For the remaining six summer Sundays we will be preaching select Psalms before beginning a new series in September (more on that soon!). The introduction to the ESV Devotional Psalter begins like this.
The Psalms are unlike any other portion of scripture. This is the one book of the Bible written to God. We are taught in many other places in scripture how to pray. Jesus gave us the Lord’s Prayer. Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing.” But the Psalms are themselves prayers.
In this way, the Psalms are uniquely suited to foster communion with God. The Psalms give voice to our hearts. The wide range of human feeling is here given concrete expression. We are given language to address God with thanks and praise, but also with our feelings of desolation or despair or overwhelming guilt because of our sin.
Here in month number five of pandemic quarantine, how has your communion with God been? Has it grown or shrunk? Has it warmed or cooled? In my personal prayer life, I’ve felt more at a loss for words these days than ever before. All the more reason to be thankful for the Psalms that put good words into our mouths and hearts, guiding us into communion with our loving, patient, holy, just, wise, powerful, sovereign Heavenly Father.
Here’s our schedule for the next six weeks.
JUL 26 – Psalm 13 (Jackson Randall)
AUG 2 – Psalm 15 (Darin Earley)
AUG 9 – Psalm 10 (Eric Twisselmann)
AUG 16 – Psalm 136 (Kenny Clark)
AUG 23 – Psalm 107 (Erik Thoennes)
AUG 30 – Psalm 119 (Randall Gruendyke)
Jackson Randall will be preaching this Sunday and Kenny will be leading our sung worship. Would you pray for each as they prepare? Ask the Lord to revive and rekindle our communion with Him through these Psalms. And in this new season that has some of us gathering in person to worship and some of us continuing to worship together in spirit from our homes, let’s be praying that God would help us “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3).”
Whether it be in the parking lot or online, let’s come hungry this week!
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