It Is Good to Give Thanks to the Lord
First B Jackson
2024-02-25

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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because it's a basically, it's one of those that says, bring them to stream. Pray them to the instruments. You know? So Good morning, everybody. How are you?

Everybody? How how about you stand up with me? We're gonna sing In My Heart, There Rings a Melody and I told Judy, it might scare Carl, it might scare Judy if one Sunday I just showed up and said, we're gonna sing the whole hour this morning. We're not but if I said that, I said, would that be scary? She said, if we can't sing for an hour here, what's heaven gonna be like?

So we're not gonna do that this morning. But we might, one day. Who knows? Sorry. That was me.

Let's start over. We want I

have a song that Jesus gave me. It was sent from heaven above. There never was a sweeter melody. Tis a melody of love. In my heart, there rings a melody.

There rings a melody with heaven's harmony. In my heart, there rings a melody. There rings a melody of love. I love the Christ who died on Calvary. Lord, he washed my sins away.

He put within my heart a melody, and I know it's there to stay. In my heart, there rings a melody. There rings a melody with heaven's With the angels I will sing, will be a song with glorious harmony. When the courts of heaven ring, In my heart, there rings a melody. There rings a melody with heaven's harmony.

In my heart, there rings a melody. There rings a melody of Amen.

Thank you. We're gonna sing another one. I will sing the wondrous story. It's good to praise the Lord together.

I will sing the story of the Christ who died for me. How he left his home in glory for the cross of Calvary. Yes. I'll sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me. Sing it with the saints in glory gathered by the crystal sea.

I was lost, but Jesus found me, found the sheep that went astray through his loving arms around me, drew me back into his way. Yes. I'll sing the wondrous story of the Christ Christ who died for me.

Sing it with the saints

in glory gathered by the crystal sea. Days of darkness still come on me. Sorrows pass, I've often tread. But the savior still is with me. By his hand, I'm safely led.

Yes, I'll sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me. Singing it with the saints in glory gathered by the crystal sea on the last. He will keep me till the river rolls its waters at my feet, then he'll bear me safely over when the loved ones I show me. Yes. I'll sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me.

Sing it with the saints in glory gathered by the crystal sea. Amen. Y'all can have a seat.

I have just a few announcements this morning. You saw the rolling elders before the service. There was just kind of a rolling pictures of our elder board. I'm looking around. Is Brad here somewhere?

Do I see Brad somewhere? I don't see him. I might have to do his testimony for him. That would be such thing, wouldn't I? Anyway, he he did a testimony in the first service.

Awana is happening tomorrow night. We're back on to last Monday. We did not have Awana because we go with the school schedule, but tomorrow night is a normal night at Awana Kids Club. If you know of a child that is up to fifth grade, and this is a kids club for them from two years old up to, there he is, fifth grade. Awana starts off in this room and there is a big circle or oval right here where we have game time.

You can you can start at the beginning of the sermon. I'm just making sure you're Oh, okay. Okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to call you in call you in from the vestibule out there.

No. No. No. You I'm sorry. Didn't wanna confuse you.

Thank you for being here. I didn't wanna do your testimony. Awana is happening. Normal night. It's not crazy hair night.

It's not fake and injury night. It's just a normal night at Awana. Okay. So please, come on. Volunteers for connect hour.

March is not yet full, so on the sign up sheet down at the end of the hall, if you would like to prepare a little meal in between or prepare some food for in between services, the connect hour is between the 09:00 service which ends about ten. And this one, it starts at about eleven. That hour between we call the connect hour. And if you would like to take care of making a little breakfast brunch, that would be good. You can call Eddie.

That's her number. There is a study that's happening on Thursdays at lunchtime. No lunch will be provided. There's not anybody that's really Brad is sort of administrating this, but it's a come and go as needed. We start by 11:55.

We stop at one, and it's a good time we're studying James together. It's really, really good and fruitful, but he will not make you a lunch. You can bring a brown bag if you want to. You don't have to. You can eat after that or before that if you want to.

Would you stand? I think that's all the announcements we have. Blake will black out that slide and we're going to sing change my heart, oh God. There's a there's a book that I see occasionally on my shelf. It's on the counseling shelf and it says, change my attitude, lord, comma, before it's too late.

Change my heart, oh God. Is a good one.

Change my heart, God. Make it ever true. Change my heart, oh God. May I be like you. You are the potter.

I am the clay. Mold me and make me. This is what I pray. Change my heart, oh, God. Make it ever true.

Change my heart, oh God. May I be like you. You are the potter. I am the clay. Mold me and make me.

Do We're can can

the

Amen. Judy, you pick out great songs. You have picked out a bunch of workout songs for yourself this morning. Yeah. This one's a simpler one.

It's a chorus and we sing it fairly often. I love this song. The greatest thing in all my life is it starts off with knowing you. To know God is a great thing. And to know him is to love him, and to love him is to serve him.

And this is all three of those things we're gonna sing them.

The greatest thing in all my life is knowing you. The greatest thing in all my life is knowing you. I want to know you more. I want to know you more. The greatest thing in all my life is knowing you.

The greatest thing in all my life is loving you. The greatest thing in all my life is loving you. I want to love you more. I want to love you more. The greatest thing in all my life is you.

The greatest thing in all my life is serving you. Want to serve you more. The greatest thing in all my life is serving you.

Y'all can have a seat. I'm gonna invite the ushers to come forward. Thank you, Judy. That's good. God, thank you.

Thank you that we can gather in your name, that we can praise you out loud among the brethren, but Lord that our lives can praise you day after day. I'm so thankful to be a part of the family of God and I'm so thankful that you're still adopting new members into this family of God. May we be helpful in the advance of the gospel. Lord, I pray that you'd take these offerings and you would do with them as you please, that you would, Lord, use this church as a mechanism for advancing the gospel forward, that we proclaim your word in the morning and your faithfulness at night, that we just have it on our lips and we live it out and walk it out. Lord God Almighty, would you take what is given and would you bless it and multiply it to do your kingdom's work, your will Lord done and your way.

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Judy. Standing in his presence on holy ground. This morning, when I got here, the first song we sang in the first service was Psalm 92.

That was the song we sang the first portion, verses one through four. I forgot about Brad. I knew I was gonna do that. Would you stand up here? Yeah.

Sorry. There's a microphone up here for you. I could've looked at that. I called you up during the mid. You're fine.

Here we go.

It's because I'd already come up once.

Thank you. That's gracious. Good morning. I'm a doofus.

So as you guys have heard from Carl and from Steve Baldock, we as elders, we're going through and just sharing our testimony with testimonies with you guys. It's kind of a twofold purpose. One is so that you guys can get to know us better. And two, it's that sharing testimonies is powerful. Revelations twelve eleven says, by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, they triumphed over him.

They did not value their own lives so much as to shrink from death. And so that in sharing this testimony, it it gives me power over the life that I used to have, but it also can hopefully encourage you guys. So I grew up in Dallas, product of a divorced family, but a loving family. We went to church every Sunday and because that's what you did in Dallas on Sunday mornings. But I was in many ways no different from the culture around me, and I would say in a lot of ways, I was actually worse.

I had this deep at the time, I didn't realize it was spiritual, but this deep spiritual need to feel valued, to feel loved. And the way that I took care of that was through accomplishments. So whether that was on an athletic field or in a classroom or in my twenties professionally, there was this sort of achievement orient to my life. And so I just had this pattern throughout my life of using either other people or using accomplishments or using things in my life to fill a void that could only be filled by God. And so in my twenties, I was exhausted.

I was miserable. I was lonely. I wouldn't have admitted to any of that, but it was the truth. But God and his grace, he put men around me that loved me well enough to enter into the hard conversations that I needed to have. Because I had two primary problems.

First was I couldn't articulate the gospel. I didn't know what it was. If you'd asked me, I'd have said Christianity was something about the 10 commandments and trying to be good. Even though I probably could have named three or four of the commandments. And then secondly, I didn't have a historical basis.

I didn't know that you could have a reasonable and rational foundation for your faith. And so these men that entered into my life, they called out the sin that they were seeing in my life. They did so not in a judgmental way condemning me, but in a way that was filled with grace inviting me into a deeper relationship with them and with Christ. So they explained to me the gospel. They showed me that God's word could be true, that God is not looking to rip me off, but he was looking to set me free.

And so through years of of those conversations, I came to know the gospel, which is that that as a sinner, as somebody totally unreconcilable with God, that God had made provision for that. That if I would but place my faith in Jesus, that I could no longer be a slave to sin, but I could be a child of God. And so that changed my life. And that was, call it, sixteen years ago, fifteen years ago. And it's not that circumstances have been incredibly easy since then.

Circumstances are still hard. Life is still hard. We still live in a broken world. But thanks to God, thanks to the provision that he made through Jesus, I can have a peace and a joy that pervades all circumstances, that gives me endurance. So that's my testimony.

And and one of the one of the things that we've been asked as we provide our testimony is to talk about our gifts. Because the fellowship and discipleship from other men and and God's word are the two things that most shaped my life directly. Those are things that I'm inherently passionate about. So that's why I'm always up here grabbing microphone and talking about those things. Ray's always clear to say that I'm an exhorter and an administrator, but if you need a visit in the hospital and I'm there, it's because I really like you.

So to to put a bow in the testimony, my name is Brad Yates, And through Jesus Christ, have been set free from a lifetime of control and achievement orientation so that I can have the peace that surpasses all understanding. Thank you.

Amen.

That's great. Yeah. I love it. I love it. These guys were we have seven elders right now.

You've heard from three of them, and I actually kinda during this will give a little bit of my testimony when he set it up kinda administrator that he is said, Ray, you probably don't have to. We hear your testimony every single Sunday, and that's kinda true. Psalm 92. So this week, had planned to go back to the Harmony Gospel study. It is the Olivet Discourse.

It's about the end times. It's Jesus explaining to his disciples a lot of stuff. It's it's almost two chapters of Matthew. It's a chapter of Mark and it's almost a whole chapter of Luke. And as I was considering it and I know it and I preached it and presented it before, I was sitting there and I was not enthralled with it.

I was gonna do it anyway, but I wasn't I was not enthralled with it. I thought of Fidel was this little guy. Fidel was a man who sold tacos on a bicycle throughout the week and then he preached on Sundays, a little little Colonia church in Mexico when we were missionaries there. And this guy, his name is Fidel, it means faithful. He was faithful.

He would show up every Sunday and he'd present the word, present the gospel. It was a little church of about 30, mostly women and children and Fidel as the pastor, and we would take groups when we were building schools for the deaf in Mexico. We would take American work teams, they get there on Saturday, on Sunday we take them to church, sometimes it's forty, fifty, 60, even a 100 people. We take them to this little church on school buses, We get outside before we go inside, I say, alright, listen. We're going go here and we're going to blend.

We're not going to blend. Alright? Sixty, seventy Americans in a church of 30 Mexican women and children, probably not going to blend. But I would say, I'd go in and I'd say, but Fidel is gonna bring the word this morning and I'd translate for him. And Fidel, one Sunday we got there and Fidel goes, Ramon, Dennis La Palabra, do you have the word?

And I was like, what do you mean? Do you mean, Fidel? You are Fidel. You are faithful. You show up and you deliver the word.

I'll translate the word. And he goes, well, God did not give me the word this week. So I figured he gave it to you. I'll translate for you for my people. And I thought, wow, I need to have one in my pocket.

Psalm 92, this morning we sang it as the first song. And what can I say? Carl's throwaway first song, the one that we sing before anybody arrives, before the first break in the first service. It really inspired me. So this week, that's what I've been working on.

I wanna start off. This is all that we're gonna cover today. It's three sections of Psalm 92. It says, Psalm 92 says, a song to be sung on the Sabbath day. So here we are.

And we sang it first thing this morning and we will sing it collectively. We will sing it. Carl will come back in here and we'll sing it. We'll play it on the instruments and lead you in it together, but Psalm 92, a song for the Sabbath day, is inspirational. It's really good.

I'm gonna give you a little testimony this this week too of just this week. So after the service last week, Carl and I got to go on a little excursion, a little trip. We got a little windshield time. Now, you all know about me because I mentioned it from time to time. I like to drive.

I really, really like to drive. We have driven lots of crazy places. In the past year, we've driven, you know, from Scotland to Ukraine. We've driven a lot and I I get a lot out of the time because for me, that's a place where I can calm down before the Lord, see creation, and really absorb and able to worship in a different way. And being with your best friend, you know, Carl and I travel well together.

It's it's a good thing when we can be together. So a while back when Joni moved to Bellingham, Washington, Joni DeMarsh moved up there and we've been talking to her. She talks to Carl not every day but a lot, you know, talks to me occasionally too. And she's been saying, when are you coming? When are you coming?

Well, when you can come? When you can come? When are you coming? And we'll say, well, if we get she goes, I didn't say if. When are you coming?

And so that kind of inspired us to put it on the calendar. I said as soon after Christmas as we can, we looked and the first week that we had where none of us had anything immovable on our thing was last week. And so Carl didn't have any weddings or funerals or memorials or anything that he had to be a part of and I didn't either from Sunday to Thursday. So we set apart the time to get a little windshield time and we drove from here to Bellingham, Washington. And on the way, we decided to be good, good news from a far country.

It'd be good to visit some of the along the way that have been members of this church for a long time, but for whatever reason, they're no longer here. So we stopped in Primeval, Oregon and we saw the Pearsons, incredibly encouraging visit. We stopped at their house, they took us to a hot dog stand, we had lunch, you know, on Monday. And then driving from the Pearson's place and the great encouragement that was talking to them about what God's doing in their life and what he's doing in the life of the church and checking in on old friends and acquaintances, we took off and we drove to Aloha, Oregon, is where Ray and Suzanne Richards are. And we got to sit in with them, we saw their new place that they've been working on, and we followed them to a restaurant, had supper with them.

And that was a fantastic time. I have pictures of it, but I'm embarrassingly large when I looked at that picture. Me next to Ray and Suzanne was kind of ridiculous. It looks like I'm in the Shire and I just didn't want to put that up there. Windshield time was really, really good.

We went from there. In this service, y'all remember Seal Lamb. I'm sure a lot of y'all remember Seal Lamb. Well, Connie Taylor and her husband Denny live in Chehalis, Washington. And we're texting these folks while we're on the way to their place, you know.

We text and said, hey, what part of Washington do y'all live in again? Well, we're between Portland and Seattle. That's good. You want to breakfast tomorrow morning? So we met them at their house, we saw some of the pictures on their wall, we were invited in, and then we had table fellowship together for breakfast.

Blessed a little storefront that one of their sons has just started this week, and then we took off and we're on our way to Bellingham. And so when we got up there, just after lunch, we took Joni out for the day, and she showed us her church where she's been going and she she showed us the bay in Bellingham and we thought we could see Canada from where we're standing and we just had a ball and it's good to be with your friend. It's good to it's good to be there and be together, praising God together. Now from here to there, we went from mounds of snow out here to green, moss covered everything, 50 something degrees, and that was good for us too. Seasonal affective disorder is real.

Counseling room fills up in February and March every year. Windshield time was good for me, it's good for Carl. We saw friends who have moved away. When we got back on Thursday morning, the counseling started right back up. That's a normal thing.

So counseling advice, I found myself given the same advice although the situations were very different than I'm counseling. The counseling advice was find somewhere where you can just worship God. If it's behind the windshield like me, then find a find a time you can do that. If it's in nature with the snow shoes on or whatever, that ain't my thing. But if that's your thing, if that's where you worship God, find some time where you can worship worship the Lord and then the next one I I I kept saying it over and over and I thought, We were invited to a worship night.

Tanya and I were invited and it was weeks ago. Oh, yeah. Sure. RSVP. Yeah.

We'll be there. I forgot all about it. On a trip, know. It's Friday night and they just come to our home. We've got this brother that's coming in from New York.

He lives in the South Bronx and he's a worshiper. He's a he's a worshiper of Jesus and so we just wanna gather people that we love in our home and sing his praises. Will y'all come to that? Absolutely. Can't wait.

You know, I don't care what flavor it is. It's good. We're gonna do that. And so we went to this worship night. When I got there, there were folks from all the churches in the valley and it was in a fairly large living room and we were all gathered in Jesus name and friar, Malachi, was sort of leading.

He had a guitar. He invited me by the had a stringed instrument to bring it with him and we we did. Some of us did. I I left the base here. But we went and he said, this is an open night for worship of Christ.

And so, if you would, and they started playing and singing, and then if you had a verse, you could share a verse. If you had a prayer, could pray aloud or silently either one and we just worshiped Jesus together in the evening, really thanking God for his faithfulness is what it turned out to be and then talking to him afterwards was just a wonderful expression of the unity of the body of Christ and I was so blessed by it that I wanna just wanted to tell you that. And then we're going to Psalm 92. We got three sections here. I'll cover them, interject a little at a time, but then at the end, I wanna sing this together and then we'll go through one more version of different version of the Bible.

And then we'll close out with take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee at the end. It's good to give thanks to the Lord. It is good to give thanks to is it good to give thanks to the Lord? Yes. Is it good to sing praises to his name?

Yes. I like this verse for a lot of reasons, but I like it. Our our motto here, if you didn't know is with all we are loving God and loving people through Christ. And so this first starts to say, it's good to give thanks to the Lord. I'm talking to y'all.

It's good to give thanks to the Lord. Is it not? It is. Okay. And to sing praises to your name, oh most high.

It's talking to people and it's talking to God. And that's good. And we ought to do it more often. One of the things that this brother said the other night is we're kind of standing around afterwards, his arms folded and just kind of seeing, you know, what's going on, how ministry is going in South Bronx, how how ministry is going here. And he said, you know what's interesting is the church, God's holy people, we kinda act like it's good and we know that it's good, but we we feel like it's a little forceful to share that with anybody that doesn't already believe it.

Instead of feeling like this is the only antidote to everything else that's poison all around us all the time. If we really believed that the world was poisonous, we would be sharing the antidote. And I think that's true. That's that's right. It is good to give thanks to the Lord.

It is good to sing praises to your name, oh most high, to declare your goodness in the morning. God is good. Amen. And your faithfulness at night. If in the morning you wake up and you say, God, you are so good.

You are so good and I want to bear that out. You have saved me and you want to save others. Would you use me to do that? God, you are so good to me. I didn't deserve to wake up this morning, but I did.

Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord. I'm gonna be doing that. You're good, God. And your faithfulness by night. If when you go to bed at night, you say, man, God showed up today.

He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He's faithful, Fidel. He is faithful. He's good to declare your goodness in the morning and that's what we're doing right now. It's still before noon.

Your faithfulness at night. If you look back and have a mindful moment and go, wow, God, you really showed up in that way and in that way and that way. And I recognize that that's a hard situation. Like Brad said, there are health concerns, there are other concerns, there are financial concerns, there are difficulties that we face, there are places where evil is winning, we'll get to that in this Psalm. To declare your goodness in the morning, be looking for it, and then your faithfulness at night, Lord, it's good.

With the 10 string lute and with the harp and with resounding music on the lyre. We have a six string guitar here. We had an eight string mandolin this morning. I've got a four string bass. This is an 88 keys.

I imagine there are at least 88 strings in there, probably more than that. He's saying praise him with instruments. One of the things that's nice about windshield time, I usually, when I take off on a trip by myself, I don't listen to anything until I get get kind of disconnected from everything else. And then turning on something where people are praising him with the instruments. It's such a beautiful thing and we got to do that together.

Praise him with the 10 string lute and with the harp and with resounding music on the lyre for you, Lord. I'm talking about you. You have made me joyful by what you have done. There are so many good things that you've done, and my joy is really dependent on you. You have made me glad.

You have made me joyful by what you have done. I will sing for joy over the works of your hands. It is very easy to fall into a negative cycle of telling yourself the same bad stuff over and over and over. I kinda mentioned that last week. To declare his goodness every morning, to sing for joy over the works of God's hands puts us in the right frame of mind.

So this altogether, if you look at this altogether, it's good to give thanks to the Lord. It's good to sing praises to your name, oh most high, to declare your goodness in the morning and your faithfulness by night with the instruments. You, Lord, you have made us joyful by what you have done. I'm gonna sing for joy over the works of your hands. It's a decision of tireless praise.

We have told so many people going through hard circumstances, I know this is difficult and I'm not saying that you have to be Pollyanna in this situation, but praising him in the midst of the storm is the best advice that I can give you. Praise him in the storm, tireless praise because he is good and even when we can't see it, he's working. Now from here it goes to, it would be hard to sing the second the second part of this song. In the song that we'll all sing together, it's gonna be, it's good to praise you lord. It is good to make music no most high.

That's that's great. But the saying, the next part of this is gonna be difficult. How great are your works Lord? If I contemplate the works of God driving from here to Bellingham over part of Mount Hood, not even seeing it because you kind of get into it this way from this side. You don't see what you're doing, but you recognize elevation change, you recognize snow starts happening again, and then when you're coming down and you could see, wow, gracious, we just went over that.

You see Mount Hood in the rear view and it gets green and you start seeing trees that are amazing and the moss growing on stuff. Greater your works, Lord. You know what? I had never thought of that. Your thoughts, Lord, are very deep.

Your thoughts are very deep. I'm a finite person. I never could have considered the variety just in a space of a few hours drive. It's amazing what you have done. A stupid person has no knowledge.

This is the part that I think would be hard to sing. It is good to praise you. A stupid person has no knowledge nor does a foolish person understand this. When the wicked sprouted up like grass and that happens, wickedness sprouts up like grass and it feels like once you wipe out one form of wickedness, one of the things in the vice list in the New Testament says people find new ways to do evil. When the wicked sprouted up like grass and all who did injustice, bad guys, flourished.

It was only that they might be destroyed forevermore. What is the end of that kind of thing? Contrary to God, contrary to his way, it is utter destruction. Actually, I thought of Jesus's words in Mark eight where it says, what does it profit a person if they gain the whole world? They've got all the riches of this whole world, but they forfeit their soul.

What could a person give in exchange for his soul to humble themselves before God? If anyone wants to come after me, Jesus says, he must deny himself. It's not about your enrichment or your fame, power, glory, whatever. Take up the cross, follow me. Whoever wants to save his life is going to lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the sake of the gospels will indeed save it.

May we be about him and about his good news? What does it benefit a person to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? All who did injustice do seem to be flourishing. It does not deny that that is true. When we look around, we think how in the world can that prosper?

Well, ultimately, it will not. But you, Lord, you, you, let me say it again. It's good to praise the Lord. You, Lord, you are on high forever. You are.

And behold, your enemies, Lord, behold. Take a look at this. Your enemies will perish. All who do injustice will be scattered. You know a few weeks ago, we talked about Romans and leaving room for God.

It is trusting him with how evil will be punished. We're not gonna do it. We're gonna leave it to God. Vengeance is his. He will repay.

He asks us to defer, to step away from that and allow him to deal with it, but that we would just follow after him, take up the cross and follow after him. If you're sitting here and you're you're thinking, yeah, it's good for us, but there are those who are wicked who are going to perish and it's pretty easy to start listening to the world's line that, well, he didn't give us enough evidence. Oh, day after day, he pours forth speech. The heavens declare the glory of God. Driving from here to the Northwest is a lot of different variety of how good God is and how the life that he has given is amazing.

Day after day, it pours forth speech, there is no language where it can't be understood. Second Peter says, the Lord is not slack. He's not slow. He's not lacking concerning his promise as some people count slackness. They look at God and say, you didn't do enough, God.

I don't even believe that you exist because if you existed, you'd be more clear. How much more clear can taken the punishment that we deserve get? The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some count slackness but the Lord is patient or long suffering towards us. He's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. He is constantly pouring forth speech and let me say explicitly here, you are his mouthpiece.

If you're a child of God and you know that you have been redeemed, let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Is it good to praise the Lord? Amen. Then let's be doing it. Let's be doing it.

God may use you in his long suffering patience towards someone else. He may use you in your ministry. He is using us as we humble ourselves before him and just take the next right step as he shows us what to do. He's using it so that other people will see that and he can bring about their repentance, their salvation. It's the kindness of God that brings people to repentance.

If we tell the world how good he is instead of how wrong they are, if we tell the world how good he is, they have a much better chance of coming to him. So if I were to look at all this together, this is it. I'm gonna kinda put it in green there we see. There's praise to God. There's still some tireless praise showing up.

But in the green there, it's heedless arrogance. It is looking as a finite person at all of the evidence around us all the time and not recognizing it and pursuing evil. So heedless arrogance does happen. But for those of us who know him, we don't need to be like they are. We should be praising God in the morning, declaring his faithfulness at night, worshiping him in word and indeed.

We're gonna close out here with 10 through fifteen. But you have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox and I have been anointed with fresh oil. Does that sound like a contemporary reference that we all understand? It doesn't. I mean, I understand kind of what it means.

I like Eugene Peterson as a pastor. His version of the Bible is the message and it's a paraphrase and he never claimed it was anything but a paraphrase. Don't use it as your Bible Bible, but it's still really good. And he has a heart of a pastor. I'm gonna use this because of where we are, the message.

In verses 10 and he usually does it paragraph by paragraph, so it says 10 through 14. This is this is that verse 10 right there. But you've made me strong as a charging bison. That's pretty strong. You've honored me with a festive parade.

Now, we go back, you've exalted my horn like that of a wild ox. It's a reference to a kind of a wild beast and the force of nature that that is. When I saw the charging bison, I thought, yeah, I don't wanna I don't wanna be up against that kind of power. And if he says that you've exalted me like that, you've given me that kind of power. Wow.

And I've been anointed with fresh oil. That is to be celebrated and authorized. You've honored me with a festive parade. And my eye has looked at my enemies. I see what's going on.

My ears hear of the evildoers who rise up against me. I know there's evil in the world. I understand that I'm not denying it. I see what's going on. I hear it.

But I know this, that the righteous person and it has to be God's righteousness because no righteousness that we have is anything above self righteousness if it's just us. But God's righteousness, the righteous person will flourish like the palm tree. He'll grow like a cedar in Lebanon. If I may paraphrase, he'll grow like a redwood in Oregon. Great big trees.

He'll grow like a cedar in Lebanon. That has a temple reference in there too. What are we gonna build this thing out of? The cedars of Lebanon. They're strong, they're straight, they're mighty.

There's nothing better than that. That's the way he's making the righteous. Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courtyards of our God. It's good to praise the Lord together. It's good to be in the house of God.

It is good that we will be in his courts forevermore. He will lift us up, planted in the house of Lord. They will flourish in the courtyards of our God. They will still yield fruit in advanced age. I could make a joke about the second service here.

Y'all come every Sunday. Y'all are here most all the time. If you're not here, you're in spirit And God has given you something that has endured the passing of time. His spirit is good for us. They'll still yield fruit in advanced stage.

The prayers of the righteous avail much and you all are actively engaging and interceding for other people. They'll be full of sap and very green. To declare that the Lord is just, that he is my rock, and there's no malice in him. Now people attribute malice to God all the time. If you listen to the world, they'll say, if he's all powerful and he lets evil happen then, is not good.

He's not loving. That's not true though. They are attributing to God malice. He's given us free will because he does not want to force us to do anything. He wants for us to love him voluntarily.

To declare that the Lord is just. When I mentioned God saying, vengeance is mine, I will repay. You leave room for me to do that. It's the kindness of God leads to my to people to repentance. You be kind and you be good and you be loving and you be as merciful to them as I am to you and things will be fine for you and it may be fine for them because I love them, I'm not slack, I know what I'm doing.

You tell the wondrous story of the Christ who died for you and give them a chance to declare that the Lord is just. Every sin will be either justly condemned or mercifully forgiven. We would much rather that it be mercifully forgiven. He is my rock and there's no malice in him. If I were to look at that all at once, this last section, I'd say that is unending vitality.

Eternal life is one way of saying that, but unending vitality is it doesn't have to stop because it only stops momentarily here and then into eternity like a charging bison, praising God. Right? That's good. So we have tireless praise, heedless arrogance, those are the choices. Tireless praise receives unending vitality.

That's the last of this scripture. Carl, can I get you to come forward? We're gonna sing it. Would you all stand? We're gonna have the words up on the screen.

If it's good to praise him, we still got ten more minutes of morning in the morning. Would you praise him out loud? You can learn the song as we go. I promise we won't sing that second part. Then we're going to hear kind of a blessing from the message.

We're gonna read it again in the message and then we'll have a little benediction at the end. This is Psalm 92.

Your name, most high. It is good to praise you, Lord, and make music to your name, O most high. O most high. Will you sing this with me? It is good to praise you, Lord, and make music to your name, oh, most high.

To proclaim, to proclaim your love in the morning, and your faithfulness at night, to proclaim, to sing for joy at the sound of your name and the words of your hands. Oh, you made me mad. And for all of my life, let my song to you rise almost high. It is good. Let's sing.

It is good praise you, Lord, and make music to your name, oh, most high. It is good to praise you, Lord, and make music to your name, oh, most high. Oh most high.

Amen. As a blessing, let's hear it from the message. What a beautiful thing God to give thanks, to sing an anthem to you, the most high God, to announce your love each daybreak, to sing your faithful presence all through the night accompanied by the dulcimer, the harp, the bass, the guitar, the jaw harp, the the triangle, the brass accompanied by instruments, the full bodied music of the strings. You made me so happy. God, I saw your work and I shouted for joy.

How magnificent your work, God. How profound your thoughts. Dullards never notice what you do. Just go about life and not ever think about it. Fools never do get it.

When the wicked people popped up like weeds and all the evil men and women took over, you mowed them down. You finished them off once and for all. That's your business. You God, you are high and you are eternal. Look at your enemies.

God, look at your enemies. They're ruined. Scattered to the winds, all those hirelings of evil, but you Lord, you, you've made me as strong as a charging bison. You've honored me with a festive parade. The sight of my critics going down is still fresh.

The route of my malicious detractors. My ears are filled with the sounds of promise. Good people will prosper like palm trees. Grow tall like Lebanon cedars. Transplant it to God's courtyard.

They'll grow tall in the presence of God, life and green, virile still in old age. Such witnesses to an upright God. You're my mountain. When it says, you're my rock. That's a big old rock that we can see.

My mountain, my huge and holy mountain. May God be praised. So I have a blessing. It's Psalm 92 verses one and four. It's good.

It's good to give thanks to the Lord. You don't just have to do it here. Okay? It's good to do it here too. It's good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name oh most high.

For you Lord, you have made me glad by what you've done And I'll sing about it. I'll sing for joy at the works of your hands. And then I'll add Psalm one forty five eight and nine as the closing blessing. The Lord is gracious and he is merciful and he's slow to anger and he's great in loving kindness. Consider that he may be trying to love one of those heathens into the kingdom through you.

He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, great in loving kindness. The Lord is good to all and his mercies are over all of his works. May God use us to advance his good gospel. Amen.