Sunday Morning, November 15, 2020 AM

Sunnyside this morning. We're glad that you're here with us and if you're joining us on live stream we're glad that you could join us that way as well. Announcements to get started for this morning. Come back this evening for our evening service.

We will get to hear from Paul and Kathy Holritz tonight and then afterwards you can join us for some cookies and punch in the in the fellowship hall but we're excited that they're here being able to share with us.

Because of that there's not going to be any Christmas choir tonight but that will pick up again next Sunday evening. Our fighter verse for this week comes from the Psalms. Psalm 79 verse 9, help us O God of our salvation for the glory of thy name and deliver us and purge away our sins for thy name's sake.

It's a reminder tag on Wednesday. There is a meal but again because of social distancing limitations that's only for the families who have kids in tag and then again because of that we won't be having our Thanksgiving dinner at the church this year but we still have plenty of cause to give thanks and celebrate with our our families this year.

Any other announcements that I'm.

Missing? Yes sir. Are you good? I'm going to do a training session here at our location first Saturday of December. Is it the fifth? I can't remember. The first Saturday of December we're going to have a training session here.

If you're interested in being a part of that I believe Jan Brown's already been to one of their training sessions so if you are interested to know what what they'll be talking about and and and how they'll equip you for that you can talk to Ms. Jan about that as well.

So if you're interested in helping with that they do need people to come out who have some extra time on their hands. Not everybody who is out there is going to be like really grounded biblically and all those kinds of things but the point is their heart is in the right place and they want to be intervening.

When people show up with signs encouraging people to choose life they show up with a they show up with a mobile ultrasound vehicle right across the street they show up and they offer to pray they show up and they sing and we're talking about 70 to 80 percent effectiveness about people choosing not and Tuesday's kill day down at the abortion mill so think about if you want to get involved and what time that you have to and there's all sorts of opportunity for gospel witness for evangelizing evangelism and calling people to trust in Christ so if you're interested in that we'll be having a training session first Saturday of December.

Thanks. One thing one more thing.

I forgot to mention you may have seen it on your way in but today's the last day that shoeboxes are being collected for Operation Christmas Child. Can they bring one tonight if they still have one? Okay you can.

If you didn't have it this morning you can bring that tonight and get that to Jill Smoot for those to go out. All right well we're going to prepare our hearts for worship and then after Dwight will lead us in prayer.

Prepare hearts for worship for that is why we've come. That's why you brought us here. Would you help us to worship in spirit and in truth. That your son would be lifted high and exalted that we might remember your works remember the words and the work of your son the Lord Jesus our Savior who gave his life.

That we might have life. That it's a gift and that we can offer up to you our thanksgiving and show our gratefulness. So help us to sing your praises help us to pray help us to love one another to be an encouragement one to another and may we be of one mind and one heart as we worship you this morning.

I thank you and I praise you for your son the Lord Jesus and your grace so richly poured out upon us through your son his name. I pray amen. Would you stand with me for our call to worship? This past week on.

Tuesday the Holy Spirit convicted me of being angry at work and I had to confess my sin to the Lord. And he is. But he is faithful if we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And so our passage this morning here is found in Psalms chapter 51. And if you can probably quote this those words are on the screen for us. Read with me together. Psalms 51 verses 10 to 13. Create in me a clean heart.

Oh God. And renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. And uphold me with the willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways.

And sinners will return to you. Our first song this morning is create in me a clean heart. It's a little bit different tune than what I've learned. I've learned the Keith Green version but this there's a second part of it has a little bit similarity but if you don't know the the melody just listen and you'll catch on and we'll try to worship together.

Worship the Lord together. Create in me a clean heart. Page 262. Holy holy verses. I would encourage you to open to the book of.

Deuteronomy in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy chapter 26 be reading verses 1 through 19. Deuteronomy chapter 26 verses 1 through 19 I'll be reading from the English Standard Version. When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it you shall take some of the first fruit of the first of all the fruit of the ground which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you and you shall put it in a basket.

And you shall go to the place that the Lord your God will choose to make his name to dwell there. And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.

Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God and you shall make response before the Lord your God. A wandering Aramean was my father and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there few in number and there he became a great nation.

He became a nation great mighty and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. Then we cried to the Lord the God of our fathers and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction our toil and our oppression.

And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm with great deeds of terror with signs and wonders and he brought us into this place and gave us this land a land flowing with milk and honey.

And behold now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground which you O Lord have given me. And you shall set it down before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God. And you shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house you and the Levite and the sojourner who is among you when you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year which is the year of tithing giving it to the Levite the sojourner the fatherless and the widow so that they may eat within your towns and be filled.

Then you shall say before the Lord your God I have removed the sacred portion out of my house and moreover I have given it to the Levite the sojourner the fatherless and the widow according to all your commandment that you have commanded me.

I have not transgressed any of your commandments nor have I forgotten them. I have not eaten of the tithe while I was in mourning or removed any of it while I was unclean or offered any of it to the dead.

I have obeyed the voice of the Lord my God. I have done according to all that you have commanded me. Look down from your holy habitation from heaven and bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us as you swore to our fathers a land flowing with milk and honey.

This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared today that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in his ways and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules and will obey his voice.

And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession as he has promised you and that you are to keep all his commandments and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God as he promised.

Amen. May the Lord bless the reading of his word this morning. Would you bow with me and pray. Lord we thank you for your word and Lord as we look back down the down the corridor of time and we recall these words that were written millennia ago but words that have a particular meaning for us as your redeemed people in Christ.

Lord wherever you have planted us is a place that is holy to you. And you have called us to be a people set apart for your praise. And how grateful we are that in Christ we are indeed your treasured possession.

And Lord as we in this season of the year as the National Day of Thanksgiving approaches we are reminded Lord that every good and perfect gift comes to us from your hand that whatever we have that is good is not because we are good but because you are good and in your goodness you have granted these blessings to us for your glory that we might give you thanks and give you praise.

So Lord we we pray today that you would help us to never take the blessings that we enjoy for granted. But may we be quick to say it is because of the Lord's goodness because of his mercy because of his steadfast love and faithfulness that we enjoy all the blessings that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And so we give you glory and honor and praise and blessing this morning in Jesus name. Amen. And you may be seated.

Thank you Kat. It's tremendous. Hallelujah. What a savior. Well if you would we'll continue our song service. We'll turn. Well there was a handout in the back. Hope you were able to pick that up as you walked in.

We'll sing on Jordan's stormy banks I stand. In the Old Testament Israelites stood on the banks of the Jordan River ready to cross over into Canaan the promised land. But us as Christians Christ has promised that he has gone before us to prepare a mansion and prepare a place for us in heaven.

And we will go and serve him forever and eternity. And each one of us is appointed unto man wants to die and after this judgment. But because the Lord Jesus Christ we have hope and victory and eternal life with him.

So sing with me together on Jordan's stormy banks I stand 85 near the cross. A good God full of truth and light and holiness. To a.

Righteous and just compassionate full of loving-kindness you're a God of mercy. You are not like a man who would lie or change or shift in your ways. God. You are unchanging in your glory steady in your goodness unmoving in your purpose and you are in no way in orbit around us we are utterly dependent upon you and you.

We live and move and have our being just by your grace by your generosity that we keep breathing keep singing keep rejoicing in you. So we give you the praise today. And we ask that as we consider your glories your praises recorded forever here in Psalm 114 that we would join in not only with our mouths but also from our hearts we would agree we would be in full accord with this praise.

That in this light you would guide us as we look at your son Jesus Christ and his worthiness his praise worthiness. That you would guide us that you would comfort us. That you would equip us for every good work for your glory.

We pray all these things looking for these graces only in the name of your son Jesus Christ the one with whom you are well-pleased. I invite you to open your Bibles to Psalm 114. Be reading the psalm for us again.

This morning title of the sermon is praise the Lord for his saving presence. Psalms 111 through 118 give us a multitude of reasons to praise the Lord. We should never be at a loss of reason to praise the Lord.

We're given so many reasons and in the scriptures and many of them are given right here in this small section of the Psalms. And as we consider the the poetic beauty of Psalm 114 and the historical events to which these words refer we are reminded of the saving presence of the Lord.

And we are to give him praise for that we are to praise the Lord for him being involved for him directly intervening for not being far away and distant and just letting everything go and seeing how things play out.

But no he's directly involved in the the ups and downs and the to's and fro's of our world. And as we've been looking at these Psalms we were being told again and again to fear the Lord. To fear the Lord and to fear the Lord simply means that we think of everything and by everything we mean everything.

That we think of everything in relationship to the providence of God and the salvation of God the creation of God and the sovereignty of God that everything pertains to him. And fearing the Lord means living in conscious light of that.

That that is the determining factor in every equation that we solve. That is the true center of gravity that constrains our thoughts and our behaviors. The fear of the Lord. God fearing folk are hallelujah folk.

God fearing folk are not somber dire drag-your-face-in-the-gravel folk. Because those who fear the Lord they have the fountain of knowledge the fountain of wisdom. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.

The beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord. To know Christ. Well we have to fear the Lord. If we're going to know Christ the fear of the Lord makes everything make sense in this world. We know why things are happening the way they're happening when we fear the Lord.

Beginning of wisdom beginning of knowledge. And when we fear the Lord we think of all the things he has done and all the ways in which he shows his goodness his power his character his nature. And so God fearing folk are hallelujah folk.

God fearing folk are never without a reason to praise the Lord. And I think we see that in abundant evidence in these Psalms. So I'm going to read Psalm 114 for us. And if you would please stand with me as I read this text you're hearing the words of our Savior Jesus Christ through his Holy Spirit words born along in his prophet holy words.

This is the word of the Lord. When Israel went forth from Egypt the house of Jacob from a people of strange language Judah became his sanctuary Israel his dominion. The sea looked and fled. The Jordan turned back.

The mountains skipped like rams. The hills like lambs. What ails you. Oh see that you flee. Oh Jordan that you turn back. Oh mountains that you skip like rams. Oh hills like lambs tremble. Oh earth before the Lord before the God of Jacob who turned the rock into a pool of water the flint into a fountain of water.

This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God. You may be seated as you come back to Psalm 114. And if you've read ahead and looked at the other Psalms you'll notice that this is the one in the midst of the other ones that we do not have the word praise.

It's part of the great halal. It's part of the great hymn. It certainly is telling us to praise the Lord. But we don't actually have the word in the text. So we're going to consider a little more today about how is it that the those who are praising the Lord the Jews as they sing the psalm together in what way are they praising the Lord.

Last week we talked about the ancient Syriac title. The ancient Arabic title actually has hallelujah across the top of this psalm. I mean it's not there but it's there people really are praising the Lord even if the word isn't located there.

And I think it's helpful to understand why Psalm 114 shows up in the order that it does in this array of Psalms. You know they organized hymn books long before we had hymn books. You know you look in the hymn book and you have the hymns kind of associated with each other similar themes and so on in the hymn book.

Well where do we get that idea from. From the Psalter. From the Psalms. And what Psalm 114 is doing is in agreement with Psalm 113 and Psalm 115 and so on. In Psalm 113 the worshipers of God are unapologetic to anybody else.

You may worship any other kind of God out there they just praise the name of the Lord and they make clear that he's the only God out there who is like you. Oh God. They call out. They're boasting in the Lord with no apologies to anybody else who worships idols and false gods.

They just champion the Lord and boast in him. And Psalm 114 brings the historical backdrop to that kind of boast. After all look how he defeated the gods of the Egyptians. Look how he defeated the gods of the Canaanites and so on.

And look how the enemies packed up and ran before the presence of the Lord. And you can hear the taunting in Psalm 114 as the worshipers of God rejoice in the retreat of the enemy. And that is an agreement with Psalm 115.

Because by the time we get to Psalm 115 it's just out and out mockery of the idols. And so remembering that we recognize that what's going on in Psalm 114 is the praise of the Lord through the taunting of his defeated enemies.

The praise of the Lord through the taunting of his defeated enemies. Why are they defeated. Because God shows up. Why do they run. Because God shows up. We're praising his saving presence. We are to biblically identify and magnify the saving presence of God seen in his providential acts.

We began last week with verses 1 2 praising the Lord for he makes us a people. He shows up personally to make for himself a people to deliver them from captivity to to retain their holy special culture to bring about the the formation of the covenant that he had arranged with him.

He shows up and he makes for himself a people. We praise the Lord for that. And now verses 3 through 6 we are to praise the Lord because he shows up. And when he shows up what does he do. He shakes our world.

He shakes our world. Look at verses 3 through 6. And really just listen to verses 3 4. For a moment the sea looked and fled the Jordan turned back. The mountains skipped like rams the hills like lambs.

And when the worshipers of the Lord ask the sea and the river the mountains and the hills while they're acting that way the answer is given there in verse 7. Tremble o earth before the Lord before the God of Jacob he showed up.

Therefore he shakes the world. Now the terrain that we're talking about the Red Sea and the Jordan River and the mountains in the hills this this is the terrain of Israel's exodus out of Egypt and conquest of Canaan.

That's what the Red Sea and the Jordan River in the mountains in the hills refer to. This is the terrain of the exodus and the conquest. And the terrain you notice is personified and animated in these taunts.

And they are done so to magnify the Lord and also to stir his people up to praise him for his powerful saving presence in their deliverance story. Think of the Red Sea and the Jordan River. These mark the beginning in the end of Israel's wilderness journey.

It began with the parting of the Red Sea and it ended with a parting of the Jordan River. Beginning and ending. Those were borders but they were actually barriers. Israel would not have never have made it to the Red Sea or through the Jordan River had not God shown up shook the world part of the waters and allowed his people to go through.

And the mountains and the hills of course trace the lay of the promised land. The mountains on which the enemy might be fortified indeed the hills which would include the tells or the mounds upon which the cities were built upon.

This is just tracing the lay of the land of Canaan. This is this is all about how God brought his people into his place brought them into the land the land that he had promised Abraham's seed. We have to ask a question why.

Why does the Holy Spirit through his holy author. Why does the Holy Spirit craft a cartoon. This is a cartoon look at it. Sea and mountains are looking about getting scared and running for their lives.

That's a cartoon. Rivers and hills are picking up their skirts and fleeing and terror. So God's man born along by God's Holy Spirit is conveying humorous metaphors. But they have theological underpinnings the ones that Christ so desired to communicate.

So we are to praise him. We are to praise God. But when he shows up he he shakes our world. And there's two hopeful confidences in this text I want to talk about. The first one is this that our enemies flee.

When God shows up he shakes the world. What does that mean. It means our enemies flee. And that's what this these personifications are referring to. Remember that the story being told here when the Israelites leave Egypt and then go through the wilderness and then go through the Jordan River and you have all these mountains and hills running away now.

This is a story about military maneuvers. This is a story about warfare. All manner of battles were fought in the traversing of the of this geography. This is about warfare. But it was not simply physical warfare material warfare.

It was always had a spiritual context. God is the one who waged war upon Egypt and defeated that nation and their chariots and their Pharaoh and their gods. And when was that victory made resoundingly complete at the Red Sea.

When God showed up parted the sea for his people to go through and then closed it on top of their enemies. And God waged war on the tribes of Canaan through his people's obedience. Yeah they never really did anything in particular that gave themselves victory other than just obeying the Lord's instructions.

And when they obeyed his instructions he won the battles for them time and time again. Hailstones and hornets God just took out the Canaanites drove him out of the land giving his people the victory. And so the Red Sea is said to look and to flee.

Well who looks and then flees. It's an army. The Red Sea is personified as an army which assessing the overwhelming strength of the opposing force loses courage and then flees the battlefield. Also the Jordan River is said to be surrounded or driven back turned back.

That's that's a military language. It's the same language used about what happened at Jericho that the Jordan River is driven back as if they were in as if the Jordan River was fighting with the people of God and then lost the battle.

Psalm 77 16 says. The waters saw you Oh God. And that's strange. The waters saw you. They were in anguish. The deeps also trembled. That's poetic language. It's a it's it's a metaphor the the waters are personified as the enemies of God.

But when you consider the history of Israel that makes a lot of sense. They associated their enemies with bodies of water in the Nile and the Red Sea reminded them of the Egyptians. The Mediterranean or the Great Sea to the West is what vomited the Philistines upon the coastland.

For the Philistines were a Phoenician seafaring tribe a serious capital. Nineveh was on the banks of the Tigris Babylon on the banks of the Euphrates. The Gentile nations the Gentile empires Babylon Medo-Persia Greece Rome are beasts which come out of the sea.

And Daniel chapter 7. And the Gentile nations the Canaanite tribes trusted in their false gods. And very often they expressed their trust associated with bodies of water. And where did they worship their false gods.

By the way on the mountains and on the hills. They would establish their shrine. They would put their gods and there they would offer up sacrifices to their false gods on the mountains and upon the hills.

And so you see the military conflict between Israel and the Gentiles was ever cast in spiritual terms. The trust that the Gentiles had in their gods in their deified waters and the people of God trusting in the Lord to conquer them.

It was always about which gods or really which God would prevail. And you may remember in 1st Samuel 17 the trash talk between David and Goliath prior to slung stone and glorious beheading. It was not really trash talk.

It was God talk. Which God was the true God. Was it Dagon of the Philistines or was it Yahweh of Israel who is the real God. Who would who would show victory and prove their mettle. But it was really about who was the real God.

So mountains and hills of course are like the rivers. They could define a battleground. But it wasn't really just about military maneuvers. These were worship centers. Now look at the Rams trotting up the side of the mountains.

Have you ever seen that a video of the Rams just hopping skipping up the side of a rock face mountain seemingly unfrightened in the least. And then lambs frolicking and jumping about on on green hills and notice what the poet does.

The mountains themselves are skipping like Rams to get away. The hills themselves are like little lambs making way and scattering before some kind of wild beast. Look at him run. The taunt you see is hollered at the backsides of the retreating idolaters.

What ails you. Why you're running. Where are you going. That's what the Israelites are doing in this song. They are. They are rejoicing in the victory of God and the power of God. And they're yelling taunts at the backsides of the idolaters.

You know what Moses and Miriam did. And they got across the Red Sea in the wake of victory. They praised the Lord and they mocked the false gods. So God showed up. Think about that one example. Just the Red Sea.

God had delivered them out of Egypt brought them across the Sinai wilderness. They were hemmed in by cliffs on either side. Pharaoh again rebelled against God. He had his army out chasing them. God brings his people up to the banks of the Red Sea.

They're trapped. They can't go to their right. They can't go to the left. They can't go forward. They can't go back. What happens. God shows up but a and a enclosing cloud a black cloud covers and and gives light to his people and darkness to the Egyptians and keeps them separate all night long.

He parts the Red Sea his people cross safely on dry ground. And then when it's time and his people have been safely brought to the other side he lets the Egyptians through. And when they're right in the middle of the Red Sea he takes the wheels off their chariots their charge grounds to a halt.

And then the waters come closing over. God showed up. He saved his people. He shook the world. He brought down the biggest Empire in in that ancient world Egypt goes down the world's superpower of the day.

Egypt goes down the Red Sea just parts and his people are saved. Well God has shown up in even bigger ways than that. In particular God the Son took upon human flesh shook the world. Born of a virgin born under the law.

God showed up shook the world and turned back our enemies forgiving sin bearing the curse owning death stomping Satan. Think about how this work. The stars arranged themselves for his birth. Or he arranged the stars for his son's birth.

The heavens parted at Christ's baptism. The sea stood still at his word. Earthquakes rocked the countryside at his death cracking open the tombs. And when Christ was raised the dead came forth and saluted the victorious King.

And did he not say to that mountain be cast into the sea. And it was so when he came personally in judgment in 80 70. What happens when he shows up by his saving presence. He shakes our world. He defeats our enemies.

And he causes the old to pass away bringing in new things. And so we say praise the Lord. We say hallelujah. Has he shaken your world. Has he shaken your world. He broken you loose from the chains of sin.

As he uprooted your bitterness. See flipped your relationships as he made a mess of all your self-centered plans. I mean don't don't seek to save your life in the presence of this saving Lord. Die to self.

Take up your cross. Follow him. Be shook be blessed in the wake of his victory. You know when people started following Christ the complaint was what those who have turned the world upside down have come here to.

Why did the world get turned upside down in the first century. Because God showed up. And why should we live in fear of Christ's enemies. Why. Why not top them instead. Why not mock the gods of the going ridicule.

The so-called wisdom of the self-contradicting sages. Praise the Lord by putting down the lofty speculations raised up against the knowledge of God. Bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and include holy taunting as part of the walk of faith.

You should not be impressed at all with the enemies of Christ at all. Well God shows up and he saves. He turns back her enemies and the old passes away. That's the second theme here. Think about the parting of the Red Sea.

It was a transition out of the old into the new. From slavery in Egypt to serving the Lord in the shadow of Sinai. The parting of the Jordan River was a passing away of the old and bringing in of the new.

They moved from wilderness swandering to the possession of the promised land. They they moved from manna to milk and honey. They moved from Moses to Joshua. I think also in the defeat of these Canaanite cities and fortresses the the mountains in the hills.

That was a transition out of the old into the new as well from up from from the conflict to to fill the land and subdue it into the peace of a victorious rest. A move from David to the son of David. A move from the mobile tabernacle to the permanent temple.

Passing away of old to bring in the new. That's what God does when he shakes our world. Sea and river in our text. Mountain and hill all shaken. Removing the old to make way for the new. God does this by showing up and his saving presence shakes our world.

The old passes away. Old new things have come. Let every valley be lifted up. The prophets say let every valley be lifted up and every mountain be laid low. Let the rough ground be made a plain and the rugged terrain a broad valley.

Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh will see it together. All the land will be changed into a plain. But Jerusalem will rise. We have not come to a mountain that can be touched. We have not come to things that can be shaken.

We have come to a mountain called Mount Zion a kingdom which cannot be shaken. So let us show gratitude. Let us praise the Lord. A kingdom which cannot be shaken. The old is shaken and swept away. But the new comes in with the saving presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and will never be shaken in him though he turns the world upside down though he undoes the pride of men he saves sinners and renews us in the image of his God.

And not even death can shake us. For the presence of Christ is with us. Think about this crossing of the Jordan River. This is a passing away of the old for the new. How can we forget that there's a transition coming one of death into life absent from the body present with the Lord.

And though our flesh be shaken our souls are anchored in Christ within the veil. This is what the preacher in Hebrews was saying. There remains a Sabbath rest for those who are in Christ. There remains a Sabbath rest for those who are in Christ.

The true Yeshua who succeeds Moses who fulfills the law and unfailingly brings the people of God into everlasting fellowship with God. Can you have confidence that though the world be shaken around you.

Indeed if your heart and flesh may fail. Do you have confidence that Jesus Christ will remain the strength of your heart and your portion forever. Is it indeed the case that when you pass through the Jordan when you cross to the other side that Christ will be with you.

Let's read about it. Shall we. Let's go back to Joshua chapter 3. The writer to the Hebrews knew what he was doing talking about the Yeshua. The Joshua who replaces Moses takes over for Moses. And what does he do.

He brings people into God's rest. They cross over the Jordan. Rather they cross through the Jordan as a Sabbath rest was remaining for us all who are in Christ. Let's watch what happens in this text. Joshua 3 verse 7.

And the Lord said to Joshua this day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel that they may know that just as I have been with Moses I will be with you. You shall moreover command the priests who are carrying the Ark of the Covenant saying when you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan you shall stand still in the Jordan.