ARE GOD and CHRIST WORTH IT?
Psalm 32
MATTHEW 4: 1-11
FEBRUARY 22, 2026 – FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT
I received a text from MJ asking me … am I supposed to read the word SELAH when I read the Psalm on Sunday? SELAH (SUH LAH) or as most of us read it SAY LAH … most definitely has a purpose in Holy Scripture but it does not have an exact English translation and so I don’t think I have ever seen a Bible translator attempt to replace the Hebrew SELAH with another word but in this season of Lent … in this season when each of you … each of us … those watching online … today is the day when we need to consider whether in our minds, in our hearts, and in our very souls GOD and CHRIST have any value and in that very consideration SELAH matters.
I decided to double and triple and quadruple check earlier this morning … after looking out the windows to see if the next winter storm had started … I quickly opened up the Bibles in my home; I happen to have several. Each Bible has italicized the word SELAH and some of them have the word set apart from the rest of the text so when you read these passages from the Psalms or from Habakuk, which is where regular Scripture readers like you and me will find SELAH, there it was SELAH not an English translation.
Psalm 32’s placement of SELAH offers us a perfect example why this word matters. MY ENERGY WAS SAPPED as if in a summer drought … SELAH. So, I admitted my sin to you; I didn’t conceal my guilt, I’ll confess my sins to the Lord is what I said. Then you, LORD, removed the guilt of my sin. SELAH.
Oh yes … SELAH or SUHLAH … on this first Sunday in the Lenten Season of the year 2026 the first real and serious question for each of you as individuals is whether or not you are opening up your Bible at home … ever. As a Christian is your focus … on receiving God’s teaching and on getting closer to God or is it much too difficult to give up the blabbering mouths in today’s media world?
Back to SUHLAH … SELAH means to pause and carefully think about WHAT you just heard or read … it is actually a musical notation indicating a reflection, pause or silence. The silence offering the reader or the listener an opportunity to pause and calmly think about the profound point of information that they had just read or heard. It is a point of order one might say after which the reader or the listener should be lifting up their voices or instruments in praise. In the musical world SELAH functions as a musical directive to stop and change keys or to let the musical instruments play alone with the singers remaining silent in those moments.
Frankly, I think our goal as Christians is … actually, friends … what is your goal as a Christian? WHAT IN THE WORLD is YOUR PURPOSE FOR YOUR LIFE … in being a Christian? Is it your sense of a call from God to bring heaven to earth through your life’s example in which you obey and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ? You know … shining the Light of Christ through your words, actions and social media so people think CHRIST when they see how you act even amidst your sins and the chaos of the world. Is your intent on being a Christian merely getting to heaven rather than to the BAD PLACE … that somehow by telling people that you are a Christian God won’t even notice that all you ever do is say you are a Christian but that your loyalties are elsewhere? No faith works no love of ALL … not caring for the poor but you embrace all the garbage of the world at least saying you are a Christian … and there’s a lot of them out there today.
So, let me return to the traditional historical Christian goal for the Lenten Season, which has been mixed in with all sorts of other traditions that many of you worshiping with us today and many of our friends follow like giving up candy, choosing not to watch NFL games until Easter arrives … ok, that’s one I have always held close to my heart and I will admit or confess since we are in church … I think that specific Lenten promise has worked out pretty well for me because I can’t remember ever watching a single NFL game during Lent not that I am bragging … funny how some Lenten promises and bragging go hand in hand isn’t it. Sorry to have gotten off track … the traditional reason and historical teachings through the centuries since Christ died is that the Lenten Season is for people of faith … a season of the year to get closer to God … closer to Christ and more observant and connected with their faith our faith. Verifying to ourselves as well as to those who know us that God is worth it! Worth our time, love, and loyalty.
The Lenten season is a convenient time once we have tired of Advent and Christmas to start focusing in on God’s loving sacrificial gift for us in Jesus Christ our Savior. Jesus Christ OUR Messiah. We get 40 days plus Sundays in Lent to push aside the world and renew our faith through fasting … ok, very few people fast but fasting is a faith-action where the sacrifice of eating is replaced by additional prayer, Scripture reading, and song. But we can also renew our faith through more prayer … and yes, more time invested in reading the Bible … and using more of our entertainment time to listen to the music of faith or just avoiding entertainment that counters God … SELAH?
Do you ever pay close attention … real close attention to the Scripture that i SELAH?s read here at St. Paul’s on Sunday mornings? God’s Word however you choose to define it … the Bible is the text of our faith … if you have ever wondered or forgotten what translation we use here in church it is the Common English Bible, which is one of the more recent translations. Our Wednesday night Bible study uses 8 different translations each week to gain some added insight and all of them include moments of … yes … SELAH …
The more time I have invested during these last 24 hours or so in the word SELAH the more I wish that SELAH was inserted throughout the Bible. Perhaps another homework assignment for each of you … at least for myself. During this Lenten season when we are reading more Scripture than normal … keep a pen handy and write SELAH in your Bible after any passage that gives you pause … when you actually breathe deeply after reading and perhaps you’ll call out to God in the moment or sit silently… CONNECTED … CLOSER with the Holy. Isn’t that what you want and need during Lent? SELAH
I would think … I would hope … that to each and every person who worships with us at St. Paul’s at any time during the year that getting closer to God and Christ is worth it.
Today’s Psalm calls out to us … or maybe just to me … “Don’t be like some senseless horse or mule whose movement must be controlled with a bit and bridle, The pain of the wicked is severe, but faithful love … You all did follow my homework assignment from a few weeks ago and highlighted the word love in pink in your Bibles, right? Anyhow back to God’s Word … FAITHFUL LOVE surrounds the one who trusts the LORD. You are righteous SO REJOICE in the LORD and BE GLAD!! All you whose hearts are right, SING OUT in JOY!!!
I really started focusing in on today’s Scriptures in the middle of this week. Between sunrise on Ash Wednesday and lying down to sleep on Thursday I was in five worship services. Four of which offered Holy Communion. I always am really focused when I am with a group of folks in worship who are sharing in the Lord’s Supper because Jesus said, “This is my body, which is given for you. DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE of ME. He took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to ALL of them saying, “Drink from this, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many so that their sins may be forgiven.” Since I was a young boy, I have taken those moments very seriously especially since Jesus added before they all went out of the Upper Room into the valley and over to the Garden where He would be arrested Jesus after Judas was gone He said to the disciples, “Children, I am still with you for a little while. I give you a new commandment – to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples … if you have love for one another.”
So, if you wonder about me … my God connection … why I try to teach you over and over again to reject anyone who tries to tell you to not love all of your neighbors equally … it comes from the Last Supper. Communion matters to me and this week I observed carefully those taking Communion. A pause … SELAH … an opportunity … SELAH … and I watched people laughing and joking and almost treating the moment like the words spoken were ISH KIBBIBBLE and that the Lord’s Cup was a dipsy doodle cup. I watched as folks on Thursday night in Glassboro didn’t consider God worth their momentary pause … their momentary escape from the world letting God embrace them … and has been my recent habit I wrote a poem called, ‘Just a Holy thing We Do.’
Friends there is so much more to life than the world, but we need to be willing … interested and committed to pushing the world away. Some of you … some of my dearest friends … have reached the point of almost worshiping the world or elements of the world that suit their thought process that they or some of you are blind and deaf to God’s teaching … and my heart breaks. Every time I lose a friend like I just did … amidst my tears I wonder if they will be facing God and Christ hearing about what a wonderful faith life they led focused on the Holy … that they actually found moments of SELAH when they paused and calmly thought about some profound point of faith … information about God that they had read or heard. Did they come out praising God and singing with joy or were they lost in the world and enter eternity lost from God?
Jesus Himself was tempted by Satan … Evil is real … if you are a Christian then you, like me, accept Scripture’s teaching and the DEVIL brought Jesus to a very high mountain tempting Him but Jesus answered with a reminder that we all need in this season of Lent because EVIL IS TEMPTING EACH OF US … disguised with power, disguised with wealth, disguised with making you feel you are better than others … EVIL IS TEMPTING US and the Devil, EVIL INCARNATE, tempted Jesus and Jesus answered, “GO AWAY FROM ME SATAN, because it is written, YOU WILL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD and SERVE ONLY HIM!”
WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD and SERVE ONLY HIM … FAITHFUL LOVE surrounds the one who trusts the LORD. You are righteous SO REJOICE in the LORD and BE GLAD!! All you whose hearts are right, SING OUT in JOY!!!
SELAH … AMEN