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.
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.
Learn more about Christ in the Psalms artwork and download artwork guides here.
Person: Jacques Gerber
My name is Jacques Gerber. I create content using photography, videography, and digital media for visual storytelling. I am currently finishing up my Master of Divinty at Denver Seminary. My creative background stems from my Bachelors degree from Denver University in Emergent Digital Practices.
Piece
Digital Media—Photo Manipulation
PROCESS
After reading and meditating on Psalm 78, I notice a Father who constantly chases and runs after a people who are disobedient and ungrateful. In particular, this piece distinctly reflects verses 6–8 and 38.
The blue in the photo—an earth tone—represents the ripple effect that each generation’s teachings and actions have on the next. In this case, the apathy and amnesia of Israel should be abnegated and, instead, the hope and works of YHWH should be used for instructing and remembrance. Verse 38, despite the rebellion and transgressions of God’s people, shows the character of God: a pursuant and loving Father who provides what is most necessary.
The red in the image represents the blood of Jesus who atoned for the sins of many as propitiation with His blood. In the following verses, the burning anger, wrath, and judgement can be seen by the intensity of this piece.
However, when one looks at the eye and color, you will find a silhouette of the person in the gaze of the one who gives life. The eye has a narrow, white light in the shape of a cross that represents the hope to come for Israel, and that this hope is marked by the Light that will sacrifice His life for a people who are ungrateful. This circles back to the beginning of the psalm and helped me realize that our Abba is fiercely jealous and strongly desires all generations to know of what He has done, and how we can respond faithfully knowing that we are being guided by Him (72).
The artwork for this series was illustrated by hand by Christian Robinson, an artist from Oklahoma City.
Our Genesis series is aimed at discussing God’s foundational worldview for His people and their purpose in His world. Christian’s artwork, in three pieces, illustrates the series’ two main movements (Parts I and II) and its narrative bookends (Part III).
Part III depicts the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life appears both in the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis and again in the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. We are reminded that, although at the Fall we were shut out of the Garden and barred from living forever, our ultimate destination as a result of Jesus’ redeeming work is life in a re-created world, in the Holy City, where the Tree of Life is now open to us.
Part I depicts God’s creation of the world (the foliage) and its subsequent de-creation through mankind (the hand) as a result of satanic temptation (the snake) and human rebellion.
Part II depicts God’s creation of a people (the 12 stars for 12 tribes of Israel) as God (the hand) comes to Abraham and makes a covenant (the scroll) with him and his descendants.
Lastly, each of the three pieces were printed directly on to large birch wood panels. In place of any “white” in the above artwork, the natural woodgrain shows through; a nod to creation itself.
An evening to taste and see the glory of God through His good creation.
Where the person of God is enjoyed through wine, food, and conversation. On Tuesday, December 5, Park Church hosted its fifth annual Bread & Wine event at Moss Denver. Each year, we create a space where the eyes of our hearts are opened to the beauty of our Creator. How do we do that? By turning our attention to a specific element that God has gifted us for our enjoyment, to be used as a unique way to illuminate how we can relate to God. This year the focus was music. Music is a marvelous conductor that uses the “instruments” of melody, notes, and sounds to create a symphony that our hearts are drawn to, pointing to the ultimate Musician, God Himself. Bach said, “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.” We see the centrality of music in the life of God’s people throughout history. After crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites sang with joyful hearts to give thanks—a jubilant cheer of crying out to God for what He had done. We find trumpeters and musicians joining in song to praise God (2 Ch. 5:13), and a call from Paul to sing and make music from our hearts (Ep. 5:19). This night recognized the importance of music as an instrument for us all to create and creatively respond to our Father. So what happened at Bread & Wine? The event started off with a hang-out time where people came in, poured their wine, and enjoyed appetizers and socializing while Bruce Butler played a live instrumental set. Across the beautiful setting of Moss Denver, we had Jennie Pitts display her artworks that added to the splendor of the atmosphere. Jennie was introduced and spoke a bit about her artwork and her inspiration behind them. Following this, we had Nicole Langford perform a musical piece on the viola. The piece was introduced with poetry that reflected how the artist experienced the beauty of the composition. Lights were turned off to enhance the focus of listening. This moved into a discussion time, where people were encouraged to ask various questions to each other about what they experienced, including other questions about the way we engage with music. As the conversations dwindled down, we proceeded into a Q&A panel with Nicole and Matthew Langford, Joel Limpic, and Bruce Butler. They were asked asked about being musical artists, why music matters, how faith impacts our ability to create and listen to music, should there be specific music we do or don’t listen to, etc. Together, led by Mark Wilkins, many joined in worship to close out the night with “This Is My Father’s World”, “Great Are You Lord”, and the “Doxology”. Praise God from whom all blessings flow indeed! May we be a people who respond to His gifts with fire in our hearts to listen, enjoy, and sing to our creative Triune God who sings over us. Credits: Blog, video & photography created by Jacques Gerber, our arts intern at Park Church.
We come to our third and final Wednesday in the season of Advent as we pray through The Lord’s Prayer found in Matthew 6:9-13:
“The Lord And His Prayer” (NT Wright)
Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
The Prayer has six petitions: the first three pray for the furtherance of God and His work—His holiness, His will, His kingdom; the matching triad is oriented around human needs—food, forgiveness, deliverance. The pair of triads is connected by the phrase, “on earth as it is in heaven,” which is to say that prayer has its source in heaven, the home country, so to speak, of God, but the action takes place on earth—our home country. Prayer that is not firmly grounded “on earth” is not prayer as our Lord taught us to pray.
We are going to look at each petition and then in turn take time to pray through it, closing our time in prayer.Petition #4: Give us this day our daily bread
As our Creator and our Father, we are instructed to ask God to provide for us our daily bread. Up to this point, every request has been God-centered (note the use of the word “your” in all the prior petitions) and now we become honest about our own needs. We can often fall in an “either/or” ditch in prayer: we can either only focus on praising God and asking nothing from Him because we feel guilty about that. We tell ourselves, “He already knows what I need before I ask, so I won’t ask.” There’s a ditch on the other side which treats God like a cosmic vending machine. We only come to Him when we want something. He becomes our Genie in a bottle instead of our heavenly Father. Jesus rejects this false dichotomy by teaching us to adore and ask; to praise and petition. In this petition we learn that He knows He’s made us with real human needs and we are to come to Him in our need to ask Him to provide for our basic needs.
Where do you need God to provide today? Physically? Spiritually? Emotionally? Are there others we need to pray for?Petition #5: Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors
Jesus reminds us here that part of our relationship with God as Christians will continue to be coming before Him in confession and repentance. Confession isn’t a “one and done” act when you initially come to faith. Rather, it is to be an intimate and repeated practice of being honest before God about all the ways you wander from Him (both things you’ve done and things you’ve left undone). The aim of this prayer for forgiveness is not to seek the judicial forgiveness which you already received from God when you first came to Him in faith, but rather relational forgiveness. What is at stake in this prayer is not union with God, but rather communion with Him. The amazing thing is that we’re promised in 1 John 1:9 that if we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Not only are we to ask for forgiveness from God, but we are to image and imitate Him in how we forgive others! Unforgiveness and Christianity are incompatible because forgiveness lies at the heart of our relationship with God and must manifest itself in our relationship with others too.
Where do you need to ask God forgiveness today? Be specific. Where do you need to forgive others today?Petition #6: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
It’s so easy to forget this powerful reality: there is a war happening right now as we speak. It’s a spiritual war where there is real good and real evil at work all around us! The Bible likens Satan to a prowling lion (1 Peter 5:8), a schemer (Ephesians 6:10), who is both a murderer and a father of lies (John 8:44). His aim is tempt us and ultimately destroy us. Jesus teaches us to call out to our Father of lights to protect us from this father of lies. We are to ask Him to take every situation in our lives, both pleasant or unpleasant, and use it for His glory! Satan wants to take that exact situation and use it to tempt us to forget God or even curse Him. God wants to use it to shape us to love Him more and look more like Him.
Where do you most naturally find yourself tempted by Satan? Which are the top three areas you are most prone to wander in? Where are you currently being tempted? Where do you need deliverance? What about those around you? Take the next few minutes to cry out for deliverance both for yourself and others.Resources
“Look At The Book: Part 2: Deliver Us From Evil” (John Piper)“The Lord And His Prayer” (NT Wright)
As we continue to fast and pray our way through the season of Advent, we find ourselves in the Lord’s Prayer again. When asked by His disciples how to pray, He taught them what is now known as “The Lord’s Prayer” and is found in Matthew 6:9-13:
Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Re-Address
Let’s start off our time of prayer re-centering our hearts around Who it is we pray to! We pray not to a vague deity, but to our very Father in heaven who holds all power and has invited us to come before His throne of grace with confidence… May we remember and truly believe that it is not our own personal names or Park Church’s name that we want exalted, but rather the name of Jesus lifted up in our lives, in this church, and in this city! Song Ideas: Forever Reign, Be Lifted Up Let’s look at the next two petitions: Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.Petition #2: Your kingdom come
Why would Jesus instruct us to pray, “Your kingdom come”? Is not God already King? Psalm 103:19 tells us His kingdom rules over all. Tim Keller helps us as he explains:
“God is reigning now, but just as a light is absent to those refusing to open their eyes, so it is possible to refuse God’s rule. This is the cause of all our human problems, since we were created to serve Him, and when we serve other things in God’s place, all spiritual, psychological, cultural, and even material problems ensue. Therefore, we need His kingdom to ‘come.’”
The Bible teaches us that His kingdom has a two-fold reality: it is both present (already) but also it is future (not yet). This is the tension we live in, and it is precisely the tension we see in Advent! Jesus came to bring about the promises of God, and one day He will come again to fully and finally fulfill all that He promised and make all things new again. Some have compared this tension to the tension we saw in World War II between the Allies’ initial D-Day and final V-Day. Jesus’ first Advent in Bethlehem is likened to D-Day, while His second Advent is compared to a coming V-Day when He returns as our Savior Judge. To pray for God’s kingdom to come is to acknowledge that there are so many areas of our lives (internally and externally) that aren’t aligned with the kingdom of God and to ask for all those areas to come under His good rule and reign. Where are there areas of your life where you long for God’s kingdom to come and change things? Where are there areas of your household? Workplace? Denver? Song Ideas: King Of My Heart, Here As In HeavenPetition #3: Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
The next petition is similar to the last one… We might ask the question, “Is God’s will not always done?” Just as there are different ways to understand kingdom in the Bible, we must work to understand the will of God. Scripture speaks of God’s revealed will (which includes His commands in Scripture) but also of His hidden will (all the things He hasn’t clearly told us in His eternal decrees). His hidden will always comes to pass while His revealed will clearly doesn’t. We break His commandments and laws all the time, even though it His will that we would follow them. In “The Prayer of the Lord” RC Sproul comments, “In this petition, then, Jesus is affirming that the will of God is done in heaven. However, He is also affirming that it is not done here. People here on earth do not strive to glorify God. They do not seek the kingdom of God. They do not hallow the name of God. So Jesus says we ought to pray, ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’”Prayer
What would it look like for God’s kingdom to come and will to be done on earth as it is in heaven? Let’s finish our time praying through each item on the “Missions” handout (click button below). We want to pray for our homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, city (including organizations we support), and nations (including missionaries we support). Missions Guide Song Ideas: Lord’s Prayer (Park Church Music), Oh Holy NightResources
“Look At The Book: Park 1 Your Kingdom Come” (John Piper) “What Is The Kingdom of God?” (John Piper) “What Is The Kingdom of God?” (George Eldon Ladd) “When Heaven Meets Earth” (The Bible Project) “The Lord And His Prayer” (NT Wright) God’s Will Hidden and Revealed (Ligonier)
Person
Jeremy Grant is an emerging artist and award-winning graphic designer. He was born in California in 1985. He studied Graphic Design and Illustration at John Brown University. Grant has exhibited his collage and assemblage work regularly across Colorado since 2008. An active member of local arts communities, Jeremy has been invited to participate in numerous group shows, donated art to charity, and been awarded a PPAC micro-grant. His work explores themes of destruction and creation, death and resurrection, and chaos and familiarity. Jeremy Grant currently lives and works in Denver, Colorado.Piece
Isaiah 40 • Mark 1
Often during Advent, I contemplate the calling of John the Baptist—“to prepare the way of the LORD,” and to “make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” This calling feels just as relevant for us as it was for him. The people of God had been waiting for Messiah, their Savior King, for hundreds of years. Generations upon generations had lived and died and not seen the promise fulfilled. John’s prophetic calling took him on a difficult path through the desert to preach a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John was asked to clear the path for the coming Messiah, Jesus. The scriptures that refer to this calling paint a picture where “every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low.” The subject of the piece is a landscape that visualizes the work of John the Baptist—the transition from rough, mountainous terrain to open plains is making smooth the way of the LORD. The mountains are cut from pieces that I felt had a sense of static and a feeling of brokenness. We still live in a broken reality. Some brokenness is obvious and agonizing, and other times brokenness is characterized by the monotony of existence—the lack of joy, color, and celebration. The extra-long proportion of the piece is meant to convey the passage of time, a sense of waiting and of a long journey still ahead. The dark to light transition hints at the coming sunrise, our current reality is dim, but the bright light of the coming messiah is a dawn on the horizon. Click on an image below to enlarge.The complete, final piece:
The sequential pieces, with Advent 2017 sermon series titles:
Process
Hand-cut paper collage inspired by the themes of the season of Advent. At first, I sought to express brokenness through fragmented pieces—tiny windows into pain. Ultimately, this felt a little one-dimensional and I left it in favor of the landscape idea which had a more rich meaning (see final artwork above).
In another early concept, I envisioned cracks and a shattered pattern getting less and less cracked -the color getting brighter and brighter as the collage progressed. U;timately, I felt like it was—again—less robust of an idea, and cracks don’t really “heal themselves.” It’s difficult to express that idea, even though I liked the graphic potential of it.
Lastly, an image of the final collage in-process, before I added the pink squares. The squares sort of came to symbolize markers in the passage of time, little ebeneezers if you will.
As a part of our engaging in the season of Advent, we are inviting everyone at Park Church to join us in prayer on Wednesdays (Dec. 6, 13, 20) during the lunch hour in our sanctuary to pray. If you can’t join us physically, we hope you can join in personally or even get together with others and pray through the prayer guide offered below! Throughout these prayer times we will be focusing on particular phrases and petitions within the Lord’s Prayer.
What is the Lord’s Prayer and why are we praying it?
One of the main markers of Jesus’ life was not merely His powerful ministry, but also the intentional space Jesus made to get alone and pray to the Father. One might even say that prayer and dependence on His Father was the precise reason His ministry was so effective! He knew that apart from doing what His Father was doing, He could do nothing. From the beginning of His public ministry to the end of it, prayer was a centerpiece in the life of Jesus. When asked by His disciples how to pray, He taught them what is now known as “The Lord’s Prayer” and is found in Matthew 6:9-13:
Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
This prayer is short (only 52 words in the ESV!), and yet it is rich in depth… It begins with an address and then gives us 7 petitions. We’ll be focusing in and praying through the address and the first petition today.
The Address
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” -A.W. Tozer
Close your eyes for moment. Picture yourself walking into the throne room of God in order to speak with Him. As you come closer to His throne, what immediately comes to your mind? What does God’s face look like? Does he have a scowl or a grin? Is He busy and bothered, or caring and loving? Do you have part of His attention or the whole of it? For Jesus’ disciples to have a healthy prayer life, He knew they’d have to think rightly about God, so He intentionally starts with this address.
Jesus teaches us that we must see God rightly when we come to Him! Jesus calls Him Abba Father. First and foremost, God is our Father. We don’t come to God as distant servants, but as cherished sons and daughters who through the work and blood of Jesus have been adopted into God’s very own family. Not only is God our Father, but He is our Father in heaven. Our Father isn’t some weak powerless dad who can’t stand up for us, but rather is the King of the universe with unlimited power at His disposal. There is nothing impossible for Him, and there is no request too great!
Let’s begin by worshipping our Father in heaven! Let’s start by praising Him in prayer… Think about God’s attributes and actions toward you, particularly as a Father. Meditate on those things, express gratitude for each one! Let’s take also take a moment to pray that Park would be a church that prays regularly because they know of their identity as children of God! Pray that God wouldn’t be a theoretically good Father to those at Park, but rather a Father whom they know intimately and walk with through His Spirit.
Song Ideas For This Prayer Section: Good Good Father, In Tenderness, Before The Throne
Petition #1: Hallowed be Your name
The first petition Jesus teaches us to ask our heavenly Father for is that His name would be “hallowed.” God reveals Himself throughout Scripture as the God who is thrice holy. If God is already holy, why would we need to pray that God’s name would be hallowed? Jesus wants the name of God to be the most important name in His disciples’ lives! What’s in a name? In Bible times, names got at the heart of who someone was. A name was tied to a person; to an identity and an essence. To pray for God’s name to be “hallowed” means to pray that His name would be set apart in our lives from every other name. That His name would be uncontested in our hearts! That we would honor God’s name, revere it, and ultimately treasure His name above any other name, even our very own names!
Take a moment to think about your own life. What are you treasuring most? What things are you honoring and seeking? In all of those pursuits, where does the pursuit of God lie? Is He chief among all pursuits or one among many? Or is He not even on your radar? Let’s take time to pray that God’s name would be:
- Treasured in our lives first and foremost.
- Esteemed by our friends and families.
- Known and loved by our co-workers, neighbors, and those who don’t yet know Him!
- Lifted up in Denver above all names! That Jesus would be the name that resounds the loudest throughout the city.
Song Ideas For This Prayer Section: Be Thou My Vision, Set A Fire, Forever Reign, Be Lifted Up (Josh Baldwin)
Resources
- “Look At The Book: Park 1 Your Kingdom Come” (John Piper)
- “The Lord And His Prayer” (NT Wright)
Learn more about Christ in the Psalms artwork and download artwork guides here.
Person: Jeremy Grant
Jeremy Grant is an emerging artist and award-winning graphic designer. He was born in California in 1985. He studied Graphic Design and Illustration at John Brown University. Grant has exhibited his collage and assemblage work regularly across Colorado since 2008. An active member of local arts communities, Jeremy has been invited to participate in numerous group shows, donated art to charity, and been awarded a PPAC micro-grant. His work explores themes of destruction and creation, death and resurrection, and chaos and familiarity. Jeremy Grant currently lives and works in Denver, Colorado.
Piece
Collage
PROCESS
You will drown. Fall headlong into the tempest. Arms reach, strain. There is nothing to grasp. You will drown. Your last sputtering breaths will be witnessed by no one. Your eyes water against the rush of wind. And pain. Drown.
Hot crackle of lightening snakes around your body.
A cradle of fire that stunts your fall.
Return the embrace of pain. Your salvation.
Feeling abandoned by God, and achingly alone, the writer of the 77th Psalm is lead to consider God’s “miracles of long ago.” Israel was pursued by Pharaoh, and their slaughter was eminent, when God performed a dramatic miracle and parted the sea, unveiling an unlikely escape route.
And yet that provision was immensely terrifying—the sea a symbol of chaos and terror in the ancient world. “Walk through the terror,” it seems God told them. But where was God in the middle, when the sea could, seemingly, crash down at any moment, crushing all beneath? God’s footprints were not seen, yet it was His hand at work.