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
Pastor Fredo Ramos: of you who follow Jesus,
Pastor Fredo Ramos: 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 1st and every day you're gonna get a new psalm, but 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.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: We continue praying through the Psalms, and we come now to Psalm 33 starting in verse 1, let the godly sing for joy to the Lord. It is fitting for the pure to praise him. Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre, make music for him on the 10 string harp, sing a new song of praise to him. Down at verse 6, the lord merely spoke and the heavens were created. He breathed the word and all the stars were born.
He assigned the sea its boundaries and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs. Let the whole world fear the lord, and let everyone stand in awe of him. Down at verse 10, the lord frustrates the plans of the nations and thwarts all their schemes, but the lord's plans stand firm forever. His intentions can never be shaken. What joy for the nation whose God is the Lord, whose people he has chosen as his inheritance.
The Lord looks down from heaven and he sees the whole human race. From his throne, he observes all who live on the earth. What a picture that God looks down and observes all. The the one who made everything now gazes lovingly all at everything. We we continue verse 15.
He made their hearts so he understands everything they do. Listen now to this description. The best equipped army cannot save a king, nor is a great strength enough to save a warrior. Don't count on your war horse to give you your victory. For all its strength, it cannot save you.
But the Lord watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his unfailing love. He rescues them from death and keeps them alive in times of famine. Verse 20, we put our hope in the Lord. He is our help and our shield. In him, our hearts rejoice for we trust in his holy name.
Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord, for our hope is in you alone. Our hope today is in God alone. By way of reflection, Psalm 33 gives us this image for why we are to praise, and it's that God is the one who created everything. He spoke the world and reality into existence. He placed the stars in the sky.
He gave the boundary lines for the oceans. And then we're told that in light of this God, he he looks down on the world, and then you have all these people who think they're God as well. And they have their plans, they have their power, they have their agenda. And we're told that the Lord frustrates all of their plans, and that only his alone will stand forever. And then we have this caution in verse 16 to be aware of where you put your trust and what you might be relying on today.
We don't rely on the king and his great army. We don't rely on the strength of the warrior or the technology of having a horse in battle. Right? All of those things would have been advantages. And this psalm, I think by way of reflection, helps us to be aware of the ways that maybe today we are relying on human strength.
We're relying on our own knowledge, our own power, our social connections. Maybe we're too shaped and formed by the nation around us and their plans and their power. And so, Jesus, we hear you inviting us today to confess the ways that maybe we were we are relying on our own strength, the ways that we are relying on our own knowledge. And as we confess those things, god, we once again confess and are resolved to put our trust in your unfailing love today. Know that know knowing that you watch over us who fear you.
And so, God, would your unfailing love surround us? And as David confessed, we confess that today our hope is alone in you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.