Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Heather…
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to morning prayer. We’re really excited to worship with you all this morning.
Everything we need is in Him…
I want to read something real quick. I read Psalm 23 from the Amplified version. And just recognizing everything we need is in Him. It’s a basic foundational truth that we should know, but we forget at times, right? We think, “Okay, I have to pray for this. I have to do this. I have to go here. I have to…” But He’s a shepherd. He’s a good shepherd.
The negative news can be overwhelming…
Last night I was out with my daughter in a restaurant. And I’ll just be honest, I purposely don’t watch the news. For those of you that are watchers and pray-ers… thank you. But I know that the things that I need to know, I will know because people will let me know. And I pray as I find out those things, obviously. But I’m just not a news watcher. I just know my heart. I know that I’m very empathetic person. And as I watch it, I get…
So we’re sitting in a restaurant and the news is going. And of course, we all know it’s political season and then it was the hurricane, and then now there’s another hurricane. And then it was the news about Israel and all these things are coming up on the news. And we’re just sitting in Olive Garden having dinner. I’m watching and I’m like, “Wow.” It can be overwhelming if you allow it to be overwhelming.
And I could feel anxiety rising up in me reading one thing after another. And my daughter’s trying to have a conversation with me and she’s like, “Are you watching the news?” I’m like, “There’s just so much happening right now.” Which obviously we know… we all know. I wasn’t naive of those things. But the news is very good at glamorizing it. We’ll put it that way. And so I started to feel like, “Oh Jesus, you’re just going to be here any day now. Any second now. I’m just waiting for you to come back.” But I felt that anxiety of just a world that feels like it’s spinning out of control.
You have to remind yourself who is in control…
And when you feel that, you have to remind yourself who is in control. Right? I’m human just like everyone else. I get anxiety. I can feel fearful. I can feel the world buzzing around me and have that temptation to be fearful of my future, my kids’ future, our financial future. You see all that happening and that’s what the enemy wants. He wants us all to feel frantic in these last days, right?
But the Lord is our shepherd. We shall not want. And even though we walk through the valley of death… Some of us are walking through some valleys. Hopefully not valleys of death. But He’s still there with us. And in the presence of our enemies, He prepares a table for us. And so I was just reading that.
McLaren’s exposition on Psalm 23…
This morning I was reading the McLaren’s Exposition on Psalm 23. And I thought I would share it because it really blessed me. And he’s talking about, obviously, David when he wrote this. And he says, “The king who had been the shepherd boy and had been taken from the quiet sheep coasts to rule over Israel, sings this little psalm of Him who is the true shepherd and king of men. We do not know at what period of David’s life it was written, but it sounds as if it were the work of his later years.
“There’s a fullness of experience about it and a tone of subdued quiet confidence, which speaks of a heart mellowed by years and of a faith made sober by many a trial. A young man would not write so calmly, and a life was just opening would not afford material for such a record of God’s guardianship in all changing circumstances.
“If then we think of the Psalm as the work of David’s later years, is it not very beautiful to see the old king looking back with such vivid and loving remembrance to his childhood’s occupation and bringing up again to memory in his palace, the green valleys, the gentle streams, the dark glens where he had led his flocks in the old days. Very beautiful to see him traversing all the stormy years of warfare and rebellion of crime and sorrow, which lay between and finding in all God’s guardian presence and gracious guidance.
“The faith which looks back and says ‘it is all very good,’ is not less than that which looks forward and says, ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.’
“There is nothing difficult of understanding in the Psalm. The train of thought is clear and obvious. The experiences which it details are common; the emotions it expresses are simple and familiar; the tears that have been dried, the fears that have been dissipated by this old song, the love and thankfulness which have found in them their best expression, prove the worth of its simple words. It lives in most of our memories. Let us try to vivify it in our hearts by pondering it for a little while together now.
“The Psalm falls into two halves in both of which the same general thought of God’s guardian care is presented though under different illustrations and with some variety of detail. The first half sets Him forth as a shepherd and us as the sheep of His pasture. The second gives Him as the host and us as the guest at His table and the dwellers in His house.”
His role in our lives is twofold…
So think of that. Not only is He our shepherd, not only is He providing everything we need like a shepherd would do for all of the sheep. And sheep are pretty stupid. Sorry to tell you. But they are. You see them like they’ll fall into a hole. The shepherd will take them out and then they’ll walk right back into the hole again. Sounds like us a little bit.
But not only is He that shepherd that is caring, when those sheep go out in the pasture, everything they need is there for them. The food that they need is there. The shelter that they need is there. He’s already gone ahead and made everything that they need. They’re fenced in. They’re safe. Not only is that, but the king of the universe also becomes our host. And we are the honored guest at the King’s table.
The battle and the feast are the same moment…
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” The battle and the feast are the same moment. They’re in the same moment. And I heard Bill Johnson talk about this once and I never forgot it. It’s the same moment. And so you have to decide what you’re going to focus on: the battle or the feast. Are you sitting at the table with Jesus or are you watching the battle rage around you? Because it’s the same place. And in the midst of any battle we face, Jesus is preparing a table in the middle of that battle. He’s inviting us to commune with Him.
So if we just shift our focus off of the battle, we’ll see a table is set before us with everything we need. And He’s waiting for us… to nourish us… to fellowship with us… to commune with us. All in the presence of our enemies. And they have to stop and watch.
Why would He set a table in what seems to be such a dangerous place because He knows the enemy is defeated. That no moment is Jesus sitting in that table afraid or concerned. He’s sitting there. He is like, “Come! Eat with Me. Sit with Me.” Swords are flying. I mean, just picture it. Swords are flying. Things are going nuts in the background. And He’s like, “Come sit with Me. I’ve provided everything you need at this table.”
Life feels like a battle…
And some you are in a battle right now. Or some of you are just seeing everything happening in the world and it just feels like a battle right now. Life feels like a battle. The battle and the feasts are in the same moment.
It says “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” You anoint my head with oil. My brimming cup runs over.
In Jesus’ day, a gracious host would anoint his guests by applying a soothing oil to the guest’s head. A shepherd would use oil to treat sheep’s wounds. This is like an invitation to have a Mary or a Martha moment, right? We can be the Mary. And we can choose to sit at the table with Jesus. Or we can be Martha and be busy with our sword and we’re battling. And yes, it is a battle. And yes, we do use our sword. We do use our shield. But also, we have to sit and rest and be with Jesus and know that He’s already defeated the thing, the very thing that we’re fighting.
Stop fighting, turn around and see He has prepared a place for you…
He has prepared a table in the battle. Stop fighting. Turn around and see that He has a place prepared for you. And He’s waiting for you to sit at His table. So let’s do that. Let’s pray for everything going on in the world, but let’s do it from an attitude of “we’re at the table with Jesus.” He’s passing us the bread. He is passing us something to drink. He’s sitting. He wants to commune. He wants to share His heart with us. That’s what we do at a table, right? It’s hard to have dinner with an enemy. But we have dinner with those that we feel comfortable with, that we feel close with, that we want to get to know better. So now He’s inviting us to that table.
So we come now and we say, “Jesus, we want to sit at the table with you. We want to commune at the table. And we know that the world is raging around us. There is a war happening around us. But we know also there’s a feast at this table where you are sitting and you’re waiting for us. And so now we turn, we focus on you. Because we know that you are victorious. You are the conqueror. The enemy is defeated. We know all these things, Father, but our heart needs to be reminded sometimes.
And so now we come to the table and we say, “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you that you’ve prepared a place for us, a place for our hearts to find peace, to find joy, to be nourished in your presence, to find refreshing.”
