying to you and it's not happening.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: How long will my enemy dominate me?
19:51
SPEAKER_00: And then he moves to his specific requests.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: And usually there's one or both.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Here you have both, where you say, Lord, please listen to me, and then Lord, please intervene.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: And you find both of them here.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Consider me and answer, Lord my God.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives specific, he gives three specific reasons why God should respond to him.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, he feels like a minnow, a shark is after him, and he's about to die.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: He's David's eyes are slowly getting dark with death, so he goes, Restore brightness to my eyes, otherwise I'll sleep in death.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Reason number one, do you want me to die?
20:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm slowly dying here.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Number two, my enemy will say, I've triumphed over him.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Do you, God, do you really want my enemy to believe that he's won over you and me?
20:38
SPEAKER_00: And third, my foes will rejoice because I'm shaken.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Do you want them to party over my law?
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Specific requests.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: But interestingly, every one of these Psalms of Lament, other than Psalm 88, turns into a confidence statement at the end.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: But I have trusted in your faithful love, my heart will rejoice in your deliverance.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: I will sing to the Lord because he has treated me generously.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
21:05
SPEAKER_00: So you have first Psalms of Lament.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: Listen, if you're not in love with the Psalms, can I suggest to you that maybe you enter the Psalms through this sort of backdoor of lament?
21:19
SPEAKER_00: When I was 20 years old, that's how I fell in love with the Psalms.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I uh I I uh my life had sort of fallen apart.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had a lot of things going for me.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: I'd already graduated with a degree, you know, from college.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: I was out in Oregon now and blah, blah, blah.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: But but I, you know, the girl I loved had broken up with me.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: But the worst thing was I saw myself as I really was.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: I was toxic for relationships.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Somehow I couldn't, I just knew that I knew I had issues.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: And I was devastated and I didn't know what to do.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And so at break between semesters, I took my Bible.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And I got in the car, my old jalopy, and I just started driving north out of Portland.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: And I found a little place about halfway up Washington, close to the beach, and I asked if I could just spend eight days there.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: And this camp, these camp people said yes, if I give them a hundred bucks.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: So I did, and I just camped out in a little cabin there, opened the book of Psalms in eight days, memorized eight Psalms, fell in love with the Psalms, and found some sort of healing from heaven.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: That's what Psalms may do for you if you enter in through the door of lament.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: Someone came up to me after last service.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: She said, You know, I used to be in full-time Christian ministry, Canvas Crusade for Christ.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Should something happen, then suddenly I was out, and suddenly I am here in the Midwest, and I am, you know, another state, and I'm and I'm working in a hardware store and every day going to work, thinking selling nuts and bolts isn't helping anybody eternally.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: In my life, I thought about suicide, I thought about everything, but she said I had the book of Psalms and I read Psalms every day, and for four years, Psalms kept me alive.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: You can fall in love with a book of Psalms, dear friend, if you'll see Psalms realistically as being 40% Psalms of Lament.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: And so take your life as it really is into the book of Psalms.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Psalms is all about feelings, worship is all about feelings, and let God heal your emotions and feelings in this book.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Start out with a phrase, how long, O Lord?
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
23:31
SPEAKER_00: So that's how we start.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: And then the next type of song to sing is God is good.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: This is the theological part.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: I know God that you're good, that you're omnipotent, that you're omnipresent, and fit that with the first one.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: Life is hard, but God is good.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know when I came up with this until someone came up and showed me that this is a famous line in French, especially used in Haiti.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: La vie estieux mes dieux est bon.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty close.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, life is hard.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Believe me, I've had some French speakers came up and coached me.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: But so and this is also the title of some books.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: So, and and by the way, I think these things go together.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: If you start out with folks on the God is good, praise God stuff, some of them may not connect.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: They may be like, um, you know the old joke about the um, you know the old joke about the guy who went to buy a horse from a minister, and the minister said, This is a Christian horse.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: I've trained this horse really well, and but you gotta use Christian words.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord makes the horse go, amen, makes him stop.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Guy goes, What?
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord and makes him go.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Amen, makes him stop.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: So the guy jumps on the horse and he's going back home, and all of a sudden the horse jumps at a snake or something like that, goes just crazy, just going helter skelter, and the guy forgets in the panic, the guy forgets the word, you know, totally forgets the amen, so forth.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: And so all of a sudden he sees a cliff coming and God gives it to him, and he's so happy, and he goes, Amen! And the horse skids to a stop right at the cliff.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Praise the Lord.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: And so I think some people would say, you know, that's all that praise the Lord will give you.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: It'll send you.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: If you go to somebody who's at the edge of a cliff and you give them a praise the Lord, it may just send them over.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: But if you take it the Psalms direction, where twice as three times as many psalms are songs of lament as are songs of praise, then then they'll listen to you, I think.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: You go, you know, life is hard, but God is good.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: And and you find that God is good all the way through the Psalms, of course, in Psalm 8, Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you've set in place, what is man that thou art mindful of him?
25:54
SPEAKER_00: I'll praise you, O Lord, with all my heart.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell of your wonders, I'll be glad and rejoice in you.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: I'll sing praise to your name, O Most High.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of God.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Have you found, like I have, that even at the end of a really hard day, that if you go outside and look at the night sky, start walking and talking with God, and you look up there and you take to him the life is hard stuff and the lament, that after a while the stars and the beauty and the creative power, how great thou art of God, you know, comes down on you, begins to heal you.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: That's Psalms.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Life is hard, but God is the Lord is good, Psalm 34, 8.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 63.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 89, I'll sing of the mercies of the Lord forever.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: With my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: I sing that song.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we do.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: It's a great song.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, plentious and mercy, Psalm 103.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: From the rising of the sun till the going down of the same, the Lord's name is to be praised.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 113.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Say this one with me, Psalm 118.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: This is the day which the Lord hath made.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: We will rejoice and be glad.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: And I love, I picture a little baby saying, You knit me together in my mother's womb.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna praise you because I've been remarkably and wonderfully made.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: These songs of praise are just so beautiful and exalting.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: And as you get closer to the end of the Psalter, you find that there's more and more doxology.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: I'll exalt you, my God, Psalm 145.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Every day I'm gonna praise you and extol your name forever and ever.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: And Psalm 150, like I said already, is then just the whole thing is a doxology.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: So we have a songs of lament, life is hard.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Songs of praise, life is hard, but God is good.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: Then we have songs of thanksgiving.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: There are 20 of the psalms that are specific.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, these get confused at times with songs of praise, theological song, but this is more specifically.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: God, you've delivered me, and so I'm gonna keep trusting you.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Now, if now if you're here, you're just you know, I don't know, and and you're still searching, you're not sure that God's, you know, you have a personal relationship with God.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: It's actually critical that you realize that when the Bible, when Psalms are full of this, trust the Lord, trust the Lord, trust the Lord, it's talking to people who are already his children.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: But the interesting thing is the the same, it's the same command to those of you that aren't yet his children and would like to be.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: That is, you look at the cross, you look at Good Friday, look at Easter, look at Jesus hanging there, look at yourself, see your sins, see that you desperately need help for salvation, and then you trust God, you sort of fling yourself with a reckless abandonment upon Jesus Christ, and you trust him by faith, and then you're in the family of God, but you know the problem is that we still have a problem with trust.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: And so we have all of these verses.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 34, I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and he delivered me from all my fears.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: And so we're we're in the uh the reason for trust is actually because he's delivered me.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: So, so we have these songs of thanksgiving.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Offer unto God thanksgiving, pay your vows unto the Most High.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: For he's delivered me out of all trouble, Psalm 54.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Come, let's sing to the Lord.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Let's come to him with thanksgiving.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 95.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: A whole psalm, Psalm 100, is just a thanksgiving psalm.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Worship the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful songs, know the Lord's God.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Enter his gates with thanksgiving.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the Lord, Psalm 104.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: By the way, that is the single most common reason in the Psalms to give him thanks.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: Because of his loyal love, his steadfast love, his loving kindness, the King James put it.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like one of the nine lepers who are healed and didn't come back and say thanks.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: Have a heart full of gratitude.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: So life is hard, but God is good.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: In the past, God has delivered me, he saved me, and he's delivered me since then as well.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: And so I will trust him forever.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Thirty songs of trust, uh, about 20% of the psalms, are songs that celebrate God and how I'm going to trust him, and I know I can't.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: See how this comes full circle, by the way?
30:53
SPEAKER_00: Life is hard, but God is good.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: And as I look back through my life, I see that God has always delivered me in the past, so even though life is hard, I'm gonna trust him.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Are you with me?
31:07
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at just luxuriate in some of these, some of these verses.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee, for thou Lord hast not forsaken them that seek thee.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, I trust in thee.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph for me.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: This is Psalm 25.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the alphabetical psalms.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: There's several psalms.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: There's 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, Oliph Bait Gimel down to, you know, tau.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: And so um, so there are 22 verses in Psalm 25.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Each verse begins with the next letter.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: So as if the psalmist is just trying to say, you know, I'm so full of love to God and trust.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: I want to go from A to Z on this and just cover the whole thing.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: And then say this one with me.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: This is very famous.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 27, 1.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my light and my salvation.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Whom shall I fear?
32:04
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is the stronghold of my life.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Of whom shall I be afraid?
32:09
SPEAKER_00: And just a few verses later in Psalm 27, say this too.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: And my favorite psalm or song of trust is 37.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Trust in the Lord and do good.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: So you shall dwell in the land and be fed.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: That's Psalm 37, 3.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5, commit thy way unto the Lord.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: And just two verses later, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Don't fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: In God I have put my trust, Psalm 56.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: What time I am afraid.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: I will trust in thee.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Let me never be put to confusion.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 71, Psalm 91, he shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wing shalt thou trust.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: And one more, Psalm 118, the Lord is on my side, I will not fear.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: What can man do to me?
33:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, I have no idea how that picture was taken.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: But it may be the last prayer they ever prayed.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: So listen, you understand how this goes.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: This life is hard, but God is good, right?
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Songs of lament moving into songs of praise.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: God has always delivered me in the past.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: Song of Thanksgiving, moving to, and therefore I am going to trust him now and for the future.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: Songs of trust.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: So we have life is hard, God is good.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think a story I didn't tell in the other services that sort of pictures this.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: I picture, you know, a girl on the, you know, say the fifth floor of a burning building.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: And she's crying out, crying a song, crying a song of lamento.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: Help me, she's crying.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: And a fireman with a long ladder gets on the ladder, risking his life, and he she he comes up, and when he appears outside her window, she gives a screen cry of joy and flings herself out of the window in his arms, and he carries her at risk again to his life down the ladder and rescues her.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: And the next day she decides she wants to go thank him.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: So she goes to see him, and she's expressing her gratitude, and they realize they have a lot in common.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: And so she sees them again and they begin to see each other, and then they fall in love, and then they get married.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And when she gave that cry out of the window, that was a song of lament.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: And when she shrieked with joy and jumped into his arms, that was a song of praise.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: And when she went back the next day, that was a song of thanksgiving.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: But when she walked forward and exchanged vows with him for the rest of her life, that was a song of trust.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's the kind of relationship that God wants you to know that he has with you.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: That you gave this great cry of agony, and he he came and rescued you, and you praise him for that, and you've thanked him for that.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully you'll trust him for the rest of your life.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Back to singing again.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: One thing, uh one of the compliments, the only compliment I confess that I don't love hearing, because I love compliments.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: I love it when people come up and go, you know, I've heard millions of sermons in my life, and you're just by far the best preacher ever.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: So I just I just I just love that stuff.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: No, uh, but here a compliment I I I confess that I really, really shudder at is is once in a while someone will come up and they'll say, I really appreciate the sermon.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: I'll go, yeah, more.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: Tell me more.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: No, and uh and and then they'll say, I didn't like the music.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: Now ask them questions.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: So, you don't like the drums?
36:16
SPEAKER_00: Hate the drums.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Don't like the guitar?
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Hate the guitar.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: How about the piano?
36:20
SPEAKER_00: Don't like the piano.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Didn't like the organ either.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Don't like music.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you know, I just don't understand why.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you could maybe do one song, you know, just to, you know, but why couldn't you preach for an extra 20 or 30 minutes?
36:32
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'd like.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: And I usually am pretty snotty about it.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: I go, wow.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: I bet you have a weird Bible, don't you?
36:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, that big hole in the middle?
36:48
SPEAKER_00: And they go, What?
36:50
SPEAKER_00: I go, you know, because you obviously, you know, to be consistent, you've torn out the book of Psalms, right?
36:54
SPEAKER_00: Because Psalms, 150 Psalms, they were they were a hymnal, they were meant to be sung.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: I can't do that real quick.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've ever won anybody over with that line.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: But you know, that those are good, well-meaning Christians.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Bible-believing, Bible teaching, Bible-listening Christians.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: They really are, generally are.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: But they come to the book of Psalms as though it's simply a theology book or a devotional book, right?
37:25
SPEAKER_00: They want to hear it taught, they just want to hear it sung.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: But Psalmist doesn't allow that, and God doesn't allow that.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: That's a song book, and God commands that you sing to the Lord.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: And I will always be, you know, unutterably grateful to my parents, who, as I was growing up, it wasn't an option.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: We sang.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it didn't matter if they popped out another kid, you know, their twelve children eventually, at night, every night for devotions.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Every single child had to get up and stand by the, from youngest to oldest, stand, you know, at the hearth and sing a song.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: One of the reasons we all learned how to play piano at a very young age is that would be our excuse.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: We'd go to the piano, make everybody sing instead of singing solos.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: So we we sang.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: Last week I was so I was touched because my daughter Adriel was down from Canada, brought her three little girls who had a great time, and on one of the last nights, she just wanted time, so we were just, she and I were just chatting and chatting, and out of the blue, she said, Yeah, Dad, I've never told you this before, but one of the things I really, really appreciate, you know, when we were growing up is that you made us sing.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, at night.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: You made us sing.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: We'd all sing together as a family.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: She says a lot of the hymns that I know today, a lot of those songs, you know.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: I remember from when I was a little girl.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: I'd had forgotten that, you know, kind of, but I thought, wow, I I'm really I am glad I did that.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: And I I would just recommend to you that you don't give up singing, that you sing at church, for sure.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, we'd really like that.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: Even I'm really thrilled that we even have a Sunday school class here, maybe more than one, that sings as part of their Sunday school class.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: And I know there are some small groups that occasionally sing.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: What a great idea.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: Sing when you're with God's people.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: I also recommend that you sing in nature, you know, outside.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: Make sure the waterfall is really loud, you know, so nobody can.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: Oh, when you're alone or maybe out riding your bike, man.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: When I was riding, when I was working my way through college, you know, and I was 2,000 miles from home and I was a kid, 16, 17, 18 years old, trying to sell Bible storybooks, getting doors slammed, and life was hard as I'm riding a bicycle.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: There was three summers in Pennsylvania, door to door.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: I sang constantly every song I knew from door to door just to help me get through it.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: It was just, it was, it just saved me.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: Those all those great Christian songs.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: Sing when you're out in nature, when nobody's around.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I got it.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh and the third thing, sing it home.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: Sing it home.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I again I'm so grateful every time I got up in the morning and I'd go downstairs into the kitchen, maybe before chores, after chores, you know, my mom was always singing.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: It might be a song from from Oklahoma, but as often as not, it was out of the hymn.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: It was a song like that.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: It was just so happy, so joyful.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: And we and we sang as a family.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: Let me urge you to to sing at home as well.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Come on, God says.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: Come on and sing.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh last two services I confess, I just I just ended right there.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, ended with prayer.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: I I've been so diligent with people just jumping on me and banging on me and say, excuse me, you're telling us that we ought to sing, and then you just close with prayer with no song.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: So, okay, I'm gonna close with a song today, alright?
40:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna close with a song, and that song is how this is a song that I used to constantly sing when I was on my bike.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: It's a song that I sing even now at night when I'm out of my settee, you know, praying at night underneath the stars.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: This is one of my favorite songs.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: If you don't like it, it's tough.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: If you need a hymnal, it's page 16.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: It says, How great thou art.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, just sing the first stanza, okay?
41:11
SPEAKER_00: And I am so glad you guys came out, because until they agreed to do this, it was gonna meet it was just gonna be solo.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: And I was gonna prove to you that it can be done, okay?
41:20
SPEAKER_00: But this is gonna be better.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: All right, oh Lord my God, when I an awesome wonder.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready?
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Is there an introduction or shall we just go?
41:28
SPEAKER_00: Stand up, please.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: Consider all the world's thy hands have made.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, thy path through the universe display.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: It sings my soul, my savior God to thee.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: How great thou, how great thou sings my soul, my savior God to thee.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: How great thou great.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, turn us into a congregation, into a church that sings our theology.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us sing unto you.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: Sing our songs of lament, our songs of praise, our songs of thanksgiving, our songs of trust.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: But please make us singers in Jesus' name.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.