Worship - Praying the Scriptures

Good morning.

Good morning.

Oh, I love it.

I feel happy to be here today.

You know, some days I have to try to be happy to be at church.

Not because there's anything wrong with church.

I just, sometimes people, you know, getting kind of psyching yourself up for that.

Sometimes I don't sleep that well on Saturday nights.

So I'm extra happy to be here today.

And I've just been looking around and smiling at beautiful faces.

So it's fun to be here.

My name is Scott.

A little bit about me.

I had a spinal cord injury about eight years ago.

So I used the chair.

And I usually stay tilted pretty far back in the chair.

Because that helps me manage my blood pressure.

I stay bundled up pretty warm because temperature regulation is a challenge for me.

So it's not a fashion statement.

My hoods these days are really popular.

I do like having my hood up.

But I also get really cold without it.

I also take a lot of drinks of water.

I take some medications to give me dry mouth.

So you'll have to be patient as we take drink breaks today.

So with that, I'll go ahead and take a drink.

Excuse me.

You're one of those camelback packs.

That's a little thing.

I have to go to the bathroom every hour.

Yes.

Sip breaks.

How do I say this?

Have you used that phrase this week?

I use it quite a bit.

I'm someone who really likes to think before I speak.

So sometimes I'm really careful how I say things.

My wife is nodding her head.

We were arguing about this last night.

She would say, do you want a snack when you go to bed?

You know, she helps get me into bed.

And then sometimes I like to munch on something.

And so she asked me, do you want anything to munch on?

Did you hear me?

Yeah, I'm thinking.

I have to think about how hungry am I?

How much should I eat today?

What kind of snack should I have?

And I eat the same exact snack every single night.

But I still have to think about it.

And I don't know, what else did you ask me?

Do you remember?

It doesn't even matter.

Yes.

Her eyes actually glaze over.

And my friend Alex is back there.

And she knows too.

She helps me get up in the mornings.

Questions like, what shoes do you want to wear today?

They can take a couple of minutes.

So I'm somebody who, how can I put this?

Have you used that one this week?

Sometimes we use that phrase a lot.

We're trying to figure out exactly how we should say things.

Finding the right words can be hard.

Sometimes we look for them really carefully.

Sometimes we say, I don't want this to sound bad.

That always makes you a little nervous, doesn't it?

I remember especially a time when that was true is,

have you ever written anything to a crush before?

Maybe a text, maybe a letter, maybe an email.

How long did you think before you actually sent it?

How many times did you use the backspace button?

I want them to think I like them.

Maybe even I like like them.

But I want them to think I like like like them.

Because then they'll think I'm too into them.

We can put a lot of thought into that.

When I was emailing Tashiana, because we weren't really texting that much yet,

I don't even think I had a cell phone.

But when I would email her and we weren't dating yet,

I would spend 30 minutes in the library where I went to write my emails just thinking,

how do I say this?

How am I going to put this?

I want to say it just right.

It took me a while trying to find the right words.

Another time sometimes we're trying to find the right words is in a high pressure situation like an interview.

I interviewed for the first time in a while and years not too long ago.

And a question came up and I couldn't believe I wasn't prepared for it.

What are some of your weaknesses?

And I'm like, oh my gosh, I've heard this so many times.

I've asked this in so many interviews and now I'm sitting here and I have no idea what to say.

So what popped into my head was one of my favorite interviews from one of my favorite TV shows.

It goes like this.

Let me ask you a question right off the bat.

What do you think are your greatest strengths as a manager?

The response, why don't I tell you what my greatest weaknesses are?

I work too hard.

I care too much.

And sometimes I can be too invested in my job.

Okay, and your strengths?

Well, my weaknesses are actually strengths.

Ah, very good.

There you go.

And so what I did to buy a little bit of time in this interview was tell the interviewer this joke

and then try to come up with three actual weaknesses, which was a struggle,

not because I don't know my weaknesses but because I was having one of those moments.

How do I put this?

Another time I was quitting a job and I didn't particularly care for the job,

and I was 21 at the time, so I have some grace for me, but I decided to use the words from a song.

Sometimes songs put things better than words we can think of.

And so I told the manager, in the words of R.E.O. Speedwagon, I believe it's time for me to fly.

Again, I was 21 and I didn't much care for the job.

This is a silly example, but there are other times when words really strike us

because they give us the words for, or songs really strike us because they give us the words to say something.

It's really hard to say we feel it, we've thought of it, but we might not have the right words.

I heard a song recently by Billie Eilish from the Barbie movie,

which one of the themes in that is when your whole identity is shattered, your world falls apart, how do you rebuild that?

And I heard this song and I was really moved by it.

Here are a few of the lyrics.

When did it end? All the enjoyment.

I'm sad again. Don't tell my boyfriend.

It's not what he's made for. What was I made for?

I don't know how to feel, but I want to try.

I don't know how to feel, but someday I might.

I think I forgot how to be happy, something I'm not, but something I can be,

something I wait for, something I'm made for.

This song has a deep sadness to it, but it also reaches out with a hope.

It can't quite grasp or identify what that hope is, what she's hoping she was made for,

but she senses that there's something there that she's reaching out toward.

What was I made for? Something that echoes, I think, since humans became humans,

since we could even begin to think about how to feel.

Another song that saw a lot of popularity in the country rock genre in 2023

is about needing a favor from God.

And I'll share some of the words to that song.

Hardcover King James only been saving dust on my nightstand,

and I don't know what to say by the time I fold my hands.

I only talk to God when I need a favor, and I only pray when I ain't got a prayer.

So who the heck am I to expect a savior if I only talk to God when I need a favor?

But God, I need a favor.

I owe you more than one, and beggars can't be choosers, but I'll pay for all I've done.

Just please don't let me lose her.

Well, I hope my spiritual life has more depth than asking God for favors.

I also know that there's times where I find myself asking for favors,

or maybe I would put it as an emergency prayer.

God, please help me get out of this.

God, help me get this job.

God, I'm so stressed out right now.

God, help me pass this test.

And sometimes I find when I'm praying those prayers that it's been a while between since I've prayed something else.

It's just been a string of emergency prayers lately, just those moments of desperation,

and I realize that in between those, I find it really hard to find the right words.

What do I say? How do I say it?

What can I express that is something genuine?

God gives us the words in the Bible.

He gives us the answers to the test.

He gives us a whole book of prayers, the Psalms.

The Psalms are the longest book in the Bible, 150 chapters, longest by a long shot.

150 prayers covering every topic you can think of.

Depression, anxiety, war, creation, thanksgiving, anger, and I especially like this one, even anger toward God.

Sometimes I need permission to express that because I feel it.

And wouldn't you know that God gives us the words to even tell him when we're angry with him.

He even gives us the words to express our frustration.

And that's good news for me and maybe some others of us, too.

A lot of the Psalms were written by someone named David, King David, the same David that fought Goliath.

The same David who did so many things.

And I want to mention some of his life experiences for a moment because as someone who wrote a lot of Psalms,

he can give us an idea of just how many topics there are, how many themes.

He grew up as a shepherd. He loved creation.

He grew up looking at the mountains, the grass, the trees, the sheep, the predators, all of those things.

He grew up knowing what war was like.

The violence, having made his fame by killing the champion of another nation.

He knew the highest highs, but he also knew the lowest lows.

He spent years of his life running around from someone who wanted to kill him.

He lived in caves. That's hard times.

He was betrayed again and again and again.

He would seek refuge in a kingdom or from friends.

But when his opponent, Saul, came around, they would sell him out.

His friends died. His friends came and went.

And then he became king. He won countless battles.

He fell in love and married someone he loved.

But he also is, how do I put this, a moron.

Someone we can relate to in that way as well.

He committed adultery.

He committed by proxy murder.

He had to ask forgiveness for some terrible things.

Now, he wrote about those things.

And he was able to connect with God even in spite of them.

But I want to mention too that even though he kept writing during that time,

even though he kept connecting with God,

it didn't wipe out the consequences of what he did.

His family was ruined.

His kingdom that he'd worked so hard to preserve was ruined.

His own son, one of them chased him around trying to kill him and forced him to go on the run.

So when we think of David in the Psalms we wrote,

we don't only see a hero.

We see someone who made mistakes, but we see someone who prayed through it

and continued to look for words of hope through it.

He wrote the 23rd Psalm.

I was at a funeral recently and that Psalm was read as it is so often at funerals,

a song of hope.

He wrote the 51st Psalm, a Psalm of repentance,

after he'd been confronted by someone for committing adultery,

for cheating on his wife, wives, but that's another thing.

It was still wrong.

And he also wrote the 22nd Psalm.

Jesus actually quoted the Psalms.

He quoted his Psalm while he was on the cross.

You've probably heard the line,

my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Lines that echo, lines that hurt to hear and especially hurt to see Jesus saying.

But what I love is that when Jesus said this,

even though those words have sting,

that wasn't all he was thinking about.

That wasn't his only prayer in that moment.

The song goes on and gives words of hope.

Jesus wasn't only reciting those first lines of feeling betrayed,

but the rest of that prayer, the rest of that Psalm.

And I'd like to share some of that with you.

Psalm 22 and I've the verses I've read,

I've jumped around a little bit because it's a long Psalm.

So if you look it up in your Bible, you'll find these verses there,

but they it jumps around some.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me?

So far from my cries of anguish.

My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer.

By night, but I find no rest.

Yet in you, our ancestors put their trust.

They trusted and you delivered them.

To you they cry out and you saved them.

In you they trusted and were not put to shame.

You brought me out of the womb.

You made me trust in you, even in my mother's arms.

From birth, I relied on you.

From my mother's belly, you have been my God.

Lord, do not be far from me.

You are my strength.

Come quickly to help me.

You have not despised or scorn my suffering.

You have not hidden your face from me,

but have listened to my cry for help.

Jesus said the words, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

But even in that moment as he felt forsaken,

he was also praying, knowing that he was not abandoned by God.

He was loved by God.

He was seen by God.

And for us today when we read the Psalms,

God gives us the right words to celebrate,

to feel our pain, to cry out,

but he also gives us the words of hope.

Almost every Psalm ends directing us back to him.

They echo those questions that we've heard,

what was I made for,

how do I pray those emergency prayers,

but they also point us to the hope that's deeper than that.

Okay, Scott, it's time for you to wrap it up.

And you told me that this is the longest book in the Bible.

Where do I start?

A lot of the Psalms, if you read them, you might find kind of boring.

Sometimes it feels like they repeat themselves a lot.

How do I find the ones that I'm looking for?

One way to do it is with the internet.

If you Google Psalms about hope, Psalms about anxiety,

Psalms about creation, all kinds of things will pop up.

Now it's Google, so all kinds of things will pop up.

So you have to be careful getting your Bible verses from Google,

but it's a place you can start.

Another place that's really helpful for praying the Psalms

is an app called YouVersion.

If you put in your app, search Bible, it's the first one that will pop up.

Now on there, you can read the Psalms, but there's also plans.

And if you go in there and you type in Psalms, praying the Psalms,

in the plans, it will give you plans for praying the Psalms.

There's a seven-day one.

There's a 35-day one, and it will walk you through

and give you devotionals and give you Psalms to pray.

That's a way to pray the Psalms, to use the words that God has given us.

And this is worship, to pray Scripture, to pray the Psalms.

We could all pray the Psalms this week.

We could all do this seven-day plan.

I'd encourage you to do it, to look it up in the app,

or you can Google if you're feeling risky.

But the Psalms, God gives us the words.

Amen?

Let's pray.

God, as we do this series on worship,

we think about praying the Psalms.

We think about how you give us the words we need.

You give us the words to voice our fears, our joy,

and you also point us back to you.

And we thank you for that.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.