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Feb 18, 2024

Practice Begins Here

Practice Begins Here

Passage: Psalms

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Practice the Presence - Prayer

Keywords: righteous, fruit, blessed, season, meditate

We do not pray for the sake of praying. It is ordered to an even greater end. It is part of a good life. While Psalm 1 begins the prayerbook of Israel it is the only utterance that is not a prayer. But as it describes the fact, the character, and the reward of a good life, it also points both to a key for that life and where prayer must begin.

Download the "Practice the Presence: Meditating During Lent" Reading Plan Here

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Psalm 131

LEADER: O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.

ALL: But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me. 

LEADER: O Israel, hope in the LORD
ALL: from this time forth and forevermore.

OT READING: Joshua 1:1-9

LEADER: After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua the son of Nun,
Moses’ assistant, 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this
people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. 3 Every place that the sole of your
foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this
Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the
going down of the sun shall be your territory. 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of
your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong
and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.
7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant
commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success
wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it
day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make
your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and
courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever
you go.” The Word of the Lord.

ALL: Thanks be to God.

CENTRAL TEXT: Psalm 1

Psa. 1:1 Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

Psa. 1:3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Psa. 1:5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

CONFESSION OF SIN: based on Psalm 131, Jeremiah 2:13
LEADER: Let us confess our sin to God.

ALL: We are not calm. We are not quiet. We are always going somewhere. We have dug broken cisterns thinking we can slake our own thirst and forsaken you the fountain of living water. But while you are a jealous God, you are not a jilted lover–petulant or hurt. What you have for us you love to give, and for our good. Forgive us our arrogance for refusing nourishment from your hand. Help us again to taste and see that you are good.

ABSOLUTION OF PARDON: Ephesians 1:7-9
LEADER: In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ

BENEDICTION: Zephaniah 3:17
LEADER: The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Maybe it’s too personal to share (your call), but what has your mind most been occupied with this week? Why that? What has motivated the attention–the meditation–upon it? What has been the outcome of the attention you’ve given it–solution to a problem? anxiety over the irresolution of a problem? Anticipation of a good thing coming? satisfaction over an accomplishment?
  2. How does the average person define or describe a good life? Name several responses you might receive. (They might even label them as #blessed). How does the Psalmist define or describe a good–(“blessed”--life? Start with the contrasts with the “wicked” if that helps. Branch out from there.
  3. What ideas first come to mind when you hear the word “meditation” and why? 
  4. What do you see as the relationship between “delight” and “meditation” in verse 2? How could one ever delight in the law of God? (what do you think the Psalmist has in mind when speaking of the law?)
  5. If in eastern traditions, meditation is about emptying the mind, and, if in the new interest in “mindfulness” meditation is giving full attention to the present moment, how is meditation here in the Psalm distinct?
  6. What doubts or apprehensions do you have about meditation as it is here defined and urged? Have you ever sought to give extended, and focused attention to certain claims, actions, and promises of God–i.e. The “Law”? What has it been like?
  7. Has dwelling on the Good news of Jesus ever had an effect on you? Would you be willing to share it?

ILLUSTRATIONS:  

QUOTES: 

 

  • Inner silence is for our race a difficult achievement. There is a chattering part of the mind which continues, until it is corrected, to chatter on even in the holiest places. C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
  • All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
  • “The monk, who continues faithfully in his cell and lets himself be molded by it, will gradually find that his whole life tends to become one continual prayer. But he cannot attain to this repose except at the cost of stern battle; both by living austerely in fidelity to the law of the cross, and willingly accepting the tribulations by which God will try him as gold in the furnace. In this way, having been cleansed in the night of patience, and having been consoled and sustained by assiduous meditation of the Scriptures, and having been led by the Holy Spirit into the depths of his own soul, he is now ready, not only to serve God, but even to cleave to him in love. -Statutes of the Carthusian Order
  • Labour to remember what you read [cf. Matt. 13:4, 19]. . . . The memory should be like the chest in the ark, where the Law was put. . . . Some can better remember an item of news than a line of Scripture; their memories are like these ponds, where frogs live, but the fish die. . . . In meditation there must be a fixing of the thoughts upon the object. . . . Meditation is the concoction of Scripture: reading brings a truth into our head, meditation brings it into our heart: reading and meditation must, like Castor and Pollux, appear together. Meditation without reading is erroneous; reading with meditation is barren. The bee sucks the flower, then works it in the hive, and so turns it to honey: by reading we suck the flower of the Word, by meditation we work it in the hive of our mind, and so it turns to profit. Meditation is the bellows of the affection: ‘while I was musing the fire burned’. The reason we come away so cold from reading the Word is because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of meditation. Thomas Watson, Puritan Sermons
  • For years, when I read about monks and nuns who gave up a “normal” life to do little else besides pray, I’d think they were a little crazy. But what if we’re the ones who are unhinged? We who would rather binge Netflix or go shopping or play fantasy football than commune with Love loving? Who would rather give the vast majority of our time to slaving away for some job that will chew us up and spit us out the moment we’re no longer useful to the bottom line? Who choose to spend hours every day on our phones yet claim we “don’t have time” for God? Jon Mark Comer
  • If someone searches with true attention for the solution to a geometric problem, and if after about an hour has advanced no further than from where they started, they nevertheless advance, during each minute of that hour, in another more mysterious dimension. Without sensing it, without knowing it, this effort that appeared sterile and fruitless has deposited more light in the soul.  Simone Weil
  • Not only does the love of God have attention for its substance; the love of our neighbour, which we know to be the same love, is made of this same substance. Simone Weil
  • When my children were young, I found that the nature of their play changed toward evening. From making blanket forts or Hot Wheel racing lanes in the living room, they would begin to bring their play into the kitchen. Stuffed animals and Legos moved under the kitchen table and then into the center of the kitchen floor. I realized at some point that they were simply moving closer to me. As I prepared dinner and twilight fell and they anticipated their dad getting home, they swirled around me, closer and closer until they were right underfoot. They simply knew the day was nearly done and they needed me more. I was going to feed them and tuck them in. Kathleen A. Mulhern

  • Carl Spitzweg, “Ash Wednesday” (1860)
  • when I feel that I have become cool and joyless in prayer because of other tasks or thoughts (for the flesh and the devil always impede and obstruct prayer), I take my little psalter, hurry to my room, or. . .to the church where a congregation is assembled and, as time permits, I say quietly to myself and word-for-word the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and, if I have time, some words of Christ or of Paul, or some psalms, just as a child might do. Martin Luther, “A Simple Way to Pray,” 

BOOKS / DOCS

  • Teach us to Pray, Alexander Whyte
  • “The Witching Hour,” an essay by Kathleen A. Mulhern about reclaiming the day’s latter half as equally in need of attention to the presence of God
  • “A Simple Way to Pray,” Martin Luther’s short primer on prayer which he wrote for his barber who asked him how to pray
  • “Meditation as a subversive activity,” an article by Sarah Coakley about her experience of leading prison inmates in silent prayer

SERMONS