Morning Message Text: Psalm 100
A psalm. For giving grateful praise.
1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his ; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Morning Message:
I would like to start with a statement I read this week from a pastor online. He said, “Worship songs that talk more about us than God are the latest in a long line of idols. There’s a reason Jesus called Satan the “manure god” in Matthew 12:24. The stench of self-adoration makes God want to vomit. Church services across the country are full of people holding up handfuls of manure to God and singing, “Behold!” Now that language is a little strong because I don’t think that most people who come to worship and sing hymns come with the intention of self-adoration. But this pastor does make a good point about where our focus should be in worship, and maybe we should examine our likes and dislikes about worship and why we like certain parts of worship more than others. Now I know; I can hear your thoughts and your complaints already. “Isn’t it enough that we come to church to worship?” “Why do we have to be critical of how we worship?” My response: “If we are going to take the time to worship, we might just as well do it right.”
What I am going to ask this morning is difficult. It shouldn’t be, but it is. It is especially difficult for those of us in the church. I am going to ask you to possibly, if you see that it is necessary in your life, to change directions. There are two truths that we need to affirm in our Christian existence. There is a God. And, He is not you or me. This sounds simple, but believe me, it is not. Our propensity is to get mixed up on this. God made us in His image and then we try to return the favor by making Him in our image. Listen to this story! A battleship was on exercise at sea in bad weather. The captain was on the bridge. It was foggy. Just after dark the lookout spotted a light on the starboard side. The captain asked if it was steady or moving. The lookout replied the light was steady meaning they were on a direct collision course with that ship! The captain ordered the lookout to signal to the other ship: “Change course 20 degrees. We are on collision course.” The signal came back “Advisable for you to change course.” The captain signaled, “I am a captain. Change course 20 degrees.” They replied, “I am a Seaman Second Class. You had better change course 20 degrees.” The captain was furious. He sent back “I am a battleship. Change course!” Back came the signal, “I am a lighthouse. Your call.” Like the sea captain, we need to change course when confronted with truth.
Proverbs 3: 5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Change in the lives of God’s people is not just a good thing but a necessary action in order to better understand God’s call on our lives. Let’s talk about the story of Abraham and Sarah that we read this morning. Abraham recognized that these three strangers were not just ordinary visitors. Abraham was a man of deep faith, and he sensed that this visit and these visitors were very special. Who were these three men? I will tell you, but you should go back and check it out for yourselves. One of these three men was the Lord Jesus and the other two were angels. In verse one it says the Lord appeared to him. Anytime that there is a physical manifestation of God it is Jesus. Let’s get to the reason for the visit. The Lord came for the express purpose of giving Abraham and Sarah the answer to their prayers. When the Lord granted what they had been praying for Sarah laughed; she denied that she laughed but the Lord knew what she had done, and he understood. Abraham also laughed about this in another part of this story. This went against human logic, against their understanding, but God is teaching them not to lean on their own understanding. We need to learn this lesson as well.
This was brought to my attention last week, and I want to try and answer this question. When we pray are we praying according to what we want and missing the intended purpose of prayer? I have to confess that I sometimes forget to include something very important when I pray. When we pray, we need to always include, “Your will be done Lord.” The more correct way to pray is to first say, “If it is your will Lord”, and then ask for what we want. You might say, well why bother to pray then, just say God’s will be done since that’s what is going to happen anyway. Our mistake is in our thoughts about prayer. We don’t pray because God needs it. God already knows what we want and more importantly what we need. Our praying is for our benefit. The reason that we should be persistent and constant in prayer is not to get God’s attention or change God but to focus our attention and allow God to change us and to make our will consistent with his. God wants to change our course gradually but surely. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer at the end of our prayer time, what do we say?
This brings us back to the importance of praise. What is the most important function of praising God? What is accomplished when we praise God on a regular basis? We take the focus off of ourselves and place it on God. Why should we praise God? Let me count the reasons: He is our Creator, our Owner. Yes, if you think about it and you have given your life to Jesus, he owns you. Don’t resist that thought, you are not your own and you are better off for it. He made you, and apart from him we are nothing. He is our leader. Not the president or the government, but the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is our sustainer. Everything that we have comes from his hand, and we would perish without the sustenance that he provides. And, as if all of that were not enough, he is our Savior, giving us eternal life. We have every reason to shout for joy to the Lord. Why would we not come before him with gladness and sing joyful songs that that are focused on him. When we enter the gates of this place of worship it should be with praise on our lips and thanksgiving in our hearts.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
Views: 0
