Part 2 of a series on the Songs of Ascent. Recorded at the ICA Church, Phnom Penh Cambodia, November 2018.
I apologize for the fact that the audio and video are not quite synced up. In any case, my messages starts around the 57 minute mark. God bless!
I love the Psalms.
In my work as a pastoral counselor and occasional preacher, I talk about them a lot. The hope is that by developing an awareness of the Psalms, folks would feel free to start feeling their feelings, talking about their feelings, and perhaps even talking to God about their feelings. That would be a good thing.
But I didn’t know I talked about them this much. As is evident by the lists below, I’ve talked and sung and written a bunch about the Psalms. And I’m not stopping.
Because although the Psalms do not help us to become super Christians, the Psalms do in fact help us to become human Christians. And the world (and global missions) needs as many of those types as we can get…
Articles
The Gaping Hole in the Modern Missions Movement (part 1)
The Gaping Hole in the Modern Missions Movement (part 2)
A Missionary’s Call to the Psalms and Deeper Emotional Intelligence
Some thoughts on how to combine the Psalms with Discovery Bible Studies and inner healing ministries.
Here’s a three-minute video showing one way to interface with the Psalms. You can read more on this method here.
Podcasts/Sermons
Despair is Where Hope Lives (Psalm 130)
Pilgrim Songs (Psalms 120-124)
On Peace, Busyness, and Remembering that I’m Not God (Psalm 131)
Teleporting, Editing, and Borrowing (Psalm 31)
On Rest, Loss, and Revenge (Psalm 3)
The Posture of God (Psalm 116)
Songs
Follow Close (Psalm 63)
Spiritual Warfare Lullaby (Psalm 23, Psalm 91)
Psalm 13
One Thing I Ask (Psalm 27)
Elizabeth is over at Velvet Ashes today . . . .
The words sleep and rest are nearly synonymous in my mind. We wake feeling rested after a good night’s sleep. Conversely, we feel disappointingly not rested after a fitful night’s sleep. Sleep is a gift, and certainly, it is a type of rest, but it’s not the only kind of rest we need.
We also need the kind of rest that lets us stop striving. The kind of rest that lets us stop worrying, that lets us stop working. We need the kind of rest that lets us stop rushing. “All our busy rushing ends in nothing,” David proclaimed in Psalm 39:6. Our daily lives have changed significantly since then, but in all those years the human heart hasn’t changed. David’s words are as true today as they were 3000 years ago.
If we spend some time studying the world David lived in, we can find fresh meaning in the word rest. In the Old Testament, “rest” referred to a dwelling or habitation. More specifically, the settlement in Canaan provided rest to the Israelites. In ancient times in general, rest meant that the battle was over and the king was on his throne. Rest meant that regular rhythms could be taken up because the people weren’t at war anymore.
Finish reading here.
by Jonathan
Would you even like Jesus?
Would you like him if he came into your church and started yelling about houses of prayer? Or would you call him just another angry man?
Would you like him if he told you to sell even some of your stuff and give the proceeds to the poor? Or would you call him a socialist?
Would you like him if he told you to stop sleeping with people you weren’t married to? Or would you call him a legalist?
What if you realized he wasn’t a Republican?
Or a Democrat?
Or white?
Would you like him if you found him crying by himself on a hillside, talking about a rebellious city? Or would you call him an emotional wreck?
I don’t know, would I even like him?
What about the time he let those guys chop up an innocent man’s roof?
Would you like it if he hadn’t planned ahead and all of a sudden asked you to feed a few thousand people?
What would you think when he dozed off during a life-threatening storm?
He is not as tame as we make him, after all.
Would you like him when he let the prostitute get a little too close? Or would you start to wonder about his dedication to purity?
Would you like him when he befriended your political enemy, visiting his house and sharing a meal? Or would that be a red (or blue) line crossed?
You see, we sanitize and sanctify Jesus, stripping him of context and personality, until he looks (we think) like us.
But he’s not like us. Thank God.
So, would you like him?
What if he showed up in your deepest pain and you saw his eyes, red with mercy and compassion? Would you like him then?
What if you heard him cry, “Forgive them!” And you knew he was talking about you? Would you like him then?
Would you run to him, grasping his sleeve for acceptance and love?
He’d let you.
He’d love you.
He’d heal you.
After all, he liked you first.
He’s just a carpenter. A blue-collared day laborer. And he’s the one who builds mountains and stars.
He’s just a carpenter. A townie, a long long ways from cosmopolitan. And he’s the King of kings.
But he’s just a carpenter, uneducated, the son of nobodies. And he’s the dearly loved son of the Father.
The crowds are blind, eyes filled to the brim with scoffing, incredulous. They can’t see beyond their own limiting words.
It is true. He is a carpenter. But he is not just a carpenter. He is so much more.
And by his grace, we are too.
We are not just sinners.
We are not just failures.
We are not just inadequate.
We are loved.
We are saved.
We are sought after and enjoyed by our God.
So when people see us and laugh, saying we’re “just a” whatever, we smile and nod and run to Jesus.
And there we sit among the wood chips, remnants of a Roman cross, and we belly laugh with the Carpenter who saved the world.
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Jesus left that part of the country and returned with his disciples to Nazareth, his hometown. The next Sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.
Mark 6:1-3
Jonathan & Elizabeth Trotter 