Pastor Fredo Ramos: For whatever reason, I have always struggled to pray. And so as this new year begins and as many of you think about new routines that you wanna give yourself to, especially for those of you who follow Jesus, I wanna invite you to learn to pray the Psalms with us. It's a practice I picked up years ago that really saved, my ability to learn to pray, to speak to God honestly about how I was feeling and what I was thinking. And so every single day on sandalschurch.tv on YouTube, we're gonna be releasing, praying the Psalms, a Psalm a day. We started in January 1, and every day you're gonna get a new Psalm with the opportunity to read the Psalm with us, to reflect on a phrase, and then to respond to God in prayer, how to pray through the Psalms.
This has been a gift to me in my own journey with Jesus. I pray that it's a gift to you, and so would you join us. Grace and peace. Psalm 48. How great is the Lord, how deserving of praise, in the city of our God which sits on his holy mountain.
It is high and magnificent, the whole earth rejoices to see it. Mount Zion, the holy Mountain is the city of the great king. God himself was in Jerusalem's towers revealing himself as its defender. The kings of the earth joined forces and advanced against the city, but when they saw it, they were stunned. They were terrified and ran away.
They were gripped with terror and writhed in pain like a woman in labor. You destroyed them like the mighty ships of Tarshish scattered by a powerful east wind. We had heard of the city's glory, but now we have seen it ourselves. The city of the lord of heaven's armies, it is the city of our God. He will make it safe forever.
Verse nine. Oh, God, we meditate on your unfailing love as we worship in your temple. As your name deserves, oh, God, you will be praised to the ends of the earth. Your strong right hand is filled with victory. Let the people on Mount Zion rejoice.
Let all the towns of Judah be glad because of your justice. Go and inspect the city. Walk around and count the many towers. Take note of the fortified walls, and tour all the citadels that you may describe to them to the future generations. For this is what God is like.
He is our God forever and ever, and he will guide us until we die. Man, this Psalm, is a beautiful description of what God's city looks like. Jerusalem in the day was a prized place for the people of God. It is where they believed God dwelled because he did dwell with his people. But keep in mind that these Psalms were gathered and sung in a time where Jerusalem had fallen.
And so it's interesting to me that this Psalm calls back to a time where the city was beautiful and people experience, listen now, God's love through the city and and being people who inhabited it. And so now we're called to consider that in Jesus, he, in fact, has become and is the true temple. And as his followers, we ourselves are the temple of God so that it's not so much that there's a a physical location that's special, but there's people like you and I who are now special as we're filled with the spirit of God. So I wanna draw our attention there to verse nine. Oh, God, we meditate on your unfailing love as we worship in your temple.
Where do you go to worship? It's it's in your own heart. It's wherever you're at is now a sacred place. Right? God resides in you and I.
And so we take moments throughout our day to day to reflect on the reality that God is present to us. And in the same way that the people were called to inspect the city and see God's beauty throughout this physical city, we're called in the moments of our day and in the moments that we find ourselves living in our own being to consider how God is residing in us. And to, specifically draw attention to the fact that his love is unfailing. Jesus, we hear you inviting us to consider the fact, today, we will go through things, we will deal with people, and they may they might all fail us, but your love will not fail us today. Help us in both our minds and our hearts to meditate and focus on your unfailing love, your faithful love, your forever love, your forgiving love, your love that is constant.
And may it lead us to a place of strength today where we might sing and where we might demonstrate obedience. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.