Hi, and welcome to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.
This is where you can find audio for our current and past sermons.
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Thanks for listening.
Well, good morning.
Glad you guys and gals are with us.
If you've got your Bibles, go ahead and open them up to Psalm chapter 66 as we continue
on in our study and our musical approach to the Psalms.
I've really enjoyed and want to thank again our worship team for what they're doing every
single week of learning a new Psalm, putting in some music, Joel, doing the research and
finding that, and then in many different ways that we've had the opportunity to either sing
it and respond in worship, to listen to it as we respond in the Lord's Supper, and it's
just been a wonderful time and a wonderful blessing.
And I know that's a part that I look forward to each and every Sunday.
Well, before we get into this, I do want to remind everybody, you guys saw it on the video
of our Harvest Hangout tonight from four to six.
So let me say this, you guys want to be here for this.
We are excited about all that has gone into and in hearing some of the games that people
have come up with and designed to have here.
It's going to be an exciting time.
It is from four to six.
We have to people say, well, is it okay?
We've got a party that we want to get to at like five or 530.
Absolutely.
If you can't be here at four, this is a kind of a come and go event.
You don't have to stay for the whole time.
And in typical Willow Ridge fashion, right?
You don't even have to show up on time for this one, right?
And you're good with that.
But there will be food.
We will have hot apple cider, hot chocolate, hot coffee, right?
No iced coffee.
None of that is happening here tonight.
There will be games.
There will be candy.
We've got a photo area set up.
There is a hayride and there's going to be s'mores as well.
And so we want to encourage you how the night's going to unfold is we're going to have most
of the activities and events either set up on the walkway up here as you come in on the
parking lot or in the bottom two layers of the parking lot.
And so as you come, just park on those top ones is where we'll have you.
But we're excited about all that is going to happen and be a part of this tonight.
Well, as we look at Psalm 66, I want to kind of share with you a little bit.
We've been trying to understand the context of each of the Psalms that we've looked at.
We talked about the fact that David, King David, David the shepherd, David that killed Goliath,
right?
He wrote most of these, but he did not write all of them.
And so each week we've tried to understand some of the context and the setting of what
we understand.
We've looked at one that David wrote.
We looked at one in week two that was a Psalm of Ascent that the people would actually sing
as they journeyed up the hill to the temple into Jerusalem of what they would declare.
And last week we looked at one that we are pretty certain was written by King Hezekiah in a time
where the city was under siege and on the verge of being occupied.
So this morning in Psalm 66, there's some opinions about who wrote Psalm 66, but there's no driving
evidence that here is the individual that wrote this.
But what is interesting as we look at the 66 Psalm is that we can point to the fact that
this is referred to oftentimes as a Psalm of the missionaries, that what we'll see in Psalm
66 is that the Psalmist who writes this will write this out of a heart of missions and out
of a heart of celebration because of what the Psalmist had experienced, because of what the
Psalmist knew, because of what the Psalmist was called to, there is this explosion of joy that
came from his heart and this is where we find this Psalm in its setting.
And so that's why I showed the video that I showed beforehand.
Because I think it's a continual reminder, and it's a lot of what we're going to look at
this morning, of the continued global work that God is doing and the role and the opportunity
that you and I have to play a part of this.
And the beauty of what I love about our denomination and the denominational work that we're a part
of, if you saw the IMB as the foreign missions agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, and
it's the wonderful reminder that all of us as Southern Baptist churches, as we gather in
our separate spaces, as we preach our separate messages, as we work through the autonomy of each
and one of us as a local body, as a local congregation, there is a beauty in the togetherness of the work
that we're doing.
And so right now, all over this world, there are men and women, there are missionaries being
mobilized out of the faithfulness of the churches and out of the faithfulness of the congregations,
it's you, so that as we give, and as we give to the IMB, and as we give to the cooperative
program, that there are men and women and children who were waking up this morning with an opportunity
to hear the gospel, that yesterday they didn't have the opportunity, right?
They didn't have the opportunity.
All right, this is message one, we'll get into this in a second, all right?
But like, I saw some visitors this morning, and I'm so glad that you're here, and at the end
of it, me and my wife will be standing back here toward the welcome desk over here, and
we'd love to talk to you, shake your hand, learn your name, and just thank you for being
here.
But for all the visitors who were here this morning, right, like there was a bunch of churches
you could have gone to, a bunch of good churches, great churches, gospel-sharing churches,
right?
We could get on our phones this morning and download podcasts, our church has one, most churches
have them now.
We could get on TV and get everybody's favorite TV preacher, Dr. Charles Stanley, out of Atlanta,
right?
And we could listen to him.
We could go back and look on YouTube and look at Billy Graham and look at the things that
are posted up and everywhere, and you and I have the overwhelming opportunity to hear,
see, and respond to the gospel.
But actually, we're going to look at it in just a little bit, is that there are so many men,
women, and children who don't have that opportunity.
There's not a church to go to.
There's not even a Bible written in their language, right?
And as God's people, we can't be okay with that.
And so we're grateful for the opportunity that we have to be a part of the largest mobilizing
Christian missionary organization in the world, right?
And so thank the IMB for all that they're doing, and I thank you guys for your faithful giving
so that we can support that.
So let's get into Psalm 66.
I'm off my soapbox.
Y'all know me.
I'll jump on a couple more before we get done.
All right, Psalm 66, starting in verse 1.
Shout for joy to God, all the earth.
Sing the glory of His name.
Give to Him glorious praise.
Say to God, how awesome are your deeds.
So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.
All the earth worships you and sing praises to you.
They sing praises to your name, Selah.
Come and see what God has done.
He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man.
He turned the sea into dry land.
He passed, they passed through the river on foot.
There did we rejoice in Him who rules by His might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations.
Let not the rebellious exalt themselves.
At the very beginning, and this is why this is kind of set in the heart of the missionary movement of God that He's called us to,
what we see is a global invitation.
Written by a Jewish author, a Jewish psalmist at the time,
what we hear in verse 1,
shout for joy to God, not all of Israel, not all of God's covenant people,
but shout to joy to God, all the earth.
The global proclamation as the psalmist is inviting who?
All of the earth, all of the peoples to praise God.
And he does this for a reason.
The psalmist says that there is a reason why all of the earth should praise God.
Not only then, but even still today of what we're going to see in the context of Scripture.
He says this, kind of paraphrasing.
Praise God for all that He has done.
And then he gives some examples, the psalmist does, of what he has here.
All that He has done as He turned the dry sea into land and as they passed through.
And the examples that he gives, praise God for all the glory He has done for Israel.
And the question is, why?
Why should the earth, as the psalmist writes this, whenever the psalmist, whoever it was,
why should they look at all the work that God has done for Israel and praise God?
What's God doing?
What's God showing with Israel?
As we look at these psalms recorded in the Old Testament, I think it's important for us to remember what God is showing,
what God is displaying.
That when you and I, when we look through and as we read Old Testament Scripture,
we read it through the knowledge of what you and I have been able to learn in our present day and time.
But at this time, right, there is no virgin birth of Jesus.
At this time, there is no cross.
At this time, there is no empty tomb.
At this time, there is no Pentecost.
At this time, there is no church.
But God's display of all of this, of the showing what God will do, of the showing of what is to come, is Israel.
And so God in his sovereignty, God in his knowledge, God in his goodness, God in his grace,
chose for himself a nation, chose for himself a people, chose for himself Israel.
And what God did, and we can look at this and project this onto our life of what we've experienced in Christ.
He saved that nation.
He freed that nation.
He made promises to that nation and fulfilled them for that nation.
And most importantly, he said that from that nation would come a Savior.
And this would be the nation that Jesus would come from.
And when God promised this, all the way back in Genesis 12, it's not just so that Israel would be blessed,
but it's so that Israel would be blessed, so that Israel would be a blessing, Jesus to the world, right?
Yesterday, Aaron and I were out kind of doing some shopping.
The kids spent the night with their grandparents, and we had an opportunity to just kind of have a day to ourselves.
And so we went and kind of had a midday date, went out to lunch together, super old people, early lunch.
We were eating lunch by 11.
It was fantastic, right?
I was ready to eat dinner by 2.30 and be in bed at 3, but that didn't happen, right?
But we did that.
And then we're leaving, and I don't know if you've heard this, but like, so you can Google it.
You can check it.
I don't know what all is going on with things anymore, but there's going to be a Christmas tree shortage, supposedly, right?
I don't know if y'all knew that, but they're saying prepare for a Christmas tree shortage, which is just terrible.
And so she said, do you want to go to Lowe's?
And we're like, we'll look at some Christmas trees.
And evidently, Lowe's got word because it's like, like, we'd have to refinance our house, you know, in order to buy an artificial Christmas tree.
But here's what clicked with me, all right?
I know today is October 31st.
Today is Halloween, but Christmas is coming, right?
55 days, Christmas is going to be here.
Now, the people, like, there was a handful that were like, whoo, right?
And here's the whoo.
These people already have their Christmas trees up, right?
Like, they do.
They've been listening to Christmas music since July, right?
We pray for them, right?
Right?
All right, let's, moment of confession.
If you're a visitor, man, this is the rawness of our church, okay?
Moment of confession.
How many of you right now in your house have some form of Christmas decoration?
I'll break your hand.
That is fantastic.
That, and here's what I love.
Here's what I love, right here.
People are like, we do.
We're so happy.
Yeah.
Y'all are like our buddy the elves of Willow Ridge Church, you know?
I'm in a store, and I'm singing.
All right, there we go.
I love y'all.
Where is this going?
Christmas is here in 55 days.
And when Christmas is here, we're going to remind ourselves, we're going to remind ourselves why we celebrate Christmas.
And we're going to think about the gift of Christ.
And we're going to sing songs about it, and we're going to tell stories about it, and we're going to do a sermon series about it, and our small groups are going to talk about it, and it's going to be there continuously, reminder over and over again.
And we celebrate that, that God came for us, but let's also remember that Jesus came not just for us, but Jesus came for the world.
And as of this morning, as of this morning, sitting in my office, going and looking at the most recent statistics, there are 17,410 people groups in this world.
What is a people group?
A people group is how we look at all the peoples of the world in missions.
And a people group is an ethno-linguistic group with a common self-identity that is shared by its various members.
And so the nations of this world within them have different people groups.
In fact, people groups also mobilize and migrate to other areas of the world.
So a people group, so like the United States, for instance, is filled with many different types of people groups.
But then also within there, there are people groups, like the different Chinese people groups,
and there are many different Chinese people groups that aren't all just in China.
They've moved to all different places all over the world.
And so here's the statistic that I want to stick in your mind.
And of the 17,410 people groups, 7,398 of them are considered unreached.
That means to be an unreached people group, that means that accounted for within that people group
is less than 2% Christian.
And what that means is 42% of the earth's population is accounted for in these groups.
Which means for the most part that 42% of the world woke up this morning
with very little to no opportunity to hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now that doesn't mean, and this is important for us, that 58% of the world is saved.
What that means is that at least 58% of the world has more than 3% who are saved.
The latest statistic that I heard about South Carolina, right?
The heart, like, churches everywhere.
Kitty wait right down the road, great church, right?
Churches all around us, Lexington, Baptist, First Baptist, Lexington.
Churches all over the place.
Wonderful, wonderful churches.
But that in South Carolina, only 33% of the people of South Carolina now identify as Christian.
Right?
Why am I sharing all this?
We can't forget while we're here.
It has to be unacceptable to us.
It needs to affect our budgets.
It needs to affect our wallets.
It needs to affect our prayer time.
It needs to affect our heart.
For the vastness of the lostness of this world.
And the promise that God has.
That every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
I'm hoping as we go into this different season in life of our church, and this is what typically happens over November and December, that we can be reminded of that.
And on Sunday evening, November 21st, we're going to kind of stop our normal programming and instead have on that evening a night where we are going to focus in on missions and prayer.
And so I want to take some time during the service and share with you a little bit of the details.
And I've got to leave some of those details out, and I'll explain why.
But on Sunday evening, November the 21st, we're going to gather back here at 4 o'clock that evening.
And we're going to have a missionary who's going to be with us.
Missionary family that's going to be here with us.
And for the security of him, his family, and the people that they've been ministering to, we cannot share his name or the country that he's from or a whole lot of details because of security reasons.
But I can share with you that they have been ministering for years in a very prominent war-torn country that is all over the news and has been all over the news for years.
And they've been serving there faithfully as missionaries, and this country represents some of the largest unreached people groups.
In fact, this country as a whole is 99.8% lost.
Right?
And he's going to be here, and they're going to share.
And we're going to have the opportunity to ask questions.
And we're going to have the opportunity to gather and to pray for all that God is doing.
And how we can be a part of that.
We're going to offer child care for some of our really, really small, really, really young kids, babies, toddlers in that age.
But for the most part, we're going to ask that all of us, younger kids all the way up through all of our adults, are going to gather in here.
One of the beautiful things that Dawn and them have been doing and her team have been doing in our kids' ministry is continuing to pour into the hearts of them about missionaries and to learn about missionaries and to pray for missionaries.
And so they've been doing that as a part of who they are.
One of the things that our student ministry has, since before I got here, has been built on a foundation of, and Moses is carrying that and running with it, is a heart-torn mission of exposing our middle school students and high school students,
not only with the concept of mission, but with a tangible, hands-on opportunity to go and serve.
And so from everything to serve the city, great job in blessing so many people here in Lexington to going off this summer and mobilizing our students to work in so many different areas with people who also don't have an opportunity to share the gospel.
And so we want to gather everyone kind of in here in this room where we can hear and where we can talk and where we can ask questions and begin to understand and have the impact.
Because it has to be not okay that 42% of the world woke up this morning with no opportunity to hear about Jesus.
Because 42% of the world falls into 100% of the world that's going to die and going to have to share an account.
And the people of God, we can't be okay because it is a global invitation.
Paul writes in Philippians 2, 9 through 11, why we do this.
Therefore, God has exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, let's pause here.
Another statistic that I read this week, 50% of people in the United States who say they are Christian also state that they believe there are multiple ways to God.
That's false, that's false, that's a lie.
So that at the name of Jesus, Jesus alone, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
To the glory of God the Father, right?
The call of the nation.
Let's look back at, continue on in Psalm 66, verse 8.
We're going to go out from they to our.
Bless our God, O peoples.
Let the sound of his praise be heard.
Who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip?
For you, O God, have tested us.
You have tried us as silver is tried.
You brought us into the net.
You laid a crushing burden on our backs.
You let men ride over our heads.
We went through fire and through water.
Yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.
So we're going to go out from the nations and look in to a people proclaiming.
The psalmist moves from the call of the world to a call of the people Israel.
And he says that anyone in this, anyone in Israel has a reason to praise.
That if anyone does, it should be them.
And he points out what God has done from looking back.
That God had rescued them from slavery.
He guided them through the wilderness, took them into their land, gave them victory over
their enemies, gave them their inheritance.
He gave them his law.
He gave them his sanctuary.
He gave them their worship.
He gave them their priests to guide them.
He gave them the prophets to speak to them.
And for these reasons, they should celebrate.
But he continues on and gives them more.
The psalmist is going to focus in on in three verses right in here of what we just read.
Of even more reasons of why the people of God, even abundantly and on top of all of these
things that God has done.
We'll look back at verse 10.
He says, for these reasons.
For you, O God, have tested us.
And you have tried us as silver is tried.
What the psalmist points out of why the people of God, Israel and us today, of why we should
continue on in the celebration of what God has done is because of the refining process that
God takes us through.
Now, he's reading about how silver is refined.
And what they would do with silver, what is done with silver is as silver is refined, it is put
under heat.
And as the heat is turned up more and more on the silver, what happens, and as the stress
of that is placed onto the silver, it causes the imperfections of the silver to rise to the
top.
And so that as they rise to the top, as everything else that's in there that's not supposed to
be, that takes away from the purity of the silver, what happens at that point is you can't reach
down in there and grab it, right?
So what happens at that point is an air is shot over it so that it is blown away.
And that it is removed from it.
And what the psalmist says is that when we feel the heat, that when we feel the fire, that
when we feel the stress, that when we feel the circumstances, what we need to do is not
say, why me?
What we need to do is not throw a pity party.
What we need to do is to rejoice because this is what God is doing to us.
Because this is what God is doing in us.
Peter, the disciple of Jesus, the apostle Peter, who would die for his faith, says this in
1 Peter 1, in this you rejoice, you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary,
you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more
precious than gold that perishes through it, is tested by fire, may be found to result in
in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
So when these things come up, when God, whatever language, I don't care anymore, whatever language
you want to use, whether God's allowing it or whether God's doing it, God's using it.
And as God uses it, he's refining, he's bringing from.
And so as I look at my own heart, and I ask to speak to yours, I ask you this question.
Are you complaining or are you rejoicing?
Are you complaining or are you asking or are you rejoicing?
And I know for me, this passage is a piece of scripture to remind me to stop complaining and start asking and looking.
When these trials happen, start asking what God is doing and looking to see what the fire has brought to the top.
God, as I walk through this, why?
Show me, Lord.
Give me the reminder.
And as the imperfection, as the sin, as the struggles, as they come to the top, I can celebrate the beauty of God
because of what God's doing, and then I can watch God remove it from me.
All for his glory in his name.
And in these last verses in Psalm 66, the psalmist has looked at the nations.
The psalmist has looked at his people.
And now in a beautiful perspective, he'll look at himself.
Verse 13, I will come into your house with burnt offerings.
I will perform my vows to you, that which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.
I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams.
I will make an offering of bulls and goats, Selah.
Come and hear all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he has done for my soul.
I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
But truly, God has listened.
He has attended to the voice of my prayer.
Blessed be God because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me.
And so the psalmist looks at all of this within himself, and he says,
because of God's call to the nations, because of what God has done for his people,
the psalmist says, I'm going to respond.
This brings me, this draws me to an individual response of myself within my faith,
of who I am, of what God is doing, and what we see here is an individual offering.
And he writes in the joy of what God is doing, and in his response to it.
And there's two offerings that we're going to see,
two types of offerings that we want to notice and look at,
and at this point in time, challenge ourselves and our lives.
The first one that we notice is the offering of sacrifice.
He says, I will come into your house with burnt offerings.
I will offer to you the burnt offerings of fattened animals with the smoke of sacrifice of rams.
I will make an offering of bulls and goats.
The psalmist says, based off of God, what you have given to me,
based off, Lord, of what you have blessed me with,
I return to you.
And I do it with praise, and I do it with joy,
and I do it in a way that's going to honor and glorify you.
So let's kind of talk about this for just a minute, right?
God doesn't need your money.
I want to say that God doesn't need your money,
but God wants your heart.
And here's what I found in myself.
This is Bo Life Lesson 101
that has ringed true in the lives of so many others.
God knows, and we know that God wants our heart,
but here's what we find,
that so often we give our money to what already has our heart.
What already has captured us.
What already has all of our love and our affection.
And so in the Old Testament, they brought their sacrifice.
It's very evident.
The sacrifices that are here are sacrificial.
They are costly.
They are precious.
They are valuable.
Right?
So what does that mean for us?
What does that mean for us?
When we look at the wholeness of the Scripture, right?
I mean, let's be honest.
We're not bringing the fattened calf to church anymore, right?
So what do we do?
We bring our tithe.
What rang true in the Old Testament and continued on,
in fact, in Old Testament, right,
we look at the individual tithe of 10%.
When you look at the Old Testament tithe,
there were three different tithes that were given.
The one that continued on.
And God says, bring your 10%.
And we give it to the church.
In the Old Testament, it was given at the temple.
In the New Testament, it was given to the church.
Off the top, in the beginning, this is who we are.
And this is God's demands and expectations for us.
So I can't.
What has your heart?
I don't want to.
What has your heart?
I don't trust.
What has your heart?
And so we give our tithe.
Not because God needs it,
but because God wants you and God wants me.
And what we get to experience is the blessing that comes from it.
And it would be easy to stop and put the period and say,
amen, we're done, and then there's that.
But what we also continue to see in the Old Testament,
what rings true today,
is not only the calling of our tithe,
the calling of the offering.
And that's the above and beyond.
That's what's extended to that.
And what is remarkable about what God has done,
there's the grace of the freedom of where we go
and what we do with that.
And so I'll share with you what the Bradberries do
and share with you what I know that many that I've encountered do.
We give the tithe.
We bring the tithe into the church.
And then in the above and beyond,
in the offering of what's there,
there's the freedom and the grace to pray and to see.
And so we partner with missionaries.
Missionaries like the missionaries we saw on the screen.
Missionaries that aren't there.
To go above and beyond to do,
who have left all of what they know behind.
We partner with church planners
who have left the permanent security of a salary
to go and to serve a people who don't give,
but based off of the faith that others will.
And so we give to them.
We're given to additional opportunities to bless.
Those grace moments that God gives you
in the line at the grocery store.
The moments that God gives you
as you scroll through Facebook
and you hear the story about the individual
who's hurting and who doesn't have.
The opportunity to bless
when you're sitting there at the stop sign
on the side of the interstate
and there's a person holding up the sign
that doesn't have any food in their stomach.
The opportunity to bless the single mom
that you work with
who doesn't know how she's going to get by
from next week,
much less take care of her kids for Christmas.
And the opportunity to simply say,
Lord, you've blessed me.
It's my opportunity to bless others.
And so we have the opportunity to bless.
We have the opportunity to bless each other
within the family of God.
I think one of the most remarkable things
that I see time in and time out,
I saw it as a youth pastor
and still continue to see it as a senior pastor,
is the senior adult,
once we start announcing summer camp,
you know, mission trip,
to come forward and say,
you know, those times have long passed me,
but can I help give to someone else who can go?
The opportunities when we see mission trips
and people say,
I can't go,
but let me write a check
so that others can go
and so that the name of Jesus can happen, right?
It's an opportunity
for us to give our offering of sacrifice, right?
A sacrifice that acknowledges the thank you to God,
but more importantly says
that I trust God
with all that I am
and all that I have.
If you're sitting here this morning,
and I want to speak to the skeptic really quickly,
if you're sitting here this morning
and you're like,
man, there's another pastor
that just all he cares about is money,
let me just say,
I don't care about your money.
I know what one family gives at this church
and that's the Bradberries.
One.
But I care about your heart.
And I care that God does with you
in every fiber of your being
all that God wants to do.
And I know,
and I'm there too, man,
I like to hold my stuff back too.
And I know the more that we hold,
the less that God can use us.
And the more that we say,
God, you have it all,
is the moment we begin to understand
what it means to live
in an abundant, blessed life
before the Lord.
Not only does the psalmist write
about the offering of sacrifice,
but he writes about the offering of the soul.
What is the offering of the soul?
Raw honesty between you and God.
The beauty that I love about the relationship
that I have with my wife
is Aaron and I can have real conversations
with each other.
I love it.
I can say things to her
that may hurt her feelings.
And she can say things to me
that may hurt my feelings.
But there's a trust that is there
between the two of us
that it's raw and it's real
and we're working through some things
and I've got to share.
I know I may be wrong.
I know you may be wrong.
But we've got to work through this
and it's the beauty of our relationship.
And I'll be honest with you.
Sometimes we walk away
and our feelings are hurt.
Sometimes we walk away
and we've got to wrestle through some stuff.
But the beauty of our marriage
and we've got tons of stuff
that we've got to work on.
But I'll say the beauty
of what I cherish
about who God's made her to be
in my life
and I hope who God's made me to be
in her life
is the raw honesty
that we can have with one another.
And here's the thing.
If you say I don't have anybody
like that in my life
yes you do.
And it's God.
And the burdens
that I could never lay
before my wife
I can bring all of that to Him.
Every single part of it.
And it's what the psalmist points us to.
The psalmist shows us four
and I'm going to wrap up quickly
we're running out of time.
The psalmist shows us four
in chapter 66.
And the first one is in a lament.
And he said I cried.
I cried.
Church I don't think
that's figurative.
I think it's literal.
When's the last time
you cried before the Lord?
A realness
and a trust
that's there.
A lament
is a cry
that comes from loss.
And when we walk through that
and when we experience that
verse 17
I cried to Him
with my mouth
right
and how praise
was on my tongue.
How can this be?
Because when we lament
when we cry out to God
what He reminds us of
is His faithfulness.
It's His faithfulness
of who He is with us
in the midst of it
going through it with us
carrying us
sustaining us
strengthening us
and you guys know
that have been there
and walked through that
you know
at the deepest
darkest moments
of your pain
the kindness
and the goodness
of what God gives
often times
is not to remove
the situation
but is to remind us
that His faithfulness
is there with us
so that we can continue
on
as an offering
of the soul
and reminder
of our commitment
and how praise
was on my tongue
the commitment of praise
so that as we're reminded
of His faithfulness
as we lament
before Him
we can also
commit our praise
to Him
because we know
who He is.
And so we're committed
we're bought in
we're invested
and when we know
who He is
we can have
a declaration
the psalmist writes
if I had cherished
iniquity
if I had done this
but Lord remember
I've been purified
I've been refined
I'm going
through the process
you know
I thought about this
so many times
when we come
before the Lord
and I'm this way
and there's a beauty
of the confession
there's a beauty
of the repentance
of all the bad
that we've done
like I need to get it out
I need to lay it before you
I need to lay it down
I need to ask
for forgiveness
but so too often
of times
we look at all the bad
that we've done
in our interaction
with God
that we forget
to acknowledge
that all the good
God has done in us
how many of you
used to be someone
and now you're someone else
and you know
it's all because of Jesus
right
it used to be this
not no more
bring it to God
are we praising him
are we a declaration
of not what we just were
but of who we are now
in him
and then lastly
it ends
in verse 20
and we'll conclude
with this
blessed be God
the praise of God
the psalmist writes
I'm going to read
all verse 20
blessed be God
because he has not
rejected my prayer
we bless God
because he hears us
we bless God
because he hears us
and then lastly
or removed
his steadfast love
from me
not only the fact
that we praise him
because he loves us
but we praise him
because he loves us
and he won't remove
that from us
he won't take it away
we don't have to earn it
we don't have to fight
for it
we didn't have to earn it
to get it
and now we don't have
to earn it
to keep it
because it's who
God is in that
that's the hope
of what we have
in the gospel
the gospel for the nations
the gospel for God's people
and then the gospel for us
would you pray with me
Lord we come to you this morning
Lord thanking you
for who you are
Lord this morning
we lift up
Lord those 7,000
people groups this morning
Lord who don't have a way
or a means
Lord we pray
for the mobilization
of missionaries
men and women
all over this world
to carry the hope
of the gospel
Lord we know
that means
they'll have to embrace
persecution
many will have to embrace
poverty
difficulties
but it's done
for an eternal good
and it's done
for an eternal glory
of your name
and so Lord
shout for joy
to God
all the earth
sing the glory
of his wonderful
of his precious
of his glorious name
Lord I pray for us
as a people
as a church
as an embodiment
of Christ
Lord that we will respond
because of what you've done
Lord just as you saved Israel
you've saved us
you've brought us
out of the slavery
of sin
you've guided us
through the lostness
of our life
you've given us
victory over
Satan and hell
you've promised us
an inheritance
that's eternal
and one day
we will step
into that promised land
Lord may we bring this
to the nations
the hope that we have
in Christ
and Christ alone
Lord and as individuals
may we come forth
this morning
with our offering
Lord both in our offering
of sacrifice
Lord it's all yours
but to give back
what you've blessed us with
as an opportunity
Lord for us
to grow our trust
and faith in you
and to say
here Lord
here it is
it's yours
but to even stretch
and look beyond that
Lord who are you calling
us to bless
to come alongside
Lord you want
our hearts
may we give it all
to you
Lord may we come
to you
in a sacrifice
of the soul
a willingness
and an honesty
before you
to cry out
in our loss
in our grief
to celebrate
who you are
in our commitment
of praise
Lord to declare
who you are
as you've saved us
and redeemed us
Lord into all
that we have
and all that we are
to bless
your wonderful name
and it's in Jesus name
we pray
thanks again
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