Introduction to the books of Psalms

We are beginning a series on the book of Psalms. It is good to have a short introduction to the book of Psalms so as to get our bearings and understand what this is about and where we are going.

I want to begin with a confession. It is a bit embarrassing and I wasn't sure whether I wanted to share this with you. Here is my confession: I really enjoy listening to the music from The Greatest Showman! There you have it! When I am cooking, cleaning, making things or driving along, I love listening to The Greatest Showman. This may or may not surprise you but I felt the need to confess this to you!

Why? Because The Greatest Showman is a musical, and the thought of a musical will really help us orientate ourselves in the Psalter. Here is why: The songs from The Greatest Showman, and indeed any musical (pick your favourite!), stand alone as really good songs (depending on your opinion of course!). You can listen to them and enjoy them as individual songs, even on repeat. But the songs belong in the whole. They are richer and are understood better when they are placed in the whole story. In fact the songs of a musical are in a particular order so that the story can be told. Usually in a musical as well, the songs at the end are really uplifting and give a kind of grand finale feel.

This is exactly what the Psalter is doing. Many people have individual Psalms that are favourites and the Psalms stand alone really well and can be a blessing on their own. However, they belong in the whole. Here is the first fallacy you need to get out of your minds when approaching the Psalter - this is not Israel's greatest hits randomly put together!

The Psalter has a structure that tells a story - the story of God's People. It is God's People: The Musical. 

The individual Psalms were written over a period of about 1000 years by various people. David wrote the majority but there are number of other authors we will see. There is a Psalm of Moses, the earliest, and there are Psalms written after the return from exile God's people were taken into exile to Babylon and then many years later returned from exile and came back to Jerusalem. It was after this return that the Psalter was compiled. 

The Psalms are not arranged in chronological order of when they were written, Psalm 1 was not the first Psalm to be written and Psalm 150 was not the last. There is a purposeful sequence and progression that was put together by men who were not the authors but rather an editorial committee. And the songs were put together as they are in order to tell the history of God's people in a way that would be remembered.

They would be remembered because these are songs that would be sung by God's people usually in the temple or later the synagogue. Songs are memorable - the book Les Miserable is, in my opinion, a fantastic book to read. However, more people remember that story because of the musical! 

And just like a musical we have different kinds of music. There are songs of lament, praise, thanksgiving, royal Psalms, questioning Psalms, wisdom Psalms and so on.

This musical is the story of God's people in five acts. The Psalter is broken down into five books and each book tells a different part of the story of God's people although there are flashbacks and flash forwards too in the books. 

After the introductory Psalms one and two…

• Book one tells the rise of King David (pretty much all the Psalms are of David).
• Book two tells of the reign of King David and moving on to King Solomon (ending with a coronation Psalm of his - Psalm 72)
• Book three speaks of the disintegration of the house of David that led up to the exile (ending with the Psalmist perplexed at God's apparent rejection of his king and people - Psalm 89)
• Book four speaks of the exile itself but with the people having great hope in the Lord (note the many Psalms of praise in book four remembering the faithful love of God)
• Book five speaks of the return to Jerusalem with a new David (note how before the 5 final Psalms, David returns in Psalms 139-145)

The final five Psalms are praise Psalms ending the musical with the grand finale where God's people praise God in his presence. In fact the Psalter begins with more laments than praises but ends with more and more praises. In fact the name "Psalms" means praises set to music.

What we find in the Psalter is that this is our story too. We read here of the experience of Jesus Christ, our King. In fact what was written by and was true about King David is ultimately true of Jesus Christ. And our story is the reign of Jesus that ends in the new Jerusalem praising God for all eternity.

The Psalms is the prayer and song book of our Lord Jesus Christ. And whilst we can identity with the experiences spoken of in the Psalms to an extent, they ultimately point us to him and his reign following his suffering.

Why will we benefit from studying the Psalms as a whole book?

A number of benefits comes from studying the Psalms as a whole. Studying in this way stops us from picking just our favourite Psalms and so all of the benefits are richer.

• The Psalter teaches us how to pray. The Lord's Prayer teaches us what to pray but the Psalter teachers us how to pray. It speaks of every human emotion and experience or situation and how God's people respond to it. One writer says that: "The Psalms make it possible to say things that are otherwise unsayable" Often they speak to and and for us.
• The Psalter shows us the emotional life of God's people and how we can not only praise and thank God but question God, lament, remember and so on.
• The Psalter shows us our past and our future giving us the hope of the gospel as we walk the journey to the new Jerusalem where we will praise God forever.
• Ultimately the Psalter will show us Jesus Christ our King, who he is, what he has accomplished and gives us confidence he will complete his work.

This sermon series is going to be broken up into these five acts. We will have a break after each one and do something else for a short while before picking up the story again after the intermission (although I can't promise you ice cream!).

There is more I could say but that will be said over the next 150 Psalms. They are designed to be experienced together as God's people, to be sung together. We will sing some of them, we will say a lot of them together and I pray we will experience them together as they are intended to be - as a community of God's people telling one another and the world our story of how Jesus Christ has died for our sins, is risen from the dead, is ascended into heaven, has given us the Holy Spirit to help us on this journey that ends in glory where we will experience what we read in the final words of the Psalter in Pslam 150: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord".