We continue our series in the Psalms this week with Gil Quick as he tackles Psalm 95. Please read through this Psalm a few times this week and pray for fruit this Sunday!

The Psalms give us the true and trustworthy decrees of the Lord. They reveal to us God as he is, not necessarily as we want him to be. And so, from time to time, the revealed God can be unsettling and disconcerting. So we read in Psalm 94:2, "Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve!" To our western, modern ears, this is hard to take. Is this really how God is? What we must confront this week is not God, but our own hearts and realize that what we need is very often what we do not want. But this is very good news. Let's pray that the Spirit softens our hearts for Sunday.

The Psalms comfort and confront. They comfort us by speaking the words our souls want to say but can't. They confront us by speaking to and for us truths we are not inclined to believe. Psalm 93 may be the central truth we need to, but don't want to, believe: God Reigns. Do you believe this? Do you know that it is good news? Let's pray for fruit this Sunday.

The Psalms are the remarkable collection of praises and prayers to God. And what make the Psalms unique, among other things, is the range of emotions they display. Joy, anger, elation, fear, depression, and on and on. They are the reflections of a real people, in a real and fallen world, encountering the real and beautiful God. And so they will teach us how to see and know and respond to him.

In the second half of Ephesians Paul is answering this question: How should we now live? Now that we are Christians, how must we "walk"? This week we will enter into his discussion of the theological contrast of light and darkness. What does it mean to live our lives as children of light? Everything, Paul says. So let's pray for illumination this Sunday.

The truth is that we humans do not handle our sexuality well. We didn't back when Paul wrote this. And we don't today. When we misuse our sexuality, we don't just break God's laws; we do what we were not created to do. And this has consequences for this life. But, more importantly, this could have consequences for the next one. Let's all pray for soft hearts, keen minds and willing souls.

Note: This sermon may be one that you would rather not have your child hear. It is not be vulgar or overly graphic, but if you feel that this topic is too mature for your child, please refrain from listening to it with them in earshot.