Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact [email protected].
Steven Parker: Psalms of Praise, Pain and Possibility: Praying Together through the Pandemic (Psalm 8, 13 and 30)
Steven Parker, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Weslaco, Texas, turns to the psalms to find strength and comfort during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. They provide words for us when we don’t know what or how to pray, he said.
We most often recite the psalms praising God as though “everything is awesome.” The pain psalms—“about two-thirds” of Psalms—should not be neglected, because they express the hurt and brokenness of the world as it is. Psalms of possibility are the prayers of people who experienced suffering and found themselves on the other side. They “remind us of where we are ultimately headed by the promise of God.”
This sermon was delivered online on Mar. 29, 2020, for the morning worship service of First Baptist Church in Weslaco, during the second week of COVID-19 social distancing measures.
A manuscript of this sermon with discussion questions is available here.
We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.
Send comments and feedback to Eric Black, our editor. For comments to be published, please specify “letter to the editor.” Maximum length for publication is 300 words.