Sunday, August 29, 2021 AM

To Sunnyside Baptist this morning for worship. Hope that you've enjoyed some of the pictures that have been rolling behind me on the screen. We have a special service this morning and it's tied to the lady that we've been looking at up on the screen.

You'll look at the pews in front of you and you'll see some new song books, Psalms for Worship, and those have been purchased in honor of Jeanette Renfro, our beloved sister who went to be with the Lord a few years ago, who loved to sing.

And so we're going to share in a few of those songs this morning in worship and we're excited to be able to share that and we know that Jeanette is worshiping right along with us this morning. Looking ahead to some things here at the church, obviously today was promotion Sunday for the kids so hopefully all those kids enjoyed their new Sunday school classes this morning.

We will not have evening service tonight. Instead we'll have flock groups in elders' homes so you are invited to attend the elder that you've been assigned to there. And then coming up Wednesday we'll have dinner for the church.

TAG again has started up so the TAG children's program and then Bible study and prayer for the adults here at the church. And then looking ahead, September 19th we're going to have Vern and Denny Johnson, Missionaries to Africa, that we've supported for a long time.

They're going to be here and speaking in the evening service on that day. This week's fighter verse comes from James chapter 1 verse 12. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.

One thing to look at, again with Operation Christmas Child, the month of August, there's some changes with some things that we can donate. Flip flops, sunglasses, tennis balls, stickers, soap, and paddle balls.

So if you can give towards that we'd appreciate it. And then this is the last call for updates to the church directory. So if you have any updates for this last call you can see Tristan call and give those to her as well.

Alright, any other updates before we get started with worship this morning? Oh yes, thank you. For those of you who participated in the summer Bible reading challenge, I know a few of you did, that has ended and the next Bible reading plan that's getting ready to start up to the Word starts I think Monday, September 6th.

Monday, September 6th there are plans on the table in the back if you'd like to follow along with that. It's a great way to get into the Word regularly. Alright, well we are going to have a time to prepare our hearts for worship and then once we are done with that, Dad will come up.

Prayer for Worship and Preparation of Hearts

And open us in prayer. Almighty God and gracious Father,.

We are blessed to be able to come together in this place today in Jesus name. Lord we thank you for your son who built a house for your name. For we indeed as your people are God's house, we are God's temple.

For your spirit dwells within your people and just as the glory of the Lord filled Solomon's temple on the day that it was dedicated, Lord would your glory and the power of your spirit fill our hearts today.

Lord may we give close attention to the manner of our lives that we might walk in accordance with your word. Lord would you listen to our cries this morning. Would you hear Lord our offering of worship.

Would you listen this morning from heaven your dwelling place and as you hear, Lord would you be glorified and would you forgive our own sins in Christ. For even Lord often as we pray and even in our worship our hearts are often divided and distracted.

Lord would you help us to fix our eyes upon Jesus this morning. Help us to stand firmly upon Christ our Savior. May you be exalted as your word is sung, as your word is preached, as your word is prayed.

Lord how we thank you for the blessing of this time where we can gather together. Lord help us to have one heart and one voice that you might be praised that Christ would be glorified. Thank you for these moments.

Give us grace Lord to walk in your ways. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen. Amen. Good morning. If you would stand we're going to have our call to worship and then we will sing three songs. The first song will be in your Psalter, your new book. It will refer and be joined with our call to worship and then the other two will be songs of praise.

So if you would read this and speak it together with me, the call to worship. Psalm 74 through 5. May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love you say, God is great, but I am poor and needy.

Hasten to me O God. You are my help and my deliverer. O Lord, do not delay. If you'll turn to 70A. 70A, a little different. Before we wanted to start, I wanted to ask, it's an informal survey of who has had Jeanette's chocolate cake.

It's a whole lot more chocolate than it was cake. That's the way I loved it. Alright, 70A. In these songs, with the exception of one, most of these tunes are very familiar to you. So it should be.

Easy to read and easy to sing. Put your finger in 96A.

100C 196A. All earth with joy and O sing a new song.

Jonah’s Prayer and God’s Compassion on Nineveh

He displeased Jonah and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this, I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and one who relents concerning calamity.

Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life. The Lord said, Do you have good reason to be angry? Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city.

So the Lord God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered.

When the sun came up, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, Death is better to me than life. Then God said to Jonah, Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?

And he said, I have good reason to be angry even to death. Then the Lord said, You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.

Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120 ,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals? And there it ends.

Let's pray. Lord, we're so grateful for.

The opportunity to spend time in your word, to spend time with your people, to spend time in instruction in your word. Just pray, Lord, that you will help us to learn, be willing to change our ways according to your word.

I pray for Michael as he comes, that you would give him strength, help him to recall the things that you have been speaking to him about throughout the week. Just pray that you would give us willing hearts.

Pray that you would help us to have a desire to spread your word throughout the week with those that we meet. And just give us a blessed time here. In Christ's name, amen.

Please have a seat. These next three songs are praise the Lord from heaven and from the earth. So we'll begin with 19A, and then 8B, and 24A. I know you just remembered all those. 19A and 8B. We'll take a.

Break after that. We're done with Daniel.

Praise the Lord from Heaven and Earth

Chapter 4, and we are. So we are going to be in Psalm 148. Psalm 148, and we're going to read the entirety of the Psalm and think about praising the Lord and singing Psalms to the Lord. Psalm 148. Our title for this morning is simply this.

All creation praise the Creator. All creation praise the Creator. I feel like we learned a lot when we were going through the great Hillel in the Psalms. A lot about what praise is, and how God desires to be worshipped and praised.

And we have the opportunity here today to sing from these new Psalm books. Some of those words, all those words were new to us, but they were based and built upon the very flow of the text. The very flow of the Psalms themselves.

The very arrangement of the words in the Psalm are inspired and teach us the ways in which to give glory to God. And why sing Psalms? Why sing Psalms? Because Jesus wants us to. Jesus wants us to sing hymns.

Jesus wants us to sing spiritual songs. And he also wants us to sing Psalms. It's what Jesus wants from his people as we gather to worship one another. Colossians chapter 3 verses 16 and 17 says this.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in your heart to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed we do all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through him.

And if there is anything that will teach us about glorifying God in all aspects of the human experience, it's the Psalms. The Psalms teach us how to praise the Lord from every angle of the human life.

John Calvin called the Psalms an anatomy of all parts of the soul. An anatomy of all parts of the soul. Someone else once described the Psalms as the scriptures in miniature. That all the themes of the word of God can be found here.

And all the experience of one made in the image of God can be found here. And so this is robust worship for real communion with God no matter what our circumstances are. We pray that this will be a great blessing to our church as we sing from the Psalms on a regular basis.

I ask you to stand with me as I read Psalm 148 as we consider that all creation is called to praise the Creator. Psalm 148. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens. Praise him in the heights.

Praise him all his angels. Praise him all his hosts. Praise him sun and moon. Praise him all you stars of light. Praise him you heavens of heavens and you waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord for he commanded and they were created.

He also established them forever and ever. He made a decree which shall not pass away. Praise the Lord from the earth you great sea creatures in all the depths, fire and hail, snow and clouds, stormy wind fulfilling his word.

Mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowl, kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all judges of the earth, both young men and maidens, old men and children.

Let them praise the name of the Lord for his name alone is exalted. His glory is above the earth and heaven and he has exalted the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints, of the children of Israel, a people near to him.

Praise the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God.

You may be seated. It is good to sing the psalms. It is good.

To take up the psalms and consider the praises offered up to God and recognize that we need to be able to praise the Lord, to rejoice always from any position in life, from any vector of every circumstance.

Living before the face of God we need to be able to turn to the heavens and give praise to God and the psalms help us with that. We are not to live as secularists. We are not to live as those who can easily and often divide things up in our lives as well this has nothing to do with the worship of God and this has nothing to do with faith in Christ and these areas of life over here have no frame of reference for God our maker, Christ our Savior, the Holy Spirit who sustains us and gives us life and guides us into all truth, bringing to mind all that Christ has taught.

We should never think about anything in our lives and say well this has no connection to God. This has nothing to do with the way in which we relate to our maker and our Savior, our King. The psalms help us with that.

There's nothing in the human experience that doesn't have some reference, some connection to our maker. Praise is our purpose and our purpose should be in everything that we do. As Matthew Henry reads Psalm 148 he observes verses 1 -6 a higher house and in verses 7 -14 a lower house.

A higher house and a lower house and you can see it for yourself when you read the psalm when it says praise the Lord from the heavens and then it says praise the Lord from the earth and under each heading you have these various calls to praise and these details of worshiping God from the heavens and from the earth.

So we have the praise from the higher house, praise from the lower house and truly praise to God who through Christ makes both houses one. So we begin with praising God from heaven. Praise him from heaven and we begin here because heaven is the one, heaven is the place, heaven is the throne that sets the agenda.

We begin with heaven. We begin with the hallelujah, with praise the Lord, which means, which we translate sometimes as hallelujah. But notice in verses 1 -4 the works that are all intended for God's praise.

The works that are intended for God's praise. It is important for us to see in this repetition of praise him all this, praise him all that. It's important for us to see that God has structured creation for his praise and it is a top down structure.

He has structured all of creation for his praise and it is a top down structure. There is a concert going on. Praise the Lord from the heavens. Praise him in the heights. Heaven is setting the agenda.

Heaven is what anchors earth to the fear of God. Heaven is what anchors earth to the fear of God. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are to see here in this structure that there is a choir that is sitting up and above the congregation as it were.

If you go into an old church, there's an old church building in Blue Mountain, Mississippi on the Blue Mountain Bible College campus. Did a wedding there. And when you walk in, you notice the structure of the building.

There is an organ. Some of the pipes end up going all through the structure of the building and come out from the balcony. And the balcony is not meant for late comers and people who want to be more casual in church.

The balcony is meant for the choir. The choir loft is up above and behind the congregation so that when praise comes forth, the sounds of the pipe organ and the sounds of the choir come rolling over the congregation reminding us that there is a concert of praise to God and the praise originates in heaven and is to resound and echo upon the earth.

Heaven anchors the earth to the fear of the Lord. What about this choir in verse 2? Praise him all his angels, praise him all his hosts. All the hosts of the angels of God. When we think of angels, we should think of a multitude and we should think of their might.

Think about the angels that were too many to count. The army of the Lord where Elisha stood in Dothan and the enemies of God have surrounded Dothan with all their chariots, their horsemen, their soldiers and Elisha's servant is having a panic attack and Elisha says, oh Lord let them see what's really going on.

And outside of the encirclement is another encirclement of the armies of heaven and the angels have come in force and there are a multitude of these angels, an army of praise to the Lord doing his will.

Think of the angels in their choir singing at the birth of Jesus Christ coming to the shepherds and singing the power and the glory and the might and the worthiness of Jesus of Nazareth born as the Christ.

So here's the choir singing. Praise him all his angels, praise him all his hosts and what about the orchestra? There it is. Praise him sun and moon, praise him all you stars of light. God is the conductor and the cosmos is the orchestra.

And as we look about the created order, what do we find? We find rhythms both fast and slow and we see lights both brilliant and dim. In the variety there is order. In the distinctions there is a synergy that God has made and created all things for his glory.

Psalms help us here. Psalm chapter 8 says that we are to consider the heavens and the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which he has ordained. And of course verse 1 in chapter 8 says, O Lord our Lord how excellent is your name in all the earth who have set your glory above the heavens.

We sang from this Psalm and we sang from Psalm 19 which begins the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. It is from day to day, day unto day utters speech and night unto night reveals knowledge.

All of these things that God has made bring him glory. And so there is the choir of angels and there is the orchestra of the created order, the heavens, the stars, the sun and the moon and then there is the chamber in which this concert takes place.

Praise him you heavens of heavens and you waters above the heavens. Now that is a vaulted ceiling. Now that is a wonderful place to hold a concert where the entire cosmos is resonating with the sounds of God's praise.

It is instructive that these are the images that are used in calling us to worship. For it is true that these things like stars and moon, the sun, they have no voice box. They have no vocal cords. They have no breath and any kind of lungs with which to express the glories of God.

But we are to see them and know their purpose and to give them voice and to declare this is glorifying God. And consider the things that are identified here as glorifying to God. This is the clock that God made.

Very specifically we're told in Genesis 1 why God made the sun, why God made the moon, why God made the stars. It is not to hide the aliens. The vastness of the universe is to glorify God who is transcendent and can speak all of this into existence.

And it is to order our lives beneath the sovereignty of this all powerful creator. The stars and the sun and the moon set the clock. The sun tells us it is day. The moon tells us it is night. The moon also tells us what month we're in.

And the stars tell us what part of the year we are in. It is the clock. And so as our awareness of time passing, how often do you check the clock? How often do you glance at your watch? How much time do you spend planning on that calendar, setting up appointments?

As our awareness of the calendar and the clock, as our awareness of time, the passing of day and night, the month and the year, so should our praise be. So should our praise be. That's how focused we should be on praise as much as we think of time.

And notice that everything here is the farthest reaches that we can see, envision, and anticipate. As far as we can imagine is listed here. Not just the sun and moon and stars that we can see, but yes, even the stars that we can't see.

And then all of the angels and the hosts that we can only imagine how many there are. But notice that as high as we can see and as high as we can imagine, everything there, the praise is still going up.

The praise is still going up. We cannot fathom high enough to where the praise is still not going up to this exalted and glorious God. And as we read about the choir, and as we behold the members of the orchestra, and as we think about the glories of the chamber, we do not find Christ in the stonework of the vaulted ceiling.

We do not find him in the instruments or the members of the orchestra. We do not find him amidst the choir. Even as a lead soloist, he is not there for all of it is for him. All of it is for him. He has by inheritance attained a more excellent name than all of the hosts of heaven and all of the angels.

The angels, the stars, the planets, the sun, the moon, the sky, none of these things are to be worshiped, but they are works meant for worship. And the Psalms help us to remember that and engage in that.

But these works for God's praise lead us to the actual praise, the content of the praise for God's works in verses 5 and 6. Great is our Lord. Let them praise the name of the Lord. Psalm 148 verse 5 begins this way.

Let them praise the name of the Lord. So all of these things, the angels, the hosts, the sun and the moon, the stars of light, let them praise the name of the Lord. They are to praise the name, meaning they are to draw attention and make clear who God is, what he has said, and what he has done.

They praise God for who he is and all of his power. They praise God for who he is and all of his greatness. And God's works are of him and they are through him and they are for him. God's works are of him, verse 5 concludes, for he commanded and they were created.

For he commanded and they were created. Isn't that refreshingly simple? How refreshingly simple. Vast tomes, entire education systems with all of their self-contradictory complexities and absurdities are based on anything but this.

He commanded and they were created. God's works are of him. When we look about the works around us, these did not come from some big accident arranged by a slow motion wreck. That's what we're told that the wisest and most sophisticated of us should believe.

That the works of God were made by a big accident and we're watching a slow motion wreck. No, God commands and they praise. Behold God's works in creation. He commands and they were created. Secondly, God's works are through him, verse 6 begins this way, he also established them forever and ever, meaning he stands them up.

He stands them up and keeps them standing, does not let them fall down. God's works are sustained by him. God's works are maintained by him. And so he commanded and they are created and he sustains and so they continue.

God's works were created because of him and they are continued because of him and then God's works are for him. Notice it says in the end of verse 6, he made a decree which shall not pass away. He made a decree which shall not pass away.

So he decreed, he designed, he determined and so they all came to pass. He commands and they praise. He sustains them and they praise. He decrees and they praise. All of these, all of God's works direct our attention to how praiseworthy God is and we praise him looking at his works saying, God you created them, God you continue them, God you bring them to their consummation of bringing glory to you.

Which is why our view of everything at some point relates to doxology. A doxology like Romans 11, 36 it says, for of him and through him and to him are all things. To God be the glory forever and ever.

Amen. And the Psalms teach us to sing in those ways. Now when we come to Christ's table and we sit together at the table to have the Lord's Supper, what will the topic of our dinner conversation be? What will we talk about around the table?

Are we going to talk about our accomplishments? No. We gather around the table of Christ to talk about his accomplishments. To talk about how great and mighty and worthy he is. Colossians chapter 1 verse 15 and following Christ he is the image of the invisible God.

The firstborn, that's his status, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

All things were created through him and for him. Hear it. For by him all things were created and then all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things consist.

And he is the head of the body, the church who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in all things he may have the preeminence. That is who we dine with. That's whose table we gather around.

This is the one who has.

Served all of us.

Who are his people. He washed the feet of his disciples on that night but then he went to the cross and he suffered and he bled and he died.

For all his sheep.

When we come to this table we're coming to the one who has served us but who deserves all of our service. And so let us make our dinner conversation about Christ's accomplishment. May our praise be like quality painting on the walls of our life.

Let's leave no gaps on the wall where the paint is either light or missing. But our praise should be prime, double coated, touched up. No space in our lives over which we do not praise the Lord. Praise him from heaven.

Praise him from earth. So earth is to be the amen of the will in heaven. In verses 7 -10 draw our attention to the vestiges of God. The vestiges of God manifest his glory. Man is made in the image of God.

Herman Bavinck says everything else he made is the vestigia dei, the vestiges of God. Do we not see the glory of God in the stars? Do we not see the glory of God in the trees and the mountains? Do we not see the glory of God in the weather formations?

Yes we do. We see the glory of a wonderful, powerful, perfect creator. And none of these attain to his image revealed in man. And yet there is still a glory for which we ought to praise him. And the Psalms help us there.

Verses 7 -10, the vestiges of God. Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures in all the depths. You dragons in all the depths. Fire and hail, snow and clouds, stormy wind fulfilling his word.

Mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowl. The vestiges of God manifest his glory, whether in the sea, in the sky, on the land, or at the zoo.

All of it is for the glory of God. Consider the progression of the images, the sea and the sky, the depths and the heights. Though the dragons of the deep and the lightning of the sky both remind us of fire.

And the sky brings up the water through the water cycle and then it turns into weather. And now we have the rain and we have the snow and we have the hailstones falling down upon the earth and upon the mountains.

And the trees are watered. And the trees give shelter and shade and nesting and food to beasts and to birds. And watch the birds as they fly about, not constrained to any one place. And they can fly back over the sea.

And so our eyes are to watch the creation of God swirl in magnificent praise to the Lord. From dragons to sparrows, from EF5s to inchworms, all of it is to manifest the glory of God. The water cycle is in use here because it is somewhere else in the scriptures.

Isaiah 55 verses 11 through 13. I'll begin reading in verse 10. For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven and do not return there but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater.

So shall my word be that it goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void but it shall accomplish what I please. And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out with joy and be led out with peace.

The mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you. And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree. Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree.

And it shall be to the Lord for a name for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. As his works so also with his word. All of this is essential for the earth. God's works are to be praised and God's works manifest his glory throughout all of the earth.

And all of it draws our attention to the unfailing nature of his word. His creative and perfect word. And when we look at the whole of creation we are to be reminded that Christ is the heir of all things.

All of this belongs to him. The dragons of the deep and the sparrows of the bushes. The storms and the creeping things. All of it belongs to Christ. It has been given to Christ. He is the heir of all things.

And since all is for his praise then how shall we steward it? Not according to the priorities and the fanciful holiness codes of men but we are to steward all of creation which belongs to Christ according to his desires.

According to his priorities. Remembering that all of it is for his praise. So we are to praise him from the earth. The vestiges of God manifest his glory and the image of God magnifies his glory. We have the image of God in verses 11 and 12.

Kings of the earth and all peoples. Princes and all judges of the earth. Both young men and maidens. Old men and children. In other words everybody. Everybody. Does not matter whether you are old or young.

Does not matter whether you have great authority or none. It doesn't matter if you are male or female. All those made in God's image are to praise the name of the Lord. Because the image of God magnifies his glory.

Praising is for the great. Those who are high and lofty. Those who have great power. Great influence. Great authority. They are never so high that they cannot look up and know that the praise of God should go higher still.

To whatever exalted position they are placed. They never attain to the position of the moon or the sun or the stars or the hosts or the angels or the heavens of heavens. Even the highest most exalted person on the face of the planet is very very lowly in comparison to all of God's works.

And the great and the lofty are called to praise the Lord. So also the lowly are called to praise the Lord. Those with no name and no status. Those who are weak. Those who are unseen. Engage in the most critical.

The most vital. The most enlivening important work of all history. And that is to praise the Lord. To give glory to God. To magnify his name. So the image of God is to magnify his glory. Now when we look through verses 1 through 10 we also see something similar here in verses 11 and 12.

The highs and lows. The highs and lows. When you think of the heavens there is the heights of the heavens of heavens and then there is the moon. One is lower than the others. And then when you think about the list of the things on earth or pertaining to earth you have the great storm formations that bring forth lightning and whirlwinds and hail.

And then you have the tiny smallest little creeping things on the ground that so entertain our young men in the room. And all of it has its own particular weightiness, significance and glory. But it is all dependent on the glory of God and designed to bring attention to how glorious he is.

So also with people. So also with people. In human experience there are those who are high and great and lofty. And there are those who are lowly and poor and without. And God is not mocked and he is not shamed in the distinctions of high and low.

Either in the heavens or on the earth or among the people. For in the distinctions God is magnified by the unity of our praise. And the place where we may in the image of God unify most completely and most perfectly in our praise of God where he is most magnified is right there.

At Christ's table. Where we come and we sit in a seat of grace. And we come together and glorify God. And he is honored by our unity in Christ. No matter who you are or what you're going through, Christ knows.

Because he has lived the lows and he has lived the highs. He knows what it is to be human. He knows what it is to be tempted. He knows what it is to struggle. He knows what it is to suffer. He knows what it is to be sorrowful.

Even to the point of tears. Yes, even to the point of sweating great drops of blood. He knows what it is like. And he is our perfect high priest. And in all these things he knows and he leads us and he walks with us and brings us to praise the Lord.

So gather up all you are. For all that God is. And give him praise. The image of God is to magnify his glory. And finally in verses 13 and 14, the name of God mediates his glory. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted.

And his glory is above the earth and heaven. And he has exalted the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints, of the children of Israel, a people near to him. Praise.

The Lord.