Sermon for July 8th, 2018 - Revision history

Iraneal at 02:09, 8 July 2018

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Iraneal at 02:07, 8 July 2018

2018-07-08T02:07:52Z

Iraneal at 01:57, 8 July 2018

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Iraneal at 01:38, 8 July 2018

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Iraneal at 01:17, 8 July 2018

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Iraneal at 01:14, 8 July 2018

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Iraneal at 22:57, 7 July 2018

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Iraneal at 22:43, 7 July 2018

2018-07-07T22:43:25Z

Iraneal at 22:17, 7 July 2018

2018-07-07T22:17:01Z

Iraneal: Created page with "==Psalm 40:1-11== To the leader. Of David. A Psalm. 1 I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the..."

2018-07-06T22:30:26Z

Created page with "==Psalm 40:1-11== To the leader. Of David. A Psalm. 1 I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the..."

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==Psalm 40:1-11==
To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.
1 I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.

4 Happy are those who make the Lord their trust,
who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.
5 You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you.Were I to proclaim and tell of them,
they would be more than can be counted.

6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

9 I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation;
see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord.
10 I have not hidden your saving help within my heart,
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love
and your faithfulness from the great congregation.

11 Do not, O Lord, withhold your mercy from me;
let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.

==Sing to the Lord a New Song==

Sing to the Lord a new song. Those words appear with some minor variations in seven different Psalms--Psalm 33, 40, 42, 96, 98, 144, and 149. By contrast, if you google search through the Psalms for the words "old song" or "familiar song" you get nothing. That's not because singing old, familiar songs is bad.

@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
   let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.
-==Sing to the Lord a New Song==
+==Sing a New Song==
 For many people, the first psalm they ever learn by heart, the first psalm they hear set to music, the first psalm they ever fall in love with, is psalm 23.  It remains, to this day, the most popular of all 150 psalms.  But it wasn't my first or favorite psalm.  In fact, for a narrow  generational window of people that includes me, my wife Amy, my high school best friends John Wahrmund and John Feighery, Craig Field (and possibly Amy Field, too), you are more likely to hear that the first psalm we ever fell in love with and committed to memory (at least the first three verses) was this one...psalm 40.

@@ Line 63: / Line 63: @@
 By the way, that's a great pattern that appears often in the psalms -- we move, in our worship together, and in our personal devotional life, from speaking about God (telling others what God has done) to speaking directly to God in prayer and praise.
-And God matches us step for step, measure for measure...or so it may seem.  But look closer at Psalm 40. Look at the order in which all those I's and he's and you's come.
+And God matches us step for step, measure for measure...or so it may seem.  But look closer at Psalm 40. Look at the order in which all those I's and he's and you's come.  Because really, there's only ONE thing the Psalmist does before God springs into action:  I waited patiently for the Lord.  And then the Lord inclined and heard my cry, he lifted me up out of the pit, he set my feet upon a rock, he made my steps secure, he put a new song in my mouth.  And all I did was wait patiently on the Lord.
-What we do vs. what God does
+The message of Psalm 40 is that our God loves us, watches over us, saves us, raises us up, and puts us on solid ground.  In other words, God does the heavy lifting.  What's our job?  To wait patiently for the Lord.  And then, to be thankful all of our days; to sing a new song; to tell others of his faithfulness and steadfast love.
-Everything as a response to what God does.

@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 But despite the popular belief, Jesus Christ spaketh not with thees and thous in King James English.  What made the King James translation of the Bible so beautiful, so popular when it was first published in 1611, was that it used the language and idiom that was currently spoken by most English speaking peoples...in 1611.  It's finally time, I think, to move on...to sing a new song to the Lord.
 What we do vs. what God does
 Everything as a response to what God does.

@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 Now is probably as good a time as any to announce that beginning next week, we'll be changing the order of worship in both services--not drastically, but significantly.  The general idea behind the changes is to create an extended time of uninterrupted (or minimally interrupted) singing at the beginning of the service, and (as I've mentioned to you several times in the past few weeks) to encourage and foster more congregational singing.
-A secondary reason for the changes is to update some of the language that we use for our prayers and creeds, in order to better reflect the language we use
+A secondary reason for the changes is to update some of the language that we use for our prayers and creeds, in order to better reflect the language we actually use when we pray and when we talk to each other.  Now, as a former high school English teacher who taught Shakespeare to teenagers for many years (and loved it!) I like Elizabethan English as much as the next guy.
 What we do vs. what God does
 Everything as a response to what God does.

@@ Line 47: / Line 47: @@
 "No policy or order of ceremonies can be appointed for all ages, times, and places; for as ceremonies which men have devised are but temporal, so they may, and ought to be, changed, when they foster superstition rather than edify the Kirk."
-Now is probably as good a time as any to warn you that beginning next week, we'll be changing the order of worship in both services.  The general idea behind the changes is to create an extended time of uninterrupted (or minimally interrupted) singing at the beginning of the service
+Now is probably as good a time as any to announce that beginning next week, we'll be changing the order of worship in both services--not drastically, but significantly.  The general idea behind the changes is to create an extended time of uninterrupted (or minimally interrupted) singing at the beginning of the service, and (as I've mentioned to you several times in the past few weeks) to encourage and foster more congregational singing.
 What we do vs. what God does
 Everything as a response to what God does.

@@ Line 35: / Line 35: @@
 Right before the chorus in U2's version of Psalm 40, Bono (the lead singer) sings the words "I will sing, sing a new song."  This is a paraphrase of verse 3, "He has put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God."
-This idea of singing a new song really appealed to me as a teenager--I suppose it appeals to most teenagers, who are just beginning to form their own musical tastes distinct from their parents.  I would belt out those words "I will sing, sing a new song" thinking that it was true, never stopping to think or realize that I was singing the words to a song that was over 4,000 years old!
+This idea of singing a new song really appealed to me as a teenager--I suppose it appeals to most teenagers, who are just beginning to form their own musical tastes distinct from their parents.  I would belt out those words "I will sing, sing a new song" thinking that it was true, never realizing that I was actually singing the words to a song that was over 4,000 years old!
 But this idea of "singing a new song" is a thread that runs throughout the book of Psalms.  Those words (with some minor variations) appear in Psalm 33, Psalm 40, Psalm 42, Psalm 96, Psalm 98, Psalm 144, and Psalm 149.   In fact, whenever the word "song" appears in the psalms, it is accompanied by the adjective "new" more than any other adjective ("joyful" comes in a distant second, followed by "loud" in third place).
-By contrast, the adjectives "old," "favorite," or "familiar" never once appear with the word "song" in the Psalms  (or anywhere else in the Bible, for that matter) even though that seems to be the kind of song we sing most often in worship.
+By contrast, the adjectives "old," "favorite," or "familiar" never once appear with the word "song" in the Psalms  (or anywhere else in the Bible, for that matter) even though that seems to be the kind of song we like to sing most often in worship.

@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
   who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.
 You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
-  none can compare with you.Were I to proclaim and tell of them,
+  none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them,
   they would be more than can be counted.
@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 This idea of singing a new song really appealed to me as a teenager--I suppose it appeals to most teenagers, who are just beginning to form their own musical tastes distinct from their parents.  I would belt out those words "I will sing, sing a new song" thinking that it was true, never stopping to think or realize that I was singing the words to a song that was over 4,000 years old!
-But this idea of "singing a new song" is a thread that runs throughout the book of Psalms.  Those words (with some minor variations) appear in Psalm 33, Psalm 40, Psalm 42, Psalm 96, Psalm 98, Psalm 144, and Psalm 149.   In fact, whenever the word "song" appears in the psalms, it is accompanied by the adjective "new" more than any other adjective ("joyful" comes in a distant second, followed by "loud" in third place).  The adjectives "old," "favorite," or "familiar" never once appear with the word "song" in the Bible, even though that's the kind of songs we seem to sing most often in worship.
+But this idea of "singing a new song" is a thread that runs throughout the book of Psalms.  Those words (with some minor variations) appear in Psalm 33, Psalm 40, Psalm 42, Psalm 96, Psalm 98, Psalm 144, and Psalm 149.   In fact, whenever the word "song" appears in the psalms, it is accompanied by the adjective "new" more than any other adjective ("joyful" comes in a distant second, followed by "loud" in third place).
-So if we take seriously the message of the Psalms, if we are
+By contrast, the adjectives "old," "favorite," or "familiar" never once appear with the word "song" in the Psalms  (or anywhere else in the Bible, for that matter) even though that seems to be the kind of song we sing most often in worship.

@@ Line 31: / Line 31: @@
 For many people, the first psalm they ever learn by heart, the first psalm they hear set to music, the first psalm they ever fall in love with, is psalm 23.  It remains, to this day, the most popular of all 150 psalms.  But it wasn't my first or favorite psalm.  In fact, for a narrow  generational window of people that includes me, my wife Amy, my high school best friends John Wahrmund and John Feighery, Craig Field (and possibly Amy Field, too), you are more likely to hear that the first psalm we ever fell in love with and committed to memory (at least the first three verses) was this one...psalm 40.
-Why? Because of an Irish rock band called U2.  For many years in the 80s and 90s, U2 would close every concert with their rendition of Psalm 40.  To be fair, I did not memorize it because it was a psalm...I memorized it because it was a U2 song, and I memorized the lyrics to most of their songs (this was in the days before the internet, when you couldn't just google they lyrics to a song you liked; if you wanted to sing it in the shower, you had to memorize it).
+Why? Because of an Irish rock band called U2.  For many years in the 80s and 90s, U2 would close every concert with their rendition of Psalm 40.  To be fair, I didn't memorize it because it was a psalm...I memorized it because it was a U2 song, and I memorized the lyrics to most of their songs (this was in the days before the internet, when you couldn't just google they lyrics to a song you liked; if you wanted to sing it in the shower, you had to memorize it).
-Sing to the Lord a new song.  Those words appear with some minor variations in seven different Psalms--Psalm 33, 40, 42, 96, 98, 144, and 149.  By contrast, if you google search through the Psalms for the words "old song" or "familiar song" you get nothing.  That's not because singing old, familiar songs is bad.
+So if we take seriously the message of the Psalms, if we are

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:17, 7 July 2018
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	==Sing to the Lord a New Song==		==Sing to the Lord a New Song==
		+	For many people, the first psalm they ever learn by heart, the first psalm they hear set to music, the first psalm they ever fall in love with, is psalm 23. It remains, to this day, the most popular of all 150 psalms. But it wasn't my first or favorite psalm. In fact, for a narrow generational window of people that includes me, my wife Amy, my high school best friends John Wahrmund and John Feighery, Craig Field (and possibly Amy Field, too), you are more likely to hear that the first psalm we ever fell in love with and committed to memory (at least the first three verses) was this one...psalm 40.
		+
		+	Why? Because of an Irish rock band called U2. For many years in the 80s and 90s, U2 would close every concert with their rendition of Psalm 40. To be fair, I did not memorize it because it was a psalm...I memorized it because it was a U2 song, and I memorized the lyrics to most of their songs (this was in the days before the internet, when you couldn't just google they lyrics to a song you liked; if you wanted to sing it in the shower, you had to memorize it).
		+
		+
		+

	Sing to the Lord a new song. Those words appear with some minor variations in seven different Psalms--Psalm 33, 40, 42, 96, 98, 144, and 149. By contrast, if you google search through the Psalms for the words "old song" or "familiar song" you get nothing. That's not because singing old, familiar songs is bad.		Sing to the Lord a new song. Those words appear with some minor variations in seven different Psalms--Psalm 33, 40, 42, 96, 98, 144, and 149. By contrast, if you google search through the Psalms for the words "old song" or "familiar song" you get nothing. That's not because singing old, familiar songs is bad.