After introducing the book last week, today we are going to quickly walk through the book of Song of Solomon. The title for these two sermons is “How to Love and Be Loved” and as we found last week, the book is really a book of intimacy – most evidently intimacy between a young man and young woman, but also, because we are created in the image of God, and because God instituted marriage to illustrate his desire and love for us as His bride, we can read the book as help in developing our intimacy with God as well. Today we are going to look at 5 D’s of intimacy from the Song of Solomon.
Mediaeval scholars classified Song of Solomon, with its overt sexuality, as one of two “dangerous books” (Ecclesiastes being the other). The ancient rabbis held that “no one who has not attained to full maturity [may] be allowed so much as to hold this book in his hands.” Origen, who set the standard for over 1000 years of Christian interpretation of the book, acknowledged that the book must be read as a book about love, though he insists that the reader must “know how to listen to the language of erotic desire with chaste ears and a pure mind” and not as a fleshling.” The Song of Solomon was the last Old Testament book to be universally received as scripture, which is understandable since there is no mention of topics such as sin, religion, salvation, the Law or even God (there is one possible reference to the Lord in 8:6 but even that is debatable). So why is this in the Bible?
A first grade teacher collected well-known proverbs. She gave each child in her class the first half of a proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb. Their insight may surprise you.
- As you shall make your bed so shall you ... Mess it up
- Better to be safe than … Punch a 5th grader
- Strike while the … Bug is close
- It's always darkest before … Daylight Savings Time
- Don't bite the hand that … looks dirty
- A miss is as good as a … Mr. (mile)
- You can't teach an old dog new ... math
- If you lie down with dogs, you'll ... stink in the morning
- The pen is mightier than the ... pigs
- A penny saved is ... not much
- Don't put off till tomorrow what ... you put on to go to bed
- Children should be seen and not ... spanked or grounded
- If at first you don't succeed ... get new batteries
- When the blind leadeth the blind ... get out of the way
I want to talk to you today about a people:
Þ Who had just made a significant move in for which they had been praying for years
Þ Who had made a march around the city carrying a sign of the Lord’s presence with them, and seen great spiritual victory
Þ Who had moved into a new place as a temporary dwelling and were making preparations into moving onward to where God would settle them permanently.
Þ Who although outwardly looked as though they were receiving God’s blessings, Outwardly they looked like they had everything together, God’s anger burned against them and when they tried to move on together as a community they suffered such defeat that they wished they had never set out in the first place.
The story of this people should sober us this morning. Look, I want to celebrate this morning, I really do. But I cannot be a minister of the Gospel and not bring a warning against us and admonish us to celebrate in the fear of the Lord.
At the end of chapter 6, we find Stephen, one of the apostles’ helpers in Jerusalem (sometimes referred to as the deacons), is being brought before the Jerusalem council of elders. He had been proclaiming the gospel of Jesus, doing great signs and wonders among the people and countering their arguments by the power of the Spirit. So those who were arguing with him secretly planted false witnesses against him, bringing the charge of blasphemy against him, saying, "We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God" (6:11). Reading on in Acts 6:12-14: And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, and they set up false witnesses who said, "This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us." He’s going to tear down the Temple! He was being tried as a terrorist! This is very political – imagine going downtown and starting to preach that Jesus is going to destroy Parliament Hill. They’d lock you up. So there’s a political element here, but there is definitely a spiritual element – the Temple was God’s house. To blaspheme the Temple was to blaspheme God himself. Just who do these Jesus followers think they are?
The book of Proverbs is compilation of wisdom passed on from father to son. Solomon starts by capturing his sons interest by introducing the wisdom he is going to teach his son through what is probably the most captivating topic of interest to a young man – girls. Solomon is a pretty wise teacher – he knows how to get his son’s attention. Much of Proverbs 1-9 is spent instructing us about two women, the lady and the tramp. Every single chapter refers either to the Lady called wisdom or the Tramp or both. If your interested in reading all of these passages later, they are 1:20-33 (Lady Wisdom); 2:16-19 (the Tramp); 3:13-20 (Lady Wisdom); 4:5-13 (Lady Wisdom); 5:1-23 (the Tramp); 6:20-35 (the Tramp); 7:4-5 (Lady Wisdom); 7:6-27 (the Tramp); 8:1-35 (Lady Wisdom); 9:1-12 (the Lady); 9:13-18 (the Tramp).
The book of Ecclesiastes is written by a very worldly successful person (probably Solomon) at the end of his life who has come through a end-life crisis. You’ve heard of a mid-life crisis. Well this is an end-life crisis. It’s the crisis that we face when we come to the realization that nothing lasts. Life is winding down and will soon be over and nothing will remain. Often people at the end or their life face this – I call it the end-life crisis. More common is the mid-life crisis, which happens after the kids grow up and the career winds down and all of the energy put into both is reevaluated. I also believe in the “quarter-life crisis”. This is the time of life after university when everything is open to you, and nothing is because you don’t know what will last. The teacher is writing especially to the young, so that you don’t make the same mistakes he did.
Rooted in Devotion: Jesus in the Psalms
As we have been studying the psalms thus far this summer, our focus has been on how the psalms teach us to pray and worship God. As Martin Luther once stated, “Whoever has begun to pray the Psalter earnestly and regularly, will soon take leave of those other, easy, little prayers of their own and say: ‘Ah, there is not the juice, the strength, the passion, the fire which I find in the Psalter.’” We’ve talked about making the psalms your own: How many psalms do you own? How many can you recite? Pray? Pour over? Sing? Comfort yourself in? Collect the Psalms. Master them.
Jesus Mastered the Psalms as Prayer
New Testament Scholar Scott McNight reminds us that “Jesus was a master of the Psalms. Whenever he heard them, in the synogogue and at the temple, he took them to heart, for the Psalms spilled constantly from his lips… His entire life was bathed with Psalms… Jesus prayed the Psalms and Christians have always followed his example.”
The Psalms were often on Jesus’ lips as he taught and prayed. Indeed, during the evening of his arrest, betrayal and subsequent crucifixion, the most emotionally intense period of his life, the words of the psalms came flooding back to him, comforting and strengthening him. Four of Jesus’ seven recorded sayings from the cross are quotes or allusions to the psalms. Jesus had mastered the Psalms.
As Christians, if we truly want to pray like Jesus, we would master the psalms as well, and draw closer to him as we prayed his words. But there is another purpose to the psalms and it also connects us to Jesus. The psalms were not only used by Jesus, they were used of Jesus. That is, Jesus not only prayed the Psalms, he fulfilled the psalms, so that in reading and mastering them through the prophetic witness of the New Testament, we are drawn closer to Christ himself, the one to whom all the Psalms testify. This is sometimes called Messianic nature of the psalms.
Jesus Fulfilled the Psalms as Prophecy
The authors of the New Testament were divinely led by the Holy Spirit back time and time again to the Psalms. In his book, Finding the Old Testament in the New, Henry M. Shires identified 350 citations in the New Testament from the book of Psalms alone - roughly 20% of the total verses of the Psalms. Moreover, 120 of the 150 Psalms are referenced in the New Testament.
Author James Sire, after fifty years of praying the psalms concluded, “As I pondered the psalms and read scholars, I came recently to the conclusion that all the Psalms were Jesus’ own. All of them – the beautiful and the ugly, the glorious and the grim, the plain and the elaborate, the blessings and the curses: every single one of them has been filtered through his heart and mind. Indeed, every psalm is a psalm of Jesus.”
“Critics often attempt to minimize the Old Testament phraseology and descriptions that find fulfillment in Christ as being merely coincidental. If there were only two or three such instances, this might be the case. However, in the face of hundreds of such specific fulfillments, it is impossible to account for such a phenomenon on the basis of coincidence alone. Rather, one must recognize the plan and design of God in writers of the Old Testament since they foreshadow and specify so many things that find their fulfillment in the life of Christ.”
Think of it this way: suppose forty or more men should enter a room. These men come from different countries and from several different centuries five hundred or more years prior to our time. Each brings a piece of marble and, in order, they place their pieces of marble together. When they have finished, they have the completed statue of a man. Any observer would conclude that each of these men must have received their instructions for designing their piece of marble from one master mind. How much more true it is when writers of the Old Testament have written a perfect word picture of Jesus, centuries in advance of His coming. When He finally arrives, He fits perfectly the word picture composed by all of these men from different centuries and different countries. Certainly, these men must have been inspired by God’s Spirit in order to portray such an accurate picture of Jesus centuries in advance of His arrival on Earth.
Psalm 22: Prayer and Prophecy Meet on the Cross
No Psalm melds the two facets of Jesus' relationship to the psalms as clearly as psalm 22. It speaks so clearly of Jesus that it is omitted in the cycle of Sabbath readings in Jewish synagogues. Messianic Jewish Christian Commentator Max Isaac Reich has identified 33 separate prophesies in this psalm, all fulfilled at the cross. It is the Psalm that Jesus, nearly drained of all strength, prayed as he hung on the cross," My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me?" He truly was forsaken by God the Father as he took the form of our sins, becoming, as Psalm 22:6 says, “a worm and not a man.” The worm referred to was a special worm that was used in Israel to make expensive crimson red dye. Only the richest and most noble people could afford to wear clothes colored by this die, but the glorious color only came by crushing the worm. As commentator H.A. Ironside puts it, “the glorious garments of our salvation are the garments that have been procured by his pain and suffering. Yet as we read this psalm, we not only hear the prayer of Jesus, but we see in stunning detail his suffering foretold hundreds of years beforehand as if the psalmist was an eye-witness to the cross.
Listen to the words of this psalm as (Grace or Ryan Fergusen) reads it for us.
In history’s darkest hour, God himself was nailed to a cross, a Roman instrument of torture and execution. Jesus has not slept for two days and has been beaten, humiliated, tortured and abused. At the foot of the cross, evil men cast lots to divide up his garments. All who saw him mocked him, saying, “He trusts in the Lord, let the Lord deliver him.” His strength poured out of him like water, his shoulder bones dislocated from the jarring weight of his body bearing down on the cross. As death drew nearer, his heart sac filled with fluid, like wax melting within his breast. Thirst overwhelmed him and made his tongue stick to his jaws. Hanging there naked and exposed, stretched from limb to limb, every bone could be counted. His hands and feet are mangled by the nails as if torn apart by a lion. Yet no rest could be found, for the Romans had devised crucifixion to draw out the death of the guilty, to make them suffer as long as possible. All of these painful details are foretold in Psalm 22.
Jesus did not, and possibly physically could not have prayed the whole psalm, but in praying the first words of the psalm, he prayed the psalm in its entirety. This is a rabbinical technique called “Ramesh” quoting a part of a text to point the listeners to the entire text. In praying this text, we actually get a glimpse of the mind of Christ as he hung on the cross. Many have misunderstood the “Why have you forsaken me?” to be a cry of despair, but Jesus knew that psalm and he knew how the psalm ended! He knew the change in the psalm beginning in verse 21 - You have rescued me! The second half of the psalm speaks of the saviour’s exaltation. It talks of all the families of the earth coming to worship the Lord, for (verse 28) kingship belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations! The psalm ends with a cry of victory, verse 31: they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it. This cry was echoed in Jesus’ final words “It is finished” He has done it! The worm was crushed for our glorious covering!
Here is Jesus, our high priest, praying with us one of the most painful songs of human experience. There is no pain you have faced that he hasn’t felt. No alienation from God or man that he didn’t experience. As much as the Psalms are our cries for deliverance, help and justice, they were his cries. Yet he didn’t just pray the psalms, he lived the psalms, and found victory in the psalms. He lived their victory and was raised up before all men. And he calls us into the same glory: “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied, those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever.’ What a meal – we eat this meal today remembering our worm who was crushed to cover us. Are afflicted one whose suffering was vindicated by his rising from the dead. The man from heaven who taught us to pray, even as he learned to suffer. Jesus of the Psalms.
Jesus in the Psalms
Jesus as Creator: Hebrews 1:10-13; Psalm 102:25-27
Jesus is the Incarnate Son: Hebrews 10:5-7; Psalm 40:6-7
Jesus is the Son of Man: Hebrews 2:6-9; Psalm 8:4-7
Jesus is the Son of David: Psalm 132:10-18
Jesus is David’s Lord: Psalm 110:1; Matthew 22:41-46
Jesus is the Lord’s Annointed: Hebrews 1:8-9; Psalm 45:6-7
Jesus has authority over Angels and Demons: Psalm 91:11-13; Matthew 4:5-7
Jesus is a teacher of parables: Matthew 13:34-35; Psalm 78:2
Jesus is zealous for the Lord’s House: John 2:17; Psalm 69:9
Jesus is the rejected stone: Matthew 21:42; Psalm 118:22
Jesus is the betrayed friend: Psalm 41:9; John 13:18
Jesus is seen as the suffering, crucified Messiah: Psalm 22
Jesus is the resurrected one: Psalm 16:8-11; Acts 2:25-32
Jesus is seen as the exalted, victorious Lord: (Acts 2:33-36; Psalm 110:1)
How can you find peace when your dreams seem to be shattered? How can you feel calm even in the most frightening situations? How can you end your recurring feelings of shame? The psalms give a clear picture of how God responds to those who experience disappointment, fear, and guilt. When we understand God’s great love for us in all these circumstances, we can experience the renewal he provides.
Renewal brings growth out of disappointment: Psalm 107
This psalm is addressed to the “redeemed of the Lord,” referring to God’s redemption of Israel from slavery in Egypt. Any mention of the wanderings in the desert reminded the Israelites of their forty years in the wilderness – a time when they longed to return to slavery in Egypt because at least that was predictable. Later the Israelites were enslaved by the Babylonians just as they had been by the Egyptians, yet God rescued them when they cried out to him.
Sometimes life leads us to dark places – places where all we feel is utter disappointment. Yet God can both renew us and even grow new dreams and opportunities as we live through those trying times.
In this Psalm we find four groups of people.
1) The first are the seekers (4-5): they are the restless hearts wandering through life without any purpose or destination. They are disappointed with life.
2) The second are the slaves (10-12): these are people who brought on their troubles themselves because they had rebelled against God’s words. In sinning, they became slaves to their sin, addicted to it. They find they can no longer control themselves or stop their wicked heart. They are disappointed with their powerlessness over sin.
3) The third are the sick (17-18): They also brought their trouble on themselves, but these people are dealing with the consequences that their sin brought about. They have become sickly and weak because of their sin. They are disappointed in their vitality
4) The fourth are the sailors (23-27): These are the ambitious people, who set out to conquer the world. They are the conquerors, the business people, the world-changers. Yet at some point they ran into a wall that knocked them down and they found that no matter how hard they tried or how creative their solutions were, they were defeated by it. They are disappointed in their dreams.
Yet in each circumstance, their disappointment drove them to the same place. After each description of these groups of people, the psalmist proclaims, “Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.” It is through these times of disappointment that the Lord provides an opportunity for us to draw near once again to him and renew our sense of his redemption. For it is not the disappointment we face that makes us, but who we face it with. We understand that when we face disappointment and turn to the Lord, the Lord can use that disappointment to strengthen us. James puts it this way: “consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be pure and complete, lacking nothing.”
Psalm 107:2 declares: “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” This is the power of a personal testimony. This is coming together as a body and sharing how the Lord brought you through personal tragedy or disappointments. Sharing it with one another does two things. First, it is a confession of the Lord’s grace to yourself. As you repeat your testimony you shore up your faith. Second, it is an advertisement of the Lord’s grace to others. Others who may be struggling through similar disappointments can see how the Lord redeemed you and take heart. This is how renewal becomes contagious.
Renewal brings faith out of fear: Psalm 55
Our brain and nervous system respond to fear dramatically. When we walk into a potentially dangerous situation, our nervous system immediately kicks in with a fear response. Our bodies release adrenaline, which intensifies our awareness and gives us extra energy. This reaction in the brain prepares us to run or defend ourselves, which we call the “fight-or-flight” response.
In this psalm, David wants to fly. He wishes he were a dove so that he could escape his circumstances. A trusted friend has turned on him and he just wants to get away. Maybe you’ve been there. You just want to crawl up into a ball and hide under your covers. You’ve thought about running away from your problems.
In verse 16-17 David takes courage and instead of running away and instead of fighting back, he prays in faith, “But I call on God and the Lord will save me. Evening and morning and at noon, I utter my complaint and moan and he hears my voice.” In overcoming his fears, David needed continual prayer. It wasn’t enough to pray once and say, well God heard me, that’s done. No. He prayed until fear turned to faith. In the morning when he woke up and couldn’t get out of bed, he prayed until fear turned to faith. In the evening when he lay awake and couldn’t sleep, he prayed until fear turned to faith. At noon, when he couldn’t eat his lunch because of the sense of dread in his gut, he prayed until fear turned to faith. That’s one thing to be said about fear: it makes us faithful in prayer. Yet, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Pray until you receive this mind of Christ and you will find yourself renewed.
Renewal brings forgiveness out of sin and guilt: Psalm 32
Have you ever tried to understand why forgiveness feels so good? True forgiveness is more than a feeling. It is relief from the spiritual, mental, emotional, and even physical torment caused by remorse and guilt. This psalm was written shortly after David confessed his sins of adultery and murder. He speaks of how, when he tried to hide his sin, his strength and health diminished and he lost the joy in life. We know the story of how, when the prophet Nathan pointed out David’s sin to him, David immediately repented. I believe the Holy Spirit was already preparing his heart by pointing out his guilt to him that when Nathan spoke it was like a pin pricking a balloon. Sorrow and repentance came flowing out. Not simply emotional tears, but a relief of the soul that has been tormented by sin. This is repentance that brings renewal. Repentance is a little used word today in the Western church. We prefer to talk about rededication, or making a decision to follow Jesus, or coming to Christ. And because we have repentance-free conversions we have no experience of the exhilaration that comes from truly having our sins forgiven. Here is the gospel. All us are sinners. We have chosen to disobey God and we are therefore guilty of breaking his divine holy law. Our guilt condemns us and destroys us. We will all destined to die in our sins. Our guilt also kills us day by day. We suffer depression, failed relationships, sickness, weakness, hurt. We turn to alcohol, sex and pornography, video games and other diversions; we immerse ourselves in our careers, in our kids lives, in our recreation, anything to cover up and push away the understanding that we have rejected God and have been accordingly rejected by the only One whose approval really matters. This kills us. The only way of salvation is through Jesus Christ, who loved us to die our death. He suffered our pain, our rejection, our death so that we could be forgiven and acceptable to God. But we must repent. Look at your life. Look at what sin has done to destroy you. And turn away from it. Take it to Jesus and tell him – Jesus, I loved this more than you and it destroyed me. I hate it now and I want you. Forgive me, Jesus. Forgive me, Jesus. And by faith, you receive full forgiveness because of what Christ did on the cross, and you get up from your knees in the power of the resurrection that raise him from the dead, to new life. It’s exhilarating isn’t it? Christian, repentance is for you as much as it is for the unbelievers. We continually walk in repentance, hating sin for what it does to us, and bringing it to Jesus, daily confessing that we love him more than this junk in our lives. That is renewal.
We are going to pray now. Silently. I offer you this time, to bring your disappointments to God. Where is God working in this situation? Bring your fears to him; turn your fears into faith. Bring your sins to him. Tell him you love him more than the sin your repenting from. In a few minutes I will pray and have the worship team come up.
Rooted in Devotion: The Book of Psalms
Sermon Series Adapted from “Crash Course on the Psalms” Christianity Today Bible Study
Intro: Seminary: I didn’t know how to pray:
Point: The book of Psalms teaches us how to talk to God
1) Prayer begins in Solitude: Read Psalm 46
Psalm 46 is a dramatic crisis. In it we see the worlds fall apart: mountains fall into the sea and the world falls apart. It is enough to strike terror into the heart of the bravest man. Yet in verse 8, we are reminded that God’s works are even more devastating for God is above all man. In this sort of crises, I tend to react in busyness. But here are ordered, “Be still and know that I am God.” In the context of the psalm, this is actually a rebuke. It is so common in our crises, in the things that tear apart our worlds that we begin to see our circumstances as God, our situation as God. It is an act of faith in those situations to quiet our souls – to be still – and know deep within our hearts that God and God alone is our refuge and our strength, our very present help in trouble. In Psalm 62, David writes of personal conflict. He is being personally attacked by people who wished to throw him down from his position. One may be tempted to respond with bitterness. These people were blessing him to his face, but reaching around to stab him in the back. He writes in 62:5: For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.
Solitude and Silence, as useful aspects of prayer, are difficult to attain in the loudness and business of today. Steve May, in an article entitled “Solitude and Silence” writes “The first thing we need to do when we get in God’s presence is be still. The second thing we need to do is be still some more. Then we can begin to listen, and then we can begin to hear from him and experience his power in our lives.” Being still is hard, especially amid the distractions from this world – not just the noise but the problems, the needs, the catastrophes. I must admit, when I am faced with crisis, I tend to react in busyness. When I am faced with conflict, I tend to react in bitterness. The lesson is simple, when your world is falling down around you, when those you trust betray you, instead of reacting in busyness and bitterness, react first in solitude and silence.
Is you life full of noise and people? Are you lucky to have a moment even to go to the bathroom alone? The first principle of a prayer life is to carve out time to be still and know that God is still on His throne. It’s not easy. I know of a lady whose mother used to sit in a corner with a blanket over her head to have her quiet time before the Lord. There is a story of a man named Viktor Frankl, who, while in a Nazi concentration camp, would sneak out to a tent in which corpses were kept in order to find privacy. This week, carve out a time and a place each day to spend ten minutes alone in prayer. You might need to lock yourself in a closet, but schedule a time and place for silence, and then attend to it. In order to calm yourself, read psalms 46 and 62.
2) Prayer is to be Honest: Read 73
In this Psalm (which happens to be my favorite) we read Asaph’s shockingly honest confession. He envied the wicked. They had been arrogant, they scoffed, they spoke with malice they were violent and yet they appeared blessed. In verse 13 he basically says, “Is it really worth it to be a Christian?” This isn’t the type of prayer you generally hear in church. Notice in verse 15, he didn’t take his doubts public and air them before the congregation, but he dealt with them by bringing them into the presence of God. Verses 16-17. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God.” The psalmist found his answer by coming into God’s presence, in that day coming into the temple and hearing the worship of his people, and expressing himself honestly before his father in heaven.
The honesty of the psalms can be very shocking to us as modern Christians. In psalm 137 the psalmist mourns the loss of Jerusalem. He is an exile in an enemy land that killed his countrymen and destroyed his home. They are weeping by the waters of Babylon while they are being mocked by their captors. At the end of the psalm, he cries Psalm 137:8-9 “O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!” This is a shocking, violent text, yet it invites us to observe the honesty with how we can approach God. The psalmist was furious, and that was his wish for retaliation. However, rather than committing the violence himself, he offered his desires to God to do with what the Lord willed. Do you have a tendency to hide your emotional life from God and others? Look, God knows your heart. If you’re angry, tell him your angry. If you’re sad, tell him of your sadness. If you’re frustrated at your apathetic walk, express your frustration and ask him to energize your spirit. Tell him the details. Don’t be afraid. Write your prayer in a journal and then read it aloud to God.
3) Prayer Involves Asking God for Help and Thanking God for Hearing: Psalm 13
Another honest Psalm. Four times David asks “How long?” He was asking God for help to relieve him from four burdens:
1) feeling forgotten by God
2) feeling cut off from God’s favor
3) experiencing deep depression
4) suffering the humiliation of defeat
Yet David continues to ask and wait, ask and wait. The last couple of verses are an example of faith before God’s answer to prayer is evident: Psalm 13:5-6 But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
In Psalm 116 we see the other side of faith, Psalm 116:1-6 I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the LORD: "O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!" Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me.
The psalmist cried out for help and God sent aid. Yet his response to God goes beyond a quick quiet prayer whispered under his breath. In response, the psalmist praises God crying “gracious is our Lord, and righteous and merciful”. (5). He confesses his inadequacy reminding himself that it was the Lord, not himself who saved him (6). He also realizes that God’s grace has allowed him new life and he wasn’t going to squander that gift (I will walk before the Lord in the Land of the living” (9). He encourages others to hold firm to their belief in God (10-11). He lifts up the cup of salvation (13): He participates in communal worship – the lord’s supper meant something different to him having experienced the grace of God. (17) In the presence of all the people he brings the sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise, telling of what the Lord has done for him.
This is very counter-cultural. We live in a culture of complaining. We complain about the weather, the price of gas, our jobs, the pastor’s sermons going long, all sorts of little things that irk us. If you have a tendency to complain, write down on your paper the things you most often complain about. Use this list to write prayers for help and or thanksgiving. For example if you complain about the commute home from work, write a prayer asking God to help you overcome obstacles that put you in a situation where you have to commute. Then think of what you can thank God for in your commute. When you’re tempted to complain, use that temptation as an opportunity to ask for God’s help and thank him for his blessings and love. “Every Blessing you pour out I turn back to praise, when the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say Blessed be your name.”