I was sinking deep in sin far from the peaceful shore, isn't that right?
! And Christ Jesus in His kindness died for my sins, gave me everlasting life, a new home in
! Unbelievable. Should we ever become used to that fact? No. Earlier in the week in my devotional life,
I was reading in Matthew where Jesus healed ten people. How many of you know that story?
And only one turned around and said thank you. By the way, He was a Samaritan. One of the things
that I was kind of chewing on in my own prayer life was, you know, sometimes, I mean, those other
Jews, you know, they had all kinds of blessings. They had the law and the prophets. They had a lot
of good things that God had given to them, and they had become quite settled in just kind of assuming
that it was owed to them. The Samaritan was overwhelmed with thanksgiving. I want to stay
like that, don't you? Forever thankful for His salvation. Second thing that I am incredibly
thankful for, and as I was singing that song, Count Your Many Blessings, the second thing that I was
counting as a blessing is that Jesus has never stopped loving me, and He's kept on bearing up with me.
Anybody else kind of identify with that? I love the fact that His covenant love never, ever changes.
That is a song that this church sang often on Anniversary Sunday. And we are going to look together
at Psalm 105. I want you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Psalm 105. We are going to look at it,
and one of the things that I trust happens as we look at this passage that will take place is that
you as a believer are informed, instructed, about those things are at the heart of what a church is
to be engaged in. Let me read the passage to you, and then we will dive into the text. Psalm 105,
beginning in verse 1.
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the peoples,
sing to Him, sing praises to Him, tell of all His wondrous works.
I want you to join me with me in prayer.
Our Father God, this morning as we come to You, we come
with a happy dependence upon You,
upon the sufficiency of Your Word,
the ministry of the indwelling Spirit in the believer's life.
And what we ask this morning is that You would touch our hearts
with the beauty of Your name and glory,
and cause us to delight in the salvation that You've given to us,
and the privilege of being part of a body of believers that You've brought together
for Your glory and for Your testimony.
And that as we allow the Scriptures to instruct and inform us this morning,
that there is a strengthening of our heart for the things of God
and a desire that in the days that You give to us,
that Jesus Christ would have preeminence.
And that our affection and our delight in the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is our joy and our Savior,
that that delight and that satisfaction would make us
unbelievable in our testimony and our witness
in a broken, a ruined, despairing world.
We pray, Lord, this morning that as a result of the preaching of the Word of God,
that those who are here that are believers
would have their hearts stirred
and grow in their commitment to walk in obedience and joy before You.
And those who are here that do not know Christ,
that today they would be drawn by Your Spirit
first to conviction and then to salvation.
And we ask this dependent as we are upon You,
and we pray it in Jesus' name and for His glory.
Amen.
Well, as I said earlier, today is a very historic day
because it's a day that marks the 50th anniversary of our fellowship.
And if you were to have been here probably 25, 30 years ago,
some of you may still remember the large blue sign
that was out on Treview Road.
Remember that one?
There were three words in particular across the bottom of that large sign
that characterized what was taking place on this fellowship
when you left Treview Road and drove south.
It said Bible obedient.
Remember that?
But Bible teaching, Bible practicing.
And a reminder of that passage or that little statement was,
this is what this congregation was dependent on,
and I trust that one of the things that happens
as we study together this morning
is that your heart kind of resonates and says,
hey, you guys are still doing that.
You're doing that.
You are relying upon the Word to inform, instruct, encourage, direct,
and you are relying upon it to lead you in your walk before the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, I confess that I've never preached a 50th anniversary sermon.
It's the first one.
And I really, when I do the math, I understand I won't preach another one.
Okay?
This is not going to happen twice in my lifetime.
So this is entirely new for me.
It's not like, you know, I've done communion for 35 years, 12 months, 12 months a year,
and I've got that one down.
But this was a brand new one, and I have to tell you that as I was praying,
it's far harder to prepare for a one-time sermon than it is for when you're in the book of John.
I start studying for John actually about two years ago,
and I was kind of studied up before we got there,
and I get to dump some of it out week by week.
An anniversary sermon is something completely different.
It's like, all right, Lord, help me here.
What are we going to do?
And as I was praying, I have to tell you, I had this song begin to come to my mind.
I was one of those old, I am one of those old guys.
I shouldn't say that.
And I remember singing this song in the good old days, right?
And I know some of you are thinking, really?
Yes.
The truth of the matter is, is that Judith and I arrived here back in 1980.
I got relocated by International Harvester,
and I remember the first service that I attended.
I came in here on Wednesday night to come to prayer meeting.
Judith was still living in Fort Wayne, and I was down here for work,
and I was stunned at what this congregation did in corporate prayer.
I came here Wednesday night, rode a bike from Red Roof End over here on Rome Hilliard.
And I came in here, and I remember walking into a men, men prayed together, women prayed together.
I walked into a men's prayer room.
Someone closed the room, the door, and I felt like the door of the ark had been shut.
And then people started praying.
And 30 minutes later, without anybody saying a word, everybody said words,
30 minutes later, we'd finish praying.
I'd never been in a prayer meeting where people actually prayed most of the time.
I'd been in an environment where when you said you were going to have a prayer meeting,
someone dragged a chalkboard out and kind of stood there in the center and said,
all right, I don't think we're going to pray about.
And you'd write down kind of an organ recital.
Do you know what an organ recital is?
We're not talking about that.
We're talking about all the physiological things that happen in people's lives.
And by the time you had taken all of that for about 27 minutes, the leader would say,
oh, my goodness, we better get to prayer.
And you'd do three minutes.
Oh, Lord, will you help everybody on that list?
That's what I was used to.
And I walked into this room, and the men prayed 30 minutes nonstop,
just prayed one thing after another.
I remembered Larry Brady.
Hi, Larry.
Larry felt bad for me riding my bicycle on Trebut night at night,
so he packed my bike into the trunk of his little Dodge Dart or whatever he had
and took me down there.
And I remember thinking to myself, I didn't have the nerve to ask Larry
if I had accidentally wandered in with the deacons.
I mean, I thought, you know, you expect deacons to pray without kind of being coached
with a chalkboard.
And I thought, so next week, I thought, I'll come back, and I'm going to a different room.
It was pretty much the same thing.
I thought, I'll try it one more time.
I came to about four weeks of prayer because Friday I would leave and go back to Fort Wayne
and spend it with my family.
But on Wednesday night, I'd come in here, and week after week,
the first thing that drew me to this fellowship was its unrelenting commitment to prayer.
Later on, I had the privilege of coming on Sundays and listening to the teaching of the Word of God,
and Judith and I became members of this fellowship long before I became a pastor here.
And so when I celebrate with you this 50th anniversary, I come as an individual who has a great thankfulness
for the foundation that this congregation was built on in attention to the Word of God
and a dependency upon prayer and a desire to be obedient to the Scriptures
in every place that the Word of God instructs us.
And so what I'd like us to do this morning is actually look at this psalm
because it gives to us a picture of what the body of believers are to be engaged in.
Now, I want to give you a little bit of background that actually this psalm,
which we find in Psalm 105, was also a psalm or a song that David had sung
at the time in which the Ark of the Covenant was brought back to Jerusalem properly,
carried on the shoulders of the Levites.
You'll remember that the first attempt at bringing back the Ark had been put on a cart.
Remember, that didn't work well for Uzzah.
He reached out to stop the Ark from falling, and he was struck dead.
Later, David kind of double-checked the instructions on how to move the Ark,
and they brought it back with sacrifice and with singing and with praise and adoration,
and this song was sung at that time.
You find it in 1 Chronicles 16.
What this passage does is gives to us a clear indication
of what is to characterize God's people in their time together.
And I trust that not only do we remind ourselves that that's what God's people did centuries in the past,
and not only do we remind ourselves that that is what God's people did 50 years ago,
I trust that it becomes something that helps us with our compass point and direction
in the days to come until Jesus returns.
So what are the things that we find here in this passage?
Let me kind of roll it out for you in a big picture.
I want you to understand that the first several verses are kind of informative and give us an overview.
They remind us of thanks.
They remind us of sharing in prayer, and they remind us of making His deeds known.
Look at verse 1.
Give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name, that's prayer,
and make known His deeds among the people.
What takes place after that opening statement is that the psalmist then kind of builds on those three thematic issues
and helps us understand what are the characteristics that we as God's people are to engage in
when we come together for corporate worship.
So let's recognize that first, the psalmist reminds us that we are to be focused on God-driven thanks.
Our first instruction in worship is thankfulness.
The Holy Spirit who inspired the author of this psalm makes it clear that we are instructed,
no, we are actually commanded, that when we gather together as God's people,
that we are to be engaged in actually thanking Him.
Now let me ask you a question just for a moment.
How many of you, don't raise your hands, but how many of you just every Sunday morning are just exuberant and thankful automatically?
Do you understand what I'm saying?
I mean, how many of us have any trouble being grumpy or moody?
I mean, it's like, I've got to work at this.
Being grumpy is real hard.
I just am, I'm always thankful.
How many of you just, no, you understand that?
In fact, earlier this morning as I was praying, I was reminding myself, hey, listen, this passage is given to us in the imperative.
Do you know what an imperative is?
It means an explicit instruction.
It's an expectation.
Friday, I got to go down to a Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
We were over here down at the end of Treview, and I had to register the truck and the trailer,
and everybody had advised me, listen, over on that side of town, there's never a line.
I mean, you know what?
I've been in lines that go on forever, and I thought, I'm going.
Nobody wants to do these kind of things on Friday, and I'm going in around about 930.
You know, it's like everybody else should be at work.
I walk in there, and guess what I find?
A line that's got a double loop, and it's like, what?
One of the things I did notice is that there was this little marker that said, please wait here.
Now, how many of you know that when you go to a place that the civil government is engaged in,
you want to always smile and comply with all the rules?
How many of you understand that?
If they say, keep your feet behind that line, you know, I noticed.
I mean, people all kinds of dress and all kinds of attitude, but when they were there,
they kept their feet right behind the line.
They were following instructions.
Do you know why they were following instructions?
Because they were waiting desperately to hear those little words, I can help the next person.
And if you kind of violate the basic instructions of the civil servants, guess what could happen to you?
How many of you have ever been in an environment like that where somebody did not decide to comply,
and they found out that it wasn't a good career path?
Now, I bring this to your attention because when God gives us, His children, an explicit direction,
He's not asking us if He'd kind of like to try it.
He's telling us, do this.
Do it.
Give thanks to the Lord.
Give thanks.
Let me kind of build on that thought by having you recognize that thankfulness is actually a picture of where we are spiritually.
Say it to yourself just quietly.
Thankfulness is actually a picture of where I am spiritually.
An absence of thankfulness is a clear indication of a lack of regard for the Lord.
It's a missed focus in the person's life.
And one of the facts in relationship to the matter of thankfulness is that when there is a disregard for thankfulness,
it may really rise as a natural consequence of an unregenerate heart.
And there are some of you sitting here this morning that really when it comes down to it,
you may have come to church on a regular basis,
but the truth of the matter is you've never, ever had a thankful heart.
That is a characteristic of an unbeliever.
In Romans 1, verse 21, I want you to take a minute, keep your finger there in Psalm,
but I want you to go over to Romans 1, verse 21.
One of the things that goes with being a pastor, and I would say it this way,
one of the things that goes, everybody look up so you know I'm talking to you, okay?
One of the things that goes with being a believer is you're actually responsible for encouraging other believers in their walk.
Everybody understands that, right?
Also, you are responsible to help other people come to Christ.
And so as you're listening to people, one of the things that you're doing is you're kind of serving in a diagnostic fashion
to figure out, hey, does this person know Jesus or not?
Romans 1, verse 21,
For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him.
When I hear an individual that is persistently unthankful,
I ask myself the question,
does this person as a believer need some stout encouragement
in remembering the blessings of their salvation,
or does this person need the sweetness of the gospel?
The characteristic of an obedient Christian
is that they have a thankful spirit,
and that thankful spirit rises because of who God is and what He's done.
I would add this,
that thankfulness also reflects our view of God and our Savior.
When you have a thankful heart,
it doesn't arise on the basis of all the blessings that you have received.
It rises on the basis of who He is and what He's done.
It comes from Him.
It is for His glory,
and it is you who are the recipient of all of His goodness.
I would put it this way.
Thankfulness is a right response to the character and goodness of God.
And so you take a look here going back to Psalm 105
and mark what it says,
Oh, give thanks to the Lord,
call upon His name,
make known His deeds among the people.
And as you look at that in verse 2,
it says,
Sing to Him,
sing praises to Him.
And remember what I said,
the first opening part of the psalm
kind of gives us an overview of what the characteristic
of the believer is to be in corporate worship.
It then begins to play it out and expand,
and I want you to understand that one of the ways
that God's people express their thankfulness
is by singing.
By singing.
I have to tell you,
as I sat up here in the morning,
right there,
John,
where are you,
John?
John and I make eye contact a lot of times,
don't we,
John?
John and I enjoy what we do together.
We partner for the glory of Christ,
and we partner to lift up the testimony
of the Lord Jesus in our congregation.
And we love to hear our people sing,
don't we?
Why should people sing?
Well, the psalm says this,
He's put a new song in my mouth,
even praising to our God.
There was a day when I knew no hope,
and when I knew no hope,
there was not much to sing about.
Positive,
thankful,
but when Christ came into my life,
He gave me a new song,
and singing it together
is a characteristic of expressing
my thanksgiving to Him.
A thankful people invariably
show their gratitude,
and they sing.
People that have full hearts
cannot help but sing to the Lord.
It's the way it is.
You don't have to be prodded.
You don't have to be coerced.
Your heart responds musically
with a desire to lift up the Lord.
By the way,
have you ever paid attention
to how little children sing?
Was it two Sunday nights ago
we had all those kids up here
just rocking the house
right across the front here,
and what song were they singing?
Happy Day.
I mean,
here,
everybody look.
Can you imagine
one of those kids up here
going like this?
Oh,
happy day,
took my sins away,
you know.
How many of you
have ever sung a song like that?
You know,
it's like,
oh,
happy day,
happy day.
There's something missing,
isn't it?
Would you agree?
I'm really curious.
What happens between
childhood and adulthood?
Some of you have been waiting
an entire generation
for your second childhood
to come around
where you can sing
like that again.
Go ahead and let it out.
Do you follow me?
Why should you do that?
Give thanks unto the Lord.
By the way,
here's the thing
that we need to remind ourselves of.
When we sing,
we sing
to the Lord.
You got me?
We're not singing for each other.
We're not singing for other people
to,
you know,
give us high fives
and say,
yes,
I can hear you
five rows in front.
You know,
it's like,
no,
we're just singing
to the Lord.
And this morning,
as you think about
what a church
is to be involved
in,
I want you to understand
that at the heart
of what we're engaged in
is we're here
to give thanks to God.
By the way,
we're going to spend
all eternity doing that,
isn't it right?
We're going to do that.
Let's recognize
a second characteristic
of corporate worship.
Look there at
the first,
the second part
of the first verse
that says,
give thanks to the Lord,
call upon His name.
And so,
I want you to understand
that not only is
a thankful spirit
something that is
commanded by the Word
of God,
but secondly,
corporate prayer
is a biblical command.
And that's what
Psalm 105
reminds us of,
that corporate prayer
is really a part
and parcel
of what we engage in
as a family
of believers.
this church
was built on prayer.
Prayer laid the foundation
of its first
public meetings.
Prayer was often
referred to
as the most important
meeting of the week.
I can remember
when I sat there
in the pews
where you are sitting
today,
I think they were
green back then.
Does anybody remember
the green pews?
Okay.
Am I right,
Mike?
Was it green?
Yeah.
Pearl verified
it was green.
Okay,
I got that.
You know,
I remember sitting
back there
and Pastor Brock,
who was the founding
pastor,
he would refer often
to the fact that
Wednesday night
was the hour of power.
It was the time
when God's people
prayed.
And he would say this,
he said,
listen,
if you have to miss
a service in the week,
go ahead and skip Sunday.
Don't skip Wednesday.
And here was his logic.
His logic is,
by the way,
if you pray for it
on Wednesday,
we have a higher
expectation that
he'll do it on Sunday.
And people who are
praying about something
on Wednesday
usually like to come
and see it happen
on Sunday.
So if you're not
praying about it,
you don't have any
skin in the game.
Let it happen.
I don't care.
I want you to understand
that prayer not only
was at the heart
of this fellowship,
but it still
characterizes what we do.
It's a reason that
we have Wednesday
night prayer.
And when we have
Wednesday night prayer
together,
our focus is
upon prayer.
We're in a search
process
for an associate
to become senior
pastor.
And we're actually
talking with someone.
We're praying,
praying,
right?
But one of the questions
that this potential
candidate asked,
one of our deacons,
was,
does this congregation
have any sacred
cows?
I just really
chuckled at that,
sacred cows.
You know,
what's a sacred cow?
And you know what
one of our deacons
said?
Actually,
Wednesday night prayer
is a pretty sacred
cow to us.
We think corporate
prayer.
Can God's people
pray on a different
night besides Wednesday
and have God smile?
What's the answer?
The answer is yes.
Okay?
Corporate prayer
is non-negotiable.
The night in which
you do it on
is subject to change.
But corporate
prayer is a biblical
command.
I want you to
understand that what
our prayers do
together is our
prayers affirm
His supremacy.
At the heart of
biblical prayer
is a happy
confidence in who
we're praying to.
He's in control.
He's in charge.
He's running the
show.
And when we have
a concern and an
interest, we have a
right to go to our
Father.
And as it says in
Hebrews, it says,
let's come boldly
before the throne of
grace.
Why?
To find help in
time of need.
Our prayer time
together expresses our
dependency and our
confidence in His
supremacy.
Secondly, our prayer
also declares His
sufficiency.
A lack of prayer,
both personal and
congregational, are
indicators of a lack
of confidence in His
ability to meet the
needs that we actually
have.
And so I would ask
you a question this
morning as you think
about the issue of
prayer.
What does your prayer
life look like?
Turn over in your
Bible, if you would, to
James chapter 4 just for
a moment as we consider
this issue of prayer and
His sufficiency.
James chapter 4.
verse 2 and 3.
You desire and do not have, so you
murder.
You covet and cannot obtain, so you
fight and quarrel and you do not
have because you do not ask.
You ask and do not receive because you ask
wrongly to spend it on your passions.
So if we don't ask for those things that
are according to His will, do we have a
right to expect Him to provide them?
I'll tell you what, it is our prayer life that
is an indication of whether or not we
believe that God can provide those things.
Our prayers also are an expression of our
dependency.
Self-sufficient people are not challenged
to pray.
It's people that are entirely dependent
and inadequate in themselves that have a
prayer life that is substantial.
Hey, when you have it all together and all
that you could possibly imagine is ready and
available at your own hand, why would you
ask for anything?
How many of you have ever been in a
restaurant and been really thirsty and
noticed that the waitress wasn't paying
attention to you?
Ever been there?
Okay.
I mean, you're not a glass is half empty
kind of person.
There's none in it.
And you want water.
So what do you do when you want that
water?
How many of you?
You're getting signals because you want
that glass filled.
When we recognize the dependency we have
upon God, there is a heart that leads
us to cry out to Him and say, listen, I've
got to have it and you're the only one who
can provide it.
I want you to understand that God allows
challenges to come into our life and one of
the reasons that He does that is that He
allows those challenges to drive us to the
point of recognizing that apart from Him, we
can't meet those needs.
We can't be sustained on our own effort.
I've got to say this in relationship to our
fellowship.
The enduring commitment of this fellowship to
corporate prayer is one of the things that has been so
precious and so vital to what God has had us do among this
fellowship.
Everything, so that you know, everything that we engage in
corporately has its early announcements in our prayer
bulletins.
How many of you already figured that out?
Not at me if you know that, okay?
The first time you get a hint that something's coming is we're
starting to pray about it.
I'll give you an illustration.
We've already started praying about our annual budget.
Now, when do we vote on our annual budget?
Does anybody besides the budget committee know?
Our annual meeting, everybody may pay attention to this so
that you know, is on the second Wednesday of December.
Right?
And by the way, what is Wednesday night?
What is Wednesday night?
It's when God's people get together to pray.
And so we would rather do business in the context and frame
of prayer than just kind of having a business meeting, right?
Pray, a little bit of voting.
Before we ever come to you with a proposed budget and say,
by the way, here's how we think we probably need to think about
spending God's money, the first thing we do is we ask you to
pray about it.
We've already started that.
How many of you noticed that?
It's in the bulletin.
Start praying about the budget and the things that we need to
decide and what are the things that we've got to be sensitive
to.
And we ask you to pray about it together and we ask you to share
those things.
Say, hey, we're praying about that.
We want you to consider this.
So long as this congregation is a praying church, praying according to
the scriptures, praying for his glory and his name, it will stay on point
and know the sufficiency of his provision.
I want to say that and have you understand it.
So long as this church is a praying church and stays focused on his
sufficiency and his provision and pray according to his word, God will provide.
I am not tired of praying for the man that will someday be our associate and senior.
And we're into it for two years.
Can I tell you something?
I don't want to do this search ever again.
Right?
I'd rather spend two and a half years getting it right, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray,
pray, then take a false start and end up being sorry.
And God's people said, amen.
Finally, the third characteristic of a Bible-believing church is that they are
God-motivated in their testimony.
Psalm 105 says, make known his deeds among the peoples.
And so the final thought that I want you to focus on this morning is recognize this,
that what the psalmist was saying in this frame is that God's people first are thankful
because of who he is and what he's done in their lives.
Secondly, God's people are deliberate and faithful in their incessant prayer and dependency upon him.
And third, there are people that talk joyfully and confidently about what God has done.
I like the way in which the psalm rolls out the evidence of God's works.
I'm just going to touch on it and highlight.
You look first of all there at the statement that is made there in verse 6,
As the psalmist gets into the flow of this business of expressing, thankfully, the testimony of God's goodness,
he starts at the beginning with Abraham.
He reminds the nation, listen, the God that we are testifying to
is a God who has been actively engaged in our lives and working for us.
Characteristic of God's people when they testify is that they speak of the things that are part and parcel to their life.
Listen to me.
You can't bear testimony to something you've never seen or heard of.
Can you do that?
I mean, you might be able to refer to,
I saw these pictures in National Geographic,
or I happened to Google it, but I wasn't there.
That's distant.
At the heart of our testimony is we bear testimony of the things that God's done for us.
Look in your Bible.
Keep your finger there in Psalm.
But I want you to look over to Acts chapter 4.
Acts chapter 4.
I love what takes place in this context.
You find that Peter and John are brought before the Sanhedrin,
and the Sanhedrin, that's the leadership of Israel,
are all bent out of shape because they've been talking about Jesus.
Excited.
They're fired up talking about Jesus,
and the Sanhedrin wants to tamp it down,
and so they come to him, and they say,
Listen, you better not be doing this anymore.
And look at verse 13.
Acts 4, 13.
Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John
and perceived that they were uneducated men, common men,
they were astonished.
They recognized that they'd been with Jesus.
And then look at verse 20.
Here's what they say.
Don't you be talking about Jesus anymore.
Their answer, verse 20.
We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.
Listen.
God doesn't want you to bear testimony to what you haven't experienced.
He wants you to testify to the power that he has exerted
in bringing you out of darkness into his marvelous light,
in what he has done in changing your life,
in turning your heart around,
taking you out of the misery and the despair that you were in,
and giving you an eternal home.
Not only has he done that,
but he is actively at work in changing you
from who you were to who you will be.
Let me tell you something.
When you get your hands around the reality of what he has done in your life,
and you are overwhelmed with thanksgiving for what he has done,
it doesn't make it very hard to be pretty bubbly about his good work.
Agreed?
I hate to touch on this, but I will.
How many of you are really, really enthused about the football game last night?
I mean, just, it was a stellar performance by the Buckeyes,
and you know, it's one of those,
you're going to be replaying that loop on your computer or whatever,
you're going to play it again and again and again,
and watch the absolute fiasco of missteps.
How many of you are going to do that?
Just over and over again.
On the other hand, how many of you,
after that miserable muff-up,
actually had to go back and kind of think,
well, they did end the season pretty well.
You know, what we do
when we bear testimony
is we speak about the great things that God has done in our lives.
Isn't that right?
When was the last time you did that?
When was the last time that,
first of all,
you had a thankful heart
when you stopped and considered
that he found you absolutely broken and ruined in your sin,
and he rescued you from the pit,
and he's given you a new song and new hope,
and all he asks of you
is that you bear open testimony
to his goodness and his glory.
That's all.
He hasn't asked you to fabricate any pipe dream
about how wonderful he is.
All he's asked is that you speak honestly
and truthfully about the power
that rescued you from the pit
and put a new song in your life.
Isn't that right?
Listen to me carefully.
We're commanded
to give thanks.
We're commanded to pray.
We're commanded to bear testimony.
But not one of those commands
is based upon
a vain,
hopeless,
worthless
religion
that you and I
know nothing about
and have no reason
to have confidence in.
And so I would appeal to you
this morning
as we think about
the 50 years
that God has blessed
this congregation with
that you remind yourself
these people
who produced
by the grace of God
what we enjoy together
did so
because,
first of all,
they had thankful hearts.
and you resolve
in your own heart
I,
because of who God is
and what he's done for me,
I am going to move forward
with thankfulness
in my day
because of who he is
and what he's done.
They were a people
that prayed.
I will commit myself
to prayer
because I recognize
prayer comes to the God
who is sufficient
and asks him
to do things
that are marvelous
for his glory.
Third,
I am going to be a person
who bears testimony
to his goodness.
When was the last time
you did that?
When was the last time
that you bore testimony
to his goodness
and his power
to take someone
broken and ruined by sin
and share with them
the hope of the gospel?
Listen to me.
Scripture instructs us
to do that
and the purpose of preaching
is what?
Do you know what it is?
It is to put God's people
on the spot of saying
yes or no to God.
Isn't that right?
And so I would plead
with you this morning
as we bring things
to a close
that you consciously
and deliberately say
alright God I hear you.
You're telling me
to be thankful.
I will.
You're telling me
to be consistent
in my prayer life.
I will.
You're telling me
to bear testimony
to your goodness.
I will.
And I can count on
your spirit
to work in me
to do those things
for the glory of God
until the day
you take me home
or you return.
And God's people said
amen.
Amen.
Let's pray.
Our Father God
we are very thankful
that the word of God
clear and explicit
calls us to be something
and do things
that are beyond
our natural ability
and yet you have given
to us ample reason
in your character
and your goodness
to proclaim your name
and you've filled us
with your spirit.
you've given us
the indwelling ministry
of the spirit of God
to enable us
to do these things
for your glory.
We want to be a people
that when we gather together
we are thankful
we are prayerful
and we are willing
to testify
here among the fellowship
to your goodness
and to carry
that vibrancy
and that satisfaction
with the Lord Jesus Christ
who saved us
from the pit
out into the world
to share with others
the joy and the hope
of the gospel.
Let our hearts be resolved today
for your glory
and your testimony
we ask this
in your precious name.
Amen.