Blessed are the people who feel their inadequacies & their guilt & their failures & their helplessness & their unworthiness & their emptiness—who don’t try to hide these things under self-sufficiency, but who are honest about them & grieved & driven to the grace of God.

Today we begin a new teaching series on the Beatitudes! We will devote a week on each one, but today our focus will on be on the group as a whole within the greater context of Jesus’ public ministry.

Psalm 150 answers 4 basic questions about praising God: , when & how!who, what, where, why

Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

So: What Do The Psalms Have To Do With Advent & Christmas? Almost everything! The Psalms promise that God is the Creator God who is the Redeeming King.

In Psalm 116:7 we find someone who calls upon his soul to rest: "Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you." So—how did the Psalmist break through to finding a place of rest—a time of PEACE for his soul?

WHEN LIFE SEEMS HOPELESS—begin to rejoice in His presence, bless His Name & thank God for His blessings. You may not feel like rejoicing when you start, but you will before you finish! After all—He is the God of HOPE!

In Psalm 73, Asaph (the writer of this psalm) discovered this: If we don’t gaze at God, we default to our human perspective & end up becoming jealous & bitter. It’s only when God is at the center that we see things as they really are.

But Psalm 60 gives us a remarkable window into the fears & uncertainties of that moment, as well as into the spiritual dynamic that eventually led to victory after victory—but not without painful setbacks & fears & distresses along the way.

In Psalm 51, David had been convicted & so he confessed. And now that he’s been cleansed, he consecrates himself to live on mission. He knows that he has been saved in order to serve.