Prayers that Stick – Just Sayin
Sycamore Creek Church
March 11, 2012
Tom Arthur
Psalm 103

Peace Friends!

Do you ever find yourself saying, “I’m just sayin”?  We use this as a phrase that means that we’re actually not “just sayin.”  We are intending to mean something more, something deeper, but we’re a little uncomfortable with what we’re saying so we soften it by saying, “Just sayin.”  Today we begin a series on prayer, and we’re going to see how our words of prayer point to something deeper, something more profound, something that if we’re honest, we’re not always comfortable with.  Just sayin.

This four week series is going to be exploring the book of Psalms.  The book of Psalms is the prayer book of the Bible.  It’s easy to find.  Just open up to the middle of your Bible and nine out of ten times you find it.  The prayers found in the book of Psalms are in the form of Hebrew poetry.  Keep that in mind whenever you read the psalms.  It’s poetry.  That means it has multiple levels of meaning.  It’s not always super simple to tease out which level of meaning you’re on.  For example, because these are prayers, we often learn more about the person praying than we do about God.  The prayers of the Psalms are gritty and raw and honest.  All the junk comes out, and sometimes I’d like to stick that junk in a closet where no one can see it.  So we’ve got multiple levels going on here in this poetry: learning about what the psalmist is feeling, learning what we’re feeling, and learning something about God.  But the first two are sometimes more apparent than the last.  Just sayin.

Over the course of this series we’re going to look at prayers of praise (Just sayin), prayers of wonder of creation (OMG), prayers of lament and cursing (CRAP), and prayers of confession (DUH).  These are prayers that stick.  They stick to you and they stick to God.  So let’s dive in to prayers of praise, Just Sayin, and see what sticks.

The Hebrew name for the book of Psalms is Tehellim, which means praises.  So we’re going to start with a praise psalm, Psalm 103.  But keep in mind that while these are the kinds of psalms that we usually think of in the book of Psalms, praises are the least common kind of prayer in the Psalms.  There are more laments in the psalms than praises (but that’s week three).

Psalm 103 teaches us how to praise God, and in it we see that praise includes two aspects: thanksgiving and adoration.  Thanksgiving has to do with praising God for what God does, while adoration has to do with praising God for who God is.  Thanksgiving = what God does.  Adoration = who God is.  Let’s read Psalm 103 and look for both.

Psalm 103 NLT

Praise the LORD, I tell myself;
with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, I tell myself,
and never forget the good things he does for me.
He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
He ransoms me from death
and surrounds me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
The LORD gives righteousness
and justice to all who are treated unfairly.
He revealed his character to Moses
and his deeds to the people of Israel.
The LORD is merciful and gracious;
he is slow to get angry and full of unfailing love.
He will not constantly accuse us,
nor remain angry forever.
He has not punished us for all our sins,
nor does he deal with us as we deserve.
For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
He has removed our rebellious acts
as far away from us as the east is from the west.
The LORD is like a father to his children,
tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
For he understands how weak we are;
he knows we are only dust.
Our days on earth are like grass;
like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
The wind blows, and we are gone —
as though we had never been here.
But the love of the LORD remains forever
with those who fear him.
His salvation extends to the children’s children
of those who are faithful to his covenant,
of those who obey his commandments!

The LORD has made the heavens his throne;
from there he rules over everything.
Praise the LORD, you angels of his,
you mighty creatures who carry out his plans,
listening for each of his commands.
Yes, praise the LORD, you armies of angels
who serve him and do his will!
Praise the LORD, everything he has created,
everywhere in his kingdom.
As for me — I, too, will praise the LORD.

Thanksgiving

Did you see the praise of thanksgiving for what God does, God’s activity, in Psalm 103?  In verse two the prayer begins with a command to oneself: “Do not forget all God’s benefits.”   What are those benefits?  Here’s a list from the psalm:

v3. God forgives & heals

v4. God ransoms us & surrounds us with love and mercy

v5. God fills us with good things

v6. God watches out for the oppressed

v8. God is merciful & gracious to us

v8. God is slow to anger & full of unfailing love.

Just sayin: Praise God for what God does!

Have you ever tried to list everything you’re thankful for?  Every once in a while I’ve tried to make an exhaustive list of everything I’m thankful for.  It usually runs into four or more single-spaced typed pages.  I usually get tired of the exercise before I finish it.  It’s like those times when you ask a child to pray and they begin listing all the things they are thankful for, “God, thank you for my mom and my dad.  For my stuffed animals.  For my books.  For my bike.  For my barn toy house.  For my play phone.  For my sled.  For my Frisbee…”  And on and on it goes.

Jews tend to be more imaginative than we are when it comes to thanking God.  Some years ago I came across this prayer in a Jewish prayer book:

Blessed are you, O Lord, King of the Universe, who formed humankind with wisdom, and created in them many orifices and passages.  It is revealed and known before your throne of glory, that if one of them were open, or one of them were shut, then it would be impossible to exist and to stand before you.  Blessed are you, O Lord, Healer of all flesh, who does wondrously.

Now that’s a serious prayer.  It is funny, especially the “throne of glory” part, but it’s serious.  Have you ever sat next to the bedside of someone in the hospital who wasn’t passing gas?  I have.  It is no fun.  Thank you God for holy flatulence!

Just sayin: Praise God for what God does!

While we are praising God for what God does, let’s not forget the most important thing God does for us: he forgives us our sins.  We read in verse twelve that God removes our “rebellious acts” (our intentional crossing of lines) as far as East (literally the “sunrise”) is from the West (literally the “sunset”).  “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Just sayin: Praise God for what God does!

Adoration

But why does God do what God does?  God does what God does because of who God is.  God’s actions arise out of God’s character, God’s being, God’s essence.  Think about it this way: a tree bears apples because it is an apple tree.  An oak is not going to bear apples no matter how much it wants to.  The fruit of God’s actions come out of God’s character, being, and essence.

Just sayin: Praise God for God!

Psalm 103 begins right off the bat with adoration.  We read in verse one: I will praise his holy name.  Now we’re talking about who God is.  God is holy.  God is so holy that even God’s name is holy.

Just sayin: Praise God for God!

Several years ago A.J. Jacobs, an editor-at-large for Esquire Magazine and non-practicing Jew, wrote a book titled, The Year of Living Biblically.  He attempted to follow literally every command of the Bible for a year.  It is a wonderful book full of all kinds of humor and insight.  When he came to the Psalms he found himself having a hard time with praising and adoring God.  He could do the whole thanksgiving thing, but adoration seemed so foreign to him.  Some of this may have to do with an image we have of heaven that tends to seem more like hell than heaven: 24/7 harps and singing for infinity.  Well, that’s not what I think heaven will be like, but that’s probably our primary image of adoration.  But there may be another issue at work here too, but I want to come back to that later.  In the meantime, as we walk through praise of adoration, perhaps you will struggle like Jacobs.  So hang on.  I’m going to come back to this problem again at the end.

Thomas Merton in his book, Praying the Psalms, writes:

If we have no real interest in praising [God], it shows that we have never realized who [God] is. For when one becomes conscious of who God really is, and when one realizes that [God] who is almighty, and infinitely holy, has ‘done great things to us,’ the only possible reaction is the cry of half-articulate exultation that bursts from the depths of our being in amazement at the tremendous, inexplicable goodness of God to [humanity].

Just sayin: Praise God for God!

So let’s go a little deeper into who God is.  The first thing anyone runs into who tries to describe who God is is a lack of words.  God is indescribable.  God is inexpressible.  It is sometimes easier to say what God is not than say what God is.  When Moses asked God who he was, God responded with, “I am what I am” (Exodus 3:14).  Oh, that clears everything up.  Right?

Thomas Aquinas is one of the two greatest thinkers in all of church history.  He wrote prolifically about God.  His greatest work called the “Summa Theologica” or “Summary of Words about God” was going along just fine with five volumes, when he had a vision of God while in worship.  He was unable to finish his work and considered it a “pile of straw.”  So whenever we begin to talk about who God is, we must approach this with a kind of humility.  If everything Thomas had written was a pile of straw in comparison to the real thing, then what will our words about God be?

And yet, there have been some things that Christians over the centuries have found as anchor points for talking about God.  First, God is unique.  There is nothing like God.  Isaiah, the ancient prophet, says, “For I am God, I alone! I am God, and there is no one else like me” (Isaiah  46:9 NLT).

Second, God is transcendent.  “Transcendent” literally means to climb across or above.  Have you ever been climbing up a mountain and felt like you were just at the top but then realized it was a false summit and you had more to climb.  God is like that.  Every time we think we have reached the top, we are only at a false summit.  There is always more.  Psalm 113 says, “The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens” (113:4 NLT).

Third, God is One.  God is utterly simple.  There are no parts and there is no division.  God is not a yin and yang, part good and part evil.  God is one.  The great Jewish proclamation called “The Shema” (literally “Hear”) comes from Deuteronomy 6:4 which says, “Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

And yet, while Christians hold that God is one, we also hold that God is three.  God is one God in three persons, the Trinity.  There is a dynamic relationship within the very being of who God is.  God’s essence of oneness is not static.  It is sometimes a little hard to wrap our minds around this so some metaphors, while they will break down at some point, are helpful.  God is three and one like a triangle, which has three sides but is one object.  God is three and one like speech, which has a speaker, words, and breath, but is one thing, speech.  God is three and one like fire, which has a flame, heat, and light.  God the Father is the source of all things.  The Son is the Word or mind of God become flesh.  The Spirit is the friendship that the Father and son share.  So when we say “praise God for God,” this is the God we mean: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

What Christians ultimately want to affirm about God is that within the very being of God is loving community. The Father loves the Son in the Spirit.  Thus, lastly, God is love (John 4:8).  But God is love because God is Trinity: one God in three persons.  Love always includes a relationship, and within the very being of God is a relationship of love.

We read about this love in several places in Psalm 103.  The Hebrew word here is important: Hesed.  It means “steadfast love” or “loving kindness.”  It is God’s unconditional love for us.  God “crowns you with hesed” (103:4), is “abounding in hesed” (103:8), is “so great is his hesed” (103:11), and “the hesed of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting” (103:17). One author summarizes God as “A burning, inexhaustible, unwavering, loving determination” (Michael Ward in Heresies and How to Avoid Them).

Just sayin: Praise God for God!

So back to AJ Jacobs and his struggle with adoring God.  I wonder if that struggle doesn’t come out of this reality.  Adoration is always a function of a loving relationship.  I have no problem adoring my son because I love him.  I have no trouble stating exactly what he is.  He is my son.  He is made in the image of God.  He is beautiful beyond what I can describe.  He is mine, but even more so he is God’s.  I praise and adore him for who he is because I love him.

Perhaps Jacobs had a hard time praising God in adoration because he has not yet entered into that unfailing, loving friendship that the Father and Son share in the Spirit.  That community of who God is in God’s very being is always beckoning us, always wooing us, always yearning for us to join in.  Have you responded to that invitation?  Have you joined in the love that God shares within God’s very own self?  What’s stopping you?  You need not do anything to prepare yourself, because you will never be able to fully prepare yourself.  God’s love is unconditional, unfailing, and never ending.  Will you join it?

Just sayin: Praise God for what God does, but even more so, praise God for who God is!