Sermon Psalm 69 Suffering

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

New Covenant Presbyterian Church

Sermon Psalm 69 Suffering

June 25, 2017

I am continuing today with my sermon series called Psalms of Summer.    Two weeks ago we saw in the 8th psalm that everyone was created to praise God.  Last week in the 100th psalm we saw that praising God leads to jubilation.  But not everyone approaches God joyfully.  Some of us are suffering.  And when we suffer it is difficult to praise god especially if our suffering is not deserved.  So how can we praise God in the midst of our suffering?  We will get to this important subject, but first let’s 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)

Three thousand years ago a young shepherd was tending his sheep on a hill near Bethlehem.   While counting his sheep, he did what often happens, he fell asleep.  And while David was sleeping he had a nightmare. Suddenly he woke up and exclaimed:

Psalm 69:
1 Save me, O God,
   for the waters have come up to my neck.
2 I sink in the miry depths,
   where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters;
   the floods engulf me.
3 I am worn out calling for help;
   my throat is parched.
My eyes fail,
   looking for my God.

There could be nothing worse for a shepherd in Judah than to drown in the Mediterranean Sea.   Not that David ever got there.  He probably had never been more that a day’s walk from his home in Bethlehem.  But could imagine the terror he might experience of his feet sinking in the mud and the water up to his neck.  And this dream terrified him.  As is often the case, nightmares can indicate that the person dreaming them has some kind of problem in his life.  David is facing something that is bothering him.  He is suffering in some way.  Let’s go back to the psalm and see what is happening in his life.

4 Those who hate me without reason
   outnumber the hairs of my head;
many are my enemies without cause,
   those who seek to destroy me.
I am forced to restore
   what I did not steal.

So young David is facing the accusation of theft.   He is accused of stealing something that he knows he did not steal.   Unless the real culprit is found it is difficult to prove that you didn’t do something.  David is being blamed for the theft in spite of his innocence.  And so he is experiencing unjust suffering and this has led to nightmares.  So what should he do about this?  Well, what David does is he turns to God in prayer.

5 You, God, know my folly;
   my guilt is not hidden from you.
6 Lord, the Lord Almighty,
   may those who hope in you
   not be disgraced because of me;
God of Israel,
   may those who seek you
   not be put to shame because of me.
7 For I endure scorn for your sake,
   and shame covers my face.
8 I am a foreigner to my own family,
   a stranger to my own mother’s children;
9 for zeal for your house consumes me,
   and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.
10 When I weep and fast,
   I must endure scorn;
11 when I put on sackcloth,
   people make sport of me.
12 Those who sit at the gate mock me,
   and I am the song of the drunkards.
13 But I pray to you, Lord,
   in the time of your favor;
in your great love, O God,
   answer me with your sure salvation.

And with that David turned to the only person with the power to save him, God.

We all know what this is like.   We know what suffering is all about.  Sometimes suffering is the result of sin, and your suffering is the just result for what you have done.  But sometimes there is no good reason for the suffering.  Good people suffer.  Maybe they suffer from chronic illnesses.  Maybe a loved one is suffering in a nursing home.  Maybe someone is suffering because he lost his wife.  Maybe someone is suffering from the loss of a job.  Maybe someone is suffering after a divorce.  Good people, godly people, suffer all the time.  When this happens we can turn to God, because God alone can save us.  And with faith we believe that God will save us.  Let’s get back to the psalmist.

14 Rescue me from the mire,
   do not let me sink;
deliver me from those who hate me,
   from the deep waters.
15 Do not let the floodwaters engulf me
   or the depths swallow me up
   or the pit close its mouth over me.
16 Answer me, Lord, out of the goodness of your love;
   in your great mercy turn to me.

The reason we trust that God will save us is because God is good.  And in God’s goodness he gives us love and mercy.  Love and mercy from a good God is exactly what we need when we experience suffering.   And since we worship a good God we can be assured that we will receive his love and his mercy when we need it.   Let’s return to the psalmist.

21 They put gall in my food
   and gave me vinegar for my thirst.

22 May the table set before them become a snare;
   may it become retribution and[b] a trap.
23 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see,
   and their backs be bent forever.
24 Pour out your wrath on them;
   let your fierce anger overtake them.
25 May their place be deserted;
   let there be no one to dwell in their tents.
26 For they persecute those you wound
   and talk about the pain of those you hurt.
27 Charge them with crime upon crime;
   do not let them share in your salvation.
28 May they be blotted out of the book of life
   and not be listed with the righteous.
29 But as for me, afflicted and in pain—
   may your salvation, God, protect me.

When someone suffers unjustly a common response is anger.  You get angry at the people who hurt you.  And in your anger you want to get even.  That is why anger often leads to violence.  But David has chosen another path.  Rather that act upon his anger he has taken his anger to God and asks for justice.  He wants God to punish those who have harmed him.   And rather that respond with a sword in his hand he has chosen to rely on God for his protection.  This is something we can follow.  As we suffer we can take our pain and anger to God in prayer.   This relieves us of the need to get even.  This prevents a situation from escalating into violence.  Our need to do something is given over to God and we can rest in his arms.

Psalm 69 was well known to Jesus.  When he entered the Jerusalem Temple and saw the money changers he got angry and began overturning tables.  But then Jesus remembered verse 9, “for zeal for your house consumes me”, and this reminded him to stop the violence and deal with his anger with prayer.   Jesus told his disciple that they would suffer for their faith in him.  And he quoted to them verse 4, “Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me.”  When the disciples watched Jesus die on a cross they understood the wine Jesus was given as  a fulfilment of verse 21:”They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.  Jesus experienced unmerited suffering just like we do.  And he turned to psalm 69 for comfort.  Like his ancestor, David, Jesus took his concerns to his Father in prayer.   So too for us.   When we suffer and are angry, rather than doing something harmful,  we can take our concerns to God in prayer with the confidence that a good God will send his love and mercy.

When David realized all the benefits of faith in a good God that he had received, he made a vow.  If God got him through all his troubles,  he promised to do something.  Let’s listen in.

30 I will praise God’s name in song
   and glorify him with thanksgiving.
31 This will please the Lord more than an ox,
   more than a bull with its horns and hooves.

So David’s promise is to write a new song for God.   David, like all of us, was created to praise God.  And David was given extraordinary gifts to praise God in songs.  Much of the Book of Psalms is attributed to him.  And we still sing his Bible songs in worship.   So let’s hear the song that David wrote in praise of God.

32 The poor will see and be glad—
   you who seek God, may your hearts live!
33 The Lord hears the needy
   and does not despise his captive people.
34 Let heaven and earth praise him,
   the seas and all that move in them,
35 for God will save Zion
   and rebuild the cities of Judah.
Then people will settle there and possess it;
36     the children of his servants will inherit it,
   and those who love his name will dwell there.

A song of praise is an appropriate response to the love and mercy we receive from a good God.  Because God hears our prayers and responds to us, we need to respond to him with songs of praise.  And that is why we are in worship today.  We have all experienced great suffering in our lives.   And by turning to God in prayer we receive great blessings of God’s love and mercy.   In gratitude for all the blessings we have received we respond in worship with praise and thanksgiving.

We all experience suffering in our lives.  And much of it is undeserved.  When this happens don’t try to deal with the problem yourself.  This will just lead to anger and violence.  But take your concerns to God and let God deal with matters of justice.  Your job is to receive God’s love and mercy and to sing song of praise to God.  Let’s pray.

O God we love you.  Thank you for listening to our prayers.  Thank you for being with us in our suffering.  And thank you for blessings us today with the ability to praise and worship you.  We pray this in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Sermon Psalm 100 Jubilation

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

New Covenant Presbyterian Church

Sermon Psalm 100 Jubilation

June 18, 2017

Today is Father’s Day.   We remember our Heavenly Father who loves us and is steadfastly faithful.  We also remember our fathers who loved us and cared for us the best they could using our Heavenly Father as a role model.  Sadly, one of the greatest TV Dads, Bill Cosby, is on trial accused of sexual assault.  This is because the world we live in still stained by sin.   But as the Kingdom of God grows and Jesus’ spirit fills the hearts of more and more people our hope is that our world will get better.

This past week our nation experienced an act of political violence.  A man, disturbed by the results of last year’s election shot a congressional leader while we was practicing for a charity baseball game.  A congressman and members of the Capitol Police were wounded.  The gunman was killed.   Since this event occurred last Wednesday,  much effort has been spent trying to figure out why this violence happened and how we can stop it from happening again.   

As Christians we know why this occurred.  Sin often rears its ugly head.  There is nothing surprising about violence.  The world has seen just too much violence for us to be surprised.  And since we know that sin is the real culprit we know that only God can do something about it.   And God has a plan.   Jesus came into the world to release us from slavery to sin.   And we are to bring all the world into praise and worship of our creator.  We will get to this, but first let’s 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)

When I was a kid, growing up in Presbyterian Sunday school classes, I had to memorize some things.  Of course I memorized the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed.  I memorized the 23rd Psalm which is my favorite.  And I memorized the 100th Psalm.

Psalm 100:1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

2     Worship the Lord with gladness;

   come before him with joyful songs.

3 Know that the Lord is God.

   It is he who made us, and we are his;

   we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving

   and his courts with praise;

   give thanks to him and praise his name.

5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

   his faithfulness continues through all generations.

This Psalm urges us to praise God.   And God wants not just us, but everyone to praise him.  Even those who don’t know who God is.  It is our job to bring to our God those who have yet to know him.  And when we do they too will sing God’s praise.   When people find out how much we are blessed by God they can’t help but shout praises at the top of their lungs.  As we spread the good news that God loves us in Jesus Christ, wickedness will subside and people will experience great joy.

Today the earth is filled with both the jubilance of the good and the discontentedness of the wicked.  Left unchecked a life filled discontentedness will lead to violence and death.   But when a person finds joy in God the probability of violence is reduced.   So, how can we help someone change from being discontented and angry into someone who praises God will a full voice?  According to the psalmist this change takes place in worship.   God commands us to worship him and promises us gladness as a result.

So one thing we could do, and this would really help people, is to invite them to worship God.  Invite people to leave behind their discontented lives for an hour or so on Sunday mornings and come to a place where they will worship God and experience great gladness.  And filled with gladness they too will begin singing, loudly, their praises to their creator God.

Ordinary people live lives of discontentment.  They may experience some temporary happiness from time to time.  They are glad the day they get married, or when a child is born, or when the boss gives them a promotion.  But this gladness quickly fades as they go back to their dreary lives.  But when one worships the living God they experience a joy that never fades.  So you would be doing people and our community and nation a great service, just by inviting people to experience worship right here at New Covenant Church.

Why does worship bring us such joy?  We become jubilant in worship because in worship we come into contact with the God who created us.  Think about times when you have been extremely happy.  Maybe it was with your wife as you gazed at a sunrise over the ocean.  Maybe it was when you hiked the Appalachian Trail.  Maybe it was when you visited family for the first time in a long time.  Why did all these things bring you such joy?  It was because God created them all.  Everything we admire and gives us pleasure comes from God.  We praise the God who created the world we live in, and this causes us to shout for joy.

We can never be jubilant if we are discontent.   And the source of our discontentment is a feeling that we are vulnerable.  We have fears of losing a job, or losing a spouse or losing our health.  When we are fearful it is hard to sing praises to God.   But as we worship we begin to believe that our God loves us and cares for us like a shepherd cares for his sheep.  With God caring for us, what could we possibly fear?   When we experience God’s love and faithfulness our fears melt away and joy fills our hearts.  

As we realize that God faithfully cares for us, we begin to experience gratitude growing inside of us.  And so we come to worship with thanksgiving in our hearts.   We respond to God’s faithfulness and love with worship and praise and giving and prayer and service in God’s kingdom.  Life couldn’t be any better than this.

Why does worship affect us so? Why does it make us joyful and cause us respond is so many beneficial ways?  The answer is simple.  We are jubilant when we worship God for the simple reason that God is good.  That’s it.  We love to praise our good God.  Our good God is worthy of praise.  The only answer to wickedness in the world is a good God who will defeat it.

And so the onlyway for us to deal with evil in our world is to bring more and more people to experience for themselves a good God.  You do this by inviting people to worship this God with shouts of praises.  Through this people come to know this good God who created them and loves them.   Experiencing this God in worship makes them glad and joy replaces discontentment in their hearts.

James Hodgkinson allegedly shot Representative Steve Scalise last Wednesday.  For months he had been been sharing his discontentment on social media and with letters to the editor.  As his anger grew he began living in a van in Northern Virginia.  In his rage he practiced shooting into some trees in Beltsville MD.  People who knew him said he was angry all the time.  He made numerous angry phone calls to his congressional representative.  Friends say that he was passionate in his beliefs, but always seemed to be in control.  But, he recently lost his business and had to sell a motorcycle to pay his bills.  And then he turned to violence.

What if someone, a Christian, had invited Hodgkinson to worship?   What if he sang praises to his creator God and found great joy in worship?  What if he had experienced great joy knowing that God loved him and cared for him?  What if the love of a good God replaced the discontentment in his heart?  If someone had invited him to church maybe his life could have been saved.

This is why evangelism is so important.  If we don’t talk to people about Jesus and invite them to church they will go on living lives of discontentment.  And in their misery they may act out violently.  But if we invite them to worship with us and experience the joy we have maybe, just maybe, their lives will turn around.

So I urge you to invite people to worship, to sing and shout for joy, to God who made us.  Turn discontentment to gladness through worship.  Rest secure that God loves you and cares for you.   Be thankful for all the blessing you have received.  Be jubilant because the God you worship is good.  His goodness will replace the discontentment in your heart.   And God will remain faithful to you forever and ever.

On this Father’s Day we remember our heavenly father.  This father loves us so much.  He wants us to experience joy in our lives.  And so he has blessed us with worship where we can shout our praises to God.  Through worship God removes our discontentment and fills our hearts with gladness.  And our God is so faithful he will keep gladness in our hearts forever.  We are so thankful for what God has done for us, that now we can’t wait to proclaim this good news to everyone we meet.  Let’s pray.

“God of all goodness and mercy, help us to leave behind all self-imposed restraints and to joyfully and exuberantly celebrate the worship of the Lord, who is our God!  Just as God continues to create our world with brilliant colours and joy-filled sounds— so may our acts of worship share all the extravagance of God’s love and creative powers! May our singing and praying be filled with conviction about who God is, and what God is for each of us – individually and collectively – and may our joy in the Lord strengthen us as we go out into God’s world to actively be God’s own people. Amen.”

Sermon Psalm 8 Mindfulness

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

New Covenant Presbyterian Church

Sermon Psalm 8 Mindfulness

Trinity Sunday

June 11, 2017

Today is Trinity Sunday.  We remember today that we have one God who reveals Himself to us in three ways, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Last week on Pentecost Sunday we talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit and the empowerment of the first church to be witnesses of what Jesus said and did and to make disciples.  On Easter, we remembered the Son and his resurrection from the dead assuring us of forgiveness of sin and eternal life.  Today we will look at the third person of the Trinity, the Father who created us and loves us.  We will get to this, but first, let’s 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)

Three thousand years ago, a thousand years before Christ, a young shepherd was walking on a hillside caring for his sheep on a dark summer’s night.  He looked up at the sky and saw thousands and thousands of stars.  The Milky Way looked like a road across the sky.  There were no electric lights and no tall buildings to obstruct his view.  And so he saw the grandeur of the night sky.  And David began to sing.

Psalm 8:1 Lord (Yahweh), our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory in the heavens.

As David looked at the night sky he realized that God he worships was also the God who created the entire universe.  The lights in the night sky glowed with the brightness of God’s glory.  And he couldn’t help but sing God’s praises.

Isn’t it the same for us?  We see evidence of God’s work all around us, in the beautiful farmland around the church, the sunset over the Chesapeake Bay, and hot dogs at a “pignic” on a warm Sunday in June.  God is all around us and we can’t resist the temptation to praise God with everything we’ve got.

God created us with a desire to praise him.  We need to praise God.  Praise God is the most natural thing we do.  We were born to praise God.  As David walked among his sheep he heard the sound of a baby crying in the village below.  Maybe the baby is hungry and is calling for its mother.  Or maybe the baby is praising God as it was created to do.  Praising God is as natural to us as breathing or sleeping or eating.  And so even infants would raise their voices in praise.  Listen as David continues his song.

2 Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

So according to scripture infants and babies praise God.  But lest you think that praising God is something you grow out of consider this.  Jesus met with a group of middle schoolers in the Jerusalem temple.  And they begin saying “save us son of David”.  When the religious authorities questioned Jesus about what these pre-teens were saying Jesus quoted Psalm 8.  So according to Jesus even middle schoolers have been created with and continue to have a deep desire to praise God.

We were born to praise God.  Not praising God is real work.  Who do you think is more relaxing and less tiring:  spending Sunday morning in worship or spending Sunday morning with the newspaper or on the golf course?  So many people complain about being tired.  No wonder they work all the time.  But we know that rest is important and a day of rest starting with praising God in worship recharges our batteries and get’s us going.

Then David looked into the night sky.  And he wondered why the creator of all of those stars would be concerned with the people in a small farming village called Bethlehem.  Here is what he sang.  

3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them human beings that you care for them?

This is a question we all ponder:  Why is God mindful of us?  To be mindful means that God thinks about us and is focused on us.  With all the responsibilities that God has you couldn’t blame him for ignoring us.  But the amazing thing is that God is mindful of us.  God focuses on us.  God thinks about us all the time.  

Suppose you are having dinner with someone important to you.  This might be your spouse or a parent or a child or a dear friend.  To be mindful means that you pay attention to this other person.  You listen to what this person is saying.  And you respond in a caring way.  But if your telephone beeps and your turn your attention to reading a text message and responding with a message of your own you are not being mindful of your dinner guest.  You have divided your attention.  You are no longer focused on the person sitting across from you at dinner.  You are not mindful.

We know from scripture that God is mindful.  God pay attention to us.  God is focused on us.  And this is truly remarkable.  The creator of the world is concerned about me.  And even though God has so many things to do and so many concerns of his own God still focuses on me.  God is mindful of me.  And this is why it is so great a privilege to pray because God pays attention to and focuses on our prayers.

I know a young Korean pastor who came to Los Angeles to study English.  He arrived at the airport and was completely bewildered.  He spoke little English and had no idea how to navigate the airport and get to where he was going.  As his stress level grew he remembered a song he had sung with his youth group in Korea.  It was a praise song called “He Knows My Name” by Tommy Walker.   Here is how it goes.   “I have a Maker. He formed my heart. Before even time began my life was in his hands. He calls me His own.  He'll never leave me. No matter where I go.  He knows my name. He knows my every thought. He sees each tear that falls. And He hears me when I call.”  By singing this song to himself this young pastor was assured that God was mindful of him even in this strange land where no one seemed to speak Korean and no one would help him.  Eventually, his cousin found him at the airport and took him home.

As David stared into the sky he began to think about people and where they fit into the cosmos.  Certainly, if God is mindful of people, then people must be very important in God’s creation.  And we are.   Listen to David’s song.

4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them human beings that you care for them? 5 You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;  you put everything under their feet:  7 all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,  8 the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

We are important in God’s creation.  In God’s scheme of things, we are placed just below his messengers, the angels.  We are created in God’s image.  And so like God, we share in his glory and honor.  And we are privileged to rule over, have dominion over all of God’s good creation.   Everything God has made we can use.  But we must not abuse this power.  We must not use God’s creation for our own selfish purposes. We must always consider what God is doing in the world and manage the resources he has given us appropriately.  We use what God has created to advance God mission in the world.  And so we use our resources to care for the needs of the poor and the needy and to advance the Kingdom of God by growing his church.

David was overcome with awe as he stared into the night sky and beheld the glory of God.  He was amazed that God is mindful of his people.  David responded with praise.  And God blessed his with fields and sheep to care for.  This is the world that our benevolent Father, Almighty God has created for us.  And so we join our voices with David’s and offer up our own songs of praise.   

9 Lord, our Lord,

   how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Let’s pray.  Lord, our Lord we praise you for the glory of creation.  We praise you for thinking about us and for your concern for us.  We praise you for the blessing we have received.  We praise you with the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.