We’re in Psalm 81 this week at Park Church for week four of Christ in the Psalms, our annual summer series. The Psalms give us a vocabulary and a “hymnal” for relating to God through the full range of human experience and emotion, ultimately pointing us to Jesus.
One of the ways we enjoy and study the psalms each year is by having different artists do a piece each week for the respective psalm we’re in. Our Psalm 81 artwork is an acrylic painting by Whitney Ballinger. Learn more about Whitney’s piece and all the preceding weekly artworks (back through Psalm 41) right here.
Here’s how you can prepare for this week:
1. Read through our text, Psalm 81.
Even though God has rescued His people from slavery and provided for us time and time again, we often forget to celebrate our freedom and fail to trust in God’s power to satisfy our deepest longings. In Psalm 81, God calls His people to rejoice in their salvation and listen to His voice as He guides them to joy.
2. Read, pray and sing through the service:
CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 81:1–4, Welcome (From Immanuel Nashville):
To all who are weary and need rest,
To all who mourn and long for comfort,
To all who feel worthless and wonder if God cares,
To all who fail and desire strength,
To all who sin and need a Savior,
This church opens wide her doors
with a welcome from Jesus Christ,
the Ally of His enemies, the Defender of the guilty,
the Justifier of the inexcusable, the Friend of sinners.
Welcome!
All Creatures Of Our God And King (William Henry Draper, St. Francis of Assisi)
Jesus What A Savior (Kirby Kaple)
CONFESSION OF SIN: From The Worship Sourcebook:
Awesome and compassionate God,
You have loved us with unfailing, self-giving mercy,
but we have not loved You.
You constantly call us, but we do not listen.
You ask us to love, but we walk away from neighbors in need, wrapped in our own concerns.
We condone evil, prejudice, warfare, and greed.
God of grace, as You come to us in mercy,
we repent in spirit and in truth,
admit our sin, and gratefully receive Your forgiveness
through Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. Amen.
How Deep The Father’s Love For Us (Stuart Townend)
King Of My Heart (John Mark McMillan, Sarah McMillan)
ASSURANCE OF PARDON: 1 John 1:5–7
GREETING, SERMON, & COMMUNION
RESPONSE: Song & Prayer
O Come To The Altar (Brock, Brown, Furtick, and Joye)
We Will Feast In The House Of Zion (Sandra McCracken)
BENEDICTION
Learn more about Christ in the Psalms artwork and download artwork guides here.
Person: Whitney Ballinger
Hi, I’m Whitney Ballinger! I recently got my master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Denver Seminary. For as long as I can remember, art has played a significant role in my life. Through the mediums of watercolor, photography, ceramics, and acrylics, I have learned to creatively express how I see/experience the world and God.
Piece
Acrylic painting.
PROCESS
As I prayed over Psalm 81, a strong theme I noticed was pride, as God calls the Israelites to turn from their idols and stubborn desires but they do not listen (11–12). He also calls them to look back and remember His faithfulness in bringing them out of Egypt (5,10). My main takeaway from praying over this passage was the picture of God calling His people to trust Him with their needs (remembering His faithfulness to deliver them in the past) and to surrender their idols—specifically the idol of following their own stubborn hearts (12).
This piece depicts the blindness of heart that occurs when God’s faithfulness is ignored. The little girl watering a dying plant reflects Israel trying to bring life apart from God. The umbrella seems safe and necessary to the girl as it is raining (reflecting her own stubborn desire to stay dry and comfortable), but ironically it is protecting the plant from exactly what it most desperately needs… life-giving water already pouring from the sky. The broken watering can more specifically represents an idol (9)—something that is supposed to bring water or life, but is broken and unable to do so.
The rain represents God’s provision and faithfulness, and that if we would open our mouths (put down our umbrellas) he would fill it (10).
Finally, the little girl is intentionally small in comparison to the rest of the painting. Ironically, if she would just gaze behind her, she would be confronted with a stark reminder of God’s faithfulness to grow a whole forest of trees…apart from her umbrella or watering can. Not only the forest, but the grass, wildflowers, and sky dance and sing praises to their creator (1–2) and are vibrant reflections of life in Him; calling the little girl to listen to God, remember His faithfulness, put down her idols, and dance in the rain of God’s faithfulness.
Learn more about Christ in the Psalms artwork and download artwork guides here.
Person
Chase Hoffman
Piece
Photography—”Restore Us, O God”
PROCESS
Reading, re-reading, photography and a little bit of gardening.
This is week three of our annual summer series, Christ in the Psalms. The Psalms give us a vocabulary and a “hymnal” for relating to God through the full range of human experience and emotion, ultimately pointing us to Jesus. Now in its seventh year, Christ in the Psalms has covered one psalm each week, up through Psalm 79. You can find all of those sermons here. Additionally, over the last four years, different artists within our community have done a piece of artwork for each Psalm, starting with Psalm 41. You can see and read about each of those here.
This week we’ll discuss Psalm 80. Here’s how you can prepare:
1. Read through our text, Psalm 80.
Psalm 80 teaches us to pray for God’s help in changing both our circumstances and our own hearts in the process. This beautiful prayer shows us that the change Israel needed (and the change that we need) will only come through Christ Himself.
2. Read, pray and sing through the service:
CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 42:5–6a
Fall Afresh (Jeremy Riddle)
Lord I Need You (Carson, Maher, Nockels, Reeves, Stanfill)
CONFESSION OF SIN: John 15:5
Your Name Is Good (Psalm 54) (Joel Limpic, Scott Mills)
Mighty To Save (Ben Fielding, Reuben Morgan)
ASSURANCE OF PARDON: Zephaniah 3:17
GREETING, SERMON, & COMMUNION
RESPONSE: Song & Prayer
Jesus What A Savior (Kirby Kaple)
Revive Us Again (Charlie Hall, John J. Husband, William P. Mackay, Dustin Ragland)
BENEDICTION
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Our guest is Sam Perez. He works for Cru at the University of Malaga!Listen
Listen to the show Subscribe in iTunesShow Notes
2:30 – Who Sam Perez Is 7:40 – Was He Nervous To Propose To His Boss? 10:35 – Was He Raised In A Christian Home? 13:20 – Why They Came To Denver 15:40 – What They Did In Denver 17:05 – What It Was Like To Assimilate To American Culture 21:30 – How It’s Going In Granada 26:55 – What His Job Is 29:10 – What His Wife Is Up To 32:40 – What’s Been Reading And Watching 35:10 – Best Meal He’s Had Recently 37:25 – Nerdiest Thing He’s Into Right Now 39:50 – Where He’d Put A Billboard And What It’d SayLinks
Learn more about Christ in the Psalms artwork and download artwork guides here.
Person: William Emerson
My name is William Emerson, I grew up in Colorado with a desire to explore and uncover truths about myself and God through His creation. Like many, nature has captivated me and God has used it to reflect to me deep truths about life in Him. I found the narrative of this psalm in the workings of animals in the wilderness.
Piece
Wood carving and burning.
PROCESS
In Psalm 79, Israel (The Sheep) cries out to God for salvation after Babylon (The Wolf) has conquered Jerusalem. The chosen people of God find themselves cornered and desperate for rescue from this threat. They are begging for God to remove the immediate threat in their life and it is not until near the end of the Psalm that they ask for forgiveness and humble themselves as sheep in need of a shepherd. They are so focused on a very real threat that they first enter their prayer mad at God and mourning, asking how long He will let this go on, as if to say that if He has issue with his people, He needs to let it go because they have bigger problems than a broken relationship with their God. After their expression of sorrow and plea, they recognize that a breaking has taken place between God and His chosen people.
The broken reality of sin (the toxic locoweed in the sheep’s mouth) is a deeper internal issue that goes beyond even the most pressing of present circumstance. God does eventually retrieve Israel from Babylon (the arrow through the wolf) but the herd has a deeper issue they have inflicted on themselves that only the shepherd can undo.
While creating this piece, I wanted to tell two stories of salvation: God does offer rescue from immediate and painful trials at times, but it often is not in the timing and way that we hope for and we still have our own sin to bring to Him regardless of the outcome of the immediate hurt. The narrative of a sheep hunted by a wolf captured the immediate threats we feel and the self inflicted poisoning of the sheep felt an accurate narrative to our own sin.
Burning and carving this scene required hundreds of repetitive motions and in the repetition I find there is a meditative worship that takes place, inviting the Spirit to engrain the narrative of this Psalm in me as I work through creating the scene.
This is week two of our annual summer series, Christ in the Psalms. The Psalms give us a vocabulary and a “hymnal” for relating to God through the full range of human experience and emotion, ultimately pointing us to Jesus. Now in its seventh year, Christ in the Psalms has covered one psalm each week, up through Psalm 78. You can find all of those sermons here. Additionally, over the last four years, different artists within our community have done a piece of artwork for each Psalm, starting with Psalm 41. You can see and read about each of those here.
This week we’ll discuss Psalm 79. Here’s how you can prepare:
1. Read through our text, Psalm 79.
In Psalm 79, we learn a couple of (hard) lessons. First, God loves us too much to let us live foolishly. Second, God’s love frees us from demanding retribution on our enemies.
2. Read, pray and sing through the service:
CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 9:1–2, Welcome (From Immanuel Nashville):
To all who are weary and need rest,
To all who mourn and long for comfort,
To all who feel worthless and wonder if God cares,
To all who fail and desire strength,
To all who sin and need a Savior,
This church opens wide her doors
with a welcome from Jesus Christ,
the Ally of His enemies, the Defender of the guilty,
the Justifier of the inexcusable, the Friend of sinners.
Welcome!
Before The Throne Of God (Charitie Lees Bancroft)
Your Name Is Good (Psalm 54) (Joel Limpic, Scott Mills)
CONFESSION OF SIN: Psalm 79:8–9
His Mercy Is More (Matt Boswell, Matt Papa)
What A Beautiful Name (Ben Fielding, Brooke Ligertwood)
ASSURANCE OF PARDON: Ephesians 2:18–22
GREETING, SERMON, & COMMUNION
RESPONSE: Song & Prayer
In Tenderness (Garvey, Gordon, Walton arr. Brian Eichelberger)
Reckless Love (Cory Asbury, Caleb Culver, Ran Jackson)