Pastor Fredo Ramos: Today, continue praying the Psalms, and we come to Psalm 120. I took my troubles to the Lord. I cried out to him, and he answered my prayer. Rescue me, o Lord, from liars and from all deceitful people. O deceptive tongue, what will God do to you?
How will he increase your punishment? You will be pierced with sharp arrows and burned with glowing, coals. How I suffer in far off Masheq, It pains me to live in distant Qadar. I am tired of living among people who hate peace. I search for peace.
But when I speak of peace, they want war. What a Psalm. Psalm one twenty, if you don't know, is the first psalm of the songs of ascent. The songs of ascent would have been psalms and prayers prayed by the people Jerusalem. As they ascend essentially towards Jerusalem for their annual worship or their biannual worship, they would have rehearsed these songs of ascent.
And one twenty is the first of them. And by way of reflection, I love at first in verse one, I took my troubles to the Lord. Today, where will you take your troubles? Where will you take your issues? More specifically, I love that this Psalm bears witness to the feelings of frustration that often come when we work for peace as Jesus taught us to do in the beatitudes, blessed are the peacemakers, and yet we get more hostility in a response.
Verse seven, I search for peace, but when I speak of peace, they want war. In other words, there is just that glaring reality that in today's world, even in the ancient world, despite our best efforts to be godly, to work for peace, people will still respond with more hostility, more conflict towards you. And yet I love that the psalmist returns to God the right to be just and to operate with vengeance. He says, oh, deceptive tongue,
Pastor Fredo Ramos: what will God do to you?
Pastor Fredo Ramos: Notice it's not what
Pastor Fredo Ramos: I'm gonna do to you,
Pastor Fredo Ramos: but there's a there's a a handing over through prayer, acknowledging the frustration that there's conflict. There's a handing that over to God saying, man, what will God do to you? Right? This is an important kind of humble surrender that God alone knows what is fair, what is right, and he will be just. And so many of us today as we begin our days realize that even though we work for peace, we still are surrounded by conflict.
And I'm reminded of the words of Jesus who said, in the way that they treated the teacher, how much more will they treat the student the same way? Right? In other words, Jesus embodied peace everywhere he went and yet oftentimes it still resulted in even more suffering. This oftentimes is the path the Christian takes. This oftentimes is the road ahead for us.
Part of carrying our cross, part of following Jesus means remaining faithful and peaceful even in the face of more conflict. And so Jesus, we hear you now inviting us to respond in prayer. Just to maybe name the frustrations we see and have in the world today. That despite our best efforts in working towards peace and searching for peace, people still want war. They still want that beef.
They still want that drama. And we want to respond as Jesus would. Not how our old self would, not how old Fredo would, but how the new person is and how you're making me to be peaceful. And so God, we open our hands, we open our hearts and we pray that as we give to you our troubles, as we give to you our conflicts, you would continue to make us the kind of people who work for peace. Blessed are the peacemakers you said Jesus.
So would you make us that now we pray in your name. Amen.