{"id":31890,"date":"2022-09-10T15:48:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/3-reasons-to-preach-the-psalms\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:48:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:48:00","slug":"3-reasons-to-preach-the-psalms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/3-reasons-to-preach-the-psalms\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Reasons to Preach the Psalms"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Matt Henslee<\/em><\/p>\n

A few years ago, I went to a preaching conference. During one of the breakout sessions, the speaker warned against the difficulty of preaching through the Psalms verse-by-verse, commonly known as expositional preaching.<\/p>\n

This was somewhat disheartening, especially for a conference espousing the importance of expositional preaching. However, I sometimes struggle with a strong desire to prove people wrong (must be the red-haired hardheadedness). I decided early on in this pastorate; I was going to dive into the Psalms.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m glad I did.<\/em><\/p>\n

We started working our way through the Psalms on January 7, 2018, and have made our way to Psalm 52. I typically preach one chapter a Sunday for our evening services, though some require an extra Sunday. (I haven\u2019t even thought about how long Psalm 119 will take!)<\/p>\n

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Nevertheless, I\u2019m far from an expert on preaching, let alone qualified to tell other preachers what to do. However, I’d like to offer three reasons I think you can and should preach through<\/em> the Psalms, not around them.<\/p>\n

1. The Psalms are the Words of God.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This goes without saying. If it\u2019s in the Bible, it\u2019s the Word of God. The Psalms are just as God-breathed as Matthew 28:18-20, John 3:16, and every other Scripture passage we know and love.<\/p>\n

What a privilege we have to declare the inerrant and infallible Word of God to our people! Sure, some passages are more difficult than others, but I genuinely believe we ought to aim to preach the whole counsel of Scripture with our congregations.<\/p>\n

2. The Psalms are good for variety.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I struggle a bit with ADHD. My attention span is about that of a goldfish. The Psalms have been awesome for this because each Sunday, we seem to bounce from high to low, joy to sorrow\u2014you name it. The ones written by David are especially like a roller coaster. [epq-quote align=”align-right”]Every Monday morning, I get to open a gift: a new passage, a new outline, and a new opportunity to dive into the Word of God. It\u2019s a fresh start.[\/epq-quote] <\/p>\n

One of my favorite things about preaching the Word, in general, is every Monday morning I get to open a gift: a new<\/em> passage, a new<\/em> outline, and a new<\/em> opportunity to dive into the Word of God. It\u2019s a fresh start.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Psalms seem to make this even more fun with the variety of topics, themes, genres, and so forth. It\u2019s not just a gift; it\u2019s a surprise. I\u2019m amazed at how we\u2019re only 52 chapters into the book of Psalms, but we\u2019ve already covered just about every station of life, every emotion one feels, and much more.<\/p>\n

3. The Psalms are good for your people.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Granted, we should say this about every book of the Bible (see the first reason), but man, my folks are loving our journey through the Psalms. When I first came to Mayhill Baptist, the \u201cHenslee party of six\u201d would outnumber those who came to our Sunday evening worship service. I was even told the church was open to canning the evening service altogether.<\/p>\n

While the first books we studied were Ruth and Esther, and we grew a bit therein, ever since we started the Psalms, we almost fill an entire section of our worship center on Sunday nights. In other words, we\u2019ve gone from around five folks to about 40 or 50.<\/p>\n

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For a town of 60 people and a church made up mainly by those who have to travel 20 or more minutes to get there, this speaks to the \u201cworth-it-ness\u201d our church has found in studying the Psalms.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard things like:<\/p>\n