The Psalms and Your Worship: Introduction

The Old Testament I'm reading this morning is in the book of Isaiah, chapter 6,

verses 1 -7, which in your pew

bibles, I believe is page 571 if you'd like to read along.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and

the train of his robe filled the temple.

Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings.

With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet.

And with two he flew, and one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of

hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with

smoke.

And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean

lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips.

Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.

New Testament reading is found in Romans, chapter 12, verses 1 -2.

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,

holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by

testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

You may be seated.

Thank you for your singing.

Good morning to you.

If you want to open up to Psalm 1, we're going to be kind of all over the place, I think.

But why not make our home base Psalm 1?

I figured it was high time to find a book to settle in.

When I do come up here, I think we have scheduled about once a month.

Normally, I figured it was time to settle in a book.

Spurgeon would just pick a topic at random each Saturday night and write a sermon.

I'm not Spurgeon.

I can't do that.

It's so much easier to have a book to be in because it kind of forces you where you're going to be at.

And so the book that I'll be going through, we're not going to go through every Psalm, but we're going to go through it.

It'll take quite a long time, will be the Psalms.

I absolutely love the Psalms.

It's my favorite book.

Every pastor has a shtick.

It's a pastoral shtick.

It's like a special talent or an area of interest that a pastor has that

you'll hear him repeat himself quite often.

Every pastor has one.

And hopefully it's some sort of emphasis that magnifies the gospel in some way.

But in its own unique pastor way.

Everyone has their own different way.

Every pastor has a shtick.

It's a fun word to say to a shtick if you've never said it before.

If I was one of those people, I would have you say shtick to your neighbor, but I'm not one of those pastors who do that.

But in your own private time, say the word shtick a few times.

It's fun.

Every pastor has a shtick.

I've got to be careful.

I know what I thought my shtick would be, growing in my

Christianity, at the very beginning at least, was doctrine, was getting to know

deeply doctrine, theology.

I remember I started going to a church that was really big and very much to do with emotions, not very critical

thinking or anything like that.

It was just very emotional driven.

And I remember getting in my hands for the first time Francis Schaeffer, which I've probably said before already behind the pulpit, that was

really, it changed my Christian life at that moment to realize that Christianity actually goes

very deep.

Francis Schaeffer is a Christian philosopher.

And Christianity actually goes very theologically deep.

And I just remember thinking, this is awesome.

It's not just a big emotional drivel, although there's emotion involved, but it actually goes theologically,

doctrinally, critically thinking deep.

And I remember it being just glorious in my eyes.

And I remember just wanting to grow more and more in doctrine.

And I thought that maybe what church should be is just a bunch of desk chairs and a bunch of students.

And you guys listen with notepads and writing notes as if it's school.

I remember I think would be going too far that direction.

My shtick would be to just go deep into doctrine, almost over the heads of most people as we just unveil God's

deeper truths.

But then I remember growing in my doctrine, reading verses like 1 Corinthians 8, 1.

Paul says,

I remember reading texts like 1 Corinthians 13, 1 and 2.

We're all familiar with it.

I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I

have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing.

I remember coming to the realization that although I was growing in my understanding of doctrine and theology and

all that fun stuff, my, what I would say now, worship was lacking.

I realized I had no prayer life.

I literally had no prayer life.

My head could be full of the latest book that I was reading, the latest Schaeffer book I was reading, the latest MacArthur

book, whatever I was reading, but my worship was null and void.

I had no prayer life, and to be honest with you, singing at church was more of a chore.

It was more of a nuisance than anything else.

Just get me to the doctrine proclaimed.

I remember God convicted me enough to where that became an issue.

I remember going to my pastor and saying, I have no prayer life.

That seems like a problem.

I don't ever actually spend time in prayer.

I remember realizing that that has to be an issue.

The greatest thing that that pastor, I was at a healthier church at that point, ever did for me was he pointed me to the book of

Psalms.

He pointed me to a book that was all about praying through the book of Psalms.

We'll talk about that more, I think, probably in coming weeks.

Maybe we'll talk about that a little bit in afternoon service.

I remember being taught to pray through the book of Psalms.

I remember that completely changed my Christian life.

The book of Psalms I'd read through before, but it was more of an intellectual exercise.

There's a lot of good doctrine in there.

It was good.

But when I started praying through the Psalms, it all of a sudden transformed my whole worship to my God.

It transformed everything about my Christianity.

It made intellect meet and kiss the heart, in which it created a great worshipful

attitude that went forth from my heart, something that was deeply missing in my Christian life.

And so it's with that that I can say today, after it's been, I don't know, eight years since that,

I can say that the book of Psalms is my favorite book of the Bible.

I can say that if I was on a deserted island and I could only have one book of the Bible, it would be the book of Psalms.

It would certainly be that.

I spend the most time there because it has completely opened the door to my worship to God.

Without it, my worship would be lacking, would be very fickle.

I'm truly thankful to the book of Psalms and what it has done in my Christian life.

And so what I find myself saying very often, and I would say is my pastoral shtick,

and you'll hear me say it, you've probably already heard me say it, is don't let your worship be boring.

Do not be a boring Christian.

Do not be bored in your Christian walk.

If you are, that is dishonoring to God.

Get out of it today.

I know there's people here who came in here with a boring Christianity.

It is so easy.

It's the easiest thing.

In fact, I would argue that as a Christian, the hardest thing for you to do is to have a life full of worship.

Christ has enabled it through his work on the cross.

It's available for us.

It's there through his power and his spirit.

I would argue that the hardest thing for a Christian to do is to do all things in worship to God.

It's so easy we can slip into a non -worshipful Christianity and a lot of times not even

realize it.

A boring Christianity, I call it a boring worship.

That is my pastoral shtick.

I care for the flock that's before me.

Pastors pray for the flock.

We think of you individually as we get to know you more and more.

And the greatest concern that we can have for you is are they worshiping God with life,

genuineness?

Is it happening in their individual life, in their families?

And then as the overflow, I'm getting ahead of myself, coming into the church as we gather on the Lord's Day, and is it

a celebratory act?

Or are we rather running on dry and we come here desperate?

Hopefully something will happen.

Beloved, we are meant to live a life full of worship.

A life beautiful, wondrous, not boring, exciting.

And my pastoral shtick is to see that in people's life, to not let their Christianity

be one -dimensional, but let it be fully flowing with gospel,

worshipful light.

It's all about worship.

The reason for everything is worship.

God created to be adored, to be marveled at.

He is so awesome, so great that he created so everyone would marvel at him.

So everyone would say, look at him, adore him.

God created for the purpose to be worshiped.

That is the purpose for all of creation.

Look at Psalm 19 in

your Bibles, or listen to me say it.

Psalm 19, 1 -4, creation itself is all meant for worship.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims

God's handiwork.

Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

Have you ever heard the stars speak?

Have you ever heard creation speak?

Right here in Psalm 19, it says day to day pours out speech, night reveals knowledge.

In fact, it even says in Psalm 19, verse 3, there is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

In them he has set a tent for the sun.

Creation itself doesn't speak literally as we speak, but there's a certain sense in which the way God has made

creation act and function and work, it is as if it's a worshipful singing out to God

himself.

As I say, one of my favorite times of the year is in the springtime, we hear all those birds going off, right?

You hear them, and they're busy at work getting their nests together and everything.

God has created them for that act, to do all those things.

And it's as if, if you close your eyes, you can hear them all worshiping God, doing what they were created to do in obedience to their maker.

They were made to worship God, in obedience to their God.

And in so doing, it is their worship.

And we can see the stars as they shine in the heavens.

They're doing what they were made to do to glorify God, to say our God is mighty and big and powerful,.

Worthy of worship.

It's as if they're speaking this stuff out.

I love Job 38, 4 -7.

If you just want to listen, that's fine.

If you don't feel like switching everywhere, this is more of a topical introducing psalm.

But Job 38, 4 -7, I love how angels and creation are portrayed as worshiping together at the very beginning.

When it says, you remember, God finally is speaking now in Job.

Job and his friends have been speaking a lot.

And God says, it's my turn.

And what he says is magnificent.

He first goes on Job and he cuts him to size.

And he goes to his friends and says, now you guys.

Cuts them to size, right?

And he just magnifies himself.

And he says, as he's speaking to Job, he says, where were you in Job 38, verse 4?

Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundation of the earth, when I was creating?

Tell me, if you have understanding, who determined the measurements?

Surely, Job, you know.

I'm even talking like you would know.

Or who stretched out the line upon it?

On what were its bases sunk?

Or who laid its cornerstone?

And here's the verse I want to notice.

It's when the morning stars sang together.

I think what he's saying there is whenever I first created the stars, and the first thing they did was shine brightly.

It's as if they were just singing out praises to God.

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God, that is the angelic beings,

shouted for joy.

Right?

This isn't like a boring.

They were like, oh, God, that's a cool star.

No, this is like they shouted for joy.

Wow, look at this.

Look what God has done in creation.

Right?

It's worship.

Worship, and they can't help it.

Right?

God created that so that the stars would sing together for glory to God, and the angels would shout

for joy at his creative power.

And God places man in this creation he has made after that.

Right?

Gives him, Adam, a law to obey to show his worship.

A lot of times we think of God's law as being almost like a bad thing or something.

God's law is a beautiful gift from God to show us how to worship.

How do we worship this God?

Adam was given a law to show how am I to worship in light of this awesome thing that he has done for me.

Right?

It directs his worship.

But instead, what does he do?

He disobeys.

That's the opposite of worship.

It's disobedience.

Why do we hate disobedience here?

Not to be moralistic.

To hit people over the head with a moral stick.

It's because it's not good for you to be disobedient.

That's not worshipful.

You were made to worship God.

And disobedience is the very opposite of worshiping God.

So let that be the reason why you fight disobedience in your life.

Because this is not what God has for me.

The good things God has for me.

Disobedience destroys worship.

And that should pain our heart that Christ has set up worship for us.

And we would respond in disobedience.

How can we do such a thing?

Paul says in Romans 6.

But our hope is not in the first Adam and his failures.

What is our hope in?

The second Adam.

It's in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

He came and was obedient, wasn't he?

He worshiped God perfectly.

We see that written through the Gospels.

How good he was at worship.

Right?

Prayer all night.

I think that's what convicted me.

I remember seeing Jesus was praying out all night.

You know?

And I was out, staying up with friends, playing video games all night.

What is this?

There's something wrong here.

I need help here, Pastor.

And the point that really what I'm getting at is Jesus came and he is our hope.

He's the one who has opened the door for worship again through forgiveness of sins.

He's taken on our disobedience and he has given us his obedience.

If we simply look upon him for salvation, he opens the door to worship once again.

It was cut off by the sin of Adam and is raised again by the obedience of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

We can worship once more because of what's happened 2 ,000 years ago

in the man Jesus Christ.

That's our hope.

That's what we proclaim here, don't we?

What does Paul say in Romans 12, verse 1?

He talks about the gospel of Jesus Christ through Romans 1 through 11.

What does he say in chapter 12, verse 1?

Therefore.

Therefore what?

In light of all the gospel truths that I just laid out to you in Jesus Christ, our Lord, how he has died, raised again,

he's our salvation.

Therefore, in light of that, I appeal to you, I'm telling you, I'm exhorting you, brothers, by the

mercies of God, by the grace found in the Lord Jesus Christ, to present your bodies as a

living sacrifice.

A living sacrifice.

See, at that time, to consider sacrificing, it was always a dead sacrifice.

If you read about what happened to those animals when they were sacrificed to God, they didn't survive that.

They were dead, right?

They were burnt, whole burnt offerings.

They were cut.

Throats were cut.

Everything.

It was a dead sacrifice given to our God.

That was the way Israel worshiped in the Old Covenant.

But Jesus came and he is our dead and now living sacrifice.

And so when we sacrifice to God, it's no longer dead sacrifices we give to him, but we give him what?

Living sacrifice.

It's not dead.

It's living now.

But what's the nature of this living sacrifice?

We are the sacrifice.

We don't kill ourselves.

We live.

And within our body, you are called to now worship God in your body.

It's a living sacrifice.

He says it's to be, he says going on in verse 1 of chapter 12 of Romans, holy and

acceptable.

In light of the gospel, you are to live a life of living sacrifice.

That is what you must do, Christian.

In light of the power of the cross, you are now to live your life as a living sacrifice.

There is no sliver of your life where, no, this is mine.

I kind of do my own thing.

No, everything is God's.

He is to be glorified in it all.

There's not one area of your life where you say, well, no, this is just for me.

God will not have that.

He's too awesome for that.

He's created you to worship.

In light of his beautiful creation, in light of his recreation in Jesus Christ, you are now to live your life as a

living sacrifice.

That is the whole purpose of your life.

I can guarantee you, the issues you face today, every one of you has issues.

I have issues.

I have problems.

And I can guarantee you, fundamentally, if you're not dealing with it appropriately, it gets

back to the fact that you are not utilizing that specific instance for the glory and worship of God.

Every aspect of your life is to glorify him.

You are to say, this is what I'll use to be a living sacrifice to glorify my God.

You are to take every single thing as an opportunity for that.

You see what I mean by you shouldn't be a boring Christian?

You shouldn't be bored in your Christian life?

Everything that God has given you, you say, goody, this is what I can use now to worship God with.

And I can guarantee you, whenever you're falling into some sort of sin, and it's causing you distress, and it's causing you weakness,

it's causing you to say, where is God?

Where is he in all this?

It's because you are not utilizing that area to glorify him as a living sacrifice.

It goes down to that every single time.

You're a mother and your kids drive you nuts?

You're a father and your kids drive you nuts.

That is your opportunity to overflow of worship to your kids to show them the gospel.

You know, I know why kids are leaving the faith.

It's not okay that our children are leaving the religion.

It's not okay.

It's because our worship is to overflow to our children, and they are to say, wow, look at mom and dad's worship.

I want that.

So when our kids are disobedient, we don't lash out in anger.

What do we do?

What an opportunity to utilize this to show the glory and the worship of God.

Oh, this is not appropriate.

I'm going off track with that.

Nevertheless, I can tell you that worship, the whole purpose of everything is for worship.

Every single minute detail of your life is for the worship of God.

When you don't utilize it that way, life gets deathly mundane, doesn't it?

Life gets so mundane, so boring.

What is this all about?

But whenever you transfix it with the gaze of Jesus Christ, worship towards him, all of a sudden,

every single moment, every single word you say, every single thought that you think becomes gloriously worthy,

or you want to make it gloriously worthy of your God and King.

Every word you say has meaning.

It has an objective.

Everything you say to your children, your coworker, your boss, everything you say to your wife, everything is to build up as to worship

God as a living sacrifice to him.

It gains so much meaning.

The whole purpose to everything is for worship to our creator, God.

Now, here's the issue.

Here's the problem.

And I've already said it, and I'll say it again.

It is terribly difficult to worship God.

Isn't that sad?

Your greatest purpose in life is to worship him, and the hardest thing you'll ever do is worship God.

It is.

And if it's not hard for you, that means you're doing it wrong.

I can guarantee you that.

If it's not a struggle each day to worship God as he deserves, I guarantee you you're not considering worship in the full

totality of what it is.

It is terribly difficult.

The hardest thing you'll do is worship God consistently in the way that he deserves.

Terribly difficult.

And the fact is, is we can deceive ourselves to say that I'm worshiping God with my life, and actually we're not.

I want to show you that really quickly because it's really important to understand that.

Because in our weakness, as we realize we're so weak, we then go to Jesus.

But if we're not realizing we're weak, I'm pretty good.

We won't go to Jesus.

And so it's so important.

Look at Amos 5 if you want to, or listen to me.

Amos 5, 21 through 23.

This stuff should kind of jolt us into action.

You know, this is, God's covenant people are this time in the old covenant is Israel.

And in Amos 5, 21 through 23, if you ever notice the prophets don't have much kind things to say about the Israelites.

They were messing up pretty bad.

Right?

And it's an example to us as Christians.

Don't do that.

And you're going to want to.

Don't do it.

Amos 5, it's very, oh, it's fearful.

Amos 5, 21 through 23.

I hate, God says through the prophet Amos.

I hate.

I despise your feast.

And I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

The words he's using there is like legitimate religious practice.

Solemn.

Assemblies.

They were to do these things.

Right?

The feasts are the feasts that God has appointed for them to do.

They are to do it.

And they were doing it.

And God says, I hate it.

I absolutely hate what you're doing.

He says in verse 22,

Could God be saying that about our songs?

What a frightful thought.

That we would come in here saying that we have living worship, saying that we're doing the things we should, but God is actually saying, take away from

me the sound of your lips.

I hate it.

And it's a fearful thing to think that we could perhaps be acting like we're worshiping, as the Israelites were doing, and really God is

objectively saying, I hate it. I don't like it.

He says,.

To the melody of your harps, I'm not going to listen.

Psalm 50.

In Psalm 50, verse 7 through 13.

In Psalm 50.

It is such an interesting psalm because we get the same problem going on as we just read

about in Amos, but we get the beautiful solution.

In Amos 50, verse 7 through 13.

Here.

I'm sorry.

Did I say Amos 50?

I can't remember what I said now.

Psalm 50, 7 through 13.

Psalm 50, verse 7.

Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you.

Your burnt offerings, they're continually before me, as they should be.

I will not accept, though, a bull from your house or goats from your folds.

For every beast of the forest is mine.

The cattle on a thousand hills, they're mine.

I know all the birds of the hills and all that moves in the fields.

It's mine.

If I were hungry, if I needed those things, I wouldn't even tell you.

I wouldn't waste my time.

For the world and its fullness are mine.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?

The problem is, is that Israel was giving them sacrifices, but they were doing it with a very wrong motivation.

They were doing it as if God needed the sacrifices, right?

That's what the pagans did.

You know, our God, in order for him to be happy with us, we need to give him what he wants and needs, that is animal sacrifices.

The Israelites fell into that kind of worship, so they were doing everything right on the outside.

But on the inside, they were doing it as if he needed it.

And God says, I hate that.

I don't need those things.

Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you.

Why would I tell you.

What I needed?

It's all mine.

All of it is mine.

Why would I need anything from your hand as if it wasn't?

So what was the problem?

Before we get to there, is it possible for us to come here.

And worship God.

As if he needs it?

I know pastors, a lot of times, act like that.

Oh, God just wants.

Your worship so bad.

He needs that.

I heard the Pope the other day say that God created because he needs us.

That's heresy.

Even for the Catholics, that's heresy.

I don't get why they're okay with that.

It's heresy.

God doesn't need us.

He doesn't need our worship.

He didn't do it for that.

He created us because he doesn't need us.

He created us for our benefit because we need him.

Right?

He created us for us to adore him.

Not because he needs it, but because he's a good God and he gives us good things.

Not because he needs it.

And so the problem here is that they were given sacrifices as if the reason why their motivation.

Was because he needs it.

And that's why he says in verse 14 and 15 of Psalm 50,.

In verse 23 of the same psalm,.

He says,.

What do we do?

What's our worship?

It's all because we are so overwhelmed with thanksgiving to our God.

For creation.

And for recreation.

For creation and for recreation.

In Jesus Christ.

I am so amazed at this creation that I get to walk now in this daily life that I have.

And I can do it in a way.

That's worshipful.

Because of Jesus Christ recreating a new heart within me.

We are to come together.

We are here together right now because we are so overwhelmed with thanksgiving to our God.

Anything else God doesn't like.

Any sort of other motivation that you have as if you're doing God a favor or you're doing your mom a favor, you're doing your

dad a favor, you're doing a husband a favor, you're doing any kind of thing at all.

Any other motivation but that I am so overwhelmed with thanksgiving for God that he has allowed me to take another

breath in this life.

He sent his son to die for my sins so that I can worship him rightly.

That is the only motivation that God looks upon and is pleased with.

Anything else God says,.

Take it away from me.

Anyone who has worshipped God in that kind of way at the end, you know what he's going to say?

Depart from me.

I don't know you.

I don't know you.

Your motivations was far from what is proper and pure.

So let's take inventory.

Of our worship.

I've already said that worship is hard.

Doing it, anyone can come to church and sit down in a pew for a bit, right?

Anyone can do that.

But doing it in a way that God says that's pleasing is terribly difficult.

And remember,.

It's difficult not to make us say, well, I've got to work harder.

But to say,.

I need Jesus.

It's terribly difficult.

And so when we consider,.

Okay, worship.

What is it supposed to be?

What am I doing?

There should be, there's going to be some kind of gap.

And beloved,.

Do not be upset.

Well, be upset.

But let it be in a way.

That's hopeful.

Because that's where Jesus meets you.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

I can't help it.

That's where Jesus meets you.

Let's take inventory of our own worship.

On a corporate level, I've already alluded to it but let's continue it.

Have you all gathered together with the saints with an aim.

To truly worship?

A heart full of thanksgiving.

For creation.

And recreation?

Or is there a tendency to come here.

As if.

It's a favor that we're bestowing upon God?

We're blessing God with our presence.

Here at Leroux Baptist Church, we fellowship clear into the afternoon.

We eat lunch together and we fellowship into the afternoon.

Those of you who are regular participants of that, do you do that with a full heart of

gratitude and thanksgiving to God?

Or do you, how often is it,.

Do we wake up.

And kind of grumble?

Complain?

Too much time.

Devoted to these things,.

Right?

And we'll do it because it's expected of us.

We do it all the time.

Now, if I weren't to come and do those normal things, people would ask questions but it's not with a heart of actual thanksgiving for

salvation, for the gospel, it's for other things.

Those of you.

Who are heavily involved.

At Leroux Baptist Church, there's people who are heavily, heavily involved.

It started with worship but is it, is it continued in worship?

Are you doing the things that you're heavily invested in because of pure worship and gratitude to your God and Savior?

Or has it become something else?

That's expected of me now.

Pastors die out.

They flame out.

They get tired.

What's the word.

I'm looking for?

They get burnt out.

Because it started.

With worship.

But if they were to be honest.

With you,.

This is expected of me.

In fact, if you're paid to pastor, I'm paid to do this.

I need to do it.

But it's not because they actually are so overwhelmed with gratitude at thanksgiving that Christ has recreated a new

creation.

But it's because, well, this is expected of me.

This is what I have to do.

And because there is not a legitimate grounds for worship, it gets tiring,.

It gets old.

And there's complaining and it's not full of any kind of worship.

Corporately,.

We can gather together and do it in a way that God hates.

Our motivations need to be pure.

Because God has done amazing things and it is our delight to gather and to tell him how amazed we are at

what he has done.

Period.

On an individual level, what does Jesus say?

John 7, 38 Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his

heart will flow rivers of living water.

This is the promise of the new covenant.

That those who believe upon Jesus, out of his heart, will flow living water.

This isn't a one -time thing.

You believe once and now it's done.

You believe once and now it's done.

This is a daily believing upon Jesus Christ for salvation.

And through that trust, through that belief, through that longing for him, then flows abundant rivers of

water, of living water.

This is the promise of Jesus.

This is what,.

On an individual level,.

We want our worship.

To look like.

That I woke up today and I went to Christ Jesus because from him comes forth abundant living

water.

And there's this beautiful thing, the thing that Jesus is referring to on an individual level is from coming

forth of this living water of belief upon Jesus, it comes the outflow of it, the overflow of it,

it just goes to everywhere.

It goes to everywhere.

Our families, our societies,.

Everywhere,.

Receives this abundance.

Of water,.

Of open and free and beautiful and genuine worship.

And so individually,.

You woke up this morning.

And did you challenge.

Your heart?

At least on an individual level.

With me,.

It's amazing to wake up in the morning and breathe.

Air is a gift from God.

That's awesome.

That your heart.

Kept on going while you're unconscious and you kept on living on through, you could have been taken easily.

You woke up and you breathed air.

How many times I wake up annoyed.

That I'm awake.

My goodness, I'm awake.

That's annoying.

Instead of the first thought being of worship to God, the first thought is, my goodness, this is annoying.

How many times it's so easy for us to degrade into a complaining, a non

-worshipful, a disobedient way of mode of doing things.

And so how important it is for us to wake up and instead of being annoyed, instead of

grumbling, instead of being indifferent to God, we wake up and praise to God.

This is true.

Biblical belief that leads into a water flowing forth from you.

Psalm 43, 5.

Says,.

Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you.

In turmoil within me?

Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

I think Christians.

Can wake up thinking, well, really indifferent.

We can not challenge ourselves.

We can just kind of go with the hub and flow of the day.

Not challenge ourselves.

Is my heart ready to utilize everything I had today to worship God?

We don't do that.

We just kind of go about our business and we do it in a way that's lax and daisy.

We need to wake up thinking, is my heart ready to use everything I have before me, every action,

everything I must do, all my chores, all the things.

Am I ready to do it in a way that glorifies a God who has been kind to me?

All the good.

We do in Christ's kingdom comes from the overflow of this organic worship from our hearts.

Husbands,.

Be the overflow.

To your wife.

Parents,.

Be the overflow.

To your children.

That's amazing.

With our children, Sarah and I, well at least I thought for sure that we just need to return our children and get different ones.

Right?

It's just amazing how difficult it is.

But then a full realization that this is our worship.

Right?

It is terribly difficult to raise these kids and then we are to utilize that and then worship God in light of

it and let them receive the overflow.

Of our worship.

In the hardness of it so that they can receive the gospel, the means of God's grace there.

But whenever we are not challenging ourselves in the morning, we're not on an individual level leaning into Jesus Christ and the

hardships of life, whenever we're not doing that instead we utilize those activities in a way that's very deficient.

And our children and those who we come in contact with, our loved ones do not see the overflow

coming forth from our hearts.

Now,.

Even if we have been doing good on our best days of worship,.

Right,.

On our best days, we are waking up and we do realize, my goodness, my thoughts are far from

Christ but then I lean into God and I remind myself of the hope I have in Christ, I remind myself of the goodness of Christ

and now I'm on a good footing to use everything I have before me to worship Him in,.

Right,.

Even when we're on the best day that we're doing those things and we're consistently doing it day in, day out and we gather with the saints.

Ready to worship.

Because He's been good to us in the week.

Even when we're doing that, how much worship is our God worthy

of?

Is there ever a time where we're going to be like, hey, guess what guys?

He's no longer worthy of anymore, we can go home.

We're good, right?

In heaven, in eternity, right?

There's never going to be a time where we're like, well, okay, it's been 2 ,000 years, that's about as much as God is worthy of.

We can stop now, right?

No,.

God is so eternally rich, so eternally awesome that He deserves our eternal,

perfect worship.

Now,.

Show of hands, I want to see them, who here has been given God perfect worship?

There's a few in the back, I got a little one.

A little girl says that, yep.

Perfect worship.

We got a couple only, right?

There's got to be an understanding in our Christian life that even on my best day, God is worthy of more

than I gave.

And that doesn't cause us to be like, woe is me.

That gives us a certain meaning to my life.

I am to grow in this worship because Christ is worthy of more than I can give today.

I am to grow in this.

It's actually a life -giving thing.

The worst thing you can do is plateau at the age of 20, right?

There's stories of,.

Well, I think I read.

It was like astronauts who went to the moon young and they suffered with terrible depression.

What else am I going to do?

I went to the moon, right?

It's not a good thing to plateau.

It makes us bored.

As Christians,.

We never plateau, do we?

Because plateau.

Because Christ is worthy of more than we can ever give to Him.

So it's always a leaning into greater.

And greater worship.

So my point in all of this, worship is vital.

It's everything.

But hard.

You're never done.

You're never done growing.

The Psalms are here to help you.

The Psalms is your door.

To greater worship.

Whether you have no worship at all right now, like I was struggling with years ago, I'm still struggling with.

My goodness, I could praise them so much better.

The Psalms is God giving you the book to help you.

With greater worship.

Utilize it for that.

Utilize it for that.

It's a book of raw prayers.

It's a book of raw prayers.

The Psalms is a book of prayers.

It's a book of songs.

And it's raw prayers.

Nothing kills your worship more, beloved,.

Than when you are.

Hanging by a thread.

Right?

You're so overwhelmed with just, you're annoyed with things.

Things aren't going right.

You're complaining in your heart.

You're hanging by a thread.

You know it.

Things are not going well.

Is there an issue?

And you're hanging by a thread, and your prayer consists of.

Thinking,.

Your prayer consists of thanking God for the weather.

Of asking God that I hope Billy's root canal goes well today.

You don't need to pray God for any of that.

You need to say, God, I'm hanging by a thread and I need you.

It's a turmoil.

I don't want to worship you.

Right now.

You're hanging by a thread, and we instead have.

Such boring prayers.

That has nothing to do with the actual issues at hand.

I can't help but think, you have an issue in your life, and it's causing you

distress.

Do not start going off on different things in your prayer, but let it be raw.

Go to God with those issues.

God, I don't believe you right now.

You're not here for me.

I don't feel you at all.

Look at Psalms.

Look at the way, just quickly, look at the way a lot of these start off.

It's a book of raw prayers.

Look at Psalm 4.

Real quick,.

And just go with me just for a couple of Psalms.

Psalm 4, 1.

Look at chapter 5.

Look at chapter 6.

Look at chapter 7.

But then you get those positive Psalms, right?

It turns,.

Look at chapter 8.

Look at chapter 9, and this is the last one we'll do.

Look at the positive.

What's the point that I'm getting at?

It's raw.

It's true.

It's genuine.

Many times we bring to God what we think he wants us to hear instead of what we need to bring to him because we're languishing.

We're on a thread.

And these prayers,.

They'll teach you.

To pray honestly and earnestly to God.

You wake up in the morning and you are full of annoyance and disturbances.

In your heart.

And you don't just give what God wants.

You think he wants you to hear,.

Oh God,.

Thanks for this weather and for this time that I have to enjoy this weather.

God,.

I'm languishing.

I don't want you right now.

I have no desire for you.

Help me.

You have been my help in the past.

I know you can be my help in the future through Christ.

Right?

Real, abiding,.

Genuine prayers that are raw and filled with truth.

Don't give God what you think he wants to hear.

Give God what you desperately need to say to him because you're languishing.

But it's full of raw, of positives, right?

Our God is a reigning God.

He's supreme.

He's awesome.

Right?

It teaches you how to give true thanksgiving and adore God who is above it all.

It's full of raw prayers.

The Psalms can help you pray and have true,.

Prayerful,.

Worshipful prayers to him.

It's a book of raw songs.

Right?

It's poetic songs.

It's poetic.

It has very, a lot of gospel warmth to it.

Right?

It's not just wooden things.

Right?

Just very wooden without any life.

The prayer,.

The Psalms will help you to have gospel,.

Worshipful,.

Singing forth from your heart.

I'll never forget how I started to pray through the Psalms, started going through it.

All of a sudden, my prayer life existed.

It's still growing.

It's still a work in process.

But then all of a sudden, I remember the first time as I'm singing on, you know, the Lord's Day,

all of a sudden, I had the delight to sing the songs.

It wasn't a chore anymore.

I remember listening to my garbage, oh, I'm sorry,.

I shouldn't,.

To my bad music on the radio.

Just really bad music.

I had terrible taste.

And all of a sudden, I was like, you know, I don't want to listen to this.

I actually want to listen to godly things.

Right?

I'll never forget how the Psalms really opened up my desire to sing out to my Lord,

to sing praises to Him, to have genuine worship within my heart that expresses itself in singing to

our God.

It's one thing to say, come, let us worship our God.

It's a whole other thing to sing it out with poetic, poetic utterances.

Here in the Psalms, these raw prayers, these raw songs, here in the Psalms,

you will see yourself.

You're going to see yourself in the Psalms.

You'll see your victories, your setbacks, your depression, your being overjoyed, your anger, your

sadness, your happiness.

John Kelvin says, the book of Psalms is an anatomy of all the parts of the soul.

For there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror.

In other words, he says, all the emotions are there in the book of Psalms.

All the emotions.

Your happiness, your sadness, your depression,.

Your everything.

It's all in the Psalms.

Nothing's hidden.

Everything's laid out and bare before our God.

It teaches you.

To be raw with God.

Think about.

Your own relationships.

Your greatest relationships here on earth are the ones that you can be most raw with, isn't it?

You can be completely honest with.

It's usually your spouse, but someone you can be truly, and that can actually hinder you.

We can abuse that.

And let out our anger and use our words to hurt.

And we can imagine that our relationship with our God is seen forth and true and genuine when we can be

absolutely raw with him.

All the emotions of the heart laid bare before him.

We don't hide anything from our God.

A life of worship.

Includes all the emotions God has given you.

And then here in the Psalms, you'll see yourself, you'll see yourself in all your terrible glory and all your

sadness,.

Joy,.

Everything.

But here in the Psalms, you will see.

Your Christ.

I don't have time to do it, but you look at Psalm 22, you'll see the suffering Jesus.

This is just an example.

You'll see Christ throughout the Psalms.

Psalm 22, you see the suffering Jesus.

And in light of his suffering, you see in Psalm 23.

The shepherd.

Of your sinful souls.

And in Psalm 24, you see him as the risen king to reign within our own hearts and within earth itself.

You see,.

In the Psalms, you see your brokenness, but in the Psalms, you see Christ Jesus and his great work on the cross and how it

can be done in your own heart.

Save me, Lord, for I am far from you.

And then all of a sudden, you set your eyes upon the Jesus in the Psalms.

And he comes and he comforts you.

He gathers you to himself.

Right?

This is worship.

This is true,.

Genuine worship.

Here in the Psalms, seeing yourself, seeing the Christ, you will find.

Your true worship.

John Gill says,.

The whole book,.

The whole book of Psalms is a rich mine.

Of grace.

And evangelical truths, a large fund of spiritual experience, and is

abundantly suited to every case,.

State,.

And any condition that the church of Christ or any particular believers are in at any time.

You see, the Psalms helps us to see that.

This is filled.

This is what the Christian life looks like in every area.

This is what it looks like.

And this is how I am to respond in every area so that God gets glory and my worship is true.

Martin Luther, since our pastor here, Pastor Tim, loves the man so much.

Martin Luther says, the Psalms is like a mini book itself, a mini Bible itself.

The whole Bible is miniature in the book of Psalms.

You know, speaking of Martin,.

Ugh,.

I was going to make.

A Martin Luther joke.

Should I do it?

I'm going to do it.

Martin Luther,.

If you want,.

You know, tell Tim the next time you see him, because last week he said no one knows, well he doesn't say.

No one knows,.

But I'm going to say it because it's just funnier to say it this way.

He says,.

No one knows Martin Luther anymore.

Say, I know Martin Luther.

Say, he was a,.

I'm going to say, I should have wrote it down.

I'm going to say it wrong now.

The punchline of the joke is all gone now.

Tell him, I know Martin Luther.

He's a, he's a angry, drunken monk.

Just leave it at that.

He is an angry, drunken monk.

Martin Luther was insane, but we needed him.

He brought back justification by faith alone.

But that guy scares me.

That guy scares me.

In fact, one of the popes, I forget what pope it is, whenever he heard about Martin Luther for the first time, it was before it

really flamed, he said, oh, it's just a drunken monk.

That's all it is.

He was more than that, of course.

Alright.

In conclusion, a sign of a mature Christian, a sign of a mature Christian is not

one who appears to have no problems.

A sign of a mature Christian is not one who appears to have no problems at all.

Because it's not true.

You do have problems.

And a sign of a mature Christian is one who locates those problems and brings it out to God for him to

see and say, God, look at this.

I need help.

That is a sign of a mature Christian.

And I think many of us live a Christian life where we want so bad to look like we have no problems, we even try to fool God.

And in trying to fool God, we have no maturity at all because God is not fooled by anyone.

The Psalms will help you locate your problems.

And it'll help you to see the biggest thing, the best thing you can do is say, God, look at my problems.

And he'll point you to Jesus Christ.

And then in those problems, it'll be his glory, his worship, and he'll mature you through those problems.

The worst thing you can do as a Christian is say, I don't have problems.

I don't have problems.

And you try to hide it.

From God, from others.

We don't do that here.

That's not genuine worship.

That's not genuine Christianity.

God loves your problems because he fixes it in Jesus Christ.

And the Psalms are really good at showing it.

The Psalms will teach you how to worship.

It'll teach you.

How to be humble.

It'll teach you.

To cry out to your Lord.

It'll teach you that Jesus will come to you every single time you do.

So I love the Psalms.

I adore them.

Every day,.

I pray through two of them, one in the morning, one in the afternoon.

And my hope is is that if you're someone who has not encountered the Psalms in that sort of worshipful way, that

perhaps in our study of it, you'll learn to start praying through it and teaching you to worship our God truly as he deserves to be

worshiped.

And it is your good and it is your life to do so.

May that be.

What happens.

As we go through the book.

God in heaven, thank you for this time of worship.

Lord, we know worship is not just simply a time that we get together on the Lord's day and we do different

activities.

God, we know that it's so much more than that, although it is involved in that.

We know, God,.

That we as individuals are to be worshiping you within our own individual selves.

We are to believe upon Jesus Christ each day that you have given us in your kindness and from that flows

life of living water.

And so that when we come here to gather with the saints, it's not a bunch of desert.

Rather, it's a bunch of life that comes together.

And we know that.

This is the whole purpose of your kingdom, that then it overflows.

To everyone.

Our children come to know the gospel through the overflow.

Of our worship.

In our own hearts.

Our unbelieving spouse comes to know you through the overflow.

Of our own hearts.

The society around us can't help but wonder what is so different about them that they have such a living

hope within them.

We know, God,.

It all comes forth from this true, genuine worship of you.

God in heaven,.

I'm the worst of all culprits to try to have a fake Christian life, to try to ignore my

problems and just be indifferent to them, to not deal with them, to not go to you in my desperate

need.

Lord, forgive me of these sins.

And I pray, God, that instead we would allow the psalms.

To teach us.

To be raw with you, open and laid open to you so that you can.

Take these issues.

And let Christ refine them so that, again, what comes forth is living worship.

I pray, Lord,.

That this would be.

All of our desires.

And this would be.

All of what we want to do here.

As we gather in our own homes.

Together at church.

This would be.

What we desire to do.

Help us in our weakness.

Let us look upon Jesus closer in our weakness and let us praise him for coming to us in his kindness.

Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ.

In his name we pray.

Amen.