Praise the Lord!

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Up to the book Psalms, and I wanted to look at something that we could, in a sense, complete in one session.
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And then Brother Keith will be back next week going through the gospel. No, next week we won't meet, because it's the night before Thanksgiving.
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But when Brother Keith comes back, he'll go back into the Book of Mark. But anyway, I want to look at the
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Psalms. And if you would, turn to Psalm 111. 111. I think it would be fair to say that the
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Book of Psalms has been called at times by a number of people the
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Book of Songs or the Book of Praise, and with good reason. Because if you think about it, as you read through the
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Psalms, and of course, there's many, there's 150 of them. But as you read through them, some long, some short.
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But as you read through them, you begin to understand how the thought of the
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Psalms being the songs of praise, it bears witness to the fact that many of the
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Psalms are written as melodies, as songs of praise, as worship, meditations.
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And it's interesting. And I want to give you just a couple of things to think about, and then we'll actually read the Psalm and then look at it in particular.
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But if you were to look up, well, you know what? Let's do it this way. Let's read the
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Psalm. I'm going to read Psalm 111. And again, if you do not know, I read from the
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New King James. And so if you have a different translation, it might appear a little bit different. And the psalmist says this.
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Praise the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart. In the assembly of the upright and in the congregation, the works of the
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Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them. His work is honorable and glorious, and His righteousness endures forever.
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He has made His wonderful works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.
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He's given food to those who fear Him. He will ever be mindful of His covenant. He has declared to His people the power of His works to give them the heritage of the nations.
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The works of His hands are verity and justice, and all His precepts are sure.
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They stand fast forever and ever, and are done in truth and in righteousness. He has sent redemption to His people.
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He has commanded His covenant forever. Holy and awesome is His name. The fear of the
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Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.
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His praise endures forever. What's interesting in this psalm, as in many other psalms, to follow up on the thought of the psalms being so often saturated with the idea of praise, you read the psalm and it opens up with what?
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Praise the Lord. And if you read the ending of it, in verse 10,
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His praise endures forever. And what I found interesting was, and I knew it before, but I didn't know it in the extent that the word that's used, praise, here in this psalm, and the word that is used in the
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Bible for praise in this particular word, and of course, there's different ways in which it breaks out and in different tenses and whatnot, but if you were to look up the word praise in the
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Bible, as it appears here, you'll find it that it's mentioned, it's spoken of 201 times.
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And I know that because I looked it up. I didn't read the whole Bible to find out, but nevertheless, that word praise is mentioned 201 times in the whole
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Bible. And in the book of Psalms, it's mentioned 120 times.
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Now, you don't have to be a great mathematician to realize what that means in proportion, right?
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201 times in all of God's revelation, and 120 of those times are in the book of Psalms.
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And that's why I say to you that many have looked to the Psalms as if they are songs, melodies, poems at times, meditations of praise and worship.
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And if you think about the way in which it is written, in other words, many of the
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Psalms are written as life experiences of many different people.
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Many of them are from David, some from Solomon, some from others, some from the sons of Esau, but if you think about the book of Psalms in particular, it really is a book of the encounters of life that people go through, as I said, and many of them being offered by David.
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And it is the, it's life experience that really causes men and women to go through the struggles of life, but ultimately, if they really are
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God's children, it results in praise. And again, that's why I, in particular,
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I enjoy the book of Psalms because it is a book to me that explains just about every experience of life.
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There's not much that you could think of that the book of Psalms doesn't deal with in one way or another, and in the experiences of life, and the result of that is praise, and there are many good reasons for us to praise the
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Lord, and I will try to show you that in this Psalm as we get through it. So, and here's another thought.
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In the book of Psalms, there are seven different words that are used for praise, okay?
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And I think we would be safe to say, with all those seven words that are used in the book of Psalms for praise, the general meaning of those words, well, let me pose it as a question.
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What would you think, I say praise, you say what? What comes to your mind when you think of praise?
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Anything? Okay. The words really carry the thought of Thanksgiving, which would make sense if you think about it.
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You're thanking God, and I will try to show you, your praise really is thanking
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God for who he is, and what he does, and that if you look at some of the words for praise in the book of Psalms, you will find that it really carries not only the thought of Thanksgiving, and worship, and adoration, but it actually carries the thought of boasting, which
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I thought, and having understood this a while ago, that if you think about it, when we are praising
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God, and I realize it's not the easiest thing to define, it's not something where you could just say, it's this, and this, and this, and that, it's a combination of a lot of things, but this thought is, it not only has the thought of boasting, but guess what, it has the thought of bragging.
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Now, you and I think about boasting and bragging, and usually you come away with a negative on that, right?
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We don't particularly like people who boast about themselves, do we?
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And we certainly don't like people that all they do is brag about themselves. But this thought of praise is really, when we give thanks to God, we're basically boasting on God.
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We're bragging on Him. We're so overcome by who
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He is, and what He does, that all we wanna do is tell others and boast about Him, and we wanna give
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Him what is His due, and only His due, and so just think about that.
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Many of the words carry the thought of thanksgiving, but they also at points, at times, include this thought of bragging and boasting, and who better to boast on than God?
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Just think about that. I mean, people in this world boast and brag about a lot of things, and are willing to give, even in that sense, praise to a lot of things that are not deserving of praise.
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And so as we look through the Psalm, I want you to think about that, and it's mentioned three times here.
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Like I said, it's almost, to me, and I know this doesn't sound particularly theological, but to me, this is a praise sandwich.
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There's praise at the beginning, and there's praise at the end, and then there's what's in between, and that is the cause for praise.
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I also want you to notice something else before we dig in a little bit further. Not only is praise mentioned three times in the opening, praise the
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Lord, I will praise the Lord with my whole heart, and then at the end is praise and do us forever, but I want you to just focus on the word works.
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Look, it's mentioned often in the Psalm, the work, verse two, the works of the Lord are great.
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Verse three, his work is honorable. Verse four, he has made his wonderful works.
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Verse six, he has declared to his people the power of his works. Verse seven, the works of his hands are verity and justice.
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So now you have not only this thought of praise, but it's, again, as I say to you, because I do believe the book of Psalms in many ways is a book of the outworking of the experiences of life that the
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Psalms, many times in particular, this Psalm looks out and sees the works of God and the works of God are deserving of praise, deserving of thanksgiving, deserving of boasting, deserving of bragging, and that you and I ought to think about it that way, and it's really, again, as I said, two reasons.
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Who God is, what he does, because you really can't separate that, can you?
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We really can't separate what God does from who he is, because if that were true, if God was different from who he is and what he does, then we would say we have an inconsistency, right?
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And we are like that many times. How many times do we say, well, that's not really who, I shouldn't have done that,
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I'm sorry I did that, that's not really me. Well, we could have a whole discussion about that, but nevertheless, when it comes to God, the reason for it, particularly in this
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Psalm, is, again, those two thoughts, and that's where I wanna focus a little bit tonight on this whole thought of giving to God the glory for who he is and what he does.
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And I wanna show it to you, just if you would look at this Psalm, I want you to look at verse two.
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Again, I'm gonna look at general thoughts, and then we'll look perhaps at each of the verses if we have time.
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But I want you to look at verse two, and this is what I would say this is what he does.
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The works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them.
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But now, verse three, to me, is who he is. His work is honorable and glorious, and his righteousness endures forever.
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See, his work is what he does, and the work is honorable and glorious because his righteousness endures forever, that's who he is.
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And then if you look a little bit further in verse four, he has made his wonderful works to be remembered, and then, if you will, because of who he is, because the
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Lord is gracious and full of compassion. Again, to me, it's a link between the two that what
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God does is because of who God is. And because of who
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God is, that's what God does. And it kinda, to me, at least it struck a chord in my mind that it continues throughout the whole
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Psalm. Look at verse five. He has given food to those who fear him.
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Well, that's the work of God, right? He's given food to those who fear him, and then he will ever be mindful of his covenant.
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That's who he is, he's the covenant God. He's the faithful God, he's the
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God who doesn't change. He's the God that doesn't, is never altered.
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And again, what he does, who he is. Verse six, he has declared to his people the power of his works in giving them the heritage of the nations.
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That's what he does, and we'll get into that a little bit further. But I want you to look at verse seven. The works of his hands are what?
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Verity and justice, truth and justice. Again, what he does because of who he is.
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And it continues, to me, throughout the rest of the Psalm. They stand forever, verse eight, forever and ever, and are done in truth and righteousness and uprightness.
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He has sent his redemption to his people. He has commanded his covenant forever. And then, who he is, holy and awesome is his name.
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I hope you can at least see in part what I'm trying to get us to think about, is that praise, thanksgiving, worship, boasting, bragging on God, really carries that thought of those two.
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Who he is, what he does. And that you and I can always find comfort in that, in the reality that not only can we praise
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God for being our creator, but we can boast and brag on God for being our sustainer.
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And we can also praise God and boast and brag on him for being a righteous judge versus an unrighteous judge, that you and I can find in our minds and in our lives to praise him in a way that is worthy of who he is.
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And again, I don't know about you, I get a little upset when
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I hear people use that term, praise the Lord. And I've heard people use it almost like a slogan, and it disturbs me a little bit.
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Cause I, you know, I ate a chocolate chip cookie, praise the
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Lord. You know, it's almost as if we use it just as a slang term or just like, again, we just flip it out there.
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I don't believe that that's the way we ought to consider praise. If we're gonna consider praising
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God, it ought to be in a way and in a sense of reverence for who he is and what he does.
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And it ought to be something that we consider in a worshipful way, rather than again, just flipping it out there.
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The other thing I wanna point out, and then we'll look at some details in the Psalm, is that I do believe in this
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Psalm, the weight of it, if you will, falls on the thought of what
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God, who God is and what he's done for his people. And that you and I, as we read many of the
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Psalms, the praise that is offered up to God is offered up in response or as a result of the actions of God in his redemption and in his redemptive purposes.
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And so who better to be able to praise the Lord than those that have been redeemed?
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And again, I believe there's a correlation between the two, that those who understand what redemption is and what
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God has done to redeem them in particular, the more someone understands that,
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I do believe the more someone will ultimately praise the Lord. And I think that's somewhat what
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Jesus had in mind when he said, to whom much is forgiven. Remember what he said? To that one, he loves much.
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To whom much is forgiven, the same loves much. And I really think that there is a relationship between the two.
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Sometimes, and again, some of this is just my thinking, but nevertheless,
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I think I have some experience, having been a Christian almost 50 years and been in the ministry almost 40, that people who are, people who are brought up in a
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Christian environment, people who have been raised in a family where God is worshiped, sometimes they struggle with a reality of understanding what redemption means versus, and again,
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I'm not trying to say that they don't understand, but I'm saying it's a different path to understanding and praising
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God than someone who's been saved out of the gutter. Someone who's never had any experience.
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Someone who just comes to Christ like a Saul to a Paul versus a Lydia. Remember Lydia in the book of Acts?
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It just, the Lord just opened her heart. Or even Timothy, in that sense, and believe me,
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I'm not undermining Timothy. Remember he knew the scriptures, his grandmother had taught him the scriptures, his mother had taught him the scriptures, and I just think there's two different paths to take, and again, those who understand what they've been saved from and saved to will very often be those who are full of praise.
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And again, I'm not undermining being brought up in a Christian home, believe me. I wasn't, but that's, again,
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God saves this way and God saves that way. And just a short story
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I was told once. I was told a story of a missionary who had been imprisoned for the gospel.
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And he was put in prison, I forgot where it was, it was somewhere in, I think it was South America.
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And he was in that prison for many years and he finally got out. And I don't know the circumstances, but that's not really the point of it.
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When he got out, someone wanted to interview him and while he was in prison, he had no access to a
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Bible. And this was, I think it was 10 years or whatever it was, it was a lengthy time.
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And he was denied his Bible and he couldn't read and when he got out, someone asked him the question and said, well, since you've been in prison for all those years and you never had the ability to read the
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Bible, do you remember the Bible? And his answer was striking to me.
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His answer was, I have forgotten much of what the Bible says.
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I have never forgotten the one who the Bible speaks of. And I thought that was really pointed, that he remembered the
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Bible, not necessarily, he didn't remember all the verses and all the chapters, but he remembered Christ.
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And he said that that's what it was that kept him going. It wasn't so much what, in that way, what all the different facts were and all different, it was who he spoke of and he praised
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God for that. And again, I just think that's a neat story of how this idea of praise is not something that should be separated from our lives because those who are full of praise are many times most close to God and I think it'll bear out.
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So with that in mind, just one more thought. The psalmist is full of praise and he's looking verse, even in the title and in the first verse, praise the
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Lord, I will praise the Lord, the works of the Lord. And you can continue to read this through, that this idea of praise, this idea of boasting, this idea of bragging, this idea of lifting up your heart in adoration and worship is to the covenant
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God, to Yahweh, to Jehovah, to the true God. I've often wondered about that.
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I've wondered about how many times people, they praise a
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God that is not a God. I mean, they praise gods of wood and gods of stone and they praise some people that praise the stars and they praise the climate and they praise this and they praise that and that's all they ever seem to think about and in a sense, it's worship.
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But all those things are dead. God's the only true one that lives. God is the living
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God, right? God is the true God. Jehovah, Yahweh, the eternal one.
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And so to me, to praise something that's dead is, to me in many ways, foolishness.
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And yet how much of this world is full of foolish praise? How much of this world is full of foolish boasting and bragging on something that is absolutely non -existent?
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How much better, how much more glorious, how much more worthy is it to praise the living
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God? And so as you look at the verses and just for a few minutes we go through it, look what he says and I think it'll bear out.
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He says, I will praise the Lord with my whole heart. With my whole heart.
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You know, friends, God is not worthy of half -hearted praise. God is not worthy of us rendering wishy -washy thanksgiving and praise.
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God is worthy of our whole hearts. God is worthy of rendering to him with our whole hearts, whether it's at work, whether it's at play, whether we're on the mountain of joy or in the valley of sorrow, whether we're in public, whether we're in private, whether we're in the assembly of the people and I think that bears out.
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He says it in verse one, I will praise the Lord with my whole heart. Where? In the assembly of the upright and in the congregation.
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Whether I'm in the body of believers or I'm outside, whether I'm in the church or I'm out of the church, whether I'm in the supermarket, whether I'm in the dentist's chair.
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Well, that one's rough but I'm gonna praise the Lord. I'm gonna boast. I'm gonna brag on God.
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I went to the beach the other day. I knew the weather was gonna get bad so I wanted to go fishing for a little while.
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So I went to the beach. I think it was Tuesday, yeah. And I was sitting at the beach and I was fishing and I was thinking about Brother Dale.
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As I said to you, he just had a pacemaker put in and I was just thanking God and in a sense, praising
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God for God's gift to men to be able to open someone's chest up, stick a little thing in there and keep them alive.
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And I was just captivated by that very thought amongst all of the things that God has graciously done in science and in medicine.
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And at the same time, I'm sitting in my chair and I'm waiting for fish to bite and as I'm thinking about Dale, I'm watching there's this falcon or maybe it was an eagle.
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It was either a falcon or an eagle and he is way up in the sky. I mean, way up there.
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And this falcon, he just keeps circling and circling and circling and circling. And then
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I guess he saw, and I don't know how you could see from, I mean, I can't hardly see you in the back of the room but I realized my eye is messed up.
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But, and then all of a sudden, he came down like a rocket ship and he come out of the water, he had a fish.
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And I just was happy as could be, I suppose, and I just was filled with praise. Here I am praising
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God for curing Dale and bringing him back and restoring some energy to him.
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And at the very same time, I'm watching the creation and I'm watching the eagles swoop down and get there.
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I guess what I'm trying to say, folks, is I will praise the Lord my whole heart in the assembly, upright in the congregations and no matter where we go.
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Now, I'm not saying you're gonna walk around and just constantly say praise the
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Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord. To me, again, now you're getting to the point where I'm not so sure that you're doing it in sincerity.
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But really the reality is whether in public or private, praise the
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Lord. Then look what he says. He says, and this is startling if you think about it.
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He says, the works of the Lord are great. Studied by all who have pleasure in them.
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Now, what's interesting is if you look at that word studied, in the
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New King James, it says studied by all who have pleasure in them. If you're reading the
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NIV, I believe it says pondered. I'm not sure. Delight, okay.
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And in the King James, it says sought out. And the whole idea is this, that the works of the
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Lord are great. You might ask which works? All God's works? Everything that God does is what?
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Good, great? But the reality is it really is pondered, considered by those who have pleasure in them.
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Now, to me, that's pretty pointed. One of the reasons why people at times don't sense the presence of God is in some cases, they really don't want the presence of God.
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Now, you might say, well, that's not true. How could you say that? Well, I know this. I've met some Christians that they might love the
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Lord, but boy, you would never know it by their disposition. I mean, at best, they're a sour child of the
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King. But you find someone who takes, you find someone who takes pleasure in the Bible, and I'll guarantee you, there'll be praise in the
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Lord. You find someone who takes pleasure in seeking to be
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Christ -like, and you will find somebody who's praising the Lord. Again, we've kind of fallen into a pit of, experiential
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Christianity, and if you're not flying high, there's no real reason to praise, and there is a group in the body of Christ that truly desire to know more, to understand more, to seek
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God out, to study all those things, to study the creation, to study the workings of God, to study the attributes of God, to study the very character of God.
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I know I've mentioned this many times. When I first came to Christ, the thing that drew me and excited me more than anything else,
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I read a book by Arthur Pink, who is long gone with the Lord, and he was a very good writer, and his book was on the attributes of God.
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It was on God's sovereignty and God's eternality and God's mercy and God's compassion, and that book revealed to me so much more of not what
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God could do for me, but who God is, and it just caused me to be delighted in, and I can honestly say
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I haven't diminished. To me, the word of God, studying who
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God is and what he does and the works of God is something that brings me to the point of giving him thanks and bragging on him and praising him.
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So when the psalmist says that, he says, the works of the Lord are great, studied by all who take pleasure in them, and then he says, his work is honorable.
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Why is his work honorable? Because God is honorable. See, again, you can't disconnect the two.
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His work is honorable and it's glorious, and his righteousness endures forever.
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Isn't it great to praise the Lord because we know that God always does right?
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Now, we were not perceived that God is always doing right. We would probably have to admit there's times where we don't even think
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God is doing right, but God is doing right, right? God always does right because God is glorious and God is honorable and God is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works, and again, you begin to think about the reasons to give
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God praise for what happens in the working out of God, and again, a lot of people misconstrue it.
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Wasn't it just the other day that that soccer player, the lady, she ripped her
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Achilles tendon out the last game and she said, see, there is no God. I mean, is that what causes praise?
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Well, only when things are going your way. There's a lot of things I could say about her and her thinking, but I'll leave that alone, but my whole point is, if that's the only reason why we praise the
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Lord is when we feel that his works are working for our advantage, we've missed,
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I believe we've missed the point. His work is honorable and glorious every bit that he does, and his righteousness endures forever.
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The earth, think about it, and this is what I thought about. I thought about these climate change people who are just constantly telling us that we're gonna come to a crash and end, that we're gonna kill ourselves, it's existential threat, and we're destroying our own planet, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then
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I thought about the work of God, and you know what? The earth has been continuing since Adam, my friends.
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It's, guess what? There's been summer, and winter, and springtime, and harvest, and guess what?
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The ground still yields crops, and guess what? There's still water to drink, and you can go on, and on, and on, and it went on from the time of Adam through the patriarchs down through the children of Israel to the
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New Testament times to today, and guess what? If God tarries for another 10 ,000 years, 100 ,000 years, there'll still be summer, and winter, and springtime, and harvest, why?
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Because God will make sure it does, because God is a faithful God, and he said, listen,
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I'll put it this way. The rainbow has been shining ever since the days of Noah, and they are gonna continue, it's gonna continue to shine until Christ comes back, and again, that ought to be a source of praise for us that you and I can look and see this, and then in verse four, he has made his wonderful works to be remembered, and again, even in that thought of the rainbow.
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I don't know about you, every time I see a rainbow, I get excited, and it's not because I think there's a pot of gold at the end with a leprechaun.
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That's just cray -cray, but the whole point is that you look up and you see that God, and it ought to cause us a sense of thanksgiving, and you get into a conversation with someone, and they start talking about the molecular ways in which chemicals react in the sunlight, refracting, and then the prisms of light, therefore, that's why you got a rainbow.
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Bologna, we got a rainbow because God put that rainbow there, and you and I ought to be able to praise him for it rather than giving glory or boasting about the ways of man, so he says he's made his wonderful works to be remembered, and then it says this in the second half of verse four.
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It says the Lord is gracious. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.
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Remember what it says in the prophet, says that it's because of his great mercy that we're not consumed.
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His mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness.
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Our day should start with praise. Our day should end with praise, and everything in between should be a cause to give
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God thanks. Now, again, I'm not saying that that doesn't mean there's not times of sorrow, and I'm not saying there's not times of trials and tribulations and perplexities and confusions and many of those things, but we should never stop praising him.
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We should never stop giving thanks for who he is, what he does, knowing that whatever
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God does is right, and whatever God does will ultimately be for his own glory and for our own good, and so he says through the psalmist in verse five, he's given food to those who fear him.
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As I said to you, God said that he would provide for his people.
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He has given food, and here's the other part. This general principle, too, in this, right, because remember what
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Jesus said. He said God is what? Good to the just and the unjust.
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He sends rain on the just. He sends rain on the unjust, and what a misuse of so many who see
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God do so many glorious things and never once praise him, never once give him thanks, never once seek to boast on God.
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How terrible it is to not give thanks to the true creator and the true sustainer and the true living
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God, and so he says he's declared, he's given food to those who fear him.
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He's ever mindful of his covenant. There it is, and this is where he begins to understand it, define it as far as his people.
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He has declared to the people, his people, the power of his works in giving them the heritage of the nations.
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Well, let's just think about that for a minute, that you and I, the greatest reason, as I said before, for praise is in the area of salvation, that you and I ought to be those who never cease praising him because we will never cease being with him, and when you contrast that with those that go out into a
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Christless eternity, when you contrast that with those who are said to be headed towards a lake of fire where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched, when you contrast the fact that we shall ever be in the presence of the lamb and we shall ever enjoy him and we shall ever be warmed by his brightness and his glory and his majesty and his faithfulness versus those who will be sentenced to darkness where there's gnashing of teeth.
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Again, if that doesn't cause you to praise God, then I would even ask you to examine if you even know
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God because if you can't find him, and again, not that you have to audibly say it all the time, but there ought to be something about us that we are filled in the depth of our souls with thanksgiving to God for saving us because he wasn't obligated to do that, and many people miss the forest for the trees because they think it's all dependent on them.
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It's not dependent on them. We're dead in sin and trespasses, and if he had not made us alive, we would still be dead in trespasses and sin, and it's not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he has saved us, and so again,
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I say to you that when you think about this and you think about how God has given, in that sense, the whole world, he did that with Israel, didn't he?
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He kicked out the Canaanites and the Parasites and the Jebusites and all the ites out of the land of promise, and why did he do that?
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So that his people could enjoy the fruit thereof, and remember when they went into the promised land?
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They didn't even do anything. It was already done for them, and the ones who did the work were kicked out, and then you and I can say that we are part and parcel with Christ, and that is the heritage of knowing
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God, and verse seven, the works of his hands, as I said, are full of truth and justice, and all his precepts are sure.
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Now, just think about that. All his precepts are sure. God's word is sure, and we live in a world of uncertainty.
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We live in a world of things changing. Words change, meanings change, cultures change, customs change, dress changes, cars, everything in this whole world is constantly being churned up, right?
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But the one thing that never changes is God's word, and that ought to be a sauce for us to praise and boast, that I can open this and know that it's absolute truth and that it will never change, and it won't change because of who he is.
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You see, this is God's word because this is a reflection of God's being and his purposes and his plans for us, and what greater reason could we have to give him thanks in that he's the unchangeable and faithful one.
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All his precepts are sure. Verse eight, they stand forever and ever and are done in truth and uprightness.
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You begin to see why the psalmist opens up with praise the Lord and he ends it with his praise and do us forever, because he's contemplating in his mind all these different things, and many more that we're not even mentioning.
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And again, that's why I say if you read through the book of Psalms, you can find your life experience at that very moment in the book of Psalms somewhere, and that you will find that in those life experiences, even when praise seems to be the furthest thing from the situation you're in, if you truly, it says in Isaiah that God will keep them in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on him, and that you and I should always be able to praise
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God. Like I said, in the good times, in the bad times, in the highs and in the lows, and in the in -betweens, because the in -betweens have their own set of circumstances that we have to deal with.
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So they stand fast, they're done in truth and righteousness. Then in verse nine, he goes back to this thought.
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He has sent redemption to his people. He has sent redemption to his people.
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He has commanded his covenant forever. You know, there's still many people today who believe you could be saved today and lost tomorrow, and then you could be saved again and then lost again.
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And I don't know how you live like that. I don't know how you could live with an uncertainty, because what if you die in a day when you think you can't, you lost your salvation?
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I mean, you gotta be some kind of spiritual schizophrenic. I mean, how could you do that?
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How could you be saved and lost? And that's why I say to you, so many people just have a hope so, and a hope so is nothing but a disguise for a hopeless.
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And then that you and I can know for sure that he has sent redemption to his people.
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How? Through the Son, through Christ. And that's what it says if you think about it, that all that the
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Father gives me, what? Shall come to me. He that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out.
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And no man can snatch them out of my Father's hand. If that's not a cause for boasting and bragging,
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I don't know what is. Then it says this, and here's the reason, at the end of verse nine again, what he does, who he is, holy and awesome is his name.
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When was the last time you and I just thank God for being awesome? You're great
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God. You're an awesome God. And again,
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I'm not trying to say that we have to fake it, don't fake it, but when you begin to contemplate what
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God has done, is doing, and will yet do, it's awesome.
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Being a child of God is the most awesome thing in this world, and not only is it awesome because of this world, it's awesome for all eternity.
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That's why I so love Amazing Grace. When we've been there, what, 10 ,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing
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God's praise than when we first begun. Isn't that great? I don't have to worry about it.
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For all eternity, my redemption is sure because my Savior sits on the throne, and he's a holy
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Savior, and he is awesome. And then in verse 10, if you will, it almost is like a summary of all the things he said, and I think it gives it like a point of understanding.
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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and good understanding have all those who do his commandments his praise endures forever.
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Listen, that's what, in many ways, that's what it's about, friends.
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It's about glorifying God and enjoying him forever. As even the Presbyterian brethren have said.
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The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, and in that enjoyment, we ought to be those who praise the
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Lord. So I ask you to think about that in your own life and ask you to gauge, if you will, where are you in your praise of God?
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Is it only offered, is thanksgiving and worship and adoration and bragging and boasting only done by us when things go the way we either think they should or want them to?
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Or is it a consciousness? Is it something we carry? Is it something that carries us?
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So just some things to think about, and again, I wanted to at least give us something to meditate on, so I hope that that will help.
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And I just, if you would, read the Psalms. Pick on it, pick on the experiences that you read in each of the
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Psalms and then see how the psalmist, in whatever situation he is, many times will lift praise to God for who he is and what he does.
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Okay, let's just close the word of prayer. Father, again, thank you for this time together.
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Lord, you are a great God, you are awesome. Lord, you're higher than all.
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You're the one who created us. You're the one who gives us breath. You're the one who gives us so many good things to enjoy.
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Help us to praise you, Lord. Help us to brag on you. Help us to not boast in ourselves or brag on ourselves or in the things of this world, but to boast upon the
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Savior, the one who so loved us that he gave himself for us. Now, keep us safe. Be with us till we meet again, in Jesus' name, amen.