[0:00] Join me in Psalm chapter number 66. I really enjoy music about the kindness of our Father. We'll be talking about music today. What a great example of how important music is and how much it can be used in our lives.
[0:12] One of the lines says, I can't help but sing. What a great place to be when you look at the truth of God's Word, and it just creates this desire in your life to sing. To make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
[0:24] That's how verse number one will start out today. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Before I get into the passage, I must confess, that's always a way to get people to wake up and look up to see what I'm saying, right?
[0:36] That I struggle with languages. Those of you that know me know that I struggle with English. Those of you that have just met me, you may think English is my second language, and you assume that I'm bilingual, but no, this is my first language.
[0:48] But I really struggle with language. Me and Miss Sandy, when the church first started, they had a Spanish class, and we were always towards the bottom of the class in our competition, so they would come in last in all of our quizzes. I struggled.
[0:59] Bible languages, I struggled with. Anything that you don't have the ability to just immerse yourself with is challenging, right? Because when you study a language, you have to go out of your way and put yourself in learning that language.
[1:13] And so I find that as a struggle to put that discipline in my life, to spend the amount of time needed in a struggle. But there's a language that I like to talk about that isn't Spanish or Hebrew or Greek, and it's this language that we use in the Bible to sing praises unto God.
[1:31] And when I come to a psalm like this, it feels almost foreign to me, and it shouldn't, because this type of language ought to be very common to me as a believer and as somebody.
[1:41] Those of you that had the opportunity to be with us on Thursday night, it was such a great night, not just because of the dressing and the turkey and all that. That was nice. But that testimony service that we have, a lady from our Spanish church, those of you who are here, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
[1:55] She stood up and she gave a testimony of how God's transforming her life and her family. And that was extra special to us because I had been talking to Selah about the week before, and I said, hey, you should invite your friends in your class to skate night.
[2:10] And she said, dad, somebody already invited me to skate night, and they gave everybody in my class this card. And I'm thinking, how did that happen? But that girl's daughter, Heidi, is in Selah's class, and she's inviting people to church.
[2:25] And so we got to hear the mom talk about how the gospel has changed their life. Got to see how this little girl is doing it, which means that family speaking English and speaking Spanish, they're speaking in their home this language of praise.
[2:37] Dad, I bet if we could listen in between that girl talking to her mom, they're talking about the goodness of God and how to praise Him. And it's maybe because, as they said, they're new believers.
[2:48] Their vocabulary is changing. They say things they didn't used to say. And I'm so challenged, and I pray that you will be today as we look at the commands in the Scripture and some of the things that are said. You know, Revelations 4, around verse 8, it talks about a creature that John can't hardly describe, that day and night is around God saying, holy, holy, holy, until Lord, and day and night, Lord God Almighty.
[3:14] And it just sounds, He does that day and night that happens. And we think, well, that sounds boring, doesn't it? That's boring, because we think we know something about the earth that they don't.
[3:26] But that's not true. What a wonderful way to spend your existence. Just worshiping the Lord. But we visit that, and we don't live in it near enough. Before, let me look, share with you seven commands in this Scripture.
[3:40] Sometimes, like in Proverbs, the other day we didn't have a command that was given. We have conditions and different clauses, but we didn't have commands. But this, here we have seven different commands that are given.
[3:51] And I don't want you to miss them. So let me read them to you. Verse number one, make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands. Number two, verse two, sing forth the honor of His name, and make His praise glorious.
[4:02] Verse three, say unto God, how terrible art thou in thy works. Verse five, come and see the works of God. Verse eight, O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of His praise to be heard.
[4:15] Verse 16, come and hear all ye that fear God. So we need to have a good understanding of what those commands are so that they will be lived out in our lives now. It's going to be lived out in a future day for all of eternity.
[4:29] But these are things that will be part of our lives even now. Make a joyful noise unto all ye lands. Typically, when we talk about making a noise to the Lord, somebody makes a joke about because Trent can't sing, he can be in the choir because he can make a joyful noise.
[4:43] But why would the word noise being used? Is it just so it includes people that can sing well and me in the same group? So we'll just call it noise. But in the Bible, Psalm 96 and different ones, when you look at the word noise being used, you're going to see it talks a lot about the singing that's being done or the instruments that are being used.
[4:59] Or it might even talk about creation. It brings in all the things in this world that would be used to bring worship and praise unto the Lord. It's what we just did when we were singing, and it's a little girl in kindergarten named Heidi that says, Do you want to come to church with me?
[5:15] All that noise that's being made. And we know a lot about noise, right? We live in a very noisy world where things are constantly being promoted to us. There's so much going on. But we make a joyful noise about our Lord and how loud should it be and how far-reaching should this noise be, that it reaches all the lands, all throughout, the extent of all the lands.
[5:38] As John 4, 22 says, Salvation is of the Jews. It doesn't say that it was only for the Jews, but they were given a responsibility to take it to all people. And that's seen all throughout the Bible from the very beginning that God was a God of all people.
[5:52] He wanted all lands and all nations to come and worship Him. Salvation comes of the Jews as Jesus was born of the seed of Abraham, but they would be God's chosen messengers. And now we have this opportunity to have the responsibility to make this noise known in all through the land.
[6:09] That's what the pastor's saying today at that church. He's saying, you, church, have the responsibility that the fame of our God would spread throughout all the land, where He is not known, as in China, as Austin tells us, where a person would say, Who is Jesus?
[6:23] That we have a responsibility for Him to go throughout all the land. And that's happening in a disproportionate rate when we give our lives to get the gospel out. God does way more than we could ever imagine.
[6:35] You ask any missionary of the day that's standing around the world with a room full of people that are praising the Lord, that God did far more than they could have ever expected or that they could have done on themselves, because that's what God wants.
[6:48] He wants the whole world to worship Him. And that's what we want to see as well, people rejoicing. And God's power has been so clearly manifested in the earth that God's people alone could not praise Him enough.
[7:01] We need help, right? We need help. We need to go into this community and we need to recruit help and say, You know what? Our God is so great that we can't praise Him enough by ourselves. Would you mind helping me?
[7:13] All right? Next time you see your neighbor and they say, Hey, if you ever need anything, just let me know. Well, so actually I do. You see, the God that I worship is so great, I can't do enough of it by myself.
[7:25] So would you mind joining me in giving praise to Him? The whole world should worship Him. And then it says, Sing forth the honor of His name. Here's this language in which we don't often speak in, but sing forth the honor of His name.
[7:38] We are a singing people. Throughout the Bible, we see that we are supposed to be singing people. And we sing about all kinds of wonderful truths. Now that it's Christmas, we're going to sing about the incarnation, about God coming to earth and dying in our place.
[7:53] Luke chapter number 2, verse 11. It says, For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swatting clothes, lying in a manger.
[8:08] And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. What happens when people think about God coming to earth for us?
[8:21] The response is, Glory to God in the highest. What happens when we sing, O come let us adore Him? In our hearts we say, God, you are worthy. It's incredible what you have done.
[8:32] One of my favorite Christmas songs, it says, And who would have dreamed or ever foreseen that we could hold God in our hands? The giver of life is born in the night, revealing God's glorious plan to save the world.
[8:44] What a great thing to think about at Christmas. And we sing about it. And it's wonderful. Because we sing forth for the honor of His name. An older song, Charles Wesley, Hark the Herald Angel sings, Christ by heavest the heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord.
[9:00] Late in time, behold Him come, offspring of a virgin's womb, veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, held incarnate deity. And we sing those, what seems to be a difficult, heavy doctrine.
[9:12] And we sing with such a smile on our face because it's wonderful. Because we're singing of His great name. What else do we sing about? We sing about Him dying in our place.
[9:23] Romans 3.25, For God who has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. It declares the righteousness of God.
[9:36] We sing many songs about God being a propitiation, being a substitute in our place. My favorite hymn is, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. Anybody else have a favorite?
[9:46] I love that because I love that Isaac Watts began writing as a teenager. But he said, When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count, but loss and poor content on all my pride.
[10:00] In the second line of that song, it was supposed to say, where the young Prince of Glory died. But Watts altered that line in 1709 because he wanted to prevent it being mistaken from being an illusion to Prince William who died before he took the throne at the age of 11.
[10:18] Because what Isaac Watts was saying is, I write music for the great God of heaven, and I don't want you to be confused to think that it's about anybody else.
[10:29] Because what do we do in our music? We honor his name. We make much of it. Not a lot of people do singing. I think it might have been more popular in the early 1900s where people might gather around the piano and sing patriotic songs and people would sing together before YouTube, and now we don't do anything, right?
[10:45] We watch cat videos all day. And I don't watch cat videos often, all right? I've seen a few, all right? And so they used to gather around the piano and they would sing together. People used to sing, but there's hardly any of that in existence today.
[10:59] But that's not true about us, right? We don't just come to hear beautiful singing. We come to sing. And we learn and we sit by people and we stand by somebody and they're not singing and we want to minister to them.
[11:10] We want to help them get to a place where they can sing. And why do we sing? Because we want to honor his name. And it's a beautiful way. Music allows us to honor his way in a way that any other thing wouldn't allow for.
[11:23] It does something different. It allows us emotion to come together. It's not zeal and not knowledge together because we're supposed to have it, right? One group had great zeal, but they didn't have knowledge. Another group of people have great knowledge.
[11:34] Even the devils know of the things of God, but they have no heart for him. But our heart and mind can come together and we can sing these songs. The choir says, I love you, Lord. Calvary made a difference.
[11:46] What an encouraging thing today to come into a room and have some of your best friends up on stage singing at the top of their lungs that they love the Lord, that they're honoring his name. Isaac Watts, when he was a teenager, he said, complaining about the music of his time, he says, to see the dull indifference, the negligent and thoughtless air that sits upon the faces of a whole assembly.
[12:07] I love that. The thought that sits upon the faces of a whole assembly. I won't say what's sitting upon those faces today. Some of you aren't smiling. Okay. While the psalm is upon their lips might even tempt a charitable observer to suspect the fervency of their inward religion.
[12:23] Let's sing some songs where our face looks like the way we feel on the inside. That's what 2020 Isaac Watts would say. All right. He was just saying, let's sing some songs that are cheerful. You know, let's sing some things and let's be happy.
[12:35] And he did. The next day he wrote a song and he brought it to the, he brought it before the church there and they sang it. And what a wonderful thing that would happen. And we could have people, Brother David's written a song that the choir will sing.
[12:47] And we should know, we should be singwriting people. We should be singing people. We ought to be people that do whatever we can in making noise, the honor, the name of our Lord and looking for opportunities. We also sing of his return.
[13:00] 2 Thessalonians 1, 9 through 10. Who shall be punished with the everlasting destruction? And what is everlasting destruction? It's from the presence of the Lord and it's from the glory of his power.
[13:11] When he shall come to glorify it in the saints, and be admired in all of them that believe. Because our testimony among you was believed in that day. It says that we think about his return, but there's a time that will come and people will be separated from his presence and from seeing the glory of his power.
[13:28] The most incredible thing that we get to do as humans is to witness the power of God. And sometimes people will be, someday people will be eternally separated from it. They'll be shut out from the Lord's presence and from his power.
[13:42] And so we sing songs about his second coming and we sing it with a smile upon our face because we honor his name and what he has done. Pastor sent me a picture this week of empty shelves and it didn't have toilet paper.
[13:53] And you know what the caption said underneath it? When the roll is called up yonder. All right? It's quite the comic. But we sing songs about him coming back and we're excited about it because we know his name.
[14:09] And we should be a singing people. Ephesians 5.19, speaking to ourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Where should the song ministry be started?
[14:21] It doesn't just happen at Brother Steve's house where a lot of recording takes place. It doesn't just happen on Sunday mornings during practice, but it begins when we make melody in our heart and then it overflows from there and we share it with one another.
[14:35] So the glory of God is his greatness and his beauty and his worth on display. His greatness, that refers to the scope and the extent of his majesty. His greatness should be to all the lands. His beauty, referring to the perfection of all his attributes and his incredible harmony.
[14:50] There's no contradiction in him. It's just, he's incredible, it's beautiful what he has done. His ways, we'll see that last week we saw that terrible meaning awesome. His ways with us are awesome.
[15:03] They're incredible. When we look back on what he did and we say, that was incredible what he has done. And then his worth, referring to the fact that he is our treasure, more precious and more valuable, more to be desired than anything or anyone else in this universe.
[15:18] His greatness, his beauty, and his worth. And besides this, I put hashtag Christ is life, right? Because Nate Wilkerson says that Jesus is his treasure and that he is going to talk about him wherever he goes because he has found the worth.
[15:32] And so how do we honor his name and how do we bring glory to the Lord? Is that we see his greatness and his beauty and his worth. So Vision Baptist, chapter 66, verse 8, O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard.
[15:46] Here's a command from scripture for you for this week. If you came here and you're looking for something to do today, let me give you something. Praise, the voice of his praise be heard. Let it be heard.
[15:57] Let it be heard from you. Not just us collectively, but let it be heard from you. Not just on Thanksgiving, not just on good days, not just when we come together in corporate worship, not only when we sing, but at all times.
[16:10] It says, let us make his praise glorious. Man, this is hard, isn't it? We're supposed to glorify him and give him praise and now we're saying make his praise glorious. The language of praise is one that we don't often speak in, but every one of these words have a specific purpose.
[16:25] How are we going to make his praise glorious? How are we going to understand that? The Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 3, 16, that scripture is given by inspiration by God and it gives us what we need for proof and correction and so we thoroughly furnish, we're thoroughly equipped, meaning that when we have a command like to give him glorious praise, that the word of God is sufficient to tell us how to give him glorious praise, that we're not just kind of left doing it and it's not just like an extra amount of emotion that's being given there, that he has something specific that he wants from us as we honor his name.
[16:58] Hebrews 1, 3, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purged their sins and sat down on the right hand with a majesty on high, his glory shines, it radiates from the one who is both the creator and the heir is also perfect to reflection of who God is in Jesus and we see the brightness of his glory and so we study about Christ and as it's sung today, it was written in red, the words of Christ let us know how God felt about us, what we knew about him and we focus on this and we praise God and we let other people know about his glory.
[17:39] Psalm 19, 1, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork even through creation, even though it does not speak audibly, its message is very loud and it goes throughout all the world.
[17:51] I told you on the times before with Mark Tolson, before he knew he would go to China, we're at the University of Cincinnati and he's dealing with this international student and the student says, I just don't know if I can believe that there's a God, I just don't know if there's enough proof and Mark tells him to cover his eyes and we take him to the top of the stadium that we were at and he said, now look out and he said, what do you see?
[18:13] He says, you ought to see ample proof that there is a God and all that he has done and how everything had come together. Don't let the fact that this was Ohio deter you from the fact that God's creation is beautiful, okay?
[18:24] Even in Ohio, even downtown Cincinnati, you can see the beauty of God's handiwork, all right? And so we see it all around us and we should be pointing it out, making much of his name up, pointing out the ways in which God's glory is shown.
[18:39] The person of Jesus, the express image of God, we should let people know about Jesus and we should make his praise glorious and let people know about the glory and the weight and the heaviness is there, but also in creation.
[18:49] If you've ever been on a trip as a tourist, maybe in London or New York and you took one of those buses and that person says, on your right, you can see this and on your left, you can see this and they point things out, that's what we should be to people in life.
[19:02] We should be walking with them and we ought to say, look at the wonder of what God's done and bringing us enough rain that we need. Look at the sunset of what God's done and how consistently and how it always continues like this. We ought to be people giving other people a tour guide and saying, look at this and look at that.
[19:16] We ought to be making his praise glorious and continual in this earth. Say unto God, now we're being told what to say. We're being told how to spend our lives and we're being told what to say and I am so grateful.
[19:28] Teenagers say, nobody, everybody's telling me what to do, right? And as you get old, you're like, would somebody please tell me what to do? All right? And so when we come to the Bible and it says, Trent, say this, I'll say, thank you.
[19:38] Okay? I need instruction. Say this, say unto God, how terrible, how awesome art thou in thy works. Through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee.
[19:52] I should say to God regularly, God, I know you win. God, I know that you have victory. I know that someday every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. I have no doubt.
[20:03] And so Lord, I say unto this world that your way is incredible. Your way is awesome. Your way is better. God's purpose is that all nations will praise him, but this isn't done until they know him, they trust him.
[20:15] Paul would say, brother, my heart's desire is that my people would know you, but then he would go on and say that they were ignorant of the righteousness of God. And so we can say into this world that our God's ways are amazing.
[20:29] They're incredible. They're terrible. They're awesome. But people don't know this and they don't trust him. They can't believe in him. They can't believe that his ways are perfect and that he wins in the end because they're ignorant of his righteousness.
[20:41] And how do they learn of it? We live it out in front of them. We sing it out in front of them. We talk about it. We go down the road and say, if you look to your right, you'll see yet another point of evidence that our God is amazing.
[20:54] Invite others to come and see the works of God. Verse number five. Come and see the works of God, his past works. He turned the sea into dry land and he went through the flood on foot. There did we rejoice in him.
[21:06] They are looking back to a day where God took them twice through water upon dry land. And it says in Isaiah 43, too, when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee and through the rivers, thou shalt not overflow thee.
[21:21] When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned. Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. So in our past works, what do we talk about? Not only do we talk about what God has done in our lives and he did that for us and the children of Israel.
[21:34] When he did that for them, he did that for us as well. And so we share that story, but we also remind people that we had God's presence with us, right? You think back in your life and you think about God taking you through something and how he did that and he walked with you through it all, all those different times.
[21:52] I see the Elrods and I think about all God's done with Hamilton. You know, God shows up. He knows how to find his way to Scottish Rite. He knows exactly which place that they were at. He was with them from all the way through it.
[22:05] And then others in here as well. God is awesome in his dealing with us. Verse 5, he is terrible in his doing towards the children of men. Do you believe that? That God's way with you has been awesome.
[22:15] It has been wonderful. His wisdom that is given to us. It says, thou hast caused me, them to ride over our heads and went through the fire and through the water, but thou brought us out into a wealthy place.
[22:27] In verse number 3, it says he brought us into a net. It says they were brought into a net that God in his wisdom brought correction to them. He took them into a net and then it also said he took them out into a wealthy place that God guides us.
[22:40] And we can praise him for that. I told you about Samson, the guy that I met in the jail ministry. I always got to make sure I include that I was in there for ministry, right? And in jail ministry, he said, why are you in here?
[22:51] Somebody asked him that and everybody has a different reason. But he said, I'm in here because God loves me and would not let me continue in my sin. And I'm like, what in the world just happened, all right? That is not a common answer.
[23:02] But he saw the love of God and he gave praise for the correction of God in his life. He said, God is taking me into a net. God has loved me into this place of discipline and a correction in his life and his guidance.
[23:16] He brought us out into a wealthy place. He has now guided us here in his wisdom that he went through all of these different things and now look at where we're at. We're in a wealthy place. I love this quote.
[23:27] It says, what if our scorching and exhausting journey leads us to a delicious resting place? What if the journey God takes you through takes you to a place that you would never be at otherwise?
[23:38] We praise him for that. One of my favorite moments in this church is where our friend Gary Ledford, Stephanie's dad, sat here and he said, you know, it's really good on the mountains.
[23:51] You can see some incredible things in the mountains but pay attention because when God takes you through the valley, he will show you things that you would never see that if he didn't guide you through them.
[24:03] And we say, we praise your holy name. In here today, you've been through something in the past and it was hard at the time. You look back on it and you say, praise your holy name. That's your here today. You're in a wealthy place.
[24:15] I'm going to close my eyes because I can't look at some of you without wanting to tell the story of where God took you through and now how you're sitting in such a wealthy place where God has brought you. Ephesians 3.10, one of my favorite verses, to intent now unto the principalities and the powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.
[24:34] Simply put, that just like he did in old times and Old Testament he would take the children of Israel through the Red Sea and everybody would say, wow, the wisdom of God. And it was spread throughout the land. When they got to Rahab, she knew what would happen.
[24:46] Everybody heard about it, that God hasn't stopped showing off through his people, that God shows his wisdom through his church, that God shows this community and this world his wisdom by the way that we live and serve together.
[25:01] What a wonderful thing that we get to do is to live for his honor. In the future, all will bow. In verse number four, you're going to see the word shall three times in a row and you know that means something will happen in the future.
[25:13] All the earth shall worship thee and shall sing unto thee and shall sing to thy name, Salem. And they shall worship thee and they shall sing and they shall sing unto your name. These psalms here being prophetic, will come a time, thousand year reign called the millennial reign.
[25:29] Maybe these psalms will come back again and they will be sung. There's coming a future time. The Bible tells us in Philippians that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess and a warning is coming.
[25:39] Today we do that now. We make a joyful noise now. We've done that. We've already started that. Some of you, you never had a chance to be cool growing up. You were never a trendsetter. Well, let me know. I'll let you know.
[25:50] You're already ahead of the world right now. Someday all of the world will be bowing the knee but you're already doing it. We're already praising Him. That's where they're going. And then it comes as a warning to us. It says, He ruleth by the power forever.
[26:02] His eyes behold the nations. Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. A warning. If you're standing against God that someday you're going to bow your knee to Him and we call upon you to do that today is to bow your knee is not to fight against Him.
[26:17] But go ahead and do that and we do that. I love how when I said some of you weren't cool when you were younger. Some of you put your arm around your husband Ben and Crystal. That was beautiful. All right. And so some of us in here we know that.
[26:28] And how do we know that? How do we know to praise Him? Because He's been revealed to us and we see Him and we gladly do that. It says these people it said that they will be being forced to do this so that every knee will be bound.
[26:40] The greatness of the power shall that enemy submit themselves unto thee. We joyfully submit ourselves to Him that we do this now because His loving kindness has drawn us to Him and it is wonderful that all He has done in our lives.
[26:54] Come and see the work of God. That should be an invitation we give the people quite often. Come and see the work of God. This shall be our daily invitation to those that are around us. And then lastly and briefly verse 18 If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.
[27:10] That wonderful time that we just spend in the psalm where we want to worship Him we want to make Him known and we want to be part of that. We want to sing. I believe in a little bit as we'll sing again at the end during our time of invitation I pray that you'll sing louder and more openly because you say I want to be part of making His name known.
[27:27] Here's a verse that says if this is happening in your life then you're not going to be part of that what's going on. You're not going to be able to worship Him to other people. You're not going to be able to make great His name and you're not going to be able to pray to Him.
[27:39] If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me. The chains in the passage from we and our to I is significant. The corporate worship ministry is made up of many individuals and God sees each of our hearts.
[27:50] Verse 17 I cried unto Him with my mouth that's prayer and He extolled me with my tongue and He was extolled with my tongue and I praised Him. This prayer and our praises is connected.
[28:03] If you're not able to pray to God don't think that you're going to be able to praise God. If you're not a praying person don't think that you'll be a praising person. There's just no way in which one of them is going to happen without the other one.
[28:14] Praying people will come out in their lives, right? You pray in private it's going to come out in your conversations. If you're praising to the Lord it's going to make you desire to want to be with Him and spend time in prayer.
[28:25] As this being a song it's like a solo was to come out. A special part it says that I will do this. Look at all the personal pronouns from 13 to 20 that are here.
[28:36] They're abundant. I will go into my house I will pay thee my vows I will offer unto thee I will offer bullocks with goats I cried if I regard in my heart if verily God has heard me over and over again this is a personal decision that is being made that I am going to worship God not what's just on the program at my church that I go to but I am going to.
[28:57] Verse 16 it says come and hear all ye that fear God and I will declare what He has done for my soul. It says that we should not only be telling people the gospel and how great He is but we ought to tell other people around us all ye that fear God gather around I have a story to tell you.
[29:12] We should be with other believers sharing about the goodness of God. You've heard the expression we don't need to preach to the choir and we all say of course we do. Did you see the choir earlier? Those people need preaching right?
[29:24] We certainly preach to the choir we preach to all people and we give testimony so come and hear who? All ye that fear God I have a testimony to give I want to praise the Lord for what He is doing in my life and so there's some conditions that are being given.
[29:40] There's a condition that says if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me. So that's not a command it's a condition but a condition can be made a command if you change it and my nephew Oliver taught me this the other day.
[29:52] We were fishing together Stephen and I told Oliver you might have heard this I said Oliver you can't go near the water because if you do you will get your shoes wet. I turned around and walked away.
[30:02] When I came back Oliver had taken his shoes and his socks and he had thrown them up on the bank and he was standing in the water right? Because what he heard was Oliver if you will take your shoes off you can get into the water right?
[30:15] I gave him a condition he turned it into a command. So the Bible says if this is going to happen then you don't get to hear from God and I'm going to turn it into a command to say if you will not regard iniquity in your heart you can pray unto God.
[30:29] You can praise Him as you're needed to do. Who says ways that we regard iniquity? Jeremiah 23-24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?
[30:40] We regard iniquity in our hearts when we secretly practice it. We fear the world but we don't fear God. We hide iniquity. We indulge in the desire of sin though it may not be restrained from the actual acting upon it.
[30:53] We regard sin in our hearts when we meditate and we think upon it and we envision we want to do this but we haven't been given the opportunity. Teenagers those things that are upon your heart that are hidden in your heart the opportunity will come.
[31:08] The world and Satan will make sure that opportunity is met and when lust has conceived it will bring forth sin and death. It says in Matthew 5-27 You have not heard that it was said in them in old time thou shalt not commit adultery but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after has committed adultery with her already in their heart.
[31:26] Sin is hidden in our hearts with secret sins it's hidden in our hearts when we desire something we haven't yet acted upon when we reflect upon sins in our past without sincere hatred for it. Psalms 25-7 Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions according to the mercy remember thou me for thy goodness sake O Lord.
[31:44] I haven't heard it here but on occasion you'll hear people give their testimony and you're not sure if they're ashamed of their sin if they're bragging to you about what they used to be in and now they feel like they're missing out. That's not how we look at our past life and our sin.
[31:56] We know that God's forgiven us and we move on but we don't wallow in it and we don't stay there we're new creatures and so we look at our past sin and we have a hatred for it and we stay on guard to make sure it doesn't come back because we don't want to regard iniquity in our hearts.
[32:09] And then we look at sin with sorrow 2 Peter 2-8 For that righteous man dwelling among them and seeing and hearing vexed with his righteousness soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. When we hear about people living a life that's contrary to the Bible we don't glory in their wicked ways and we don't make it to something we talk about our hearts hurt we hate sin because we don't hide iniquity or any love for it in our hearts.
[32:34] We have a sincere prayer Psalm 19-12 Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. So we come in here today and say God we want our heart to be completely given to you we don't want to hide anything in there because we want to be able to pray to you and we want to be able to offer praise to you.
[32:50] I met somebody this week and they told me that at our church we have 25 people on our praise team and being the dorky dad that I am I said you know what everybody in our church is part of the praise team but in rim shot right?
[33:01] Can't even do that right can't play drums alright and so everybody's part of the praise team I know what they were saying it makes sense what he was saying but I couldn't resist a lame joke that is given there but are you part of the church's praise team?
[33:14] Are you part of the family that's given the praise of God? Is it true when people drive by the day they say that's a church corporately given to the praise of God but as we leave here we individually make praise to God where people with clean hearts to him that we can pray that your friends and co-workers can come to you and say will you pray for me and we don't have to say I'm not in a condition to pray because I have hiddenness in my heart we're willing and able to pray to them prayer requests as they're given to us people that praise him we should desire to be heard from God more than anything in this world we should want God to hear us Psalm 66 19 and 20 but verily God has heard me he has attended to the voice of my prayer so David said if I had sin in my heart he wouldn't hear me but that's not the correct case it doesn't have to be that way but verily God has heard me he has attended to the voice of my prayer blessed be God which hath not turned away my prayer nor his mercy from me and we want that in our lives we want awareness of his presence in our lives we want knowing that God will work in our lives for his good and for his glory and we want to know that our petitions can be heard by him and that he can provide deliverance for us and sin causes us to forfeit all those things we won't see how God's working in our lives we can't come to him with our petitions and we reject the awareness of him in the situation and so we don't hide iniquity in our hearts so let me ask you before I pray here to consider your conversations and your thoughts throughout the week you know if you're able to take your heart your conversations or take your Siri or your Alexa that records everything that we're doing and we were to look at it are we fulfilling these commands are we making a joyful noise on the God so much that all the lands are hearing about it are we singing forth the honor of his name do we make his praise glorious are we saying about God how terrible and how wonderful are your works verse 5 come and see the works of God are you talking about what he's done in the past and in the present and the future with people around you oh bless our God you people make the voice of his praise to be heard are you doing that are you making it to be heard to people who don't listen very well you know your kids they don't listen sometimes and so you make the voice of his praise to be heard and are we saying come and hear all that you fear the God the fear of God and so as you ask yourself about the day there's just really two ways that you can come down and you gotta ask yourself is no that's not part of my life
[35:36] I don't make much of his name I don't have a trust in him I don't want his name to be known well that's just simply because you don't belong to him those that know him want to make him known doesn't mean that we don't sin doesn't mean that we don't go through times that there's always a war raging in our hearts when we fight against who he has made us to be so the day if you don't desire for his name to be known if you really are the center of your story then I want to help you find freedom today from such a poor narrative that you have given yourself this world is given we are made we are created to worship him and nothing in your life is going to be in alignment until you do that but I believe mostly in here we're professing Christians and I just want to ask you in regard to iniquity in your heart has your prayers been silenced first part of the psalms is something we all want to be part of but some of us may recognize I'm just not been part of that my song has not been from a melody in my heart my lifestyle hasn't been that one of praise but today I want to say
[36:38] God this is in my heart and I hand it over to you and now I want to live a life of praise I want to live a life that's given to you I want to be able to say hey come and see the great works that God has done we have decisions to make Heavenly Father thank you for your word and the very clear commands that praise you Father I am so much aware of how much of my life days and week are wasted as I live for something lesser and Lord I want my language and my voice and my time to be given to me and made much of you and Father I pray for those in here that feel the same way every head bow and every eye closed and as Charlotte plays the piano if you're in here today and you do not know him as your savior you don't know why he is so worthy of your worship why we would tell you to leave everything that you have in this life for the opportunity to know him would you give us a chance his bible will reveal himself to you the bible when they came after him and they said are you the messiah he looked to him and he said come and see all the questions that you've had that nobody's been able to answer about him as they taught you one thing and you're not sure what to believe allow us to open up the bible and let him speak to you today and you will find that he is awesome that he is wonderful and he is worthy of your praise if there's anybody like that in here would you take the first step in just acknowledging it and would you raise your hand and I'll pray for you
[38:07] I won't let anybody know about that but I would like for you to take the step today just acknowledge it to yourself that you're not a worshiper of Jesus that you're not a believer brothers and sisters of Christ I pray for you pray that you'll make the decision that I want to make today because I want my tongue to be given over to him I want to make much of him with my life remove the secret sins of our heart move the iniquity far from you so you can come to him in prayer and praise with every head bowed and every eye closed respond here at the altar or there upon your seat and when you're done would you stand and sing and let that song be from your heart a melody unto him