Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
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 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.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: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 12, as we continue praying the Psalms, David writes this in verse 1. Help, oh, Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I'm sure many of us have felt like that. The faithful have vanished from the earth. Neighbors lie to each other, speaking with flattery lips and deceitful hearts. May the Lord cut off their flattery lips and silence their boastful tongues. They will say, we will lie to our hearts content.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Our lips are our own. Who can stop us? Verse 5, the Lord replies, I have seen violence done to the helpless, and I have heard the groans of the poor. Now I will rise up to rescue them as they have longed for me to do. The Lord's promises are pure, like silver refined in a furnace, purified 7 times over.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Therefore, lord, we know you will protect the oppressed, preserving them forever from this lying generation, even though the wicked strut about and evil is praised throughout the land. By way of reflection, I think it's important for us to notice the comparison that David offers us today in Psalm 12, comparing both the words of his neighbors, the words of those around him, and the words of god. He opens with a very natural and common feeling that we might have. The godly have disappeared. Like, where where is everyone who is faithful?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Can I trust anyone today? It is not uncommon for any one of us to wake up and to feel as though I can't trust a single person or what they say. Not the the neighbors are lying. And he calls on God to deal with them, but then we see this sharp comparison in verse 5 and down into 6 where he says the Lord's promises are pure. They are like silver refined in a furnace, 7 times over.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's a process in which there is a there is a trustworthiness to God's words. There's a value and awakeness to what he says. And so it's natural for us to be feeling as though we can't trust anyone or anything, especially in this modern world of information we live in today where we scroll constantly, where we doubt people in authority, and it's hard to know what is true. What hope we have today, to not withdraw into pessimism, feeling as though, man, we can't possibly know the truth, everyone's getting it wrong, But to withdraw into the faithfulness of God and to withdraw into the fact that his words, his promises even, David says, they are pure. They are pure.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so, Jesus, as we respond to you now, we hear you inviting us to trust your words. Man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from your mouth. And so, god, as we face our day today, we recognize the feeling that, man, it's hard to find people of integrity around us. Even the faithful ones seem to disappear. But, god, let us not lose hope and let us cling to your word for life and for a sense of direction today.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Grace and peace. Up next, we have Psalm 13. K.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Cut. I don't know why I hold it. Is it like cut. Like, I could just keep talking.