Sunday, June 18, 2017

It is good to spend the morning in Psalms

I spent the morning in Psalms.
This quarter, my Sunday School class is going through that book, studying selected chapters, and today we were in Psalm 23, which may be the most familiar chapter because it is used in funerals frequently, maybe in every Christian funeral.
"The Lord is my Shepherd ..." is the way it starts, and one of the old guys in the class asked if any of us had raised sheep. One ole boy said he had, and the teacher asked him to tell about raising sheep and relate it to the text we were studying.
Marvin, that's his name, said that sheep are docile, gentle -- and stupid.
"They're just like people in a lot of ways," he said. Sheep will not let the shepherd lead them most of the time and they act like they know better. He told about how his barnyard was so muddy that he placed sheets of plywood outside the barn door, trying to cover up the mud. He had enough sheets except for one spot.
He managed to get all the sheep out the door and across the muddy barnyard on the plywood and out to the pasture.
"But there was one old ewe," he said, and that old ewe thought she knew better. She refused to follow Marvin; instead, she head right across the area that was uncovered and sloshed around in the mud.
Marvin said, "Sheep think they know it all. I do not miss sheep."
The guy who asked the original question said, "And it says here that the Lord is OUR shepherd. Think about that while thinking about what Marvin just told u about sheep."
We all got quiet, thinking about how stupid sheep are and how frustrating they are, then we thought about how our Shepherd, Jesus Christ, must see us. Yet, he still loves us and died for us to remove the stain of our sin so we could avoid His wrath toward sin. Pretty mind-boggling. The word awesome is way over-used, but it really describes Him.
In the worship service, the pastor used Psalm 1, which has six verses, to talk about relationships of children and parents. It was a Fathers Day sermon, titled "Love, Spelled T-I-M-E."
He said little children are Trusting, Imitators, Moldable and Energetic.
Pareents are supposed to Treasure, Instruct, Model a life of integrity for and Encourage their children.
This relationship takes time, and the pastor said parents must spend time reading and meditating on the written word of God, learning for themselves so they can instruct, mold and channel the kids' energy in righteous ways, not riotous ways, as described in the sermon text.
For our songs, we sang "The Family of God," which we do every Sunday while walking around the sanctuary/auditorium and shaking hands with folks; "This Is My Father's World" and "Faith of Our Fathres." The invitation hymn was "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus."
We had a responsive reading about love worked in there, too.
It was a good morning of Bible study, worship and praise.

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