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Jul 19, 2020

He Can Hear You! Speak Louder!

Passage: Psalms 66:1-20

Preacher: Cisco Cotto

Series:Summer Playlist

Detail:

1.  All people should worship God for His great power and 
     awesome deeds.
       •  God's great power means His enemies are no match
           for Him.
       •  All people can benefit from the fact that He saved Israel.

2.  God's people should praise God for refining them.

3.  Every person should thank God for hearing their prayers.
       •  The Psalmist wants everyone to know about God's 
            answered prayers.
               >  God heard his prayers because he loved God
                    more than sin.
               >  Sin can keep you from true fellowship with God.

My great-grandfather’s name was Theodore Swartz.  He was from Luxemburg and lived to be 100 years old—a whole century.  As he got older, things started to fail—including his hearing.  He went to the ear doctor and got these really great hearing aids that connected to his eyeglasses They were fancy and expensive.  There was a knob on his glasses and when he needed the hearing aids to be more sensitive, when he needed to hear things better, he would crank that little knob.

As he got older—95, 96, 97, 98—it got to the point where that knob was cranked up all the time.  As we were telling him things we thought were important—about our little league games or meals we had had or games we were playing—we really wanted Grandpa to know these things.  But he couldn’t make out what we were saying.  We could see in his eyes he wasn’t understanding us.  There were points when that little knob was cranked as high as it could be and he would finally say, “Speak louder!  I can’t hear you! You have to speak up.  I can’t make out what you’re saying.”

Now, all of us have been on one side of that situation, haven’t we?  We’re either the person who’s being told to speak up, or we’re the person who is asking others to speak up.  The reason is that over time our bodies break down.  This service is remote, so I can’t hear you respond, but I’m sure there are a few of you who are saying “Amen” right about now.  Our bodies just break down over time.  Whether it’s hearing or sight or joints, things just start not working the way they used to.

What’s fascinating to me about Psalm 66 that we’re going to study today is it features God, through the psalmist who is writing it, calling people to speak louder to God.  It’s interesting because it’s not like God ages.  God doesn’t have a hearing problem.  God is unchanging.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  God always hears us when we speak.  So why in the world is He telling us to speak louder?

We’re going to find out today what God wants from people as they’re speaking, why God—Who always hears and has no problem with hearing—says we need to shout.  That’s what Father Son and Spirit—our Triune God—are calling us to.  Grab Psalm 66, because we’re going to study it for a few minutes. 

All people should worship God for His great power and awesome deeds.

The first thing we’re going to learn in Psalm 66 is how this is actually beautiful poetry that the psalmist is using to work out the major message which is that people should speak louder.  He begins broadly by saying all people should speak louder.  Then he narrows it to “God’s people should speak louder.”  Finally, he personalizes it.  It’s all about him, but really, it’s all about each and every one of us as well.  We should speak louder.  He’s moving from all people to God’s people to each individual to accentuate the fact that we all need to speak louder when we are talking to our God.  He begins broadly.  All people are to worship God for His great power and awesome deeds.  All people should bow down before God because of Who He is and what He does.  God is amazing and deserves all creation to bow before Him in worship. 

God’s great power means His enemies are no match for Him.

The first challenge from the psalmist here is for God’s enemies.  He wants to enlighten us and also them.  He wants the people working against God to see they cannot defeat Him.  In fact, he wants us all to see that God’s enemies are no match for Him, because of His great power.  Verse 1 reads.  “Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise!”  He says “all the earth” here.  This is broad.  “Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds!  So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.  All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name’.”

God’s great power means His enemies are no match for Him.  This is the first call of the psalmist.  God can do amazing things.  God can do mighty deeds.  God is all-powerful, meaning no matter who you are, no matter how badly, strongly or regularly you fight against God, you are no match for Him. 

In just a few minutes we’ll find out a little more about the Exodus story, where some of God’s enemies found out they were no match for Him.  In our day, it’s really easy to think about people who are God’s enemies and at times, it seems like they are winning, doesn’t it? For example, there are atheist activists in our country who file lawsuits all the time, trying to get God out of the public square.  They really want God to be gone from everywhere.  They don’t want Him in the dialogue.  They don’t want people in any way even reflecting on God.  So they file lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit; many of them lose, but some of them win.  Little by little we get to a point that  it seems as though the subject of God is off limits in public places.  These people are enemies of God and see themselves that way.  I’m not disparaging them.  I’m not taking them out of context.  I’m not giving them a label they wouldn’t give themselves.  They see themselves as enemies of the very idea of God.  The psalmist says they are no match for Him. 

This is a good reminder for us, because we can get really upset, disappointed and maybe even angry.  We can despair, thinking they’re just going to get victory after victory.  And as time goes along, who knows what they’ll be able to accomplish? The psalmist says, “No, even God’s enemies come cringing to Him.  They’re no match.  All of creation should worship God because of His awesome deeds, because of His great power which is so unbelievable that even His enemies come cringing to Him.” 

Now, that’s one group of enemies, but it seems as though not  everyone is praising Him.  There are enemies now, just as there were back in ancient Israel.  So what does it mean that all the earth should shout for joy to the Lord, that these enemies will come cringing to Him?

These activists I just talked about do not come cringing to God.  What God reveals to us is that there will come a time when even those who don’t follow Jesus will at least have to acknowledge Who He is,  not just those who are following Jesus,

Our church just got done studying the book of Philippians in which we see this beautiful picture of Who Jesus is and why He is worthy of praise.  Revisit Philippians 2:. it’s a great passage.  It says that because of all Christ has done:

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

The psalmist says, “All of creation should praise the Lord.  Everyone should worship Him.”  We say, “That’s not happening.”  Not everyone is going to follow Jesus, not everyone is going to honor Him as Lord in their hearts, but there will come a time when everyone—even His most bitter enemies—will have no choice but to acknowledge that He is Lord and King.  In that sense, all of creation will bow down to Him.  God’s enemies are no match for Him.  That’s one reason all creation should worship the Lord. 

All people can benefit from the fact that He saved Israel

Let’s look at another reason all creation should worship the Lord.  The Exodus story involves ancient Israel who was in slavery in Egypt, then rescued out of that slavery after decade upon decade upon decade.  Finally, miraculously, they are released from this slavery.  They get to the Red Sea and Pharaoh realizes he’s losing his labor force, so his armies chase Israel to the edge of the Red Sea.  Then the Israelites wonder, “What are we going to do? How will we get out of this?” They feel as though they’re just going to be dragged back into slavery. But God miraculously parts the Red Sea so that ancient Israel can cross through on dry land, then that sea closes over God’s enemies—the enemies of Israel, those troops who were trying to drag them back into bondage.  God’s people are free, the Egyptian army is defeated.

In Psalm 66:5-7, the psalmist is calling all of creation to worship God, because the Exodus story is not just about ancient Israel.  In fact, all people can benefit from the fact that God saved Israel.  Anyone who wants to come to Jesus Christ, acknowledging their need for Him, can do so because of what God did for ancient Israel. 

So Israel is saved, they head off into a desert where they live for a time before moving into the Promised Land.  There’s so much more to Israel’s history here, but finally we see that it is through those people who once were slaves in Egypt that we get Jesus.  And because we have Jesus, we can be free forevermore.  We can be free from our sin, free to truly worship God and bow before Him in love and adoration.

This Exodus story is one Christians don’t focus on as much as we probably should.  Jewish people do.; they celebrate it regularly.  The Exodus is really foundational to the Jewish faith, yet Christians often treat the Exodus story like it’s just one of many wonderful stories in the Bible, just sort of on par with all the others. 

I think what the psalmist is calling us to here is to celebrate the Exodus more, to powerfully praise God and worship Him because of what He did for ancient Israel.  It’s not just about them; it is also about us.  In verse five, the psalmist calls all people to “Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.” This includes each  one of us in the sense that because God saved Israel, we get Jesus, so     anyone who comes to Him in faith can be forgiven by Him and be in relationship with Him.  This is for everyone.  “He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man.”

Then the psalmist recounts the Exodus story in verse six:  “He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot.”  There’s a beautiful picture here of what God did and how ancient Israel escaped Egypt.  “There did we rejoice in him who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations—let not the rebellious exalt themselves.”

God’s actions for Israel are for everyone.  All people can benefit from the fact that He saved Israel.  The psalmist is very broadly calling all of creation, all of the world, to acknowledge Who God is and what He does, because of the power He demonstrates.  The Exodus story is beautiful, not just because it’s God working in one particular group of people, but because it is through that episode—and so many more—that we get Jesus. 

So why should all of creation bow down?  Why should everyone on planet Earth worship?  Because God is mighty to save and accomplishes His good purposes.  This means He saves us.  He offers us forgiveness and relationship which is open to anyone. 

Before we move to our next point, I want to accentuate that there are some people—maybe some who are watching this service—who doubt whether those actions in Exodus, or anything else that’s been written about in the Bible, are actually about them.  I think it’s really easy to doubt whether God loves us, whether He can truly save us, whether He desires to have a relationship with us.  There can be a whole bunch of reasons for this doubting.  It can be because of the things we’ve done in our lives, thinking, “There’s no way God could love me.”  It could be because of where we came from or how we grew up.  We might have a bad self-image.  We might doubt ourselves, so because of that we say, “I don’t love myself, people around me don’t love me, maybe my parents didn’t love me, maybe my siblings didn’t love me, so how in the world can God love me?”

The psalmist wants to remind us that all men and women, everyone who comes to the Lord in humility acknowledging their need for Him, can embrace the gospel message—the good news that we are sinners in need of a Savior and that Jesus is our Savior.  If only we will repent of those sins, God forgives us, restores us and makes us a dearly loved daughter or son forevermore.  All people can have that—everyone, including you.  Don’t doubt it for a second.

God’s people should praise God for refining them.

The psalmist, as I mentioned, begins very broadly—all people should worship God for His great power and awesome deeds—then he narrows it a little bit.  He now talks just to God’s people saying, “God’s people should praise Him for refining them.”  Now we get to some of the things God does in our lives.  God’s people should be grateful that He uses the bad times.  Each of us faces challenges.  Ancient Israel certainly did, having been  in slavery in Egypt and had to be miraculously rescued.  God does amazing things in His people.  Even in their most desperate moments, God refines us. 

The psalmist understood this, so in verse eight, he begins talking about what God has done.  This is really incredible.  He talks about the fact that God protected Israel through many trials.  There were many situations Israel was in where God kept them safe each and every time.  It wasn’t just the Exodus.  Time and time again, God protected them.  He says:

8 Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard, 9 who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip.  10 For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.  11 You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; 12 you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.

He begins by talking about God’s protection—“You’ve kept our soul among the living, and You have not let our feet slip” —then he moves to this testing, this refinement, “tried as silver is tried.”  God protected Israel through many trials and used those situations to refine them. 

Now, this seems a bit challenging because God does not always offer us protection in every situation, we can’t say, “If you are one of God’s people, nothing bad is going to happen to you; you’re going to get everything you want.”  There are prosperity teachers who will say that God will always offer you protection and always rescue from every situation.  If your faith is strong enough, God will never let harmful things happen to you.  That’s just not a fact.  That’s not what the Bible says. 

In this Psalm, he talks about the fact that ancient Israel was protected so that God’s work could be done in them—and that work is refinement, being changed, being transformed.  That’s why he moves from  protection to this refinement.  The words he uses are “tested us.”  “You, O god, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.”   God used all those challenging situations in Israel’s life to make them more like Himself.  That’s what refinement means.  And He does the same thing for you and me.  He takes all those discouraging situations where we feel like nothing good is coming about as a result and He uses them for our benefit.  That benefit is for us to become more and more like Jesus. 

We see this in Romans 8:28:  “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good.”  All things work together for good?  Some situations don’t seem very good.  Losing a job doesn’t seem very good.  Fighting with a spouse doesn’t seem very good.  Getting a cancer diagnosis doesn’t seem very good.  Being in the middle of a pandemic doesn’t seem very good.  Yet God promises that all things are working together for good.  So what is that good?  A little further down in Romans 8:29 we see that each of us, every follower of Jesus, is to be “conformed to the image of his Son.”   We’re to be made more like Jesus.  That’s Christian maturity.  That’s refinement.  That’s God using these difficult times to change us.

So no matter what it is that you’re going through, no matter what it is that’s hard, hurtful, scary—no matter what you would change—God’s promise is not to do away with it or get rid of it.  I mean, the money problems may still be around for years.  The health issues may never go away.  That  broken relationship may never be healed.  God doesn’t promise all those things.  What He does promise is that as you deal with those situations, He is going to make you more like Jesus.  He refines you.  And so, as you’re dealing with those challenges—like ancient Israel did—you may become more patient, like Jesus.  You may become more dependent upon God the Father, like Jesus was when He was on the earth.  You may have a better prayer life, a deeper prayer life, a more meaningful prayer life because of what God is putting you through. 

Time and time again, when Jesus was on the earth, we see Him going away at night to pray for hours.  Now, I’m just going to be honest.  I’m a pastor, so I’m supposed to act like I have this prayer life in which eight to 12 hours a day all I do is stay in my study on my knees praying to God.  It doesn’t work that way.  It doesn’t, not even for pastors.  But this is a call for me to be more like Jesus.  If Jesus needed to pray to the Father at times for hours and hours—not every day, but sometimes—then maybe there are times I need that too.  Maybe I need to spend time talking with Him and laying on Him all my feelings, emotions, hurts, challenges and fears.  We’ll talk about prayer a little bit more in just a moment.

The psalmist is telling us here that all people should worship God for His great power and His awesome deeds, but God’s people specifically should be praising Him on a daily basis for the fact that no matter what the challenges are, it is not for nothing.  They are not a waste.  God is using them to make us more like Jesus.  It may be faith-stretching.  It may increase our trust.  It may force us to rely on our brothers and sisters in the church more.  It may make us long for heaven, just like Jesus did.  There are a variety of ways we can be made more like Jesus.  Whatever it is today that God is doing in your life, whatever situation you wish God would get rid of, look at these situations and ask, “Lord, how are You using this?  How are You trying to make me more like Jesus in this situation?  Is it trust?  Is it faith?  Is it patience?  Is it love?  Is it kindness?  What are You doing to make me more like Jesus?”  This is the call for all people worship God because He’s amazing.  God’s people should be grateful, even for those hard times, because God is using them. 

Every person should thank God for hearing their prayers.

The psalmist moves from all people to God’s people, then finally, he digs a little deeper and personalizes it.  He starts talking about himself.  I love how we see this language changing throughout the Psalm.  I think it’s really beautiful.  Now he personalizes it.  Now it’s about him.  Now this is about his worship of the Lord, specifically his prayers.  Every person should thank God for hearing their prayers; that’s what the psalmist does.  He expresses gratitude that when he called out, God was listening.  There was never a time when God said, “I can’t hear you.”  God does not ignore His people.  He personalizes it.  These are his prayers, offered specifically to God. 

The Psalmist wants everyone to know about God’s answered prayers.

Now, we don’t know what his situation was, but he was scared; he thought he wasn’t going to survive.  He thought the same for God’s people, so he made a vow to the Lord:  “If You will save us, I will come to Your house” — to the tabernacle or temple or wherever God was worshiped in his day—“and I will pay homage to You.  I will offer sacrifices to You.  I will say thank You for hearing my prayer and keeping me safe.”  That is exactly what he did. 

Look at verse 13:

13 I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will perform my vows to you,14 that which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.  15 I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats. 

He’s talking about all these sacrifices he is going to make in God’s house.  He made a vow, God made good on that vow, then when he got home safely, he said, “My God saved me.  My God listened to me.  I’m going to do what I said I would do.”  What he’s really saying in effect is God heard his prayers and He answered them.

Now, another thing we should not get out of this Psalm is if we ask God for something, He is always going to answer in the way we want Him to answer.  God always hears our prayers.  He always answers our prayers, but sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it’s no, sometimes it’s not yet.  Sometimes it’s, “Hold on a little while.”

God is not a genie in a bottle who has a responsibility to do exactly what we want.  I don’t know about you, but I am so grateful for that.  There are plenty of times I’ve asked God for things that have not come about, but something so much better has.  Or I’ve seen how if I had gotten what I wanted, it would have been really, really bad.  God hears our prayers, He answers our prayers—not always, though, in the way we would like. 

The psalmist is calling us to celebrate the fact that God hears our prayers, He acts on our prayers and we can count on it.  We don’t make vows in the way this Psalmist did.  We don’t sacrifice animals anymore.  We don’t tell God, “If You do this, I will make a sacrifice to You.”  No, that’s not how it works.  Instead, we tell Him what’s on our mind, express what we desire, then ask Him to do whatever His will is based on what He knows is good for us as His people.  Then as followers of Jesus—regardless of the outcome of the situation—we should come before Him thanking Him. 

I think that’s the equivalent of these sacrifices the psalmist offered.  We come before God in every situation, saying, “Thank You for hearing our prayers.”  No matter what the other side of a bad situation looks like, no matter what the outcome is—whether it goes the way we wanted or not—God’s people, as individuals, should come before Him in prayer to say, “Thank You for hearing us, thank You for being with us, thank You for working all of this out for good.” Have you done this lately?  

This has been a challenge to me as I’ve been studying this Psalm.  Am I, on a regular basis, expressing gratitude to God for the ways He has protected me, for the ways He has answered prayer, for the fact He has helped me be humble in following Him?  I’ve had to learn this gratitude over a period of years. 

Hopefully, some of you have experienced this too over the years.  It takes time, little by little, as we’re refined and made more like Jesus.  Then we get to the point where we can see that whatever God wants is best and our prayer should be, “Lord, give us wisdom to lead our lives.  Help us to make good decisions.  Help the outcome to be Your good outcome.  Don’t do what I want.  Instead, do what You want.”  Then God does it.  He works it out. 

I won’t get into specific  details, but years ago there was a job that I really, really wanted.  I mean, I really wanted this job and I thought I was going to get it.  Then when I didn’t get it, I was really hurt.  You could say I was crushed.  I really was.  Then God, over a period of months, gave me an even better situation and showed me why that particular job would have been really difficult for me.  It might have been a job I really disliked in the end.  He showed me how He was working out this plan in which I was just kind of a spectator, following along as God worked all this out.  That showed me to be grateful for God’s sovereignty, for the fact that He hears me when I call, He answers my prayers, but that He is working out His good purposes in my life.  My job is to thank Him for that and yield to whatever He is doing. 

That’s what the psalmist is doing here.  “God, You heard me.  You protected me, now I’m honoring You.  God, You heard my prayers.”  You and I can say, “You heard my prayers, You were with us in that very difficult situation, You got us through it one way or another, You made us more like Jesus, You’re refining us, so Heavenly Father, we are grateful.  We are worshipful toward You.  Thank You for hearing our prayers.”

This is what the psalmist is getting at.  God hears and God listens.  God wants to refine each and every one of us.  One of the ways we can honor Him is by coming to Him in prayer, saying, “Thank You for what You are doing.”  This is a challenge to all of us.  Are we expressing gratitude to God?  Are we feeling gratitude to God?  Or do we kind of pout when we don’t get what we want?  Are we frustrated with the way God brings us out of that situation?  “That’s not what I wanted, Lord.”

I think instead we should be grateful that He loves us, He is powerful, He is able to do whatever He wants in our lives and in the world around us.  Many times we are like spectators.  God hears the prayers of His people and we should praise Him for that. 

God heard his prayers because he loved God more than sin.

Now, one of the reminders the psalmist gives about God hearing our prayers is important for all of us.  He reminds us that God does this in his life because he loved God more than sin.  Sin can keep us from fellowship with God.  The psalmist knew God heard his prayers because he was all about the Lord; he trusted in the Lord and was working for the Lord and His purposes.  That’s why he could confidently say, “Lord, You led me out of this situation.  You were there for me. I love You more than my sin.”  He says it this way, inviting us in:  “Hey, come in here.  Come and listen to what God has done.”  Look at verse 16: 

16 Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.  17 I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.  18 If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.  19 But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer.  20 Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!

I love the fact that the psalmist goes out and says, “Hey, come everybody.  Come and hear, everyone who fears God.”  He’s talking to all of God’s people.  “Hey, church, come.  Listen to what God has done in my life.  Let me tell you what He has done for my soul.”  The reason it stands out to me is I question how often we do what the psalmist is doing here.  “Hey, everybody, come.  Listen to what God has done.  I want you to hear me on this.  Come on, ladies and gentlemen.  Come on, let me tell you.”  How often do we talk with others about what God has done in our lives?  How often are we excited about that?  

When a new restaurant opens and I have a good meal, when I go to a movie—a comedy, a drama, an action movie, whatever—I can’t wait to tell people about the awesome restaurant or the great movie.  “Oh, you’ve got to try it.  It was wonderful.  You need to see this.  You need to taste this.”

But when it comes to my God Who saved me, too often I make excuses.  “Aw, it will be awkward.  They’ll stop talking with me.  The relationship will be messed up.  I won’t have the right words.”  Instead, we should be excited and inviting people in.  “Hey, listen to what God has done for me; He’s done it for you too in Jesus!”

Unlike the psalmist, we too often will not invite people into the story.  This is an encouragement to us to invite people to see what God is doing in our lives so that He can work in their lives as well; so He can invite them into God’s family.  The Psalmist is excited.  He wants everyone to hear.  He wants to tell people the story—especially God’s people. 

Sin can keep you from true fellowship with God.

He says in verse 18, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”  Sin can keep us from this wonderful relationship with God.  Sin in our lives creates a barrier between God and us.  It’s a barrier that will sometimes keep us from approaching God because we’re so ashamed.  We realize, “Hey, if I’m going to pray to God, I’m going to have to talk about what I’ve been doing.”  So we won’t spend time with Him, either in prayer or in His Word.  We won’t be a part of church because we just don’t even want to deal with that.  That’s one way sin  breaks our fellowship with God and our relationship with Jesus.  It’s not that we lose our salvation.  It’s not that somehow we’re out of God’s family, like God kicks us out.  No, that’s not it.  We can have a relationship with God in which we are distant and avoiding Him.  That’s one of the ways sin keeps us from God. 

The other way is when we approach God and try to act like nothing’s wrong, but that relationship isn’t quite what it’s supposed to be.  God is not going to ignore the sin in our lives.  Perhaps we’re choosing a college or trying to figure out a major.  Perhaps we’re thinking about whether or not we should be married and who we should be married to.  We’re thinking about this job offer and whether or not we should take it, or praying for answers in a job search in a very difficult environment.

If we are dishonoring Him with sin in our lives time and time and time again, we can’t just go to God with all those questions, looking for wisdom, advice, and direction, expecting Him just to hand it out to us.  Now, hear me.  I’m not saying we all have to be perfect people.  Only Jesus is perfect.  What I’m talking about is a sin habit in our lives in which, unlike the psalmist, we are cherishing that sin more than God.  We love that sinful passion more than we love the Lord.  We are clinging to it and are unable to push it off to the side.  Or we stand in front of it and expect God not to see it.  Or we’re hoping He’s willing to ignore it.  That’s not the way it works.  The relationship is messed up, because God loves you and me too much to let us ignore that sin.  He’s not going to do it. 

So the psalmist is challenging us—and the Lord is speaking through him—to say, “Don’t love your sin more than you love God! Love Him more than anything.” This is a call for each of us to examine our lives and ask the Holy Spirit to help us.  Ask Him, “What sin do I love?  What am I hanging on to?  What am I refusing to let go of?  If I’m totally honest, what is an idol in my life that I am worshiping, that in my world is more to me than God?”

Idols can be anything.  Idols can be girlfriends or boyfriends.  Idols can be children.  Idols can be money or cars or houses or clothing.  Idols can be food, specifically desserts.  Idols can be anything we love more than God, anything we turn to for comfort instead of God.  Whatever we turn to in difficult times other than God is an idol.  We may not bow down in worship to it, but we’re still worshiping.  God, speaking through the psalmist, says, “Don’t do it.  Don’t love that sin more than Me, the Lord.”  Instead, love Him only. 

See the drumbeat the psalmist is playing here.  All people worship God for His great power and awesome deeds.  He begins broad.  Then he speaks specifically to God’s people who should praise Him for refining them.  Then he narrows it down  to individuals.  Each of us should be grateful to God for hearing our prayers.  We should be thankful and should express that.

This drumbeat, this poetry, is really designed to ram it into our heads.  All people—God’s people—individuals—every single person should worship the Lord and praise the Lord for Who He is and what He’s done, for His great power and His awesome deeds, for the things He does in our lives each and every day.  Every single one of us should speak louder in worshiping the Lord. 

Now, in a few moments we’re going to sing a song together and it is my prayer that—not in our own power, not in our own strength, not because we are willing it—the Holy Spirit Himself will do something in our hearts right now that allows us to sing loudly to the Lord, truly worshiping Him, truly praising Him, truly expressing our thanks to Him.  We need to have grateful hearts here and only God can give them to us.  My prayer right now, as we get ready to sing this final song, is that we would speak louder to Him, with more passion, energy,  love and gratitude. 

My great-grandfather, Theodore Swartz, he would have said, “Speak louder!  I can’t hear you!”  God the Father instead says, “Speak louder!  I can hear you!”  He wants to hear from each and every one of us.  

Village Bible Church  |  847 North State Route 47, Sugar Grove, IL 60554  |  (630) 466-7198  |  www.villagebible.church/sugar-grove

All Scriptures quoted directly from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

Note: This transcription has been provided by Sermon Transcribers (www.sermontranscribers.com).