Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Live in Freedom | The Writings | Psalm 146-147

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

How do you define freedom? Is freedom the ability to do whatever you want? Or does our freedom depend on our design? In today's episode, Patrick shares how Psalm 146-147 encourages us to see God as our Designer, who sets us free to praise him. Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 146-147

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. I want you to imagine a table lamp. It's plugged into a wall, and light is shining from its bulb. If you saw this lamp in real life, it would be unremarkable, precisely because it would be doing exactly what you expect a table lamp to do, to shine light. Now imagine for a moment that the lamp was sentient.

It could think and move and make choices for itself. like a piece of furniture and beauty in the beast or something. Now, this lamp discovered that it was tethered to a wall by its cord, and it wanted nothing more than to be free. So it cut its own cord. And freed of its cord, what use is a bulb? So it shattered its own bulb. And what about a lamp shade?

Well, it's a big, bulky, cumbersome thing, and so the lamp shook it off and flattened it with its own base, as it to say, you'll never restrict me again. Of course, as the lamp traveled about, its base insides began to crack because lamps aren't designed for rough use or traversal. But this lamp doesn't care about what it's designed to do. It only cares about freedom, about doing what it wants to do. By the end of this lamp's life, it's little more than a cracked, fractured, wireless, bulbous, shadeless object.

Yes, it had the freedom to choose its own adventure. But a wise observer would be forced to ask a question, which lamp is more free? a lamp that lives according to its design, shining light for all to see, or a garbage lamp that even a secondhand shop would refuse to take. You see, there are two definitions of freedom out there. The most common concept of freedom is the freedom that the broken lamp envisioned. It's the freedom to do what I want, when I want, regardless of my design or purpose. The second concept of freedom is far less common in the modern world, but it was the vision of freedom that Paul, Jesus, the prophets and the psalmists all shared. For them, true freedom is the freedom to live well

according to our design, the freedom to be what we were made to be. Every living human has done something akin to our imaginary lamp. When our creator offered us freedom to live the life we were made to live, we said, no thank you. I think I know better how to live, and I'd like that sort of freedom, choosing my own adventure instead. But like our imaginary lamp, this choice is a dire one. At first, there's a rush of excitement and possibility, a joy in breaking what we think holds us back. But over the long stretch of time and life, our so-called freedom becomes a curse. It becomes the very thing that destroys us. It becomes the very thing that limits us. You see, once a lamp cuts its own cord and destroys its light, there's no going back. It's free

to do many things except for the one thing that it was designed to do. To show, shine light. Do you know what you were designed to do? A group of brilliant theologians gathered in the 1600s in England to answer that question, and they summarized the grand purpose of every human with a single sentence. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. You were made for praise. And you were made for the delight that praise brings in our life. You were designed to reflect the light of your creator and shine out his light in worship. Of course, you were made for many other things, but all those things serve the greater goal, praising God.

As we near the end of the Psalms, praise is the clear theme. Today we'll look at Psalm 146 and 147, in which the psalmist does not merely praise God. He goes one step further and states that his deepest intention, his deepest desire, his deepest design is to praise God forever. We read in Psalm 146, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord my soul. I will praise the Lord all my life. I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. Now why does he praise God? Well, he explains. He is the maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them. He remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of

the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free. The Lord gives sight to the blind. lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. The Lord reigns forever. Your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord. There is no one like our God, who made all things, upholds all things, cares for the sick and the needy and the tired. He reigns forever and is deserving of our praise. And so the psalmist says he will praise him. He will praise him. and in praising him, he enacts the grand purpose of his life. He does the very thing he was designed to do. Psalm 147 continues this theme and draws out a further point. When we praise God, we experience joy and

delight. It's the delight of a creature, what a creature was designed to do. Verse one, praise the Lord. How good is it to sing praises to our God? How pleasant and fitting to praise him. You see, those old theologians were right. Our chief end is not only to praise God, but also to enjoy him. And those two things are inseparable, because we can't help but praise what we enjoy, and our enjoyment of what we love is not complete until we praise it. C.S. Lewis wrote this in his reflections on the Psalms. He said, I think we delight to praise what we enjoy, because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are, the delight is

incomplete until it is expressed. You were designed to praise and enjoy God, and those two things are inseparable. The reason why the Psalms end with praise is because praise is of first importance in a whole happy and meaningful life. But you may be wondering, if we've all chosen the wrong kind of freedom, the freedom to do what I want, and in the process we've wrecked true freedom, the freedom to be what I was made to be. Well, how do we come back? How can we be fixed? And the answer is Jesus. He came to heal what was broken, to die for sins and forgive sinners. He took up the shattered, severed fragments of our life and not only paid the penalty we deserved for our foolishness, he went one step further and healed what we broke. He glued back together what was shattered.

He reattached what was cut, and he trained us once more to do. do what we were designed to do, to praise him. So today, praise him. Praise him for his forgiveness. Praise him for your ability to praise him. Thank him and glorify him and enjoy him. And when you do that, you'll do what you were designed to do. You'll be what you were designed to be.