This Sunday is Psalm 103 and week three of this year’s Christ in the Psalms. In this ongoing series, we’ve gone psalm-by-psalm through about ten psalms per year, dating back to 2012.
Our artwork for Psalm 103 is an acrylic & ink piece by Beth Dreyer. See the piece and read about the art and artist here! To learn more about the weekly Christ in the Psalms artwork pieces and see them all (they go back as far as Psalm 41!), click here.
Here’s how you can prepare for this Sunday!
1. Read our text, Psalm 103.
See passage
Of David.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless His holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
The Lord works righteousness
and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known His ways to Moses,
His acts to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will He keep His anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does He remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to His children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him.
For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him,
and His righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep His covenant
and remember to do His commandments.
The Lord has established His throne in the heavens,
and His kingdom rules over all.
Bless the Lord, O you His angels,
you mighty ones who do His word,
obeying the voice of His word!
Bless the Lord, all His hosts,
His ministers, who do His will!
Bless the Lord, all His works,
in all places of His dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
In Psalm 103, David begins by calling his soul three times to bless God and not forget His benefits. He spends the vast majority of the psalm reminding his forgetful soul of all God is and all He has done, both for himself personally and for the people of God. This psalm has much to teach us today about our personal practice of worship and also invites us to take a fresh look at Jesus and all the ways He fulfilled this psalm.
2. Read, pray, and sing through the service:
Don’t use Spotify? Click the song title below to see song on YouTube.
CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 103:1–5:
See passage
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless hHs holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Is He Worthy? (Andrew Peterson, Ben Shive arr. Shane & Shane)
CONFESSION: From The Worship Sourcebook:
Merciful God,
in Your gracious presence
we confess our sin and the sin of this world.
Although Christ is among us as our peace,
we are a people divided against ourselves
as we cling to the values of a broken world.
The profit and pleasures we pursue
lay waste the land and pollute the seas.
The fears and jealousies that we harbor
set neighbor against neighbor
and nation against nation.
We abuse Your good gifts of imagination and freedom,
of intellect and reason,
and turn them into bonds of oppression.
Lord, have mercy upon us;
heal and forgive us.
Set us free to serve You in the world
as agents of Your reconciling love in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Yet Even Now (Joel Limpic) / The Medicine (Dee Wilson)
ASSURANCE OF PARDON: Psalm 103:10–13
See passage
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does He remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him.
PASSING THE PEACE
What is Passing the Peace?
(Click to Read)
(Click to Read)
When we’ve met as a large group on Sundays, we’ve always had a time of greeting one another after singing. Many churches call this time “passing the peace.” In some church traditions, one person will say to another, “The peace of Christ be with you” to which the other person responds, “And also with you.”
While potentially unfamiliar for some, we felt that “passing the peace” during greeting times at home could be a powerful act in this age marked by very little external peace. In Isaiah 9, Jesus is described as the Prince of Peace. He wants His kingdom to be marked by this very peace! We want to “pass” to one another this peace that only Jesus can give, especially at a time like this.
It might feel a bit cheesy, but we encourage you to actually pray the peace of God over each other during our times. We encourage you to look into each other’s eyes as you say, “The peace of Christ be with you!” and have others respond with, “And also with you.” Be open-hearted to Jesus, asking Him to fill you with His peace.
SERMON & COMMUNION
O Praise The Name (Anástasis) (Benjamin Hastings, Marty Sampson, Dean Ussher)
BENEDICTION
Learn more about Christ in the Psalms weekly artwork and see previous pieces here.
Person: Beth Dreyer
I am a Chicago-raised transplant that has been living in Denver for seven years. I graduated from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska with a B.F.A. in Studio Art and have been teaching elementary art in the public school system for nine years. I have been married to my husband, Adam Dreyer, for 6 years, and am a mom of a busy (almost) three-year old, Ramona, and a 4-month old, Nolan. I am a lover of the outdoors and feel most myself when I meet with God in the midst of His beautiful creation (with the people I love most, of course!).
Piece: Acrylic & Ink
In Psalm 103, David praises God specifically for His goodness and faithfulness in response to creation. Throughout the psalm, many characteristics and actions of God stick out—“forgives,” “heals,” “redeems,” “satisfies,” “justice,” “merciful,” “slow to anger,” and “compassion.” God is worthy of all praise! Our God loves us tangibly and fully. We can rest in Him, knowing that in love, He forgives sin and heals us from sin’s devastating effects on our lives (v.3), brings good out of evil (v.4-5), and ultimately will bring justice as He fights for us (v.6-7). In verse 13, God is referenced as a father, “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him.” To me, the image of God as “Father”‘ is one of the most beautiful. As someone who did not have the best relationship with their earthly father, Psalm 103 is a reminder that our Father in Heaven knows us to our core (v.13-14) and that He wants us to know Him deeply in return.
This painting first focuses on the brokenness of the world—the reality of man’s sinful desire to grasp and hold onto the things we think are important. These things are but dust and hold no weight in the Kingdom of Heaven (v.15-16). The hands on the shoulders are a symbol of the Lord’s compassion toward us as our Father and the gentle discipline for His children when we sin and attempt to find satisfaction in things of this world. As believers, we can instead rest in our covenant relationship with the Lord through the work of Jesus. Praise God for knowing us! Praise God for not dealing with us according to our sins (v.10)! Praise God for His benefits! Praise God for forgiveness, restoration, and peace!
We’re in the third week of this year’s Christ in the Psalms. We’ll be in Psalm 102. During every week of this annual series, an artist in our community creates a piece based out of the Psalm we’re studying on that particular Sunday. This week’s artwork for Psalm 102 is an acrylic painting by Margie Keith. See the piece and read about the art and artist here! To see all Christ in the Psalms artwork pieces (they go back as far as Psalm 41!), click here.
Also, one more reminder about our Summer Prayer Practices: praying the psalms daily and prayer walking weekly. Read more about those practices here! Here’s how you can prepare for this Sunday, June 21:
1. Read our text, Psalm 102.
See passage
A Prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the Lord.
Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry come to You!
Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress!
Incline Your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call!
For my days pass away like smoke,
and my bones burn like a furnace.
My heart is struck down like grass and has withered;
I forget to eat my bread.
Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my flesh.
I am like a desert owl of the wilderness,
like an owl of the waste places;
I lie awake;
I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.
All the day my enemies taunt me;
those who deride me use my name for a curse.
I eat ashes like bread
and mingle tears with my drink,
because of Your indignation and anger;
for You have taken me up and thrown me down.
My days are like an evening shadow;
I wither away like grass.
But You, O Lord, are enthroned forever;
You are remembered throughout all generations.
You will arise and have pity on Zion;
it is the time to favor her;
the appointed time has come.
For Your servants hold her stones dear
and have pity on her dust.
Nations will fear the name of the Lord,
and all the kings of the earth will fear Your glory.
For the Lord builds up Zion;
He appears in His glory;
He regards the prayer of the destitute
and does not despise their prayer.
Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord:
that He looked down from his holy height;
from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die,
that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord,
and in Jerusalem His praise,
when peoples gather together,
and kingdoms, to worship the Lord.
He has broken my strength in midcourse;
He has shortened my days.
“O my God,” I say, “take me not away
in the midst of my days—
You whose years endure
throughout all generations!”
Of old You laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
but You are the same, and Your years have no end.
The children of Your servants shall dwell secure;
their offspring shall be established before You.
Affliction assaults our lives from all angles—emotionally, psychologically, physically, relationally. We must give voice to our experience, honestly coming before God. But we must also go further. In the midst of the pain and the strife, we turn see who God is—the one who exercises permanent authority and wise compassion on our behalf. He has placed our individual stories within the broader story He is telling. And He intends to wield our lives not only for our own good, but also for the good of others. As we look to Jesus, who bore and conquered our affliction, we may walk in this unshakable joy.
2. Read, pray, and sing through the service:
Don’t use Spotify? Click the song title below to see song on YouTube.
CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 102:1–2; 11–12:
See passage
Hear my prayer, O LORD;
let my cry come to You!
Do not hide Your face from me
in the day of my distress!
Incline Your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call!
My days are like an evening shadow;
I wither away like grass.
But You, O LORD, are enthroned forever;
Way Maker (Osinachi Kalu Okoro Egbu)
Goodness of God (Cash, Fielding, Ingram, Johnson, Johnson)
CONFESSION: From The Worship Sourcebook:
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against You
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in Your will, and walk in Your ways,
to the glory of Your Name.
Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON: John 15:13–15
See passage
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
PASSING THE PEACE
What is Passing the Peace?
(Click to Read)
(Click to Read)
When we’ve met as a large group on Sundays, we’ve always had a time of greeting one another after singing. Many churches call this time “passing the peace.” In some church traditions, one person will say to another, “The peace of Christ be with you” to which the other person responds, “And also with you.”
While potentially unfamiliar for some, we felt that “passing the peace” during greeting times at home could be a powerful act in this age marked by very little external peace. In Isaiah 9, Jesus is described as the Prince of Peace. He wants His kingdom to be marked by this very peace! We want to “pass” to one another this peace that only Jesus can give, especially at a time like this.
It might feel a bit cheesy, but we encourage you to actually pray the peace of God over each other during our times. We encourage you to look into each other’s eyes as you say, “The peace of Christ be with you!” and have others respond with, “And also with you.” Be open-hearted to Jesus, asking Him to fill you with His peace.
SERMON & COMMUNION
Jesus What A Savior (Kirby Kaple)
The Blessing (Brown, Carnes, Jobe, Furtick)
BENEDICTION
Learn more about Christ in the Psalms weekly artwork and see previous pieces here.
Person: Margie Keith
I’ve been in Denver since the summer of 2018. I was born and raised in Southern Vermont, but I have a wanderer’s heart, and have lived all over the continental US and traveled extensively overseas. I have the honor and privilege of being the office manager here at Park Church.
Piece: Acrylic
The center of the piece was done with brushes not much thicker than a toothpick, and the outer blackness was done with my fingers. It took around 6 hours to complete the painting itself, not including prepping the wood and sealing the completed piece.
The caption of the Psalm, in the ESV translation, is “A prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaints before the Lord.” As I was studying this Psalm, I was struck by the sense of darkness and sorrow surrounding the author. The words smoke, ashes, shadow, waste places, wilderness, and withered are used to describe his state. It conveys a deep sense of sorrow, heaviness of heart, emotional desolation. I love the Psalms because they do not shy away from grief and trial, nor do they encourage us to search for the silver lining, and though there are 150 of them, you will not find the words “well, at least…” anywhere at all. The Psalms are where you can sit with sorrow as with a friend, a familiar (if unwanted) companion whom you know quite well. It’s apt for me that this Psalm is being taught on Father’s Day. My dad died suddenly when I was 10, and Father’s Day has always been for me a day of lament, a day of missing him desperately, wondering what my life would have looked like with him in it. Whether you’ve experienced major grief such as the loss of a loved one, or many micro-griefs, such as losing a job, losing friendships, having to walk away from a dream you’ve always had or a wrestling with a dream that’s unfulfilled, fighting illness or infertility, lingering wounds that have been inflicted on you by others… whatever your shadow is, this Psalm reminds us that we’re not alone there. God is not afraid of our pain, and is not uncomfortable with dark places.In Matthew Henry’s commentary on Psalm 102, he says this:
When our state is afflicted, and our spirits are overwhelmed, it is our duty and interest to pray, and by prayer to pour out our complaints before the Lord, which intimates the leave God gives us to be free with him and the liberty of speech we have before him, as well as liberty of access to him; it intimates also what an ease it is to an afflicted spirit to unburden itself by a humble representation of its grievances and griefs.
The beauty of our faith is that God is still good, and still loving, and still willing and able to rescue and succor us, no matter what darkness we are surrounded by. He wants us to cry out to Him. Darkness is not an absence of God’s presence with us, but rather an invitation for us to draw closer to Him. “He regards the prayer of the destitute, and does not despise their prayer” (v. 17). He has not left you alone! He is at work even now, sharpening and refining and mending you.“Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created {that’s us} may praise the Lord: that He looked down from His holy height; from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die” (v. 18–20).
This Psalm embraces pain. It does not minimize or negate our suffering. Our American culture tends to shy away from pain and discomfort, and will often take extreme measures to avoid it. We as Christ followers need to learn to lean into that pain, to learn from it, to greet it like a companion we aren’t frightened by because we know it so well. We have no need to be afraid of sorrow because—and this is the important part—it begins in darkness but it does not remain there forever. We have hope, we have a source of light and goodness that cannot be dimmed. “In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5, emphasis mine). In this painting, you see an idyllic meadow with sheep grazing, flowers blooming, and mountains shining in the distance. It is a place of peace and safety, and even though it’s surrounded by swirling dark clouds, the darkness cannot cover it. We are His sheep, and though we will fade like wildflowers, He is mindful of us. His faithfulness endures like the mighty mountains, and His love reaches to the heavens. We can mourn freely, knowing He is our help, and that He will never let the darkness take us. He is our safety and shelter, our peace in the midst of the storm.
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