The Psalms and Your Worship: Introduction

Thank you for your singing. Good morning to you. If you want to open up to Psalm 1, we're going to be kind of all over the place, I think. But why not make our home base Psalm 1? I figured it was high time to find a book to settle in. When I do come up here, I think we have scheduled about once a month normally.

I figured it was time to settle in a book. Spurgeon would just pick a topic at random each Saturday night and write a sermon. I'm not Spurgeon. I can't do that. It's so much easier to have a book to be in because it kind of forces you where you're going to be at. And so the book that I'll be going through, we're not going to go through every psalm, but we're going to go through it.

It'll take quite a long time, will be the Psalms. I absolutely love the Psalms. It's my favorite book. every pastor has a shtick it's a pastoral shtick it's something that it's like a special talent or like an interest an area of interest that a pastor has that you'll hear him repeat himself quite often every pastor has one and hopefully it's some sort of emphasis that magnifies the gospel in some way but in its own unique pastor way everyone has their own different way Everyone has, every pastor has a shtick.

It's a fun word to say to a shtick if you've never said it before. If I was one of those people, I would have you say shtick to your neighbor, but I'm not one of those pastors who do that. But in your own private time, say the word shtick a few times. It's fun. Every pastor has a shtick, though, has a shtick. I've got to be careful.

I know what I thought my shtick would be growing in my Christianity, at the very beginning at least, was doctrine, was getting to know deeply doctrine, theology. I remember I started going to a church that was really big and very much to do with emotions not very critical thinking or anything like that It was just very emotional driven And I remember getting my hands for the first time Francis Schaeffer, which I probably have said before already behind the pulpit. That was really, it changed my Christian life at that moment to realize that Christianity actually goes very deep.

Francis Schaeffer is a Christian philosopher, and Christianity actually goes very theologically deep. And I just remember thinking, this is awesome. It's not just a big emotional drivel, although there's emotion involved, but it actually goes theologically, doctrinally, critically, thinking deep. And I remember it being just glorious in my eyes. And I remember just wanting to grow more and more in doctrine.

And I thought that maybe what church should be is just a bunch of desk chairs and a bunch of students. And, you know, you guys listen with notepads and writing notes as if it's school. I remember I think we'd be going too far that direction. My shtick would be to just go deep into doctrine, almost over the heads of most people as we just unveil God's deeper truths.

But then I remember growing in my doctrine, reading verses like 1 Corinthians 8.1. Paul says, now concerning food offered to idols, we know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. I remember reading texts like 1 Corinthians 13.1 and 2. We're all familiar with it. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. I remember coming to the realization that although I was growing in my understanding of doctrine and theology and all that fun stuff, my, what I would say now, worship was lacking. I realized I had no prayer life.

I literally had no prayer life. My head could be full of the latest book that I was reading, the latest Schaeffer book I was reading, the latest MacArthur book, whatever I was reading, but my worship was null and void. I had no prayer life, and to be honest with you, singing at church was more of a chore. It was more of a nuisance than anything else. Just get me to the doctor and proclaim.

I remember God convicted me enough to where that became an issue. I remember going to my pastor and saying, I have no prayer life. That seems like a problem. Like, I don't ever actually spend time in prayer. And I remember realizing that that has to be an issue. And the greatest thing that that pastor I was at a healthier church at that point ever did for me was he pointed me to the book of Psalms He pointed me to a book that was all about praying through the book of Psalms and we talk about that more I think, probably in coming weeks.

Maybe we'll talk about that a little bit in afternoon service. But I remember being taught to pray through the book of Psalms, and I remember that completely changed my Christian life. The book of Psalms I'd read through before, but it was more of an intellectual exercise, and there's a lot of good doctrine in there. It was good. But when I started praying through the Psalms, it all of a sudden transformed my whole worship to my God.

It transformed everything about my Christianity. It made intellect meet and kiss the heart in which it created a great worshipful attitude that went forth from my heart. Something that was deeply missing in my Christian life. And so it's with that that I can say today, after it's been, I don't know, eight years since that, I can say that the book of Psalms is my favorite book of the Bible.

I can say that if I was on a deserted island and I could only have one book of the Bible, it would be the book of Psalms. It would certainly be that I spend the most time there because it has completely opened the door to my worship to God. Without it, my worship would be lacking, would be very fickle. I'm truly thankful to the book of Psalms and what it has done in my Christian life.

And so what I find myself saying very often, and I would say is my pastoral shtick and you'll hear me say it, you've probably already heard me say it, is don't let your worship be boring. Do not be a boring Christian. Do not be bored in your Christian walk. If you are, that is dishonoring to God. Get out of it today. I know there's people here who came in here with a boring Christianity.

It is so easy. It's the easiest thing. In fact, I would argue that as a Christian, the hardest thing for you to do is to have a life full of worship. Christ has enabled it through his work on the cross. It's available for us. It's there through his power and his spirit.

I would argue that the hardest thing for a Christian to do is to do all things in worship to God. So easy we can slip into a non-worshipful Christianity and a lot of times not even realize it. A boring Christianity, I call it a boring worship. That's my pastoral stick. I care for the flock that's before me. Pastors pray for the flock.

We think of you individually as we get to know you more and more. And the greatest concern that we can have for you is, are they worshiping God with life? Genuineness Is it happening in their individual life and their families And then is the overflow I getting ahead of myself coming into the church as we gather on the Lord Day and is it a celebratory act Or are we rather running on dry and we come here desperate Hopefully something will happen.

Beloved, we are meant to live a life full of worship, a life beautiful, wondrous, not boring, exciting. And my pastoral stick is to see that in people's life to not let their Christianity be one-dimensional, but let it be fully flowing with gospel, worshipful light. It's all about worship. The reason for everything is worship. God created to be adored, to be marveled at.

He is so awesome, so great that he created so everyone would marvel at him, so everyone would say, look at him, adore him. God created for the purpose to be worshipped. That is the purpose for all of creation. Look at Psalm 19. In your Bibles. Or listen to me say it.

Psalm 19, 1-4. Creation itself is all meant for worship. The heavens declare the glory of God. and the sky above proclaims God's handiwork. Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge. Have you ever heard the stars speak? Have you ever heard creation speak?

Right here in Psalm 19, it says day to day pours out speech. Night reveals knowledge. In fact, it even says in Psalm 19, verse 3, there is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun. Creation itself doesn't speak literally as we speak, but there's a certain sense in which the way God has made creation act and function and work, it is as if it's a worshipful singing out to God himself.

As I say, one of my favorite times of the year is in the springtime we hear all those birds going off, right? You hear them, and they're busy at work getting their nests together and everything. God has created them for that act to do all those things. and it's as if you close your eyes you can hear them all worshiping God doing what they were created to do in obedience to their maker.

They were made to worship God in obedience to their God and in so doing it is their worship and we can see the stars as they shine in the heavens. They're doing what they were made to do to glorify God to say our God is mighty. and big and powerful, worthy of worship. It's as if they're speaking this stuff out. I love Job 38, 4 through 7. If you just want to listen, that's fine.

If you don't feel like switching everywhere, this is more of a topical introducing psalms. But Job 38, 4 through 7, I love how angels in creation are portrayed as worshiping together at the very beginning when it says, you remember, God finally is speaking now in Job. Job and his friends have been speaking a lot. And God says, it's my turn. and what he says is magnificent.

He first goes on Job, and he cuts him to size, and he goes to his friends and says, now you guys, cuts them to size, right? And he just magnifies himself. And he says, as he's speaking to Job, he says, where were you in Job 38, verse 4? Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundation of the earth, when I was creating? Tell me, if you have understanding, who determined the measurements?

Surely, Job, you know. I'm even talking like you would know. Or who stretched out the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk? or who laid its cornerstone. And here's the verse I want to notice. When the morning stars sang together, I think what he's saying there is whenever I first created the stars, and the first thing they did was shine brightly.

It's as if they were just singing out praises to God. When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God, that is the angelic beings, shouted for joy. This isn't like a boring, they were like, oh God, that's a cool star. right now this is like they shouted for joy wow look at this look what god has done in creation right it's worship worship they can't help it right god created that so that the stars would sing together for glory to god and the angels would shout for joy at his creative power god places man in this creation he has made after that right gives him adam a law to obey to show his worship.

A lot of times we think of God's law as being almost like a bad thing or something. God's law is a beautiful gift from God to show us how to worship. How do we worship this God? Adam was given a law to show how am I to worship in light of this awesome thing that he has done for me, right? It directs his worship, but instead what does he do? He disobeys.

That's the opposite of worship. It's disobedience. Why do we hate disobedience here? Not to be moralistic, to hit people over the head with a moral stick is because it not good for you to be disobedient That not worshipful You were made to worship God And disobedience is the very opposite of worshiping God So let that be the reason why you fight disobedience in your life because this is not what God has for me the good things God has for me.

Disobedience destroys worship. That should pain our heart that Christ has set up worship for us and we would respond in disobedience. How can we do such a thing, Paul says in Romans 6? but our hope is not in the first Adam and his failures what is our hope in the second Adam saying Christ Jesus our Lord he came and was obedient wasn't he he worshiped God perfectly we see that written through the gospels how good he was at worship right prayer all night I remember I think that's what convicted me I remember seeing Jesus was praying out all night you know and I was out staying up with friends playing video games all night what is this there's something wrong here, right?

I need help here, Pastor. And the point that really what I'm getting at is Jesus came and he is our hope. He's the one who has opened the door for worship again through forgiveness of sins, right? He's taken on our disobedience and he has given us his obedience if we simply look upon him for salvation. He opens the door to worship once again. It was cut off by the sin of Adam and is raised again by the obedience of Jesus Christ our Lord.

We can worship once more because of what's happened 2,000 years ago in the man Jesus Christ. That's our hope. That's what we proclaim here, don't we? What does Paul say in Romans 12, verse 1? He talks about the gospel of Jesus Christ through Romans 1 through 11. What does he say in chapter 12, verse 1?

I appeal to you, therefore, therefore, therefore what? In light of all the gospel truths that I just laid out to you in Jesus Christ our Lord, how he has died, raised again, He's our salvation. Therefore, in light of that, I appeal to you, I'm telling you, I'm exhorting you, brothers, by the mercies of God, by the grace found in the Lord Jesus Christ, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

A living sacrifice. See, at that time, to consider sacrificing, it was always a dead sacrifice. If you read about what happened to those animals when they were sacrificed to God, they didn't survive that. They were dead, right? They were burnt, whole burnt offerings. they were cut, throats were cut, everything. It was a dead sacrifice given to our God.

That was the way Israel worshipped in the Old Covenant. But Jesus came and he is our dead and now living sacrifice And so when we sacrifice to God it no longer dead sacrifices we give to him but we give him what Living sacrifice It not dead it living now But what's the nature of this living sacrifice? We are the sacrifice. We don't kill ourselves, we live.

And within our body, you are called to now worship God in your body. It's a living sacrifice. He says it's to be, he says going on in verse 1 of chapter 12 of Romans, holy and acceptable, right? In light of the gospel, you are to live a life of living sacrifice. That is what you must do, Christian. In light of the power of the cross, you are now to live your life as a living sacrifice.

There is no sliver of your life where, nope, this is mine. I kind of do my own thing, right? No, everything is God's. He is to be glorified in it all. There's not one area of your life where you say, well, no, this is just for me. God will not have that.

He's too awesome for that. He's created you to worship. In light of his beautiful creation, in light of his recreation in Jesus Christ, you are now to live your life as a living sacrifice. That is the whole purpose of your life. I can guarantee you the issues you face today, every one of you has issues. I have issues.

I have problems. And I can guarantee you, fundamentally, if you're not dealing with it appropriately, it gets back to the fact that you are not utilizing that specific instance for the glory and worship of God. Every aspect of your life is to glorify him. You are to say, this is what I'll use to be a living sacrifice to glorify my God. You are to take every single thing as an opportunity for that.

You see what I mean by you shouldn't be a boring Christian? You shouldn't be bored in your Christian life. Everything that God has given you, you say, goody, this is what I can use now to worship God with. And I can guarantee you, whenever you're falling into some sort of sin and it's causing you distress, and it's causing you weakness, it's causing you to say, where is God?

Where is he in all this? It's because you are not utilizing that area to glorify him as a living sacrifice. It goes down to that every single time. You're a mother and your kids drive you nuts. You're a father, and your kids drive you nuts. That is your opportunity to overflow of worship to your kids to show them the gospel.

You know, I know why kids are leaving the faith. It not okay that our children are leaving the religion It not okay It because our worship is to overflow to our children and they to say wow look at mom and dad worship I want that So when our kids are disobedient, we don't lash out in anger. What do we do? What an opportunity to utilize this to show the glory and the worship of God.

Oh, this is not appropriate. I'm going off track with that. Nevertheless, I can tell you that worship, the whole purpose of everything is for worship. Every single minute detail of your life is for the worship of God. When you don't utilize it that way, life gets deathly mundane, doesn't it? Life gets so mundane, so boring.

What is this all about? But whenever you transfix it with the gaze of Jesus Christ, worship towards him, all of a sudden, every single moment, every single word you say, every single thought that you think becomes gloriously worthy, or you want to make it gloriously worthy of your God and King. Every word you say has meaning. It has an objective. Everything you say to your children, your co-worker, your boss, everything you say to your wife, everything is to build up, is to worship God as a living sacrifice to him.

It gains so much meaning. The whole purpose to everything is for worship to our Creator God. Now here's the issue. Here's the problem. And I've already said it, and I'll say it again. It is terribly difficult to worship God.

Isn't that sad? Your greatest purpose in life is to worship him, and the hardest thing you'll ever do is worship God. It is. And if it's not hard for you, that means you're doing it wrong. I can guarantee you that. If it's not a struggle each day to worship God as he deserves, I guarantee you you're not considering worship in the full totality of what it is.

It is terribly difficult. The hardest thing you'll do is worship God consistently in the way that he deserves. Terribly difficult. And the fact is, is we can deceive ourselves to say that I'm worshiping God with my life and actually we're not. I want to show you that really quickly because it's really important to understand that. Because in our weakness, as we realize we're so weak, we then go to Jesus.

But if we're not realized we're weak, I'm pretty good. We won't go to Jesus. And so it's so important. Look at Amos 5 if you want to or listen to me. Amos 5, 21 through 23. This stuff should kind of jolt us into action.

You know, this is, God's covenant people are, this time in the old covenant, is Israel. And in Amos 5, 21 through 23, if you ever notice, the prophets don't have much kind things to say about the Israelites. They were messing up pretty bad, right? And it's an example to us as Christians. Don't do that. And you're going to want to.

Don't do it. Amos 5, it's very, oh, it's fearful. Amos 5, 21 through 23, I hate, God says through the prophet Amos, I hate, I despise your feast. And I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. The words he's using there is like legitimate religious practice. Solemn assemblies.

They were to do these things, right? The feasts are the feasts that God has appointed for them to do. They are to do it. And they were doing it. And God says, I hate it. I absolutely hate what you're doing.

He says in verse 22, even though you offer me your burnt offerings as you should, and grain offerings, I will not accept them. And the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs. Could God be saying that about our songs? What a frightful thought that we would come in here saying that we have living worship, saying that we're doing the things we should, but God is actually saying, take away from me the sound of your lips.

I hate it. That's a fearful thing to think that we could perhaps be acting like we're worshiping as the Israelites were doing, and really God is objectively saying, I hate it. I don't like it. He says, to the melody of your harps, I'm not going to listen. in Psalm 50, in Psalm 50, verse 7 through 13, in Psalm 50, it is such an interesting psalm because we get the same problem going on as we just read about in Amos, but we get the beautiful solution.

In Amos 50, verse 7 through 13, here, I'm sorry, did I say Amos 50? I can't remember what I said now. Psalm 50, 7 through 13. psalm 50 verse 7 hear all my people and i will speak oh israel i will testify against you i am god your god not for your sacrifices do i rebuke you your burnt offerings they're they're continually before me as they should be i will not accept though a bull from your house or goats from your folds for every beast of the forest is mine the cattle on a thousand hills they're mine i know all the birds of the hills and all that moves in the fields, it's mine.

If I were hungry, if I needed those things, I wouldn't even tell you. I wouldn't waste my time. For the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats Problem is that Israel was giving them sacrifices but they were doing it with a very wrong motivation They were doing it as if God needed the sacrifices right That's what the pagans did.

You know, our God, in order for him to be happy with us, we need to give him what he wants and needs, that is animal sacrifices. The Israelites fell into that kind of worship, so they were doing everything right on the outside, but on the inside, they were doing it as if he needed it, and God says, I hate that. I don't need those things. Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you.

Why would I tell you what I needed? It's all mine. All of it is mine. Why would I need anything from your hand as if it wasn't? So what was the problem? Before we get to there, is it possible for us to come here and worship God as if he needs it?

I know pastors a lot of times act like that. Oh, God just wants your worship so bad. He needs it. I heard the Pope the other day say that God created because he needs us. That's heresy. Even for the Catholics, that's heresy.

I don't get why they're okay with that. It's heresy. God doesn't need us. He doesn't need our worship. He didn't do it for that. He created us because he doesn't need us.

He created us for our benefit because we need him. Right? Created us for us to adore him. Not because he needs it, but because he's a good God and he gives us good things. Not because he needs it. And so the problem here is that they were given sacrifices as if the reason why, their motivation was because he needs it.

And that's why he says in verse 14 and 15 of Psalm 50, offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the most high and call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you shall worship or glorify me. In verse 23 of the same Psalm, he says, the one who offers thanksgiving as a sacrifice glorifies me. To one who orders his way rightly, I will show the salvation of God.

What do we do? what's our worship? It's all because we are so overwhelmed with thanksgiving to our God for creation and for recreation. For creation and for recreation in Jesus Christ. I am so amazed at this creation that I get to walk now in this daily life that I have and I can do it in a way that's worshipful because of Jesus Christ recreating a new heart within me.

We are to come together. We are here together right now because we are so overwhelmed with thanksgiving to our God. Anything else God doesn't like? Any sort of other motivation that you have as if you doing God a favor or you doing your mom a favor you doing your dad a favor you doing a husband a favor you doing any kind of thing at all any other motivation but that I am so overwhelmed with thanksgiving for God that he has allowed me to take another breath in this life He's sent his son to die for my sins so that I can worship him rightly.

That is the only motivation that God looks upon and is pleased with. Anything else God says, take it away from me. Anyone who has worshiped God in that kind of way, at the end, you know what he's going to say? Depart from me. I don't know you. I don't know you.

Your motivations was far from what is proper and pure. So let's take inventory of our worship. I've already said that worship is hard. Doing it, anyone can come to church and sit down in a pew for a bit, right? Anyone can do that. But doing it in a way that God says that's pleasing is terribly difficult.

And remember, it's difficult not to make us say, well, I've got to work harder, but to say, I need Jesus. It's terribly difficult. And so when we consider, okay, worship, what is it supposed to be? What am I doing? There should be, there's going to be some kind of gap. And beloved, do not be upset.

Well, be upset, but let it be in a way that's hopeful because that's where Jesus meets you. I'm getting ahead of myself. I can't help it. That's where Jesus meets you. Let's take inventory of our own worship. On a corporate level, I've already alluded to it, but let's continue it. have you all gathered together with the saints with an aim to truly worship a heart full of thanksgiving for creation and recreation or is there a tendency to come here as if as a favor that we're bestowing upon god we're blessing god with our presence here at lauribatis church we fellowship clear into the afternoon we eat lunch together and we fellowship into the afternoon.

Those of you who are regular participants of that, do you do that with a full heart of gratitude and thanksgiving to God? Or do you, how often is it, do we wake up and kind of grumble, complain? Too much time devoted to these things, right? And we'll do it because it's expected of us. We do it all the time. Now, if I weren't to come and do those normal things, people would ask questions.

But it's not with a heart of actual thanksgiving for salvation, for the gospel. It's for other things. Those of you who are heavily involved at LaRue Baptist Church, there's people who are heavily, heavily involved. It started with worship but is it continued in worship Are you doing the things that you heavily invested in because of pure worship and gratitude to your God and Savior Or has it become something else That expected of me now Pastors die out.

They flame out. They get tired. What's the word I'm looking for? They get burnt out. Because it started with worship, but if they were to be honest with you, this is expected of me. In fact, if you're paid to pastor, I'm paid to do this.

I need to do it. but it's not because they actually are so overwhelmed with gratitude at Thanksgiving that Christ has recreated a new creation. But it's because, well, this is expected of me. This is what I have to do. And because there is not a legitimate grounds for worship, it gets tiring, it gets old, and there's complaining, and it's not full of any kind of worship.

Corporately, we can gather together and do it in a way that God hates. Our motivations need to be pure, because God has done amazing things, and it is our delight to gather and to tell him how amazed we are at what he has done, period. On an individual level, what does Jesus say? John 7, 38, Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

This is the promise of the new covenant, that those who believe upon Jesus, out of his heart will flow living water. This isn't a one-time thing, right? You believe once and now it's done, right? You believe once and now it's done. This is a daily believing upon Jesus Christ for salvation. And through that trust, through that belief, through that longing for him, then flows abundant rivers of water, of living water.

This is the promise of Jesus. This is what on an individual level we want our worship to look like. That I woke up today and I went to Christ Jesus because from him comes forth abundant living water. And there's this beautiful thing. the thing that Jesus is referring to on an individual level is from coming forth of this living water of belief upon Jesus, it comes the outflow of it, the overflow of it, it just goes to everywhere.

It goes to everywhere. Our families, our societies, everywhere receives this abundance of water of open and free and beautiful and genuine worship. And so individually, you woke up this morning. and did you challenge your heart at least on an individual level with me it's amazing to wake up in the morning and breathe air from God, that's awesome. That your heart kept on going while you're on conscience and you kept on living on through.

You could have been taken easily. You woke up and you breathe air. How many times I wake up annoyed that I'm awake? You know, like, my goodness, I'm awake. That's annoying. You know, instead of the first thought being of worship to God, the first thought is, my goodness, this is annoying.

How many times it's so easy for us to degrade into a complaining, a non-worshipful, a disobedient way of mode of doing things. And so how important it is for us to wake up, and instead of being annoyed, instead of grumbling, instead of being indifferent to God, we wake up and praise to God. This is true biblical belief that leads into a water flowing forth from you.

Psalm 43, 5 says, Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. I think Christians can wake up thinking, well, really indifferent. We can not challenge ourselves. We can just kind of go with the hub and flow of the day, not challenge ourselves. Is my heart ready to utilize everything I had today to worship God?

We don't do that. We just kind of go about our business and we do it in a way that's lax and daisy. We need to wake up thinking, Is my heart ready to use everything I have before me, every action, everything I must do, all my chores, all the things? Am I ready to do it in a way that glorifies the God who has been kind to me? All the good we do in Christ's kingdom comes from the overflow of this organic worship from our hearts.

Husbands, be the overflow to your wife. Parents, be the overflow to your children. That's amazing. with our children, I thought we, Sarah and I, well, at least I thought for sure that we just needed to return our children and get different ones, right? It's just amazing how difficult it is. But then a full realization that this is our worship, right? It is terribly difficult to raise these kids.

And then we are to utilize that and then worship God in light of it and let them receive the overflow of our worship in the hardness of it so that they can receive the gospel, the means of God's grace there. But whenever we are not challenging ourselves in the morning, we're not on an individual level, leaning into Jesus Christ and the hardships of life whenever we not doing that instead we utilize those activities in a way that very deficient And our children and those who we come in contact with our loved ones, do not see the overflow coming forth from our hearts. All right.

Now, even if we have been doing good on our best days of worship, right, on our best days, we are waking up, and we do realize, my goodness, my thoughts are far from Christ, but then I lean into God and I remind myself of the hope I have in Christ. I remind myself of the goodness of Christ. And now I'm on a good footing to use everything I have before me to worship him in.

Even when we're on the best day that we're doing those things. If we're consistently doing it day in, day out, then we gather with the saints ready to worship because he's been good to us in the week. Even when we're doing that, how much worship is our God worthy of? Is there ever a time where we're going to be like, hey, guess what, guys? He's no longer worthy of any more.

We can go home. We're good, right? In heaven, in eternity, right? There's never going to be a time where we're like, well, okay, it's been 2,000 years. That's about as much as God is worthy of. We can stop now, right?

No, God is so eternally rich, so eternally awesome that he deserves our eternal, perfect worship. Now, show of hands, I want to see them. Who here has been given God perfect worship? There's a few in the back. I got a little one. Little girl says that, yep.

Perfect worship. We got a couple only, right? There's got to be an understanding in our Christian life that even on my best day, God is worthy of more than I gave. And that doesn't cause us to be like, woe is me. That gives us a certain meaning to my life. I am to grow in this worship because Christ is worthy of more than I can give today.

I am to grow in this. It's actually a life-giving thing. The worst thing you can do is plateau at the age of 20, right? There's stories of, well, I think I read it was like astronauts who went to the moon young, and they suffered with terrible depression. What else am I going to do? I went to the moon, right?

It's not a good thing to plateau. It makes us bored. As Christians, we never plateau, do we? Because Christ is worthy of more than we can ever give to him. So it's always a leaning into greater and greater worship. So my point in all of this, worship is vital.

It's everything. but hard. You never done You never done growing The Psalms are here to help you The Psalms is your door to greater worship Whether you have no worship at all right now like I was struggling with years ago, I'm still struggling with. My goodness, I could praise them so much better. The Psalms is God giving you the book to help you with greater worship.

Utilize it for that. Utilize it for that. It's a book of raw prayers. It's a book of raw prayers. The Psalms is a book of prayers. It's a book of songs.

And it's raw prayers. Nothing kills your worship more, beloved, than when you are hanging by a thread. You're so overwhelmed with just, you're annoyed with things. The things aren't going right. You're complaining in your heart. You're hanging by a thread.

You know it. Things are not going well. A certain issue, and you're hanging by a thread, and your prayer consists of thinking, your prayer consists of thanking God for the weather. Of asking God that I hope Billy's root canal goes well today. You don't need to pray God for any of that. You need to say, God, I'm hanging by a thread and I need you.

It's a turmoil. I don't want to worship you right now. You're hanging by a thread and we instead have such boring prayers that has nothing to do with the actual issues at hand. I can't help but think you have an issue in your life. and it's causing you distress, do not start going off on different things in your prayer, but let it be raw. Go to God with those issues.

God, I don't believe you right now. You're not here for me. I don't feel you at all. Look at Psalms. Look at the way, just quickly, look at the way a lot of these start off. It's a book of raw prayers.

Look at Psalm 4. Real quick, and just go with me just for a couple of Psalms. Psalm 4, 1. Answer me when I call, O God, of my righteousness. You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayers.

Look at chapter 5. Give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry. My King and my God, for to you do I pray. Look at chapter 6.

O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing Heal me O Lord for my bones are troubled My soul also is greatly troubled but you O Lord how long How long are you going to be far from me Look at chapter 7 O Lord my God in you do I take refuge Save me from all my pursuers and deliver me. Less like a lion, they tear my soul apart, rendering it in pieces with none to deliver.

But then you get those positive psalms, right? Look at chapter 8. O Lord, our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth. you have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger. Chapter 9, and this is the last one we'll do. Look at the positive.

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart. I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you. I will sing praises to your name, O Most High. What's the point that I'm getting at? It's raw.

It's true. It's genuine. So many times we bring to God what we think he wants us to hear instead of what we need to bring to Him because we're languishing. We're on a thread. And these prayers, they'll teach you to pray honestly and earnestly to God. You wake up in the morning and you are full of annoyance and disturbances in your heart.

And you don't just give what God wants. You think He wants you to hear, Oh God, thanks for this weather and for this time that I have to enjoy this weather. God, I'm languishing. I don't want you right now. I have no desire for you. Help me.

You have been my help in the past. I know you can be my help in the future through Christ, right? Real, abiding, genuine prayers that are raw and filled with truth. Don't give God what you think he wants to hear. Give God what you desperately need to say to him because you're languishing. But it's full of raw, of positives, right?

Our God is a reigning God. He's supreme. He's awesome, right? It teaches you how to give true thanksgiving and adore God who is above it all, right? It's full of raw prayers. The Psalms can help you pray and have true prayerful, worshipful prayers to him.

It's a book of raw songs, right? It's poetic songs. It's poetic. It has a lot of gospel warmth to it, right? It's not just wooden things, right? Just very wooden without any life.

The Psalms will help you to have gospel, worshipful singing forth from your heart, right? I'll never forget how I started to pray through the Psalms, started going through it, all of a sudden my prayer life existed. It's still growing. It's still a working process. But then all of a sudden, I remember the first time as I'm singing on, you to sing the songs.

It wasn't a chore anymore. I remember listening to my garbage, oh I'm sorry, to my bad music on the radio, just really bad music. I had a terrible taste. And all of a sudden I was like, you know, I don't want to listen to this. I actually want to listen to godly things, right? I'll never forget how the psalms really opened up my desire to sing out to my Lord, to sing praises to him, to have genuine worship within my heart that expresses itself in singing to our God.

It's one thing to say, come, let us worship our God. It's a whole other thing to sing it out with poetic utterances. Here in the Psalms, these raw prayers, these raw songs, here in the Psalms, you will see yourself. You're going to see yourself in the Psalms. You'll see your victories, your setbacks, your depression, your being overjoyed, your anger, your sadness, your happiness.

John Kelvin says the book of Psalms is an anatomy of all the parts of the soul. For there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. In other words, he says all the emotions are there in the book of Psalms. All the emotions, your happiness, your sadness, your depression, your everything, it's all in the Psalms.

Nothing's hidden. Everything's laid out and bare before our God. It teaches you to be raw with God. Think about your own relationships. Your greatest relationships here on earth are the ones that you can be most raw with, isn't it? You can be completely honest with.

It's usually your spouse, but someone you can be truly, and that can actually hinder you. We can abuse that and let out our anger and use our words to hurt. We can imagine that our relationship with our God is seen forth and true and genuine when we can be absolutely raw with Him. All the emotions of the heart laid bare before Him. We don't hide anything from our God. a life of worship includes all the emotions God has given you and then here in the Psalms you see yourself you see yourself in all your terrible glory and all your sadness joy everything But here in the Psalms you will see your Christ I don have time to do it but you look at Psalm 22, you'll see the suffering Jesus.

This is just an example. You'll see Christ throughout the Psalms. Psalm 22, you see the suffering Jesus. And in light of his suffering, you see in Psalm 23, the shepherd of your sinful souls. And in Psalm 24, you see him as the risen king to reign. within our own hearts and within earth itself. You see, in the Psalms, you see your brokenness, but in the Psalms, you see Christ Jesus and his great work on the cross and how it can be done in your own heart.

Save me, Lord, for I am far from you. And then all of a sudden, you set your eyes upon the Jesus in the Psalms. And he comes and he comforts you. He gathers you to himself, right? This is worship. This is true, genuine worship.

Here in the Psalms, seeing yourself, seeing the Christ, you will find your true worship. John Gill says the whole book, the whole book of Psalms is a rich mine of grace and evangelical truths, a large fund of spiritual experience, and is abundantly suited to every case, state, and any condition that the church of Christ or any particular believers are in at any time. You see, the Psalms helps us to see that this is filled.

This is what the Christian life looks like in every area. This is what it looks like. And this is how I am to respond in every area so that God gets glory and my worship is true. Martin Luther, since our pastor here, Pastor Tim, loves the man so much. Martin Luther says the Psalms is like a mini book itself, a mini Bible itself. The whole Bible is miniature in the book of Psalms.

You know, speaking of Martin, I was going to make a Martin Luther joke. Should I do it? I'm going to do it. Martin Luther, if you want, you know, tell Tim the next time you see him, because last week he said no one knows. Well, he didn't say no one knows, but I'm going to say it because it's just funner to say it this way. He says no one knows Martin Luther anymore.

Say, I know Martin Luther. Say he was a I going to say I should have wrote it down I going to say it wrong now The punchline of the joke is all gone now Tell him I know Martin Luther he an angry drunken monk and just leave it at that He is an angry, drunken monk. Martin Luther was insane, but we needed him. He brought back justification by faith alone.

But that guy scares me. That guy scares me. In fact, one of the popes, I forget what pope it is, whenever he heard about Martin Luther for the first time, It was before it really flamed. He said, oh, it's just a drunken monk. That's all it is. He was more than that, of course.

All right. In conclusion, a sign of a mature Christian, a sign of a mature Christian is not one who appears to have no problems. A sign of a mature Christian is not one who appears to have no problems at all because it's not true. You do have problems. And a sign of a mature Christian is one who locates those problems and brings it out to God for him to see and say, God, look at this, I need help.

That is a sign of a mature Christian. And I think many of us live a Christian life where we want so bad to look like we have no problems, we even try to fool God. And in trying to fool God, we have no maturity at all because God is not fooled by anyone. The Psalms will help you locate your problems. And it will help you to see the biggest thing, the best thing you can do is say, God, look at my problems.

And he'll point you to Jesus Christ. and then in those problems it'll be his glory, his worship, and he'll mature you through those problems. The worst thing you can do as a Christian is say, I don't have problems. I don't have problems. You try to hide it from God, from others. We don't do that here. That's not genuine worship.

It's not genuine Christianity. God loves your problems because he fixes it in Jesus Christ and the Psalms are really good at showing it. The Psalms will teach you how to worship. It'll teach you how to be humble. It'll teach you to cry out to your Lord. It'll teach you that Jesus will come to you every single time you do.

So I love the Psalms. I adore them. Every day I pray through two of them one in the morning one in the afternoon And my hope is that if you someone who has not encountered the Psalms in that sort of worshipful way that perhaps in our study of it you learn to start praying through it and teaching you to worship our God truly as he deserves to be worshiped And it is your good and it is your life to do so.

May that be what happens as we go through the book. God in heaven, thank you for this time of worship. Lord, we know worship is not just simply a time that we get together on the Lord's day and we do different activities. God, we know that so much more than that, although it is involved in that. We know, God, that we are, as individuals, are to be worshiping you within our own individual selves.

We are to believe upon Jesus Christ each day that you have given us in your kindness and from that flows life of living water. And so that when we come here to gather with the saints, it's not a bunch of desert. Rather, it's a bunch of life that comes together. And we know that this is the whole purpose of your kingdom, that then it overflows to everyone, Our children come to know the gospel through the overflow of our worship in our own hearts.

Our unbelieving spouse comes to know you through the overflow of our own hearts. The society around us can't help but wonder what is so different about them that they have such a living hope within them. We know, God, it all comes forth from this true, genuine worship of you. God in heaven, I'm the worst of all culprits to try to have a fake Christian life, to try to ignore my problems and just be indifferent to them, to not deal with them, to not go to you in my desperate need.

Lord, forgive me of these sins. And I pray, God, that instead we would allow the Psalms to teach us to be raw with you, open and laid open to you so that you can take these issues and let Christ refine them so that, again, what comes forth is living worship. I pray, Lord, that this would be all of our desires. This would be all of what we want to do here as we gather. in our own homes, together at church.

This would be what we desire to do. Help us in our weakness. Let us look upon Jesus closer in our weakness and let us praise him for coming to us in his kindness. Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, amen.