Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Presbyterian Churches

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Sermon – Psalm 66:8-20 – God Listens
Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Presbyterian Churches
May 29, 2011

Last week we talked about the difference between believing that a statement is true and believing in someone, trusting that person with your life. When the Bible is talking about believing in Jesus Christ it wants us to believe in him, not just believe statements about him. This leads us now to a new question. How is it that we come to belief in Jesus Christ? I would argue that before you can believe in anyone you have to get to know that person well. You have to know about that person, what she has done, where he has been. But you have to know that person even more deeply than that in order to believe in him. You have to know her feelings and her values and her trustworthiness. So too do we need to get know to Jesus on a deeper level to be able to believe in him. And that is what we will be talking about today. But first, lets pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

Psalm 66:1-20 NRS Psalm 66:1 Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; 2 sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise. 3 Say to God, "How awesome are your deeds! Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you. 4 All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you, sing praises to your name." Selah 5 Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds among mortals. 6 He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There we rejoiced in him, 7 who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations-- let the rebellious not exalt themselves. Selah 8 Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard, 9 who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip. 10 For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. 11 You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs; 12 you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place. 13 I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will pay you my vows, 14 those that my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble. 15 I will offer to you burnt offerings of fatlings, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Selah 16 Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me. 17 I cried aloud to him, and he was extolled with my tongue. 18 If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. 19 But truly God has listened; he has given heed to the words of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me.

Last Tuesday my wife Grace was being examined for ordination by New Castle Presbytery. The minister of the Pencader Church, Rev. Laurel Brundage, asked Grace a question. I was particularly interested in Laurel's question because she comes from a long line of missionaries to Korea. She asked Grace about the differences between the churches in Korea and the churches here in America and how that would effect her ministry. Grace responded that the Korean church emphasizes prayer while the American church emphasizes Bible study.

In South Korea churches have ample opportunities for prayer. Most churches have a prayer service every morning at 5:30 so people can pray before going to work and starting their day. Prayer groups meet often and their praying can last for hours. The sanctuary of a Korean church is usually open throughout the day so that people can come there to pray. I know a woman whose vocation is to pray for others; she prays eight hours a day. For Koreans prayer is how they get to know Jesus Christ.

Here in America our focus is on Bible study. Most churches have Christian education classes on Sundays and Wednesday evenings. Bookstores and the internet are filled with resources to help us study about our faith. Although prayer is a important part of worship, the central activity of a worship service in America is a exposition of the Word of God in a sermon.

With our emphasis on Bible study we tend to mostly think about our faith. We get to know Jesus by what he did and said. We can put his actions and sayings into historical context, and we can say something about the literary genre the biblical authors used. And we know the fine points of biblical analysis considering the original languages, theological interpretation, and biblical context. So all of us are, at one level or another, biblical scholars. This means that we know about Jesus Christ very well. But do we know Jesus well enough as a person to trust him with our lives?

In order to believe in Jesus, not just believe things about Jesus we need more prayer. Prayer is the time we set aside to come into Christ's presence, listen to his voice, and sit as his feet. We get to know Jesus through prayer.

Every morning at Pitts Creek we gather for prayer at 6am. Last year, we started this service as a Bible study. Each day someone would present the result of their research about the text assigned for that day. We were learning a lot about Jesus, but we weren't praying. So I did two things. First I started each Wednesday morning to talk about prayer in order that the group gathering each morning would know how to pray. Then I purchase some prayer books that allow us to pray each day by meditating on the word of God. Each day we open the prayerbook to the appropriate page for that day as we follow the church calendar. We begin each morning as someone reads aloud a couple of sentences from scripture. Then we begin our prayers with a responsive reading from the Book of Psalm. By the way, if you are looking for a wonderful prayerbook I suggest you start with Psalms. This book has been the prayerbook for believers for thousands of years. Then we continue praying as someone reads the assigned Bible text for that day. We are encouraged to listen for God's voice in a particular word or phrase in that passage and begin meditating on it. Often the passage is read again, slowly as we continue to pray. Then we pray for the needs of others, the church, our community, nation and world. We conclude with a prayer drawn from our Reformed theological heritage and a blessings from scripture. At 6:30 we are ready for the day to begin.

Psalm 66 has guided the church in prayer since well before the time of Christ, and we too can use it as a model for how to pray. Let's look at it a little more closely.

The first thing we learn is that God enjoys hearing prayer as a joyful noise. And this is why we should always begin praying by praising God, his awesome deeds and great power. Everyone on earth is called by God to prayers of praise for our creator. Everyone was created to worship. Just as we breathe in and out, and heart beats, so too must we worship our creator with praise.

The second thing we learn is that prayer should be a meditation on scripture because through scripture we can praise God for all that God has done for us: the great miracles that freed God's people from slavery in Egypt and protected them in the Promised land. Praising God and meditating on all that God has done for his people in history leads us to rejoice for all God has done for us. And so from our praises we offer up the joyful sounds God wants to hear.

Only after we begin with praise can we then turn to our own concerns. We bring our concerns to God because we have come to trust God though our prayers of praise and have learned of God's faithfulness to the people of the Bible. As we bring our prayers to God we realize that the problems we have are really God's ways of shaping us, forming us into the image of Christ. So even though it may seem like our lives are full of troubles, the reality is that God loves us and uses the troubles of our lives to bless us with new life in Christ.

Certainly prayers can be spoken in private. Jesus himself liked to go to a mountaintop and told us to lock our doors to pray. But when we realize how greatly God has blessed us we can no longer pray alone. So we come to church to sing and pray praises to our glorious God, and to respond with our gifts, tithes and offerings. Finally we are sent out of worship to tell others, everyone we meet all that God has done for us, and how God listens to and answers our prayers.

Lets try an experiment this morning. I am going to read to you a psalm as a prayer. I want you to close your eyes and pray with me by meditating on a word or a phrase from the psalm that is speaking to you this day. Turn that word or phase over and over in your mind while you rest in God's loving arms. Let's pray.

Psalm 121:1-8 NRS Psalm 121:1 I lift up my eyes to the hills-- from where will my help come? 2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

Continue to pray silently meditating on word or phrase God has given you...

Psalm 135:1-5 NRS Psalm 135:1 Praise the LORD! Praise the name of the LORD; give praise, O servants of the LORD, 2 you that stand in the house of the LORD, in the courts of the house of our God. 3 Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing to his name, for he is gracious. 4 For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his own possession. 5 For I know that the LORD is great; our Lord is above all gods. Amen.