On this Advent Season, the sermons will be only from the gospels. We will hear much about the birth of Christ, the context surrounding it, and the cataclysmic effect of Christ’s incarnation. But even in this season, we are also reminded that the gospels depend heavily on the Old Covenant, and in particular, they depend heavily on the prophets and the psalms. So reading from the Prophets, and in particular, the Psalms are a strong part of our liturgy. I have said this before and I will say it again, that approximately 90% of our liturgy is taken from the Scriptures. We sing the Scriptures, we receive assurance from the Scriptures, we hear the Scriptures, and we receive a benediction from the Scriptures. This is purposeful and it is Scriptural. The Scriptures demand that we be saturated with it.
This is one reason why we have a responsive psalm in our liturgy following the singing. We sing a psalm together and we corporately declare the psalm together. One of our goals in the future is that once we have matured in psalm singing, and we are maturing, that whatever psalm we have for responsive reading we will also have for corporate singing.
In part, this is what the responsive psalm is: Talking to one another; speaking the words of Yahweh to one another; echoing the psalmist’s passion to one another, echoing the psalmist longing for worship to one another.
Providence Church is a Scriptural saturated church, and our desire is to be saturated with God’s inspired hymnbook.
This morning I exhort you to use these psalms daily. If you will notice in the bulletin, you will always see next Sunday’s psalm printed for you. We place them there for you so you can familiarize yourself with these texts, so you can be attuned to the phase of the Church Calendar we are currently in.
Another point is that when the pastor leads you in these psalms he is leading you to respond with vigor; to respond with greater joy than the psalmist himself. Why? Because the Psalmist hoped for the coming Messiah, we live in the day of the Messiah’s reign. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray: Almighty God, thank you for the psalms. May we grow into the maturity of the psalmist in our singing and corporate response.
