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 47 starting at verse one. Come, everyone.
Clap your hands. Shout to God with joyful praise. For the Lord most high is awesome. He is the great king over all the earth. He subdues the nations before us, putting our enemies beneath our feet.
He chose the promised land as our inheritance, the proud possession of Jacob's descendants whom he loves. God has ascended with a mighty shout. The Lord ascends with trumpets blaring. Sing praises to God. Sing praises.
Sing praises to our king. Sing praises. It's interesting in this prayer that we're invited to come and make sounds of joy, and as we lift our voices, it's almost as if our eyes are being opened to reality that that God himself is being lifted up through our praise. Verse seven, we continue. For God is the king over all the earth.
Praise him with a psalm. God reigns above the nations sitting on his holy throne. The rulers of the world have gathered together with the people of the God of Abraham, for all the kings of the earth belong to God. He is highly honored everywhere. This psalm and prayer begins with an invitation to come.
Everyone gather, and he says, as you gather, clap your hands and sing with joy. You know, as we begin our day, there's all kinds of reasons for us to gather, for us to do this or that. We make our coffee. We get our kids ready. We commute to work.
We make our plans. But can you carve out time today and to receive the words of Psalm 47, to clap your hands and sing for joy? To take joy today. Why? Because God is awesome, we're told in verse two.
In light of all the things that you must do today, do not neglect the reality that the Lord is awesome. And we then get this picture that all the kings of the earth are invited to come as well, and it says that all the kings of the earth belong to God. He's highly honored everywhere. So the psalmist in this prayer gets a vision of the future, and this vision of the future is actually tied to a past promise made to Abraham that all the nations, because of you, Abraham, will be blessed. In in other words, God will complete his mission of redeeming the world through this one family line.
It's repeated here in Psalm 47, and then it is fulfilled in Jesus that in through Abraham's seed, Jesus comes and all the nations will worship him. And then in Revelation seven, we get this beautiful picture as John gets this vision that all the nations have come, people from every tribe and tongue are now worshiping the lamb. Psalm 47 is a beautiful Psalm today to remind us to look back to God's promise to Abraham, to also look forward to revelation, and then in the middle of our ordinary, imperfect, incomplete day today to consider that, yes, we are to take joy because God's promises will be fulfilled. And then it says there in verse three, by way of reflection, it says, he sub dues the nations. This idea of submission can be hard for us.
We want to be free today. We wanna make our own decisions. But consider that there is joy to be found as we submit to the true king, king Jesus. And so, Jesus, we hear you inviting us now to respond in prayer with a prayer of submission. We have a desire today, God, to be king.
We have a desire today to not pray as Jesus taught us to pray, your kingdom come, your will be done. Some of us would rather say my kingdom come. But this is a better way forward as we think about you keeping your word to Abraham, as we think about the vision of Revelation seven, seeing everyone everywhere worshiping Jesus, we realize that your invitation today to submit to you is a good one. And so help us to find joy in submitting ourselves to you, the true king. We pray these things in your name.
Amen.