Some years ago, the folk musician Paul Stooky, who is known to us in terms of the fame that he acquired in Peter Paul and Mary, wrote a song that really never made it to the charts. Nevertheless, it is still one of my favorites, and I suppose when you hear it, you'll just be confirmed in your suspicion that Eugenberger has no taste whatsoever. But I do like the lyrics and consider them applicable to our text this morning. Stooky explained something of the background of writing this song. He wrote it after 17 years of marriage, and he wrote it for his wife. And he says in terms of performances of it, as he explains the piece, that he realized that after 17 years of marriage, sometimes some of the freshness and zaniness of marriage kind of can go out of it. You get distracted and you just forget what is the point of marriage. And so he wrote this as a reminder to himself, but also as a warning to his wife not to become to stable. It's titled by surprise. I wish I could sing it to you, but I will spare you the agony.
I'd like to take you by surprise at the grocery store, grab you by the hand and step on the electric door. Leave the shopping car right where it is. I bet you somebody's got the same list. I want to take a subway from all this to a distant shore. And leave the car by the curb with the motor on. The tape deck playing our favorite love song, and you'd say what in the world? And smile just like a little girl. And I'd say I can't tell you now, but it won't be long. I know it sounds funny, but it's true. I get so busy I forget I'm in love with you. And every now and then we need to get away to get close again. Up in the air in a window seat, your head on my shoulder in a blanket around our feet. We could leave the kids at home, and if you get worried we could telephone. We need a weekend of fun for under $200 complete. I know it sounds funny, but it's true. I get so busy I forget I'm in love with you. And every now and then we need to get away to get close again. So there we be in a sunny land. We'd lie on the beach and you'd wiggle your toes in the sand. A tropical treat late at night. And a midnight dip if the temperatures rush. The best things turn out better if they were never planned. I know it sounds funny, but it is true. I get so busy I forget I'm in love with you. And every now and then we need to get away to get close again. I think what is true with marriage is even more of the case with respect to our love relationship with Christ. Routine distraction and the busyness of life can be lethal to a marriage. In some cases more lethal than adultery. And in the very same way busyness, distractions, the routine of life can be lethal to our relationship with Christ even more than overt idolatry if it were possible. The Lord appeared to Abram and said to your offspring, I will give this land. So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. You may be noticing that we're backtracking this morning in terms of the progression through Genesis a couple of weeks ago. We were looking at the end of Genesis 12. And I misled the choir in terms of my prediction that we would be now dealing in Genesis 14 with tithing. Instead, we're back at an earlier point in Genesis 12. And it's not exactly that we've been rushing through the book of Genesis. This Sunday is actually the one year anniversary of this series. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to go back and look at these verses that at first I just had skipped over. And what drew my attention to them was an experience I had a couple of weeks ago at our ministerial staff retreat. Every since six months or so, the pastors of this church make an effort to get together for a day-long retreat. And thanks to the extraordinary hospitality of one of our church families lived down in Hingham, they opened up their home to us. And so we went down there with a very full of gender of things that desperately needed our attention. But the Lord kind of caught us by surprise. It really wasn't planned this way. But Chris Perkins decided to bring along his guitar. And he actually knows how to sing, unlike yours truly. And we began in just singing some songs, just the pastors, ministers of church. And then we began sharing some of the songs that mean a lot to us and why they speak so much to us, why the Lord seems to use this or that song in our lives. And then we had a very comfortable and unhurry time of prayer. And it was like all the other issues that until then it seemed so urgent and so impossible just became much less of a problem. They could be viewed in their proper proportions. I know it sounds funny, but sometimes we get so busy we forget that we're in love with the Lord. And every now and then we need to get away to get close again. Worship is the ultimate purpose of our lives. The British journalist Bernard Levin wrote on one occasion to put it bluntly, have I time to discover why I was born before I die? I have not managed to answer that question yet. Why do I have to know why I was born? Well, it's because I'm unable to believe that it was an accident. And if it wasn't an accident, my life must have some meaning. Now this is an extraordinary admission of need from a journalist who is absolutely at the top of his profession. Levin has been blessed to have authored a stack of books. You can find them listed on Amazon.com. He's one of the most influential columnists and the London Times has been so for 24 years. He's won all the most prestigious awards in that industry. He's accumulated substantial wealth along the way as well as recognition. But somehow, all that success and attainment still feels empty because of a gnawing emptiness within inside. Ecclesiastes puts it that God has put eternity in our hearts that we all need an infinite point of integration from which to view our lives and put things in proportion and understand the meaning of our life. We're made to live for God. That's all there is to it. And to live for anything less is to live for nothing. The Westminster shorter catechism sums it up in the first question, what is the chief end of man? Man's chief end, it answers, is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. This applies to masons and musicians just as much as it does to missionaries. It applies to professors and to plumbers as much as to pastors. And it certainly applies to journalists. We are made to do everything we do for the glory of God. Of course, it's the burden of our marketplace ministry to help us see that this is something you're to live out on a Monday to Friday basis, not just weekends only and particularly not just Sundays. It's something that ought to characterize our lives. Paul writes, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do. Do it all for the glory of God. In Romans 12, we're supposed to offer up our lives as living sacrifices to live for the one who died for us. So yes, our whole life is supposed to be worshiped. I just like the whole life of a married couple should be to be married. And yet, nevertheless, though it all ought to be characterized as doing it for the Lord, doing it with His glory and view. Nevertheless, sometimes we get so caught up even in the busyness of doing things for the Lord that we forget we're in love with Him. And so we need times to get away, to get close again. Our Lord Jesus made it a pattern in His life, even modeling this as He went into lonely places to pray. The Psalmist says, I rejoice with those who said to me, let us go up to the house of the Lord. We desperately need to be reminded in focused ways of what we are doing and for whom we are doing it. We need that direct communion of our hearts with God. We need to respond to His presence with adoration, worship, and praise. We need to reflect back to God the radiance of His worth. We need this. We're made for it to acknowledge Him for who He is and to acknowledge ourselves for who we are as His people, the sheep of His pasture. Now, this is an appropriate background for our text. Why was it that Abram erected this altar and called on the name of the Lord? The Bible tells us that first in checkum, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to your offspring, I will give this land. And so he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to Him. And then later on between Bethel and AI, again, he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. What is the significance of building an altar? Well, at a bare minimum, I'd like to suggest that the meaning, the symbolism of building an altar, particularly as Abraham is doing it in this context, is to make a counter-cultural statement as it were. We're supposed to read Genesis 12, including our text, in light of Genesis 11. There are all kinds of echoes between the two passages, if you read them carefully, I'm sure you'll pick up on them. In Genesis 11, in the chapter before our passage, we read about the citizens of Babel who are engaged in a building program. Then they said in Genesis 11, for, come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches up into the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. In Genesis 11, we have a human-centered version of religion, the purpose of life. It's to make a name for yourself. And of course, Genesis 12 then begins with God, ironically promising to give to Abraham by grace what the world is trying to claw and scratch after for itself. God will give Abraham a name, a great name, a very thing that the citizenry of Babel are eating their hearts out for. God gives us a gift. The name, however, that Abraham is concerned with, his preoccupation is not with his own name. That's just frosting on the cape. His preoccupation is with the name of the Lord. He calls on the name of the Lord and we'll be looking at that in a moment. But there's also this juxtaposition and kind of obvious echoing in terms of the building program. They're building a city. He is a pilgrim. And so he doesn't build a home for himself and kind of sit down, get comfy and make a place that he can call home. No, instead, he's pitching a tent. He's a pilgrim. This world is in his home. He's got the eternal perspective as was sung about in our anthem. And not only is he pitching a tent, yes, it's true he is building something. But it's not a tower that reaches up into the heavens. Man's a scent into the heavens to bring God down. Instead, what Abraham builds is a very diminutive altar. We know a lot about altars from the Bible. There are mention in many texts. They don't impress you in terms of their architectural or artistic appearance. The law of the altar in Exodus chapter 20 prohibits it. In order to build an acceptable altar to the Lord, what you must do is just simply get a bunch of dirt together and heap it up into a mound. Or if you're gonna use rocks, that's okay. If you want a more permanent altar, use rocks. But the rocks must be ones that you have not in any way defaced. You can't scratch them even. If you do, you gotta throw them out. So you can't carve them into something beautiful. Just rough, hewn, rocks the way God made them. And you place them together and now you have an altar. The Old Testament gives us a background for understanding the significance of this. There are many occasions in which God's people took stones and set them up or made altars in this sort of makeshift way. And what they invariably are, a kind of monuments or memorials to the reality of God. For example, in Joshua chapter four, you may remember when Israel crossed the Jordan to now finally come into possession of the promised land. God caused the Jordan to dry up, just like he had done earlier with the Red Sea. And so God's people could walk across on dry land. But what Joshua instructed them to do was to take 12 stones from the riverbed of the Jordan and just bring them with them and erect an altar, a monument. And people wouldn't admire it for its architectural beauty and such a heap of stones. But what they would wonder about is how do they get here? How do those stones get here? Well, you see, they're a living proof of a living God, a God who dried up the Jordan, a God who's real and intervenes in time and space in the lives of his people. Likewise, Ebenezer, remember in our opening hymn, come thou fount of every blessing. In the second verse, we sing, here I raise my Ebenezer. Hit thereby thy help I'm come. And I hope thy good pleasure safely to arrive at home. I don't know what passes through your mind when you sing that verse about raising your Ebenezer but as you read on in scripture in the book of 1 Samuel, you'll find the background for that image. In 1 Samuel chapter 7, Samuel is leading God's people in a glorious worship service on Midspa, on a mountain where they all came together as the people of God. But of course, the Philistines hearing about it realize there are a bunch of sitting ducks. There they are, poised on a little hillock in the midst of a plane that has an ideal setting for a battle and they surrounded the people of God, a well-armed Philistines against Israelites who didn't have a sword among their number. The Israelites seeing this were thrown of course into great anxiety and they pled with Samuel to pray and Samuel prayed to the Lord and the Lord answered and delivered his people. And he caused the Philistines to go into panic a supernatural response to his presence and they began to flee. And all that was left for the Israelites who had no weapons was to chase after them and pick up the booty as they went. When it last, the Philistines left the territory of Israel never again to return. Samuel said, let's raise a stone monument. Samuel took a stone and set it up between Midspa and Shane and he named it Ebenezer. Ebenezer, which in Hebrew means stone of help. And then he said, saying thus far has the Lord helped us. You see here was a monument of the reality of God who makes common cause with his people, defends them from their enemies, does the impossible. And Ebenezer, that was a monument of his saving work. You and I have the privilege, well certainly every Sunday coming together is the people of God just as they did in 1 Samuel 7 to raise our Ebenezer, not maybe a literal pile of stones but a kind of spiritual monument. Looking back on the week and in testing to the fact that yes, God is alive and well in saving his people here thereby thy help, I'm come. A monument to the reality of God, intervention, the God who intervenes in behalf of his people. That's what's stressed in our text when it says that Abram built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. This is the first passage in the entire Bible where it says the Lord appeared to someone. God reveals himself to Abram. God shows that he's the real God of heaven and earth, not just the figment of our imagination, not just the projection of our wishful thinking, but a real God who actually is there. And when God reveals himself as the God who's there as the Lord, that name Lord reflecting the Hebrew name Yahweh or Jehovah, that name Lord or Yahweh or Jehovah that means he is. He's the God who is, that's his name. Every other God is not, that's their name. His name is he is or Yahweh as that literally means. It's that God to whom Abram then builds an altar in his honor, a God who is real who can actually reveal himself. This is a pattern in the Old Testament where altars are built following the oftenies after God reveals himself to Isaac at Bersheba in Genesis 26. That night the Lord appeared to him. And then Isaac built an altar, it says in Genesis 26, 25. Or at Bethel with Jacob. Likewise, it says there he built an altar and called in place Al Bethel because it was there that God revealed himself to Jacob when he was fleeing from his brother. That's the point of an altar in the first place. It reminds us of the reality of God. Secondly, and maybe at a little deeper level, maybe not at least in a complimentary way, it's important for us to realize that altars have another significance in the Bible. They're not just places where you offer sacrifice. You'll notice there's no sacrifice mentioned in this passage. There's not mention in those other passages. This is not an altar intended for sacrifice. Then what is it? Well, I'd like to argue and suggest for you that it is intended as a monument to God's ownership of the land. And to get at this, I think my favorite example is in Joshua chapter 22. It's at the end of the conquest when Joshua is now dismissing the tribes. The Israelite sort of taken possession of the land in a substantial way. And now the Rubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh are being dismissed to go back home to their wives and children. The promise for them home is outside the traditional boundaries of the Promised Land. Their home is in the transjordan area to the east of the Jordan River. And as they then go, it occurs to them there's a potential problem here. The problem is that when they return to their side of the Jordan, though they know that this is God's land, God's supernaturally gave it to them when they defeated the Amorites unexpectedly. Though they know it's the Lord's land just as much the Promised Land, the Holy Land as the land to the west of the Jordan, they were afraid that in subsequent generations the children, the grandchildren, the great grandchildren of the Western tribes would come and mock those of the Eastern tribes and say, eh, you don't live in the Promised Land. You know, you're in like second-class territory. And so the Bible tells us that they built an altar there, right at the Jordan, on their side of the land, to make it clear that this belongs to God too. And when Joshua heard about the building of the altar, at first he misunderstood it. First he said, oh, they're gonna have sacrifices there. This is idolatry. We're gonna have to kill them. We killed the canyons. We're gonna have to kill these folks, these brothers of ours in the tribes of Ruben, God and Manasseh. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. The armies were mustered and getting ready to attack. They sent a head of embassy. They said, what are you people doing building this altar? And the response was, look, in Joshua 22, verse 23. If we have built an altar in order to turn away from the Lord to offer burnt offerings or to sacrifice fellowships offerings, may the Lord himself call us to account. If this is for sacrifice, may God judge us. It's not for sacrifice. No, we did it because we are afraid that someday your descendants might say to our descendants, what do you have to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? The Lord has made the Jordan, a natural boundary between us and you. You Rubenites and Gadgets. You have no share in the Lord. So we built this to make clear, yes, we do. We live in the promised land too. What you need to know is that in the biblical time, they didn't have registries of these. How did you know whether this parcel belongs to this king or is under the authority of that king? How would you know? Well, the way you know is because in the ancient world, the kings littered their landscape with monuments with their names on it. Their royal symbols. Sometimes these are called kaduru stones. King Nebuchadnezzar would have these kaduru stones, these monuments with his name out in the borders, out in remote parts of the realm where there might be some dispute as to whose land it was. This would be, it's like putting a flag there, you see. This now belongs to me. When Abram received this revelation, God, the Bible tells us the context is at that time the Canaanites were in the land. The Canaanites, if you ask them, who's land is this? What do you think they would have answered? Hey Canaanites, who's land is this after all? Well, hey, can't you read? It says, no trespassing. It's my land, you know, and they'd have their stones showing that was theirs. Then the Lord appearing to Abraham said, to your offspring, I will give this land. Now who's land is it? It's not yet Israel's, they haven't yet gotten it. It will be 400 years before they get it. Who's land is it now, this minute? Is it the Canaanites? No, of course not. Now when God says I'm giving you this land, who's land is it? It's God's. And so in Abraham, in a worship service, in an act of faith, comparable to what we do every Sunday, and on other occasions in our small groups, and in your prayer closet, we're staking out the territory and saying, this belongs to the Lord. I don't care what they say. And so Abraham built authors not over in Mesopotamia or the colonies or Iran. They weren't necessarily a putrimant for his private devotions. He only builds them here where God says I'm giving you this land, where God makes slaves claim to the land. He's staking out flags everywhere. He built an author at Shekum in verse seven, and then at Bethel in verse eight. And then in chapter 13, he puts an author at he-brand. And Genesis 22, he puts one at Mariah, Jerusalem. His son Isaac builds one at Bersheba in Genesis 26, and Jacob at Shekum, and we could go on the list as long. The canyons must have wondered, what is going on? There are just all these little piles of stones around. Whose signature is on those stones? It's the law of the altar. There's no name on them, but God's name. Because they're the stones found exactly the way God created them. And under the law of the altar in Exodus, chapter 20, it says, if you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dress stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. If you even scratch the stone accidentally, you've got to throw it away, because then they'll have your signature on it. It'll have your name on it, and it'll be as if it were yours. This land is the Lord's, it's not ours. It's the same expression of faith that Abraham Kuiper mentions, the great Dutch statesmen and theologians, who on one occasion spoke of the sovereign claims of God on the universe, and he said that there is not one square inch in all the earth, or in your life, where the Lord does not look down upon that square inch and say, that belongs to me. It's God's. And in our worship, we acknowledge that joyfully, it's a response to the Lord, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all those who live therein. And then Abraham does another thing. He also calls on the name of the Lord. He builds an altar and then parallels to it. He calls on the name of the Lord. What's the meaning of that? I like to suggest, in this context, it's parallel. It's the same meaning. He doesn't call on the Lord. He calls on the name of the Lord. He doesn't call on the Lord. This is not an invocation. We know it's not. We can look up the other examples of the very same expression as a great parallel in Genesis 26. Isaac came to Bershiba. That night, the Lord appeared to Isaac and said, I am the God of your father, Abraham, do not be afraid for I am with you. I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant, Abraham. Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. Just from that example in Genesis 26, you can see that calling on the name of the Lord is not invoking God. You can't invoke him anymore than he's already been invoked. He appeared to Isaac. In a supernatural theophania, supernatural appearance. Calling on the name of the Lord is not asking God for help. God had already told Isaac, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to take care of all your needs. So what is it to call on the name of the Lord? Well, the phrase just means to solemnly proclaim the name of the Lord, to just say the Lord. That's what it is. The Hebrew way of saying that the person is going to pronounce the Lord's name, just say his name out. There are some passages, frankly, where even God calls on his own name, which are kind of an intriguing parallel. The Lord in Exodus chapter 33 said, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will call on the name of the Lord. That's a very intriguing promise. God promises to call on his own name. Obviously, he's not asking himself for help. He's not invoking himself. He's always there. His mind doesn't drift, anyway. So the Lord is there, 100%, but he's going to call on his name in your presence. And then in Exodus 34, it says it again and then it tells us what happened. In Exodus 34 and verse 5, then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him and he called on the name of the Lord. That just means he proclaimed the name of the Lord. And then it says the Lord passed in front of Moses, proclaiming the very same word or calling, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness and so on. God just pronounced his own name in a very tender time of revelation, of self-revelation to Moses. What does it mean to pronounce the name? What's implied? Well, of course, if you pronounce your own name, that might mean something. And this passage it shows itself disclosure. When you tell someone your name, you're telling about your character. And in fact, God goes on and elaborates and tells more about who he is as the Lord, that he is, in fact, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and so on. We're used to giving out our names promiscuously. It doesn't really register with us. MCI calls up at supper time, says, with whom am I speaking? And we blurt out Gordon Hugenberger. Well, in the biblical world, you don't do that. For one thing, you're giving away too much when you give your name. What if your name is Jacob, for example? Hi, how are you? My name's Jacob. And if you know Hebrew, that means I'm trickster. That's like saying, hi, I'm slick Willie. Or hi, I'm tricky dick, just to be politically even here. You know, you don't want to let people know that much about you. That's what a name is. A name is revealing and encapsulating your character, in any way. What does it mean to call on someone else's name to pronounce their name, and that's the key. And I'm saying it's the same as the altar. Abraham has just been told this land is going to be given you. And he by faith and a worship experience takes pleasure in telling the Canaanites whether they're aware of it or not, they're liars. They don't own the land. It's the Lord's. And so he builds altars that have the Lord's name on the altar. The only signature that's on them. And then he's saying parallel to that. You know what, it's not just that the land belongs to the Lord. Guess what? I belong to him too. I have his name on me too. And you say, well, where's the Lord's name? Well, he could have, I suppose, inscribed it on his hand or had a tattoo on his forehead that says Yahweh. And then you'd know he's a slave belonging to the Lord. But if you were honest, you might object and say, well, wait a minute, that just means his body belongs to the Lord. What about his heart, soul, mind and strength? What name is written inside here? Well, you could do an autopsy, but you might not see anything. So rather than doing that, let me just read for you what's written on my heart, the Lord. Yahweh, his name is written on. I belong to him. The land belongs to him. I'm his too. It's a confession of ownership. The Bible has many passages that affirm this. Isaiah chapter 43 is one of my favorite one. About one who will say, I belong to a Lord. Another will call upon the name of the people of God and uses this language of mutual ownership. And after it does that, then it promises us that when you pass through the water's God, it'll be with you because you own him as your God. He owns you as his people. Both of you pronouncing each other's names. Now we belong to one another. And so nothing can happen where we're in a loan. When you walk through the fire, you won't be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze. I'm the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your savior. What is the purpose of our lives? It's worship. Sometimes we get so busy we forget we're in love with God. John Wesley spoke about his relationship with the Lord and the time he lavished in worship on God. And he said, I don't have time to be in a hurry. I don't have time to be in a hurry. I got to be with the Lord and be rejuvenated in my relationship with him. We owe him our praise. We are made for worship. We're redeemed for worship. This experience in Genesis 12, just as we said two weeks ago, about the later experience, is a kind of prefigurement of what Israel will go through in the Exodus. They also have a revelation from God. Abram is experiencing a revelation. They have one at Sinai. Abram responds by calling on the name of the Lord and building an altar. So does Israel, at Sinai, in Exodus 24. You see, this is just a foretaste of what's to come in a magnified scale. What was the purpose of the redemption of Israel out of Egypt? It wasn't that God was just simply compassionate about an underdog, wanting to liberate and oppress people, feeling that, well, menial tasks as a slave to degrading, you need the freedom of self-employment, living for your own agenda. No, that wasn't it. The purpose for the Exodus is restated 15 times in almost identical language in the opening chapters of Exodus. The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me, Moses said, to say to you, Pharaoh, let my people go so that they may worship me. The purpose of the Exodus is not to get in the Promised Land. That's almost frosting on the cake. It's to worship God. After the first plague, Moses comes again to Pharaoh and says, this is what the Lord said, let my people go so that they may worship me after the third plague. This is what the Lord says, let my people go so that they may worship me after the fourth plague, after the sixth plague, after the seventh plague. Finally, right before the eighth plague, Pharaoh's henchmen, who are there advising him, get it. And they say, Pharaoh, this is nuts. How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go so that they may worship the Lord, their God. Don't you realize he dipped his ruin? Then Pharaoh says, okay fine, we'll let the adult men go. But you don't need children to worship God. The children got to stay back. You know, don't let the kids go. See, Pharaoh had this idea, the kids are a distraction in worship, you know, they just wiggle and they don't get the point of the sermon, they don't like the music. It's not good enough, Pharaoh. And so the eighth plague of Locus comes and the ninth plague and finally the slaying of the firstborn and finally only after the tenth plague, does he finally get it? During the ninth, Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, up, leave my people, you and the Israelites, go worship the Lord as you have requested. That's the whole point of redemption and so God revealing himself through the miracles of the Exodus, coming down on Mount Sinai in a glorious theophany of cloud and of fire, revealing who he is, preaching then a sermon by the power of the Spirit, the word of God being spoken on Mount Sinai, God spoke all these words, I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. All of that was preparatory and a part of that worship experience. It all starts with a real God. A.W.O. Tozer once complained hardly anything is missing from our churches these days except the most important thing. We got all the religious programs, the gimmicks, the celebrities even, but we don't have God. The Holy Spirit, it is as if the Holy Spirit were withdrawn from the church today, 95% of what we do could go on and no one would know the difference. You can't have biblical worship without God. Those who worship Him must worship Him in the Spirit and in truth. You got to worship Him in the Spirit. God is the central point in inspiration and object of our worship. George Whitfield, when he came to America, asked later why were they are such spiritual lethargy. I am persuaded the generality of preachers, talk of an unknown and unfelt Christ. The reason why the congregations have been dead is because they have dead men preaching to them. You got to start with God in order to have real worship and then you respond in worship. That's the ultimate satisfaction of our lives. It's not that God's looking for compliments, like a vain woman or something fishing for some flattery. It isn't for His benefit, it's for ours. C.S. Lewis once said, the most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or of anything, I had strangely not noticed. I thought of it in terms of compliments, approval, the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. The world rings with praise. Lovers praise their mistresses. Readers praise their favorite poets. Walkers praise the countryside. Players praise their favorite game. And they want others to hear, wasn't that a great shot? You know, they just can't contain it. It's irrepressible when you love that which you are praising. My whole difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us as regards the supremely valuable with a capital V, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help ourselves doing about everything else we value. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is its consummation. As a dear pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God, my soul thirst for the God, for the living God, when can I go and meet with God? Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we ask that you might catch us up short and help us to see the ways in which we have fallen pray to a cluttered life and distraction in allowing ourselves to get so busy that we forget we're in love with you. And then energize us and allow us every now and then and especially at this moment to get away and get close again.
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.