This series has been titled “Psalms: Anatomy of the Soul” and this particular description of the psalms was coined by John Calvin, who said that “there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here [that is, in the psalms] represented as a mirror”.
Why do we need a mirror for our own emotions? Emotions are a tricky business. Have you ever just felt off? Or even if you know you feel a certain emotion, have you ever struggled to know how to pray about it? Strangely, even though what we feel is inside us, we may not understand it. And even when do know what we feel, we often don’t know how to pray about it.
So the psalms reveal to us our own emotions and give us the framework and vocabulary to understand, makes sense of, and express them. Psalm 88 will teach us about about despair.
How are you feeling today? In this psalm, we see a worried king David, a man gripped by uncertainty. The phrase “my heart is faint”, is a passing line, but it describes how he is feeling.
Have you ever made decisions because you were afraid of what might happen to you? As Christians we often hear the encouragement to live boldly, or to trust God instead of fearing man. Prov 29:25 tells us that “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” The right fear of God inspires confidence and worship and combats the fear of man. This study will help us in looking at the fear of man, and how to combat it.
This psalm helps us to see how we can confess our sins to God and the freedom that comes from doing that. With sin comes feelings of guilt, and that can only be addressed when we take our sins to God, confess and seek His forgiveness.
Confusion is the inability to think as clearly or quickly as you normally do. You may feel disoriented and have difficulty paying attention, remembering, and making decisions. Through Psalm 16, we see that when God’s people experience confusion amidst distress, they remember who he is to them and partake of Him who is their inheritance for present struggles and eternal satisfaction.
We begin our new study in the Psalms. The title of our series, “An Anatomy of the Soul” is derived from a quote by Calvin.
From these passages, we will see that foolishness apart from God is widespread and can only lead to great terror, fear and death. On the other hand, God makes glad the those who seek him, and promises to restore them. In Christ, God makes good on his promises to save his people that He might be their refuge and joy.
In today’s passage, Jesus begins to interact with four people and these four seem to be important only in John’s gospel! As we read it, let us consider what we can learn from these four apostles. What do their interactions with Jesus mean for me?
In the preceding studies, we learned about the Word who was God that was made flesh and dwelled among his creation. A creation that though was created through Him, denied and rejected Him and desired to live life apart from him. From His fullness, God’s people received an alternative way to righteousness: grace and truth as opposed to the law from Moses and its unachievable requirements. For an arrival as important as this, we learned of the messenger, John the Baptist whom God set apart and prepared to herald the coming of Jesus Christ who is God’s Word made flesh. Last week we focused on who John was and what his mission was. Today, we hear the content of his message.
John the Baptist is a herald and his main job is to announce the one who is coming. But who is he preparing the way for? Why is the coming one important?
As we will see through John’s message, the King is coming and John is here to announce that. The people of Israel are finally going to see the promised King and they ought to respond appropriately in worship and praise.
These first 18 verses in John 1 form John’s prologue here, John trying to provide some background information for us. In this week’s study, we will focus on the last 5 verses of this introduction and we will unpack the passage with 2 main questions: What do we know about the Word? What is flesh?
Christmas nears, but some of us might feel more of the Grinch’s grimace than Santa’s cheer. Gift-giving, cosy gatherings, and bright lights are great. But there are some of us who feel that Christmas is wrapped up in too much plastic happiness. There is a sense that our bells and jingles only paper over harsher realities that many experience on a daily basis. Orchard Road lights can feel like vain and superficial joy when economies tumble around the world, and COVID-19 death tolls surge.
If that’s how you are feeling, then Advent is for you. These 4 weeks matter, because it’s how Christians get to Christmas. It’s the road that we travel before arriving at Bethlehem. And this road we travel will bring us to contemplate the world’s darkness with somber humility, so that our hearts would be prepared for Christmas’ true and deep joy.
This is the first of our Advent series. Advent simply means “coming”, and it is the period before Christmas where we remember and celebrate all that God does for us in sending Jesus Christ. It recalls how God’s people waited for Jesus’ first coming as they held onto his promises, and today we long for his second coming while looking back to his first.
We’ve come to the end of this part of Isaiah - Isaiah 12 marks the close of this section of the book, and shows us a beautiful vision of what it would look like if God’s people fully enjoyed God as things were designed. Isaiah gives us a glimpse of what it would look like for us to live fully content, fully satisfied, with overflowing joy, delighting in God our perfect king and with Him delighting in us, his redeemed children.
This study will show us how God's people have a reason to sing and praise Him as they drink from salvation. How do we drink this water? How do we experience God so fully now that we are driven to sing and praise Him and proclaim His name?
News today can have quite a detrimental effect on mental health, so much so that softwares have been developed to censor news. The news often contain stories of war, death, geopolitical tensions and conflicts, disease, job loss, abuse and these show us that we live in a fallen and broken world.
Today, we will see in Isaiah that even when things look grim and hopeless, the Lord is working to restore and heal and unite and bless, and may we also see God at work in our world today.
In earlier chapters, God calls Israel a “godless nation” and “people of my wrath” (Isa 10:5-6). The “him” is therefore Assyria. Israel is living as a godless nation not because they have no God, but they chose to live as if they have no God! They are an apostate nation rebelling against Him! They acted without reference to God and continue to do evil. Thus, Assyria is like a saw in the hand of God (Isa 10:15). At the end of the chapter, God also addresses Assyria in (Isa 10:33-34). Though God is using them to judge Israel, He will also judge Assyria.
Thus previously, we’ve seen how through judgement for Israel. God’s wrath discipline them and also promises to punish Assyria for their pride. Today, we continue reading about God’s promise of hope and redemption.
How do we develop faith that doesn’t fear? There are many things we can fear in life. There is a stubborn pandemic. When we work, we fear tat we are not doing enough or being good enough. As students, we fear that we will fail exams or will not be able to get a job. There are also fears that we will not be married or that we will marry the wrong person.
Tonight’s text directly addresses how we develop and maintain faith in the face of fear, a faith that overcomes fear. In this text, God’s people face an Assyrian invasion. God tells them “be not afraid”. Let’s read these words and find in them both an encouragement and a challenge to us!
This entire book is centred on God as King. For instance, Isa 2 shows us the God who instructs people and Isa 9 speaks of King Jesus. The different characters we meet throughout Isaiah also show us different aspects of God’s kingdom. King Uzziah is afraid and that shows us that God is not fearful and provides us a firm foundation. Uzziah is also a king that passes away and in contrast, God is an eternal King that will not pass away! Isa 7-8 also shows us a fearful king Ahaz. In today’s study, we want to see what these verses show us about God who is our king.
This week, Isaiah turns his attention to the northern kingdom, Israel. As we read about terrible proclamations of judgment, here’s the clincher: God’s grace is not absent amidst wrathful judgment. Grace and judgment are not opposite ends of a seesaw.
This is a passage that we commonly encounter near or during Christmas, but today, as a part of our series in Isaiah, we are reading this passage not during Christmas. As we read this passage, we want to see who this Light is and also above all to come and worship.
