Psalms, Joint Worship service, Easter Week

Sunday we looked at Psalm 51 trying to more clearly understand what repentance is in the Christian life. This psalm is so powerful and offers us so much insight into the Christian experience. I am reminded of this quote from St. Augustine:

“Most of Scripture speaks to us, the Psalms speak for us.”

This is how psalm 51 feels. It gives me language that I do not have - and categories that I do not know I need - to approach God in a posture of repentance.

I would encourage us all as a church to begin to think through your prayer life intentionally through the language of the psalms. What I mean is that the Psalms are a place where we are given words to pray and language to approach God with the deep groans of our hearts.

Let’s look at Psalm 51 for a minute to see what I am talking about. As we saw on Sunday, Psalm 51 could really be summed up through the lens of 3 cries that any repentant heart feels as they approach God:
1. Lord, have mercy
2. Lord, heal me
3. Lord, Get Glory

Now, here is how Psalm 51 helps us. When you are caught in sin and feeling the guilt that stems from your actions, this psalm points us in the right direction by telling us to approach God for mercy (psalms speak to us). But it also tells us why, and gives us the language to use as we pray for God to have mercy on us in our situation (psalm speak for us). You could really say that about all of these prayers that I listed:

Lord, Have Mercy. David tells why (the character of God) and gives us a simple repeatable pray to pray “Have mercy on me, O God.” There is not a more simple easy way to pray than this. And there is not reason to reinvent the wheel. Just take this language and make it your prayer.

Lord, Heal Me. David tells us in vv. 5-13 that our real problem is our hearts. It is not just what we do. It is how we are oriented, who we are. We have sinful hearts. When we pray v. 10 “Create in me a Clean heart” we are both learning from David’s prayer and following His lead in what real repentance looks like: heart transformation. Psalms help us understand our heart problem and gives us the language to address it.

Lord, Get Glory. Left naturally to our own devices, our lives would not move beyond ourselves. But here, David has the whole nation of Israel in view in his repentance. It’s not just about him. It is about the glory of God shining through the people of Israel. Psalm 51 gives us the language to grow our imaginations beyond ourselves to what “could be” in the world as the glory of God covers the earth as the sea.

All that to say, “Make the psalms a regular part of your prayer life. God gave us a prayer, and its got 5 prayers for each day of the month (150 psalm!). Let’s live and breathe this book!

Love you Church
Alex Gailey

P.S. - As we mentioned on Sunday, we will be having a joint worship service with Chicopee Baptist Church, the Congregation across the street who has served us in so many ways. One of which being providing a building for our church to use each week for our worship gatherings. There will be great children’s programming starting at 10am Sunday morning and will continue through the end of our service around 12:15. We want to encourage you all to arrive at 10am for fellowship and an extended time of prayer together. Here is a playlist to the songs we are singing.

P.S.S - Easter Week is quickly approaching. One new initiative that we are doing this year for Easter is Prayerful devotions for each day of Holy Week. In Addition to this, we have a few events for that week. See the Graphic below. Dont miss what the Lord is doing in the church during this season.