Episode 1671: Sing Praises

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,671 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Scott Ritzheimer: Hi, I'm Scott Ritzheimer , and I wanna challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to not just grow a business, but leave a legacy is key.

And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, with my friend, Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: God is at work in the moments of joy and in the wome- moments of pain. And that is actually part of what we praise. We praise that God is there even in the moments of pain. [00:01:00] God is working even then.

Scott Ritzheimer: Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the

Scott Maderer: Inspired Stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling.

In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world

In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I talk about Psalm 105, verses one through six, 16 through 22, and verse 45. I share how we are called to praise in song, and I also talk about how psalms are all about singing praises, even when things don't seem to be worthy of praise. [00:02:00] Psalm 105, verses one through six, 16 through 22, and 45 says, "Oh, give thanks to the Lord.

Call on His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him. Sing praises to Him. Tell of all His wonderful works. Glory in His holy name. Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Seek the Lord and His strength. Seek His presence continually. Remember the wonderful works He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He uttered.

O offspring of His servant Abraham, children of Jacob, His chosen ones. When He summoned famine against the land and cut off every supply of bread, He had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who had been sold as a slave. His feet were hurt with fetters. His neck was put in a collar of iron. Until what he had said came to pass, the word of the Lord kept testing him.

The king sent and released him. The ruler of the people set him free. He made him lord of his house and ruler of all his possessions, to instruct his officials at his [00:03:00] pleasure and to teach his elders wisdom. Praise the Lord." Like what happens a lot in the lectionary, this psalm is kind of cut up into chunks.

And the truth is, if you actually go back and read the full psalm, there's a lot of verses in here about how they had fled Egypt, how the, the Hebrews had been wrestling with the effect of the plagues of the E- on the Egyptian people, and how those plagues also allowed them to escape. How there was horrible things, but then it also was the very thing that gave them freedom And that's a tough message.

That may be part of the reason why they cut that out. But again, the psalm, as it's left, mentions that this psalm encourages and commands us to sing praises, to [00:04:00] talk and share and sing even in moments of discomfort. Maybe even while wrestling with that dichotomy between something that was horrible on one side and yet was also that that gave you freedom on the other.

That we should praise with our whole self, and that's done through singing. I was raised a Methodist, I remain a Methodist today, and the Methodists like to say that they were born in song. Yes, there's a lot of doctrines, and yes, even as Methodists, we focus on doctrine and liturgy and those things, but we also focus on the power and movement of singing and mus- music.

Charles Wesley, John Wesley, this brother, was a writer of poetry and song, and many, many of the hymns that go back to the roots of [00:05:00] Methodism were written by Charles, and he brought in that beauty of singing into the roots of Methodism. And that's what the invitation this psalm is about, all of us joining together in song.

And what do we sing? Well, we sing the glory of God's name. We sing about the strength of the Lord. We sing about joy. But we also sing to remember. We sing to remember the good and the bad. We sing to remember the joy and the lamentations. We sing to remember the history and the gospel and the messages. We sing to remember who we are.

We sing of the stories of God working among us even when we don't recognize it, [00:06:00] and we sing of the anticipation that God continues to work among us now. We sing how even in the worst of times, even at the bottom of the valley, even in the darkest moment, there's still hope. There's still a moment of liberation.

There's still a chance of change Not to deny the reality of the pain, not to deny the reality of the suffering, but to offer a promise of hope and redemption. We sing to remember hope even in the darkest moments

The psalm here in many ways could be seeing, uh, seen as just more of the same. If you read through the Psalms, a lot of them start in very similar ways and invite us into very similar actions. That's not to dismiss them. That's not to say that they're not [00:07:00] important, but they are inviting us to see the goodness of God and to sing our praises.

And we're given enough in this psalm to remember the Exodus story and recognize that even in those moments, even there, God is at work. God is at work in the moments of joy and in the momen- moments of pain, and that is actually part of what we praise. We praise that God is there even in the moments of pain.

God is working even then. Thanks for listening.

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