Teach us to Pray - 240102

SPEAKER A Hello. I'm Steven Groom. Welcome to let God speak. The word. Psalms in Greek means songs of praise. It contains 150 chapters of poetry. Yet they are not just songs. They are also prayers par excellence. And in the second lesson from the book of psalms, we will look at how the psalms may teach us to pray and come closer to God through prayer, and especially when things are not going so good. On our panel today, we have Gayl Fong and John Kosmeier. Welcome. Let's begin with a word of prayer, shall we? Dear heavenly Father, please help us to learn to communicate with you in prayer more effectively, just like the psalmist did. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. SPEAKER B Amen. SPEAKER A The hebrew word for psalms is misma, which includes the meaning of to sing with instruments or to sing or to praise. And praising God is an important part of prayer to God, which we will see. So let us begin with question number one. As a foundation for our study today, can you give us some good advice on how we are to read the psalms? SPEAKER C Yes. Well, I always pray before I read, so I would invite the Holy Spirit to guide me. But, yes, choose a psalm, read a psalm, and then engage in a simple reflection, and then pray. You can ruminate over the words, spend time and deeply think about it, and the Holy Spirit will play back to you the meaning and different aspects of the prayer. And then the way the psalmist addresses God or why the psalm was written. You can study into that. Consider how your situation may correspond to the psalmist experience and how the psalm might be able to help you in how you express yourself in prayer. You can articulate the same prayer. You can use those same words and pray it back to God. And you will be amazed how often that your own personal experiences and situations will resonate and relate to what you read. SPEAKER A And that's so important, isn't it, for us, how it's relevance to us today, isn't it? And so, John, what is the place of psalms in the believer's worship experience? SPEAKER B There are five poetic books in the Bible. The first one is job. The second one is psalms. The third one, Job. Psalms, proverbs, and then ecclesiastes and song of Solomon. And they are all books of experience. Job suffered the experience of suffering. And then you have the psalms, which are the experience of God, both of what he himself experiences, what we experience. And then we have the book of living experience. That's the proverbs. And then you have evaluation, ecclesiastes. And then, of course, you have the book of love it. And here the psalm is the book that has the most in it, 150 chapters. SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER B And so it's no wonder that the New Testament talks about the psalms. And I'm reading from the new King James version, colossians chapter three and verse 16. And there it says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord. So it's a book that allows us to experience our experience as christians. SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER B And so feelings do count. Very much so. We're not machines. SPEAKER D No. SPEAKER B We're people. And as a result, we can sing and we can cry. And it's all happening in the book of psalms, as you'll see in a minute. SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER A So let's now look a bit more closely at some individual psalms to see what we can learn from them. And let's begin with psalm, chapter 13. And as we go there, this psalm was probably composed when David was under constant trial and persecution from King Saul. Let me read that for you. It's only a small, short psalm, so we can read it all. How long will you forget me, O Lord, forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall my enemy be exalted of me? Consider and hear me, O Lord. My God, lighten my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him. And who those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in your mercy. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing unto the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. And so with that, Gayl, what are the two main questions here that David is asking God in this psalm? SPEAKER C Well, the first question that David asked God is expressed there in verse one where you read, Steven, was this, how long, o Lord, will you forget me? Forever. And then he basically repeats himself in that same verse, but in a different way. How long will you hide your face from me? So he feels that his troubles are never going to end, and he's feeling that God is just not listening. He's really struggling here. And then he asks the second question, second verse there, second part of that verse, how long will my enemies be exalted over me? And of course, his enemy was king Saul. But there are times that we can feel in despair and frustration and impatience that there just seems to be no end to what we are enduring. And David was expressing that. SPEAKER A Yes, continuing in verses three and four. John, what does this tell us in the same psalm? SPEAKER B Well, verse three says, consider and hear me. In other words, Lord, I need your attention. I need help here. And so consider and hear me, and then enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lord, please give me life. And here is David's great cry where he's talking to God as to a friend. And then verse four says, lest my enemies say, I have prevailed against him. And this is where God, you don't want to say to hear those sort of things said by others. When we are the ones who are suffering, where is their God? And so here we have a real experience of God in this psalm. SPEAKER A So with all this torment that we're hearing about in this psalm, on what basis can the psalmist rejoice as mentioned in verse six? SPEAKER D Gayl? SPEAKER C Well, in the final two verses there, verses five and six, I just read those it says, but I have trusted in your mercy. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the lord because he's dealt bountifully with me. So we find there just before verse six there he's saying that God has rescued him. He's experienced that, and he's praising God, although he has not received it yet, but by faith, he's looking forward with eyes of faith that God is going to do this for him in advance before it happens. And that's true faith. That's walking by faith. And so it appears that the theme throughout the psalm there is so much, always seems to be thanksgiving that happens even though there's unexplainable circumstances. But God comes through and he thanks him even when he can't see it. SPEAKER A So we've looked at that individually in different parts there. Now collectively, what can we learn from this psalm? SPEAKER B John, I think Gayl expressed it very well. Know we start off needing God, and then when we walk with him, we can rejoice and be glad because of what God is doing for us. And it's an experience that we have that goes from lament to hope. Fortunately, we weren't kings and queens, so we didn't have the experience that David did. But each in our own lives can have that same walk from lament to. SPEAKER A Joy and gladness, even amidst all any problems that we might be facing in external ways. Yes, thanks for that. So in the psalm, we see a definite structure in psalm 13, don't we? It begins with a protest of what's happening to in verses one and two, we have a prayer to God in verses three or four, and concludes with praise to God in verses five to six. And some people think knowing the structure is not important. It's just unwarranted theology, really. But how is knowing the structure of the psalms important for our scale? SPEAKER C Well, even Jesus'disciples asked him, teach us to pray. So it is important that this is an important structure that we can copy in our private prayers, because there are times that we do go through. It happens very regularly. We go through different experiences of suffering, and we never know when these are going to befall us. And we can come to the point where we really can't endure it anymore, that we just really just fall down and we just open our heart to God. And these psalms can help us in how to express ourselves and how to pour out our hearts to God. And then we may experience the same satisfaction as David did as he constructed these hymns and these songs, because we can relate to them and we can also experience that comfort. SPEAKER A I think you found a very important point there, Gayl, and that is finding your own experience in these psalms. And they're expressed. There's a lot of experiences there, and I'm sure that in our tough experiences of life, we can find our own experience there, relate to them, and pray them ourselves. Now, we've covered that psalm well, let us go to psalm 22, and the first half of verse one says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is probably the most famous sentence in all of the psalms. Why is that so, John? SPEAKER B Because it was the experience of Jesus being on the cross, and he quoted this psalm, my God, why have you forsaken me? And it was part of the last prayer that Jesus offered while he was walking on the earth, and then they took him to the cross. SPEAKER A He did say something after that, wasn't it, John? SPEAKER B What? He said there was, Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit. Yes, and this can be our experience. We can say, Lord, here I am, and I need you. And so I put my life into your hands. It's an experience that Jesus had at an eternal and everlasting and amazing experience that we will never have, but we can have the men's and the women's equivalent, and that is to give ourselves to God when we need him the most. SPEAKER D Yeah. SPEAKER A And you've touched on the next question, Gayl. Can you add to that? Is there any. Under what circumstances was Jesus reciting this opening sentence in psalm 22? SPEAKER C Well, as John expressed there, it was definitely under extreme duress and suffering because he was on the cross and the words were fitting for the circumstances, I'm sure it would have seemed to those that were looking on that the God in whom Jesus had placed all his trust and faith and who he was expressing about had forgotten him and that he did not look like that they had a close relationship at all. Where is your God? Why don't you come down? Why doesn't he rescue you? He has forsaken you. And yet it's clear here that the wording of this psalm stated how Jesus was feeling, how he was expressing himself at this time. SPEAKER A Yes, and it would seem that the surface meaning of this phrase is that God is abandoning him. However, is there any evidence in this psalm that there's more meaning to these words? And it's not entirely so. SPEAKER B John, in verse 22, it says here, I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will praise you. And here, Jesus hanging on the cross and praising God. And when you look at psalm 22, it's the psalm of the cross. Psalm 23 is the psalm of the shepherd's crook, where God is saving the sheep and turning them into honoured guests. And when you come to psalm 24, you have the entry of God's people and Jesus into the heavenly Jerusalem, where they sing out, lift up your gates and be. Lift up your everlasting doors. Yes, psalm 22 is very much a part of the experience of man, where we have difficulties and failures. But when you come to psalm 24, and so the structure is very important. SPEAKER A And so what you're saying there, John, is somehow that this suffering actually might be a part of God's plan. It was in Jesus life. Maybe somehow it is in our life, too. SPEAKER B I'm not quite sure that it's God's plan. God's plan is to save us from that. And the devil is the one that makes the problems and God is the one that has the solutions. Praise his name. SPEAKER A So, Gayl, can you add any more? What can we learn from this psalm? SPEAKER C Well, it gives us words to pray, that's for sure. The psalms teaches us to look beyond our current situation and by faith, we can see when our life will be restored by God's grace. There is hope, as John brought out there, which is beautiful, because the psalm changes from despair to hope and to joyous hope. So the psalms lets us express our feelings and our understandings. We're not left where we presently are, but as we pray through the psalm, it lifts us up into heavenly places. It does. It gives us hope and encouragement. And we're not abandoned to our feelings, which are very negative. Generally, when we are facing difficulties, of anxious times, of pain, of disappointment, of sufferings, of despair. We can trust in God whatever our circumstances. SPEAKER A So what you're saying there is that God is challenging us to look at the bigger picture, so to speak. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER A Thank you for that. And we've covered that psalm pretty well. Let us go to psalm chapter 44, shall we? And I will read the first couple of verses as a beginning. It says, we have heard with our ears, o God, our fathers have told us what work you did in their day in the times of old, how you did drive out the heathen with your hand and planted them, how you did afflict the people and cast them out. So here the sons of Korah, who are the authors of this psalm, are relaying the experience of God, how he saved their people or he drove the nations before them. But then further on, going to verse nine and ten, it says, but you have cast off and put us to shame, and you go forth with our, or you don't go forth with our armies. So here he seems to be saying that God has abandoned them. You make us to turn back from the enemy, and they which hate us spoil for themselves. And so how can this psalm help us in our daily walk with God? John? SPEAKER B It's some I don't like. And the reason is because it spells out so clearly things that we see on television screens every day and what we hear on the radio, and that is that it is the innocent who are suffering. SPEAKER D Yeah. SPEAKER B And it's expressing a truth that we have in the world today. And when you go to verses 18, verses 18 and 19, it says, our hearts have not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way. But you have severely broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death. And so we've gone from utter despair to saying that our hearts have not turned back. SPEAKER A Isn't he saying here like that, we have not gone against you, God, we have walked faithfully with you, but still things are not going our way. Isn't he saying that? SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER A Another cry of despair. SPEAKER D Yeah. SPEAKER B It's the cry of the innocent who are suffering. SPEAKER D Yeah. SPEAKER A And so psalms 44 finishes with a cry of help to God. Let me read that in verses 25 and 26, verse 25 for context, for our soul is bowed down to the dust, our belly cleaves unto the earth, arise for our help and redeem us for your mercy's sake. So he's sort of making a plea to God there. How does this help us amidst our problems? SPEAKER D Gayl? SPEAKER C Well, yes, as you stated, there Steven, even amidst the psalmist's problems, there he's crying out to God to deliver him, as you said there, to redeem us for your mercy's sake. So there's no clear answer sometimes when we pray. But even amidst our troubles, we don't need to despair completely because he's remembering that God loves him. He's calling on the mercy for his mercy's sake. So he's calling on God, who is a merciful God. And this same attitude, we need to hold on to it when we're going through these waves of despair, because when things go terribly wrong, we don't want to give up on God because that's exactly what the devil will want us to do, is to blame God and give up on God. But we need to hold on because God is merciful and he will make things plain. Just keep holding on. SPEAKER A Yes, thank you for that. Now let us go to psalm, chapter. SPEAKER D 60. SPEAKER A And I'll read the first five verses of that. O God, you have cast us off. So here we have another psalm of torment. A lament. SPEAKER D Sorry. SPEAKER A You have scattered us. You have been displeased. O, turn yourself to us again. You have made the earth to tremble. You have broken it. Heal the breaches thereof, for it shakes. You have showed your people hard things. You have made us to drink the wine of astonishment. You have given a banner to them that fear you, that it may be displayed because of the truth, Selah, that your beloved may be delivered, save with your right hand and hear me. So what is the background of this psalm, John? SPEAKER B This is a psalm that was written as a result of the armies fighting against their enemies and then losing. That's when you turn to God and say, lord, what's happening here? And as a result, this psalm gives us the experience that we have with God when everything adverse happens to us. SPEAKER A Can you add anything to that? SPEAKER D Gayl? SPEAKER A On what occasion do you think this psalm would be a suitable prayer for us even? SPEAKER C Well, this cry of lament, this expressing grief, expressing sorrow that happens here in this is a comfort to us because we can go through trying times. And it's okay to express oneself this way because we all go through physical, psychological or spiritual trauma or perhaps all at the same time or mental trauma. Yeah. SPEAKER A Thank you. What does this mean that most of us are going through these times for those who of us who are not going through trying times. Does that make this psalms like this irrelevant to us? SPEAKER B Never. It means that we can turn to God and rejoice. I have a good day when I have a good day. And I tell God. So, thank you very much for good day. May tomorrow be another good one, like now. And so they're not irrelevant. They are there for when we especially need them. That's why God wrote them. SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER A Is there any other way that the psalms of lament, such as this one, can be beneficial for us? SPEAKER D Gayl? SPEAKER C A psalm of lament can be one that brings out in our hearts an understanding to be compassionate toward others. If I'm not experiencing what that psalm is saying or expressing, it gives me compassion towards others, because, yes, life can be going well, and therefore we can be very happy and grateful to God. But I also have to be remindful, mindful of others that may not be going through such good times. SPEAKER A Thank you. That's good counsel. SPEAKER B Steve. That's another good point, actually, that while we are not having a problem at that particular time, if there is somebody who is, then we have the wherewithal to help them, because we can turn up the psalms for them. SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER B And it will help them just like it helps us. SPEAKER A So it becomes evangelistic in nature. SPEAKER B Absolutely. SPEAKER A Psalms can become evangelistic. So if you know someone who's having these problems or similar problems, we can have, one, empathy for them, and two, we can bring them to the scriptures. Is that right? SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER A Say, look at this and help them in comfort. SPEAKER C And if you can express yourself, you feel like you have been heard. So if you can express yourself to God, you feel you have been heard, and therefore you can have that peace and calm. SPEAKER A God understands, and I find that also very relevant in the psalms you read. The psalmist is very open about how he expresses himself to God, isn't he? Doesn't hide anything. And that has helped me in my prayer life. I open up everything. Don't hold back, because the psalmist doesn't. SPEAKER D Hold back, does he? SPEAKER A And is there any other way, John, do you think that the psalms in general can help us in our prayer life? In your experience, have you found the psalms helped you? SPEAKER B Well, I've already explained that here we have five books in the Bible that relate to the way we feel and we experience things. And here we have the psalms that are specially written for days when things aren't well. SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER B And then we have the great rejoicing psalms as well. SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER B And so we can be very happy as christians, because when things are going well, not a problem, when things aren't doing so well, God's help is there. SPEAKER A It's there, isn't it? SPEAKER B What a blessing it is. SPEAKER A And so, Gayl, do you have a favourite psalm you'd like to share with us in closing? SPEAKER C I have many favourite psalms, but I was thinking of psalm 121. I lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth. I love that psalm and I love it when I'm walking out in nature because I see God's mercy and grace every day. SPEAKER D Thank you. SPEAKER A And the psalms also show us, in my experience, that there's something better for us than this. Life isn't know. SPEAKER B Psalms is an amazing book because you have the shortest chapter and the longest chapter and the middle verse is about God and man. SPEAKER A That's all we have time for. Thank you, Gayl. Thank you, John. Today we have looked at how we may benefit by using the psalms in prayer, not so much as in using exact words, but in how to express a mindset or attitude when we communicate with God. Under all circumstances, these psalms cover the full range of our life's experiences. So no matter what you are going through, there is a psalm that covers your present experience. All you have to do is read through the psalms to find that special psalm that is relevant for you today and pray that back to God. We are glad you joined us on let God speak. You can view all our past programmes on our website, 3abnaustralia.org.au God bless. We hope you join us next time. SPEAKER D You have been listening to Let God Speak, a production of 3ABN, Australia. Television. To catch up on past programs, please visit 3abnaustralia.org.au Call us in Australia on 024-973-3456 or email [email protected] We'd love to hear from you.