Worship

Introduction:

Isaiah 9:6 - For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Changes Coming Under Messiah's Leadership (Micah 5:1-15):

1. Messiah's people will be Secure . (Micah 5:3-6)
2. Messiah's people will be Prominent . (Micah 5:7-9)
3. Messiah's people will be Dedicated . (Micah 5:10-15)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:46-01:45

  You know, if I was in charge, there'd be a lot of changes. A lot of changes. You're like, like what? Number one, if you are bicycling on the road and slowing down traffic behind you. You will be arrested and fined. The length of your prison sentence will be determined by the brightness of your neon shorts. Number Number two, this whole automatic base runner on second in MLB when we get to extra innings, eliminated forever.

  01:49-01:50

  Thank you.

  01:51-01:51

  Thank you.

  01:55-01:56

  Earn your base runners.

  02:00-02:06

  Number three, generic ketchup would be outlawed.

  02:09-02:11

  I'm bringing back prohibition.

  02:15-02:22

  And it will be illegal to own any kind of ketchup besides Heinz.

  02:25-02:27

  I got bad news for you.

  02:28-02:29

  I'm not in charge.

  02:32-02:34

  I got worse news for you.

  02:36-02:40

  By next year, somebody else is gonna be.

  02:43-03:13

  And see, as we turn to God's word, it cannot be lost on us, is what you have is a country lies, theft, oppression, and a land that's full of idolatry and is facing the judgment of God.

  03:16-03:19

  Like, what nation are you talking about?

  03:21-03:23

  Talking about the United States.

  03:24-03:31

  You know, as we study the book of Micah, we're also talking about Israel because both of these nations have a lot in common.

  03:34-03:51

  So that's why Micah is so relevant for us because the message for Israel facing the judgment of God is the same message for the United States, which is under the abandonment wrath of God that we studied in Romans 1 a few weeks ago.

  03:51-03:53

  And the message is the same.

  03:55-04:03

  And I've got such good news for you today, because this is the message of Micah chapter 5.

  04:05-04:06

  There's going to be a new leader that's coming.

  04:09-04:17

  A new leader is coming, yes, yes, wickedness is rampant, yes, we're under God's judgment, yes.

  04:21-04:26

  But someone is coming to make everything right.

  04:28-04:29

  So we're gonna pray.

  04:30-04:31

  I'd like you to bow your heads.

  04:31-04:32

  I want you to please pray for me.

  04:34-04:35

  And I'm gonna pray for you.

  04:35-04:39

  This is an extremely difficult passage, but we're gonna get through this together.

  04:40-04:49

  Pray that I'd be faithful to communicate it, and I'll pray for all of us to have hearts open to receive what it is that God wants to teach us today.

  04:49-04:50

  Let's pray.

  04:55-05:09

  Father in heaven, as we turn to your word now, we believe that all scripture has been breathed out by your Holy Spirit.

  05:13-05:18

  We believe this message is from you.

  05:20-05:32

  And Father, it's not lost on us how relevant it is, as we're in a nation right now, much like Israel was back then.

  05:35-05:40

  There's a lot of differences, but fundamentally it's the same.

  05:44-05:52

  Father, I pray that You'd be at work mightily in Your Word in all of our hearts today.

  05:54-05:56

  I pray in Jesus' name.

  05:57-06:01

  And all of God's people said, "Amen." Micah chapter 5, are you there?

  06:02-06:02

  Look at verse 1.

  06:03-06:07

  Micah says, "Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops.

  06:08-06:10

  Siege is laid against us.

  06:12-06:14

  the rod, they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.

  06:16-06:21

  So like a lot of prophets do, we're gonna get to the good news in a second, but we gotta get to the bad news first.

  06:22-06:23

  And Micah says, here's the bad news.

  06:23-06:26

  Jerusalem is going to be sieged.

  06:27-06:30

  And Jerusalem at the time is going to have a weak military.

  06:31-06:34

  And the siege eventually came through Babylon.

  06:36-06:41

  And he says, the judge, meaning the king, is going to be helpless to resist.

  06:44-06:46

  So like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hang on a second.

  06:47-06:52

  Like I heard Pastor Taylor's message last week about hope, right?

  06:52-07:00

  So if Israel's defeated, what about all that hope that we saw in the previous passage?

  07:04-07:05

  It's coming.

  07:07-07:11

  Chapter five tells us how.

  07:12-07:19

  It's actually no, chapter five tells us it's not about a how, it's about a who.

  07:23-07:25

  Look at verse two, I bet you know this verse.

  07:27-07:37

  But you, O Bethlehem, Ephrathah, "who are too little to be among the clans of Judah.

  07:38-07:59

  "From you shall come forth for me, "one who is to be ruler in Israel, "whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days." Micah says, "Yeah, hope's coming." And hope is coming from a really obscure place.

  08:02-08:02

  Bethlehem.

  08:06-08:13

  Now, the name of that city is just so familiar to us, but understand in Micah's day, Bethlehem was nothing.

  08:13-08:14

  You know what Bethlehem was like?

  08:14-08:15

  It was like Shekorah.

  08:16-08:16

  That's where I grew up.

  08:18-08:19

  I grew up in Shekorah.

  08:19-08:22

  Shekorah is so small, the city limit signs are on the same post.

  08:22-08:23

  It is so small.

  08:25-08:39

  And Bethlehem is so small When you go through the Old Testament, they give these lists of cities and places that were conquered and that were apportioned out to different tribes.

  08:39-08:42

  Bethlehem didn't even make the map, never made the list.

  08:44-08:45

  It was nothing.

  08:48-08:54

  Now, Bethlehem is the most famous city in the Holy Land besides Jerusalem.

  08:57-09:04

  Hundreds of years before this, God promised to establish David's throne forever.

  09:04-09:05

  That's 2 Samuel chapter seven.

  09:07-09:19

  And Micah is picking that up and saying, "Yeah, God will establish a ruler in Israel." And it's gonna be somebody from David's hometown, the Messiah.

  09:21-09:22

  And you've heard this verse before, right?

  09:22-09:24

  A lot of times it's read at Christmas time.

  09:26-09:31

  We know that the Messiah being spoken of here was born in Bethlehem.

  09:31-09:33

  That's Jesus Christ.

  09:37-09:47

  And Micah tells us that this ruler would be of old, from ancient days, meaning he's eternal, he's timeless.

  09:48-09:53

  In other words, the ruler that's coming is going to be God himself.

  09:56-10:01

  And do you know about this same time that Micah was preaching this?

  10:03-10:13

  About the same time over in Jerusalem, Isaiah was preaching almost the exact same sermon.

  10:15-10:17

  Another Christmas verse, Isaiah 9, 6.

  10:18-10:19

  Do we have that for the screen?

  10:19-10:20

  I can't remember if I sent that one.

  10:21-10:22

  Oh, there, we did.

  10:23-10:27

  Thank you, it says, "For to us a child is born.

  10:28-10:32

  "To us a son is given, "and the government shall be upon his shoulder.

  10:33-10:45

  "And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, "Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Do you see, it's the same message.

  10:46-10:46

  It's the same sermon.

  10:49-10:51

  But you know what happens at Christmas time?

  10:51-10:53

  This is a popular Christmas verse.

  10:54-10:54

  We've preached it here.

  10:55-10:59

  But you know what happens a lot of Christmas time when we preach through this verse and talk about this verse?

  11:00-11:04

  One of those phrases sort of gets glossed over a little bit.

  11:07-11:20

  And the phrase is, "The government shall be upon his shoulder." And I think now more than ever, that's the part of the verse that should excite us the most.

  11:22-11:25

  Because our government's leadership hasn't been stellar.

  11:26-11:27

  Have you noticed?

  11:29-11:31

  Well, Israel noticed that in their day.

  11:33-11:39

  And Micah's message should fire us up too, to say, "Hey, there's gonna be a new leader.

  11:40-11:41

  He's coming.

  11:42-11:56

  And under this new leader, there's gonna be some changes." I don't know what he's gonna do about the whole ketchup mess that we're in, but there are gonna be some changes.

  11:57-12:10

  So yes, this passage is for Israel, absolutely, but also this passage is for us Gentiles who have been brought into God's family through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

  12:11-12:16

  So this is a message for all of us, specifically targeted at Israel.

  12:17-12:19

  But on your outline, I want you to jot some things down, please.

  12:20-12:22

  These are changes coming under Messiah's leadership.

  12:23-12:25

  The Messiah, Jesus Christ.

  12:25-12:27

  These are the changes that are coming under His leadership.

  12:27-12:31

  Number one, Messiah's people will be secure.

  12:34-12:36

  Look at verses three and four.

  12:36-12:52

  He says, "Therefore, "He shall give them up until the time "When she who is in labor has given birth, then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel.

  12:54-13:03

  And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.

  13:04-13:12

  And they shall dwell secure, Now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.

  13:14-13:21

  Now, just looking at verse three, Micah talks about a lot.

  13:23-13:32

  I just wanna give us a quick review here to kind of give us some frame of reference, but let this be a timeline of history here, all right?

  13:32-13:39

  And we'll say, okay, Micah prophesied here, This is 700 BC-ish, okay.

  13:41-13:42

  Him and Isaiah and the rest.

  13:42-13:50

  Okay, we'll say, let this mark represent when the Messiah, Jesus, is born in Bethlehem.

  13:50-13:54

  So we'll just put, you know, we'll just put birth, all right?

  13:57-14:01

  And then shortly after Jesus birth, 33 years, right?

  14:01-14:12

  Jesus suffered and died, resurrected, and then in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit came, church is established, right?

  14:13-14:15

  Well, my timeline's gone down there, isn't it?

  14:15-14:18

  All right, so don't worry about that, forget that.

  14:19-14:31

  But sometime in the future, soon, it's going to start the seven-year tribulation that the Bible talks about, seven years of hell on earth.

  14:32-14:36

  And right before the tribulation, The church is raptured out.

  14:36-14:37

  We've talked about this.

  14:37-14:42

  We went through the book of Revelation and we talked about the Olivet Discourse and things like that.

  14:43-14:46

  But there's seven years of tribulation, okay?

  14:46-14:51

  And then at the end of the seven years, it's Armageddon, right?

  14:51-14:56

  Christ comes back to destroy all of the enemies, right?

  14:56-14:59

  So I'm just gonna put A for Armageddon, all right?

  14:59-15:12

  And then after Armageddon, After Armageddon, this is Revelation 19, then you get to Revelation chapter 20, and that is the millennial kingdom.

  15:13-15:16

  Now that's gonna stand for millennial, not Miller.

  15:16-15:17

  Okay, millennial kingdom.

  15:21-15:25

  And Revelation 20 says that lasts for 1,000 years.

  15:28-15:35

  And after that 1,000 years, we're gonna have a new heaven, a new earth, I'm just gonna put new, right?

  15:35-15:36

  That's the best word there.

  15:36-15:38

  A new heaven, a new earth, the eternal state.

  15:40-15:51

  And the reason I'm sharing this with you is this is a period of time that I think a lot of Christians don't even think about.

  15:52-15:57

  We think, okay, Jesus comes back and we die and then there's heaven and that's it.

  15:57-16:05

  But the Bible says that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is going to reign on the earth for a thousand years.

  16:06-16:09

  And that is the subject of much of Old Testament prophecy.

  16:11-16:24

  But the reason I'm doing this outline here is these Old Testament prophets, when they were prophesying, what did they see?

  16:24-16:29

  They saw that the Messiah would be born and they saw Armageddon.

  16:29-16:32

  They saw that the Messiah would come back and he would conquer the enemies.

  16:33-16:36

  And they saw that the Messiah would rule over the earth.

  16:37-16:39

  So these Old Testament prophets saw all this.

  16:39-16:43

  Something they never talked about was the church age.

  16:47-16:50

  Jesus actually revealed that in Matthew chapter 13.

  16:51-16:52

  This was never revealed in the Old Testament.

  16:53-16:56

  What was going to happen when God's Holy Spirit lives in his people and the gospel advances.

  16:57-16:59

  Jesus reveals that in Matthew chapter 13.

  17:00-17:06

  But the Old Testament prophets, you go through and they're like, yeah, the Messiah comes and he conquers and he reigns.

  17:06-17:08

  He comes, he conquers and he reigns.

  17:08-17:10

  That's what the Messiah does.

  17:14-17:22

  But the question is what happens to Israel before the Messiah reigns?

  17:22-17:36

  And he tells us in verse three, look at verse three again, where it says, "He shall give them up." That had a near fulfillment in Micah's day, but that also had a far fulfillment in this.

  17:38-17:51

  Aside from the remnants of Israel, Israel is temporarily rejected as Gentiles are brought into God's kingdom.

  17:52-17:54

  That's the subject of Romans chapter 11.

  17:54-17:55

  You can go home and read that.

  17:56-18:02

  But that's what he's talking about here when he says, "God shall give them up." All right?

  18:03-18:04

  So look at verse five.

  18:06-18:07

  It says, "And he shall be their peace.

  18:09-18:18

  "When the Assyrian comes into our land "and treads in our palaces, "then we will raise against him seven shepherds "and eight princes of men.

  18:19-18:45

  "They shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword and the land of Nimrod at its entrances, and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he comes into our land and treads within our border." Now here in these verses, he's talking about Assyria, he's talking about Nimrod, and here he's using those names in a sort of generic sense to represent the enemies of God.

  18:46-18:52

  The Bible does that frequently, like in Revelation talking about Babylon representing the enemies of God.

  18:53-18:54

  We're used to that concept, right?

  18:55-18:57

  Like we use the word Nazi.

  18:57-19:04

  We throw that word around a lot, not talking about, you know, the evilness of Germany.

  19:04-19:09

  We'll use that word just talking about a bad person.

  19:10-19:14

  It's kind of what Mike is doing here when he talks about the Assyrian.

  19:15-19:20

  He says that Israel is gonna have a full crew of leaders, seven shepherds, eight princes.

  19:21-19:25

  But notice, He doesn't say, "We are going to conquer.

  19:25-19:30

  "We are going to make secure." He makes it very clear that it's the Messiah's victory.

  19:30-19:33

  He, He shall deliver us.

  19:36-19:37

  He's talking here about Revelation 19.

  19:38-19:46

  He's talking here about Armageddon, which leads into Revelation 20, the millennial kingdom.

  19:50-19:53

  Like, well, what's the millennial kingdom like?

  19:56-19:58

  Well, there's two phrases he uses here.

  19:59-20:02

  I don't want us to get too lost in the weeds here, because that's not Micah's point.

  20:03-20:10

  There's two phrases he uses here to describe what this kingdom is like.

  20:11-20:14

  When Christ reigns on the earth, these are the two phrases.

  20:15-20:38

  Verse four, "They shall dwell secure." Verse five, "He shall be their peace." I've got to be honest with you.

  20:42-20:44

  I wasn't sure how to roll this out to you.

  20:48-20:49

  I mean, I understand what's going on here.

  20:49-20:52

  I've spent a lot of time studying eschatology.

  20:53-20:57

  I spent so much time this week reading and studying this passage.

  20:58-20:58

  That's not the issue.

  21:01-21:09

  where I struggle with this passage as a pastor, is how to make you excited for it.

  21:10-21:14

  And that's not a criticism against you at all, but let's be honest.

  21:16-21:19

  Most of us have only ever lived in peace.

  21:21-21:26

  Most of us have only ever known peace and security.

  21:30-21:39

  When was the last time you had fear in your home that a group of Assyrians were going to come in and murder your family and take all of your stuff?

  21:40-21:41

  Probably never happened to you.

  21:43-21:44

  That's all we've ever known.

  21:44-21:44

  It's a blessing.

  21:50-21:52

  But you know, I wish I could give this message to Israel.

  21:55-22:06

  Do you know, as of September the 8th, They estimate there were more than 42,000 deaths in the Israel-Hamas war.

  22:10-22:12

  Do you think this message would have hit them different?

  22:14-22:16

  To say there's gonna be peace and security in your land?

  22:19-22:26

  When you live in constant fear, that you might get blown up today.

  22:30-22:31

  42,000.

  22:33-22:35

  That's a number to us.

  22:41-22:43

  You know what that is to Israel?

  22:46-22:47

  Those are sons and daughters.

  22:50-22:51

  Those are parents.

  22:53-22:54

  Those are brothers and sisters.

  22:56-23:02

  "Here's your babies." I wish I could give this message to the Ukraine.

  23:06-23:18

  Since the Russian invasion, there have been somewhere in the neighborhood, reports vary, I read several of them, but there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 deaths.

  23:23-23:24

  That's a number to us.

  23:27-23:31

  Do you know what that is to the Ukrainians?

  23:32-23:34

  As your sons and daughters.

  23:36-23:36

  As your parents.

  23:39-23:40

  As your brothers and sisters.

  23:43-23:43

  As your babies.

  23:48-24:24

  I wish I could give this message to every victim of terrorist attacks, school shootings, Antifa riots, but mark this, when the Messiah rules, there is going to be peace all over the earth. And God's people will dwell secure. And I want to say this, I want to say this, Number two, jot this down, Messiah's people will be prominent.

  24:26-24:29

  Messiah's people will be prominent.

  24:33-24:34

  Look at verse seven.

  24:36-24:36

  Excuse me.

  24:36-25:19

  It says, "Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples, like dew dew from the Lord like showers on the grass, which delay not for a man, nor wait for the children of man. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations in the midst of many peoples like a lion, among the beasts of the forest like a young lion, among the the flocks of sheep, which when it goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver.

  25:21-25:40

  Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off." Again, that might not seem like something that would fire us up, But you know who that does fire up?

  25:42-25:42

  Israel.

  25:43-25:45

  Do a little study of Israel.

  25:45-25:48

  Israel's always had a target on her back.

  25:50-25:51

  Everybody's always gone after Israel.

  25:52-26:01

  And here Micah says the remnant of Israel in the millennial kingdom, he says she's gonna be like two things.

  26:02-26:06

  And I gotta tell you, I spent a lot of time this week while you're doing what you're doing during the week.

  26:07-26:29

  I spent a lot of time this week to wrap my brain around this, because he says, "Israel will be like dew and a lion." That That is a paradoxical description.

  26:31-26:33

  For one nation to be like both of those?

  26:38-26:40

  What do they have in common?

  26:42-26:44

  What does dew and a lion have in common?

  26:44-26:51

  Well, we don't have to guess, and we don't have to wonder, because he tells us right in the text what they have in common.

  26:52-26:55

  Look again, he talks about the dew and the showers.

  26:56-26:57

  Because he says they don't wait on man.

  26:59-27:00

  Do you notice that?

  27:00-27:01

  What's that mean?

  27:02-27:04

  That means if you went outside and said, "You know what?

  27:04-27:13

  I want to mow the grass early this morning, so I'm going to put the dew off for two hours so the grass is dry." Can you do that?

  27:14-27:15

  Can you do that?

  27:19-27:21

  Are you able to accomplish that?

  27:22-27:25

  to say, "Dew, just wait two hours.

  27:26-27:27

  Is that possible?

  27:28-27:30

  Shout it out, come on, not a trick question.

  27:30-27:33

  Okay, no, you can't accomplish that.

  27:36-27:44

  It's gonna happen." Dew is refreshing and it gives life.

  27:46-27:48

  And there's nothing that man can do to stop that from happening.

  27:50-27:54

  The lion among the sheep is the next picture.

  27:57-28:01

  What happens when you have a hungry lion in the midst of sheep?

  28:02-28:04

  Do those sheep stand a chance?

  28:06-28:07

  What's gonna stop the lion?

  28:08-28:09

  What's gonna stop the lion?

  28:11-28:11

  Nothing.

  28:12-28:13

  Nothing.

  28:15-28:16

  It's gonna conquer.

  28:17-28:25

  When a lion is hungry and it's tearing through a sheep, there is nothing that's gonna stop that.

  28:26-28:27

  Ah, are we starting to see the connection?

  28:30-28:32

  Israel, this is what Mike is saying.

  28:34-28:44

  Israel is going to be prominent during the millennial kingdom of the Messiah, and there is nothing that anybody can do about that.

  28:50-29:00

  By the way, if you have any anti-Semitic tendencies, I'd encourage you to repent, because this is what we're dealing with.

  29:04-29:13

  But you know, for Micah to say this to Israel in this day, and even honestly saying it to Israel today, that must have seemed like such a foreign concept.

  29:14-29:16

  I mean, look at the history of the nation of Israel.

  29:18-29:31

  Everything from the Philistines to the Assyrians to the Babylonians to Rome, Holocaust, wars.

  29:35-29:47

  Micah says that when the Messiah reigns, nations are gonna be blessed by, or fear the nation of Israel.

  29:49-29:50

  Messiah's people will be prominent.

  29:51-29:57

  And number three, write this down, Messiah's people will be dedicated, dedicated.

  30:02-30:09

  you're going to see these last few verses hit like a hammer, just boom, boom, boom.

  30:09-30:15

  It's just like a verbal, repeated hammer strike.

  30:16-30:22

  What he's saying here is God is going to do some things in and for his people.

  30:23-30:24

  Look at verses 10 and 11.

  30:26-30:46

  He says, "And in that day," again, we're talking about the millennium, "And that day," declares the Lord, "I will cut off your horses from among you, "and I will destroy your chariots, "and I will cut off the cities of your land "and throw down all your strongholds." You're like, yeah, his enemy's right.

  30:46-30:47

  No, he's talking to Israel.

  30:49-30:57

  What God's saying is he's going to remove military security from Israel during the millennium.

  30:58-30:58

  Why?

  30:59-30:59

  Why would he do that?

  31:01-31:02

  'Cause God's saying, "You're gonna trust me.

  31:04-31:06

  "You aren't gonna trust your military.

  31:07-31:08

  "You aren't gonna trust your equipment.

  31:10-31:15

  "You ain't gonna trust your battle strategies." Messiah says, "No, no, no.

  31:16-31:20

  "You're gonna trust me." And the theme carries on.

  31:20-31:21

  Look at verses 12 through 14.

  31:23-31:35

  He says, "And I will cut off sorceries from your hand, "And you shall have no more tellers of fortunes, "and I will cut off your carved images "and your pillars from among you.

  31:36-31:52

  "And you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands, "and I will root out your Asherah images from among you "and destroy your cities." See, it's the same theme.

  31:54-32:07

  God says, "In this day, not only am I gonna remove your military, I'm also going to remove your religious substitutes." God says, "You know what you're gonna learn?

  32:08-32:13

  You know what the Messiah here, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, you know what He said?

  32:13-32:14

  He says, "You know what you're gonna learn?

  32:14-32:25

  You're gonna learn to worship only me." We spent some time already in this series talking about idolatry.

  32:27-32:29

  Something has your attention, your affection.

  32:33-32:43

  And we live in a time of idolatry that, it's just, we're so drowning in it that we don't even recognize it.

  32:44-33:08

  But the day's coming, he goes, "Now, now, you know what worship's gonna be like?" He goes, "I'm gonna remove everything else "that you're worshiping, and you're going to learn "to worship only me." You're like, "Wow, what about people that aren't on board "with all this stuff that Mike is saying?" Well, look at verse 15.

  33:08-33:19

  "In an anger and wrath, I will execute vengeance "on the nations that did not obey." Vengeance is what is needed for justice to happen.

  33:21-33:26

  And God's enemies are gonna pay, but they're gonna pay.

  33:30-33:31

  What's he saying here?

  33:33-33:51

  Simply this, my friends, God is so serious about the holiness of his people that he is going to remove anything that would distract them from Him.

  34:00-34:11

  This is one of the things that I'm most looking forward to in the kingdom of the Messiah, in the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

  34:11-34:25

  This is one of the things that makes me most excited Is God making us fully, actually, holy?

  34:27-34:28

  Look, I get it.

  34:31-34:39

  I know that I am pronounced holy because of Jesus Christ.

  34:39-34:41

  I get that, all right?

  34:41-34:42

  I've been preaching that for a while.

  34:43-34:44

  I get that.

  34:45-34:50

  Because of what Jesus Christ accomplished, God sees me as holy because He took my sin away.

  34:50-34:51

  I get that.

  34:56-35:06

  But you know, sometimes, a lot of times, I don't feel very holy.

  35:12-35:19

  Do you, Do you ever just get tired of yourself?

  35:25-35:26

  Does that ever happen to you?

  35:28-35:29

  It happens to me.

  35:35-35:46

  For example, do you know how many times in my life that I've seen God provide and the most mind boggling, staggering ways I've seen God make perfect provision.

  35:49-35:54

  I could write volumes of books on the way God has provided.

  35:58-36:02

  But you know when a new need pops up, I start to worry.

  36:08-36:12

  And then, and then I start to think of ways that I can bail myself out.

  36:13-36:16

  And I think of ways that I can take care of myself.

  36:16-36:21

  And then God, God provides again.

  36:24-36:26

  And I am so ashamed that I ever doubted him.

  36:28-36:29

  Anybody else?

  36:31-36:31

  Don't leave me up here.

  36:34-36:46

  Or, you know, I fast and I pray and I get into His Word and I am living a worshipful life.

  36:50-37:58

  suddenly my affections and time are being spent on insignificant, worldly things. And I am so ashamed that I got sidetracked. I just get tired of myself sometimes. Don't you? You're like, "Yeah, I get tired of you too, Jeff." No! Don't you get tired of yourself? This is why we take great joy in knowing that when Messiah sets up his kingdom, all self-reliance and all idolatry is going to be eliminated. No fellowship with God. We will enjoy worship of the Messiah as we should.

  38:02-38:23

  It's the message of Micah 5. Did you see it? The Messiah's people are going to be secure, and they're going to be prominent, and they're going to be dedicated. So the The question really that you need to ask yourself is this, am I one of Messiah's people?

  38:27-38:33

  As we said, I hope this isn't a surprise, spoiler alert, we know who the Messiah is.

  38:34-38:49

  Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem exactly as Micah said, and also prophesied in the Old Testament as that this Messiah would suffer and die to take away the sins of his people.

  38:50-38:54

  The Messiah, the Old Testament tells us also that he would raise from the dead.

  38:55-38:58

  You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption.

  39:01-39:03

  He would raise again to give us eternal life.

  39:05-39:14

  And Jesus would do all of that to secure for us these precious promises of the Messiah's kingdom.

  39:18-39:32

  So, with all of Micah's talk of Messiah and His kingdom and people trusting only Him and worshiping only Him, I have to ask you, are you yearning for that now?

  39:42-39:47

  You know, something really hit me this week, kind of in a fresh way.

  39:48-39:55

  We think of this millennial kingdom of Jesus being way far off in the future, but it hit me.

  39:56-39:56

  It hit me this week.

  39:56-39:58

  Do you know how close it is?

  40:01-40:02

  It could be within a decade.

  40:04-40:09

  Because the Bible says the last period of time on the earth is seven years.

  40:11-40:13

  This could happen at any moment.

  40:14-40:17

  And then the Bible says this is right after that.

  40:17-40:21

  So all the stuff we're talking about could be happening within a few years.

  40:25-40:32

  And you can be a citizen of this today.

  40:33-40:35

  So worship team comes forward.

  40:35-40:36

  I'm gonna ask you to please bow your heads with me.

  40:46-40:47

  Just bow your heads.

  40:51-40:53

  I just want you to listen to me for a minute.

  40:53-40:53

  We're going to pray.

  40:54-41:03

  If there's anybody here that is like, "You know what, I hear what you're saying, but I'm not sure I'm a part of this kingdom.

  41:03-41:05

  I'm not sure I belong to the Messiah.

  41:05-41:08

  I'm not sure that I really have believed.

  41:09-41:12

  I don't have confidence that I'm going to be a part of this.

  41:13-41:15

  Well, you know what the wonderful news is?

  41:15-41:16

  Today's the day that that can change.

  41:20-41:25

  I'm gonna lead us in a prayer, and I want you to pray along with me.

  41:28-41:30

  But I want you to come and see me right after service.

  41:30-41:32

  I'm gonna be in guest reception.

  41:32-41:46

  If you need to make that decision to turn from your sin and receive Jesus Christ, you need to do that today because this kingdom's a lot closer than we think it is.

  41:49-41:59

  Father in heaven, what glorious promises.

  42:01-42:17

  And Father, we confess to you that I'm sure this hits Israel a lot harder than it hits us, because we haven't known the savage war that Israel has experienced over and over and over and over in her history.

  42:19-42:23

  She's experiencing it right now as we pray to you, Father.

  42:25-42:43

  We thank you that in the gospel of Jesus Christ, have been grafted in. We can enjoy the blessings of the millennium because of what Christ accomplished on our behalf.

  42:46-43:02

  Father, I want to pray for any here who don't know You, that today would be the day that day would say, "I'm done. I'm done playing church. I'm done with this half-hearted commitment.

  43:04-43:27

  I want to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior." Father, I pray if there's anybody that is experiencing the Holy Spirit conviction right Now I pray they couldn't leave this building until they talk to one of our pastors, one of our elders.

  43:32-43:35

  Father, we don't want anybody to be excited over a future they'll never have.

  43:37-43:42

  So Father, let us embrace the glorious promises of Jesus Christ.

  43:46-43:54

  and practice now what we will be doing throughout the millennium and throughout eternity beyond.

  43:55-43:56

  Father, we are going to worship.

  43:57-43:59

  We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Micah 5:1-15

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. What is the significance that the “ruler in Israel” would be from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2)?
   

3. Micah 5:7-8 tells us that in Messiah’s kingdom, Israel will be like dew and like a lion. What do these pictures mean and how can they both be true at the same time?
   

4. In Micah 5:12-14, God promises to remove idols from Israel during the Messiah’s kingdom. Why does God do this, and not just command Israel to not worship them?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Harvest DNA – Part 2: Unashamed Praise.

Review / Introduction:

"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation... the delight is incomplete till it is expressed." - C.S. Lewis

Why I Am Compelled to Worship (Psalm 34):

1. God has never Disappointed me. (Psalm 34:4-10)
2. God has taught me how to Live. (Psalm 34:11-16)
3. God has Comforted me through difficult times. (Psalm 34:17-20)
4. God has taken away my Guilt. (Psalm 34:21-22)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:42-00:45

  All right, turn in your Bibles with me, please, to Psalm 34.

  00:47-00:48

  Psalm 34.

  00:50-00:55

  Now we've sort of broken up the music part of church, by putting the sermon in the middle.

  00:57-00:58

  Let me ask you something.

  00:58-01:03

  Let's just take a giant step back and evaluate this thing that we do called church.

  01:04-01:06

  And let me ask you, why do we sing?

  01:08-01:08

  Why do we sing?

  01:10-01:11

  I mean, can we just be honest?

  01:11-01:14

  Doesn't that seem like a strange custom?

  01:15-01:19

  That on a Sunday morning, I mean, think about this.

  01:19-01:31

  On a Sunday morning, you would get up, you would get dressed, you would drag your kids to a place where you sing.

  01:32-01:39

  And I mean, you sing with some people here who are friends and some people here that quite frankly are complete strangers.

  01:40-01:44

  but when we gather in this room, all of a sudden we're supposed to be this choir?

  01:45-01:48

  I mean, doesn't that seem strange to anybody else?

  01:49-01:51

  Why would we do that?

  01:53-01:57

  Singing is sort of like an outlet of emotion.

  01:58-02:00

  Singing is like an outlet of expressing joy.

  02:02-02:04

  And I was thinking about this this week.

  02:04-02:07

  You know, we sing a lot, actually.

  02:08-02:13

  And we sing often in very strange settings, don't we?

  02:15-02:16

  For example, a birthday party.

  02:18-02:19

  What do we do at a birthday party?

  02:21-02:24

  Well, we get the person whose birthday it is and what do we do?

  02:25-02:27

  We sing at them.

  02:27-02:33

  Actually, we say, "Hey, because it's your birthday, we lit a cake on fire for you.

  02:35-02:36

  And it's your job to put the fire out.

  02:36-02:39

  but before you do, we're going to sing at you.

  02:40-02:41

  I'll make sure you make a wish.

  02:41-02:42

  I mean, doesn't that seem strange?

  02:44-02:48

  We sing or we go to the baseball game.

  02:48-02:50

  This one always confused me.

  02:50-02:52

  You go to the baseball game.

  02:52-02:53

  What's the song you sing at the baseball game?

  02:53-02:57

  You know, take me out to the ball game.

  02:57-02:58

  And when did we sing that?

  03:00-03:02

  At the ball game and what Mike?

  03:02-03:03

  In the seventh inning.

  03:05-03:09

  Like why are we singing "Take Me to the Ball Game" when the game's almost over?

  03:11-03:13

  Just a strange custom, isn't it?

  03:13-03:15

  And I've seen that at baseball games.

  03:15-03:20

  Not only do we sing, but we put our arms around complete strangers and we're swaying.

  03:20-03:22

  ♪ Take me out to the ball ♪ Isn't that weird?

  03:24-03:25

  Or is it just me?

  03:25-03:26

  Am I the only one?

  03:28-03:30

  You know the weirdest singing context by far?

  03:31-03:32

  This one I don't get at all.

  03:34-03:38

  I mean, I can kind of get the other two, but this is by far the weirdest one to me, is Christmas caroling.

  03:40-03:41

  Christmas caroling.

  03:42-03:52

  You know, you and a group of friends, you show up outside of somebody's house and you're like, "Hey, come out into the cold so me and my friends can sing at you while you're trespassing.

  03:52-03:57

  What are you doing with the hose?" But isn't that weird?

  03:59-04:06

  New Year's Eve, we get together and we celebrate and we sing, what's that song we sing?

  04:06-04:11

  Old, old slang, old slang, old slangs.

  04:12-04:13

  I should have looked that up.

  04:14-04:17

  Anyway, singing is a very emotional thing, isn't it?

  04:19-04:25

  How many songs on the radio are about a deep profession of love?

  04:27-04:28

  How many songs on the radio are about heartbreak?

  04:30-04:34

  How many songs on the radio are about passion?

  04:36-04:36

  Why?

  04:37-04:39

  Why are these things the subject matter?

  04:39-04:40

  Because singing is emotional.

  04:41-04:48

  Which is why singing is one aspect of worship that we really go after here.

  04:50-04:56

  You see, Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with your heart, with your soul, with your mind, with your strength.

  04:56-05:02

  In other words, the greatest commandment is you are to love God with everything that is in you.

  05:04-05:08

  So the question is, how do we love God with our emotions?

  05:11-05:19

  Well, God gave us something that we are to use to love God with our emotions.

  05:19-05:21

  And that thing that he gave us is music.

  05:22-05:28

  That is how we worship God, how we love God with our emotions.

  05:30-05:31

  Look at what C.S. Lewis said.

  05:32-05:43

  He said, "I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses, but completes the enjoyment.

  05:45-05:46

  It is the appointed consummation.

  05:47-06:00

  The delight is incomplete till it is expressed." He says it's not just expressing enjoyment, he says it's that praise that completes the enjoyment.

  06:01-06:05

  Like when you're on a roller coaster, what do you typically do on a roller coaster?

  06:05-06:12

  You sit there and stone-faced and have your church face on on the roller coaster?

  06:13-06:14

  No, what do you do?

  06:14-06:17

  You scream, you laugh, you put your hands up.

  06:17-06:18

  And why do you do that?

  06:19-06:24

  Because somehow that expression completes the enjoyment.

  06:25-06:31

  Or, I don't know if you heard, but there's a football game on today.

  06:34-06:40

  When the team scores, why don't we jump up and scream and high-five each other?

  06:40-06:41

  Somehow that heightens our enjoyment.

  06:42-06:46

  And it's the same with singing to the Lord.

  06:47-06:56

  That expression, that praise, that letting that out before the Lord completes our enjoyment of our experience with the Lord.

  06:58-07:05

  When it comes to this singing in music, you know God's pretty fired up about it.

  07:06-07:07

  What's the biggest book of the Bible?

  07:08-07:09

  It's the biggest book.

  07:09-07:09

  Psalms.

  07:09-07:10

  And what's Psalms?

  07:11-07:12

  Israel's song book, right?

  07:13-07:17

  The biggest book in God's Word is the Song Book.

  07:17-07:25

  And Revelation chapters 4 and 5 describe heaven as the ultimate worship service.

  07:25-07:33

  In fact, Jesus told the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4 that the Father is seeking worshippers.

  07:35-07:36

  That's why we're pretty fired up about it.

  07:36-07:44

  And that's why pillar number two of Harvest Bible Chapel is lifting high the name of Jesus through worship.

  07:47-07:48

  So let's look at Israel's songbook here.

  07:49-07:55

  Psalm 34 says, "I will bless the Lord at all times.

  07:55-08:03

  His praise shall continually be in my mouth." Notice that's not just a Sunday morning thing.

  08:04-08:05

  all times, continually.

  08:07-08:10

  Verse 2, "My soul makes its boast in the Lord.

  08:11-08:12

  Let the humble hear and be glad.

  08:13-08:25

  O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together." You can underline all the synonyms for worship in those verses.

  08:26-08:43

  Bless, praise, boast, magnify, exalt, and I'd really love to spend time talking about all these, have time for that, but I do want to talk about one in particular. I want to talk about the word "boast." The reason I want to talk about boasting is because usually boasting has a negative connotation.

  08:45-09:08

  So what is boasting? Boasting refers to that on which a person would value themselves. Boasting refers to that on which a person would value themselves. In When you hear somebody boasting, they're saying, "This is what makes me important." Right?

  09:08-09:16

  For example, when you hear somebody boast about how much money they have, "Here's how much money I made last year." "Oh, you won't believe how much money I made last year." And, "Oh, I'm doing really well at work.

  09:16-09:19

  You won't believe how much money." You know why they keep saying that?

  09:19-09:21

  What they're communicating to you is, "Hey, here's how important I am.

  09:21-09:22

  Do you know how important I am?

  09:22-09:23

  Let me tell you how important I am.

  09:24-09:27

  I'm so important that they're throwing money at me." That's boasting.

  09:28-09:29

  Why money?

  09:29-09:30

  Because that makes me important.

  09:30-09:32

  People boast about all kinds of things.

  09:33-09:34

  People boast about their muscles.

  09:35-09:36

  Hey, guess how big my arms are.

  09:36-09:38

  You wanna guess how big my arms are?

  09:38-09:39

  Do you wanna guess how much I can bench press?

  09:40-09:40

  Do you wanna guess?

  09:40-09:40

  Do you wanna guess?

  09:41-09:41

  I can, yeah.

  09:43-09:43

  Why do they get it?

  09:44-09:45

  Because let me tell you, this is why I'm important.

  09:46-09:48

  This makes me special.

  09:50-09:51

  Please acknowledge how special I am.

  09:52-09:55

  There are people boast that they, maybe they know a celebrity.

  09:56-09:58

  Hey, do you know that I'm friends with so-and-so?

  09:58-10:00

  Ooh, you know so-and-so.

  10:00-10:26

  Like, people boast about that, "That makes me important." "My accomplishments." "The type of job they have." All these things people think give them importance, but the Bible says, Jeremiah 9.23, 1 Corinthians 1.31, the Bible says, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." Because He alone, listen, He alone is what gives you real value.

  10:29-10:33

  If you know the Lord, only then do you have something to boast about.

  10:33-10:35

  You're a recipient of his grace.

  10:35-10:37

  So then you aren't even boasting in yourself.

  10:40-10:44

  You're boasting about how awesome God is.

  10:44-10:45

  That's boasting in the Lord.

  10:46-10:47

  Like, look, you know what?

  10:47-10:50

  I'm weak and helpless and nothing and totally dependent.

  10:50-10:53

  And I am a speck of dirt.

  10:53-10:55

  But let me tell you about my God.

  10:55-10:57

  My God can save people like me.

  10:58-11:04

  "My God takes care of me. My God provides for me." That's boasting in the Lord.

  11:06-11:31

  So when you come in here, and the music starts, Darren gets up and he's playing the guitar, Jay's slapping the bass, Muckles pounding on the drums, Darren Keller's back there strumming his guitar, As soon as the music kicks up, you have a choice to make.

  11:32-11:36

  And the choice is you can participate, or you can watch.

  11:36-11:39

  And look, I'm not condemning at all.

  11:40-11:51

  Because the sermon I want you to see, here's why I choose to participate, the sermon title here, "Why I'm Compelled to Worship." And I'm just going to share some things with you from the Word of God.

  11:52-11:54

  This compels me to worship.

  11:56-12:08

  My hope is after you go through the text and evaluate your own life in light of the Word of God, when we fire up the music again, you're going to be compelled to worship.

  12:09-12:14

  To express that emotion in boasting to the Lord.

  12:17-12:22

  Number one, why I'm compelled to worship, the first reason is this, God has never disappointed me.

  12:24-12:26

  God has never disappointed me.

  12:26-12:36

  2 Timothy 4-10 David writes, "I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

  12:38-12:45

  Those who look to Him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed.

  12:47-12:51

  This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

  12:54-13:00

  The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them.

  13:02-13:05

  Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.

  13:05-13:08

  Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.

  13:08-13:14

  Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him have no lack.

  13:15-13:31

  The young lions suffer want and hunger, But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." First reason we see right from the text why I'm compelled to worship is because God is never disappointed.

  13:32-13:48

  Verse 5, look back there again, He says, "Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed." You have never met someone who sincerely trusted God, who sincerely looked to God and were or let down by God.

  13:48-13:49

  You haven't met that person.

  13:53-14:00

  Now listen very closely to what I'm saying because I know we like to have fun and we laugh here, but this is a point that some people are going to check out.

  14:00-14:01

  And I don't want you to do that.

  14:01-14:02

  I want you to hear what I'm saying.

  14:04-14:06

  We face disappointments in life.

  14:07-14:08

  For sure.

  14:10-14:11

  From our circumstances.

  14:15-14:19

  The question is, has God ever disappointed you?

  14:21-14:27

  Because I know there's somebody sitting here today that's thinking, "Yeah, you know what? God has disappointed me." And I want you to check yourself on this.

  14:27-14:32

  I want us to be really honest about this.

  14:33-14:42

  If you think that God has disappointed you, have you had unbiblical expectations of God?

  14:43-14:50

  this, are you claiming promises from God that He never made?

  14:52-14:54

  Are you trying to cash checks that God didn't write?

  14:56-15:04

  See, that's why some people are disappointed with God, because they are trusting God to do something that God never promised to do.

  15:06-15:15

  Now, Erin and I had a dear friend that her mother, this friend's mother, was like in her late nineties, you remember?

  15:15-15:28

  She was in her late nineties and a nursing home, foot in the grave, like ready to die any second for months living in this near vegetative state.

  15:28-15:30

  Again, late nineties, lived a long life.

  15:32-15:36

  Well, this friend's mother eventually died and our friend was completely distraught.

  15:37-15:40

  I scream at God every day, why did you let my mother die?

  15:41-15:42

  Why did you let my mother die?

  15:43-15:45

  And she was so bitter towards God.

  15:47-15:52

  And it's very hard to say compassionately, what were you expecting from God here?

  15:54-15:58

  Were you expecting your mother to live eternally in perfect health?

  16:00-16:02

  Because the Bible never promises that.

  16:02-16:03

  Why are we mad at God?

  16:04-16:07

  Are you trying to claim a promise from God that he didn't make?

  16:07-16:10

  Because the Bible says that we're going to die.

  16:10-16:20

  We're going to wear out and die appointed unto man wants to die and your mother actually had it pretty good living as long as she had, as healthy as she was for so long.

  16:22-16:25

  Now that was this woman's situation, what about yours?

  16:25-16:32

  Are you trying to claim promises from God that he never made because the reality is God has always delivered on what he's promised.

  16:33-16:36

  And the provision that he promises and provides is perfect.

  16:41-16:47

  you might say, "But I wanted this so bad and God didn't give it." Well, you know, Jesus described God as a father, right?

  16:48-16:51

  And every parent knows you don't just give your kid everything that they ask for.

  16:52-16:54

  And God in his perfect wisdom says, "You know what?

  16:54-16:55

  That's not gonna be good for you.

  16:55-16:58

  I'm not gonna give it to you." That's what Jesus said, right?

  16:58-17:01

  If your son asks you for bread, are you gonna give him a stone?

  17:04-17:07

  No good parent is going to do that.

  17:09-17:10

  God is a perfect parent.

  17:10-17:15

  He's going to make sure that anything that comes from His hand is going to be good.

  17:15-17:20

  That's why verse 10 He says, "I lack no good thing." Everything that comes from God is good.

  17:22-17:28

  He says it's more likely that the king of the jungle is going to be in need than a child of God.

  17:29-17:33

  And that's the satisfaction that Jesus Christ offers.

  17:34-17:38

  When you hunger for the things of God, going to be fulfilled.

  17:42-17:42

  Verse 8.

  17:43-17:48

  You probably all knew verse 8 going into this, right? We've all heard this verse, maybe you memorized it, maybe you quoted it.

  17:49-17:54

  "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good." I love that verse, because that verse is an invitation.

  17:55-18:00

  "Taste and see that the Lord is good." Can I tell you about a day that changed my life forever?

  18:03-18:05

  You're like, "Oh, you're going to tell us your testimony?" No.

  18:06-18:14

  That changed my life forever, but this is, it's not as great as that day, but it's pretty far up there as far as days go.

  18:15-18:20

  But I remember growing up, it just wasn't part of our family culture.

  18:20-18:22

  We just typically never had Chinese food growing up, right?

  18:23-18:24

  We just, we never had it.

  18:24-18:27

  And I remember, I can't remember the context where or who.

  18:28-18:30

  I think it was on break at work.

  18:30-18:33

  I can't remember, and I'm gonna tell you why here.

  18:33-18:37

  When you hear what happened, everything else just sort of fades away except this one thing.

  18:38-18:47

  Okay, so I just remember somebody said, hey, would you like a bite of General Tso's chicken?

  18:48-18:50

  And again, I've never had Chinese food.

  18:50-18:51

  I'm like, yeah, I don't eat Chinese food.

  18:51-18:53

  I never had it, but I'm like, I don't eat Chinese food.

  18:53-18:56

  And they're like, oh, dude, you've got to try this.

  18:57-19:01

  Like, no, thanks, I'm not great on trying new things.

  19:01-19:04

  And, dude, you've got to try this.

  19:04-19:06

  "Nah, I'm not really interested.

  19:06-19:26

  "You gotta try this." Put it on the fork, had it to my mouth, "You got to try this." And then finally, just to get the person off my back, like, "All right, I'll try it." And I remember I put it in my mouth and like rainbows exploded from my face.

  19:29-19:31

  That moment changed my life.

  19:34-19:36

  Now those of you that have tried that, am I exaggerating?

  19:38-19:39

  No, right Jack?

  19:39-19:42

  I see Jack's back there like, he ain't lying.

  19:44-19:49

  See the point was, there was somebody that had tried that and experienced it and loved it so much.

  19:49-19:52

  They insisted that I try General Tso's chicken.

  19:53-19:54

  They're like, dude, you don't know what you're missing.

  19:55-19:58

  They insisted to the point that they practically shoved it in my mouth.

  20:01-20:13

  And I mean, if we can make such a spectacle over something like that, and it's good, but for those of you that have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, shouldn't you be a little more insistent that other people try it?

  20:13-20:15

  Look, you gotta know Jesus Christ.

  20:16-20:17

  You gotta know Him.

  20:17-20:18

  You gotta know Him.

  20:18-20:24

  I was so lost, and I was so guilty, and I was so, my life was a mess.

  20:24-20:26

  And do you know what He did for me?

  20:26-20:27

  Do you know how He changed me?

  20:27-20:30

  Do you know the purpose that He has given my life?

  20:30-20:31

  You gotta try Him.

  20:31-20:32

  You gotta come to church.

  20:32-20:33

  You gotta come to my small group.

  20:33-20:40

  We should be just as insistent as whoever that saint was that made me try General Tso's chicken.

  20:41-20:50

  That's why the best evangelists and worshippers are the ones who are always mindful of what God is doing and has done in their lives.

  20:51-20:56

  That's why I have no problem inviting people to this church.

  20:56-20:57

  I have no problem.

  20:58-21:01

  And not because it's my job at all.

  21:03-21:05

  It's because of the ways I see God at work here.

  21:07-21:10

  The way I see God moving in the lives of people and families.

  21:11-21:13

  The way I see God blessing people here.

  21:15-21:26

  The thought never crosses my mind that someone would take me up on an invitation to come, and they would leave here on a Sunday morning disappointed, because when God moves, no one is disappointed.

  21:29-21:30

  And that compels me to worship Him.

  21:31-21:34

  He doesn't disappoint. Not ever.

  21:35-21:37

  Number two, why I'm compelled to worship.

  21:39-21:40

  Because God has taught me how to live.

  21:42-21:43

  Look at verses 11-16.

  21:45-21:56

  He says, "Come, O children, listen to Me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord." What man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good?

  21:57-22:00

  That's a rhetorical question, by the way. It's pretty obvious, right?

  22:00-22:15

  He's like, "Do you know anybody that wants to live a good, long, happy life?" Like, "Do you mean everybody that ever lived?" "Yes." He says, "Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

  22:15-22:19

  Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it.

  22:20-22:25

  The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears toward their cry.

  22:25-22:31

  The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the memory of them from the earth.

  22:33-22:34

  God's taught me how to live.

  22:36-22:38

  You know, sin is such an interesting thing.

  22:39-22:46

  We crave our sins so badly, and it always, ultimately makes us miserable.

  22:48-22:49

  Such a crazy thing.

  22:51-22:56

  Just as we said God always satisfies, Sin never has. You realize that?

  22:57-23:10

  Never in the history of the world has somebody lived in sin and thought, "Yeah, that works. That's fulfilling. That's making me happy." And people foolishly think of the Word of God as restrictive.

  23:12-23:16

  People laugh at us church people, because the Word of God is so restrictive.

  23:16-23:18

  And I've heard it so many times it makes me sick.

  23:19-23:28

  People are like, "Oh, God doesn't want me to have fun. Is that it?" You know, you believe in the Bible, "Yeah, God just doesn't want us to have any fun." Well, let me ask you, is it really fun?

  23:30-23:32

  I want you to look at the porn addict.

  23:33-23:37

  Driven by lust, and driven to constant guilt. Is that fun?

  23:39-23:41

  Sit down with that guy and get him to be honest with you.

  23:41-23:43

  Is your sin fun? How's that working out for you?

  23:45-23:46

  He's miserable.

  23:47-23:49

  Verse 14 tells us to pursue peace.

  23:50-23:51

  Look at the contentious person.

  23:53-23:56

  You know a contentious person just wants to fight with everybody about everything?

  23:58-24:02

  And then they don't have any friends because nobody wants to be around somebody like that.

  24:02-24:03

  And they feel lonely.

  24:04-24:08

  "I just don't feel close to anybody. I don't feel like I have a real friend in the world." Is that fun?

  24:09-24:11

  Is it fun to fight with everybody? Is that fun?

  24:13-24:14

  Oh, we could go on and on.

  24:14-24:18

  What about the lazy person?

  24:18-24:19

  Driven to comfort.

  24:22-24:24

  Easy path of least resistance every time.

  24:24-24:25

  What's comfortable for me?

  24:26-24:27

  What's easiest for me?

  24:27-24:29

  And then they're feeling unfulfilled.

  24:29-24:31

  I just don't feel like I have any purpose in life.

  24:31-24:33

  I don't feel like God's using me for anything in life.

  24:33-24:35

  I just wonder all the time, why am I here?

  24:35-24:36

  Why am I here?

  24:36-24:37

  Is your laziness fun?

  24:37-24:38

  Is that working out for you?

  24:41-24:42

  Take the drunk person.

  24:44-24:45

  Driven to party, right?

  24:46-24:50

  Life is a beer commercial and it's so fun, it's so fun, it's so fun.

  24:53-24:54

  Do you know what's not fun is addiction.

  24:56-25:04

  You know what's not fun is needing to be in rehab, whether it's drinking or drugs or whatever.

  25:06-25:08

  That's why God calls us to repent.

  25:09-25:10

  Let's get that on the table now.

  25:11-25:14

  God calls you to repent for one simple reason.

  25:14-25:15

  It's because He loves you.

  25:17-25:24

  And when God tells you to turn from your sin, as we saw in this passage here, when God tells you to turn from your sin, what He's saying is, "Look, stop destroying yourself.

  25:26-25:28

  Stop living in misery.

  25:28-25:34

  Turn to Me." And I can tell you, I tried it my way.

  25:36-25:37

  And I was completely miserable.

  25:38-25:41

  But living God's way has maximized my joy.

  25:42-25:52

  That's why God's Word is a delight, as we talked about last week, and that's why I'm compelled to worship Him.

  25:54-25:55

  Because He's taught me how to live.

  25:56-26:00

  Thirdly, God has comforted me through difficult times.

  26:01-26:03

  God has comforted me through difficult times.

  26:03-26:04

  Look at verses 17-20.

  26:05-26:07

  When the righteous cry for help.

  26:08-26:10

  Look at that, right on time, cue the cry.

  26:11-26:13

  right there in the passage. You see that?

  26:14-26:14

  Thank you.

  26:15-26:20

  "When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

  26:21-26:26

  The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

  26:28-26:32

  Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers Him out of them all.

  26:33-26:40

  He keeps all His bones, not one of them is broken." Am I compelled to worship?

  26:41-26:43

  Because God has comforted me through difficult times.

  26:43-26:48

  God doesn't always eliminate problems, but He has promised to sustain us and strengthen us through them.

  26:50-27:04

  And that's why the sorrowful, if you're here today and you're going through a hard time, you're going through a rough patch, whether it's lasted a week or whether it's lasted 20 years, the sorrowful get to know God in a special way.

  27:07-27:08

  That's one of the great things about trials.

  27:09-27:13

  Is you get to experience God in a way that you wouldn't otherwise.

  27:16-27:22

  It's when we realize that we're hopeless sinners, that we get to experience the awesomeness of God's forgiveness.

  27:23-27:29

  It's when we are in need that we get to experience the awesomeness of God's provision.

  27:30-27:38

  And in this passage here, verse 18, it's when we are brokenhearted and crushed We get to experience God's compassion and comfort.

  27:38-27:41

  We get to know Him as a loving Father.

  27:43-27:58

  And that's why these experiences that I've gone through, these difficult times that I've gone through, have compelled me to worship Him.

  27:59-28:03

  And finally, God has taken away my guilt.

  28:04-28:06

  Am I compelled to worship Him?

  28:07-28:08

  Because God has taken away my guilt.

  28:10-28:16

  This alone would be more than enough reason to worship Him for eternity.

  28:16-28:17

  Look at verse 21.

  28:18-28:23

  "Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned." Look at this last verse.

  28:24-28:32

  "The Lord redeems the life of His servants." None of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.

  28:34-28:35

  the fear of judgment.

  28:37-28:45

  For all of the sinful, selfish, stupid things that I've done because of Jesus Christ, there's no condemnation, there's no shame, there's no guilt.

  28:45-28:46

  I'm forgiven.

  28:47-28:47

  And I'm free.

  28:49-28:50

  And I couldn't do it myself.

  28:52-28:54

  Not by my good works.

  28:54-28:55

  Not by my religion.

  28:55-28:59

  I'm going to try really hard to not sin anymore.

  29:01-29:03

  It's only when I take refuge in Him.

  29:04-29:10

  It's only when I take refuge in Him that I'm free from the guilt of my sin.

  29:11-29:17

  And I love that he says, "None of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned." That means this is for everyone.

  29:19-29:21

  So if you're sitting here today, it doesn't matter what you've done.

  29:23-29:28

  God has provided forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

  29:28-29:55

  And you know, when I think on that day, as we just sung earlier, on that day when it's my turn to leave the earth, and I think on that day, I'm going to be granted access to eternal paradise with God because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

  29:57-29:59

  When I think about that day, do you know what that does for me now?

  30:01-30:02

  That compels me to worship.

  30:04-30:06

  As we close, I'd like the worship team to make their way forward.

  30:09-30:10

  Mike Martin, I'd like you to come forward.

  30:10-30:12

  I want to use you for an illustration.

  30:12-30:12

  Can I do that?

  30:13-30:14

  I'm not going to embarrass you, I promise.

  30:15-30:16

  Come on up here.

  30:18-30:21

  I just want you, as we close here and as we're about to sing, I want you to imagine.

  30:23-30:25

  We're going to let Mike symbolize the man here.

  30:25-30:27

  But I want you to imagine with me, please.

  30:28-30:28

  Use your imaginations.

  30:30-30:36

  I want you to imagine that you meet a man in this church, and we're going to call him the fatherly type.

  30:37-30:42

  You met this man in the church, and you became friends with this man by coming to this church and getting to know this man.

  30:42-30:51

  And let's say in our scenario here, over the course of five years, you have really got to know and love and appreciate this man.

  30:53-30:54

  That he wasn't just another churchgoer.

  30:54-30:56

  this man got invested in your life.

  30:58-31:02

  I want you to imagine that this man helped disciple you.

  31:04-31:10

  That there were times this man, he'd come to small group, and he'd open the Bible, and he'd share some things that the Lord had taught him.

  31:11-31:16

  And over the course of the five years, this man, there were times that he provided for you.

  31:17-31:22

  Oh, do you remember that time that you had that sudden problem in your house?

  31:22-31:26

  You had a pipe broke, and you didn't have the money to fix it, and he gave you the money to fix it.

  31:27-31:37

  Or that time that your car broke down and you didn't have the money for the repairs and he had a mechanic buddy and he made sure that your car got fixed.

  31:37-31:42

  These kinds of things seem to happen a lot over the years that he helped provide for you.

  31:43-31:54

  Or do you remember that time in church that somebody else in the church really offended you and you were really upset with them and you were thinking about leaving the church because you were so offended and you were never gonna forgive.

  31:54-32:01

  And you remember, this was the man who sat down with the two of you and he prayed with you and he helped you reconcile the relationship.

  32:02-32:04

  Oh, he was the reconciler.

  32:06-32:12

  Do you remember the time that your grandfather died and who was the first person to show up at your house?

  32:13-32:14

  But your buddy from church.

  32:15-32:18

  He was there with you, with your family, praying.

  32:18-32:23

  He showed up at the funeral and he just put his arm around you and comforted you.

  32:24-32:25

  during that time.

  32:27-32:33

  All over the course of those five years, there were so many times that you called him for advice.

  32:34-32:57

  Whether it's, "Hey, can you help me figure out "how to fix this plumbing issue I'm having?" Or, "Hey, can you, my kid's going through this phase, "can you tell me how to figure out how to, "what should I say to my kid that's going through this?" Or, "I just had this argument with my wife "and she's really mad at me." And there's been so many times that you've called him and he's just given you fatherly advice.

  32:58-33:05

  Anytime, he just dropped what he was doing and he made you numero uno.

  33:07-33:11

  I want you to imagine you show up on a Sunday and he's brought up front just like he is here.

  33:13-33:20

  And I get up beside this, who's become one of your best friends on the planet.

  33:20-33:23

  I get up beside him and I say, "Hey, I got some sad news.

  33:23-33:27

  Due to sudden circumstances, Mike has to move.

  33:29-33:32

  And because of the circumstances, he's leaving today after church.

  33:32-33:34

  He's packing up and he's leaving.

  33:35-33:38

  And he's been so influential in so many people.

  33:39-33:45

  Is there anybody here that would like to say something to Mike?" Now, I want you to think about that.

  33:45-33:47

  Just hit pause here for a second.

  33:50-34:02

  When you think back of the five years that this man has ministered to you and all the ways that he's loved you and taken care of you, and I say, "Does anybody have anything they'd like to say?" Would you have something to say?

  34:04-34:07

  Would you have anything that you would like to say to this man?

  34:08-34:16

  I would suggest that the gratitude and the honor would passionately pour out.

  34:17-34:24

  You would have so much to say to Him because of the experience that you've had with Him.

  34:24-34:28

  You've received so much blessing from this guy over the course of five years.

  34:29-34:30

  You're like, "Yeah, I've got to say some things.

  34:31-34:36

  I've got to tell him how much I appreciated all the stuff that you've done for me.

  34:36-34:37

  And I've got to tell everybody else.

  34:37-34:44

  This guy was a friend to me when I felt like I didn't have a friend in the world." It would just be pouring out, wouldn't it?

  34:45-34:46

  Thank you, Mike. You can have a seat.

  34:48-35:01

  You see, I want to tell you we're here today because we want to say some things to someone far greater than our hypothetical father figure.

  35:03-35:10

  We're here today because we want to say some things to God.

  35:11-35:13

  So if you are born again, do you know what that means?

  35:13-35:21

  That means Jesus died on the cross in your place so that you could be forgiven of everything wrong that you've ever done or ever will do.

  35:24-35:26

  If you were born again, it means you are saved from eternal hell.

  35:28-35:32

  You're never going to experience a half a second of God's judgment.

  35:34-35:37

  If you are born again, that means you've been given the promise of heaven.

  35:37-35:46

  That means he encourages you and guides you with wisdom, through life, through family, through work, in His Word.

  35:49-35:51

  He provides every single thing that you need.

  35:51-35:57

  He comforts you and sustains you through the worst trials of your life, never leaving or forsaking you.

  36:00-36:01

  His love for you is limitless.

  36:03-36:10

  Do you realize when you're at your very best, or you're at your very worst, His love for you is exactly the same.

  36:12-36:26

  So just like we brought hypothetical father figure up and said, "Would anybody have something they'd like to say to Him?" I want you to think about Jesus Christ and everything He's done for you, and everything He will do for you, because He ain't leaving.

  36:27-36:39

  And I want to ask you the same question, "Is there anybody here that has anything they would like to say to Jesus Christ?" Well, I'd like you to stand, and we're going to give you the opportunity to do that right now.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Psalm 34 (stand and read aloud; sing a favorite hymn as a group if compelled)

1. How would you define "worship" to a child? How would you explain to that child the purpose of worship in music at the church?

2. What are the nuances in the synonyms for worship in Psalm 34:1-3?

   - bless:

   - praise:

   - boast:

   - magnify:

   - exalt:

3. What would you say to someone who says to you, "I tried trusting God once, and He disappointed me." How can we reconcile this statement with Psalm 34:10?

4. In church, does the music prepare you for the sermon, or does the sermon help make you a better worshiper? (Note to discussion leader: My <Jeff’s> opinion is the latter, but this isn’t really a dogmatic "right or wrong" issue. It is just meant to think through why we do what we do at HBC.)

5. What was your big "take-away" from this passage / message?

6. Bonus: What is your favorite worship song / hymn? What is meaningful to you about that song?

Breakout Questions:

How would you rate yourself as a worshiper? From this text / message, how will you seek to become a more passionate worshiper? 

Getting Back to Worship

Introduction:

How to Get Back to Real Worship

1. Breathe In the Love of God. (Mal 1:1-5)



2. Breathe out Reverence for God. (Mal 1:6-14)

Am I a Worshiper or a Faker?

1. Do I offer God my Best? (Mal 1:6-9)



2. Do I just go through the Motions? (Mal 1:10-14)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:48-00:52

  Well, I am so excited to be back speaking.

  00:54-01:04

  And somebody right now just thought, "Oh, you were gone?" Well, being a preacher, I talk to other preachers and hear stories about what happens with other preachers.

  01:05-01:13

  And I heard this story about this couple that had come to this pastor for marriage counseling.

  01:15-01:34

  I could sort of relate to the story because the pastor had said that when the couple would come in, it was obvious from the posture, the wife was sitting listening to what the pastor had to say, and she had her Bible with her, and she's like, "I need help. We need help." And she was really just tuned in.

  01:36-01:37

  I've seen this so many times.

  01:37-01:44

  But the husband was just kind of slouched down in his chair, not really paying attention the whole time.

  01:44-01:47

  The pastor's trying to share this with what the Bible says.

  01:47-01:49

  Here's what God's called you to be as a husband.

  01:49-01:51

  And here's what God's called you to be as a wife.

  01:51-01:54

  And the pastor's talking, and the guy's just sitting there with his head down.

  01:55-01:59

  But the pastor's like, he is totally just not even listening to me at all.

  02:00-02:03

  And he's thinking to himself, what am I going to do to get this guy's attention?

  02:05-02:17

  So the pastor just has this moment of just craziness where he gets up and walks around the table, He takes the young lady by the hand and he stands her up.

  02:20-02:25

  And he puts his hand on the back of the lady's head and dips her over and kisses her.

  02:27-02:37

  And puts her back in the seat and she's just like, "Whew!" The pastor turns to her husband and he said, "That's what she needs!

  02:38-03:00

  At least twice a week!" and her husband goes, "I can bring her in here on Tuesday and Thursday if that works for you." The truth is where there's a relationship, there's going to be times of feeling close, and there's going to be times of feeling distant, right?

  03:01-03:06

  And if you are a Christian, this can happen in your relationship with God.

  03:08-03:11

  That there are times in your walk with the Lord You feel very close, right?

  03:11-03:16

  And there are times in your walk with the Lord that you feel very distant, and you feel very detached.

  03:17-03:25

  And if that's how you're feeling today, if you're sitting here today and you say, "Pastor Jeff, I feel detached." God didn't move.

  03:27-03:27

  You did.

  03:28-03:31

  When I feel distant from the Lord, that's on me.

  03:33-03:39

  And there's some people here that once upon a time had a growing You were on an exciting walk with Jesus Christ.

  03:41-03:49

  Love to pray, you love to read the Bible, you were excited to witness, you were excited to worship, and there was a time that you just saw God at work in your life.

  03:51-04:08

  And it was so vibrant and so exciting, and right now you're saying, "Yeah, you know, not so much." You might be saying, "You know, I need to get back on track." How do we get there? How do we get off track?

  04:10-04:12

  Well, for some people, it's trials.

  04:14-04:20

  I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but for some people right here, you've gone through a trial in your life that has discouraged you.

  04:22-04:24

  And you've lost heart.

  04:25-04:27

  I don't really feel like it.

  04:29-04:34

  You know, this trial's been going on so long, I'm just discouraged.

  04:37-04:38

  For some people, maybe it's not a trial.

  04:38-04:40

  Maybe you're just too busy.

  04:42-04:52

  That somehow Jesus Christ and your walk with Him and the priority of being a disciple of Christ has sort of dropped down on your priority list.

  04:53-04:55

  For some here, maybe it's sin.

  04:57-05:11

  I'm like, you know what, I know what I need to do, but I've been involved in sin, and that has really just severely hindered my walk with the Lord, as it does and as it always will.

  05:13-05:14

  We want to get back on track.

  05:17-05:24

  And even hearing this now, I know there are some people right now you're hearing this, "I want to get back on track with God." You're hearing this and you're like, "You know what, Pastor Jeff, I would love that!

  05:26-05:27

  You don't know how to do that.

  05:29-05:31

  Well, I have some good news for you.

  05:32-05:37

  God's Word tells us exactly how to do that.

  05:39-05:47

  So, if right now you're feeling like, "You're right, I need to get back on track." You cannot miss any part of this series.

  05:49-05:51

  I want you to turn your Bibles to the book of Malachi.

  05:52-05:54

  It's the last book of the Old Testament.

  05:54-05:58

  It's actually the last word from God in the Old Testament.

  05:59-06:03

  It was written about 430 B.C.

  06:04-06:11

  And if you're trying to put this in a timeline on your mind, Malachi would have been a contemporary of Nehemiah.

  06:12-06:14

  And what was happening in Israel at the time?

  06:14-06:17

  Well, Israel was returning to their land from exile.

  06:18-06:29

  Remember, God disciplined Israel for persistent sin by sending the Assyrians and the Babylonians to conquer and scatter the people.

  06:30-06:44

  And under the Persian rule, the Lord allowed the Israelites to come back into their land to rebuild and to restore, specifically the city of Jerusalem and particularly the temple.

  06:46-06:51

  And when Israel got back into the land, as you could imagine, they were so zealous for the Lord.

  06:52-06:57

  And we're like, "The Lord restored us!" And we thought we were done as a people and the Lord restored us!

  06:57-06:59

  And let's build the walls in Jerusalem!

  07:00-07:01

  And let's build the temple!

  07:01-07:02

  And they were so fired up!

  07:03-07:05

  So excited! So zealous!

  07:07-07:21

  Can you believe just 90 years later when Malachi was giving this message, Israel was worse than before they went into exile.

  07:23-07:25

  Back to their old ways.

  07:26-07:30

  And that's why we're turning to the book of Malachi because this is what the book of Malachi is about.

  07:30-07:32

  Malachi is about God saying, "Hey, hey, hey!

  07:33-07:34

  Get back on track!

  07:35-07:58

  You see, you were so zealous and then you just kind of veered off and God's like, "No, no, no, we're going to get back on track." And they're like, "Well, how in the world are we going to get back on track?" And God says, "Here are some areas that you need to focus on to get back on track." So if there's anyone here right now that needs to get back on track, here's where it starts on your outline.

  07:59-08:00

  It starts with real worship.

  08:01-08:03

  So the message today is how to get back to real worship.

  08:03-08:06

  It has to start here.

  08:08-08:08

  What is worship?

  08:10-08:16

  Worship defined is showing reverence and adoration.

  08:16-08:16

  That's worship.

  08:18-08:22

  You know, worship is actually an abbreviated word.

  08:23-08:39

  It really comes from "worth-ship." They just sort of shortened that, made it easier to say, which I'm glad, because when we sing "Here I am to worship," it'd get real awkward, you know, "Here I am to worth-ship." Sound like Sylvester the Cat.

  08:41-08:47

  But that's worship, it's worth-ship, it's ascribing worth to God.

  08:49-08:56

  Now when we talk about music, I know there's so many people here probably right now that are thinking, "Oh, I know what worship is.

  08:57-08:59

  That's the singing part of church.

  09:00-09:09

  Worship is just the music." Well, music is part of worship.

  09:12-09:15

  But worship is so much more than just music.

  09:15-09:27

  You see, it would be like if I brought in the wheel of a car today and held it up, and I said, "This is a car." And you would say, "No, that is not a car.

  09:27-09:30

  That is a very important part of the car." Right, Ben?

  09:31-09:36

  That is a very important part of the car, but that is not the car.

  09:37-09:38

  That's what some people do with music.

  09:39-09:40

  This is worship. No, no, no, no.

  09:41-09:45

  Music is an important part, but music is not the totality of worship.

  09:47-09:48

  Okay?

  09:48-10:00

  So, in the Old Testament, worship centered primarily around offering sacrifices in the temple, and we're going to see that here in Malachi.

  10:01-10:12

  But if you're thinking, "Pastor Jeff, I've read the Bible, I know a little theology, and I know that Jesus Christ offered the final sacrifice, and we don't offer sacrifices anymore.

  10:14-10:27

  So, for us to be talking about Malachi and talking about sacrifices, we're sort of detached from that, because the truth, Pastor Jeff, is we don't offer sacrifices anymore." And I want to tell you that's not true.

  10:28-10:32

  We absolutely do still offer sacrifices.

  10:35-10:36

  Look at Romans 12.

  10:39-10:47

  Romans 12.1 says, and this is New Testament, "Present your bodies as a..." What's that say?

  10:48-10:54

  "A living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your..." What's the next two words?

  10:55-10:56

  Spiritual worship.

  10:57-10:58

  What is your spiritual worship?

  10:58-11:00

  By offering yourself as a sacrifice.

  11:01-11:09

  When that animal was killed on the altar, dead, wholly committed to God, God says, "That's you. You're the sacrifice, but you get down off the altar and you live.

  11:10-11:18

  But every step you take is as a living sacrifice." So the question is, do we still offer sacrifice today? Yes or no?

  11:19-11:21

  Yes. And guess where the sacrifice is?

  11:21-11:24

  It's you. You are the sacrifice.

  11:26-11:29

  Another example, Hebrews 13, verses 15-16.

  11:29-11:31

  We still offer sacrifices. Look at this.

  11:32-11:38

  The Hebrew writer says, "Through Him, through Jesus, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice." There it is again.

  11:40-11:44

  "A sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name.

  11:46-11:52

  Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such..." Is that a word?

  11:54-11:56

  Sacrifices are pleasing to God.

  11:56-11:59

  So the question is, do we still sacrifice under the new covenant?

  12:01-12:02

  Yeah, we do.

  12:02-12:04

  And here are the sacrifices.

  12:05-12:07

  Sacrifice of praise.

  12:07-12:09

  Yeah, that music, part of that.

  12:09-12:11

  Also, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name.

  12:11-12:15

  Every time you witness for Christ, you're offering a sacrifice to God.

  12:16-12:23

  Every time you give testimony on how awesome God has been to you, You are giving God a sacrifice.

  12:24-12:31

  Every time it says to do good, every time you do good in the name of Jesus, you are offering a sacrifice to God.

  12:31-12:38

  Every time you share what you have, you are offering a sacrifice to God.

  12:39-12:42

  Now this is not a sacrifice to have your sin forgiven.

  12:42-12:48

  Don't think, "Well, I have to worship and I have to do good, and then God will forgive my sin." No, no, no.

  12:50-13:00

  offered himself as a once-and-for-all sacrifice for sin. There are no more sacrifices to be made for sin. This is talking about a sacrifice of praise, okay?

  13:01-13:42

  It's a sacrifice of praise, not a sacrifice for sin. Everybody with me on that? So how do I get back on track with worship? We're gonna go to the text for your outline. I'm gonna make it real easy. Here is how you get back on track with we're going to breathe. Oh, Pastor Jeff got new age while he was gone. Breathe. Go ahead, breathe. In. Out. What are we breathing? Number one, jot this down.

  13:43-13:47

  Here's how you get back on track with worship. You have to breathe in the love I love God.

  13:48-13:49

  I'm not making this up.

  13:49-13:50

  I want you to look at the text with me.

  13:52-13:55

  The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.

  13:55-13:59

  "I have loved you," says the Lord.

  14:00-14:07

  But you say, "How have you loved us?" "Is not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the Lord.

  14:07-14:09

  "Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated.

  14:11-14:19

  I have laid waste his hill country left his heritage to jackals of the deserts.

  14:19-14:36

  If Edom says, "We are shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins," the Lord of Hosts says, "They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called the wicked country, and the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.

  14:37-14:45

  Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel.

  14:47-14:49

  Now what's this talk about Jacob and Esau?

  14:50-14:54

  Now understand here, Malachi, he's not talking about individuals.

  14:55-14:56

  He's talking about people groups.

  14:57-14:58

  How do you know that?

  14:58-15:00

  Well, look at verse 4 again with me.

  15:00-15:04

  God says, "If Edom says..." Wait, wait, wait. Who's Edom?

  15:05-15:08

  Those were the descendants of Esau.

  15:08-15:14

  You see, Jacob represented Israel, and Esau represented the Edomites.

  15:14-15:23

  And this language is used in the Bible that Jacob representing Israel, Esau representing Edom, or people that ended up becoming severe enemies of God.

  15:24-15:26

  It's used other places in the Bible.

  15:26-15:29

  Obadiah - that little teeny tiny book in the Old Testament?

  15:30-15:31

  Same thing.

  15:31-15:33

  And Romans 9 - same thing.

  15:35-15:36

  What's the point?

  15:37-15:43

  The point - God is starting this whole prophecy, This whole "get back on track," this whole message from Malachi.

  15:44-16:01

  Here's God's point. God says, "Listen, I chose you, and I have loved you." Israel doubted God's love because they weren't as prosperous as they thought they should be.

  16:02-16:04

  Does that sound familiar to anyone else?

  16:06-16:09

  doubt God's love because He's not cashing in the way that we think He should.

  16:11-16:12

  Anybody else, has that been your experience?

  16:13-16:14

  I think we've all been there if we're honest.

  16:15-16:16

  Does God really love me?

  16:17-16:18

  Why is this happening?

  16:19-16:20

  Why is God allowing this?

  16:20-16:22

  If God really loved me, He'd do something about this.

  16:23-16:29

  And Israel was at a place in their history that they're starting to doubt a little bit.

  16:31-16:37

  So when God calls them back on track, It's not about legalism.

  16:38-16:45

  God's not saying, "Israel, you're just not jumping through the right hoops for Me." It's not about religion.

  16:47-16:47

  It's not about religion.

  16:48-16:59

  It's not God saying, "Okay, Israel, here's your checklist of rules you have to keep in order to make Me happy." Do you see right off the bat - this is Old Testament - but do you see right off the bat God says this is about a love relationship.

  17:00-17:01

  I love you.

  17:04-17:15

  The only way anyone is motivated to really worship God is to know God's love.

  17:17-17:21

  I can't motivate you to worship by trying to make you feel guilty.

  17:22-17:30

  You know, Ryan, shame on you as a leader in the church, and I didn't see you really belting it out during worship time. Shame on you.

  17:30-17:34

  that's not going to motivate... I wasn't watching Ryan during worship, okay?

  17:35-17:58

  That's not going to motivate you to worship, is it? No. I can't motivate you to worship through obligation. Like, "Come on, Kerry, you know what the Bible says about worship, so why aren't you doing it?" "Well, you're right, Pastor Jeff, I should, so I guess I'll worship." That's not the motivator. What is the motivator to To worship!

  18:01-18:04

  Breathing in God's love.

  18:05-18:06

  That's the motivator.

  18:08-18:08

  And only that.

  18:11-18:24

  When I came to Christ, back in 1995, it was a period of my life where I was involved in a lot of sin.

  18:25-18:26

  A lot of sin.

  18:26-18:31

  to list them for you, okay, but I was involved in a lot of sin in my life at the time.

  18:32-18:39

  But for the first time in my life, somebody had shared the gospel with me in a way that I understood it, and that was because God was turning the lights on, right?

  18:40-18:49

  And I understood the gospel, and I wish I could stand here and tell you, I just wholeheartedly jumped in. I heard the gospel, and I'm like, "Woohoo! Off to Bible college!" That wasn't the story.

  18:51-18:59

  to my shame, during this season of understanding the gospel, but still living this sinful lifestyle.

  19:01-19:05

  I remember saying, "I'm not sure what I want to do.

  19:05-19:23

  I think I'm just going to go back to my old way of living." At this crossroads, I was considering walking away from what I now understood about the cross of Jesus Christ embrace the lifestyle that I'd been used to.

  19:25-19:26

  But this was the sentence that changed my life.

  19:26-19:27

  Do you want to hear it?

  19:27-19:28

  This sentence changed my life.

  19:29-19:49

  As I was confessing this, like, hey, thinking about going back to my sin lifestyle, someone said to me, "Do you have any idea "how much God loves you?" And I walked away, and I thought to myself, "What?

  19:50-19:55

  A wicked idiot I am!

  19:56-19:59

  That God would give His Son for me.

  20:00-20:03

  Jesus would die for me in my place on that cross.

  20:05-20:09

  That God would so lavish and demonstrate His love on me.

  20:10-20:14

  And I would choose instead to live in the sewer.

  20:15-20:17

  How could I be so foolish?

  20:17-20:23

  And I was crushed by the weight of my own sinfulness.

  20:24-20:27

  How can I turn my back on a God like this?

  20:29-20:30

  And it changed my life.

  20:31-20:34

  Do you have any idea how much God loves you?

  20:35-21:42

  Maybe that's why Paul in Romans 2, verse 4, says it is God's kindness that leads us to repentance. So how do I get back on track with worship? You have to breathe in the love of God. You have to breathe in the love of God. If you're not taking in God's love, if you're not understanding and meditating upon and reveling in the love of God in Jesus If you don't have a place to worship Jesus Christ we don't use that word anymore. I think we need to bring it back.

  21:44-21:50

  What is reverence? You know what reverence is? It is deep respect.

  21:52-22:07

  Not just like props. Reverence is deep respect. And some people have the audacity to have that as a title. Pastors, right? I'm Reverend Miller.

  22:08-22:09

  Please don't ever call me that.

  22:10-22:11

  I hate that title.

  22:12-22:15

  You know what, if pastors out there that use that title, hey, I'm not judging them.

  22:16-22:19

  I'm just saying that only God is to be revered.

  22:21-22:27

  My skin crawls when I hear a man want to take that title on himself.

  22:27-22:28

  Call me reverend.

  22:31-22:32

  God deserves reverence.

  22:33-22:33

  Look at verse 6.

  22:36-22:40

  The Lord says a son honors his father, and a servant his master.

  22:41-22:43

  If then I am a father, where is my honor?

  22:43-22:46

  And if I am a master, where is my fear?

  22:46-22:49

  Says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name.

  22:50-22:51

  Jump down to verse 14.

  22:52-22:58

  God says, for I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.

  23:00-23:00

  Do you see that?

  23:00-23:03

  Father, master, king.

  23:04-23:14

  Some people want to identify God as like, "Grandpa, Santa Claus, the big man upstairs." Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  23:15-23:20

  He is a father, he is a master, and he is a king, and that means he is to be revered.

  23:21-23:25

  And that is so lost on the church today, this idea of reverence.

  23:27-23:32

  This idea that we honor God, we fear God, we have this holy awe of God.

  23:32-23:35

  We are just too happy to familiarize God.

  23:37-23:42

  Speaking of things that make my skin crawl, the expression "the big man upstairs," I just hate hearing that.

  23:44-23:46

  It just shows a complete lack of reverence for God.

  23:48-23:49

  He's not big.

  23:50-23:51

  He's infinite.

  23:51-23:53

  He makes big look small.

  23:53-23:55

  He's not a man. He's God.

  23:55-23:56

  He's not upstairs.

  23:59-24:01

  Heaven is His throne The earth is His ottoman.

  24:04-24:07

  It's time to get back, church.

  24:07-24:09

  It's time to get back to revering God.

  24:10-24:19

  Because when we breathe in His love, and we breathe out reverence for God, that's worship.

  24:21-24:22

  That's worship.

  24:24-24:27

  So how am I doing regarding reverence?

  24:28-24:29

  you need to ask yourself.

  24:30-24:33

  So in your outline, two questions I want to leave you with today.

  24:34-24:37

  As you examine, you're going to see it straight from the text.

  24:38-24:39

  Two questions you have to ask yourself.

  24:40-24:43

  Am I a worshiper or a faker?

  24:45-24:46

  Am I a worshiper or a faker?

  24:46-24:48

  Here's two questions where you can evaluate for yourself.

  24:49-24:50

  Are you genuinely worshipping God?

  24:50-24:55

  Are you genuinely breathing in His love and breathing out reverence?

  24:56-24:58

  Are you doing that, or are you faking?

  25:00-25:03

  Like, "How do I know?" Here you go. First of all, letter A.

  25:06-25:14

  "Do I offer God my best?" Pick up in the text, God says that the priests despise His name.

  25:15-25:28

  But you say, "How have we despised Your name?" "By offering polluted food upon My altar." But you say, "How have we polluted You?" by saying that the Lord's table may be despised.

  25:29-25:30

  The Lord's table here refers to the altar.

  25:31-25:34

  Okay, this is before Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper.

  25:36-25:39

  You're saying that the Lord's table or the altar may be despised.

  25:40-25:41

  Look at verse 8.

  25:41-25:44

  "When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil?

  25:46-25:51

  And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil?

  25:53-25:54

  Present that to your governor.

  25:55-25:58

  Will He accept you or show you favor?" says the Lord of hosts.

  25:59-26:05

  "And now, entreat the favor of God, that He may be gracious to us.

  26:07-26:12

  With such a gift from your hand, will He show favor to any of you?" says the Lord of hosts.

  26:15-26:16

  Do I offer God my best?

  26:17-26:20

  A lack of reverence always shows up in your conduct.

  26:20-26:22

  You will not offer God your best.

  26:23-26:33

  You see, in the Old Testament times, during the times of this temple, when you were to go sacrifice to God, you were to take the absolute best from your flock.

  26:33-26:40

  Okay? You were to go out to your herd or your flock, and you were to pick the unblemished, the very best.

  26:40-26:47

  "I'm going to give back to God the very best that He's given to me." But do you see what happened by the time you get to Malachi's day?

  26:48-27:01

  It says they took the blind, they took the lame, they took the sick, They'd go out to their flock and they'd see some animal on its deathbed, and they would say, "Well, this one doesn't have long to live.

  27:02-27:23

  Let's offer it to God before it dies." Like, "Oh, yeah, I get the sacrifice thing, Pastor Jeff, but again, that doesn't really apply today." If you're thinking that, that these principles don't apply, honestly, what you're saying is because of Jesus, God is okay with lame worship now.

  27:25-27:26

  Would you say that?

  27:27-27:33

  Because Jesus came and completed His messianic mission, God is just fine with lame worship now.

  27:36-27:43

  Compare us in our day to the people Malachi was addressing in his day.

  27:45-27:46

  Us versus them. Let me ask you.

  27:47-27:53

  Should we be more fired up or less than them?

  27:54-27:55

  What do you think?

  27:56-28:00

  Should we be more fired up about God or less fired up about God?

  28:01-28:01

  Not sure?

  28:04-28:05

  Well, consider this.

  28:07-28:08

  We live under the new covenant.

  28:08-28:14

  The Messiah, from our perspective, and in our timeline in history, the Messiah has come.

  28:14-28:17

  and the Messiah saves us from our sins by dying in our place.

  28:18-28:21

  Jesus Christ rose from the dead to give us eternal life and the promise of heaven.

  28:21-28:27

  The Holy Spirit has come and indwells all believers, empowering, comforting, and guiding.

  28:28-28:32

  So should we be more fired up or less fired up for worship than the Old Testament saints?

  28:33-28:34

  We should be more, right?

  28:34-28:35

  We should be more.

  28:38-28:48

  But church, when we roll in here, not ready to worship, When it's our turn to teach the kids and harvest kids and we don't prepare ourselves.

  28:49-28:52

  When we lead a small group and we just phone it in.

  28:53-28:56

  When the offering comes around and we just give God a tip.

  28:58-29:02

  You know, somehow the waitress gets 15% and God gets 10.

  29:03-29:04

  Doesn't seem right.

  29:06-29:10

  When all those things happen, you're not giving God your best.

  29:12-29:22

  Look at verse eight again, where the Lord is condemning them for their half-dead sacrifices they were making.

  29:23-29:26

  But middle of verse eight, you see that God says, "Present that to your governor.

  29:26-29:31

  "Will he accept you or show you favor?" Try paying your taxes like that.

  29:32-29:33

  Could you imagine next tax season?

  29:33-29:34

  Could you imagine?

  29:35-29:38

  Next tax season, you're like, "You know what I'm gonna do?

  29:39-29:41

  "I've been thinking about this.

  29:41-29:42

  I'm going to pay what I want to pay.

  29:43-29:44

  And they're going to have to be fine with it.

  29:46-29:47

  Is that going to work?

  29:49-29:51

  That is not going to work.

  29:52-29:53

  And so do you see God's point?

  29:53-30:00

  If that's not going to work in paying your taxes, why do you think it's going to work for the king of the universe?

  30:02-30:04

  But that's exactly what people do.

  30:04-30:05

  The offering comes around.

  30:05-30:08

  It's like, I'm going to give God what I think, and it'll be good enough.

  30:08-30:13

  Whatever I give God will just be good enough, because I live under the new covenant, I don't have to tithe, right?

  30:13-30:15

  So whatever I give God is going to be good enough.

  30:16-30:20

  Lame! Lame! And you don't understand worship.

  30:22-30:26

  Because you're not breathing into love, and that certainly is not breathing out reverence.

  30:28-30:31

  You should prepare yourself for worship.

  30:33-30:37

  I talked to a dear couple in our church this past week, and they were just chit-chatting, right?

  30:37-30:45

  They were saying that one of the things they like to do is they find out the songs that we're going to be singing in church and they listen to them in the car on the way to church.

  30:46-30:46

  Isn't that awesome?

  30:48-30:57

  So it's not like, "Let's get in here to worship." They're like, "Our worship starts in our driveway." So they're worshiping as a couple on the way in, and then they come to church.

  30:57-30:58

  Do you think they're ready to worship?

  30:59-31:01

  Yeah, they are.

  31:02-31:08

  Talked to one of the leaders of our church this morning, who said, "Yeah, I knew we were going through Malachi, so you know what I did?

  31:08-31:18

  I have the Bible audio, and I've been listening to it when I go to bed." Do you think that guy came into church ready to hear what the Lord has to say through Malachi?

  31:20-31:23

  So you have to ask yourself, "Am I offering God my best?

  31:24-31:36

  Or am I just willing to phone it in? It's good enough." Last question. Do I just go through the motions?

  31:38-31:39

  Do I just go through the motions?

  31:41-31:42

  Look at verses 10-14.

  31:44-31:55

  The Lord says, "Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain.

  31:55-32:00

  I have no pleasure in you," says the Lord of hosts, And I will not accept an offering from your hand.

  32:03-32:13

  For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering.

  32:14-32:19

  For my name," here it is again, "for my name will be great among the nations," says the Lord of hosts.

  32:21-32:29

  But you profane it when you say that the Lord's table is polluted and its fruit, that is, its food may be despised.

  32:30-32:37

  But you say, 'What a weariness this is!' And you snort at it, says the Lord of hosts.

  32:37-32:45

  You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering.

  32:46-32:48

  Shall I accept that from your hand? says the Lord.

  32:49-32:57

  Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock and vows it, And yet, sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished.

  32:59-33:03

  For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.

  33:04-33:05

  So are you a worshiper or a faker?

  33:05-33:07

  Well, do you offer God your best?

  33:07-33:11

  Secondly, ask yourself, do I just go through the motions?

  33:13-33:14

  Do you see that in verse 13?

  33:16-33:18

  Jump back to verse 13.

  33:18-33:22

  But you say, "What a weariness this is," and you snort at it.

  33:25-33:37

  "What a weariness. I'm kind of tired of this. I'm just so tired of this church stuff. Boring!" What a pain to go to worship.

  33:40-33:43

  You want to go to church this morning? "I don't know. It's a lot of work.

  33:43-33:51

  We're gonna dress the kids, and I'm gonna have to get a bath and probably brush my teeth.

  33:51-33:54

  Oh, what a pain.

  33:57-34:11

  When it becomes a burden to get here to worship, we find ourselves in this passage where the Lord says, "Your belly aching about what a weariness this is." He says, "You snort at it." Go ahead.

  34:11-34:12

  What do you think that sounds like?

  34:12-34:13

  Go ahead.

  34:15-34:15

  That wasn't bad.

  34:17-34:18

  You snored at it. Time to worship.

  34:21-34:22

  You snored at it.

  34:24-34:25

  Jump up to verse 10.

  34:27-34:28

  Look at this again.

  34:30-34:43

  God says, "Oh, that there are one among you who would shut the doors." God would rather you stop worshipping than go through the motions without your heart being in it.

  34:45-34:45

  I'm going to say that again.

  34:46-34:52

  God would rather you stop worshipping than pretending to worship.

  34:53-35:35

  God says, "I wish there was somebody down at the temple that would just shut and lock the doors, so the hypocrites don't come in and put on their little half-hearted show." You know, when I was preparing for this message, I was looking up articles online. I looked up, "What do I do when I don't feel like worshipping?" There were so many articles about that, and I went through and I read a few. Do you know one thing that was on all the articles? One thing was on all the articles. It says, "If you don't feel like worshipping, you should do it anyways." Every article said that. Here's a list. Ten things you should do when you don't feel like worshipping. Seven things you should do when you don't feel like worshipping. Here's the top 26 things you should do when you don't feel like worshipping. Every list. "You should worship anyways." "You should worship You should worship anyways.

  35:35-35:45

  And in the Bible, God's like, "You don't feel like worshiping? Don't!" "Shut and lock the door and stay home." So hear me.

  35:46-35:49

  If you're like, "You know what, Pastor Jeff, I want to get back on track.

  35:49-35:51

  That's where my heart is, and I've just been struggling with stuff.

  35:53-35:59

  And I'm really seeking the Lord to bring revival in my heart." Then absolutely, you should come.

  36:00-36:02

  And you should worship if that's your heart.

  36:02-36:15

  But if you're just coming in here, and you're like, "I don't want to stay, I don't want to go to the king." Like, "No effort, I don't care, when do we leave?

  36:16-36:21

  How much longer is this going on?" You should just stay home, honestly.

  36:21-36:23

  You should. Just stay home.

  36:26-36:27

  Because that does nothing for God.

  36:30-36:42

  Mary Zacharias said, "When a man is bored with God, even heaven doesn't have a better alternative." So how about you?

  36:42-36:44

  Are you going through the motions?

  36:45-36:46

  Are you bored?

  36:47-36:48

  Can't wait to get out of here?

  36:50-36:54

  If that's you, this is your wake-up call from the Lord.

  36:55-36:58

  It's time to get back on track.

  37:00-37:03

  It has to start with worship.

  37:06-37:07

  I'd like you to bow your heads.

  37:07-37:11

  I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand or stand up or come forward or anything.

  37:11-37:12

  I'm not going to ask you to do that.

  37:12-37:22

  I just want you to bow your heads, but I want to ask you with your head bowed, is there someone here this morning that says, "You know what, Pastor Jeff, I have not been giving God my best.

  37:22-37:23

  I haven't been.

  37:26-37:30

  I've been content to just go through the motions.

  37:32-37:39

  Quite honestly, it's not very exciting right now, my walk with Christ.

  37:40-37:42

  Does that apply to you today?

  37:43-37:46

  Like, I know I need to get back on track, but right now I'm just not feeling it.

  37:48-37:50

  With your head bowed, I want to remind you that it's time to breathe again.

  37:53-37:54

  You need to breathe in God's love.

  37:56-38:03

  You need reminded that your heavenly Father loves you so much that He sent His Son to die in your place.

  38:05-38:15

  Your heavenly Father loves you so much that He has chosen to make His holy habitation your very heart, with the presence of His Holy Spirit in you.

  38:17-38:19

  You need to breathe in His love again.

  38:21-38:23

  You need to breathe out reverence.

  38:26-38:29

  Yes, He is my Savior, but He is also my King.

  38:32-38:38

  And I haven't been treating the Lord God like a king whom I should revere, honor, and obey.

  38:40-38:42

  And it's time to breathe out reverence again.

  38:45-38:55

  Our Father in Heaven, again, I pray for myself for my brothers and sisters here, that we would stop phoning it in.

  38:57-39:09

  We would stop making a half-hearted effort in serving You and saying, "Well, that's good enough." Father, I pray that You would restore in us a heart of worship.

  39:11-39:16

  That, Father, we would breathe in Your love in a fresh way.

  39:18-39:25

  that we would breathe in this love that was willing to pay the ultimate price so that I could be free.

  39:27-39:33

  The love that can never be lost, because it's love that was never earned.

  39:35-39:51

  You have chosen to love us in Jesus Christ, and I pray Father you would hit us Again, hit me again the way you did when I first understood that message.

  39:53-39:58

  Father, I pray that we would show you the reverence that you deserve.

  39:59-40:03

  As you said so clearly in your word, you are a father, you're a master, you're a king.

  40:05-40:21

  Let our conduct, let our attitudes in the home, at our workplace, in the church, wherever we find ourselves, let them reflect that we are subservient to the king who loves us.

  40:24-40:36

  Get us back on track, God, by giving us a fresh start today in being true worshipers of you.

  40:37-40:41

  Pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Malachi 1:1-14

1. Malachi 1:2-3 talks about God's love: What exactly is God saying? How does this prove His love?

2. Why is love the motivator for worship (see also Romans 2:4)?

3. Have you ever doubted God's love because things weren't happening the way you expected? Share the experience with the group.

4. Define reverence: Why do you think this is a lost concept in our culture today?

5. How would you reply to this statement: "This stuff in Malachi doesn't apply to us today. We don't offer sacrifices anymore!"

6. What are ways, today, that you can "breathe out" reverence for God?

Breakout Questions:
Complete transparency: How are you doing with sincerely worshiping God? What changes do you need to make to be able to "breathe" (in God's love / out reverence for God)?

Essential Elements of Worship

1. We Sing and we Witness. (Ps 96:1-3)



Because He is Magnificent and He is Creator. (Ps 96:4-6)



2. We Acknowledge, we Give and we Tremble. (Ps 96:7-9)



Because He is Sovereign and He is Judge. (Ps 96:10)



3. We Rejoice and we Celebrate. (Ps 96:11-12)



Because He is Righteous and He is Faithful. (Ps 96:13)

Mark Ort - Elder HBCPN

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• Audio Transcript

  00:00-00:02

  Open up your Bibles to the book of Psalms.

  00:02-00:04

  We're going to study Psalm 96 today.

  00:06-00:30

  And while you're turning there, I want to tell you a story about a guy whose nickname was "The Great Blasphemer." Back in 1736, this kid named John Newton, he decided he was going to get a job for a shipping company, this sea merchant guy hired him.

  00:32-00:36

  So he worked on this shipping dock and shipping stuff.

  00:36-00:38

  He was out on the seas.

  00:38-00:43

  And he was not a very responsible young man.

  00:44-00:50

  He took six or seven sea journeys and he got fired because of his lack of restraint.

  00:51-00:56

  His boss told him that he had unsettled behavior and impatient of restraint.

  00:57-01:01

  This is a pattern that would persist in this young boy's life for a long time.

  01:03-01:04

  He joined the Royal Navy.

  01:05-01:11

  This was in, he was an English sailor, so this was around London, Liverpool, where he worked.

  01:11-01:16

  And he joined the Royal Navy and the pattern continued.

  01:17-01:22

  He got discharged from the Navy and because of rebellion, he deserted.

  01:23-01:24

  He ended up working on a slave ship.

  01:25-01:27

  Again, the pattern continued.

  01:27-01:33

  He was arrogant, insubordinate, and recklessly immoral.

  01:34-01:38

  He said in his journals later, "I sinned with a high hand.

  01:38-01:51

  I made it my study to tempt and seduce others." In 1747, at the lowest point of his life, he was in rags, had no money, he was hungry, and he worked on these slave ships.

  01:54-02:04

  He was reading a book, a Christian book, and this storm came upon the ship, battered the ship severely, and he thought he was going to die.

  02:05-02:10

  And so at that point, he gave his life to Jesus Christ.

  02:10-02:11

  He got saved.

  02:13-02:21

  Later on in his life, he became a minister and had a Thursday night Bible study.

  02:22-02:32

  Maybe it was like a small group type thing It was a Thursday night thing, and he would write songs for this Bible study for them to sing.

  02:32-02:38

  And one of those songs is one of the most beloved hymns that we sing now, Amazing Grace.

  02:39-02:40

  You guys know that song, right?

  02:41-02:44

  Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

  02:45-02:47

  I once was lost, but now am found.

  02:47-02:49

  Was blind, but now I see.

  02:50-02:52

  Some people might look at that and say, "A wretch?

  02:53-02:55

  That's kind of hyperbole.

  02:56-02:57

  Isn't that kind of extreme?

  02:57-03:00

  You know, a wretch is kind of like a despicable person.

  03:02-03:14

  Why do we have to be so harsh on the guy?" Well, John Newton knew what kind of a guy he was, and he knew what Jesus Christ had saved him from.

  03:15-03:18

  So he was able to write those words and mean it from his heart.

  03:19-03:23

  Songs like that come from somebody's experience.

  03:24-03:37

  A lot of times, and you can talk to music people, Darren or Matt or guys that are into music, a lot of times the songs that are written come from their experience, what's happened in their lives.

  03:38-03:43

  And the same is true with David in this psalm, Psalm 96.

  03:44-03:49

  Something happened here make him write this song.

  03:49-03:57

  I don't know if he was, you know, was he sitting around in a, you know, under a tree and watching the sheep and he decides, he's, hey, I got a good song I wanna write.

  03:58-03:59

  And then he starts scribbling it down.

  03:59-04:06

  That might've happened, but in this song, this Psalm, something happened that made him write this.

  04:07-04:08

  And so we're gonna look at that today.

  04:09-04:14

  Before we get into the Psalm itself, I'd like to read the Psalm actually in its entirety.

  04:14-04:25

  And then for us to really get what's happening here, I think we got to backtrack in history a little bit and see what was happening to make David write this psalm.

  04:27-04:29

  Sing to the Lord a new song, he says.

  04:29-04:31

  Sing to the Lord, all the earth.

  04:32-04:33

  Sing to the Lord, bless his name.

  04:34-04:37

  Proclaim good tidings of the salvation from day to day.

  04:38-04:41

  Tell of his glory among the nations, his wonderful deeds among all the peoples.

  04:42-04:44

  For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.

  04:45-04:46

  He is to be feared above all gods.

  04:47-04:51

  For all the gods of the people are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

  04:52-04:54

  Splendor and majesty are before him.

  04:55-04:57

  Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

  04:58-05:00

  Ascribe to the Lord, O families of all peoples.

  05:01-05:03

  Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

  05:04-05:07

  Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name.

  05:08-05:10

  Bring an offering and come into his courts.

  05:11-05:15

  Worship the Lord in holy attire, or in the beauty of His holiness.

  05:16-05:18

  Tremble before Him, all the earth.

  05:18-05:20

  Say to the nations, "The Lord reigns.

  05:21-05:23

  Indeed, the world is firmly established.

  05:23-05:27

  It will not be moved." He will judge the peoples with equity.

  05:28-05:31

  Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice.

  05:31-05:34

  Let the sea roar in all that it contains.

  05:35-05:38

  Let the field exult in all that is in it.

  05:39-05:44

  Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the Lord, for he is coming.

  05:45-05:47

  He is coming to judge the earth.

  05:48-05:53

  He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.

  05:55-05:55

  Let's pray.

  05:57-06:01

  Heavenly Father, we come to your word now and it's not something that we take lightly.

  06:03-06:04

  God, you're serious in your word.

  06:04-06:06

  You're serious about things that you say in your word.

  06:06-06:10

  So we come to Your Word looking to see what You have to say.

  06:12-06:18

  Lord, I pray for this sermon that it would be honoring to You.

  06:19-06:23

  I pray that I would get out of the way and that Your Holy Spirit would have His way today, Lord.

  06:24-06:31

  I pray that You'd help me through this passage and that it would be beneficial and meaningful to those who hear.

  06:32-06:36

  Lord, might You be exalted above all things You are worthy.

  06:37-06:39

  In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

  06:40-06:44

  Like I said, we've got to back up a little bit and see what's happening here.

  06:45-06:51

  And whenever David wrote this psalm, they were bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.

  06:52-06:59

  The Ark of the Covenant - well, let's back up a little bit more than just a few chapters before this happened.

  06:59-07:03

  We're going to go the whole way back to Exodus 25.

  07:04-07:15

  Well, that's like right after the Red Sea thing, the Israelites going through the Red Sea, and Moses gets the Ten Commandments.

  07:15-07:26

  And in Exodus chapter 25, God tells Moses what has to happen next with them traveling through the wilderness.

  07:27-07:30

  Remember, they had to go through the wilderness for what, 40 years?

  07:31-07:33

  So they're staggering through the desert.

  07:34-07:36

  probably going in circles, not knowing where they're going.

  07:38-07:44

  And God says, "Hey, we need to build a tabernacle." You know, a tabernacle is just like a tent.

  07:44-07:45

  It's portable.

  07:45-07:48

  They can pick it up and move, go to the next location.

  07:49-07:53

  Well, part of that tabernacle included this thing called the Ark of the Covenant.

  07:54-07:55

  I have a picture of that.

  07:56-08:00

  It's kind of a, I think this is a little model that somebody took a picture of.

  08:01-08:05

  And it was the best thing that I could find on the internet just to show you what it sort of looked like.

  08:06-08:13

  It was about 27 inches wide, 27 inches high, 3 feet long.

  08:14-08:16

  And it was made out of acacia wood.

  08:17-08:19

  And they got everybody's gold together.

  08:20-08:21

  People donated gold.

  08:21-08:23

  You can read that in Exodus chapter 35.

  08:23-08:27

  There was a campaign to get people to participate in this.

  08:28-08:40

  And so people were donating their necklaces, and their bracelets, and their rings, and they're silver and they're fine linens and they're costly perfumes and stuff all for the making of this tabernacle.

  08:40-08:55

  And the Ark of the Covenant had gold inlaid on the inside and out, and it had these rings on the legs and gold poles for people to carry it.

  08:55-08:56

  Weren't allowed to touch the Ark.

  08:57-09:06

  On the top, you can see this covering with these angels with outstretched wings, cherubim on the top.

  09:07-09:08

  They call this the mercy seat.

  09:10-09:23

  Now, I probably should have known this before now, but as I was studying this, that word mercy seat is the same word as the New Testament word propitiation, which is Jesus taking God's wrath away.

  09:23-09:25

  It's satisfying God's wrath.

  09:25-09:34

  And what would happen here is they would sprinkle the blood of sacrificed animals on the mercy seat or the covering, the lid.

  09:36-09:38

  I just love Old Testament pictures like that.

  09:39-09:41

  There's this covering for the ark.

  09:42-09:45

  In the New Testament, Jesus, what did he do?

  09:46-09:48

  He was our propitiation, he covered our sin.

  09:48-09:50

  Not only did he cover our sin, he took it away.

  09:52-09:54

  That's a picture of the Ark of the Covenant.

  09:55-10:00

  There was a guy who was commissioned to build this thing.

  10:00-10:01

  His name was Bezalel.

  10:02-10:09

  And people that were doing this building of the tabernacle, they weren't just some guy off the street.

  10:09-10:12

  They were like the most skilled craftsmen in the land.

  10:13-10:16

  And so this guy, Bezalel, put this thing together.

  10:17-10:19

  And you can read about that in Exodus.

  10:19-10:20

  I didn't make this stuff up.

  10:20-10:22

  It's all in the Bible.

  10:23-10:25

  In fact, we're gonna learn a little bit of history.

  10:26-10:28

  Did you wanna learn some history and some geography?

  10:28-10:32

  We'll follow this thing through, because to me, this stuff is really exciting.

  10:34-10:39

  In the ark, inside this thing, they put a couple of things.

  10:39-10:40

  They put a jar of manna.

  10:41-10:43

  Manna, when they were in the wilderness, they ate manna.

  10:43-10:45

  That was God's way of providing for them.

  10:46-10:53

  And so they put a jar of manna in there, and that was supposed to, the theologians say, that kind of represents God's provision in their lives.

  10:54-11:00

  One of the other things that they put in there was Aaron's staff, his rod, and I was thinking about that.

  11:01-11:05

  It must have been a shorter staff that was gonna fit in there 'cause that thing was about three feet wide.

  11:06-11:08

  So maybe they put it in diagonally or something.

  11:08-11:12

  I'm not sure how it fit in there, but Aaron's staff was in the Ark of the Covenant.

  11:12-11:19

  And the theologians say that, you know, well, that probably represents God's guidance through the wilderness and getting them to the promised land.

  11:20-11:25

  And then of course, the other big thing that was in there was the tablets of the 10 commandments.

  11:26-11:29

  Moses had the tablets and they put that in there.

  11:30-11:32

  It talks about what's in the ark in Hebrews 9.

  11:35-11:36

  So that's a picture of the ark.

  11:37-11:37

  We know what's in it.

  11:38-11:39

  Why was the ark important?

  11:40-11:54

  Well, in Numbers 7:89, it talks about how God spoke to Moses from the top of that.

  11:54-11:56

  Now, I don't know how he appeared there.

  11:56-12:04

  I don't know how this all happened, but the mercy seat was where God would often talk to Moses.

  12:06-12:09

  And so the Ark of the Covenant was pretty important.

  12:09-12:15

  The people viewed this little box as God's physical presence with them.

  12:15-12:16

  This was very important to them.

  12:16-12:17

  They revered it.

  12:18-12:23

  And while they were in the wilderness, they would pick this thing up, and it would go ahead of everybody.

  12:23-12:27

  It was always the first thing that would go when they were traveling from place to place.

  12:29-12:30

  I think I have some maps.

  12:30-12:34

  If you have the first map, here's your geography lesson.

  12:34-12:39

  Way down here is Egypt, where they were held captive, right?

  12:40-12:41

  They run across the Red Sea.

  12:42-12:43

  That's kind of down here.

  12:43-12:45

  They get over down here, and they're in the wilderness.

  12:45-12:53

  They're wandering around, they don't know where they're going, they know they're supposed to get to the promised land eventually, and they come around here and start heading up this way.

  12:54-13:05

  Here's the Dead Sea, they're to the east of the Dead Sea, and they come up and that green arrow, they're just about to go across the Jordan River, and you can read about this in the book of Joshua.

  13:07-13:11

  When they go across the Jordan River, the most interesting thing happens.

  13:12-13:13

  The guys are carrying the ark.

  13:15-13:15

  They get to the water.

  13:16-13:19

  Now this is flood season, so it's not like a trickle.

  13:19-13:20

  It's not like a creek.

  13:21-13:22

  The water stops.

  13:24-13:25

  There's dry land.

  13:25-13:26

  That's kind of familiar.

  13:26-13:27

  That's what happened in the Red Sea, right?

  13:28-13:29

  The water stops.

  13:30-13:34

  It stands up in a heap, and they go across the river.

  13:35-13:37

  The Israelites are probably like, "This is really cool.

  13:37-13:38

  This is great.

  13:39-13:46

  God's like really with us." So the next thing that happens is So they go up to this place called Jericho.

  13:46-13:48

  You probably know the story about Jericho.

  13:48-13:50

  They go marching around this city.

  13:50-13:51

  They're taking the land of Canaan.

  13:51-13:53

  They're supposed to defeat their enemies.

  13:54-13:55

  So they get to Jericho.

  13:57-13:57

  What happens at Jericho?

  13:58-13:59

  They got these big walls.

  13:59-14:01

  And they're going to go around six days in a row.

  14:02-14:03

  And they're carrying that ark.

  14:04-14:04

  They're carrying the ark around.

  14:05-14:07

  The seventh day, they blow their trumpets.

  14:07-14:08

  They yell real loud.

  14:08-14:09

  Boom, the walls go down.

  14:09-14:12

  They fall flat, just like it said it was going to happen.

  14:13-14:17

  The walls fall flat, and they are like, victory.

  14:18-14:19

  God's presence.

  14:19-14:20

  This ark was very important to them.

  14:21-14:25

  We'll fast forward a little bit further here, and they go up to this place called Shiloh eventually.

  14:26-14:28

  Now, Shiloh was where they set up this tabernacle.

  14:28-14:33

  It was there for a while, and it was kind of like this epicenter of religious activity.

  14:33-14:37

  And so they're feeling pretty good about now.

  14:37-14:38

  They're very confident.

  14:38-14:40

  They still got to drive out some enemies.

  14:41-14:48

  So they're going to go over to this place called Ebenezer now, and it's almost like, "Hey, we got our lucky charm.

  14:48-14:55

  We got the ark, so we're good." And they get to Ebenezer, and something really devastating happens there.

  14:56-14:59

  They go to battle against the Philistines.

  15:00-15:10

  The Philistines had this area over here, and this lower southwestern area over here was is where the Philistines were.

  15:11-15:15

  And Philistines is where we get the name Palestine now, that came from that word.

  15:16-15:21

  So the Philistines, they take the Ark.

  15:21-15:26

  They get into a battle in Ebenezer, and you can see the red part, that's when the Philistines have the Ark.

  15:27-15:29

  So they take the Ark, it's captured.

  15:29-15:31

  You can read about that in 1 Samuel 4.

  15:33-15:41

  And they cruise on down to Ashdod, And Ashdod has this temple with this statue in it called Dagon.

  15:42-15:43

  Now, Dagon was the fish god.

  15:44-15:50

  They had these statues everywhere of this Dagon guy, false god, who was half man, half fish.

  15:50-15:58

  And so, now I don't know if this particular statue looked like that or not, but they had-- Dagon was supposed to be the fish god.

  15:58-16:01

  In fact, a little bonus here for you.

  16:01-16:01

  Nineveh?

  16:02-16:03

  Heard of Nineveh, right?

  16:03-16:04

  Who went to Nineveh?

  16:05-16:12

  Jonah. Jonah went to Nineveh, and Nineveh, I think, is modern-day Mosul in Iraq.

  16:13-16:16

  I could be wrong about that, but the city is still there.

  16:16-16:23

  And, but Nineveh, they have unearthed many, many statues of this fish god.

  16:24-16:34

  I find stuff like that really ironic, that Jonah was in the belly of a fish for three days, and he goes to a place where they're unearthing fish gods.

  16:34-16:36

  It's just weird stuff.

  16:37-16:39

  But anyway, they're in Ashdod in this temple with Dagon.

  16:39-16:41

  They take this ark in and they go to bed.

  16:42-16:43

  They get up in the morning.

  16:44-16:49

  The statue is falling or fallen before the ark, facing the ark of the covenant.

  16:50-16:55

  They look at it and they, you know, they dust it off and they pick it up and they set it back up.

  16:56-17:00

  And the next day they go out and Dagon has fallen toward the ark again.

  17:00-17:03

  And this time his head's cut off and his arms are cut off.

  17:04-17:09

  So the people of Ashdod are like, get this thing out of here.

  17:09-17:11

  Like God's hand is surely against us.

  17:12-17:13

  Get this ark out of here.

  17:14-17:17

  And so they go down, send it to this place called Gath.

  17:18-17:22

  Okay, Bible students, do you know anybody, anybody famous from the Bible who's from Gath?

  17:24-17:25

  Goliath.

  17:26-17:27

  Goliath is from Gath.

  17:28-17:34

  So I'm wondering, okay, we read about Goliath and David and that whole incident.

  17:34-17:38

  And I'm wondering when the Ark was there, I wonder where Goliath was.

  17:38-17:40

  It's just stuff that I think about.

  17:40-17:47

  They take this thing to Gath, and the people of Gath, they start breaking out in all these tumors and sickness.

  17:48-17:50

  So now they're thinking, "We gotta get this thing out of here.

  17:51-17:56

  The hand of God is against us." You can read about that in, I don't think I have the reference on there.

  17:56-17:58

  I think that's 1 Samuel 6.

  18:00-18:03

  So they get this, they want it out of here.

  18:03-18:04

  So they send it to Ekron.

  18:05-18:09

  You can read about Ekron and it goes to Beth Shemesh.

  18:10-18:13

  And that's where the Israelites got the ark back.

  18:13-18:16

  And it goes to this place called Kiriath-Jerim.

  18:17-18:20

  Now from that Ebenezer down to Beth Shemesh was about seven months.

  18:21-18:23

  So it was gone for a while.

  18:23-18:27

  In fact, up in Ebenezer, Eli's daughter-in-law gave birth to a baby.

  18:28-18:31

  And this baby's name, she named it Ichabod.

  18:31-18:32

  You know what Ichabod means?

  18:33-18:35

  The glory of the Lord has departed.

  18:36-18:42

  She knew the significance of the ark being captured, and so she named her son Ichabod, the glory of the Lord has departed.

  18:42-18:44

  It was gone for seven months.

  18:45-18:48

  And then in Kiriath-Jerim, it stayed there for about 20 years.

  18:48-18:50

  I think it was about 20 years that it was there.

  18:51-18:52

  There's some debate.

  18:52-18:57

  It does mention 20 years in the Bible, but there's other things that lead people to believe that it could have been there longer.

  18:58-19:01

  just timelines of when people were born and David's life and things like that.

  19:01-19:04

  So we know it was there no less than 20 years.

  19:05-19:11

  And David decides, I wanna get this ark back home to Jerusalem where it belongs.

  19:11-19:13

  You see where we're going, we're getting to Psalm 96.

  19:15-19:22

  You can read about that, this guy named Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6.

  19:24-19:32

  Uzzah is an interesting story where they have the ark on some ox carts, and the ark was about to tip over.

  19:33-19:34

  I don't know if they were on some rocks.

  19:35-19:42

  And I don't know what his thinking was or what was going on in his mind, but he reached out to steady the ark, and God struck him dead.

  19:43-19:51

  And it just displayed the seriousness of this box that had these items in it, the presence of God.

  19:52-19:53

  You weren't supposed to touch that.

  19:54-20:01

  Now, it seems severe to strike this guy dead, but maybe God was gonna perform a miracle there that Uzzah prevented.

  20:02-20:06

  He just reached out and indiscriminately grabs the ark and he gets struck dead.

  20:07-20:09

  So people were afraid there.

  20:10-20:14

  They're thinking, "Oh my goodness." So it stayed at a couple houses for a while.

  20:14-20:24

  And then it's coming into Jerusalem And David starts to celebrate 1 Chronicles 16.

  20:25-20:34

  David writes this unbelievable hymn of praise and worship and celebration that is Psalm 96.

  20:35-20:37

  And so that's where we're at.

  20:39-20:40

  We're in Psalm 96 today.

  20:41-20:45

  That's the story of how the Psalm came about.

  20:46-20:52

  just wasn't some kind of willy -nilly thought pattern that happened in David's mind.

  20:52-20:55

  There was something going on behind the scenes and this is what happened.

  20:56-21:03

  So if we go into Psalm 96, let's just go through a couple of things here and see how this will impact our worship.

  21:04-21:13

  First thing on your outline, we sing and we witness because he is magnificent and he is creator.

  21:15-21:17

  Now here at Harvest Bible Chapel, we have some pillars.

  21:17-21:22

  And our second pillar is lifting high the name of Jesus Christ through worship.

  21:23-21:24

  And we did that this morning.

  21:25-21:27

  We were singing, right?

  21:27-21:30

  I mean, it was, I look forward to that every week.

  21:30-21:31

  I look forward to coming here to sing.

  21:32-21:33

  We place a high premium on that.

  21:35-21:38

  He says here, sing a, I'm sorry, sing to the Lord a new song.

  21:39-21:40

  Sing to the Lord all the earth.

  21:40-21:42

  Sing to the Lord and bless his name.

  21:43-21:49

  You know, we sing a lot of new songs here, and there's nobody that likes old hymns better than me.

  21:49-21:50

  They're rich in doctrine.

  21:50-21:54

  They have a lot of truth in them, and we do sing some of those sometimes.

  21:55-21:57

  But there's something about these new songs, too, that are just amazing.

  21:58-22:09

  And I remember when we first started coming to church here, Pastor Jeff preached a sermon on the DNA of the church, and the second sermon was about the second pillar, lifting high the name of Jesus in worship.

  22:09-22:13

  And he said, you know, and he referenced this verse, sing to the Lord a new song?

  22:14-22:15

  Why do we sing new songs?

  22:16-22:18

  Because God loves new things.

  22:19-22:21

  God loves new things, and I can prove that to you.

  22:21-22:25

  In 2 Corinthians 5:17, what does it say?

  22:25-22:27

  If anyone is in Christ, he is a what?

  22:29-22:30

  A new creation.

  22:30-22:32

  If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.

  22:33-22:37

  You can look in Revelation, and what's God gonna create there?

  22:37-22:39

  A new heavens and a new earth, right?

  22:39-22:40

  He loves new things.

  22:41-22:42

  He loves new songs.

  22:42-22:44

  It's okay to sing new songs.

  22:45-22:46

  Fresh expressions of praise.

  22:47-22:48

  Those are okay.

  22:48-22:49

  We like those.

  22:49-22:50

  God likes those.

  22:52-22:52

  So we sing.

  22:53-22:54

  The second thing is we witness.

  22:57-23:07

  Here he says, "Proclaim good tidings of salvation from day to day." I love this phrase here 'cause it's much bigger than just proclaim.

  23:08-23:15

  This phrase here means exposing beauty through announcement.

  23:17-23:17

  Think of a wedding.

  23:18-23:19

  Has anybody been to a wedding?

  23:20-23:21

  Yeah, a lot of us have been to a wedding.

  23:21-23:23

  Most of us have been in a wedding, at a wedding.

  23:24-23:26

  Some of us have been in weddings.

  23:26-23:34

  If you think about the groom, he's up on the front with his guys, and there's some bridesmaids and everything.

  23:34-23:36

  And where's the bride?

  23:37-23:39

  Well, she's out back, usually.

  23:39-23:43

  She's waiting for the doors to open, and then the processional starts.

  23:44-23:50

  Here comes the bride or whatever anthem she might choose, and all of a sudden, the doors open up.

  23:51-23:59

  That processional is proclaiming-- it's getting ready to expose the beauty of this bride coming down the aisle.

  24:00-24:07

  I remember at our wedding when the door opened up and I looked out, and my bride was the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen.

  24:08-24:12

  There's something about a wedding, brides are beautiful, and this is what this is talking about here.

  24:14-24:19

  When we proclaim God's salvation, we're exposing his beauty.

  24:20-24:24

  We're letting people know about the beauty of salvation.

  24:25-24:27

  Well, this word salvation here is deliverance.

  24:28-24:30

  Has God delivered you from anything?

  24:32-24:38

  If you've been delivered from, say, alcoholism, you need to tell people about that.

  24:39-24:42

  You need to tell people that God did that, God delivered you from that.

  24:43-24:50

  Have you been delivered from drugs or any situation like that?

  24:50-24:53

  We need to tell people about that, that God did this to us.

  24:54-24:59

  What about fear or anxiety or impatience?

  25:00-25:01

  And we could go down the list.

  25:01-25:03

  Has God delivered you from those things as a Christian?

  25:04-25:06

  Is He delivering you from them?

  25:06-25:08

  Maybe we still struggle with some of that stuff.

  25:09-25:25

  We need to tell people, if we've been delivered, especially that we've been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's glorious light, that's the biggest deliverance of them all, right?

  25:25-25:28

  We were lost and headed to hell, but God saved us.

  25:28-25:29

  He delivered us.

  25:30-25:32

  He delivered us from the consequences of our sin.

  25:33-25:36

  That is an eternal conscious punishment in hell.

  25:38-25:40

  We need to tell people about that.

  25:40-25:41

  And that's what this is saying here.

  25:42-25:43

  We need to proclaim that.

  25:43-25:48

  We need to expose His beauty by letting people see what He's done for us.

  25:49-25:55

  Here's how you would maybe throw water on the flames of evangelism.

  25:56-26:04

  So you use those situations enter into a discussion about the gospel, that, oh, I was a sinner.

  26:05-26:08

  I was headed to hell, and the wages of sin is death.

  26:09-26:12

  But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

  26:13-26:20

  If anyone confesses Jesus as Lord and believes in their heart that God raised them from the dead, they'll be saved, they'll be delivered.

  26:21-26:23

  We can enter into conversations like that.

  26:25-26:26

  But you know how to throw water on that?

  26:26-26:27

  I'll give you a couple things.

  26:29-26:35

  If you don't have any enthusiasm, no enthusiasm, Jesus, he's just not exciting to me.

  26:37-26:40

  It's kind of boring actually, the Bible is kind of boring.

  26:41-26:47

  If you don't want people to listen to your message, just have no enthusiasm and they'll tune you out.

  26:47-26:48

  How about this one?

  26:49-26:51

  You're being confusing or indirect.

  26:52-26:53

  We need to speak with conviction and clarity.

  26:55-26:56

  We're not beating around the bush here.

  26:56-26:58

  This is a life and death message.

  26:58-26:59

  We don't need to beat around the bush.

  27:01-27:05

  Is anybody impressed with your Jesus if you're timid about him?

  27:07-27:10

  Who wants that Jesus that we're ashamed of?

  27:10-27:11

  Who would want that?

  27:12-27:14

  So we need to be direct.

  27:14-27:15

  We don't need to be confusing.

  27:16-27:17

  And how about this one?

  27:18-27:18

  Pride.

  27:19-27:20

  I'll say this gently.

  27:21-27:22

  Nobody cares how much you know.

  27:23-27:24

  They really don't.

  27:24-27:30

  You could quote them 100 scriptures and show them how much you know about the Bible.

  27:31-27:33

  People really don't care about that, seriously.

  27:34-27:35

  They want to know that you care.

  27:36-27:38

  We need to show them that we're committed to the truth.

  27:39-27:40

  We need to be knowledgeable.

  27:41-27:48

  But we need to be careful about blasting them with truth bombs because we want to win an argument.

  27:50-27:55

  So no enthusiasm, being confusing or indirect, pride.

  27:56-27:58

  And here's another one, and there could be some more.

  27:59-28:03

  But this will throw the water on the flames of your evangelism, hypocrisy.

  28:05-28:12

  If you're a hypocrite, believe me, people know when you're being a hypocrite, it's like written all over your face most of the time.

  28:12-28:14

  Nobody wants to hear what you have to say.

  28:15-28:17

  If you're a hypocrite, they don't want that, Jesus.

  28:18-28:21

  If Jesus didn't fix you of that, nobody wants that.

  28:23-28:23

  So how do we share?

  28:24-28:25

  We just tell our story.

  28:26-28:27

  We can tell.

  28:27-28:33

  It even says here, I will tell of his glory among the nations and his wonderful deeds.

  28:34-28:36

  This is an interesting word here.

  28:37-28:41

  It means to enumerate or keep score, keep track of.

  28:42-28:44

  I pictured like these little hash marks.

  28:44-28:45

  You know, you're keeping score.

  28:47-28:49

  It's telling people what God did in your life.

  28:50-28:52

  I don't know, you could come up with a hundred examples.

  28:52-28:56

  "Oh wow, did you see the rainbow?

  28:56-28:58

  That was an amazing rainbow, I love rainbows.

  28:58-29:02

  You know, God put that there." Or, "Man, I was really sick.

  29:02-29:13

  I had the flu and I prayed and it just seemed like God was..." We tell people, we're enumerating, we're recounting to people what God did for us.

  29:14-29:16

  That's what he's telling here, tell of his glory.

  29:17-29:20

  Tell of these things that God has done.

  29:20-29:23

  Bring them into conversation when you're talking to people.

  29:24-29:27

  You could do things like, let somebody ask you how you're doing.

  29:27-29:28

  God's been so good to us.

  29:29-29:29

  He's really blessed us.

  29:29-29:31

  He's given us a great family.

  29:31-29:32

  He's provided for us.

  29:33-29:38

  If the topic comes up at work, you won't believe what I just learned today in the Scriptures.

  29:39-29:40

  Telling people what you're thankful for.

  29:42-29:43

  I'm so thankful for my home.

  29:44-29:46

  God provided a home for us.

  29:46-29:48

  You can bring those into conversations.

  29:48-29:54

  That's what he's talking about here when he says, "Tell of His glory among the nations." His wonderful deeds among all the people.

  29:55-29:56

  And why is that?

  29:57-29:58

  Because He's magnificent.

  29:59-30:01

  He's Creator. He's magnificent.

  30:01-30:02

  He launches into this thing here.

  30:02-30:05

  He says, "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.

  30:05-30:07

  He is to be feared above all gods.

  30:09-30:14

  For all the gods of the peoples are idols." Back then they had a few gods, false gods.

  30:14-30:16

  They had Baals. They called them Baal.

  30:17-30:42

  the supposed sun god. They had Ashtoreth, it was the female counterpart of Veil, the moon goddess. They had this god named Molech and they would sacrifice children, live children, to this false god Molech. And they had Dagon, we saw Dagon, the fish god. They had numerous gods. We have some of that.

  30:42-30:46

  We have gods in our own lives, false gods.

  30:47-30:50

  I love the play on words in verse 5.

  30:50-30:51

  This is pretty cool.

  30:52-31:00

  He says, "All the gods of the peoples are idols." There are no less than 18 words for the word "idol" in the Old Testament.

  31:01-31:03

  I couldn't believe how many words there were.

  31:03-31:06

  And for the English language, we only had one word for it.

  31:06-31:20

  There's words like shame, dung, refuse, a shadow, a statue, a shape, a device, a molten image.

  31:21-31:25

  This idol that was spoken of here wasn't any of those words.

  31:25-31:34

  It's the word "nothingness" or "non -existent." What he's saying there is those gods of the people, They're nothing.

  31:36-31:36

  They're nothing.

  31:38-31:39

  But here's the play on words.

  31:40-31:41

  What's he say next?

  31:42-31:46

  "But God made the heavens." What did God make the heavens out of?

  31:48-31:48

  Nothing.

  31:49-31:51

  He created everything that you see out of nothing.

  31:52-31:54

  He's calling these idols nothing.

  31:55-31:56

  Just an interesting choice of words.

  31:57-32:10

  He goes, "Your idols are nothing." "Oh yeah, I made the heavens out of nothing." "Splendor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary." This is speaking of His magnificence.

  32:11-32:11

  Look at these words.

  32:12-32:15

  We sang about this stuff just minutes ago.

  32:16-32:20

  Splendor, majesty, strength, beauty.

  32:22-32:28

  When I think of His power here, His strength, just even that rain out there today.

  32:29-32:31

  When's the last time you guys made rain like that?

  32:33-32:38

  When's the last time we made thunder and lightning?

  32:39-32:41

  And when's the last time you made a rainbow?

  32:43-32:46

  I've seen a lot of rainbows, and I never made one like that.

  32:47-32:53

  I mean, well, our family, we took a vacation in 2013 where we took a tour around the country.

  32:54-32:54

  Like, we looked.

  32:55-33:05

  We saw the Redwood Forest and the Pacific Coast Highway, and we went horseback riding in Wyoming.

  33:05-33:10

  And we were coming through the South, and we were on our way home from California.

  33:11-33:14

  When we went through Las Vegas, Nevada, it was 118 degrees.

  33:16-33:17

  And I'm thinking, wow.

  33:18-33:19

  First of all, that's really hot.

  33:19-33:23

  And secondly, like, wow, God did this heat.

  33:23-33:24

  He made the heat.

  33:25-33:31

  But the most interesting thing happened to us when we were riding through New Mexico.

  33:32-33:33

  And you can look this up on the internet.

  33:33-33:34

  This is amazing.

  33:34-33:45

  On July 4 of 2013, if you get on your devices and look up Santa Rosa hailstorm, you'll see some pictures come up on there.

  33:46-33:47

  We were there when that happened.

  33:48-33:49

  We were on the highway.

  33:51-33:52

  And all of a sudden, it was 9 o'clock at night.

  33:53-33:56

  We're tired, we have to go to the bathroom, we just want to get to the hotel.

  33:57-33:58

  We're trying to get to Amarillo, Texas.

  33:59-34:01

  We didn't have a hotel yet, we were just kind of winging it.

  34:02-34:05

  So we pull up, we can see the city lights of Santa Rosa.

  34:06-34:08

  You know, we had just come from 118 degrees.

  34:09-34:11

  It's probably 90 degrees at 9 o'clock at night.

  34:12-34:13

  And the traffic stops.

  34:14-34:15

  It's a dead stop.

  34:17-34:18

  It's 9 o'clock at night.

  34:18-34:20

  We didn't move one inch until midnight.

  34:21-34:31

  nobody knew what was going on. We were there for three hours. We start creeping along and we get to Santa Rosa and there were six inches of hail on the ground.

  34:33-34:40

  Leftover from two feet of hail, golf ball-sized. And it was just in Santa Rosa.

  34:40-35:18

  Santa Rosa is like maybe the size of Butler. It's not real big. Just in the city and right on the outskirts of the city where the highway went past, two feet golf ball size hail. Now aside from the damage and maybe some injuries that might have happened from that, God is awesome. I never made two-inch hail before. Golf ball size hail. I never made that before. I couldn't believe it. It was like we get there and we're driving like we're driving in Pittsburgh. People were just like, they're afraid, they don't get snow down there. I'm like, I see that stuff all the time.

  35:19-35:23

  But I'm looking at that, I'm like, that's the strength and power and beauty of God.

  35:24-35:26

  It was an amazing thing.

  35:28-35:31

  We need to tell people about this amazing God.

  35:32-35:33

  It's part of how we worship him.

  35:35-35:38

  Okay, next one, and I gotta hurry along here.

  35:39-35:44

  We acknowledge, we give, and we tremble because he is sovereign and he is judge.

  35:45-35:47

  We're gonna talk about the judge thing at the end.

  35:48-35:50

  But acknowledge, he says ascribe.

  35:52-35:53

  He says ascribe here.

  35:55-36:03

  The definition of ascribe is to humbly give credit and acknowledgement to God for the attributes and characteristics that already belong to him.

  36:04-36:05

  I'll say that again.

  36:06-36:14

  Humbly give credit and acknowledgement to God for the attributes and characteristics that already belong to him.

  36:15-36:18

  He says here, "Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples.

  36:18-36:20

  Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

  36:21-36:28

  Ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name." We're not giving Him strength.

  36:28-36:29

  He already has that, right?

  36:30-36:32

  We're just acknowledging that He is that God.

  36:33-36:34

  That's what it means to ascribe.

  36:35-36:36

  It's an acknowledgment.

  36:38-36:39

  And then how about this word "give"?

  36:39-36:46

  He says, "Bring an offering and come into His courts." Now is he talking about passing that offering thing around?

  36:47-36:48

  Yeah, that's part of it.

  36:49-36:50

  But it's just a part of it.

  36:51-36:52

  He wants all of you.

  36:52-36:54

  He wants you to give of yourself.

  36:55-36:59

  Your time, your talents, your offering, your money.

  36:59-37:00

  He wants you to give.

  37:01-37:03

  What he's saying here, it's a command really.

  37:03-37:07

  He says, "Bring an offering and come into his courts.

  37:08-37:13

  Worship the Lord in holy attire." and it says holy attire.

  37:15-37:23

  The translation of this really should be something like, what this means is, maybe a better rendering is, worship the Lord in the beauty of his holiness.

  37:23-37:30

  This doesn't mean like, OK, I'm going to go worship the Lord, so I got to go get my holy-- my suit and my tie and everything.

  37:30-37:31

  I got to look nice.

  37:31-37:33

  If you want to do that, that's OK.

  37:33-37:34

  But that's not what that's saying here.

  37:34-37:36

  It's saying, worship the Lord in his beauty.

  37:37-37:39

  He's the one that's got the holy attire on.

  37:39-37:41

  He's the one that's beautiful.

  37:41-37:42

  we're worshiping him.

  37:43-37:49

  He says, "Tremble before him all the earth." You know what trembling is?

  37:51-37:54

  Trembling is like a palpitation of the heart.

  37:56-37:57

  You just, you get this feeling in your heart.

  37:58-38:02

  Like, I was talking to Sherry a little bit before this.

  38:02-38:05

  When you get up here and speak, it's no small thing, anytime.

  38:06-38:09

  You know what, going into jail or whatever, it's not a small thing.

  38:09-38:12

  And so, you know, you get a little bit of butterflies in there.

  38:13-38:15

  Your heart's palpitating, it's beating hard.

  38:16-38:17

  That's what he's saying here.

  38:18-38:22

  You know, our hearts are supposed to palpitate when we worship Him.

  38:22-38:23

  It's supposed to beat hard.

  38:26-38:32

  When you open up your Bible, think about, this is God's Word to you.

  38:33-38:36

  Like, every time we open up the Bible, we should be trembling.

  38:37-38:39

  This is a great gift that God has given you.

  38:41-38:46

  Yes, it was written by 40 men or something, over 1,500 years.

  38:48-38:49

  You know, people say, "Oh, that was a thing.

  38:49-38:54

  It was written by men." Well, yeah, they wrote it down, but God told them what to say.

  38:54-38:56

  They wrote in their own personalities.

  38:56-39:01

  They wrote from different moods, sadness, happiness.

  39:02-39:05

  There were different people that wrote the Bible.

  39:05-39:06

  There were kings. There were prophets.

  39:06-39:16

  there were statesmen, there were shepherds, there were doctors and tax collectors, and it came from the pen of different men.

  39:17-39:21

  But it's God's word, this is God speaking to us.

  39:23-39:28

  He's telling us who he is, what he expects of us, what kind of worship he wants.

  39:30-39:30

  We tremble.

  39:32-39:33

  Our heart starts to beat.

  39:35-39:51

  These guys that built that tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, they were bringing this stuff into the collection place as a willing thing.

  39:52-39:55

  This was something that they wanted to do out of their own hearts.

  39:55-39:57

  I imagine the gravity of that.

  39:58-40:05

  "Hey, God told us to build this thing." And they bring all this stuff back to this passage about bringing an offering.

  40:07-40:08

  God is sovereign.

  40:09-40:10

  That's the next part of this.

  40:10-40:11

  He's sovereign.

  40:11-40:12

  He reigns over all.

  40:13-40:22

  He says here, "Say to the nations," in verse 10, "The Lord reigns." That's it, he reigns, he's in charge.

  40:23-40:24

  He is in charge.

  40:24-40:28

  Sometimes it doesn't look like, things are, you know, the wheels are coming off, it seems.

  40:30-40:31

  But God is still on the throne, he reigns.

  40:32-40:33

  He's still sovereign.

  40:34-40:35

  And he is judge.

  40:35-40:37

  And we're going to hit judge here in a couple seconds.

  40:39-40:45

  Last point here, we rejoice and we celebrate, because he is righteous and he is faithful.

  40:48-40:50

  Look at these verses here at the end.

  40:51-40:53

  "Let the peoples be glad.

  40:54-40:55

  Let the earth rejoice.

  40:56-40:59

  Let the sea roar in all it contains.

  41:01-41:03

  Let the field exult and all that is in it.

  41:04-41:08

  And the trees of the forest will sing for joy, for the Lord is coming.

  41:08-41:13

  And He is coming to judge the earth, and He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in faithfulness.

  41:15-41:19

  This exult, this word exult, it's like jumping for joy or leaping for joy.

  41:20-41:22

  In fact, go back to the beginning when I was talking about David.

  41:23-41:32

  Remember when he came into Jerusalem and he was dancing and he was jumping and leaping, and he was so happy that the ark was finally home.

  41:33-41:43

  And his wife, Mikkel, Saul's daughter, she looks at him out from the window and it says in the Bible that she despised him for that.

  41:44-41:56

  And when they saw each other a little bit later, she says, "Wow, look how the king of Israel has distinguished himself.

  41:57-41:58

  Look at what you were doing out there.

  41:58-42:00

  Look how you distinguished yourself.

  42:02-42:09

  And I love what David said in I think it's 2 Samuel 6:21.

  42:10-42:13

  From the window of his house, his wife saw him leaping.

  42:14-42:16

  She was pretty upset about that.

  42:16-42:37

  Says, "Oh, how the king has distinguished himself as one of the foolish ones." And David said this, before the Lord who chose me above your father's house, therefore I will celebrate." When I read that verse, I thought, here's a guy, he didn't care what people thought about his worship.

  42:38-42:43

  Even his own wife, his own family, she's looking at him, despising him.

  42:44-42:45

  And he says, you know what?

  42:45-42:47

  This was, it was for the Lord.

  42:48-42:50

  We brought this ark into Jerusalem for the Lord.

  42:51-42:52

  I was happy.

  42:53-42:54

  And I'm going to dance before the Lord.

  42:57-43:02

  And so, is that how our worship is?

  43:02-43:05

  Do we care what other people think around us?

  43:05-43:08

  As long as we're worshipping God in a biblical way.

  43:09-43:20

  If we're doing some crazy things that maybe aren't reverent, or maybe out of line as far as Scripture goes, then okay, that's probably wrong.

  43:22-43:45

  But if we look at this passage here in Psalm 96 and see how we're supposed to worship God by singing and proclaiming and ascribing about His splendor and beauty and majesty and trembling before Him and celebrating, if we're all in the biblical bounds here, we don't need to care what other people are thinking, right?

  43:46-43:48

  We have a fairly diverse church.

  43:49-43:50

  Some people like to raise their hands.

  43:51-43:52

  That's okay.

  43:52-43:55

  You know, I have traditionally not been a hand raiser, but maybe I should be.

  43:56-43:59

  Maybe I should do that, 'cause sometimes I wanna do that.

  43:59-44:04

  I came from a really, really conservative background, and sometimes I feel awkward doing that.

  44:04-44:04

  But you know what?

  44:06-44:10

  Not to be mean to you guys, but after studying this, I don't care what you think about that anymore.

  44:11-44:16

  People can make fun of me, but I'm gonna praise the Lord the way I want to, and we should do that.

  44:17-44:19

  If you're going to clap during a song, that's okay.

  44:20-44:23

  Tap your foot however you want to worship.

  44:24-44:25

  We can't make you not do that.

  44:27-44:37

  If we're not passionate in our worship, I'm thinking we might be in a little bit of trouble because guess what we're going to be doing for millions of years in heaven?

  44:39-44:44

  If singing and worship is not your thing, I don't think you're gonna like heaven.

  44:45-44:46

  'Cause that's what we're doing there.

  44:48-45:00

  I loved the one song we were singing, and I scribbled this down real quick, where it says, I think it was the last song there, our eyes will look upon his glorious face.

  45:03-45:11

  When we're in heaven, for all those millions of years, we're gonna be looking at his glorious face.

  45:13-45:14

  That's worthy of worship.

  45:15-45:17

  He says he's going to judge the world in righteousness.

  45:18-45:21

  Now, many of you guys know that I do the prison stuff.

  45:22-45:26

  A couple of you guys have gone in, Jeff and I, Darren, I know Ben has been in.

  45:27-45:28

  It's a great ministry, we love doing that.

  45:29-45:32

  But I encounter guys who are in trouble with the law, obviously.

  45:33-45:40

  And I want you to imagine that you are in trouble with the law and you have to go before the judge.

  45:42-45:45

  You are at the judge's mercy.

  45:46-45:50

  Whatever sentence he hands down, that's your sentence.

  45:51-45:56

  So I tell the guys all the time, God is a judge.

  45:57-46:01

  They have rap sheets as long as their arm in some cases.

  46:02-46:04

  And the judge looks at that, and he's like, you know what?

  46:05-46:06

  Off to the pokey.

  46:06-46:07

  You're going to jail.

  46:07-46:12

  I was just talking to a guy Friday, and I said, "Where's so-and-so and where's so-and-so?

  46:13-46:22

  Where are these guys at now?" "Oh yeah, they went to state 25 to 50 years." This guy, 12 to 24 years.

  46:23-46:25

  They've been before the judge and they got sentenced.

  46:26-46:31

  We too have a rap sheet because we're sinners.

  46:32-46:49

  In Colossians 2, it talks about the decrees, their certificate of death, or death and decrees that are against us, but they were nailed to the cross, Jesus took them out of the way.

  46:52-46:56

  So when we appear before the judge, he's gonna set all things right, right?

  46:56-47:00

  It says here that he's righteous and he's faithful.

  47:01-47:02

  He's all about keeping his promises.

  47:03-47:04

  He's faithful.

  47:04-47:05

  He's going to keep his promise.

  47:06-47:15

  And when he says that, "Depart from me," he's sentenced people to an eternal conscious punishment in a real place called hell.

  47:16-47:18

  And we don't want people to go there.

  47:19-47:20

  We don't want people to go there.

  47:21-47:26

  And so, we talked about this earlier, we evangelize, we tell people, it's part of our worship.

  47:28-47:37

  But he has taken the decrees that were against you What's not to celebrate?

  47:38-47:40

  That's the ultimate thing to celebrate.

  47:41-47:46

  That our sins have been taken from the East to the West and removed from us.

  47:47-47:48

  They're gone.

  47:50-47:53

  But it says that God will remember them no more.

  47:54-47:55

  He'll remember your sins no more.

  47:56-47:57

  It's not that he has a bad memory.

  47:58-47:59

  He's not going to bring them up to you again.

  47:59-48:01

  Jesus took them out of the way.

  48:01-48:03

  Jesus took our place.

  48:03-48:04

  He was our substitute.

  48:06-48:10

  I tell the guys in the jail, somebody had to pay for your crime.

  48:11-48:11

  And it was you.

  48:13-48:15

  And the same with our sin.

  48:15-48:16

  Somebody has to pay for that.

  48:17-48:22

  And it will be you if you don't let Jesus do it.

  48:22-48:28

  Jesus came, bled, suffered, died on the cross as your substitute.

  48:29-48:35

  He looks at us as righteousness We put our faith and trust and our hope in His Son, Jesus Christ.

  48:35-48:41

  And so why I say that is that's why we worship God.

  48:41-48:43

  That's why we're not ashamed to worship God.

  48:45-48:51

  When we've been there 10 ,000 years, you know this verse in the song, right?

  48:52-48:59

  I was looking at this song this week, and this verse never clicked with me until this week.

  49:01-49:01

  Think about this.

  49:02-49:03

  It boggles your mind.

  49:04-49:13

  When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun.

  49:15-49:19

  You can be there 10,000 years and you haven't lost one day of worship.

  49:20-49:26

  You're just going to keep doing it for another 10,000, for another 10,000, for a million.

  49:27-49:29

  And there's no days being knocked off.

  49:29-49:31

  It's like, I still have forever.

  49:31-49:32

  We still have forever.

  49:32-49:40

  When we've been there 10,000 years, bright, shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun.

  49:42-49:42

  Let's pray.

  49:43-49:47

  Heavenly Father, we have so much to praise You for.

  49:48-49:53

  We have so much to give You honor and worship You for.

  49:54-49:57

  Lord, You took our sins and cast them into the sea.

  49:58-49:59

  The depths of the sea.

  49:59-50:02

  took them as far from the east as to the west.

  50:03-50:14

  That alone, if you never did one more thing for us, God, you did more than enough by offering your Son, giving Him to those who would receive Him by faith.

  50:18-50:27

  Lord, that's just amazing that you would do that for me and for my friends here, Lord, that you would do that.

  50:28-50:42

  Lord, I pray that we would sing our lungs out because of our great love for you.

  50:43-50:50

  Lord, forgive us of our half-hearted, lukewarm singing, praising you, our worship Lord.

  50:51-50:56

  Forgive us of not loving you with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

  50:56-51:09

  Lord, I pray we would have a reasonable rekindled, fresh look at who you are, and just give you all the praise, because Lord, You are so worthy.

  51:10-51:14

  Thank You, Lord, for the opportunity to look at Your Word this morning.

  51:14-51:15

  You are awesome.

  51:17-51:18

  And we acknowledge that today.

  51:19-51:20

  In Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Psalm 96

1. Why does Harvest Bible Chapel place such an emphasis on high impact worship services?

2. What is meant by 'ascribe to the Lord'? Why would God want people to recite His attributes?

3. How are worship and evangelism related? And what steps can you take to share the gospel with more confidence and with more frequency?

4. What obstacles are holding you back from passionately worshiping the Lord? How can you overcome these obstacles?

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.

A song for the Sabbath

Guest Speaker - Darren Miller

It is GOOD to give THANKS to the Lord. (Ps 92:1)

Our worship absolutely must be EMOTIONAL.

It is by God's WORKS in our lives that we joyfully worship. (Ps 92:4)

It is "STUPID" to not acknowledge God's worthiness. (Ps 92:6)

Worshipping God with all our emotions is REVITALIZING. (Ps 92:12-14)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Psalm 92

1. What are some opportunities you find or make throughout the week to worship outside church? How can you make more opportunities for yourself?
    
2. What are some ways you can (and do!) personally worship without the use of music?
    
3. How can you worship God even when you are in a season of discouragement?
    
4. What are some of the ways you’ve seen God move in your life as a result of emotional worship?

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another!