(Shared at Trinity Baptist Church, Norman, Sunday night, July 6, 2025)

Many of you know that while I was serving at the First Baptist Church of Angleton, Texas, last August, my wife Cheryl experienced a devastating stroke which left her unable to use her left side. Cheryl & I are very grateful for your pastors, who have encouraged us, and for the prayers this whole church has prayed for us as we’ve gone through this time, and we are so thankful to be back at Trinity. Some of you know us from when we were here ten years ago, from 2013-2015, when I had an illness which had caused me to step down from the pastorate for a couple of years, and this church ministered to us in such a great way then as well. Trinity truly is our home church, and we are so thankful to be back here with you all! 

While Cheryl was in the hospital that first week after her stroke, she told one of the doctors: I am so shocked and so disappointed this happened. She said, I was walking 3 miles every morning; why did that not prevent me from getting a stroke? The doctor told her: “The kind of stroke you had should have either killed you, or left you in a coma. Your walking saved your life.” Cheryl immediately called all her walking friends, and said, “Don’t stop!”  

But upon further reflection, Cheryl later said: “The doctor said my walking saved my life, but God’s word saved me from the darkness” of those horrific months after her stroke. And when she says “God’s word” much of what she is referring to is specifically the Book of Psalms. 

For most of my adult life, if you had asked me, what is my favorite book of the Bible, I would have said Matthew, with the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Great Commission. But over the past 5-6 years, the Book of Psalms has gradually become my greatest treasure; my daily bread. The Psalms have deepened my own personal spiritual life immensely — and I hope to encourage you tonight to use this treasure from God’s word.

I. A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE PSALMS

Many of us know Psalms as “that book in the middle of the Bible” — but we need to know it much better than that. As we do, we will come to know God better, and will also discover that it is one of His most effective practical means of ministry to us, in every kind of difficulty we face. 

The Psalms were written by various human authors: David wrote 73 Psalms, or about half of them; Asaph, the sons of Korah, and Moses wrote some; some do not indicate an author. But whatever human author they have, they are the inspired word of God. Jesus in Matthew 22 said “David, IN THE SPIRIT” wrote Psalm 110. Jesus said in Luke 24:44-45 “that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” — then :45 says “Then He opened their minds to understand the SCRIPTURES.” So these Psalms are inspired Scriptures, the word of God.  

They were written originally as songs — the Hebrew word for Psalm (Mitzmor) means a song sung to musical accompaniment. Many of them carry inscriptions (which are part of the original Hebrew text) which say things like: “for the choir director,” or “to the tune of ‘Lilies’” and so on. So when we are reading the Psalms, we are basically reading song lyrics that the Hebrews used for worship. And of course many of the songs we sing today, come right out of these Biblical Psalms.  But these aren’t “just” song lyrics, but prayers, which teach us how to speak and walk with God.  

There are 150 Psalms — more chapters in than any other book in the Bible — it also has more verses by far than any other book in the Bible. So the Psalms are a rich storehouse of spiritual treasure for us, that we need to take advantage of to grow spiritually.

II. THE VARIETY AND APPLICABILITY OF PSALMS

There are 150 Psalms, as we noted — and there are also so many different types of Psalms: thanksgiving Psalms; praise Psalms; Messianic Psalms; confession Psalms; imprecatory Psalms to pray against your enemies; and even Psalms for when you’re so disappointed in God that you’ve almost lost your faith (see Psalm 73!)  As a result, there is a Psalm for every feeling and event we face in life. 

Tim Keller wrote: “There is no situation or emotion a human being can experience that is not reflected somewhere in the Psalms. Immersing ourselves in the Psalms and turning them into prayers teaches our hearts the ‘grammar’ of prayer and gives us the most formative instruction in how to pray in accord with God’s character and will.” (Timothy Keller, Prayer, p. 255) 

In other words: whatever you are going through in your life, God has a Psalm that will minister to you in your situation! 

So whatever you are going through in life, we can say: “There is a Psalm for that!” God has a Psalm that will speak His word to you and your situation. Cheryl & I have experienced that personally over these last months since her stroke:

— In our darkest hours in the hospital, God used the Psalms to just keep us afloat spiritually, with verses like Psalm 118:1, “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is GOOD (reminding us that He is “good” even in those dark hours!) and His lovingkindness is everlasting.” 

— When we’ve been thankful to see God provide and bless over these last months, we’ve prayed verses like Psalms 116:17 “To You I will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and call upon the name of the LORD.” 

— When we were looking for a new home after I retired from the pastorate and we moved back here from Texas, Psalm 107:30 says “He guided them to their desired haven.” And He did! We love our new home; it is literally “our desired haven” here on earth!

— And as we’ve been waiting to sell our old home, Psalm 37:5 says “Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it!” Every day I’ve been praying this, and it gives me peace that He will indeed do it in His time!

— As we’ve been praying for our grandchildren at formative times in their lives, Psalm 103:17-18 reminds us that “His righteousness (will be) to children’s children to those who keep His covenant, and who remember His precepts, to do them.” 

— Cheryl even insists there is a Psalm for getting your kids to call you back: the other day after one of them didn’t return her phone call, she sent them Psalm 138:3, which says “On the day I called, You answered me”! (That MAY be pressing it a bit …!)

But you get the point: God’s word is all that has gotten us through these last months. Cheryl said that Psalm 119:92 was an anchor for her soul: “If your word had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.” 

So whatever you are going through in your life right now, whatever you are wrestling with, there is a Psalm in God’s word that He will use to help you. I’d encourage you to go home tonight, and start reading or scanning through the Psalms for the one God has to speak to you in this special time. When you find it, read it over and over; pray through it every morning; you’ll end up memorizing it; and when you have, then meditate on it, pray through it every day, and it will remind you of God’s presence and power and His will for your situation. (We’ll talk some more about meditating on the Psalms in just a moment.)

But whatever you are going through, remember: “There’s a Psalm for that!”

III. THE PSALMS & PRAYER

One of the best things the Psalms do, is to teach us how to pray. Prayer is one of the most important elements of the Christian life — but it can also be one of the most puzzling and difficult things to do well. Few people feel like they really know how to pray well. Remember how Jesus’ disciples came to Him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” They knew they needed help in their prayer life. We do too, don’t we?

Well this is what the Psalms do: they teach us to pray. Most of these Psalms ARE prayers; they are addressed to God. And so as we read them, we learn about how to pray:

— we learn about different types of prayer: praise, thanksgiving, confession, and so on. 

— we learn how to shape our prayers: what all kinds of things should we talk to God about when we pray?

— we learn the vocabulary of prayer: how do we address God; what kind of names we should use when we talk to Him; how do we frame our prayer when we ask for forgiveness; on what basis do we make our requests, and so on. So as we read and study Psalms, we learn a lot about how to pray better in just a general way.

But I believe we can also use the Psalms in a very specific way to strengthen our prayer life. Years ago I learned something that revolutionized my prayer life: I believe it was from reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones book on The Sermon on the Mount. In it, he said we should consider we call “The Lord’s Prayer” or “The Model Prayer,” as an OUTLINE for our praying: I don’t have time to go into this in depth tonight, but basically he was teaching that the  6 requests of the Model Prayer, give us a 6-point outline of what God wants us to talk to Him about when we pray. Thus:

— We should begin our prayers with praise: “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” 

— Then we should pray for His Kingdom work before we pray for our own concerns; then pray for His will to be done.

— Then we see that there IS a place for us to bring our needs to Him: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

— Then the outline ends with a time for us to confess our sins (“Forgive us our debts …”) and pray for spiritual protection for ourselves and our loved ones.

Using this outline changed my prayer life from about 5-10 minutes a day, to where  it’s easy to pray for an hour or more. (Maybe I’ll share some more about this outline another time.)

But regardless of that teaching on the Model Prayer as an outline, many Scriptures both model and teach that we should begin our prayers with praise: 

— We see that not only in the Model Prayer, but also in places like:

— Psalm 100:4, which famously teaches us: “Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise.” 

— And many recorded prayers in scripture begin with praise.

So most of us know we should begin our prayers with praise; that’s nothing new. But just HOW do we do that? Most of us would admit, we don’t know how to praise God as we should. Confessing sins is easy; we have so many! Asking requests is easy; we know what we want. But how do we praise God adequately? THE PSALMS TEACH US HOW TO DO THAT!

The Psalms repeatedly teach us to praise God using: His word (including and especially the Psalms), with thanksgiving, and with singing. For example, Psalm 95:1-2 says:

“O come, let us SING for joy to the Lord,
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.

2 Let us come before His presence with THANKSGIVING,
Let us shout joyfully to Him with PSALMS.”

Psalm 95 says we should 

— Shout joyfully to Him with PSALMS

— Come before His presence with THANKSGIVING

— And SING for joy to the Lord.

So here are at least THREE BIBLICAL ELEMENTS we can use to praise God:  Psalms, Singing, and Thanksgiving.

All three of these are found numerous times in the Psalms.

This gives us a great outline to use to praise God as we begin our prayers: 

— Read a Psalm

— Sing a Song

— Say some Thanks

“Psalm/Song/Thanks” — any of us can do that — and it is a great way to begin our prayers with praise.

Don Whitney of our Midwestern Baptist Seminary in Kansas City, once wrote a great article on “How To Feel Like Praying.” He said most of us would admit, that often we don’t always “feel” like going to prayer. He wrote that even George Muller, a great man of faith and prayer, admitted that he used to feel this way often. But Muller wrote that “I scarcely ever suffer now in this way” — and he went on to describe how he now began his prayer time by meditating on a scripture, and praying through it; that this “primed the pump” if you would, and brought him into a spirit of prayer. Whitney suggests the Psalms are a good way to start our prayers in the way that Muller found so helpful.

For the last number of years, this is how I have begun my prayer time every day, using the Psalms:

— I start by reading or quoting/praying a Psalm (or 2-3) to God,

— then I will sing a song of praise to God that that the Psalms brought to mind

— then I will spend time just giving thanks to God.

For EXAMPLE: I might start my prayer time by reading or quoting Psalm 103, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord O my soul, and forget none of His benefits, who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion …” and all the rest of the Psalm.

THEN after I’ve read or quoted that Psalm in prayer, I’ll sing a song that Psalm brought to mind. For example there’s several songs that come from Psalm 103, right? “Bless the Lord, O my soul …” (2 or 3 different versions of that) and many others. So I’ll sing one or two songs that Psalm reminded me of.  (And remember that singing is praying! Singing is some of the best praying we can do — IF we are singing “TO the Lord” as the scripture commands us.)

THEN after the Psalm, and singing, I’ll spend some time in THANKSGIVING: 

— I typically start by reviewing the day before, from morning to evening, just giving thanks to God for everything good I can think of from the day: thank You for the time I had with You yesterday, thank You for the work I was able to accomplish, thank you for the family time I enjoyed, thank you for our new house — every blessing I enjoyed from the day before. But a lot of times those are temporal-type blessings, so then I’ll move on to thanking God for SPIRITUAL blessings: for Christ, for the cross, for His grace and forgiveness, for the glory that awaits us with Him; for His patience He expresses towards me; for His word; on and on.

So I begin with a Psalm (or 2 or 3!), and by singing a song (or 2 or 3!) and then a time of thanksgiving — “PSALM/SONG/THANKS” — it’s a great way to start a prayer time. 

And remember: this is only the beginning of the prayer time — this is just the “Hallowed Be Thy Name” part — “Part 1” of Lloyd-Jones’ 6 requests of the Model Prayer — so it is not very difficult from there to end up praying for an hour or more if you follow all 6 points of the outline — NOT that it’s all about how much time we pray; God’s not sitting up there with a stopwatch! — but surely we want to learn to extend and deepen our time with God — with the primary goal of knowing and experiencing Him in a greater way, as we shall see. The Psalms can help us to do that — as we let them guide us to “enter His gates with thanksgiving” and praise every day. The Psalms can help revolutionize and revitalize our prayer life.

IV. MEDITATING ON THE PSALMS

We all know that scripture memory is important, and the Psalms are some of the best scriptures we can memorize and meditate on.

— Psalm 119:97 is a special verse to me: “O how I love Your Law; it is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.”

We can keep God’s commandments “with us” all the time, by memorizing them: like Psalm 119 says in :11, “Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.” 

But we need to realize that scripture memory is not an end in itself. Once we have memorized scriptures, we are then to meditate on those scriptures throughout the day.

Now we need to understand that “Christian meditation” is NOT like the world’s imitation of it. It’s not like Hindu Transcendental Meditation (TM), where they seek to “empty their mind” by repeating a syllable like “omm” over and over until they achieve a state of enlightenment.  Christian meditation is not emptying our mind, but rather FILLING our mind with God’s word. The Hebrew word for “meditation” means to “mutter” — it’s the picture of a person who is mouthing verses they’ve memorized, as they review them and think about the meaning of those scriptures. Meditating on God’s word is one of the most powerful, and life-changing things we can do:

— Remember the “blessed man” of Psalm 1 is the man who “meditates in His word day and night.” It is the person who meditates in God’s word who will be like a tree that is firmly planted by rivers of water, and who succeeds in everything that he does. Meditating on scripture is powerful and life-changing. I can share personally that meditating on scripture has been one the best things I have ever done to strengthen my spiritual life. 

When you meditate on scripture, it lifts you up into the presence of God, and helps you see and feel things from His perspective, as you let His word flow through your mind and heart.

I remember vividly the first time this really became effective in my own life. I was in college, and was on a mission trip to Europe. We had spent the day in Paris, and it was so dirty, not only physically, but morally, and I found my emotions just sinking lower and lower. At one point I sat down depressed on the curb of one of the streets, and with nothing else to do, I began to review James 1, which I had just memorized: “James, a bondservant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes who are dispersed abroad, Greetings! Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance …” and as I quoted and thought about those words, the Holy Spirit started using them to lift me up, until by the time I got to :12, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of righteousness, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him” — now instead of being depressed, I was just soaring spiritually! Meditating on God’s word had lifted me out of that depression.

This is the testimony Cheryl & I had while we were in the hospital in Galveston after her stroke. We’d left home in a rush, of course; as she was taken in an ambulance to Jenny Sealy Hospital. We didn’t have all our “stuff;” and even once we were there, our schedule was not our own. Ever since Bill Elliff and Steve Bushey were with us at First Baptist Harrah in high school, Cheryl & I have always had our “daily quiet time” no matter what, but for one of the first times in our lives it was virtually impossible for us to have that time in the hospital. But we did have God’s word in our hearts and minds. And in the middle of the night, or at the first light of dawn that woke us up, we could quote and meditate on verses that we had memorized, to feed us and keep us going spiritually. I had just memorized Psalms 116 and 118 earlier that year, so I quoted and prayed through those two chapters every day, and they kept me close to the Lord, and reminded me to “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting,” and “In my trouble, I called upon the LORD; the Lord answered me and set me in a large place.” Cheryl quoted and prayed and meditated on all kinds of verses that she had memorized as well.

This is what Cheryl meant when she said “God’s word saved me from the darkness.” In those darkest days of our lives — and they were the darkest we have ever experienced — Cheryl paralyzed on her left side from the stroke, we thought at first that we had also been ruined financially because of our insurance situation — it was just the darkest time we had ever been through, and we’ve been through some difficult times — but we had God’s word, and especially the Psalms in our hearts, and God used them more than He ever had before to keep us close to Him, and to bring us through the devastating darkness of those days. 

It is just like Cheryl said from Psalm 119:92, “If your word had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.” Meditating on His word, saved us from the darkness of that time, and drew us closer to God — which leads us to our last point tonight:

V. THE PSALMS AND OUR GREATEST GOOD: GOD HIMSELF

Psalm 16, one of my favorite Psalms, says: “I said to YHWH, You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.” God is our greatest good — our ultimate source of peace and pleasure and joy — and the Psalms repeatedly remind us of that, and point us to Him.

Just a few weeks ago, Bill Elliff shared this quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Facebook:

“The ultimate test of my understanding of the scriptural teaching, is the amount of time I spend in prayer. As theology is ultimately the knowledge of God — the more theology I know, the more it should drive me to seek to know God. Not to know ‘about’ Him — but to know Him! The whole object of salvation is to bring me to knowledge of God. If all my knowledge does not lead me to prayer, then there is something wrong somewhere.”

This is what the Psalms help us do: they not only teach us “facts” about God; they teach us about God Himself; how glorious He is; how gracious He is; how to talk to Him and experience Him every day in prayer.

The Psalms point us to God and His glory as our greatest good, and our ultimate desire:

— Psalm 16:11 “In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” Where can we find joy; where can we find pleasure — not the “fleeting pleasures” of the world, but eternal pleasures that will never fade? It is “In His presence,” Psalm 16 says. 

— Psalm 17:15 “As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake.” God’s likeness, His glory, will satisfy us completely, on that day when we “awake” in His presence.

— Psalm 96:6 “Splendor and majesty are before Him,
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.” These are the very things people crave — and this verse says they are found “before Him”! 

— Psalm 149:2 & :4 gives us a picture of our relationship with God: “Let Israel be glad in his Maker, let the sons of Zion rejoice in their King … for the LORD takes pleasure in His people.” We rejoice in God; He takes pleasure in us. 

The Psalms help us to understand that what C.S. Lewis wrote about in Mere Christianity is true:

“God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.”  (Mere Christianity)

We were “made to run on God” — this is just what the whole mad world is missing. Like Romans 1 says, they’ve “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God” for all kinds of cheap substitutes, that never satisfy them. Like Psalm 42 says, “My soul thirsts for GOD, for the living GOD; when shall I come and appear before GOD”! It’s “GOD — GOD — GOD” that our souls thirst for! 

As Psalm 107 says: “He satisfies the thirsty soul, and the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.” And that greatest “good” is God Himself.  And that’s where the Psalms point us.

In 1867, Mark Twain took a steamboat trip to Europe and the Holy Land, and his book The Innocents Abroad, details the highlights of the trip, one of which was the Cathedral in Milan, Italy.  Twain said, “We were dying to see the renowned Cathedral.” He was not disappointed. He wrote:

“What a wonder it is ! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so it seems in the soft moonlight only a fairy delusion of frost-work that might vanish with a breath! How sharply its pinnacled angles and its shadows fell upon its snowy roof! It was a vision! —a miracle! — an anthem sung in stone, a poem wrought in marble!  

“Howsoever you look at the great Cathedral, it is noble, it is beautiful. Wherever you stand in Milan, or within seven miles of Milan, it is visible—and when it is visible, no other object can chain your attention. Leave your eyes unfettered by your will but a single instant, and they will surely turn to seek it. It is the first thing you look for when you rise in the morning, and the last your lingering gaze rests upon at night.  Surely, it must be the princeliest creation that ever brain of man conceived.”

(Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, pp. 144-147)

I’ve known people who have visited the Cathedral of Milan; looking at pictures of it, I can understand the superlatives; it looks like a bit of heaven come down to earth. It is indeed glorious. But there is a far greater glory. If a man-made object like the Cathedral of Milan can, in Twain’s words “chain our attention” here on earth — how much more will the glory of God in heaven, “chain our attention” to Himself, day and night, forever and ever. Even now, His glory should be, in Twain’s words, “the first thing we look for in the morning, and the last our lingering gaze rests upon at night.” 

THIS is the beauty and glory of the Psalms. This is the treasure we find in these songs: more than anything else, they point us to the One who is our greatest good, our only hope, the “one thing” we all seek; the True Pearl of Greatest Price. So let’s seek God in these Psalms every morning, and taste His glory there every day, until we feast on it face to face; where, as Psalm 16 promises: “In Your presence there is fullness of joy; and in Your right hand there are pleasures forever”!