I did request having lunch this evening together.
Someone asked me, said, what do you What do you think of the
people down here in North Carolina? And I said, I enjoy the people. I said, they receive the gospel.
I said, they're easy to preach to. But I don't really know them
yet. I said, I go in, I go out. I
said, that's about it. We're just in and out. And so
I told Doug, and with the person I was talking to, I said, I think
I'll ask them to have a lunch just so we can sit down and just,
at least if I can remember your names, Turn to Psalm 100. Psalm 100. I'll read it to you, then I'll
lead in prayer, and then we'll look at this Psalm. Psalm 100. Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord. All ye lands, serve the Lord
with gladness. Come before his presence with
singing. Know ye that the Lord, he is
God. It is he that hath made us and
not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep
of his pasture. enter into his gates with thanksgiving,
and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him, and bless
his name. For the Lord is good, he's good. His mercy is everlasting, and
his truth endureth to all generations. Let's pray. Our Father, which
art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Our Father, enable us this
morning to do what we just read. Enable us to sing your praises. Enable us to be truly thankful
for what you've done for us in Christ and the mercies you've
shown to us along the way. Help us this morning, Father,
to preach the gospel. Help us to hear. Help us to listen.
Arrest our attention. Enable us to give unto thee the
glory due unto thy name. We pray for those in the congregation
here that are sick and afflicted. Lord, Thy grace is sufficient. We look to Thee for all things.
We acknowledge that everything we have, our Heavenly Father
has given to us. We look to Thee, Lord, we depend
totally, totally upon Thee for time and eternity. Help me this
morning to rightly divide the word of truth. Make me a blessing
to these people. Make thy word a blessing. Enable
us to leave this place this morning rejoicing in God our Savior. In the name of Jesus Christ,
we ask this, and amen. I titled this lesson this morning,
The Spirit of Worship. The spirit of worship, we are
given it here in this psalm. It's called a psalm of praise.
When I was a young boy and a teenager, the last thing I wanted to do
was go to church, so called. To go hear the gospel, to go
where God's people were, were gathered together, that's the
last thing I wanted to do. And now it's the first thing
I want to do. David said, I was glad when they said to me, let
us go unto the house of the Lord. As I said, this psalm is a psalm
of praise. Sometimes we ought to thank God
for His tender mercies to us in Christ and just leave it there. Sometimes I thought we ought
to pray, I ought to pray. And my prayer ought to be one
of praise, thanking Him for what He's done for me in Christ, and
leave it there. Samuel said to Israel back in
the Old Testament, Consider what great things He has done for
you. This day, this morning, this
morning, Let's consider what great things the Lord has done
for us. And I'll show you this in verse
3 here in a minute. Now he says here, make a joyful
noise. The noise that we make here this
morning is to be a joyful one. Joyful one. All ye lands. God is to be praised with joyful
hearts first. The Scripture says, out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. And I pray that the
abundance of our heart this morning is filled with praising the Lord
Jesus Christ for what He's done for us. Can you imagine this morning
of those standing in His presence of the praise, the perfect praise
and glory and honor they're giving Him this morning? I hope we can just get a measure
of that. I hope I can just get a measure
of that this morning in worship. Our praise and thanksgiving is
a joyful one. It's a joyful one. If not, then
it's false worship. True worship is joyful. True
worship comes from a joyful heart. No sinner who's tasted and found
that the Lord is gracious, can praise him any other way. You
can't praise him any other way than joyfully. And this joyful
noise it says is for all lands. Aren't you glad that God sent
the gospel this way? Aren't you glad that God sent
the gospel to North Carolina? that he purposely, not accidentally,
God purposely sent it to you. Those are the things we ought
to get off to ourselves and sit down and think about it, ponder
it. God sent the gospel to me. Far reaching is the grace of
God to sinners. All lands, all lands. And then
he says here in verse 2, serve the Lord with gladness. Come
before his presence with singing. We're going to do that in a little
while. We're going to sing praises unto him. I want to be able to
sing from my heart praises unto him. But it says here first, serve
the Lord. Our Lord is to be served by us. He's to be served by us. The scripture says we have been
bought with the price. We are not our own. I'm not my
own. I'm not my own man. You've heard
that said, I'm my own man. I'm my own person. That's the
last thing you want to be is your own. I'm His. I'm His. I've been bought. You who believe
the gospel, you've been bought with a price. With the precious
blood of the Lamb. You've been bought with a price.
And because of that, here's our attitude in worship. Serve the Lord with gladness. You know, I go to work at a place
in Huntington, West Virginia. There are not too many guys glad
to be there. They're not there serving in
gladness. You know what you hear all day. You know what you listen
to all day. You know the grumbling and complaining.
Sounds like the Israelites in Egypt, that's what it sounds
like. Our Lord is to be served with
gladness. That's our attitude. Here's our
attitude in worship. Here's our attitude in service.
Serving with gladness. We don't have a sad, morbid religion. We have one of gladness. Gladness. We do not serve him with a slavish
fear. Afraid. Afraid if I don't come
here this morning or if I don't give it, he's going to take it
out the front door and cask it. We do not serve God with slavish
fear. If I don't do this or that, then
he's going to do this or that to me. No. No. We serve Him with glad to
be His servant. You know, the Apostle Paul usually
said that he was a servant of Jesus Christ before he said that
he was an apostle. Do you know what the greatest
blessing or the greatest thing they could write on your tombstone?
Do you know what it is? A servant of Jesus Christ. That would be the greatest thing
they could write on my tombstone. A servant. A bond slave. A willing bond slave of Jesus
Christ. We serve Him with gladness. I'm
glad that He even let me be here this morning. I'm glad He allowed
me to be here this morning. And it's humbling. It's humbling. that He allowed me to stand here
this morning and brag on Him. To even come into His presence.
As it says here in a minute, come into His presence. We are
not just here. You're looking at me, I'm looking
at you, you're sitting there. See, we're in the presence of
God. This service this morning now,
if you and I can get a hold of this, this service this morning
is in the presence of God Almighty. It's in His presence. There's no other way to serve
Him but in gladness. Any other way is false pretense.
It's just all this false preaching. True worship, true worship involves
the heart. True worship involves the whole
being, my whole being. David said, everything that's
within me, everything. Praise the Lord. My whole being
is engaged in praising God. Those who've been born of God
are glad to serve Him. Glad to serve Him. Glad to be
where the Gospels preach. You glad to be here this morning?
Seriously. Are you glad to be here this
morning? Are you glad that you can open the Word of God and
someone stand here and preach the Gospel to you? Are you glad
to be in His presence this morning? Glad to be used of God. in whatever
capacity he chooses. He chooses. I know. I know. You could take two angels. I
heard Henry say this once before. You could take two angels, one
of them streaking the sweet and one of them running the nation,
and they wouldn't be jealous of each other. They'd be just
as glad, just as happy as could be. Doing His will. Doing His will. Glad to be where
He's placed me. Content. I'll tell you when you
will find real contentment. I'm going to tell you. When and where you'll find real
contentment is when you find Jesus Christ to be all in all. When you find Jesus Christ to
be enough. When He's enough, that's when
you'll find real, genuine contentment. That's when you'll find it. It's
when you find it in Him. You find it in a person. You'll
never find it in this world. You'll never find it in material
things. You'll never find it in a job. You'll never find it
in anything but Christ. And then when you find it in
Him, then you can find it in these other things. Then you
can truly enjoy. That's when you can truly enjoy
what the Lord's given you. That's when you know how to enjoy
it. Of all the people on the earth,
we ought to be the most glad, the most happy, the most joyful
people on this earth. Redeemed. Redeemed. Do you know what we have coming? How real is Jesus Christ to you?
How real is He to you? How real is forgiveness of sins
to you? How real? Oh, I tell you, we
have a good day coming, don't we? We have a good day coming. Turn over to Revelations 21.
This is what we have coming. I wrote out on this chapter here,
I put here, our future. This is my future. You know,
we think we're heading up to retirement, we haven't got enough
retirement saved up, we haven't got enough this, enough that,
whatever. This is my future. Let me read it to you. You believe
the gospel, this is yours too, and you and I are going to be
there together enjoying it. And I saw a new heaven and a new
earth. Brother, I look for that to come. Some people think I'm
an idiot, but I tell you, I look for that to happen. For the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And
I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And
I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle
of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall
be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their
God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. And
there shall be no more death. I was at a funeral one time,
and a good friend of mine and Henry, we preached his funeral,
and I did the graveside service. And Henry, as we turned to walk
away, he looked at me and said, John, I'll be so glad when we
quit dying. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former
things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne
said, Behold, I make all things new. God renovates nothing. God
renovates nothing. He makes it new. And he said
to me, Write, listen, for these words are true and faithful. You just stake your life on it.
True and faithful. And it says, come before His
presence with singing. I tell you what, if you can come
before His presence with singing, it's evident you're glad to be
there. It's evident you're glad to be there. From my soul, the
fact that we're allowed to come into His presence. Listen. Know ye that the Lord,
He is God, that it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Our worship and
praise and singing in His presence is to be with intelligence. It's
just not some kind of slap-happy thing we're doing. It's with
intelligence. It says in the Scriptures, all
thy children shall be taught of God. It's spiritual intelligence,
not earthly intelligence, spiritual. Our Lord said to the woman at
the well, we worship that we do know. You worship you know
not what. You don't know what you're doing.
Real faith begins with the true knowledge of God. You cannot worship God if you
don't know Him. You can't worship someone you
don't know. You can't believe on someone you don't know. That's
not possible. And to know Him, He must reveal
Himself to us out of His Word, by His Spirit. It has to do. It's said in the
book of Job, can anybody search and find out God? No! Not unless he reveals himself.
If God does not reveal Himself, we'll miss Him every time. We'll
get it wrong every time. We'll think, as He said in the
Psalms, you thought I was altogether like yourself. That's exactly
what we'll come up with. if He doesn't reveal Himself
out of His Word to us. But if He does that, here's what
you and I will know, that the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ is
God, Emmanuel, God with us. You know, that could have just
as easily been written, God against us. But here's grace, Emmanuel, God
with us. The man of sorrows is the Almighty
God of heaven and earth. Know ye that the Lord, He is
God. He's God. He's the Sovereign. He does as He will, with whom
He will, when He will. Now you're glad of that, aren't
you? You glad of that? You'd be surprised. You're not
surprised. There's a lot of people not glad of that. I'm not glad of that. You talk
to him about God choosing the people? He's mad. I've had it
in my own family. Mad. Angry. They're not mad that
the angels fell and didn't provide a Savior for them. They're not
mad. They don't get mad over the elect
angels. But when God invades their home and God does as He
will with whom He will, then they get upset. Well, you can get upset all you
want. God is God. He's not going to change. He's
the Sovereign. The Scripture says that Christ, He gives life
to whom He will. It is He that hath made us and
not we are. Isn't that plain? Isn't that
so plain? It is He that made us and not
we ourselves. As God, He made all things. Nothing
exists apart from Him, it says in Colossians. All things were
made by Him and for Him. He made us. We are His workmanship
created in Christ Jesus under good works. That's what it says
in Ephesians 2. He made us new creatures. A new
creation. A new man in Christ. He made us. Our first creation was from the
dust. It was of the ground. The second
creation is of the Spirit. The scripture says, that which
is born of the Spirit. Now it doesn't say that which
is born of the Spirit is spiritual. Though it is. It doesn't say
that though. It says that which is born of
the Spirit is Spirit. Is Spirit. Now just as I had no part, my
way of helping or advising in my first birth had nothing to
do with that. 1000% passive in my first birth. Even so, I had nothing to do
with my second birth. It's all of God. It's all of
God. It is written in the scriptures
which were born of God. He gave me life. He made me a
new creation. He didn't renovate me. I'm not
a renovation. God's not into antiques. He's
not into renovation. He's not into fixing up something
old. New. Behold, I make all things new. And listen, He made us believers. Faith and repentance are the
gifts of God. They're the gifts of God. We
did not make ourselves. In no way, shape, or form did
I make myself alive in Christ. I didn't do that. Life begets life. My life came
from Him who is life. I can tell you why I believe
the gospel. I can tell you why you believe the gospel. You can't
help it. It's that simple. I believe the gospel because
I can't help it. I cannot help believe no more
than I can help breathe. When God reveals, when He gives
life, When He commands life, when He said, I said live, and
that sinner lives, and He reveals Himself, and He reveals Christ,
you can't help but believe. You know, if I show you just
a piece of paper here, a white sheet of paper, and I hold it
up and I say, what do I have here? You say, a sheet of paper.
What color? White. You can't say anything else,
can you? You know to say anything else or do anything else, you
know you'd be lying. Faith's a gift of God. Faith
is the work of God. And you can't help but believe.
You cannot help it. Thou hast made... He made me
a believer. He made me a believer. And that
is such good news to me. I'm his responsibility. The greatest
comfort I get is this. I'm his responsibility to take
care of and bring home. It's not a cooperation between
me and him. It's him. on his shoulders to
bring home. When he went and found that lost
sheep, he put it on his shoulders and carried it home. And that's
exactly what the Lord's doing right now. He's carrying us home. Sometimes we realize it, sometimes
we don't. But it doesn't depend on me. It's all on Him. The believer is a work of the
triune God from first to last. Someone said to me a few years
ago, and I was talking about the work of the Holy Spirit and
regeneration and new birth and a new creation, and he told me
that wasn't that important. He said, that's not that important.
He said, Christ on the cross, that's it. He said, that part's
not important, that important. I said, well then why are we
baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
Why are we commanded to be baptized in the name of all three? Because
my salvation, your salvation is the work of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. It's the work of the Trinity,
Triune God. Now listen, I'll close this, I'm getting too long.
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
We are His by creation. He made us. That's what we just
read there. We are His by covenant. We are
His by purchase. We are His by grace. We are His
by love. We are His. And He said not one
will perish. Not one. We are His sheep. God did not take a goat and turn
it into a sheep. Now brother, I can't explain,
you know, we get in trouble when we start trying to explain everything
instead of believing what God says. I'm His sheep, I've always
been His sheep. Always been His. And that's way over my head.
Way over my head. We are His sheep who were lost
but are now found. We are His sheep and He is our
shepherd and He feeds us just like He's doing this morning
out of His Word. This is sheep food. What you're
getting this morning is sheep food. Now enter into His gates
with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful
unto Him and bless His name. Oh, isn't this the spirit of
praise? This is the spirit of worship here. What a glorious sound. Enter
in. Welcome. Welcome sinner, welcome. You
know what our Lord was accused of? The Pharisees accused Him
of eating with publicans and sinners. They accused Him of
eating with people like you and me. They said, you believe that? He could be over here with us.
But He's eating with publicans and harlots. prostitutes. He's sitting over there with
them, talking to them. They're talking to him, they're
listening. If you're a sinner, if you're
a sinner, died in the war center, welcome. Welcome to Jesus Christ. Enter into His gates of mercy.
Enter into His gates with praise and thanksgiving. Lift up your
head and hands and bless His holy name. Bless His holy name. Be thankful unto Him. A thankless
man is a graceless man. But a man saved by grace is a
mighty thankful man. Mighty thankful. A man who has been plucked from
the fire is thankful. Oh, that's what we have. Well,
that's what we've come to realize. God has plucked us from the fire,
saved us, it says, from the wrath to come. A man washed in the blood of
the Lamb is a thankful man. A man made righteous, a sinful
man made righteous, He's a thankful man. And here's the reason, I'm gonna
close. Here's the reason for the praise and the thanksgiving.
For the Lord is good. Is He? I'm gonna tell you something. It doesn't matter how bad my
day is. It doesn't matter what God's taken away from me. It
does not change the nature of God. And if He's taken something
from me, is good. God has never, ever, ever, ever
done anything to any of his children that was not absolutely pure,
holy, and good. Whatever he puts them through
is good. It's not easy to say that. It's not easy to believe that
and grasp that. When you go through it, it's
tough. The chasing ain't as tough, isn't
it? My parents used to chase me. My dad knew how to do it.
I'm telling you, you take a switch off a tree, window timeout. Until
he got tired. His timeout was when he was ready
to quit. I know that mom and dad chasing
me in love. as best they could, as best you
and I can. Our love is so anemic. And everything, every time our
Lord chastens us, tries us, makes us cry, lays
us in the dust, whether we comprehend it or not, it's good. It is good. And when you and
I finally leave this life and we stand in his presence, I believe
as Scott Richardson said, we wouldn't change a thing. How
many times have you said, boy, if I could go back I wouldn't
do this or I wouldn't do that? You'd be so stinking self-righteous
it'd be pathetic. Really. If you and I go back,
we would change the things that we think that's sinful and wretched
and we shouldn't. What about the things we didn't
do? We should have done. It's the sins of omission are
just as bad as the ones of commission. Wouldn't change a thing. But
it's all said and done. He's good. His providence is
good. Whatever He sends our way today is good, even though it
may break my heart. He's a good shepherd. He's the
Good Samaritan. He's all that is good. Apart
from God, good doesn't even exist. And His mercy is forever. It's
everlasting. Drink large of it. You're not going to drink. You're
not going to wear it out. You're not going to empty it.
You might feel like it, but you're not. His mercy was on us before the
world was. His mercy is on us now, and His
mercy is going to lead us home. We are going to ride home in
the chariot of His mercy. And His truth endures to all
generations. It just looks like at times it's
going to be put out like a candle, doesn't it? There's times it
looks like it's going to be put out. We got His word on it. It'll
endure. When you and I are gone, truth
will still be enduring to the next generation. And the greatest
thing, the greatest thing we can leave our children You want
to talk about an inheritance. The greatest thing you and I
can leave our children is the truth. The truth. Tell them the
truth. And leave it there. Paul, I pray
that the Lord give us a spirit, a true spirit of worship this
morning. Singing His praises. Thanking
Him. A thankful heart. Thankful. Thank God. He hath made us, and
not we. I didn't make myself a believer.
I didn't make myself a child of God. I can remember years ago, they
tried to get me to come down an aisle. They grabbed me by
the, don't you want to go down front? Don't you want to try
to get me to accept Jesus as my personal Savior? I mean trying
to drag me down the aisle. But when I heard the gospel,
just get out of the way. There ain't no dragging. I know
Dragon. It became, it became, it became
not me accepting him, it became him accepting me. He's the sovereign. He can have me or damn me and
be just and either way he does it. But when you realize that,
someone said, someone said, you never worship until you finally
worship at a sovereign throne. All others you'll bargain with.
I think it was AWP who said that. All right.