Special Event – Devotional Studies in the Psalms: Mark Lanier, 03/01/26

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[00:00:00] Okay. I am so excited to, to talk this morning. It's just been busting out of me. Let me tell you why I have to be very careful. I think many of you know that right now I'm trying a case in Los Angeles with a a, um, a host of folks and it is. Um, it's, it's a, it's a war. Uh, it, it, it, it's a almost a 24 7, 7 day a week war.

And, uh, last week, uh, has been an eventful week and the week before, uh, I had Mark Zuckerberg on the stand. Uh, they, they don't allow cameras in the courtroom, but they have these courtroom artists. And, and candidly, I do not think that's me, but it doesn't look like Mark Zuckerberg either. So I guess it's fair.

But, uh, uh, during the process of the trial. Uh, I, I've been working on it pretty intensely since around [00:01:00] October, November, but my daughter, Rachel, who's one of our trial team, uh, has been working on it for a well over a year now. And we were headed into court and that's me in the center and that's our daughter Sarah on one side who's a lawyer, and that's our daughter, Rachel, on the other side.

Now Rachel lives in la. And she goes to the Atmosphere Church with her family and the Sunday before we started jury selection. So the Sunday before trial, she's in church and the pastor gets up to preach the sermon and she knows that we're about to start trial in what may be one of the most important landmark cases in American jurisprudence.

It's, it's, it's, it is. Uh, it has room to be. Uh, uh, I, I don't wanna speak too much about it because this is put on the internet, and even though jurors, if you're watching, you're not supposed to watch this, probably, um, so don't, uh, or just listen to the Jesus part [00:02:00] and, uh, um, but, but the, um. She has lived this case for well over a year, and it's just really weighing on her and she knows her dad's coming in to, to lead the trial, and she knows she's gonna be sitting next to me and Sarah's gonna be sitting next to me or her and, and it's all stress.

And it's all pressure and it's a lot more in the life of a mid thirties gal than it is for me because I've been, I got enough scars to where I, I, I know the Lord comes through and I know how he comes through and I know I don't always win, but I know my job's just to give my best and to trust him with the results I get.

The perspective of being 65, she has the perspective of being in her mid thirties and it's different. But God met her at church the day before jury selection. He met her at church with the sermon, which came from James Chapter One, [00:03:00] counted all joy. My brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. And so every day in court as we're walking into court together, she says, pops count it all joy when you meet trials.

And that's been her theme verse as we've worked through this case together. Mine have been a little different. I haven't been spending my quiet time during trial in James. I've been spending it in the Hebrew Psalms. And, uh, because I'm in trial and I have a narrow window of time each morning when I wake up, where I can do the quiet time first.

Uh, the Hebrew is, is useful to me to work through Hebrew, but I think it's fair for you to ask two questions. Why Mark, are you reading it in Hebrew, and why Mark are you spending your time in Psalms? Well, I'm reading it in Hebrew because it forces me to read slow. Now I've read Hebrews, uh, since I got my degree in Hebrew, some 40 [00:04:00] some odd years ago.

But, but I don't read it fast because my Hebrew's not real good. If I were John Monson, I'd be, I'd be like, and it'd be no different. But for me, the Hebrew is, is is something that requires me to read slow. And so, uh, uh, I think oftentimes if I'm reading in English, uh, uh, and others of us, we read psalms like we drink, drive through coffee.

You know, we, we, except I don't drink coffee, but uh, um, we, we drive, I've seen Becky do this, drive through, get the coffee, and then just drink it and go on. The Psalms aren't something just to be read through. Yes, we've got favorite psalms. We've got favorite lines. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul wicked. Bless it. As a man who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but is delight is in the law of the Lord. Oh, how love I [00:05:00] thy law. It is my meditation night and day. I mean, we can say our favorite lines out of the Psalms and just kind of read through 'em.

But when I'm reading in Hebrew, it's like I've got a bit of a grammatical stethoscope and I'm sitting there following, you know, the, the, the, the line, if you will. Because I, I, I, I, I, I pay attention to the heartbeat of the Psalms. I love to text and email my buddy John Monson. He, uh, uh, has taught psalms.

He's taught Hebrew forever and a day up at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and he's always, will I, I can send him my questions, but I can send him my thoughts and he sharpens 'em or, or affirms 'em or, it is just real blessing. But, but one of the things that I think he would agree with me on is that the, the, the psalms have a, have a heartbeat in them.

You wanna live in it, you wanna experience it. It's not just an [00:06:00] intellectual exercise. It, it is a vibrant part of, of, of delving into your heart, soul, and mind. And so it's a wonderful place for me to spend time when I have this much time and I'm in a tight, tense, difficult situation. So I've been studying the psalms.

Now the Psalms, as I've told you before, they're Israel's prayer book and hymnal all rolled into one, and they cover the gamut of human emotions. You've got joy in there. You've got anger, you've got confusion, you've got praise, you've got despair. You've got celebration. You've got the whole gamut. And if you also recall, I urge you when you study the Psalms, to ask basically four questions, what emotion is being expressed?

What does the Psalm reveal about God? That's gonna be very important, what we're talking about [00:07:00] today, what prompted the psalm and how can I pray this in my situation? Now we're gonna divide this up today into three areas. We're gonna talk about how God is before you. God is active and we're gonna talk about how praise comes from all corners.

That's our goal. We've got about 40 minutes y'all in. Let's do it together. God, before you, I just wanna read with you this, uh, first couple of verses of this psalm. It goes like this, oh God, save me by your name and vindicate me by your might. Oh God. Hear my prayer. Give ear to the words of my mouth. For strangers have risen against me.

Ruthless men seek my life. They do not set God [00:08:00] before themselves. That's the first three verses in English. Of Psalm 54. If you notice the Hebrew, we have the same Psalm 54. This, for example, is verse three, but there's five in a parentheses because in the Hebrew it's actually verse five. If you had your Hebrew BHS Bible in front of you, it'd be verse five.

'cause the taglines at the start of the Psalms in Hebrew often get assigned verses not always, but often. So here's what I want you to do. We're gonna think about this together, but I want you to think for a moment about direction and position. Here's why. How many of you use a navigation system to get somewhere?

How many of you, 40 years ago, used a navigation system to get somewhere?

We had maps. [00:09:00] Maps helped. But you go back to the time of King David, do you think for a moment that if you were gonna head to Jerusalem for a festival, that you would get out your iPhone and plug it in to, you know, apple maps and get directions to Jerusalem? No. If you wanted to go to your neighbor's house, or you were in a strange city and you heard there's this really good restaurant, which actually they did have restaurants sort of, not really, but kind of.

But you, you heard there was this, you needed to go over there. How did you get there? Well, yeah, you walked, but it was the wrong question, Ms. Carolyn. What I'm driving at is they were much more attuned to verbal directions. [00:10:00] We're tuned in to maps. We're tuned in to GPS and we've lost some of the sense of direction vocabulary because it's not as important to us.

It's not as integral to to every day and what we do. But back then, direction, words were very important words. They weren't simply prepositions that you had to memorize to get a decent grade in English class. Direction. Words were part and parcel of everyday life. People needed to know you go this way, you go that way.

This is behind you. That will be in front of you. You gotta go walk toward that hill, and when you reach the oak tree, go left and walk to the brook. And when you hit the brook, take a right. You know, is it that the directions were totally different? Now that's important because many of the [00:11:00] psalms, much of the Bible, but many of the Psalms contain direction words in them that we'll just read right by as we drive through Starbucks.

And so when I'm reading in Hebrew, I pause and I look at the direction words. So let's think back about what we just read. The Psalm itself starts out with David facing God. He's calling out to God. You know the English is, oh God, it's just in Hebrew. It starts out Elohim God. He's, he's addressing God. He is looking at God.

He is facing God. God. And verse two starts out the same way. God, in fact, if we go back, um, yeah, we just keep going forward. So he calls out to God and then he says to God, please turn your ear. [00:12:00] To me, please turn your ear. We translate it. Oh God. Hear my prayer. Give ear. But the word for ear here is actually in a, in a form of turn your ear.

Like, listen up. Hear me. In fact, it's got in, in Hebrew. It's got what's called a paragogy. Hey, which is just a, a letter added to the end of it. That's like, please, you know, really intense desire here, you know, please to God, turn your ear. I'm facing God. David says, God, would you, would you turn your ear to me?

Turn it. Just physically turn your ear. And then he says, because strangers have risen up against me, ruthless men seek my life. They do not set God before [00:13:00] themselves. This has got more direction vocabulary. They don't set God before themselves. This is before themselves.

Lan Dom, they don't. They don't set God in front of them. God's not in front of them. The ruthless people don't have God in front of them. David's facing God. David wants God to turn his ear, and then he contrasts that in the third verse with the ruthless people. They don't put God in front of them. They've arranged their lives so God's not in front of 'em.

They will turn anywhere except to God. If God is that computer, they're turning this way. If God or y'all, they're turning this way, they do not want God in front of them.

And we should read that as John [00:14:00] Monson says, not only for a statement of the ruthless men, but a statement of how it contrasts with David. David calls out to God. This is David who says, I have set the Lord always before me. Same word in the Hebrew nda. Actually eg. D here instead of, but same word, it's just before me.

It's the me ending on the word. I have always put God right in front of me, always. To me, always, I have always put God before me. This is not something that I'm doing right now because it's, it's a tough time. This is the way I live. This is lifestyle. This isn't a resolution. This is a habit. If you in the morning are some, uh, a coffee person in the morning, [00:15:00] that's a habit.

That's something you do every morning. This, this David's saying here, God, I, I put him in front of me, in front of my face. This is, this is who's in front of me. And so we see here, uh, uh, this sense of direction, these direction words are so important in the Psalms. Let me just throw in one more before we sum this part up.

For God alone, my soul waits in silence. From him comes my salvation. Now that reads nice in the English, but when you're reading Psalm 62 in the Hebrew, a couple of things jump out at you. First of all, ah, alone only, only in this L here is is not. L as in God. It's l as a [00:16:00] direction word, two toward toward God, only toward God.

Silence my soul. There's not a real verb in that sentence. It's just a, it's just a, a, a condition of silence. My soul only. To God, silence. And then you've got another direction word mean here. It's a meme because it's, uh, mema new. Um, it's, it's um, uh, uh, from him, my salvation yeshu from him, my salvation.

Look at, these are just direction words. And we lose them in the English, but we can get 'em like this. This is, this is saying in a, in a literal sense, only toward God is there [00:17:00] rest and peace and silence for my soul. Because from him, and you can apply the same, only only from him is gonna come my rescue, my salvation.

Don't read salvation like a 21st century Christian, uh, looking to save your soul for eternity. Because what the Hebrew is talking about here is a a, a rescue A A, a, a A God coming to your rescue right now, saving you from whatever it is that's conflicting you, whatever it is that's disturbing your soul.

If you understand the direction of this, if you think in terms of direction, imposition, you can think about this. PS Solomon, it's saying toward God. I can have a restful soul. I can have silence in my soul, the murmuring, the fear, the worry, all of that is gone when I am turned toward God, because from God [00:18:00] is gonna come, my rescue, my salvation.

You live with God in front of you. You put God in front of you and you will understand that as long as you're facing him, you can be at rest in your soul because you know from him is going to come what you need. And that type of assurance just comes in a little verse in the psalm when you're reading it in Hebrew and you're just letting it wash over you.

You're just listening to the heartbeat. And then it's not an academic exercise. It's a call to life. A call to life where you ask the question, where are you facing? If your back is to God, if, if God's outta your picture, you're the ruthless men. You're the adversary. [00:19:00] But if you are facing God, if God is always before you, if that's what's in front of you, if you see, look, there may be huge worries, huge concerns.

I may have the trial of the century in front of me, but if God's right in front of my face, the only thing I see I see through God. This is why Dr. Martin's uh, uh, message last night. I found such a, a wonderful compliment to what I knew I was teaching this morning because she was talking about how as if, if we're gonna be leaders in our homes, in our businesses, in the marketplace, in our relationships, if we're gonna be leaders, we need to be leaders who are willing to lay down what it is we've been entrusted who lead sacrificially.

And, and, and, and follow Jesus to the cross. [00:20:00] That is the same principle. You see everything through Christ and the cross. You see everything through God. We have a better picture of God than David even had because we've seen God made man crucified and resurrected. We've seen God, the Holy Spirit, with a power of the resurrection.

We've seen God, divine father, whose plan cannot be thwarted. We have a God to be in front of us who is majestic beyond measure and ability to proclaim. And you can have any problem in the world as long as God's between you and that problem. Your soul can be silent and at rest. Don't ever let those problems come between you and God.

You keep God in front of you. And that's the lesson of the Psalms. A similar metaphor for us. Glasses. I take these off. I can't [00:21:00] tell any of you from anybody else. I just, I, I can see only three feet without these, but you get past three feet and I'm, I'm like. Hey, Becky. Good to see you. Oh, that's not Becky.

That's Stan. Stan Art. Oh, sorry, Stan. You know, I mean, I, I, I, it's, it's, these God needs to be as close to you as your glasses and you want 'em clean so that you see him better. One of the reasons we worship and adore God and come into his presence and study his word and listen to lectures is so we better see who he is.

Because the better we see him right in front of us is the better way we'll see the world. Make sense? That's God before you. One of the lessons I've had from the Psalms over the last few weeks while I've been gone from you. Here's the second one, God as the active one. Now many of you know one of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 20.

It's one that I pray over people. [00:22:00] I pray over circumstances. I prayed it over my children. I prayed it over my grandchildren. I prayed it over my wife. I pray it over my sisters. I pray it over my brother-in-laws. I pray it over my mom. I pray it over. Uh, uh, so many of you, but let's just pause. I've taught it in here, but let's pause and let me show you some things I've never taught you before.

It starts out, may the Lord answer you in the day of trouble. May the name of the God of Jacob protect you. We will stop there. And did you know life groups used to be called Sunday School? Do you know why? Because when life groups started as Sunday school, it was church's efforts before there was mandatory school for children to teach children.

And they would do it on Sundays and you could learn. And school and churches were a great place to learn. So we're not gonna be in a life group for the next five minutes. We're going to Sunday [00:23:00] school. And if you don't like it, you can skip school for the next five minutes and then when we start life group back, you come back in.

Now that doesn't mean get up and leave, that just means check out. Here it goes. When I translate Hebrew, I generally think of two different areas where I have problems. That's it. There are two areas where I really have to work when I translate Hebrew. If I, and by translate, I don't mean me physically translate.

I mean, if I wanna read something and translate it into my English mind, my English life, my English teaching, two general problems, two buckets of problems, one vocabulary. They have different words. Now if you strip the names out of the Hebrew Old Testament, um, place names, [00:24:00] people names, um, geological feature names, if you strip the names out, the Hebrew Old Testament has basically 6,000 or so words, two to 3000 used frequently, but.

6,000. If you count those words used only once, hap lamina, as we would say, in in, in a language class. So you've got 6,000 functioning Hebrew words. Now, the average person in this room, I dare say, based upon studies, has a functioning English vocabulary or if not English, your native language of around 35,000 words.

So you've got 6,000 Hebrew words doing duty in our language for 35,000 words. Do that math. That means if I'm doing my math right, I've [00:25:00] got 6,000 Hebrew words and that becomes somehow 35,000 English words. I've got like five to six English words per average for every Hebrew word, sometimes more, sometimes less.

So if I'm going to translate the Bible for myself, for you, or for anyone else, word by word gets real tough. I see a Hebrew word. Well, which 1:00 AM I gonna choose? Let me give you an example. Neish. Nefe, many of you will say to me, I know that word soul. Well, yeah, it, it can be talking about the soul, or it could be talking about your throat, or it [00:26:00] could be talking about your breath, or it could be talking about your appetite, or it could be talking about yourself, your whole person.

Your life force or even your desires, one Hebrew word, lots of different possibilities. Now, the beauty of the Psalms in the Hebrew poetry is they will choose, the psalmists will choose words that have multiple meanings, and we're supposed to sit there and just think through all the different things this could mean.

But because we're automatically given a word by word translation. We don't really get to do that. You ask a Hebrew scholar how to translate the word ED and they will not give you a one word answer. It's almost untranslatable. So the vocabulary itself is a whole area of problems, but it's not the only area of [00:27:00] problems.

The second is grammar, but other than vocabulary and grammar, that language is just like ours. Um. Hebrew grammar is very different. Pulls apart Hebrew is what I would call a radically verbal language. What do I mean by that? Verbal verbs. Not verbal like spoken, though it was spoken, but verbs. Hebrew is almost all Hebrew vocabulary.

It's built off of three. Different consonants, but all of them have a verbal usage, generally general rule. In English, we tend to nominate things. That doesn't mean I nominate, uh uh, Mike Riddle for President of the United States of America. You know, I'm not nominating that way. Nominate in the sense of make it [00:28:00] a noun and we tend to turn action.

Into nouns in English. Hebrew's different Hebrew is got things constantly in motion. So if we talk about English verbs and you learn English verbs, you learn them built around tenses. Did this happen now? Is it happening now? Is it gonna happen in the future? Did it happen in the past? Did it happen in the past?

And it's still ongoing. These are the tenses of English Hebrew. It doesn't have a past tense, doesn't have a present tense, doesn't have a future tense. Hebrew doesn't really have tenses. You just have to figure 'em out because in English, we're concerned with our language. When did it happen? That's what the verbs tell us.

They tell us when it happened, but Hebrew verbs, they're not concerned about when it happened at all. I remember the first time I learned this in Hebrew class. [00:29:00] And my professor said this, and he, and, and I said, but, but we need to know when, how do you know? He said, by context. I go, well, that's not helping me.

He says, sorry, that was first semester Hebrew. Now by my fourth year of Hebrew where we're translating the Psalms for class, it's, it's, it's, I, we, we've understood it. It's not built around when it happened. Hebrew verbs, first of all, they're built around seven different buckets of forms. And these forms are just standard verbs or verbs that are more intensive or verbs that are more passive or verbs that are more, uh, causative.

And, and there are these different buckets, but the key to all of those buckets, and you don't have to learn the names, but. And they're technically more than seven, but, but after seven scholars start fighting about it. This isn't a Hebrew class, so just if you're watching this on the internet, don't send me some email about the difference between the [00:30:00] PL and the Paul LI know it's got a weak verbal consonant and that's the, anyway, alright.

Hebrew verbs are built around the nature of what's happening. Not when it happened. It's the nature of what happened, not when it's happening. So here's your example. In English, we can ask God, when did you act? But Hebrew will ask God, what are you doing? And is it finished yet? So in English we can say, God saved me past tense, or God is saving me.

Present tense, Hebrew, it's both. You just gotta figure it out. So now if you know this grammar, we're back to life. Group. Tune back in can may the [00:31:00] Lord answer. And answer is actually the first verb that we've got here. And this verb is in a form where God ah, it. Yeah. Get that outta the way. Um, so we've got answer you the Lord, in the day of your trouble.

And then it's got, uh, uh, uh, uh, protect. But that word protect is a goofy word in vocabulary. So the Lord answer you in the day of trouble, may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. The verb aspect that's being used, the, the Hebrew verb form, means that God is actively producing a result. He's actively answering you.

It's imperfect form. He's actively answering you. He's actively protecting you. This is not [00:32:00] God observing and reacting. God is in that process. He's doing it. He's done it. He's doing it now, and he's gonna keep doing it. This is, this is beyond verb tense. May the Lord answer you. And then this verb protects is, is, um.

It's actually the root meaning of it's high instead of may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. What it's really saying is, may the name of the God of Jacob cause you to be up high. Now, if you're a king in battle, that's protecting you. If the scrum is going down on the ground, that's protecting you.

So the translators. Have translated it protect you, and that's very fair and that's very accurate. But the idea behind it is may he put you up on high, lift you above the fray. [00:33:00] Now look at this. Who's gonna lift you above the fray?

The name of the God of Jacob, may the name. Of the God of Jacob, lift you above the fray, protect you, take care of you. What's going on there? Well, if you've been listening to me for long, you know that that Hebrew word, Shem for name, that Hebrew word Shem, isn't as much a label as it is a cv, a resume, a curriculum, vi tie.

May the name of the God of Jacob Shim, EOH Hay ov, may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. Now, if that's God's curriculum, vitti, if that's his resume, if that's what name is, why is he choosing [00:34:00] Jacob? Why isn't he asking the name of the God of Abraham? Abraham, after all called from her, or they called these?

Abraham, the, the, the first son of faith whose faith was credited to him as righteousness, Abraham, the forefather and progenitor of all things Israelite Abraham. Why not the God of Abraham? Why not the God of Isaac? Why not the God of Moses,

the God of Jacob? What on God's resume does it say about Jacob? You read God's resume about Jacob. His name means trickster. He was a deceiver. He tricked his brother. He deceived his daddy. His twin Esau wanted to kill him. He had to flee from home to keep from getting [00:35:00] killed. If he didn't have Tim Wilson to take care of him, he had to flee.

He is a liar. He's a trickster, he's a mess. And Esau never killed him. Do you know why? Because God protected him. God declared that through him would come to Messiah. So nothing was gonna happen to him until he was, until, until till it was right. God was protecting him. God was protecting that big body a mess.

Ultimately, God wrestles with him and changes his name because he's no longer the trick. Trickster should not be on his resume anymore. Israel should be, and God changes his name. He changes his resume. He had a career alteration moment, and that is the name, that's the [00:36:00] cv, that's the resume point that the Psalmist is saying.

The Psalmist is saying, God's not merely observing and reacting. He's actively producing a result, and so may he actively protect you. Set you up on high like the God of Jacob. He is. Isn't that beautiful? How about this one? I got this one morning right before I go to court. I say right before I go to court, I get up anywhere between one and three in the morning over there.

So, and, and this is first things first, but I'm, as soon as I'm through this, I'm finishing up my, my work for the day of court, you know, my cross-examination or whatever I've gotta do. And I wake up and I look open up to Psalm 1 44 1. And I read Baruch Iai thre. Blessed be the Lord my rock. Blessed be the Lord my rock, and then the one [00:37:00] who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.

Now, I told you that Hebrews radically verbal. I told you that in English we tend to turn things into nouns. Hebrew keeps things moving. Here's a good example of that. Blessed be the Lord who trains my hands for war. When we read that in English, we're reading it like, lemme tell you who God is. Here's a theological statement.

Let's be good Western, post Greek and Latin thinkers. People of the New Testament after the Hebrews have quit helping us read it. And let's read it like Western Thinkers and so we'll read. Blessed be the Lord, and this who trains my hands for war is a description about God. That's [00:38:00] the kind of God he is.

But in Hebrew, this is much more fluid. In Hebrew, the emphasis, yes, it's blessing the Lord, but not as a statement of who he is per se, but a statement of what he's doing. See it's that it's, it's, it's what he's doing. And that word for trains can be translated, teaching, training, forming. Blessed be the Lord who is right now, it's an ongoing process.

God is ongoing right now. He is doing this. He's done it before. Don't think verb tense. He is done it before, but it's going ongoing. It's still an ongoing activity in the Hebrew. He's, he's teaching me, he's training me. He's, he's forming my hands for war. Now, hands are representative in the Hebrew of work.[00:39:00]

God is pro. Paul just says it for the Greeks in a very simple way in Ephesus. He says Migration been saved not by worthless any should boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good works, which he prepared beforehand for us to walk in them. We are his workmanship. He has made us to do these works for us to do, and he did it beforehand and now go do those works.

That's good, easy for us. But in the Hebrew mindset, blessed be the Lord. Who right now is still teaching and training and forming my hands to be able to do the work he's done. And then he says, my fingers for battle fingers in the Hebrew symbolize the, the fine detail work. Hands are the rough gardening, fingers are the meticulous detail.

And so that's God. God has made the [00:40:00] psalmist, I dare say, all of us. To accomplish the tasks he set before us. God did not make you simply to eat, drink, and be merry. Now, God wants you to enjoy food. God, God, God want. You know, God has given us taste buds for a reason, but, but God's purpose is much deeper. It may be as, as Dr.

Martin said, praying, praying for, you know, she said one of the things she's done with her kids is she's working on sowing those seeds that her parents sowed in her. There's not a parent I know who doesn't realize that sometimes we sow those seeds and they grow up with a bunch of weeds and we're praying, God, get rid of those weeds.

Please let the seeds [00:41:00] see a harvest. Let us see the plants. Let us see the growth we plead for our children to find God in the midst of the weeds. Sometimes we have to trust the sower. We have to trust God that, and maybe he won't do it till the end of the harvest, but sometimes he'll get those weeds out.

That's all part of the process, but that's who God is. God is teaching us. He's training us. He's forming us. He's equipping us to do the things he's put in front of us. He is not a spectator. He's on center stage doing this right now.

Same idea. Look at this verse. So, same, uh, Hebrew grammar principle, Psalm 21 6, you, God, make him the king glad with the joy of your presence. Now, when you read this in the Hebrew, which I've just said is so verbal, there's no verb sorta, I mean, I guess that's a, [00:42:00] a pl form, but, but look at what it says. You.

This is rejoice. You cause him to rejoice. You produce his rejoicing. It's continual. That's a a, a pl. So yeah, we've got the verb, but you pro you are producing in him joy, rejoicing. And then it says, be before your face. Not really before just your face as an object. In other words, there's joy of your face.

You are continually producing him joy, in the joy or the pleasure of your face, your presence. I love this. It's an ongoing act. You're continually doing it, but God's divine presence is producing a joy moment by moment, day by day. [00:43:00] Where are you going today? If you've got God's divine presence, if you've got God in front of you, you can have joy in your heart.

And then last praise from all corners. There are two Psalms that just really jumped at me over the last couple of weeks. These are ones I was emailing Monson about. I said, look at this. Here's Psalm 65. Praise is due to you, oh God and Zion. And to you shall vows be performed. Now in the Hebrew laka to you, AYA, this is, this is, um, AYA is, is at its root, the meaning of that word that's translated praise in its root.

That word means silence or stillness. And look, it's translated praise. What are they doing to us? I'm reading it in the Hebrew. [00:44:00] Then I read the English to see how my Hebrew did. I look say, well, no, they got that wrong. That doesn't say praise. We don't have halal there. We don't have one of the praise words that that says, silence do meah stillness.

Did you know there is a praise of God in silence? For God alone, my soul waits in silence. That's praise. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. That's a reverent awe of worship. I know my mom and sister and Charles Mickey and, and Mel, I Morty all know this song. See if it's, I thought I had it.

Maybe I don't. The, we used to sing it. The Lord [00:45:00] is in his whole old Lee temple. Let all the earth keeps silent before him. Keep silence, keep silence. Keep silence before him. It's a very reverent, quiet devotional. Thoughtful 47 second Psalm. And that's what we've got here. Now they translate it. Praise, but it's, it's, it says to you, silence.

To you. Silence is, do you, oh God, in Zion, and to you shall vows be performed? That's Psalm 65. The very next Psalm doesn't have any of the introductory material, doesn't have anything in it. The very next Psalm, if you're reading through the Psalms, Psalm 65, silence as Praise, and then Psalm 66, shout for joy to God, all the earth, and I just love it.

The contra distinction [00:46:00] between be reverent and silent, and sometimes you just gotta shout for joy and they're both appropriate. And they're not just both appropriate. They're both called for. And if you go to the last 1, 45, 1 46, 7, 8, 9, 10, the last six psalms, starting with 1 45, are called the Great Halal songs because they're all songs of praise.

And if you go to Psalm 1 45, Psalm 1 45 is, um, uh, okay. Room. It's, it's, um. I will extol you, my God, and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Now, this is a psalm that in Hebrew is an acrostic. Each verse of the Psalm itself, absent the title, each verse starts with the subsequent letter of the alphabet in English.

That means we're gonna praise God from A to Z in Greek, from alpha to Omega, from beginning to end. We're gonna [00:47:00] praise God totally with everything. And H verse has the a alpha, beta, gamma delta. Oh no, that's Greek olive bait, Gamal. Hey VI mean, each one, it just, it just follows the alphabet. It's kind of cool because that's how we're called to praise, silence to joy.

A to Z, the name of the Lord. To be praised the name of the Lord. What does that mean? Now his cv, see, some of us steal off God's cv. Some of us put on our CV what God did, and it belongs on his. If we win this trial, it doesn't belong on my cv. Hey, mark, the new took down social media giants. No, I'm just Clay in the [00:48:00] hands of the potter.

The, uh, we had a, we had a witness that was gonna be a really tough witness and, um, the other side, uh, uh, uh. I, I, I, I, I'm, I'm at peace. Okay. I, I know the whole story. I think the whole story is one that's, that's belongs. I'm so comfortable trying this case. I believe justice is so on our side, but I had a, a witness where they were gonna try and go after that witness and rip that witness up and embarrass the witness and, and all, and beforehand the, the law.

One of the lawyers on the other side, I saw him in the men's room and he says, Hey. Nothing personal. You're just, you gotta play. He said, my dad was a poker player. I said, okay. He said, my dad always told me you gotta play the hand, you're dealt. And he says, you know, I like you, mark. You're a good guy, but you've been dealt this hand.

[00:49:00] I thought to myself, well, yeah, you gotta play the hand, you're dealt. But I know the dealer of the cards

and I got the hand that I need. All I gotta do is lay that hand down and that hand's gonna be fine. We don't need to steal off God's resume. Anything that happens any good we do. It belongs on his cv, his resume, his curriculum, viti, not ours, right? So those are our points for home. Number one, don't keep your Psalms on a shelf.

Live 'em, inhabit 'em. Let 'em wash you, let 'em carry you. Let 'em nourish you. Let 'em give you life and joy and direction. Number two, choose a direction. Every day you wake up, [00:50:00] I'm gonna put God in front of me. I want everything to be seen through God. Only thing that's gonna get to me is something that comes through God, I got God in front of me and everything else is gonna be fine.

My soul can be silent. And number three, know that God is working on you. You are not, uh, having to do this yourself. God is actively working on you. So with that, I gotta go back to la Keep me in your prayers, but know while I'm there, I'll be studying devotional in the Psalms and eager to be back here with you.

Can I bless you in the name of Jesus? And then we'll go. Father, we bless in the name of Jesus, by his resume, by his cv, by his death on the cross, by his resurrection. [00:51:00] Only through Jesus Christ and what he's done do we approach you so boldly as to entreat your favor, beg you to turn your ear toward us, ask you to continue to, when necessary, take our face between your hands and hold it so that we look at you.

Father, continue to train us, to educate us to rear us. So that we can do the works, the good things you've prepared for us to do, and put them on your resume to your glory and honor we pray. Amen.