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.
Dani Crowley: Let's continue our journey through the Psalms by reading Psalms 52 today. It says, why do you boast about your crimes, great warrior? Do you realize God's justice continues forever? All day long, you plot destruction. Your tongue cuts like a sharp razor.
You're an expert at telling lies. You love evil more than good and lies more than truth. You love to destroy others with your words, you liar. But God will strike you down once and for all. He will pull you from your home and uproot you from the land of the living.
The righteous will see it and be amazed. They will laugh and say, look at what happens to mighty warriors who do not trust in God. They trust their wealth instead and grow more and more bold in their wickedness. But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I will always trust in God's unfailing love.
I will praise you forever, oh Lord, for what you have done. I will trust in your good name, in the presence of your faithful people. Now we read these words, and to be honest, they sound a little bit dramatic and a little bit cutting or biting. But I think it's important to know that David was actually under he was in a real threat. He was in real danger.
People were out to kill him. And, his his anger, his rage, his, I think natural human nature to want to defend himself. We see that come out in this Psalm. But I love how it ends with that. He doesn't actually take it into his own hands.
He says, but the Lord, I trust in the Lord. And we see the psalmist say that his defense does not come from his own ability to protect himself or fight for himself, but what in the Lord can do for him. And I think that's an important word for us because you might not have somebody who, wants to kill you, hopefully not. But we find ourselves oftentimes in real danger where there's a threat to maybe even our own emotional security or relational security. And it's so easy to take up our own control.
But let these words be a reminder for us that our refuge comes from the lord, from his defense over us. He protects us. He watches over us, and he's our defense. And we can stand tall, like David says, like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God, even in the midst of danger when we know that the Lord is our refuge and our strength. So Lord, we say thank you for the ways that you love us through your care and your protection.
And Lord, I ask that you would remind us in the moments when we try to pick up our own defenses, God, that you are our strength, that you are our refuge, that you are the one that we run to, that we hide ourselves within you. And you are strong and you protect us. So Lord, would would these words bring peace to us today and especially for those who maybe find themselves in a moment where they feel under attack. God, that they would find hope in your salvation, in your refuge, god, in your protection and provision over their life. And I pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.