that has come off the Mediterranean in the psalm. It started in the north of Israel, Lebanon, Mount Herman, and it's made its way south into this wilderness, known as the wilderness of Kadesh. And it must have been some kind of thunderstorm, because on the way David was, the way David writes the psalm tells us that he was all struck by the storm. In this storm he hears the voice of God. He sees the control of God because he has eyes to see it, really. He sees the control of God, he experiences the strength of God. And so because he hears what he hears and sees what he sees and experiences what he experiences, he sits down to write a poem about the storm. And in so doing he writes the psalm about the God who is above the storm, the God who sits in thrones above the storm, the one who's behind it you might say. And you and I have so much that we learn from this, which you might have called a point on, point slash or point dash, so much much to learn about God, much to learn about worshiping this God. Worship that is provoked by his power, by his providence, the fact that he's in control, that he governs all things, worship that is provoked by his strength. As we've already alluded to the fact that he begins with this call to worship, this God who's behind the storm. And I say to the children, this isn't just some kind of generic call to worship. This is comprehensive, everything that has breath, angels and men alike. Praise the Lord. Come to worship God. Look at verse one. He says, give unto the Lord or your translation may say, a scribe to the Lord. Oh, you mighty ones. Again, your translation may say, you heavenly beings or angels, he says, give unto the Lord glory and strength, give unto the Lord the glory due to his name, worship the Lord and the beauty of holiness. So right away, you can see David in the first two verses teaches us what we are to primarily do in worship. What do we primarily do? Do we receive or do we give? I mean, you think about that. I mean, you really answer from your heart what you really believe. Do we primarily, when we come to worship, are we here to give or are we here to take? We are to receive, gain from the service. He makes it clear. Look at the first verse again. Two times in the first verse, he says, give unto the Lord, give unto the Lord and then in verse two again, give unto the Lord. And that's the exact office of what most Christians think about worship. It's the office of what so many Christians are even taught about worship. And the result yet, many, many, many people, many Christians, who come to church only to receive. I don't know, we've said this before too, but they, what we have is a bunch of people to judge the worship service by what they got out of it. What did you get out of? Well, I've got this out of it. So they determine again whether it was a good service or not, by what they received. How much they were ministered unto, rather than how much they ministered under God. How many of you leave worship and say, well, how much do you think God got out of that? Or how much did you do today? Did that come up at Sunday wash today? Boy, I'm exhausted from giving to God in that hour. Of course, the point is the more that you ministered to him, the greater the blessing for you, the more you give, the more you walk through those doors and come in here to worship and to give glory to him, the more you come to give, the more you're going to get out of the sermon. The more you're going to get out of the hymns and the prayers. So as we gather on Sunday morning and we gather on Sunday evening, and as you gather as families and as you gather yourself or your product time of worship, then you should go to give, primarily sit down even in your easy chair or wherever you sit down for your product time of worship with God. But you sit down to do one thing and that gives to him, not what can I get out of it for the day. What's my fault for the day? He'll do it for you. But you sit down to worship, sit down to give to him to a scribe, to a scribe, to do his name. His name is mentioned no less than 18 times in the Psalm. 18 times the name Yahweh is repeated. As I just to say, his name is reason enough that we call, that we're called to worship him. And notice in his verses the day that also teaches that worship involves both exaltation and humiliation. It takes both. There's the exaltation of God and there is the abatement of myself. Look at just the words he chooses. I mean that's where we get this. A scribe means exalt, I mean exalt God to give back to him the glory that is do him. The word worship or what we gather from worship is lay low, lie, prostrate, bow down before him. So you notice that the two are experienced simultaneously and may I suggest to you it cannot happen any other way. You've never worshiped God unless you had worshiped him, exalting him and finding yourself in humiliation, in being humbled, the humbled before him. Only then have you truly worshiped God. Let me just reel off a couple of facts for you about worship. That worship is the goal of Christian living. It's the end of our lives. It's the purpose of our existence is that we are to worship him, to give to him the glory to his name. So everything we do has for that direction of worshiping him. Our theology leads us to worship. It's our purpose in our missions. Our purpose in missions is that the whole world bow down and worship God, like we do, to serve him, like we serve him, everything we do. Every is not one thing we do that doesn't have as it's in, as it's hope, as it's go to see that person with whom we deal, bow down and serve the God we love and the God that we praise and worship. worship is practice for the life to come. Sunday mornings we have dress rehearsal for heaven, basically an argument to be made that worship is the only thing the Lord seeks from us. In John 4, he seeks those who worship him in spirit and in truth. So please understand that worship is not just on the peripheral of my life, my Christian life. I just sort of tacked on worship at the beginning of the week. Hope to get some brownie points in my relationship with him. Worship is not something that I looked at it and I say, well, you know, I can take it or leave it. Depends on what I'm doing that weekend. Depends on what I'm doing the day before. Depends on what I have planned for that day. Oh, it's the most important thing we do in our lives. Do you hear that? Worship is the most important thing that you do in your life. Why is it been that we struggle? Why isn't there so many obstacles to our worship? Let me give you a few obstacles, these struggles, or reasons why we struggle. Sometimes we struggle in worship because we just don't understand worship. We look at God. We say, God is this one who can give me all these things I want, all these things I need. I have this wonderful plan for my life and God is just the one to pull it out for me. And so I'm going to pace him in worship. I'm going to go to that church and worship him to get on his good side. So he'll give me what I want. Mr. Dennis, not God-centered worship. It's man-centered worship. Sometimes we struggle because of distractions, either prior to or even during worship. We have a wonderful weekend with our families, all this family, harmony, all this family unity, and then comes on the morning. How dare you wipe me up before 9 o'clock? We're here. You would never say that, Ryan. How dare you wipe me up to go to church? So before you know it, on our way to church, mothers pitted against sons, father against daughter, their tension in the family, why is it so all that a lot of families, there's more tension Sunday morning than any other morning of the week. And we have more time. We don't have to be anywhere until later than any other day of the way to something maybe Saturday. And yet the whole day can be colored because of tension, even our worship experience colored because of the tension within the family. Sometimes the lack of spiritual maturity is a distraction. Not only to you, but even to the rest of the body. If you're not worshiping God in devotions and prayer time and to the reading God's word every day, if you're not spending time confessing your sin and adoring God and actually carving out that time to have private worship with God, then you'll come to worship and you'll have insufficient material from which to draw when you're sitting in this science where you're worshiping God.
Often that's why our worship is so dry because we've not worshiped the last Sabbath. We set our bibles down where we came in after church on Sunday evening for this crowd. And then we didn't pick them up again. Try to find them the next Lord's day morning. Sometimes we struggle in worship because of broken relationships. It's very, very difficult to sit down in worship with people. The people of God and we're not right with them. It's very hard when we've ascended. And when you have someone you've ascended and you've not gone to them to ask for goodness or you believe they've ascended you and you've not gone to them to reconcile. Now, wonder you don't get anything out of as they say because the very Jesus that you worship is the one who said you can't worship me in the firmament of the mountainside. You can't worship me until you've made things right with everybody else. And there's been times that tonight we'll even go into this battle. I don't think we've done it here. But you know, you've played great things. Are we wrong with each other? I can't get in the pulpit and think that we're not, we're not right. I'll be honest with you before we even came with my children. Just me, with the three children, that I had to ask for goodness and I call Michael a hospital for you so I don't have my count yet. I'm coming, I'm coming because I had to do what I'm going to tell you what I had today was to get right with them and try to teach them. I can't divorce myself from the pulpit, from the man that I am. It's just another, just a man. It's a Christian. It's so hard to understand it. You don't come up here and it's very hypocritical. If you're not right with other people, I'm not talking about two occasions. I hadn't done this here either. I hope I never do. But where I've actually served the Lord's slumber but hadn't taken it. I don't know if that's what you should even do. I don't know, but I just knew that I just widened with the person that was sitting down the congregation. It just would have been so hypocritical. The most important question in this regard, a very good question for the believer is, am I truly worshipping God? Have I ever really worshipped God? Sometimes you have to ask that. Evangelical church today is hurting in a worship where there's such a lack of zeal. Such a lack of exuberance and enthusiasm. It's so what we find is so many churches today are people because that happening in their churches because there's not that zeal there, there's their resorting to the gimmicks. I'm so thankful to be here, you see. So thankful for elders like you have. It's served on the session who will not bow down to man's friends to get an ed and pray this morning and pray together that we would not give in because we both said it. This really looks like it could be a good worship place and we both have to guard ourselves. It's just written on paper. So we have to make sure we're not trying to manipulate people, manipulate their hearts. And that's the session that didn't do that. The session this session knows that we only worship in the way that God has prescribed for us to worship in His words. Why did we say that? Why would we say such a thing? Because we believe it's not outward. If we feel right, it's not because of the things we're literally doing in the elements of worship. It's a matter of the heart. Worship comes out of the heart. It proceeds out of the heart. It's a matter of spirit and truth. Let me give you two obstacles. This may be all the time actually that we have, but I want to give you these two obstacles because I want you to pray that these would not be obstacles in our church. These wouldn't we wouldn't fall prey to these obstacles. One is complacency. In Proverbs 30, God really, God gives us some very wise words through a man named Ager. We don't know anything about Ager except that he writes this inspired wisdom in verse 7 of Proverbs 30. It's really verses 7-8-9. Two things I request of you. Deprive me not before I die. Remove falsehood and lies far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the foods you prescribe for me. Let's not be full and deny you and say who is the Lord? Or let's I be poor and steal and for fame the name of my God. Complicency according to Ager is rooted in self-satisfaction. Complicency comes when when we look at the world and we see all these things we have in the world and we say that's enough. I don't need anything else. I'm content with all these things that the world affords me. It could even be in the form of God's blessing. That's where you have to really be careful. We grow accustomed to these blessings that even God has sent us. It's in our way. And because of all these blessings from God we just think that we're not really dependent upon God. We don't rely on God and we say things like well I'll always have what I have because after all God's given it to me and why should he take it from me? I deserve it. I've always had it. Do you know that it is when we assume that we have what we have? We will always have that we grow distant from God. Just when you begin to think that everything I have I will always have. You're not relying on God anymore. You're not dependent upon Him. You're dependent upon a bank account or stocks or whatever. And a lack of dependence upon God and a lack of reliance upon God. You know if that leads to a lack of gratitude and if you have a lack of gratitude you can't help but have a lack of worship. Just because of time which we had the time to read it but I want you to be sure to read the quote from Surgeon that was an insert tonight. But just really it follows up so well on what Ager says in Proverbs 30 but complacency is really an enemy of true worship. When we lose our desire to worship it's because very often because the things of the world have become too important to us. And we forget that to know God is eternal life. To know God is to worship Him and praise Him and love Him. Save the insert you get home. A lot of you read it but I want you to hear this. Discontentment is the second one. Discontentment is feeling like God hadn't met my needs. It may be an event in your life. Something's happened. You feel like God's done you wrong. It may be that God hadn't provided that thing that you loaned for that you won't and your bill you may grow hard because you deserve that thing or you feel I really need this thing. And God's not given before you know what you think God hadn't God doesn't measure up to this crazy image that I created of who I think God is. That's a worship cure. When he doesn't meet your expectations that's where David doesn't leave us there and I want to very quickly just to run through the reasons the description of the storm what we learned from the storm because I want to get the job I want to end with that. But there's four ways if you'll notice me outline. I just I'll skim it. But the Lord himself is the object of our desire and that we really gain it from the whole song and it's really reiterating what we've already said that only when we know had a lot plus straight before God and at the same time exalt him it's only then that we have truly worshiped him. When we can lift up song hymns and spiritual songs praise to God and at the same time lie on our faces and confess our sin to him. Only then have we worshiped him in spirit and should be the natural world and this certainly comes out of the storm it is it's designed to soak our desires. The thunder storm actually draws David to this God is behind the storm because he sees God behind the storm that gives him a certain perspective on the storm itself and he sees the storm as the hand of God. He does that what he's witnessing in the storm is not just some brute force of nature some some work of nature it's the work of God. The rolling thunder was not just some accident but he said he sees it's actually the voice of God as I said with the show when will there be one weatherman of course he'd be fired I guess one weatherman who would tell us that God is what I mean you know and that would give us real hope when in the midst of a serious storm to say it's not the voice of mother nature is the voice of God it may be a Christian on the on the weather camp you ever watch the weather channels the Oriental fella he comes so close to giving glory to God look for it so I do spend much on one to shout well but God's judgment is the third so reminder of God's ultimate judgment verse 10 the Lord sat and groaned at the flood and the Lord sits the king forever that word flood is the same word used it's the only word used for flood and scripture same one used in Genesis 6 to the library about Noah's flood so he's taken his back to Noah's flood and and he's saying God will never leave any unjustness not taken terror on he's saying that's the word the God and then they God's special law to his people's strength and peace verse 11 the Lord will give strength to his people the Lord will bless his people with peace it's God's law for his people that is our meditation when we come into the sanctuary that's why we want to be quiet when we come in because we're not thinking about what am I going to get out of this or how can I promote my agenda it's not how many grounding points can I get it's the realization of what God has done for me who he is that his love transcends everything I know in life and this glorious God made provision for me that I'm going to have a relationship with him through Christ his son this is the way I'd love for us to end if you'll turn to Job 1 this is our own epilogue really so tonight sermon and just as you turn there the book before Psalms true worship requires genuine desire of God if the only way we can really worship him
if you genuinely desire God I mean genuinely desire him it will manifest itself in a lot of complaining about the things you don't have it will also manifest itself in realizing God is all I mean just because I don't have that thing I won't I realize God is all I really need God's all I have to have there's no better example than Job this man after God's heart the beginning of verse 1 of Job 1 will read to verse 5 and then get down to 13 there was a man in the land of us his name was Job and that man was blamed what's an off-road and one who feared God and shunned evil and seven sons and three daughters were born to him and his possessions were 7,000 shaped 3000 camels 5000 yoke of oxygen 500 female and a very large household so that this man was the greatest in all the people of all the people of the age now his sons would go and feast in their houses each one each on his appointed day and would send and invite the three sisters to eat and drink with them so it would look when the day the facing had run their course the Job would send and sanctify them and he would rise early in the morning and all for good offerings according to the number of them all but I said it may be that my son could stand and curse God in their hearts then Job just Job did regularly verse 13 now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine and their oldest brothers house and a messenger came to Job and said the often were plowing and the donkey feeding beside them when the subains waited and took them away indeed they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword and I alone would escape to tell you while he was still speaking another also came and said the fire of God fell from heaven and burned up his sheep and the servants and consumed in an I alone of escape to tell you while he was still speaking another also came and said the colony and formed three bands right into camels and took them away yes and killed the servant with the edge of the sword an I alone of escape to tell you while he was still speaking another also came and said your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine and their oldest brothers house and suddenly a great windman from the coast of the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house and it fell on the young man and they are dead and I alone of escape to tell you and then verse 20 we all know 20 and 21 didn't Job arose and poured his robe and shaved his head and he fell to the ground and worshiped and he said make it I came from my mother's womb and make it shall I return there and the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away the flesh and be the name of the Lord that's the man who loved God more than anything else in all the world all the things that God has given him all his wealth all his possessions even down to his own children think about that apply to your own life even to his own children were no substitute for God himself so that when everything was taken away from him he still could worship the God content because he knew that God alone gives and God alone has the right to take away the only way that you can have that kind of contentment and peace and joy no matter the storm no matter the size of the storm in your life tonight the only way you can have peace and joy is when you give yourself over to the God behind the storm when you give yourself over to the God who loves you more than you would ever ever know so much so he's been his only son to die for you so that you can have a relationship with him so that you can in the midst of the storm hear his voice so that when you really hear his voice the thunder of his voice on judgment day you won't have to be frightened like a little child in a thunderstorm you need to make it right with God if as we said this morning as you settle accounts with him find peace with him only through Christ his son as we pray together my father we pray that you would have mercy on us as the great God that you are the God of the lightning and the thunder we could splinter the saiders of Lebanon with your voice we pray to know you like that in the midst of our hard times in the midst of our disappointment we pray that we might know you as the God who's in control of everything that you're sovereign that you're provident is good that even behind that cloud you are smiling at an honest so God calls us to be called to worship tonight called to worship you privately to get out of bed in the morning or stay up at night whatever it is followed if you would call us to spin that time with you our creator would make our prayer in Jesus name