Well, good evening to everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me to Psalm 134. Psalm 134. And as you're turning, let me
make a couple of announcements. Remember, the Lord willing, next
Sunday, on January the 10th, we'll be restarting our in-person
services again at 10 a.m. on that Sunday morning. And I've
heard from many of our folks who have tested positive, and
they seem to all be doing pretty good, all things considered.
with the exception of Gary Hoback. Gary, Janie, their daughter Haley,
and son-in-law Tim all tested positive. They're down in Nashville.
And Gary is in ICU in Nashville. He's pretty sick. So we want
to remember them in prayer. This is a difficult time for
them. Alright, Psalm 134. Just three short verses, but
this is a blessed psalm. Behold, bless ye the Lord, All
ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of
the Lord, lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the
Lord. The Lord that made heaven and
earth bless thee out of Zion. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
oh, how thankful we are that you are God alone, ruling and
reigning over everything in your creation, that your sovereign
over all. And Father, how we thank you
that you have seen fit to use your sovereign power to call
out a people, to choose a people, to redeem a people that you would
stand as the surety, the guarantor of their salvation. Father, how
thankful we are. Salvation could be sure no other
way. And we're so thankful. How can
we begin to thank you and praise you for your mercy and your grace
to sinful men and women such as we are. And Father, I pray
that this evening that you would enable us by your spirit to worship
you, to worship in spirit and in truth. Father, I pray that
you'd cause your word to go forth in power, to bring glory to your
matchless name, to reach the hearts of your people, to save
and to comfort and strengthen your people. how we thank you
for the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the
good news of salvation for sinners in Christ Jesus, our Savior.
Father, we're thankful for the many, many blessings, how freely
you've bestowed so many blessings upon us, your people, and we're
thankful. And Father, we ask a blessing
for those that are in a time of great trial and difficulty,
those who are suffering with this COVID, virus and so many
other sicknesses and heartaches. Father, we pray a special blessing
for our brother Gary and his family that at this time you'd
undertaken their behalf to heal and strengthen. Be with your
people in a special way, we pray. We pray for our country, for
our world at this time, Father, that you would see fit. We know
that you are able. We pray that you'd be see fit
to give us some relief from this virus. through whatever means
you see fit, that You would give us some relief, that You'd let
people go back to their daily lives and enable us to meet together
again and worship You without having any thought of this problem. We pray for our country. We pray
for our leaders, Father, that You would give them wisdom, that
You'd turn their heart for peace and good in this country, for
the peaceful rest of Your people Enable us to continue to enjoy
the freedoms we have in worshiping Thee. Now, Father, again bless
us. Enable us to forget about all
the goings on of this life and let us set our affection on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Let His name be exalted and magnified
in everything that is said and done here tonight. In all these
things we ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. All right, Brady's
consented again to come and sing for us. I'm thankful. I'm sure
you're all enjoying that at home. So, Brady, I thank you. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of
my heart, Not be all else to me, save that Thou art. by day or by night. Waking or sleeping, Thy presence
my light. Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my
true word. I ever with thee, and thou with
me, Lord. Thou my great Father, I thy true
Son. Thou in me dwelling, and I with
Thee one. Riches I heed not, nor man's
empty praise. Thou mine inheritance, now and
always. Thou and Thou only First in my
heart High King of Heaven My treasure Thou art High King of
Heaven my victory won may i reach heaven's joys oh bright heaven's
sun heart of my own heart whatever befall still be O ruler of all. That's so good, Marie. Thank you. That
song ought to prepare our hearts to worship. All right, turn with
me again, if you would, now to Psalm 134. This is the last of
the Psalms of degrees. You remember these Psalms of
degrees Psalms that the travelers to Jerusalem would sing as they
went up to Jerusalem for the various feasts that they were
required to attend. And each one of these psalms
of degrees rises higher and higher in glory. Each individual psalm
of degree, they typically begin at a very low point and then
they continue rising up all the way to glory. And many people
say the psalms of degrees, each psalm rises in glory from psalm
to psalm as well. This is the last of the psalms
of degrees. So we must have reached the pinnacle
of our journey. We've reached the highest point
that we can travel here in our travels. And this psalm, the
crowning psalm, the last psalm, the pinnacle of all these psalms
of degrees is all about blessing the Lord. Blessing the Lord and
worshiping the Lord. That's the highest point that
we can ever hope to reach in this life. That's what we're
striving for, to bless the Lord. The highest form of religion
is to bless the Lord. And the word means to speak well
of the Lord. It means to delight in Him. The
highest form of religion that we can strive for is not to be
divisive with people because we're so much more religious
or so much more doctrinally straight than everybody else. You know,
we just won't have any time for that if we're blessing the Lord. The highest form of religion
that we can have is not to strive to point out what everybody else
is doing wrong. The highest point of religion we can hope to attain
to is blessing the Lord. And that's what this psalm is
all about. And I've titled the message tonight,
How We Bless the Lord. And I have four points I want
to give us on how we bless the Lord. First, I want us to see
who it is that's to bless the Lord. Second, I want us to see
when we are to bless the Lord. Third, where are we to bless
the Lord? And fourth, I want us to see
a specific way to bless the Lord that probably wouldn't come first
to anybody's mind, but listed here in this psalm, the specific
way to bless the Lord. Now first, who is to bless the
Lord? Well, the answer to that question
really is everyone. Every human being should bless
the Lord. blesses the Lord. Nature sings
and blesses the Lord, sings the Lord's praises, so certainly
all people in God's creation should bless the Lord. But the
people who are best suited to bless the Lord, the people who
will bless the Lord, it's every believer. Verse 1, behold, bless
ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord. Now this was probably
sung to the priests, sung to the Levites, whose work it was,
the whole work of their life, was to bless the Lord. The Levites'
entire life was taken up in the service of the Lord. Their whole
life was spent in reading the Word and offering the sacrifices
and keeping the candlestick lit and keeping the coals on the
brazen altar and on the altar of incense burning, to put incense
upon the altar of incense, to change out the show bread every
week. It was their whole job. And the priest had so many duties
and jobs to do in the worship of the Lord, they could never
finish all of them. As soon as they got one done,
something else had to be done again. So they needed encouragement,
didn't they? To continue to faithfully serve
the Lord. So this was probably sung to
the Levites, the people maybe as they were entering the city
or as they were leaving the city, they sang this to the Levites. Bless ye the Lord, all ye servants
of the Lord. But if you look at 1 Peter 2,
I'll show you that David here is speaking to every believer.
Because every believer has been made a priest to the Lord. 1
Peter 2. Verse 5. Ye also, as lively stones, are
built up a spiritual house, and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Every believer
is in the priesthood, a holy priesthood, not the earthly Levitical
priesthood, but a holy priest priesthood to offer up not animal
sacrifices, but spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God by
Jesus Christ. So David here is talking to every
believer. He talks to the servants of the
Lord. Every believer is a servant of the Lord. and we should be
about the business of living our lives blessing the Lord. Charles Spurgeon said this, the
Lord blesses you. Can any of you deny that? The
Lord blesses you. Therefore be zealous to bless
Him. Every believer is a servant of
the Lord. We should be zealous to bless the Lord. Well, what
is it to bless the Lord? Well, the word bless has several
meanings. First, it means this. It means to kneel down. Now,
we bless the Lord when we humbly kneel before the Lord and acknowledge
that the Lord is our King. When we kneel before the Lord,
we're acknowledging that the Lord is above us. That is, the
Lord is the King who we serve. The Lord is the King who gives
us everything that we have. If we're going to have any grace,
if we're going to have any mercy, if we're going to have any peace,
if we're going to have any love, God's going to have to give it
to us from above, isn't He? And kneeling before the Lord,
and it's not just kneeling down on our knees before everybody
else, kneeling before the Lord with a bowed heart, a humble
heart, a humble attitude, that shows the right relationship
between God and us. God is high and lifted up, and
we're poor sinners in the dust who are totally dependent upon
Him. And when we bow humbly before Him, That's blessing the Lord,
acknowledging who He is and who we are, how desperately we depend
upon Him. And second, this word bless means
to praise and to congratulate. Believers, the servants of God,
they bless the Lord by congratulating the Lord. Now, the priest of
old, they offered animal sacrifices, didn't they? Well, believers
today, we don't offer animal sacrifices, but we bless the
Lord by congratulating the Lord on His one sacrifice for sin
that took away all the sin of all of God's people. We bless
the Lord by congratulating Him on a job well done. In our preaching,
this is what we preach. There's just one sacrifice for
sin. That's all we need is the sacrifice of Christ to cleanse
us and to make us whole. That's what we say. That's what
we preach. When we preach that, we're blessing the Lord. And
I live, blessing the Lord, by living. Not trying to do anything
to help the Lord put my sin away. To not make myself more savable.
I live, blessing the Lord, by living depending on Christ to
put my sin away because this is what I believe in my heart.
Christ is enough. See that? I say so. I bless the
Lord by saying so in my doctrine, in my prayers, and in my preaching
by telling others Christ is all you need. And then I live blessing
the Lord by not trying to establish my own righteousness, but resting
in Christ and trusting in Christ. Then the priest of old, they
kept the candlestick and the temple lit, didn't they? We don't
have that candlestick today. Christ is our light. But believers
today bless the Lord by praising the Lord, congratulating the
Lord by saying that Christ is the light of the world. I see
in the light of Christ. I see how it is God can save
a sinner like me and still be God. Because God has enabled
me to see the Lord Jesus Christ. I never see any spiritual truth.
I don't understand any spiritual truth until I see the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I see everything else in
the light of who Christ is. So that's what I say, that's
what I preach. Christ is our light. You can't
see any spiritual truth You can't see how God could save you. You
can't see how God would keep you until you see everything
in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then I live blessing
the Lord by living with Christ being my light, with Christ being
my wisdom, and not living or depending upon my own natural
understanding. So bless the Lord. Bless the
Lord because He made you to know Him. Bless the Lord for enabling
you to bless Him. Bless the Lord for accepting
your worship and your praise. Bless the Lord for making you
accepted in the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless the Lord by living in dependence
upon Him. And every believer is a servant
of God. So every believer is to bless
the Lord this way. Not just preachers, but all of
us. And let's sing this, let's repeat this to each other. To
each other, we're all servants of God. Let's tell each other,
behold, now look, remember this, don't quit this. Behold, bless
ye the Lord, all ye his servants. Don't quit now, don't quit. Keep
blessing the Lord. Let's encourage one another that
way. Just like those priests, those Levites whose job was never,
ever done. You could see how they needed
some encouragement, couldn't you? You know what? Your brothers
and sisters need encouragement from time to time too. And really,
when we say time to time, that makes it sound like they don't
need it very often. Often, often, your brothers and
sisters need some encouragement. So encourage them by telling
them, behold, bless ye the Lord, all his servants. That's who
is to bless the Lord, all his servants. All right, second,
when are we to bless the Lord? Verse one says, behold, bless
ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord. which by night stand
in the house of the Lord." Now we're to bless the Lord, you
already know this, at all times, in every situation. We're to
bless the Lord for everything that the Lord is, and everything
that he has done, we're to bless the Lord. But here specifically,
travelers are encouraging the priests and the Levites to bless
the Lord by night. Now the priests served in the
temple 24 hours a day. Some of them through the graveyard
shift, You know, if you've ever worked a graveyard shift, working
at night, all night long, it's just hard on you. It's hard to
stay awake. It's hard to keep your focus.
It's hard to keep your energy up and do the work that you're
supposed to be doing. And these travelers are encouraging the
priest to continue serving the Lord. They're encouraging them,
keep all those coals upon the altar hot. Don't let the fire. underneath the sacrifice go out
because we need that burnt offering to be offered for our sin. They're
encouraging the priest, don't let the fire and the candlestick
go out because we need that light. We need that light to be able
to see spiritual truth. We need that light to be able
to see, to worship God aright. They're encouraging the priest.
Don't get drowsy. Don't slack off because you're
sleepy on the job, you know, because God's going to accept
the whole nation through the ceremony that those priests are
doing as a picture of Christ. So I tell every believer, behold,
all of us now pay attention. All of God's people pay attention
and bless the Lord at all times. There's never a time that the
Lord is not to be worshipped and not to be praised. Bless
the Lord in the daylight. In the daylight when everybody
can see what you're doing, bless the Lord. Join in the public
worship service and bless the Lord. And also, bless the Lord
in the daylight in this sense, when Lord's given you light,
when He's given you peace. People just aren't comfortable
being in the dark, when they can't see what's going on around
them. Part of this light means the
blessing of the Lord. The Lord's made you comfortable,
you can see. At those times, when the Lord's
blessed you with light, bless the Lord, thank the Lord, worship
the Lord. But David here especially mentions the night. Bless the
Lord by night. I looked that word up, it means
just exactly what you think it means. It means night, night
time when it's dark. But it also means gloom. Gloom. Bless the Lord in your heart. When it's dark, nobody's watching,
nobody can see you, bless the Lord. Because you know, blessing
the Lord comes from the heart. Whether we're in a big crowd
and public worship, or whether we're all alone in the dark and
nobody can see us, worship comes from the heart. Bless the Lord
from the heart. Bless the Lord in the gloom. In the gloom, when it's cold
and it's dark and you're all alone. Bless the Lord in the
gloom. When you just can't see real
well. You can't see what the Lord's
doing. You can't tell what the Lord's doing or why the Lord's
doing it. It's gloomy. Still bless the Lord. Bless the
Lord in the gloom of despair, in the gloom of disappointment,
in the gloom of depression, and in the gloom of fear. Bless the
Lord. Bless the Lord when you have
reason to laugh. And bless the Lord when you have
reason to weep. Bless the Lord for who he is. God is to be blessed. He's to be praised. He's to be
worshipped because of who He is, His nature, His character
as God. He's to be blessed for His salvation
that He's provided for sinners. Not just because of any physical
or material blessings that He gives me, but for who God is. Now that's what we should do.
And my suspicion is none of you here, none of you watching at
home would disagree with that. Would you disagree that we're
to bless the Lord at all times, even in those times of darkness
and gloom, we're to bless the Lord? You wouldn't disagree with
that, would you? Well, let me ask you this. How well are you
doing? How well do you do with that
in worshiping God, blessing God, blessing His holy matchless name
in the gloom? Not as well as we'd like. That's
the answer. Well, then I've got something
to comfort your heart. Aren't you thankful that the Lord Jesus
Christ, our great high priest, every believer is a priest, every
believer is a servant of God, but there's a great high priest.
The Lord Jesus Christ, our great high priest, aren't you thankful
he was faithful to bless the Lord by night. He blessed the
Lord all through his earthly ministry in the light when everybody
could see him. This was a public ministry. This
thing wasn't done in a corner. Everybody saw and knew what he
was doing. But then came three hours of great darkness upon
the cross, when there was darkness over all the earth. And at that
time, I mean, that's when business was taking place between the
Father and the Son, between the Father and the sacrifice. And
at that night, those dark, dark hours, Christ our Savior, He
didn't get drowsy. He didn't get lazy and fall down
on the job. In those three hours upon the cross, Christ our Savior,
Christ our substitute, Christ our sacrifice was faithful in
every season, even by night. Now God's people, we stand. David
says here, those who by night stand in the house of the Lord,
he said, you bless the Lord. Well, how is it that we stand?
How is it we stand in Christ? The house of the Lord, the tabernacle,
of God is the Lord Jesus Christ who came and was made flesh and
tabernacled among us. We stand in Christ. We stand
in Christ because the Father put us in Christ. We stand because
Christ is our righteousness. That's the only reason we stand
in Christ, isn't it? So when the Lord calls us into
the gloom, let's pray that the Lord will enable us to be faithful
and to bless His holy name in the gloom. Two reasons for that. Number one, he's worthy. He ought
to be blessed. And number two, you know, it
could be some of God's other servants will be blessed by him,
by God's servants blessing him in the gloom. That's when we're
to bless him at all times, but especially in those night seasons. All right, third, I want us to
see this, where we bless the Lord. Verse two, lift up your
hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord. Now we think of blessing
the Lord in the sanctuary, our mind naturally, first place it
naturally goes to is in public worship, the sanctuary. And that's
good. You know, we almost can't overemphasize
the importance of public worship. You're the example that I use
of the blessing, the necessity of public worship. I spent this
last past summer, I spent three different weeks in the hospital.
I learned about the goings on, of the hospital, learned about
a lot of things. I learned about the food service,
the food they bring in the hospital. And the example that I use of
what we're doing right now, listening to the gospel via, you know,
the videos and electronically, I compare that to hospital food.
That hospital food, that kept me alive. Hospital food, you
know, a lot of times it gets a bad name. Most of it tasted
Pretty good. Not much of it was gross. Some
of it was, but not much of it. And this means that the Lord's
given us, especially right now, that we can put these messages
out electronically and you watch them from the comfort of your
home when it's not safe for us to come out to the public worship
or maybe people's health makes it impossible for them to do
that. I am very thankful for this means
God's given us electronically to put these things out. I'll
go home, I'll copy this message onto just a little old flash
drive, just about that big. Put it in this thing called a
Dropbox. I have no idea how this works. Dan Morgan picks it up,
and I mean just in hours, it's up on Sermon Hall. It's just
the most amazing thing there ever was. I'm thankful for it. I'm so thankful. But I'm telling
you, it's like hospital food. For three months this summer,
I was unable to come to a public worship service. And I watched
a lot of preaching. on the television, on my phone
and different things. And it was good. I got a blessing
from it. I remember the first time I had
come to a public worship service after that three months. Came
there on Thursday night. And Brother Todd Nybert was preaching.
And it was like I'd never heard the gospel before. It just was
such a blessing to me. And this is why I thought being
in that public worship service with other believers, my brethren,
with that preacher looking me in the eye and preaching the
gospel to me, it was like eating good home cooking. I mean, it
was like comparing hospital food to Janet's home cooking. I mean,
it's just better. Her Janet's home cooking tastes
better. It's made with love. It's made with care. It's just
totally different. And blessing the Lord in the
public worship service That certainly applies to what David's saying
here. It's a blessing and it's important. But I'll tell you
most importantly what David's talking about here. It's worshiping
God in the sanctuary. In the Lord Jesus Christ. The
word sanctuary he uses here means holiness. It means set-apartness. It means something that's consecrated
and dedicated. This room, there's very few of
us in this room tonight. is not a sanctuary in that sense,
in the sense that it's holy or it's consecrated. It's a room
set apart for public worship, but there's nothing inherently
holy about this room or about this building. The sanctuary
where there is holiness, the sanctuary that has been set apart
and consecrated by the Father is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father appointed, He consecrated,
He set apart His Son to be the Savior of His people, to be the
holiness of His people, to be the righteousness of His people.
So God can only be worshipped in the sanctuary in the Lord
Jesus Christ. God can only be worshipped and
blessed in Christ. See, we bless God because God
has blessed us. Now where has He blessed us with
all spiritual blessings? In Christ, hasn't He? And that's
what the psalmist means here when he talks about lifting up
your hands in prayer Now, we don't do that, and I've been
studying for the message on Sunday, and this matter of lifting up
your hands is in the message Sunday, too. You know, we don't
do that. People do it. This is why we
don't do it, because people, you see them on TV and stuff,
they do it, and they're just doing it to make a big show of themselves.
And I wouldn't care if somebody did that, if it was a spontaneous
thing, really, in the spirit, but the reason that they did
this, the lifting up of the hands, there was a reason behind it.
It's a gesture. It's an outward sign, a symbol
of humility. Lifting up the hands in prayer
is a sign of inward humility. It shows that we must humbly
receive a blessing from above. We've got to receive it. We can't
earn it. We've got to receive it from God. The only way we
can receive a blessing from God is His forgiveness, His mercy,
His grace, His love, His righteousness. The only way we can receive that
is from the Lord Jesus Christ from above. Every blessing of
God, every blessing that God has for a sinner comes to us
through and by and because of the Lord Jesus Christ. So God
can only be blessed. He can only be worshipped in
Christ. God's not worshipped just by
having the right form or the ceremony of religion. God is
worshipped when we bless, when we congratulate, when we praise,
the Lord Jesus Christ. God is blessed. He's worshipped
when we trust Christ alone. We trust His righteousness alone,
His sacrifice alone. God is worshipped when we congratulate
the righteousness of Christ. Now how is it that you can congratulate,
that you can praise the righteousness of Christ? By saying this, I
don't want any other. I don't have to add to Christ's
righteousness to make myself righteous. I say with David,
I'll make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only, because it's
the only righteousness that I want. The same thing is true with the
sacrifice of Christ. How is it that you can congratulate
the sacrifice of Christ? It's by saying it's the only
sacrifice I want. It's the only sacrifice that
I need, because the sacrifice of the precious person of the
Lord Jesus Christ is all I need to put my sin away. And I don't
have to contribute anything to that. to pay my sin debt. Christ is all I need. That's
how God is worshiped. He's blessed when we say Christ
is all that I need. God is worshiped. He's blessed
when we bow before Christ our King. Christ is the sovereign
Savior. And we lift up our hands in complete
dependence upon him. You and I are completely dependent
on the sovereign grace of God. Now we can and we should, not
just outwardly, but in our hearts, lift up our hands to God, showing
we're completely dependent upon Him to give us grace. We can
and we should beg God for His mercy and for His grace. But
you just remember this, God's grace is sovereign grace because
He's sovereign. God does not have to be gracious to me. God
didn't owe his mercy to me. God didn't owe it to me to forgive
me of my sin. So I'm begging God for mercy.
I'm begging him for forgiveness. I'm begging him for grace. And
I live completely dependent upon Christ. Now, this is what I want
for me personally. I just tell you, this is what's
in my heart, what I desire for me personally. I want to be obsessed. with the Lord Jesus Christ. I
want to be obsessed with Him so that I don't waste my time
anywhere else. I don't want to waste my time
on any other subject. I don't want to waste my time
looking to and depending on anything or anyone other than the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's what I want for me personally.
And that's what I want for you too. I want to only preach Christ
to you so that by God's grace, You and I both become obsessed
with Christ. I want this place, Hurricane
Road Grace Church, to be a place of public worship. The true worship
of God in spirit and in truth. And the one and only way that
that's possible is if all of us are focused on the Lord Jesus
Christ and nothing else. that we won't allow ourselves
to be taken off on a tangent about anything else. And maybe
it's a good thing. Maybe it's a right thing. Maybe
it's the way that people really ought to act and really ought
to live and something that's really true. Satan's probably
not going to pull you off on just a complete and utter lie.
I want us to be so obsessed with the Lord Jesus Christ that even
when something like that comes up, a matter of law, a matter
of order of service or whatever
it might be, that we just don't get our attention taken off on
that because Christ is what I need. Christ is what I must have. There's
lots of true things that I could tell you. But Christ is the only
thing, the only one that will help your soul. And I want to
preach Christ so we are just obsessed with Him. Because anything
else, putting our attention on anything else is harmless to
our souls. I want that for me. I want that
for this congregation. And I want that for this community
that lives around us. I want this community that lives
around us to be blessed through the preaching of the gospel.
You know, God is pleased to save his people. Well, verse three
says it. We'll get to this in a minute.
Out of out of Zion. The Lord blessed thee out of
Zion. Zion is the church. God blesses his people through
the preaching that comes out of Zion, that comes out of the
church. And this is what I know. Nobody is going to be saved. None of God's sheep are going
to be comforted. None of God's sheep are going to be blessed.
None of God's sheep are going to grow in grace unless we as
a congregation preach Christ alone. If we allow ourselves
to be taken off on any other tangent and focus on Christ plus
something else or just something else for a little while, nobody's
going to be saved. Nobody's going to be blessed.
Nobody's going to be comforted. Nobody's going to grow. The only
way, the one and only way that we can bless God and worship
God is in the Lord Jesus Christ by preaching and trusting Christ
and Christ alone. That is where we are to bless
the Lord. And then here's the fourth thing.
Here's a specific way to bless the Lord. Look at verse three. Bless thee out of Zion. Now this
is the closing stanza in all of the Psalms of Degrees. Not
just this one, but this is the last verse in all of the Psalms
of Degrees. Here is the closing stanza. It
closes with a prayer for others. Saying the Lord bless thee. Now
would you like to be able to bless the Lord? If you're a believer,
I know you would. You want to be able to bless
the Lord. Well you know what the Lord tells us? then pray
for others. Don't just pray for yourself.
Don't just pray the Lord give you the Spirit to bless Him.
If you would bless the Lord, pray for others. Pray that the
Lord bless others. I have an example of this. A
very dear pastor friend of mine told me this a few months ago.
He said, I used to get up in the morning, go to my study. He said, I'd begin in prayer. He said, I'd always pray, Lord
give me wisdom. He said, I've done that for years.
Lord, give me wisdom. Lord, give me wisdom. And he
said, then I realized nothing could be more selfish than that.
He said, now I pray, Lord, give all of us wisdom. Give everybody
in the congregation wisdom. Give us the wisdom to focus on
Christ alone, to trust Christ alone, to preach Christ alone.
Give us the wisdom to protect the unity that we have here.
That's blessing the Lord. Praying that the Lord bless others.
You know, it is a blessing to ask the Lord to bless others
because only the Lord can bless them. And you and I would be
more blessed if we'd spend more time asking the Lord to bless
others and less time asking the Lord to bless us. That's so.
This is the way that we can serve God's people. What better way
can you think of than asking the Lord to bless them? What
better thing can you do for somebody than ask that the Lord bless
them? And David specifically says this, we pray that the Lord
who made heaven and earth bless thee, the creator. Now you read
through the Old Testament and God is frequently described as
the creator, the God who made heaven and earth. You know, that's
a mighty good reason to pray to the Lord, isn't it? He's the
creator. He's the creator. The one who
created everything has the power to bless his people with any
material blessing that we might need. Because every material
thing is his. If he created it, it's all his.
It's his to give, it's his to withhold. The Creator is the
one who can bless us materially. And much more importantly, the
one who created everything has the power to bless us spiritually. The one who spoke this world
into existence has by that same power the ability to speak and
to create in us a new creation. to give us the new birth, to
give us every spiritual blessing. Now that's a specific way that
we can bless the Lord is by praying and asking the Lord to bless
others. Isn't that a good psalm? That's
a good way to end these psalms of degrees. What a pinnacle that
God has brought us to, to be able to bless His holy name.
And I hope the Lord will enable us to do that. Let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, how we thank You
for this blessed portion of Your Word that You have allowed us
to look into this evening. And Father, I pray You'd give
us a heart that would bless Thee and worship Thee in awe and wonder. And Father, give us a heart that
would truly pray for one another. That we not just pray for one
another because that's what You've told us we have to do. But Father,
give us a heart that would truly pray for one another. and say,
the Lord God, who created heaven and earth, bless thee out of
Zion. Father, I pray you'd bless your
word as it's gone forth. Bless it to your glory. Enable
your people that you would enable to hear this message to see the
glory of Christ our Savior. Use it to comfort and strengthen
our hearts. For it's in the precious name
of our Lord Jesus Christ we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right,
till next time, I pray, Lord, Bless you and keep you, and just
remember that the Lord willing, on Sunday the 10th, 10 a.m.,
we'll begin our in-person services again.