Good morning, beloved Orangewood. Good morning. Good morning, Pastor Jake. Good to see you. Hey, what an incredible, beautiful day that God has given us to worship him. This morning as we continue our series on Design for worship that God has created us to worship. We've been looking through the Psalms this morning We got an extra special blessing with Dr. Richard Pratt coming this morning and opening up God's word. I've had the privilege of having Dr Pratt in Seminary And there are some people who will teach you things and then there are people who will teach you how to think There's some people help you see things and then there are people who help you see and in my life when it comes to Training and an understanding God's word and the big picture of the kingdom of God There's been no one greater who's helped shape my understanding is what is God's word really telling us and what is the kingdom of God? And I remember the first class I attended of his it was called introduction to theological studies and it was probably back in 92 or 93 As a matter of fact reformed theological seminary at that time was right across the street over in the Maitland Commons area and I went to class and the first day of class was so excited To start my seminary journey and for many of you know, I was able to cram three years of an MDiv into eight years So it began a long journey But what happened was is after the first day of class that came home and I said to Katie well, that was that was incredible But I think there's one of two things that that must be true But two things can't be true either I'm a Christian or Richard Pratt to Christian or Richard Pratt to Christian and I'm not a Christian But we both can't be Christians because it was so mind-blowing the way he saw things the way he unders described things and then I realized Yeah, he is my brother in Christ and really God used them mightily to help me think to help me see and we have the privilege of welcoming him He's a president of a ministry called third mill ministries. There's more information and you're bolting about that at the end of his sermon I'm going to ask him a couple of questions to describe that a little bit further So Richard, it's an honor to have you blessings brother. He's been in our orange with PowerPoint throughout the years Welcome back Richard. Thank you. Good morning everybody. I'm really glad to be with you this morning I can sort of see you the lights are bright up here. Are you really out there? Okay, you're there. Okay, good. If you have a Bible the bulletin is wrong It's one of the great things about being a guest preacher. You can change the passage you're gonna preach from it the last minute So I did we're gonna look at Psalm 34 Psalm 34 and if you have a Bible you want to turn there with me Please and read along as we read from God's word. This is now the word of God Listen to it. Give your heart to it I will bless the Lord at all times his praise shall continually be on my mouth My soul makes its boast in the Lord let the humble here and be glad oh Magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together I Sult the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears Those who looked him are radiant and their faces are never will never be ashamed This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all of his troubles The angel of the Lord and camps around those who fear him and delivers them Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh fear the Lord you his saints for those who fear him have no lack The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good things Let's pray together a Lord Jesus we bow before you now having heard these words that have been said and sung by your people for millennia We've turned to you Lord Jesus because we call no one our teacher, but you We long to see no one like we long to see you We hope and no one like we hope in you we trust no one like we trust you So we pray now you'll send Holy Spirit to us that he will come and fill every heart in this room that our eyes May be open to see you and the truth that you would have us believe today and as you do that we will give you praise We'll honor you for it. Amen Every mother in here will tell you this is very unusual for little infant children to come into this world saying thank you Now it's very usual for infants and for toddlers and for young children and Four teenagers and even for adults to complain about what's going on in the world To be down about the pain or the hunger or the sorrow or the discomfort that they have Oh, yeah, that's very usual But what's unusual is when you find any of those people at any of those stages actually being people whose hearts are full of thanks Whose hearts are full of Adoration and joy and pleasure in the things of this world I think we just all have to admit that to ourselves and looking at you right now. Yep. I would say that's true of you, too Certainly true of me In fact, what parents often have to do is they have to spend a lot of time Don't they teaching young children just simply to say thank you Say thank you, Johnny Say thank you, Johnny if you don't I'm going to put you in your room for the rest of this day time out say thank you And finally they learn to fit out a little thank you But it goes beyond that doesn't it if you want to have Actual thanksgiving in your heart if you want to have adoration in your life It goes beyond just learning to say those simple words Thank you somehow We also have to teach our children to go beyond the words and to how to say thank you in ways that really do express Something that's deep inside of them Well, you're beginning now a series of sermons from the Psalms on worship I'm told that I'm near the front of that. Is that right? And so I thought it would be right for us to focus our attention this morning on what it means to have a thankful heart What it means to be a thankful person because worship in many ways is all about that What you're doing right now is Is centered around this idea that we should be happy about something? We should be thankful about something and that we ought to be able to say so So how do you do that? Well this Psalm is one of those Psalms that takes us through a process of a person who Does say thank you says thank you to God for the things that are going on in his life and it starts off Inside of him we get a glimpse inside of this person's heart in the first verses do you remember what it says in the first three verses? It says I'll bless the Lord at all times his praise will always be on my lips What that basically means is something's happened in my life that makes me grateful Something's happened in my life that makes me thankful and it's so big in my life I can't stop talking about it. It will always be on my lips Now when does that ever happen to a person except when a person has seen something has noticed something in life That really turns them on really makes them the kind of person says man. This is so exciting. This is so good I can't stop talking about it. I mean think of what happens when a mother has her first child Does he just sit there and say well that was good? Of course not what she does is she just can't stop talking about in the father stumbling around in the hall He's handing out cigars or what we bubble gum cigars now I guess or whatever we hand out to people nowadays and it's because They can't stop talking about how cute that baby is how wonderful it is to be a new father a new mother It's something that's good for them something they recognize as good and so they can't stop talking about it In fact it goes further than that. Did you see in verse three? He says okay? Everybody else come magnify the Lord with me Let us exalt his name together in fact if part the heart of a person who wants to be able to say thank you to God who wants to be able to exalt God and adore him in this way can't Be satisfied with just doing it himself He wants other people to join in too just like that mother mother and daughter are fine and the husband stumbling around in the Hallway doesn't just say thank you to hear himself say thank you. He wants other people to be excited too This expresses something about the heart of this person and the heart of every single person who knows how to come to a time like this With thankfulness in their hearts or at some other moment in your time alone with God or even walking down the street driving the car A moment of thankfulness a moment of hope comes when you're so turned on to something that's happened in your life You can't stop talking about it and you want other people to know about it and talk about it with you It's really that simple now. I know in a group this size There are probably people here who don't follow Jesus and this idea of being that excited about something God does is really bizarre Sounding I can understand that but you need to understand that Followers of Jesus have a great privilege and the privilege is our eyes have been opened up to see God at work in the work We're actually able to see that God does things and the same can be true for you if you don't follow Jesus It's really not that hard all you have to do is come to Jesus and he'll open your eyes up to begin to see things that are out there Around you and in your own life that actually deserve to Elicit gratitude in your heart Thankfulness in your heart so if you're tired of being down if you're tired of being the kind of person to can't see anything But the misery of life come to Jesus and he can open your eyes to see that there are other things in the world too Other things in life But isn't it true even for those of you who follow Jesus that is very easy for us to forget How much Jesus has opened our eyes to see the world around us? Because we can put glasses on that really don't belong to us But glasses that come to us every single day from television from the movies from books Regreted magazine through reading and conversations with friends that can bring us down because these glasses We put on look around ourselves and we try to explain every single thing that happens in life in natural terms in ordinary terms Oh Yeah, well, I got a raise and that was because it worked really hard Oh, yeah, well things are better in my marriage now because we've really been concentrating on that Or isn't that interesting that accident that just happened in my life and we explain away things and push God put God's activity in our lives to the edge of life rather than bringing it central to our lives because it feels unsophisticated Doesn't it? It feels like man What am I a fanatic that I see God everywhere in life? That would be ridiculous. So what I need to do is just be reasonable about all this and think just like the world does and Push God to the edges of those things. We can't explain any other way So no wonder that even followers of Jesus are Robbed of the joy Robbed of a heart of gratitude Because we Refused to see that even in the simple things in life even to the things that seem very ordinary That God is at work in our lives in ways That should so excite us that we can't stop talking about it and we want other people to know and talk about it with us That's where it begins That's where it begins and coming even to a worship service here at Arnhard It begins with you opening your eyes getting rid of those glasses that the world wants you to view the world in terms of Opening your eyes to see the reality that God is at work in your life and It's so good. You just can't stop talking about it And you want the people around you to join with you So if you ever wondered why you're bored with a worship service if you ever wonder why your quiet times are dull if you under ever wonder why You just seem to be Down all the time in many ways it starts right here with having a heart having a heart That can respond to the good things that God is doing But just like with children It's one thing to get excited about something is another thing to figure out how to go from your heart to your lips How to say Thank you how to express gratitude I don't know about you, but I'm so old. I grew up watching Gomer pile Now if you don't know what Gomer pile is Gomer pile US MC if you don't know what that is turn on TV land this afternoon at Re runs now and Gomer pile is this marine goofy marine from North Carolina. I think it is Yeah, I made very North Carolina and He was funny because his drill instructor Sergeant Carter he never got out of basic training I don't think so I guess he was stuck there for years and years and years But his drill instructor Sergeant Carter would do something and Gomer would get excited about it While everybody else was just kind of moaning about it, but he would get excited about it And this is what he would say thank you. Thank you. Thank you Sergeant Carter Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Sergeant Carter and that's all he would ever say And even as a child I would see that and I go wow that's really funny because he's saying thank you Thank you. Thank you over and over again, but surely There's something more you can say When your heart's turned on to what God has done Then simply thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Now sometimes those words are the only words that can come and that's perfectly fine But surely there's another way to do it a better way to do it And we find it right here in this song beginning of verse four Listen to what he says in verse four I talking about himself I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all of life fears Those who look to him are radiant their faces are never covered with shame This poor man talking about himself this poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all of his trouble The angel of the Lord and camps around those who fear him and delivers them Now, this is a short example of something that happens all throughout the songs And it's really very simple The way that they talk about their gratitude the way they express their excitement about what God has done continually and so that other people can join in Is that they tell the story of what God has done It's very short here just a couple of verses here But another song she'll find sometimes this story of thanksgiving goes on for 1819 20 verses Because the stories can be summarized in quick snapshots, but they can also be very elaborate Telling the story about what God has done is one of the main ways in which followers of Jesus Express a heart of gratitude bringing it to their lips talking about it so that other people really can join in
I know that may sound strange in many ways, but You've experienced this kind of thing where People will tell stories about you And you realize from the story they're telling about you that they're really very thankful and very grateful for what you've done for them How would you have stories like that? I can remember when our daughter Becky who grew up in this church before we came here when she had her second grade second grade birthday party It was at a local roller skating rink in Jackson, Mississippi Can you imagine what that was like? It was a nightmare It was 300 degrees at least in this place. It smelled like little kids running around the whole day We were there having her big birthday party with all her new friends in this new town We moved to then know what else to do. So we went to school at roller skating rink. It was great So she skated all morning had the big birthday cake had all the presents all the friends and all that time Becky had never said thank you to me not once And I spent a whole lot of money on that and a lot of time in that horrible place And I was going to get a thank you out of her So that night I sat down on the edge of her bed and I said well Becky did you have a good time today And she said yes Well, that wasn't enough So I went fishing for more What did you like about today Becky? Everything Well, that wasn't enough either not for me. I needed to know she really liked what happened that day So I thought to myself, okay, I'm going to get this out of her one way or the other So I said well tell me some of the things you liked about today. Can you be a little more specific? And so she started telling me about how the girls chased the boys into the bathroom and the boys chased the girls back into the bathroom Talked about how she got the skate around the rink by herself while they played happy birthday. You know how they do that Okay, little stories little stories little stories little scenarios of what had happened that day at this horrific birthday party And all the while she was telling me those little stories of what had happened in her life that day I sat there like that and said yep. I have been a good father. Have a night I'm a good daddy Because she didn't even realize it but all the while she was telling me those little stories She was saying thank you daddy Thank you for this. Thank you for this. Thank you for this
That's you and me Because sometimes we do have hearts that are actually turned on eyes that can see that God has done something in our lives But we don't know how to take that heart attitude and put it here Well, one of the ways we can do that is by telling the stories of what God has done Now we do that in a corporate meeting in a big meeting like this in a number of ways Sometimes pastors will even allow people to come up and give testimony of something that God has done in their lives And that's a great thing Sometimes you'll find your story in the songs that you sing you say yeah, that's what happened to me Sometimes you'll be able to turn to your neighbor before church even during church at times and tell them Let me tell you something happened to me this week Sometimes you can do it on your way to church sometimes you can do it on your way home from church Because the stories that we tell about what God has done in our lives So please him that he sits back like that and says yes, I am a good father to this child of mine And don't you want God to know That he's been good to you So when you sing the hymns personalize them make them yours Yes, you may not even be able to make it through a hymn if you do that you may get choked up That's okay You may have to sit down because you're so overwhelmed by what is said in that hymn as it applies to you That's okay During the sermon you may hear something that connects to your story and you may have to whisper Whisper of course here a little amen
Who knows what might happen to you but I can tell you this If you'll take that heart that's turned on to something that God has done and turned it into a little story You'll be telling God thank you the whole time You'll be able to do what we're supposed to be doing when we worship him and he will be pleased Now surely Everyone in this room can see that God has done good things for them Yes, I know everybody has pain anybody here without pain in life Yes, everybody has suffering anybody in here without suffering Yes, everybody has sorrows and regrets We all do we all know that But as we look at ourselves and we realize even simple things like God has given me friends God has given me a wedding a marriage God has given me children God has given me a job Even the simple things of life God has given me a place to live these are things that deserve stories But those of you who follow Jesus and those of you who may come to him Let me tell you something you've got the greatest story ever to tell
And it is this that God loved you enough That God cared enough about you to put you in a place where you could hear about Jesus That God loved you and God cared enough about you for you to hear the story about Jesus and what he has done for the human race And God loved you and God cared enough about you to change your heart so you could receive that story as yours Now isn't that worth a little bit of gratitude once in a while Isn't that worth a story or two once in a while And God will sit back on his throne in heaven And they'll say I am a good father
That's the heart of somebody who says thank you It's the lips of someone who says thank you But what will be the result? What's the payoff of this? I mean the payoff for you Is there any benefit that comes to you and me If we can get that kind of a heart if we can get those kinds of words those stories on our lips We can see what kind of benefit there is Beginning in verse 8 Listen to what he says there. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh fear the Lord you his saints for those who fear him have no lack Young lion suffer and one hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing when he says here taste and see that the Lord is good He's actually talking about a ceremony that they celebrated at the temple at the Tabernacle and later at the temple in Old Testament Israel There's a lot like the meal we're going to have here It was what they called a Thanksgiving offering and they would invite friends They would invite even poor people along the street come on with me and go to the temple with me Because this is what we're going to do. We're going to give a sacrifice of Thanksgiving Part of it's going to be given to the priest part of it's going to be burned up and go up to God But the rest of it we're going to eat And so what he's saying here is that now we've come to the time We've come to the time in the ceremony of me expressing my gratitude to God That I want you to eat with me and they would actually sit there and eat the food But did you notice he doesn't say taste and see how good the food is What he says is taste and see how good God is how good the Lord is Because as they ate that food and as that food Invigorated them many of them being the poor many of those who did not have food otherwise When that food invigorated them and turned their bodies on as it will They could then see just how good God had been to this man To this worshipper and they could join with him in that taste and see that the Lord is It reminds me of a time my first trip in fact to mexico where I came down with An infirmity to her dayla terista tourist disease I hadn't eaten in three or four days But I came to a friend's house and his mother made me eat now. I had not eaten in three or four days And when I took that taco that cheese taco that she made for me and I put it on my lips This body that had fallen the pieces this depressed human being that didn't even want to live again Didn't want to take another breath because I had not eaten in three days All of a sudden my my body turned on I became energized full of life Magnifico Viva Mexico
That's what happens to you if you haven't eaten for a while and you eat again Your body just turns on well. That's what this man is talking about here being turned on Not so much to how good the food is but to how good God has been to this person to make it possible for me To eat this food now. You're about to have a meal It's a symbolic meal is not much to it in terms of physical pleasures and that sort of thing But it is a meal that reminds us and tells us how good God has been to us We are participating in the sacrifice of Jesus By drinking in faith of his blood and eating in faith by the Holy Spirit of his body And as we take the moment to realize that this is not about how's that grape juice taste how's that little way for taste but rather How good God has been to us this meal can invigorate you too It can make you see that God really has been good to me God has done wonderful things in my life And we can say taste and see how good the Lord is Well, just how how much can it do for us did you hear what he said He said the lions make grow weak and hungry, but those who fear the Lord lack nothing Those who fear the Lord lack nothing Now I'm sure that 15 minutes after this ceremony he could have given you a list of 100 things he still needed
His life wasn't over Just like you and me we can always come up with 100 things we need can't we But at this moment what he's saying is this as we eat this food as we remember the story I just told as my heart is still open and my eyes can still see that God has been good to me I can honestly tell you I lack nothing My cup overflows even in a world of sin even in a world of suffering even a world of sickness Even in a world full of death and threats at every moment The people of God the people who know Jesus can say with truth with conviction in their hearts I lack no Good thing Wouldn't you like to feel that way about yourself once in a while
I mean, let's admit it that when we see Florida state whoop up on all myths that happened this weekend didn't it Florida whoop up oh man, they even they whoop up on them. Well, that's amazing That is amazing A lot of you may have watched that football game if you didn't it's okay with me. I didn't But I delight in it And when Jeff told me this morning went who why anybody that whoops up on all myths on monot Hurray Well, let's admit it you know when you leave a football game where your team has won You leave that game saying I don't like a single good thing in my life. This is unbelievable That's the attitude I'm talking about That's the feeling I'm talking about The kind of feeling that you know when you get back home You're still going to be dealing with your teenagers You're still going to be dealing with your bills You're still going to be dealing with the disease that you have You're still going to be dealing with what's on the news You're still going to be dealing with all those things that bring you down day after day after day But at that moment at that moment You can say taste and see life is good God, the Lord has been good to me and I don't lack a thing. Now this is something you can do every day of your life. This is something you can do as special seasons, like the Thanksgiving season is coming soon. And this is something you can do in your worst of surfaces here. And this is something you can do right now as we taste and see that the Lord is good. Infants are not born saying thank you and even when we teach our toddlers to get those words out, thank you. They still haven't got it yet because having a heart that's full of thanks and gratitude and adoration begins with opening your eyes to see what's happening in your life. It goes to your lips with stories and then it permeates your life with the euphoria, with the joy, with the pleasure that I lack no good thing. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we delight in you that you were one whose eyes were open, heart was open to the good things that the Father in heaven did for you. That you were one who told stories about the goodness of the Father in heaven. We delight in you that even in a life that was devoted to suffering, even suffering on a cross, that you had deep within you and throughout your life, the joy of knowing that God has been good. Holy Spirit, our prayer is simple. Please make us like Jesus, Amen. Thank you, Richard. Okay, you have in your bulletin a little bit more about what God has called this man to do under third mill ministries, but I'm going to ask him just a couple of questions. Richard, what does actually third mill do and can you give us an example of what God is doing through third mill ministries? Yeah, third millenium ministries, which is located just up here in Furnhart, Castlebury at 436 and 1792, right at that intersection. Basically what we are doing is what most mission people would say is probably the most critical part of the spread of the gospel around the world, and that is we are educating church leaders around the world in the Bible and in sound theology. You may not know this, but most pastors in the world today have less than one hour of training in the Bible. Did you hear that? Most pastors in the world today have less than one hour of training in the Bible. Now you know what your pastors do to you with all the education they've had. You know how they mess up your life, screw things up, okay. With all the education they've had, can you imagine what Jeff would do to you if he had less than one hour of training in the Bible? Scary stuff. As a nightmare, isn't it? That's what most of your brothers and sisters face today. So third millennium slogan is this, biblical education for church leaders. For the whole world, and we mean the whole world every land, every language, and the last tagline for us is biblical education for the world for free. We create a multimedia seminary education experience that we are giving away all over the world in about 18 different languages, and God is blessing, and that's what we do. That is so awesome. Can you tell us a little bit more about how Third Mill got started? What did God do to prompt your heart to get you behind this? Yeah, I had the easiest job in the world, by the way, I was a teacher in the seminary. That's the easiest job in the world. You never work, you never do anything, okay, never. And you control people like Jeff because you hold grades over their heads. So it was a really easy job, but a friend of mine in Jackson, Mississippi, a student at the seminary in Jackson, Mississippi had an experience where she was sitting at the table in the library, and an African student walked by and said, can I see that magazine? So she handed it to him, didn't pay any attention to it. And he looked at the front cover, he looked at it, and he said, I think that's my son. And she took it from him, and it was a pile of dead African teenagers in a ditch. And one face was showing, and it looked just like his son. This is back in 1995, so it's before the internet, before anything like that. So they called the Red Cross, and two days later they found that it was his son. He had been dead. This young man's son in Africa had been dead for more than six weeks, I think it was. And he didn't even know about it. At which time, this matriarch of a plantation in the Delta of Mississippi, remember Tara, and gone with the wind? That's what we're talking about here. She called me up on the phone down here in Orlando. She said, Rich, we can't let this happen anymore. And I said, what's that? We can no longer bring people away from their families, away from their churches to the United States to go to seminary. We can't do it anymore. We've got to put seminary in a box and send it to them. And then she said these words to me, she said, if I can get the money, can you get the box? And I said, yeah, I can get the box, that's easy. At that time, in 1995, what we thought that meant was making audio cassettes, remember those? Yeah. Okay? Literally putting them in a box and shipping them to somebody, okay? Well, since then, the vision's grown beyond that. But to where we broadcast things on satellite television and all kinds of things all around the world, it's just amazing what God has done. But that's how we got started. We didn't get started because anybody who was interested in deep theology or silly things that we often split the church over, we were interested in helping Christian leaders in their homes and their lands because where the church is growing the fastest in the world there is the least opportunity for church leaders to learn the Bible. And we are going to change that and God is doing that in unbelievable ways. That's awesome. Last question. Is it true that I was your favorite student you've ever had? It certainly was. Okay. You like Jeff? He was my favorite student. You don't like him? I don't know him. Let's pray. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the fact that you have given us eyes to see of how good you are, that you are working in the world and God that you would even use a tragedy like a magazine picture that would compel a matriarch to say, we can no longer do that this way. We thank you for the fact that you are behind the third millennial ministries. It's your hand. It's your desire. It's your love for your people of every tribe, tongue and nation to know and love you, to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus as their Lord and Savior. So Father, we thank you for that calling on a third-mill ministries. We thank you for that calling upon Richard's life. We thank you for what you're doing here in Furn Park to reach the world with a biblical education for the world for free, boy, that has the aroma of Christ in the gospel all over it and what a joy it is of Orangewood's to partner with them. God, as we collect our ties and offerings, we are mindful that you ask us to do even this with a grateful heart, with a thankful heart because every good and perfect thing comes from you and we have not one thing that we desire apart from you. So God received these ties and offerings to do that which only you could do, advance Christ's kingdom. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.