Welcome and Prayer: Jim Calhoun

Come Lord, join us here today
Thank you for the gifts you bring
Well considered
Just in time

Sometimes we have only a little understanding of the changes that will be required when we pray
Sometimes these changes take a lifetime of care and grace and faithfulness
Sometime we resist the growth needed in us hoping instead all the change will be made elsewhere
Sometimes it feels like the change will never come, that your grace is insufficient

Still,
our hope
All we can muster
Is in you
And in time
Over time
You give us the grace
We need
Over and over
Quietly
Tenderly
Patiently
Repeatedly
Until we can
Incorporate it
In our lives
Allowing
it to transform us
Into the answer
Of the prayer
we prayed
So long ago.
Thank you for this
Thank you
Amen

Morning Talk: chuck smith, jr.

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust;
    let me not be put to shame;
    let not my enemies exult over me.
Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
    they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
    teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
    for you are the God of my salvation;
    for you I wait all the day long.

Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
    for they have been from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
    according to your steadfast love remember me,
    for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

Good and upright is the Lord;
    therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
    and teaches the humble his way.
All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
    for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

For your name’s sake, O Lord,
    pardon my guilt, for it is great.
Who is the man who fears the Lord?
    Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
His soul shall abide in well-being,
    and his offspring shall inherit the land.
The friendship^[b] of the Lord is for those who fear him,
    and he makes known to them his covenant.
My eyes are ever toward the Lord,
    for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

Turn to me and be gracious to me,
    for I am lonely and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
    bring me out of my distresses.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
    and forgive all my sins.

Consider how many are my foes,
    and with what violent hatred they hate me.
Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
    Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
    for I wait for you.

Redeem Israel, O God,
    out of all his troubles Psalm 25

Intro: This psalm does not track a central theme

What I mean, is that we cannot say, “This is a psalm of praise,”
– or “Psalm of confession,” or “thanksgiving psalm,” or “supplication psalm”
• this doesn’t mean the structure of the poem is random,
◦ only that it doesn’t tell a story or develop a specific point
• nevertheless, there is a pattern to the psalm,
◦ but we don’t find it arranged in an obvious pattern
– the first Hebrew letter in the first word of the first verse is alef
(like ‘A’ is the first letter of our alphabet)
• the first letter in the first word of the second verse is bet
(like ‘B’ is the second letter of our alphabet)
◦ alef and bet are the first two letters in the Hebrew alphabet
◦ that’s what the poet used for the outline of the entire psalm
• it’s like the nursery rhyme, “A is for apple; B is for ball . . . .”
◦ except that two letters from the Hebrew alphabet are missing

There are several psalms that use this acrostic device
– Psalm 119 is the most radical example, supplying eight verses (each beginning with the same letter) for every letter of the Hebrew alphabet

Psalm 25 jumps from one topic to another
– including requests, examples of God’s ways, confession of sin, and God’s mercy and faithfulness (chesed and emeth)
• still, we can sense a mood or feeling running through the
• what I sense in this psalm is devotion, even affection
◦ within the conversational tone, there is a feeling of intimacy
– my guess is that the translators also noticed the poem’s intimate nature
• which may be why they translated the Hebrew word sôd as “Friendship,”
◦ although sôd doesn’t mean friendship
• but if it’s true that intimacy is the mood of the psalm, then verse 14 is the key verse

To hear God speak implies nearness, closeness, intimacy

As I said the literal meaning of sôd is not friendship
– sôd is sometimes translated “council” – like a “city council”
• it can refer to a specific group in conference or a “closed meeting”
• it is also used of private conversations or secret plots
◦ sometimes it refers to God’s divine council; that is, the sphere in which his agents receive his orders
◦ Jeremiah provides a good representation of God’s council:
“Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with fain hopes. They speak vision s of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. . . .
For who among them has stood in the council of the LORD
to see and to hear his word,
or who has paid attention to his word and listened?”
Then Jeremiah quotes God:
“I did not send the prophets
yet they ran;
I did not speak to them,
yet they prophesied.
But if they had stood in my council,
then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
and they would have turned them from the evil way,
and from the evil of their deeds” (Jer. 23:16-22)

Now we can return to our verse in the Psalms:
“The council [or “private conversations” or “personal communication”] of the LORD is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant” (v. 14)
• for “fear,” read “reverence”–a strongly felt respect or regard for God and all things sacred
• God communicates with these people
◦ he reveals his covenant relationship, commitment, and love to them
◦ Malachi describes the community of God’s followers in his day like this:
“Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name. ‘They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him’” (Mal. 3:16-18)

How do we measure the value of a conversation?

Did you ever end a phone call and think, “Well, I just wasted fifteen minutes of my life”?
– suppose we use a scale from one to ten to grade our conversations:
1 is annoying and 10 is enjoyable
1 is unnecessary and 10 is crucial
1 is useless and 10 is worthwhile
1 is shallow or superficial and 10 is deep or meaningful
1 is nothing was learned or gained and 10 is much was learned and gained
1 is, “I had to” and 10 is, “I wanted to”
– I’ve had many calls the past two months from doctor’s offices and labs
• and I had as many calls that were spam or scam
• although some of those calls were important,
◦ they weren’t my favorite phone conversations

My most meaningful conversations are relational
– depending on the content of these talks,
• they are my favorite or my most unpleasant
– when we turn toward our conversations with God,
• some can be tough but all are blessed
◦ and even the tough ones work for our good
• I am re-reading a book by Gustavo Gutierrez, On Job
◦ it is the most profound, most insightful commentary on Job I’ve ever read
◦ at the end of Job’s confrontation with God,
▫ he is exhilarated, thrilled, rejoicing, but also exhausted
Guteirrez, “Yet the meeting has been a costly one. God had said at the end of the second speech, ‘Who will resist me and go away unscathed?’ Job has learned the truth of these words, for he goes away limping from this confrontation with God, as Jacob did after his struggle with the angel. Limping, but content, for he has seen his Lord, and the revelation given to him has opened up a new world to him.”

Our most meaningful conversations are relational
– and the conversations that are most likely to be life-changing
are those we have with God

Intimacy is established and deepened through communication

Learning the other’s communication style enhances what we receive and share
– would it be possible for anyone to know you better than God?
• on a scale from 1 to 10, what he has to tell us hits 10 in every category
• so we listen
◦ as we read the Scriptures
◦ as we sit in contemplative silence
◦ as we take quiet walks in nature
– in all of our life with God, we’re learning to become good listeners

I’m going to read something from John’s gospel
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth . . . . If anyone loves me, [they] will keep my word, and my Father will love [them], and we will come to [them] and make our home with [them]. . . . These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” Jn. 14:15-6, 21, 25-26

Conclusion: Years ago, I went with a team to Costa Rica

We were asked to be present at a conference for missionaries
– mostly to encourage and support them
• I was using as many Spanish phrases I could remember from high school
• one of the young women on our team had lived in Chile for a few years
◦ when she heard me fumbling through a short sentence, she laughed
She said, “You remind me of myself when I first arrived in Chile. My Chilean friends would hear my Spanish and tease me, saying, ‘You talk like a baby.’”

Prayer will always be like a new language for us
We’ll struggle to say everything that is on our hearts
We will struggle even more to hear everything God says to us
But that’s okay
It’s okay for us to take baby steps
Eventually we get better at it

For now, know this;
that when you’re not merely launching words into the sky,
when you’re not praying like you think you’re supposed to
(for instance, quoting a bunch of Bible verses to God!),
when you’re speaking your heart, your soul, your mind,
God knows exactly what you’re trying to say,
and he takes pleasure in you
He records your name in his “book of remembrance”
and holds you close