adapted some of it, and we did that a couple months ago, and now I've got lots more material, so I thought I would go over it. But really, I need to say right up front, if you really want to understand the Psalms, you have to buy and read all these books. Okay? No shortcuts now. No, just kidding. Just ask Lori, there you go. Now these are books I just got this week, so I haven't even really cracked them, but I'm looking forward to that because I'm preaching this summer on some Psalms. But these ones I've had for a long time. And these I can highly recommend, and it may seem intimidating, but it's not really if you just take it one at a time. This is a little book by Calvin Beisner called Psalms of Promise. It's just a selection of psalms, and he does a really good job of interpreting them, and you can read this devotionally. It's kind of basically adapted from a sermon series he did, and so it's really good. is my favorite work on the Psalms, The Treasury of David by Spurgeon. So if you can get this in three volumes in hardcover, it is well worth the investment and it's just so rich and good. So that's just recommended things that you would benefit from as we spend some time in the Psalms. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your love. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your character, your promises, your wisdom, your redemption, your Son. Father, we ask that as we think together this morning and over these coming weeks about the Psalms, that you would teach us, challenge us, grow us, to be more like Christ, whose heart is very much reflected in the Psalms. once we learn to read them well. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So, the Psalms. Before I start that, a couple little announcements. One is, we are looking for someone to volunteer to host this Friday. And I know it's kind of last minute notice, but we just realized this week Beth's mom has surgery on Tuesday. She's having knee replacement surgery. And she will need people to sort of rotate in and out of the hospital and the rehab center to sort of help her out. And then I'm going to be gone with Andrew, my Andrew, to River Valley Ranch on a school retreat Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday. And I'll be getting back just in time to do Bible study. So trying to host on top of that week is a little crazy. So if no one volunteers to host, we would have to probably push it back to next week, the 13th, which is doable. But if we want to keep it on the first Friday, we need someone to volunteer to host. Right. OK. OK. So we'll submit the Youngs for nomination. So anyway, if you are interested in volunteering, just let me know, and I would appreciate that. The other thing is, this announcement will be made during church, but I just saw this brochure that Tim brought in. The PCA Women's Conference, there's two exciting things about it this year. One is that it's close. It's in Philadelphia. And two is that it looks really good. You know, sometimes conferences, any conferences, are kind of hit or miss, depending on who the speaker is and what the topic is. But this year, the keynote speaker is Melissa Kruger. Her husband is the president of RTS Charlotte, and she is a good Bible teacher, very solid. and it looks like what she's doing is basically teaching through Romans 11 and 12 on what it means to live a transformed life. And so, the material looks really good, the speaker looks really good, and then there are some optional sessions. One includes Sharon Betters, which is a she would be particularly really good for some of the older ladies within the congregation because she's fantastic at that. I don't know who that is, but if you know any of them, you can just recommend that to them. And the other one from Julie Lowe, I know who she is too, talking to kids about tough topics is good for They kind of have a special session for parents with Julie Lowe and a special session for grandparents with Sharon Vedder. I recommend this. It's in Philadelphia. It's the end of September, beginning of October. September 30th, October 1st. Anything else? Why the Psalms? We're going to be spending the summer doing some Psalms, and in fact, I'm prayerfully wrestling with and considering that we may spend the next three summers in the Psalms, different places in the Psalms. And why? Why would we do that? Well, the Psalms are unique within Scripture on a couple of different levels. One is, it's kind of the prayer book and hymn book that God has compiled and given to the church, and that's been used by the church for centuries. And there's very much encouragement and hope and correction and training in how to pray, how to worship, how to worship God in all the seasons of life. John Calvin called the Psalms an anatomy of the soul, wherein every emotion that could ever be experienced is displayed. The Psalms kind of train us how to live a Godward life, live a life of worship in every season of life, and so it's wonderful on that level. It's also wonderful because the Psalms are about Christ, they show us the prayer life of Jesus. which is interesting, I think. The Gospels show us the earthly ministry, the life, the miracles, the teachings, the death, resurrection. They show us what was outwardly evident. And then we get a few glimpses of Christ's prayer life, particularly from his high priestly prayer in the garden, but also what he prayed on the cross. And what's interesting, what he prayed on the cross two things in particular that Jesus prayed on the cross. The two things that were recorded from Jesus as prayers to His Father on the cross are both in the Psalms. As you read the Psalms and come to understand what they're about and how Jesus quoted the Psalms more than he quoted any other part of the Old Testament. And so you really understand that this is reflecting the prayer life of Christ. And so if we want to follow after Christ and have our prayer life be shaped by His, the Psalms are really a great place to do that. So we're going to spend some time in them. My plan for this summer, by the way, Don't hold me to this because I'm still in the thinking and planning process, but this is my plan for this summer. There are three pairs of psalms where there is a psalm about the law of God, the Torah, right next to a psalm about the Messiah. And so these pairs are Psalm 1, which is a Torah psalm, and Psalm 2, which is a Messiah psalm. and then Psalm 18, which is a Messiah psalm, and Psalm 19, which is a Torah psalm, and then Psalm 118 is a Messiah psalm, and Psalm 119 is a Torah psalm. Now, what's the purpose of that? One of the things I hope that we can see as we do this class this month is that the psalms are not arranged randomly. They're actually very deliberately arranged. And so, at the beginning of the Psalms, and then again in the middle of the first book, which is where most of the Davidic Psalms are, and then again toward the end of the Psalms, you have these three pairs. Torah-Messiah, Messiah-Torah, Messiah-Torah. And O. Palmer Robertson, whose latest book is called The Flow of the Psalms, He makes the case that what God is doing there is He's training His people to put the Word and the Christ together. And what that is preparing them for, preparing us for, is for the idea that the Word is going to become flesh and that the Messiah is going to be the embodiment of the Torah. And I want to do that this summer because in the fall we're going to start John. And John 1, in the Word, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, John 1.14. So I think it's great to do that series as we prepare for that. So we'll have, I think, nine messages this summer on those six Psalms. My plan right now is to do Psalm 1, Psalm 2, Psalm 18, Psalm 19, and then probably two messages on Psalm 118 and then two on Psalm 119. Of course, Psalm 119 is so huge, I could do a whole summer series just on that. So that's the plan for this summer. Next summer the plan is, tentatively, and I got a chance to think about this this past week, so it's fresh on my mind. There are a number of Psalms that come out of the life of David. that have a heading that tells you exactly the life circumstance that was happening in David's life when he composed that psalm. And so, if you do a study of those psalms, you get an understanding of the life of David and how David responded to the Lord through all the circumstances of his life. And of course, we know David was called a man after God's own heart. And so, I think next summer we're going to do a series on those psalms, and they're going to be called A Man After God's Own Heart. We'll also be right in the middle of our John study. And one of the things that we'll see as we go through John is that John intentionally writes his gospel to show us how Christ is the fulfillment of all of the ideals of the Old Testament, including David. So we'll see that connection as we're in the midst of John. And then my plan is two summers from now, we'll do the Songs of Ascents, which are Psalms 120 to 134, and those are pilgrimage psalms. Those are psalms that you sing, that Israel sang three times a year as they were on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And so we'll call that series Pilgrim Songs, and we'll learn how to sing those songs as we're making our pilgrimage from here to glory. So that's kind of the next three summers. Summers in the Psalms. And if you get tired of it, well, I don't know what to tell you. The Lord might lead me in a different direction between now and then, but right now I'm pretty excited about that. And so just order these new books to sort of be stocked up for the summers. And I'm excited about that. But right now, I'm excited about getting into talking about the genres of the Psalms. Now, what is genre? Well, it's a French word, but don't hold that against it. It is a word that means a type or class. We were just looking at pictures of a genre of automobile, right? And it's John Walker's favorite genre of automobile. It's the classic American muscle car. So that's one genre. You might have another genre of cars that would be family vehicles. You might have another genre of cars that would be sports sedans, or pure sports cars, or roadsters, or whatever. work trucks. It's a type or class of anything. And so in almost any category, you can subdivide into genres. You can do it with chairs. You can do it with tables. You can do it with furniture broadly. You can do this with almost anything. One of the ways that God has wired us as people, made in his image, is that we have a desire to be able to classify and categorize things. And it's actually a good thing, because it's part of how we exercise dominion over creation. We look at things, we analyze them, and we sort of group them by characteristic, and we do it without even thinking about it. in our restaurants, there's genres of restaurants. I mean, you can think of any genres of books, there's anything you can think of. So within literature, it's talking about particularly a type of literature that's marked by a distinctive style, form, or content. So broadly within scripture, we could talk about Psalms being a genre within scripture. We have the two basic categories of all human writing are prose and poetry. prose is just regular writing. Within the category of prose, there's fiction and non-fiction, writing that's true, writing that's not true. And so you've got prose and poetry, and you could say within all of scripture, one of the major categories is poetry. By the way, how much of this do you think, how much of scripture do you think is prose, and how much is poetry? because we're going to be studying poetry and you might think that this is like just because I'm an English teacher or something. Okay, take your Bible, do an exercise with me. Take your Bible. Turn to the beginning of the book of Job. Job chapter one. So hold that as the beginning and then go to the the division between the Testaments, the end of Malachi, beginning of Matthew, go to that section. So hold up that portion of scripture in your hands, just like this. Is that a small part of the Bible or a substantial part of the Bible? It's almost like a third, right? Almost everything you're holding between your fingers is poetry. Almost everything in the wisdom literature and the prophets is poetry. And honestly, think about what's between your fingers now. Honestly, that's sometimes some of the hardest part of scripture to understand, isn't it? It's beautiful and wonderful, but other times confusing, right? So one of the benefits we get by looking at the Psalms is it's causing us to look at one category of biblical poetry, but we'll learn some things that will be applied to all biblical poetry, and we'll start helping to uncrack that middle third of Scripture. So God speaks in poetry. Within poetry, there are sub-genres. There are epic poems, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, or the Iliad, and the Odyssey, and the Aeneid, or Dante's Divine Comedy. I was looking for the laughs in that whenever I read it. It's called the Divine Comedy, and I've read it, and I've never laughed. I just haven't really gotten the jokes. It's not a comedy because it's a joke. Comedy is used in literature to describe anything that goes from sad to happy. And tragedy is used to describe anything that goes from happy to sad. And so Dante's Inferno is the most famous part of Dante's Divine Comedy, but that's the first part. It goes Inferno, Purgatorio, which is that part that we should ignore, and then Paradisio, which is where it ends. It ends in paradise, which also you should ignore most of that part. Actually, you should ignore most of the whole thing except as literature, because it's really flawed theology. All right, so within scripture, We have psalms, prophecy, love songs, Song of Solomon, wisdom, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. So you have some sub-genres of poetry. So psalms, in one sense, is a genre in and of itself. But if you look at the psalms, and as we've been reading through the psalms, we're up to, what, 57? Psalm 57, if you've been reading along, you've noticed that they're not all the same. They're very different in sort of character and tone. And so you can group them into different categories, and of course different people will have different ways of dividing this up. And when we did, I say last week, you have to think back to months ago, we looked at the Psalms of Remembrance, the Battle Songs, the Psalms of Repentance, and the Psalms of Entreaty as we were looking at Christ in the Psalms and all of these. There are other ways you can divide up the psalms, and this is helpful because when you're approaching a psalm, it's helpful as you start reading it to think, okay, this is this type of psalm, and that means I should understand it in this way, because a lot of the psalms, if you just take them at surface value, are either hard to understand or problematic. John Piper once said, People always talk about how much they love the Psalms. They love the Psalms. When I read the Psalms, I just see a whole bunch of problems. And that's true. Like on one level, I can sympathize with that. I love the Psalms. And when I first heard him say that, I thought, what in the world are you talking about? But then I had to think about it. I had had all sorts of training to sort of prepare me how to read the Psalms. If you just read them on surface level, there can be all sorts of problems in them. So Dennis Bratcher from Christian Resource Institute identifies these classifications of psalm. He says there's a lament, where you're lamenting over either your sin or suffering. There's penitential, which are repentance, forgiveness psalms. There are imprecatory psalms, and these are some of the most problematic ones. Are you guys familiar with the Babylon Bee at all? Anybody know what that is? I don't know if I should recommend this site or not, but it's funny. The Babylon Bee is kind of a Christian onion. It's a satire site, so they poke fun at the mainstream culture as well as at the church. through satirical articles. So they'll come up with news articles that read on the surface of it like it's a legitimate news article, but if you understand where it's coming from, it's not true. It's satire. So one of the things they did in the Babylon Bee, I think this past week, was they were kind of poking fun at the Christian coloring book for adults trend. If you look at the best-selling books in Christian literature right now, the top three are coloring books. So my wife likes, she actually in her Bible study that she does, it has coloring pages now, where you color out the scriptures. So they did one that was like as if Zondervan were releasing a coloring book on the imprecatory Psalms. And you know, so they had some of the verses from the imprecatory Psalms. you get to color and meditate on them and graphically illustrate it and it said, you know, recommended for adults only. So we'll talk about those because they're important actually, very important, but tricky. There's what's called Todah or Thanksgiving Psalms. I had a great experience this past fall as we were leading up to Thanksgiving because I'd been doing I've been doing Robert Murray McShane's Bible reading plan for years now, but I kind of restarted at an odd date a few years ago. I started in the summer, and the reason I did that is because I got a smartphone and I got the Bible app, and you could do the reading plan automatically. It would be there, and you could listen to it audio-wise. So I just decided to start over again because I couldn't figure out how to get it to where I was in the plan, so I just started over again. So I'm off on the dates. Anyway, all that to say, this past November, for me, when I was reading through the Psalms, there's a chunk of Thanksgiving Psalms from 100 to 107. And I literally was reading those leading up to Thanksgiving Day. And then on Thanksgiving Day, I read Psalm 107. I was like, this is great. I'm totally off schedule according to the official plan of this Bible reading plan, but here I get my own Thanksgiving week of psalms, and it was cool. Salvation history are the remembrance psalms. So these are some of the longer ones that will recount the Lord's faithfulness to his people throughout salvation history. Songs of trust that express confidence in the Lord. Hymns, they'll say in the title a hymn. Doxology, which is a particular type of hymn of praise. And then wisdom, psalms, and then finally Torah psalms or law psalms. So this is one way to classify them into ten categories. And so you kind of know as you're reading it, okay, this is a lament, obviously. And so there's a way that you approach that. There are things that are said in lament that can sometimes be incomplete. And we'll talk about that. You need to understand that laments, none of these is necessarily meant to stand by themselves, absolutely. They're meant to be put in the context of the Psalter. All right, so I would simplify that. One of the guys who has influenced me most in my understanding of the Psalms is Tremper Longman. If you get his stuff on the Psalms, it's actually very good, but I have to hesitate, unfortunately, in recommending Tremper Longman as an author because he's got some problems in his theology and he was actually let go from Westminster Seminary as a professor and is now teaching somewhere else. So, he's brilliant on the Psalms and brilliant in many ways, but he's also problematic in other ways, so just be careful. Just because I put his name up there doesn't mean I'm recommending everything he does. But I do think he's helpful in the Psalms, and he has seven categories that we're going to talk about this week and next that I think will be very helpful for helping us understand the Psalms. Hymn, Lament, Thanksgiving, Confidence, Remembrance, Wisdom, and Kingship. Lament, I think he fits under the—in Precatory Psalms, I think he fits under Lament, but we'll see that as we go through. So what's the point of doing genre psalms? How many of you think, okay, this is just pointless. Why are we even talking about genres? It doesn't really matter, does it? I think it does. I think as you're reading a psalm, it's helpful to understand where the psalmist is coming from, what he's trying to do in his psalm, and then how it connects to us and to Christ. And part of that is being able to sort of classify it. because different psalms were written in different circumstances and for different purposes. Once you understand the background and purpose of a psalm, you can interpret it and apply it correctly. There are times in which the psalms can be dangerous if you don't interpret and apply them correctly. For example, psalms where David is claiming to be innocent and sinless and to have clean hands. If you don't understand that that's really reflecting Christ's heart, or, for David, it was a relative righteousness within the context of that situation, you could just take that psalm and say, I'm supposed to be perfect and blameless and innocent before the Lord, and if I'm not, then I can't pray to God. Or you could take it and say, I am perfect and blameless and innocent before the Lord, either one of which would be dangerous to do with that psalm. And precatory psalms have obvious dangers, Psalm 137 in particular, if you don't understand where it's coming from. So, our plan is to walk through these seven this week and next. The hymn. These are probably the easiest in the sense of you don't have to do a lot of interpretation. They're just wonderful. So if you think of many of your favorite psalms, the ones that you would go to and just the ones that have been turned into hymns or praise songs, a lot of these are going to be in the category of hymn. Psalm 103, one of my favorites. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, forget not all his benefits, who heals all your diseases and forgives all your iniquities, who redeems your life from the pit, who lifts you up with strength like eagles. So, it's wonderful Psalm 103. This is where you get, as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. There's just a lot of wonderful theology and wonderful worship in Psalm 103. Psalm 48 is a hymn that is more focused on Zion, on the city of our God. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in his holy mountain, beautiful in elevation. The joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great king." John Newton, I think, did a good job of helping us adopt this psalm for ourselves in his hymn, Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken, Zion City of Our God. He whose word cannot be broken formed you for his own abode. He took Psalm 48 and kind of wrote it for the church, which is really what it's about. So this is an example of even in a hymn, which seems easy to understand the surface of it, if you were to literally Some people do. If you were to literally understand this to be about Jerusalem and the physical city of Jerusalem, well then it wouldn't be for us, it wouldn't be about us, and it actually would be misunderstanding redemptive history. So whenever you get to Mount Zion, Jerusalem, the city of our God, in the Psalms, that spiritually is the Church, and Galatians 4 helps you make that connection. So hymns have particular characteristics. They're written to praise the Lord. That's why they're easy to pray and to sing, because that's what they're written for. They often begin with a call to worship, and they include reasons for praising God. The two reasons for praising God are who He is and what He has done. and then they often close by calling us again to praise God. So we use these a lot in worship. There are sub-categories of hymns, sub-genres if you want to get technical about it. Creation hymns are hymns where God is praised for his creation or by his creation. Let's take a look at Psalm 8 together. Psalm 8 is particularly a hymn of praise to God for creation, but also for His grace to man in putting man over creation with dominion. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babies and infants You have established strength because of Your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen and also beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Psalm 19, which we'll look at this summer, begins by a praise for God's creation and how creation reveals the glory of God, and then turns to praising God for His word and for His law. In particular, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, the testimonies of the Lord are sure, enlightening the eyes. Psalm 104 is a beautiful creation hymn that is just wonderful. It's right next to Psalm 103. 103 and 104 are one of my favorite pairs. which I'm going to have to do a fourth summer in the Psalms because I won't cover either one of those Psalms in any of these next three summers. So we're just going to have to be in the summers in the Psalms for a while. Alright, King Psalms, King Hymns are Royal Hymns. So turn to Psalms 47 and 48. We already looked at part of Psalm 48, so look at Psalm 47. Clap your hands, all you peoples. Shout to God with loud songs of joy. For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. He subdued peoples under us and nations under our feet. He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob, whom he loves. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God. Sing praises. Sing praises to our King. Sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth. Sing praises with a psalm. God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne. The princes of the people gather as the people of the God of Abraham, for the shields of the earth belong to God. He is highly exalted." So these are about God as King. Zion as the dwelling place of God, if you looked at Psalm 48, it would have that too, particularly as the place of God's rule. In Psalm 46, if you look back a Psalm, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. And you have the idea that there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. So there's a praise of Zion, the city of our God, the city of God, which is, of course, about the church. And then there are hymns of deliverance, where God is for his people and delivers his people, and his people praise him for their deliverance. I'm gonna cover one more this morning, and that is the lament. So, sort of the opposite of the hymn. The hymn is positive, praise, joy, rejoicing, exalting. The lament deals with the other side of life, when we are cast down. Jesus prayed a lament from the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry out by day and you do not answer by night and am not silent. Psalm 42. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? my bones suffer mortal agony, as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, where is your God?" So these are heavy psalms, and there's a lot of these. In fact, depending on how you count things, this is the most prevalent genre of psalm, which is interesting because if you turn on Christian radio, and I used to work for Christian radio for nine years, but if you turn on Christian radio, how many laments are you going to hear in an hour or two or three? This is why some people refer to Christian radio as happy sappy Jesus music, but that's a little unfair. But it is a little bit troubling that God has given us such language for lament and yet we feel uncomfortable singing that way in public. One of the ones that's been popular recently that's good is Lord, I need you now by Plum. And then another one I was just listening to on the way here is Casting Crowns does some that are a little bit more lament-ish. And so what's their one about East is from the West? I mean, the verses of that are just good with being able to pour out your sorrow before the Lord. So laments have elements of them. There's usually an invocation, just a crying out to God, oh my God, my God, my God, I say to God my rock. And then there's a plea for help, help Lord, I'm surrounded, deliver me. A complaint about what's going on, my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, where is your God? And then there's either confession of sin, or an assertion of innocence. Because when you're in a bad situation, it's either your fault or it isn't your fault, right? If you find yourself in a bad situation where you would feel the need to pour out your heart to the Lord in a lament, it's either your fault or it ain't your fault. And so that's why you'll see these assertions of innocence. It's not an assertion of absolute innocence from David, saying, like, I've never ever sinned in my life. But in this particular situation, I'm not at fault. I didn't I didn't do anything to deserve this." You'll see this when David is running from Saul and hiding. He'll claim his innocence because in regard to his situation with Saul, he hadn't done anything wrong. Saul was just persecuting him. Or there may be a confession of sin. I am guilty. I have broken your law. Psalm 51 is a good penitent psalm. There's sometimes a curse on the enemy. This is where the imprecatory element comes in. And then there's usually an expression of confidence in God and often a closing hymn. Now, individual laments will not have all of these elements, but you can find these elements in this kind of flow in most laments. Here's an example of an invocation and a plea. Help, Lord, for the godly are no more. The faithful have vanished from among the men. So this is kind of a combination of invocation and complaint right at the very beginning. Dogs have surrounded me. The congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet." Psalm 22. This is what Jesus was praying on the cross. The imprecation element of a lament. Arise, O Lord, confront him, cast him down. Deliver me from the wicked with your sword. an assertion of innocence, for without cause they have hidden their net for me in a pit, which they have dug without cause for my life. You've got the without cause twice. And again, it's not an absolute innocence in the case of David, but it is in this particular situation. And then there's confidence. Let them shout for joy and be glad. This is Psalm 35, which also Psalm 35 is also part of what Jesus prayed on the cross. Let them shout for joy and be glad who favor my righteous cause. Let them say continually, let the Lord be magnified who has pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. And my tongue shall speak of your righteousness and of your name and and of your praise all the day long." So those are hymns and laments, and next time we'll get into some more, but the summary about hymns and laments is It is good and right and fitting that we should regularly praise the Lord for who He is and what He has done for us. The hymns in the Psalms give us language to do that. These are some that I would recommend you memorizing. When I was head of school at New Covenant, we memorized Psalm 103. We memorized Psalm 34. And really, if you just get into the habit of reading them and praying them regularly, you'll sort of have it halfway memorized over time anyway. Sing them to the Lord. Find hymns that are adaptations of them and sing them to the Lord. But then we also need to know how to handle when we are down in the dumps, when we are feeling cut off from the Lord. We need to acknowledge that there are times when we pray and it feels like we're just talking to ourselves. There are times when we open our Bibles and we read, and it feels like it's just words on a page. We need to acknowledge that there are times in our lives when sin gets the better of us in a particular area of our life, or a particular season, and we begin to struggle in such a way that we feel overwhelmed, and we feel hopeless, and we feel like, when am I ever going to change? When am I ever going to get over this? When is it ever going to get better? There are times in our life when we feel like things are going wrong and going against us, and we can't figure out why that's happening. You know, people are against us at work, or we've lost our job, or we run out of money, or somebody's sick. We need to have language to be able to go to the Lord at those times. We don't need to just put on a happy face and pretend like everything's okay. God doesn't want you to do that. And so He's given us lots of laments. because usually in those times it's hard to find the words. And so God's given us laments. And so in this way, God wants us to come before him with joy and sorrow in times of rejoicing and in times of struggle. And he wants to give us the language to pour out our hearts before him. And Jesus did both. Jesus praised God and sought God in prayer. And Jesus lamented and cried out to God. You know, the things that he prayed in the garden, And the things that he prayed from the cross were holy and pure and good and right. Jesus never sinned. He never went against his Father. He never wandered away. And so when he was praying, let this cup pass from me. not my will but yours be done." And he was in such agony that he was sweating drops of blood, or he's on the cross crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was not sinning. He was not against God. He was not, you know, out of God's will. That was exactly what he should have been doing at those times. And there are times when the fall affects us and we need to cry out to God. It's part of what makes us hunger for redemption, for the full and final redemption, when we learn to cry out to God in those times of sorrow and don't just pretend like everything's okay. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for giving us these songs of joy and sorrow, of praising and lamenting, of rejoicing and struggling so that in every season of life we can turn to your word and we can have on our lips things from you that you've given us to pray back to you, to draw our hearts to you, and to align our will with your spirit. Thank you, Lord. We pray these things in Jesus' name. All right, so we're talking about the genres in the Psalms, and the reason why we're doing this is twofold. One is so that when you're reading the Psalms and studying the Psalms, you can understand them. But the other thing is also so that when you are in various seasons of life, we can learn to pray the Psalms by understanding sort of which Psalms we can go to to express where our hearts are before the Lord. So, last time we talked about what genres are. It's a way of talking about a major class or category of anything, really, and then specifically within poetry. And you can kind of drill down. You can get very specific on types. There are types within types. And we talked about how there are different kinds of psalms. Some psalms are remembrance, some are battle-oriented, some are repentance, forgiveness, some are entreaty. And we talked about different ways that we could classify the psalms. Dennis Bratcher came up with ten, which is one way of looking at it. But we decided that we would go with a little bit of a simpler list from Tremper Longman, which identifies seven major genres of psalms. And so we started last time with hymn, lament, and we're going to just keep going through the psalms this morning. And as we go through them, we'll talk about, again, the ways we can pray these psalms, sing these psalms, use these psalms in different seasons of our lives. We talked about the hymn written to praise the Lord, often beginning with a call to worship. They give us reasons to praise God based on who He is and what He has done. And then they close by calling us again to praise the Lord. There is a whole class of Psalms that begin with the word hallelujah and end with the word hallelujah, which is translated in your Bible as praise the Lord. So, Psalms 145 to 150, you'll notice, open with praise the Lord and they close with praise the Lord. Those are classic hymns. Some hymns are focused on creation, some are focused on God as king, some are focused on the church or Zion as the dwelling place of God, and some are focused on God's deliverance of us. And so we can learn within each of these, you know, the creation psalms are not just there to sort of help us celebrate creation, but Psalm 8, in particular, by looking at creation, we can see the greatness of God, and then we're prompted to think, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the Son of Man that you care for him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and have put all things under his feet. And so it's really about worshiping God, not just for the beauty of his creation, but his particular concern for us within creation. Psalm 19 is about creation, but it's not just about creation. It's about how God speaks to us through creation, and then about how God speaks to us through His Word. Psalm 104 is about creation, but the focus is on how God provides for every type of animal and every type of thing within creation, and then how He provides for us. It's a hymn about providential care. We can go to these psalms not just to sort of abstract study creation like it's a biology lesson, but we learn how to praise God for his concern for us, for his revelation to us, for his provision for all of our needs. And those are things that we need to be reminded of often in life. We talked about the lament, how God gives us hymns to sing, prayers to pray, when we are distressed. Sometimes we're distressed because of our own sin. Sometimes we're distressed because of the sins of others. Sometimes it's just suffering that we are going through. We talked about how really if you count them up within these seven categories, lament is the most common type of psalm that God gives us, which is important because we go through difficult times a lot in this life. And so as we're going through difficult times, it's important that we learn how to cry out to God with both honesty about what we're suffering, but also faith and confidence in him. All right, so Thanksgiving. This is the third major type of psalm. And again, it's expressing gratitude to the Lord for answered prayer, or it could be a psalm of response for an answered lament. And sometimes you'll see them put right next to each other. Sorry. If you see me looking at my phone, I added complication to Beth's morning by forgetting my sermon notes at home. So she hadn't left yet, and so she's running them to me before she goes to the hospital. So I could probably preach without them, but I would rather not. Okay, so the beginning of a Thanksgiving song could be very similar to a hymn, and some people would even see these as sort of a subcategory of hymns, but really the focus, instead of sort of directly praising God for who he is, is giving thanks to God for what he's done for us in particular. So there's a pattern. Opening is a call to worship or a statement of blessing. And then there's a restatement of the lament sometimes, if it's a thanksgiving for deliverance. There's an account of God's deliverance. And then there's a call to worship or a restatement of thanks. So let's turn to Psalm 34, and we'll take a closer look at this as our example of a thanksgiving hymn. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth." So this is that opening statement of blessing. And it's a determination. It's a determined, purposeful statement that I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth." So, you know, David's been through hard times. The title above it gives us a context for this on David when he changed his behavior before Abimelech so that he drove him out and he went away. Remember that story? David was fleeing from Saul and ended up hiding in the land of the Philistines. And he was summoned to appear before Abimelech, and he was concerned. He sort of ran away from one enemy and ended up in the land of another enemy. And what is Abimelech going to do? Is he just going to kill him where he stands? And so he got the idea to act like a crazy person. And so he went before the king and he was babbling and drooling and acting like he was completely insane. And Abimelech said, come on, I have enough idiots around me. I don't need one more. Get this guy out of here. And so David is now thanking God for his deliverance. So he's been through some hard stuff. He's been running from Saul. He's been in fear for his life. And so, my soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. So from a statement of blessing, there is a call to worship. So David, one of the things that God teaches us in the Psalms is that when God works a deliverance for you, it is never just for you. You know that? When God answers one of your prayers, when God shows you his provision, when God heals you, when God provides for you, when God brings you out of danger, when God protects you, it is never just for you. It is for you to share with God's people and for them to be invited to praise God on the basis of what God's done for you. So that's here, I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles, the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack. The lions, the young lions, suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Come, O children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken. Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. the Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned." So you see what David's doing here. He's giving thanks, but then he's inviting the people of God into his thanks. He's using it as an opportunity to teach the next generation, to teach the children about the truth of God. And then he's recounting all the reasons why God's people have to give thanks to him. What are some ways in which we can sort of adopt this psalm and use it in our lives? What are some ways that God is faithful to us and delivers us and then we can share that with others? Anybody want to tell a particular instance? What has the Lord done for you that you can look back on and say, God provided for me. He got me out of trouble in that particular situation. And now I can use that to both strengthen my own faith and strengthen the faith of others. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And I liked what when when I talked to Bert and he told me that, you know, people had sent you cards and letters and messages and they had scripture in them to encourage you. And then you have a desire to take that scripture and have it to be able to give to others when they're in trouble. And that's wonderful. That's how God works. That's how God speaks to us. Matt. Right. Yes. Yes, slain. Yeah. Right. Yep. Slain. Yeah. Oh yeah. It is. It's the promise. There's kind of two things that come to mind when I think about that. One is, in affliction, one of the signs that you know that you've been elect, that you are God's own, is when your affliction drives you to the Lord. When it drives you to seek the Lord, to call upon His name, to want to draw near to Him. People who are not the Lord's, the wicked, affliction drives them farther from God. It causes them to harden their heart against the Lord. It causes them to reject the Lord. We don't really have control over that, like everything, so we can just be thankful. Thank you, Lord, that in this trial my heart was drawn to seek you. I prayed, I sought your face, and that's one way that I know that I belong to you. The other one is very encouraging and very sobering, and that is when it comes to affliction, someone once said, affliction in this world is all the hell a believer will ever know. But the blessings in this world are all the heaven that an unbeliever will ever know. And I just think about that in the light of eternity, to go through the things that we go through in the light of eternity. Yeah, this is hard. Yeah, this is difficult. But number one, I know that it's causing me to seek the Lord. And number two, I know that one day this will all be over and I won't have any more of this to deal with. And the Lord redeems. Yeah, but the afflictions, many are the afflictions of the righteous. I'm not sure what the prosperity gospel people do with that, but That's what the Lord, it's like a promise. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. And it's love because affliction is how the Lord draws our hearts to himself and grows us. Alright, the next is Psalms of Confidence, which are similar to Psalms of Thanksgiving and even hymns. They express trust in God's goodness and power. They express this confidence, sort of, even as you're going into a difficult time, or though you know you may go into a difficult time, you know that the Lord is with you and that he will keep you. Ethan, would you go outside and get my sermon notes for my wife? Thank you. Thank you. All right, so I'll give you an opportunity to guess here. What is the most famous psalm of confidence in all of the Psalter, expressing trust in the Lord and confidence in his provision and protection even in the midst of trouble? I'm going to try not to use any words from it so that you won't. Anybody want to guess? Yeah, the 23rd Psalm. This is the quintessential confidence psalm, right? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. So this is, thank you. That'll make preaching easier. Yeah, so again, David expects that he's going to have trials and troubles, but he expects that God's going to provide for him in every way. He's going to give him food, he's going to give him refreshment, he's going to take care of his soul, he's going to help him to be faithful and obedient. So in every way that he needs to be taken care of, he's going to be taken care of. And the rod refers to God's correction and discipline of us, and staff refers to his positive leading of us. So if we get off the path, the rod is to whack the sheep and get it back in line, and the staff is to protect the sheep from the enemies and sort of help lead them in the way that they should go. And God does all that for us, and so we can be confident. And learning to even memorize Psalms of Confidence is so helpful when you are in the difficult times. I've probably shared this with most of you so many times, you're probably tired of hearing it, but for me, whenever I think of difficult times, I think about the happiest and saddest day of my life, which was the day that Andrew was born. It was the most joyful and the most trying day of my life. And those of you who don't know anything about that will wonder why I'm saying that about my firstborn child. He was born over nine weeks early. He weighed less than three pounds. Beth had a very serious medical condition that had her in a pretty scary place. He hadn't moved for 48 hours in the womb before he was delivered by C-section. They kind of prepared us for the worst and said there might be severe neurological damage. He might basically be a vegetable. We're going to do what we can. When he was delivered and I heard his cry, his little baby bird cry of a tiny infant, it was the most joyful sound because he had literally not moved at all for 48 hours. And so, but then Beth got worse before she got better. And so within 24 hours of delivering Andrew, they were talking about needing to fly her out to Johns Hopkins ICU. And I didn't know if they were going to fly Andrew there too, or if he was going to stay at Howard County General where we were and I was going to have to go back and forth between the hospitals and what was going to happen to her. And then Andrew needed a platelet transfusion because he got basically the thing that was affecting Beth and he had very low platelets when he was born. So it was just stressful. It was very, very stressful and hard. But when we were in the operating room, this is one of those grace moments, when we were in the operating room and Beth was going in you know, getting her C-section, and I was next to her. God just brought to mind scripture and hymns, and we just prayed. And one of the things that I said was Psalm 23, and it was good to have that there, ready, so that I wasn't like, where's a Bible? Does anybody have a Bible? I want to be able to read some scripture. It was God's grace that he brought to mind And so we prayed, and we sang, and we recited scripture, and then we heard Andrew cry, and God met us in a very real and powerful way. And he does that. But there can also be quiet confidence. This is one of my favorite from the Songs of Ascent. Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore." This is wonderful because I think one of the things that we can be fooled into thinking is that we wouldn't be worried if we had more information? How many of you have ever been tempted to think that? I'm worried, I'm nervous, I'm scared, I wouldn't be so worried if I just had more information, right? Is that true? Do we already know what we really need to know? What we really need to know is that the Lord is with us and that he's caring for us. He's holding us to himself and he will be with us and for us always. And so, I don't concern myself with great matters or with things too profound for me. I don't need to see the whole picture of providence. If God were to show me the whole picture of His providence for my life right now, I would not be able to handle it. I would absolutely be overwhelmed and overloaded and probably my brain would just short-circuit because I wouldn't be able to handle it. I wouldn't be able to process it. I wouldn't be able to understand it. So, it's quiet, trust. Quiet, trust. Next category is Psalms of Remembrance. Psalms that recall God's great redemptive acts on behalf of his people. Within the Psalter, the two redemptive acts that will be most commonly recalled to mind are the Exodus and the establishment of the Davidic kingship. So you'll read in some Psalms about the passing through the Red Sea and the bringing into the Promised Land, and in others about the establishment of David as king. And so what the purpose of these is to call us to remember God's goodness in the past and to be faithful in response to God's faithfulness to us. Psalm 105 is a good one to turn to. Some of these can tend to be the longer psalms in the Psalter. And there's kind of a whole string of them together. This is a Thanksgiving remembrance psalm. So, O give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people, sing to him, sing praises to him, tell of all his wondrous works. You have that call to worship. Glory in his holy name, let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. But then he goes back, if you look down in verse 8, he remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac which he confirmed to Jacob. as a statute to Israel as an everlasting covenant saying to you I will give the land of Canaan as a portion for your inheritance when they were few in number of little account and sojourners in it wandering from nation to nation from one kingdom to another people he allowed no one to oppress them he rebuked kings on their account saying touch not my anointed ones do my prophets no harm and so then we have the whole the whole history really of God's people there's the famine that sends them down to Egypt, but Joseph was sent ahead of time to take care of them, and then they came out of Egypt and were settled in the land, and he was led by Moses, and you can just go through. It's a whole recounting of salvation history. And there's an important principle here, which is, when the future looks uncertain, look to the past. Look to God's faithfulness in the past. specifically in scriptural history, in biblical history, but even in your own life history. When the future looks uncertain, look to the past. And these Psalms of Remembrance help us to do that. They help us to remember it's the same God who did these wonderful things for his people in the Old Testament who is our God today. Sorry. I love my wife. All right, wisdom psalms. So there's a whole other category which are called wisdom psalms that are related to the kinds of themes of wisdom that we might find in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes. They contrast ways of living that bring about contrasting results or consequences. We're going to read one of those today in the worship service, and that is Psalm 127. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. That's a wisdom psalm. By the way, Matt, that Psalm 130 in the worship service that we do is a psalm of confession and repentance. Did you get that that's one of those responsive reading psalms from the back of the hymnal? Okay. I forgot to put in responsive reading, but I thought the page number might clue you that that's where it is. It's in the back of the hymnal. All right, so that's a wisdom psalm, one of the most famous ones, Psalm 127. We'll look at that. so is Psalm 1. Anything that's classified as wisdom literature in the Bible is very often characterized by this two ways, by the contrast of the two ways of living. So Psalm 1 contrasts the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, which bears its fruit in its season. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. And then Psalm 127, which we're going to read together in the worship service this morning, tells us that there's a big difference between those who have the Lord building their house and guarding their city and blessing them and those who don't. So, the difference between vanity, this word vain is used a lot in wisdom. It's empty, it's pointless, it's fruitless to live apart from the Lord. Alright, last category are kingship psalms. They can be included under the genre of a hymn, but they often focus on the human king of Israel But they do so as a way of getting us to focus on either God as the divine warrior king or Christ as the one who comes to fulfill the Davidic kingship. So my favorite one of these, which is so wonderful, is Psalm 45, which some people think, Bible scholars think this was written for Solomon's wedding. don't know which wedding, because he had a few wives, but this was written for Solomon's wedding. But really, it can only fully apply to Christ. Especially, your throne, O God, will last forever and ever. A scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. So, who reigns forever is Christ. God has blessed you forever. You are the most excellent of men and your lips have been anointed with grace since God has blessed you forever. In your majesty ride forth. This also gives us in In Psalm 45, there's a picture of the bride and how the bride comes forth and she's decked in these wonderful robes and perfume. And that's a picture of the church, ultimately, as the bride of Christ. And so really what Psalm 45 is a picture of is the wedding supper of the Lamb. It's a picture of the great wedding day of Christ and the Bride. And so we can read Psalm 45 and we can be inspired to long for that day when we will see our King in all of His might and glory and we will be fully prepared to be with Him forever. I want to give you one more way of looking at this that's a lot simpler. Now that I've given you seven different genres of psalms, I'll narrow it down to three, and we'll close with this. It's good to read the psalms regularly so that you can familiarize yourself with which psalms are which, and then out of that, it's a good practice, I think, for each one of us to sort of have a list of favorite psalms that fit into these different categories. Specifically, this way of thinking is a good way to approach the Psalms. There are Psalms of orientation, there are Psalms of disorientation, and there are Psalms of reorientation. And I parallel this to something that some preacher said at one time, and he said, every single one of you is either in a storm right now, or you're coming out of a storm, or you're getting ready to go into a storm. That's all of us, right? You're either in a storm, which is kind of how we feel right now, or you're coming out of a storm, or you're getting ready to go into a storm. Psalms of orientation are the best way to prepare yourself before you go into a storm. Psalms of disorientation give you the language to cry out to God in the midst of a storm, and Psalms of reorientation are how you come out of the storm thanking God for His deliverance. So if you read the Psalms and just think, this is an orientation Psalm, this is telling me truth, giving me confidence, this is a disorientation Psalm, this is the world is upside down, the enemies are surrounding me, I'm feeling overwhelmed, or this is a reorientation Psalm, praising God for deliverance. And you can kind of get a few Psalms that you really like in each one of those categories. You can prepare yourself before you go into the storm, you can have language to pray to God in the midst of the storm, and you can have language for when you're coming out of the storm. Does that help? All right, so we're gonna keep digging into the Psalms and we're gonna think about which ones we can sort of hide in our hearts in those categories, but let's pray together. Father, I thank you that you have given us such a rich variety of prayers and hymns so that we can express the language of our heart before you. Father, I pray that we would be in your Psalms so that our hearts would be trained to reflect your heart and to seek your face in the midst of every one of our life circumstances. Father, we trust you. Forgive us for the times when we lack trust in you, and strengthen us to have more faith in you. Prepare us now to worship you, Father, in spirit and in truth. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.