How to Pray the Psalms

[0:00] Today, we'll be looking at Psalm 22 mostly, but a couple of other places as well. And the topic is how to pray the Psalms. And then we'll come back, I'll be back in a month or so, with two more messages with regards to how to cry the Psalms and how to live the Psalms.

[0:24] This morning, let me go ahead and ask you to turn to Psalm 22. We will read that and then go into the message. And then just to prepare you, after Psalm 22, we're going to turn our attention to Hebrews chapter 2.

[0:42] And then after that, we're going to look at Acts chapter 4. So those are the three places you'll have to turn this morning. You don't have to turn anywhere else.

[0:53] Psalm 22, Hebrews 2, and Acts 4. Okay, so let's read the 22nd Psalm. And I'll read and you follow along.

[1:05] 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.

[1:17] Oh my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer. By night and am not silent. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One.

[1:31] You are the praise of Israel. In you our fathers put their trust. They trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved.

[1:43] In you they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a worm and not a man. Scorned by men and despised by the people.

[1:57] All who see me mock me. They hurl insults, shaking their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him since he delights in him.

[2:09] Yet you brought me out of the womb. You made me trust in you even at my mother's breast. From birth I was cast upon you.

[2:21] From my mother's womb you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near, and there is no one to help. Many bulls surround me.

[2:34] Strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions tearing their prey. Open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water.

[2:47] And all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax. It has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd. And my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

[3:00] You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me. A band of evil men has encircled me. They have pierced my hands and my feet.

[3:12] I can count all my bones. People stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

[3:23] But you, O Lord, be not far off. O my strength, come quickly to help me. Deliver my life from the sword.

[3:33] My precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions. Save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

[3:45] I will declare your name to my brothers. In the congregation I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you descendants of Jacob, honor him.

[3:59] Revere him, all you descendants of Israel. For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one. He has not hidden his face from him, but has listened to his cry for help.

[4:14] From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly. Before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied.

[4:26] They who seek the Lord will praise him. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. And all the families of the nations will bow down before him.

[4:40] For dominion belongs to the Lord. And he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship. All who go down to the dust will kneel before him.

[4:52] Those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him. Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn.

[5:06] For he has done it. This is the word of the Lord. Now, as I mentioned earlier, we are going to be using Psalm 22 here.

[5:20] And also Psalm 2, but we're not going to read Psalm 2. But we're going to use these psalms in the way they are used by the New Testament in Hebrews 2 and Acts 4 to better understand how we might pray these psalms as well.

[5:40] So, let me go ahead and ask you to turn to Hebrews chapter 2 and we'll get a look at what happens there in that passage. Now, you may want to hold your place in Psalm 22.

[5:51] I don't think you'll need to, because I'll repeat the phrases when I go back to it. But for right now, I just want you to look at Hebrews 2. And we will start reading at verse 5.

[6:04] And as we read through it, I'll make some explanatory comments. All right, Hebrews 2, and starting at verse 5. The author of Hebrews says this, It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come about which we are speaking.

[6:23] But there is a place where someone has testified, What is man that you are mindful of him? The son of man that you care for him.

[6:34] You made him a little lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet. Now, at this point, the author of Hebrews is quoting from Psalm 8.

[6:48] And so in verses, in the last part of verse 6, and then 7 and 8, that comes from Psalm 8, about how God has made man and put him in charge of all creation, or at least all the world of the creation, and has made us a little lower than the angels and crowned us with glory and honor and put everything under our feet.

[7:11] But there was a problem. There was a fall that took place in the Garden of Eden. And because of that fall, the world is no longer really subject to us. And that's what the author goes on to say here.

[7:26] In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. God put us in charge of all creation. But then he says, Yet at present, we do not see everything subject to him.

[7:40] And again, that's because of the fall and what happened in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve plunged the whole human race into sin. But then the author says this.

[7:51] In verse 9. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

[8:09] So in essence, what the author of Hebrews says is that Psalm 8 is going to have its fulfillment, but it will have its fulfillment through Jesus, the second Adam who comes and recovers for us what Adam lost for us in the fall.

[8:28] Then in verse 10, the author says this. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.

[8:47] So Christ will bring us to salvation, but he will do so through suffering. And as we know, that's the suffering of death, the crucifixion, which Psalm 22, by the way, seems to point to pretty well that we read earlier.

[9:00] Then in verse 11, he says, Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.

[9:13] So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. What a very interesting statement there. The one who is going to make us holy, Jesus, is made like us.

[9:28] We're made of the same family. He comes and takes on human flesh and human emotions. He becomes a full 100% human being, takes all that upon himself, and in order to redeem us, becomes related to us.

[9:50] He becomes our brother. Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. Now at this point, you might ask the author of Hebrews, well, how do you know that Jesus calls us brothers and sisters, by the way?

[10:04] Don't want to leave you out. How do you know that Jesus calls us brothers and sisters? How do you know this? Well, the answer to that would then come in verse 12, where the author of Hebrews says this.

[10:16] He, that is Jesus, says, I will declare your name to my brothers. In the presence of the congregation, I will sing your praises.

[10:30] So, the author of Hebrews says, Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers. And then if you ask him, well, how do you know he does that? Then he says, because Jesus says, I will declare your name to my brothers.

[10:45] Well, I invite you this afternoon, go home, read through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and see if you can find the place where Jesus calls us brothers.

[10:57] He doesn't really do it. But, look at the verse again. I will declare your name to my brothers. In the presence of the congregation, I will sing your praises.

[11:13] You read that earlier this morning in Psalm 22, verse 22. So, the question then is, how does the author of Hebrews know that Jesus says that verse?

[11:28] Well, we had to look at one more link in the chain of logic. We read through Psalm 22, and that psalm has often been referred to in the commentaries as the Messianic Psalm par excellence.

[11:44] The most Messianic Psalm of all the Messianic Psalms. Think back to what that Psalm 22 had. In verse 1, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

[11:56] And we know that Jesus quoted that even as he was hanging on the cross. Verse 6 in Psalm 22 says, I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.

[12:09] And we know that Jesus was scourged and mocked and scorned by the people. In verse 7, the psalmist says, all who see me mock me.

[12:21] They hurl insults, shaking their heads. And that happened to Jesus as he hung on the cross. And then, verse 8 of Psalm 22 says that the crowd says, he trusts in the Lord.

[12:34] Let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him since he delights in him. And that same thing happened to Jesus. They said, you who thought you could save others, save yourself, come down.

[12:47] Call on God, let him rescue you. So all those verses are pointing toward the crucifixion. And then, verse 14 in Psalm 22, I am poured out like water, very possibly in anticipation of the soldier who stuck his spear in Christ's side when he hung on the cross and out came blood and water.

[13:09] Verse 16 in Psalm 22, they have pierced my hands and my feet. The crucifixion, the nailed hands and feet. Verse 17 in Psalm 22, people stare and gloat over me.

[13:23] And then, verse 18, they divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. All of that coming to pass in the crucifixion.

[13:34] And they took Jesus' garments and they cast lots for his clothing. So, Psalm 22 is very much about the person of Jesus. So, here's what I think is happening in Hebrews 2 as the author of Hebrews says this, Jesus says, I will declare your name to my brothers.

[13:59] In the presence of the congregation, I will sing your praises. Now, Psalm 22 is a lament song. And we're going to come back to the lament psalms in the third Sunday that I'm here in about a month or so in August.

[14:16] And we're going to look at the laments and how we're supposed to understand them and cry them and learn from them how to complain. But, for right now, I want to say one thing about the laments and that'll get you thinking about it for next month.

[14:31] But the interesting thing about the lament psalms or the crying out psalms or the complaint psalms are sometimes called is this. They all have a fairly regular structure to them.

[14:44] First of all, the psalmist says, O Lord, listen to my voice. And then, he voices his complaint. And those complaints are multiple. People are besieging me.

[14:57] People are scorning me. People are telling lies about me. My enemies want to take my life. There is famine in the land, O Lord. Our enemies have risen up against us.

[15:09] There's all kinds of complaints that happen in the lament psalms. And then, the psalmist will say, O Lord, please come help me. Come to my relief. I've told you what my distress is.

[15:21] Please come rescue me. But here's the interesting thing. In almost every one of the lament psalms, except for one, I'll come back to that in a month, but in almost all of these lament psalms, except for that one, what happens at some point in the psalm is that the psalmist turns from lamenting and crying out and complaining and asking God to help him to praising God for helping him.

[15:50] Now, we're not quite sure, frankly, what happens that all of a sudden causes that psalm to change from lamenting to praising. We're not quite sure what it is.

[16:03] Some people have suggested that this is actually two different parts of the psalm that are brought together. There's the lament part of it, and then later on after the Lord answers the psalmist's prayer, then there's a praise section that the psalmist adds to the psalm.

[16:20] That's one possibility. Another possibility is that this is the psalmist's way of saying, I know you're going to answer my request, and when you do, I will praise you with all my heart.

[16:33] I will offer a vow of praise to you. Another possibility is that the psalmist prays this prayer in the temple and the priest hears it and says to the psalmist, the Lord will answer your prayer.

[16:46] And then when the priest says that, the psalmist praises God. We're not quite sure exactly what happens. Nevertheless, we have this phenomenon in the lament psalms that the psalmist goes for a while and laments and then all of a sudden breaks out into praise.

[17:06] That's a very regular thing that happens in the laments. And so I think part, and I say part because I think there's more to it, but at least part of what the author of Hebrews is doing in Hebrews 2 is saying this.

[17:22] Jesus is the one who laments in Psalm 22. He's the one who has undergone all the sufferings that Psalm 22 describes and anticipates that the Messiah will suffer.

[17:39] If Jesus is the one who is the lamenter in the first part of the psalm, he has to also be the one in the last part of the psalm who breaks out and prays to God for coming to his relief and rescuing him from his dire distress.

[17:58] The author of Hebrews in essence is making a logical step here. If Jesus is the one who laments in the first part of the psalm, he must also be the one who praises in the last part of the psalm.

[18:14] And so the author of Hebrews feels super comfortable about taking the words of Psalm 22, verse 22, and putting them in the mouth of Jesus.

[18:27] Jesus says, I will declare your name to my brothers. In the presence of the congregation, I will sing your praise.

[18:39] Furthermore, how did the Lord answer Jesus' prayer? He raised him from the dead. So what we have in Hebrews 2 is a picture of the risen Jesus who has risen from the grave and now leads his brothers and sisters and the whole church of God in the praise of God.

[19:06] He stands in the midst of the congregation, the whole church on heaven and earth. He praises God and leads his brothers and sisters in praise to God.

[19:18] Jesus, in other words, is the ultimate worship leader. Now, I appreciate so much how Vern and his wife led us in worship this morning. They did a fantastic job.

[19:30] It was wonderful. I'm looking forward to when Jesus leads worship, when he's the worship leader. And he is the ultimate worship leader. He is the one who knows all there is to know about us.

[19:44] He has taken on our flesh and blood. He knows what kind of baggage we bring to worship. He knows what we are like when we come and sit down in the pews.

[20:01] He knows all there is to know about us. And he still calls us brother and sister. And leads us in praise to God. And he is our older brother.

[20:13] The one who is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters. That's a wonderful inheritance we have. Knowing that Jesus is our brother.

[20:25] There is a very interesting story told about a teenage girl back in oh, I guess it would be the 18th century.

[20:36] And she lived in Scotland. And at that time, Scotland was kind of oppressed by England. And England had it was the Church of England. And they didn't allow any other kind of worship in the British Isles.

[20:54] And you have the Church of Scotland that was founded by John Knox. and the Church of England outlawed that. And so these loyal covenant Presbyterian believers in Scotland couldn't go to their own worship services and they actually formed underground churches.

[21:17] And so every Sunday they would make their way to the underground church they wanted to worship in while the King of England's guards were out there trying to prevent that from happening.

[21:30] Well the story is told that this one girl on a Sunday morning was walking through the streets of a particular Scottish town and the soldiers stopped her.

[21:42] And they said where are you going? And she's a good Presbyterian so she doesn't want to lie but she also doesn't want to get herself in trouble and so she came up with this line.

[21:57] She says well sirs my brother has died and they're having a reading of the will this morning and I'm going to find out what he has left me.

[22:10] Well that was a pretty good idea there. Yeah she did a great job. What has our older brother left us? Well that's what Psalm 22 is about. That's what Hebrews 2 is about.

[22:21] Our brother leads us in worship. Our brother who died for us and has left us all the beauties of heaven the Holy Spirit and all the graces and all the things that come with the salvation he has wrought for us.

[22:39] That is the one who leads us in praise and praying to his father and our father his God and our God.

[22:50] Now just sort of hold that thought here but before we go to the next part here I just want you to notice this Jesus in Hebrews 2 is put in the role of someone who prays the Psalms.

[23:07] The Psalms are put on his lips. He is the rightful inheritor of the book of Psalms. He is the new Israel.

[23:18] He is the Israel who came and pleased God as opposed to Old Testament Israel which abandoned God and disobeyed him.

[23:29] He is the king of Israel. He is the rightful descendant of David the son of God who inherits the book of Psalms.

[23:41] And what's so interesting here about the Psalms and the way they're tied to Jesus in the New Testament is this. we often talk about messianic prophecy and we know the prophecies that are in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Micah and Zechariah and Daniel.

[24:02] We know all those prophecies about Jesus. But when we come to the book of Psalms they're also messianic. They also look forward to Jesus.

[24:14] But the difference is this in a way. For books like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Micah, Zechariah, they make prophecies about Jesus.

[24:29] But the way the New Testament ties Jesus to the Psalms is not so much that the Psalms are about Jesus but that the Psalms are by Jesus.

[24:44] More often than not the way an author in the New Testament tells us about Jesus and the Psalms is to say that Jesus is the one who sings the Psalms.

[24:59] He's David's greater son. David wrote and sang the Psalms and now Jesus, David's greater son, sings them as well. He is the rightful inheritor of those Psalms.

[25:12] He is the new sweet singer of Israel. It's his book, it's his royal inheritance, and we get to pray the Psalms in this book as we are in solidarity with him.

[25:27] Now, just sort of keep that on the back burner there. Turn to Acts chapter 4. We're going to look at a passage there in Acts 4 starting at verse 23.

[25:40] The background of this passage in Acts 4 is that Peter and John have been arrested for preaching about Jesus. They were put in jail and finally they were released.

[25:52] And when they're released they go back to the disciples, wherever the disciples are, perhaps in that same upper room where they were earlier in the book of Acts. Now, let's see what it says.

[26:02] On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they, that is this whole group here, they raised their voices together in prayer to God.

[26:22] Sovereign Lord, they said, you made the heaven and the sea and everything in them. You spoke by your Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David.

[26:38] David. And then they cite what David said. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

[26:49] The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one. Now, hopefully you'll recognize from last Sunday, that's part of Psalm 2 that we read.

[27:05] David sings Psalm 2. He writes it, he sings it, he prays it. And now, in this upper room, after Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension and the pouring out of the Spirit and the arrest of Peter and John and their release, the disciples in the upper room, they also cite that Psalm and they pray it.

[27:29] And let's see what they do. Verse 27. Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.

[27:46] They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants, that is us, he says, to speak your word with great boldness.

[28:03] Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

[28:14] Now, again, I want you to follow the logic of what these believers do. They quote Psalm 2 that David wrote, they quote it, then they relate it to the person of Jesus, and they say it's about him.

[28:29] Pontius Pilate and Herod met together and they conspired against Jesus. they did what Psalm 2 was about, they related it to the person Jesus, and then they used that to pray for themselves.

[28:43] Because they too, just like Jesus, are being conspired against by the leaders and the officials who want to stamp out this new found faith that they have.

[28:58] And so that's what's happening in Acts 2. For Acts 4. Take those two things together, Hebrews 2 and Acts 2, and what I want to argue for here this morning is this.

[29:12] The book of Psalms belongs to Jesus Christ. He is the son of David. He inherited those Psalms. They're his prayers, his songs.

[29:24] And we get to pray them too if we belong to Jesus. If we can call him our older brother.

[29:35] Now, let me give you just a very quick survey here. This is going to be super quick, I hope, for the sake of having a shower later on in time. Let me just read some verses to you.

[29:48] Matthew 13. Don't turn there, just listen. Matthew 13. Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables. He did not say anything to them without using a parable.

[30:01] So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet. I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter hidden things hidden since the creation of the world.

[30:16] Now, notice that. Jesus spoke in parables. He didn't say anything to the crowd without using a parable. Matthew says, this fulfilled what the prophet said.

[30:29] And what did the prophet say? The prophet said, I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world. But that's a quotation from Psalm 78.

[30:41] And it's a quotation that takes the words of Psalm 78 and puts them on Jesus' lips. Jesus is the one who says the words in Psalm 78.

[30:53] Or Matthew 26, as Jesus is climbing up the Mount of Olives, where he will contend in prayer with the Father, he turns and says to his disciples, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.

[31:13] Well, that's a quotation from Psalm 42. You can't tell it that easily in the English, but it's a quotation from Psalm 42. The psalmist words occur again on the lips of Jesus as he prays that psalm.

[31:31] And we already saw in Psalm 22 that Jesus took the word to Psalm 22 verse 1 as his prayer. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

[31:43] And then, later on in the psalm, Jesus calls out in a loud voice and says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And that line, into your hands I commit my spirit, is a quotation of Psalm 31 and verse 5.

[32:02] Jesus fulfills Psalm 31 by singing the psalm himself as he hangs upon the cross. Or, John 13, as Jesus is sitting with his disciples, he says, one of you is going to betray me.

[32:23] And then he says, the one who will betray me is the one who shares my bread. The one who shares my bread has lifted up his heel against me.

[32:34] And that's a quotation from Psalm 41. Jesus took those words and put them on his own lips. Or, John 15, Jesus says, all the things that have happened to me have happened to fulfill what is written when it says, they hated me without reason.

[32:58] But now he's quoting the psalmist in Psalm 35, who says the same thing. He takes the words of the psalmist onto his own lips. Now, for the sake of time, I'm going to skip some of the next ones that come out.

[33:13] So I won't say, so I'm going to try to bring this to a close here. But the whole point that I'm trying to get across here is this. One very important way in which you and I can pray the Psalms.

[33:27] I'm not going to say the only way, but one very important and meaningful way is to pray the Psalms with our older brother, Jesus Christ. As we pray the Psalm, to imagine that he is right beside us, praying the Psalm with us.

[33:45] And we don't have to imagine because they are his prayers. They are his Psalms. Perhaps you have heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian who was martyred in World War II.

[34:00] He wrote a couple of books. One was, I mean, he wrote several books, but two that I'm thinking of in particular. He wrote a book about the prayer book, the Psalms of Israel.

[34:12] And he wrote another book about life together and people living in community. I want to give you just two or three quotes from that book. Bonhoeffer says this, these same words which David spoke, that is in the Psalms, the future Messiah spoke through him.

[34:34] The prayers of David were prayed also by Christ. And then Bonhoeffer goes even further and says this, he says better, Christ himself prayed them through his forerunner David.

[34:51] In essence, maybe David wrote the Psalms, but the ultimate author is Jesus himself. And when he comes to this earth and goes through his sufferings and trials, he prays those Psalms, the very same Psalms he gave David to pray.

[35:10] And then Bonhoeffer says this, if we want to read and pray the prayers of the Bible, and especially the Psalms, therefore, we must not ask first what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus.

[35:30] Just like those disciples did in Acts 2, where they took Psalm to and related it to the person of Jesus, and then prayed a prayer for themselves, because they were in solidarity with Jesus.

[35:48] So what I am saying here is that one very valid, important, and I think very meaningful way for us to pray the Psalms is to pray them consciously, intentionally, through the person of Jesus, regarding Jesus himself as the one who prays the Psalms.

[36:11] Now, I'm a professor, a teacher, an educator, and as I told you last week, I'm going to give you some homework, okay? I know you're excited about that, but you don't have to, you know, you don't have to turn it in or anything, I won't grade it, but I want you between now and the time that I come back in August, just do some experimenting.

[36:34] Take a Psalm or two or maybe more, take some of your favorite Psalms and meditate on them and think, what would it be like if Jesus was the one who was praying this Psalm?

[36:48] And how would I pray it with him? Now, let me just give you a bit of a hint here. I have a colleague, someone that I went to seminary with, and he also became a professor of Old Testament, he's in Australia right now, teaching Old Testament, and he wrote an article, very fine article, on Psalm 23.

[37:08] I think probably Psalm 23 is the most famous Psalm of all. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And quite often, when we look at Psalm 23, we think, yes, Christ is my shepherd.

[37:22] He's the good shepherd. He's the one who guides me and leads me. And so, usually, when we think of Psalm 23, we think, Jesus is the shepherd and I am the sheep.

[37:34] But, let me invite you, especially with Psalm 23, to read that psalm as if Christ was the sheep and the shepherd in the psalm was his father.

[37:46] My friend wrote a book, or I wrote an article, and the title of the article is, The Lord is Christ's Shepherd. So, there's a number of psalms you can do this with.

[37:59] I'll give you a list, and you can catch it again on the recording. Psalm 3, Psalm 16, Psalm 23, Psalm 35, Psalm 40, 41, 42, 69, 116, and my favorite psalm, Psalm 118.

[38:17] Perhaps between now and when I get back, look at those psalms and see if you can pray through them. And when you pray them, say, how would Jesus have prayed this psalm?

[38:28] How would he have understood it? How would it have related to him? And I'm just going to suggest that perhaps at the end of that exercise, you might find those psalms to be even more meaningful than you do now.

[38:43] Now, you know,