Archive for September 7, 2012


Sep 7

Creation in the Psalms

2012 | by Trent Hunter | Category: Sermon Preview

This Sunday Ryan will return to his series through the Psalms, Pour Out Your Heart to Him, with the first of three sermons from what are sometimes called, “Creation Psalms.” This kind of psalm draws on the colors, sounds, things, and realities of creation to show us the beauty, majesty, sovereignty, and saving power of the Creator.

For example, consider how Psalm 96 calls on all of creation to praise God, showing the breadth of God’s sovereign and gracious rule:

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord,
for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
and the peoples in his faithfulness.

To help you prepare ahead of each Sunday, here are the texts for the next three weeks:

Everyone lives in God’s world, and everything God made points to him. But we need divine revelation to overcome the hardness of our heart toward the Creator revealed in creation. With that in mind, this would be a great time to invite a friend to join you at church. May God do a great work to glorify him in our church and in the lives of those we bring, to show himself great as Creator, and as Redeemer!

For a refresher on the nature and purpose of the Book of Psalms, here’s an excerpt from the “Introduction to the Psalms” by Jack Collins from the ESV Study Bible.

The Psalter is the songbook of the people of God in their gathered worship.

These songs cover a wide range of experiences and emotions, and give God’s people the words to express these emotions and to bring these experiences before God.

At the same time, the psalms do not simply express emotions: when sung in faith, they actually shape the emotions of the godly. The emotions are therefore not a problem to be solved but are part of the raw material of now-fallen humanity that can be shaped to good and noble ends. The psalms, as songs, act deeply on the emotions, for the good of God’s people. It is not “natural” to trust God in hardship, and yet the Psalms provide a way of doing just that, and enable the singers to trust better as a result of singing them. A person staring at the night sky might not know quite what to do with the mixed fear and wonder he finds in himself, and singing Psalm 8 will enrich his ability to respond.

The Psalms also provide guidance in the approach to worship: at times they offer content that is difficult to digest, calling on God’s people to use their minds as well as their hearts and voices.

They show profound respect for God as well as uninhibited delight in him.

They enable the whole congregation to take upon themselves, to own, the troubles and victories of the individual members, so that everyone can “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15).

They enable God’s people more fully to enjoy being under his care, and to want more keenly to be pure and holy, seeing purity and holiness as part of God’s fatherly gift rather than as a burden.

You can purchase a copy of the ESV Study Bible online or at our newly refreshed Resource Center which will reopen on Sunday, September 16.