Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, February 13, 2025. Let’s relax with Psalm 145 today.
Good Morning, Good Morning my brothers and my sisters and welcome to Thursday February 13, 2025.
Today we talk about basic Bible study.
The basics of bible translations.
And then we get into Psalm 145 and go through it line-by-line.
What or Who is the Psalm actually talking about? How can we tell?
We answer those questions and much more today.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION!
Keep looking up and WE WILL SEE YOU IN CHURCH!
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, February 13, 2025. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, February 13, 2025. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, February 13, 2025
Hey, good morning, good morning, my brothers and my sisters. Welcome to the Church Town Church of God. We call this “Turning on the Lights” and we have not turned on any lights, so you will be able to see me turn on the lights. Hey, how about that? Maybe that’s exciting for you, maybe it’s not. I am sitting right beside a whole box of snacks. These are the glamorous job of a mega church pastor. Make sure everybody has their snacks. I get yelled at. I get yelled at for a lot of things. So that’s the least of them. I say, “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll order your snacks.” Let’s turn the side light on here. That makes a little bit of a difference. There’s the altar. You hear the fan running a little bit. Keep that fan going. Beautiful stained glass on a very unbeautiful day, if you ask me. We have been having this weather, a little bit of snow, a little bit of rain, a little bit of ice, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. You know what? Mother Nature, not that I believe in Mother Nature, you know that I’m not speaking heresy here. I’m just speaking metaphorically. You know what, Mother Nature? Do something. Pick one. Rain, snow, sleet, hail. Do something and do it well. I guess yelling in Mother Nature is like yelling at God. But don’t you think like, come on, man. If you’re going to snow, snow. If you’re going to rain, rain. If you’re going to ice, ice, whatever. But do it. Not like all three at the same time, maybe a little here and a little there. Should I get out the snowblower? I don’t know. I’m going to get this too late. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Turning on the Lights. I’m coughing a little less. Every day a little less. And that makes a big difference. In my life, it makes a big difference. Although all this coughing over this past month or five weeks or however long it’s been, like that, really, I got rock hard abs. Morning, Sandy. Rock hard abs. So I was making the order of worship and I chose Psalm 145. And I thought we would do a little preview. But I want to talk to you a little bit about first like next week, we’re probably going to finish first Peter. Where would you like to go next? What would you would you like to get into a gospel? Would you like to get into a set of Psalms? Would you like to get into another letter? Would you like to get into the Torah, the Pentateuch? Something of that nature, whatever you would like to do. It is exciting for me to just do it. So if you have an idea of how you would like to focus Turning on the Lights moving forward from next week, something you’ve always been curious about. A book that you would like to examine, a piece of a gospel that you would like to examine, a teaching of Jesus that you would like to examine, prophecy from the Old Testament that you would like to examine. Let me know. And we will get on it. Round knob, maybe you have something that you would like to focus your study on Wednesday nights. Anything? Let me know. And if many ideas come in, I’ll make a list and we’ll knock them down. I won’t have to ask this for a long time. We’ll make a list and we’ll knock them down over the course of the year. So bring it on. Bring it on. It’s good for me. It’s good for everybody to get into the word and start talking about the word, teaching the word, go deeply into the word. Sometimes I’m like, I don’t really know the answer to that question. And I got to go back and I got to look at the words and I’ve got to try to read commentaries and what other smart people, smarter people have to say about the word. That’s pretty much everybody when it comes to me. Anyway, father, we pray your word will go out today. It will touch your hearts and minds. It will soften hearts and minds and it will by your power and power alone, grow the kingdom of God, the power of your spirit through your word. Woo. It’s unstoppable. It is an uncaged lion. It is the light in the darkness. So Lord, do your thing. We’re right here with you in Jesus name. Amen. How about that for a prayer? Lord, do your thing. We’re right here with you. We talk about that all the time. Are you right here with him? Are you willing? Like I’m saying that all the time. And of course, as a disciple of Christ myself, those are the questions that I’m asking myself. Are you willing? And you’re trying to do this and do that and make sure I didn’t finish all of the vacuuming. I got to get on that maybe today. I did the whole half of the church over there. I got to unplug it and bring it over here and do this half of the church. I just haven’t felt like coming over and vacuuming much. This weather. Really? Come on. You got to take, I like take the vitamin D in a pill form so I can get vitamin D. Now, here’s some advice. As far as psychologically, emotionally, physiologically, taking vitamin D help. Vitamin D is a big deal. It’s one of the things we heard during COVID. No, lockdown, lockdown, lockdown. No, you need to get out because vitamin D is a very powerful mineral. And so look it up. Take some vitamin D. I’m not a doctor. Maybe I shouldn’t say that out here, but I do. And I’ve noticed the difference, right? I also know that I was talking with people last night and this upper respiratory stuff, man, it’s just taken its toll. Things are just so different now, aren’t they? Since the turn of the, since the 2020, things are just different. Things are different. People don’t just get like a cold anymore. Things are different. They did something to us. But there is nothing that the princes and principalities of man can do. There is nothing that the authority of man over me can do. As we learn from Peter, that whatever shake my foundation, shake my foundation in Christ, nothing. Good morning. Good morning, Daniel. Dan. Nothing. So you can, I can complain about it. I can look for it and I can try to be as healthy as I can. All those different things. Exactly. It’s powerful. And the sunshine, when your body is producing its own vitamin D is even more powerful than anything that they can package. But man, if you don’t have it for days on end, you feel it. Energy wise, emotionally, I do believe that seasonal affective disorder is the thing. I mean, it has a name and all of that, but it just means you’re feeling gloomy because there’s no sunshine and the weather stinks and vitamin D I’m convinced and maybe I convinced myself. I don’t know, but vitamin D helps with that because that’s what sunshine produces. So yeah. Good morning everybody. Welcome to turning on the lights Thursday edition. We are going off the chart here today. I had already said, if you’ve got moving beyond first Peter next week, if you’ve got an idea for something that you would like to study, send it to me, just message it to me. Part of the gospel and entire gospel, a new letter, a prophecy, Psalms, a set of Psalms, the Torah, the Pentateuch, what you have, Genesis is whatever. Where do you, would you like to go? How would you like to focus where we are in the word? What are you curious about? And like I said, if I get a whole list, then there we go. We’ll set them up alphabetical order and knock them down. I want this to be beneficial to the people that are watching and listening. And according to the statistics, that’s quite a few people as we tag it and it goes around the world. So I’d like to hear from you. And like I said, the whole turning on the lights community is just awesome for me. Awesome. That’s selfishly speaking. I just enjoy it so much. So let me read in the New Living Translation, does a pretty good job with Psalm 145. How do I know that? Here’s a little Bible study thing. You want to know, does the New Living Translation do a good job with Psalm 145? Well, oh, that’s a good, really, really good question. If you have been under my preaching for any length of time, you’ll hear me say, whenever we enter into a new book of the Bible, oh, this is my absolute favorite. And so I don’t even know if I could answer that. Maybe James, because I think James and I are wired quite, I mean, you have to sort of eliminate the gospels, right? Not eliminate them, but you know what I mean? Take them off that list because there’s Jesus, there’s his life and times and ministry and resurrection. You can’t go wrong in one of the gospels. Beyond that, maybe Joshua, maybe James, those things, the first half of Genesis, especially the first half of Genesis, if not all of Genesis, like, I mean, it’s often said that the entirety of scripture is a commentary on the first three chapters of Genesis. We could take a study at that. Like, is that even true? Is that remotely true? So yeah, great question. But I get excited about the word you’ve seen me get excited. We preached Leviticus one summer. It was outside during COVID. We preached Leviticus and what a revolutionary theological text Leviticus is. And I don’t think many people thought of it that way. But here is a holy God who seeks relationship with his creation and provides a way, not some sort of idol that you believe you need to please and give gifts to or give gifts to his priest or just try to please that idol or false God in some way so he doesn’t strike you dead. But holy creator of the universe who seeks relationship with the created. It’s revolutionary. It turns everything about religion as was known and even moving forward upside down. God is making a way. And of course, we see that way then fulfilled moving forward. Good morning, our friends at Round Knob. Hey, check out the beginning. We’re looking for what do we want to study next after 1 Peter? And then I was asked, “What’s my favorite book of the Bible?” And so I’m just going on and on and on about the Bible. And I don’t know, like I said, if you even take the four gospel accounts out, where do you go from there? And I just, I love it all. I love it all. I love to dig in. And then I was saying that Psalm 145, here’s a Bible study tip. How do I know Psalm 145, the New Living Translation does a good job with Psalm 145? Because I have other sources that I can compare it to which I can compare it. Don’t enter sentences with prepositions. I have other sources to which I can compare it. I have the Septuagint translated from Greek to English. So I can see how close that is. I have the New Revised Standard, which is a good word for word translation. The New American Standard Version, the NASV, good word for word translation. I can look at those things. I have, if I need to, if I’m still not happy, concordances and things of that nature, where I can compare the Greek and the Hebrew and the English side by side by side to say, “Are they nailing it?” If I need to go real deep, I have Bible software. And I can also look up commentaries and what is Psalm 145 trying to say. And then I can say, “Ooh, the New Living Translation being more concept for concept, I don’t think they nailed those concepts.” Overall, the New Living Translation does a very good job of nailing the concepts. And then once we get the concepts, we can go deeper. That’s my reasoning for using it here in church. It’s very readable. It’s concept for concept. But there are times in church when I say the very same thing. I don’t think the New Living Translation does a very good job here, or I do think it does a very good job here, etc. But for the most part, your main line translations, a few of which I’ve just spoken about, have been carefully researched by groups of scholars and are as faithful as we can possibly be to the original text. You’ll see differences and discrepancies and how different the things that you want to stay away from are paraphrases like the Passion or the Amplified or the Message and those Bibles that are written or translated, I should say, not written, translated by one person. You’re definitely going to get a bias. You want a group of people, NIV, NLT, NASV, all those different things. Of course, that’s okay. That’s why we put it out there. And we are so happy to be your sister church. And I mean that. So happy to be, I’ve said for a long time, whatever I can do, I’m two and a half hours away. We, I should say, but I’m tip of the spear, so to speak, whatever we can do, we will do. I went up the round knob a few times, I fell in love. And so whatever we can do, it’s absolutely. So there’s Psalm 145. And I can say that I believe the New Living Translation does a very good job with this as I compare it to. Right. And this is not a humble brag, but I am kind of, I love Bibles. I have like 47 of them now over the 13 years. I don’t use all 47 of them. And some of the 47 I don’t, I haven’t looked at since I got them to be pretty honest with you, but I love Bibles. I have stacks of them and I, and I do, I will go through them and just enjoy, enjoy the word in them. Enjoy the Bible. I will exalt you my God and King and praise your name forever and ever. That’s very straightforward. I will exalt you my God and King. Both of them are capitalized. So we know that he is speaking of Yahweh, my God and King and praise your name forever and ever. That should speak volumes in and of itself. God and King capitalized Yahweh, praise your name forever and ever. If you’re walking around praising the name and exalting a human being, that’s wrong. That should be the name of the Lord. The only name by which you are saved is Jesus Christ, right? The only God of the universe is Yahweh. He’s, you know, his name. He who will remain nameless, right? So my God and my King, I will praise you every day. Yes, I will praise you forever. Great is the Lord. He is most worthy of praise. No one can measure his greatness. Very simple and straightforward. How can we as human beings measure his greatness? And again, when you look at the text, great is the Lord, capital L, right? Because in the culture, even today, you have the Lord of the manor, that sort of thing. And even though it may be, what’s it called, a proper noun, I won’t capitalize that because there is one Lord and he is recognized in my language with a capital L, right? I have one King in my life, capital K, King, right? That is, there is one God, Yahweh is one God, capital G. We can draw those distinctions in our language, right? Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts. Let them proclaim your power. I will mediate on your meditate, sorry, tiny text and I didn’t turn on enough lights. I will meditate, how about that, on your majestic, glorious, splendor and your wonderful miracles. Your capital Y, referring to God, your all inspiring deeds will be on every tongue. I will proclaim your greatness. Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness. They will sing with joy about your righteousness. Now this psalm is interesting in that it is, hear me out, not about Yahweh as much as it is about human beings and their relationship with Yahweh. Now remember, one of the principles, if you want to find out the English language when you break it down, the English language is a mess overall, conglomeration of so many different languages, but when you break it down, the English language can only talk about something and what it does or something and what is done to it. So you have subject verbs. So if you want to find out what a person is really talking about, listen for the subjects of their sentences. If you want to find out what a person is really writing about, seek out and look for the subjects of the sentences. I will exalt you my God and King. What’s that saying? What is that sentence about? I, it’s what I am doing. Now that this is not in any way de-elevating Lord God and King. No, it’s speaking of the relationship. Some of the behaviors that I demonstrate to Lord God and King, to Yahweh, to our triune God, to the mighty one, right? To the Lord of hosts. I could keep on going with the names, but it’s my behavior. I will exalt thee and praise your name forever. I will praise you every day. That sentence is not about God. It’s about what I do for God. It’s just an interesting little twist. And it’s one of the most simple linguistic techniques that anybody can employ. If you’re listening to a politician on television, listen for the subjects of their sentences. You’ll find out what they’re actually talking about. If you are listening to whatever, sports, athlete, whatever, you can, you can listen for the subjects of their sentences. If you are reading scripture, if you’re reading any other book, if you’re reading a technical manual, if you are reading some sort of treaties on this or that or the other thing, look at the subjects of the sentences. You’ll know what that person is truly writing about, right? I like to ski. Is that sentence about skiing? Not really. It’s about me and what I like. Skiing is my favorite sport. Is that sentence about me? Nope, not really. It’s about skiing and the fact that it is my favorite sport. See how it works? It’s a neat little trick, especially when you’re like, you’re listening to somebody and you’re not really talking about what you are trying to put out there that you’re talking about, aren’t you? You’re really talking about yourself or you’re really talking about whatever. Now here we go. Great is the Lord. He is most worthy of praise. There you go. He is most worthy of praise. He is great. That’s about God. Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts. That is the second person. If you’ve gone to school and understood you, we used to call it the understood you. You let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts. Let them proclaim your answer. I will meditate. Your about God again, all inspiring deeds. Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness. The Lord is merciful and compassionate. So you see that it is, you hear a lot about human beings and their relationship with God and a lot about God and who he is. And when you begin, you look at that and you’re like, Oh, okay. I see how this Psalm is being constructed. And I see what the subject is, what what’s going on here. So that being said, verse six, you excited. So what’s my favorite book right now? My favorite book is Psalms. And my favorite passage is Psalm 145. That’s that’s about as near as I can say, what is my favorite books wherever I am and whatever I’m doing with it. Like I’m just in. So verse eight, the Lord is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry, filled with unfailing love. Well, we’ve heard that a few times before, haven’t we? The Lord is good to everyone. He showers compassion on all his creation. All of your works. All right, we’re talking about the Lord again. His works will thank you, Lord, and your faithful followers will praise you. They will speak of the glory of your kingdom and they will give examples of your power. They will tell about your mighty deeds and about the majesty and glory of your reign. For your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. You rule through all generations. You can hear I’m emphasizing the subjects of the independent clauses. And this song is all about, all about, all about God and man, man and God. Praise worthiness of praise. Speaking your praise to the generations. The generations will tell of your praise. I mean, it’s very, it is actually very focused on both God and man. As you go through this, you know, you see very focused, very poignant. God is who he is. Man praises who he is. God is who he is. Man tells the generation to generation, generation who he is. It’s a wonderful construction. The Lord always keeps his promises. He is gracious in all he does. The Lord helps the fallen and lifts those who beneath their loads and lift those bent beneath their loads is what that says. The eyes of all people look to you in hope. You give them their food as they need it. When you open your hand, you satisfy the hunger and thirst of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in everything he does. He is filled with kindness. The Lord is close to all who call on him. Yes, to all who call on him in truth. He grants the desires of those who fear him. He hears their cry for help and rescues them. The Lord protects all those who love him, but he destroys the wicked. And from like nine through 13, it was all about like you, your, you, your generations. And then we go from like 14 through 20. It’s all about the Lord, he, the Lord, he, the Lord, he. And here’s how we finish. I will praise the Lord and may everyone on earth bless his holy name forever and ever. See how that works? He is the Lord. This is who he is. I, we, the generations praise him for it. He is the Lord. Here is who he is. Here is what he does. I praise him for it. I recognize him for it. And it’s all summed up. It begins talking about I, it ends talking about I and in between it is just this relation. I about the Lord, the Lord does this for me. I praise his name. The Lord is this. I am all about worship. The Lord provides. That’s great. Just, you know, I mean, just, you just slow down a little bit. We slow down a little bit and you’re like, and you can ask the very basic questions that we ask. Why is this in here, Lord? Why is this included in our canon? Father God, by the power of your holy spirit, take me through this Psalm. What am I reading? What are you showing me? He is showing who he is and he is teaching us our place, if you will. It is that of the created who worship the Lord. It’s good stuff. It’s very simple at its essence, right? Then that is what makes it more powerful. That’s what makes it more powerful. Understanding that even then, even then, like way before Christ and way before all this, hey, man, it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship stuff that we deal with today. We see that the Lord is the way maker. That he seeks relationship and we are in spiritual relationship with him when we are saved and submitted to the Lord through Jesus Christ, his son. Now this is the right now being a child of God, I look back thousands of years at Psalm 1 45 and I go, man, that even makes more sense. Like I know where David was coming from. He is seeking the same relationship with the Lord that I am all that time ago. And the Lord is inspiring him to write this because it’s possible. And now we’ve moved through the cross and experience a resurrection power of Jesus Christ and we’re like, yeah, thank you. I praise your name. I did not do that. You are who you are and you did what you did and I praise you for it. Woo. Good stuff on a Thursday morning. I hope that that wherever you are, whether it’s gloomy here, but I hope that that gave you a little on a Thursday morning, like, yeah, I’m going out in the rain and the fog and the snow and the slush in the mud and praise the Lord. Understanding is great and he grants you will grant you that. He will grant you that by the power of his Holy Spirit. Father God, thank you so much for our time that we get to spend together. You are awesome and we praise you. We give you our devotion. We give you our worship, you and you alone. You are the capital K king, the capital L Lord, the capital G God, you. That’s it. Creator of the universe, the mighty one. And we give ourselves to you, Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit. May we live according to your will and may your kingdom grow one conversation at a time through your disciples in Jesus mighty name. Amen. Brothers and sisters, I’m fired up on a Thursday morning. I hope you are too. It’s supposed to be rainy over the weekend, but if you could be this fired up on a Thursday morning in the rain, you better be this fired up on a Sunday morning in the rain and get the church. I’ll see you in church.
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