MK040 Sermons
A Reason to Praise (Audio)
Well, it is great to have each of you here with us as we enter this week of Thanksgiving, this week of celebration, week of an opportunity to celebrate all the amazing things that God has done in our lives. Someone gave me a picture when I came in this morning of the lobby out there one year ago today when we were just beginning the demolition on the lobby. So it was just one year ago today we were tearing that whole space apart and exciting to see what God has done and it was yesterday that a team of men and students from our church started tearing the sanctuary space apart. So we have just launched into that project when we get it all demoed out, we'll open it up so you can kind of walk in and see what that might look like and we'll have some pictures hopefully in the near future so you can see some renditions of that as well. But today we want to be a day as it's all about celebrating what God is doing. What God is up to, the amazing things that God is doing in each of our lives and we don't know what those are but there's something amazing when God shows up in our lives. You know when I was a kid growing up my grandparents lived about 45 minutes away and so they didn't attend many sporting events and school functions that I was involved in but occasionally the team I played on would travel to near where they lived and they would come and observe the sports that I was playing in. And my grandparents other than when they came and watched me I don't think they ever thought about sports at all, it just wasn't something on their radar at all but when I would come and play in their town then they would show up and it was really significant that they showed up and they were there. And I think it's important for any kid when family members, when parents, when grandparents show up and they're there in an event and they can be a part of that experience. One of our elders likely just finished the Philadelphia Marathon, that's Glenn Moller and his family was down there following him all over the city just trying to be there to see him and to celebrate the accomplishment that he had, that he was hopefully able to finish. He was tracking pretty well on the soccer update that I got on my phone from him. Last year when I had a chance to run the New York City Marathon for my family out of 2 million people to find me and to show up and see me twice during the race with just remarkable it just gave me this overwhelming sense of encouragement and kind of lifted my spirits when just to know that they were there with me. And one of the things that we do as a staff regularly, nearly every week is we sit down and say, "Where is God showing up? Where are we seeing God's presence, God's activity, God's work, God's hand and the lives of people in CCC and our own lives and our own families?" That's something really significant that we want to constantly be looking at because when Jesus was here on the earth, he said, "My father is always at work and I too am working." And we believe at the core of our being that God is doing something in every person's life who's alive today, regardless of how close they are to God or how far they're away from God no matter where they're at in their journey. We believe God is at work that God is doing something today. And so for us it's just simply paying attention to being aware of noticing what God is up to. Even in those times that are difficult, those times that are hard, those times you reflect on this past year where there was heartache, when there was suffering, when there was confusion, when there was sadness, when there was anger. The truth is, God was there and God was present and God was involved during those times as well. And this morning what I want to do is I want us to look at a psalm that I believe reflects some of the ways that God is with us. And as we look to it that psalm and as we walk through that psalm, I hope that it'll give you an opportunity to reflect back on your year, to reflect back on the things that have happened this past year and to say, "Wow, I can see God with me in this one. I can see God with me in this one, I can see God with me in this one." If you have a Bible, if you had turned to Psalm 147, Psalm 147, if you don't have a Bible, you can turn to it on your app or wireless device. If you don't have U version, download U version, you can log on to it there. Our ushers have Bibles and they'll make them available to you to follow along as well. Psalm 147. Most of the psalms were written by David, a man that we've been spending time over this fall looking at his story. We've seen David as this unlikely hero, this giant killer and then this military leader and then this most wanted fugitive on the run at the top of King Saul's blacklist, if you will. But the psalms are a different perspective because what the psalms do is the psalms don't talk about the facts of what happens but the psalms describe David's heart. They reflect his heart and as I encourage you as we were walking through the psalms to read some of the stories about what was going on in David's heart because it appears that David is this confident warrior, this confident leader, this confident even when he's on the run he's confident all the time but when you read the psalms you get the peel away a layer and look at the heart and see this is a guy that went through all kinds of ups and downs and on certainty as he was trying to figure out what is following God look like. What does it look like? Psalm 147 is one of those psalms that was likely not written by David and I'll explain why in just a moment but this psalm like every other psalm gives us a glimpse of his heart. This psalm was likely written after the Jewish people returned from exile. They had been exiled in the land of Babylon for 70 years and this psalm likely was written after they returned. It's a psalm that reflects God's compassion, his provision and his power and as you listen to the psalm and I ask questions of you throughout the psalm I hope you can look back over this past year and reflect on the ways that God has shown up in your life. The psalm begins in each one of the sections we're going to look at begins with some type of a call to praise in verse one how good it is to sing praises to the Lord and how pleasant and fitting to praise him and then in verse two he said the Lord builds up Jerusalem. He gathers the exile of Israel. Likely he's describing the group of people known as Israelites who had come from the land of Babylon. They had been captivity there for 70 years. They weren't slaves but they were under someone else's rule, someone else's authority and as they returned back to the land the in the Bible there's a man by the name of Nehemiah and Nehemiah's story is about how the walls were built up to provide a place of safety for the people of Israel. And so he's describing God bringing the exiles back and in my mind I kind of picture it like a mom who's at the playground her kids have been running around playing and she calls them back she gathers them back and says now it's time to go and God did that with this people he gathered them all up and he said now it's time it's time to go back. But as he takes them back it's there's this recognition that this exile has done something to them that this tragedy has done something to them. Look at verse three he says he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. You know when you think of people being an exile and they remember these are people who are in exile and they didn't do it it was for the sins of their parents and grandparents that they were in exile. I don't know about you but if I had to pay for the sins of my parents and grandparents and great-grandparents I might not be too happy about that it's hard enough to deal with my own junk you know let alone all of my ancestors as well piled on top. And so I have to believe that there were some of those people who had forgotten about God who had rejected God who didn't really want anything to do with God and he talks about them being brokenhearted. Not hard to understand how they could have happened but he says that God is going to heal the brokenhearted. How does a broken heart get healed? How does that happen? In Psalm 34 the psalmist talks about God being close to the brokenhearted and saving those who are spiritists crushed and then later in Isaiah 61 when the prophet Isaiah is telling us what Jesus is going to say when he shows up on the scene he says this the spirit of the Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he sent me to bind up or to provide some type of healing to the brokenhearted. As I thought about how God heals the brokenhearted then what does God do? Does he somehow take away the pain? Does he somehow wipe our memories clean so we don't remember the pain from the past? That doesn't happen does it? We talk about brokenhearted we know when that happened and what happened and we don't forget what it felt like when it happened. Does God promise us happiness and that the pain will go away and everything will be great and wonderful. I don't think that that's what God does. So what does God do? How does he heal the brokenhearted? And as I sat with this and thought about this the one thought that came to my mind is I think one of the ways that God heals the brokenhearted is he restores hope. He restores hope. He restores hope that there is another day that's coming that there is something down the road that even though I can't see it I don't know what it is and my heart is aching so badly right now I can't even imagine something good will come out of this that somehow God will bring me through it. He goes on to talk a little bit more about how he does that in verse four it says he determines the number of stars and he calls them each by name. Scientists don't have any idea how many stars there are in the heavens. The Bible over and over and over again says God knows all the stars and he's given them all a name and he knows them each by name. I think how does he do that? How does he do that? But a name gives us our sense of identity and as you're looking at all those names some of you are looking like where's my name? Where's my name? Is my name up there? You know because it gives us a sense of identity you know when someone calls your name or speaks your name it makes you feel valuable and important in our culture day how are we identified? Can I please have your address? Can I have the last four numbers of your Social Security number you know right? That's how we get identified right in our culture today? Not hello John. Nicholas can I talk to you about whatever is going on and oh can I have the last four digits of your Social Security number and then that's how they know who we are right? The Bible says that God knows us by our name and our name gives us our sense of identity and gives us a sense of being valued. I think part of this healing process that God brings about in our lives is when we have a sense that we are valued by God. As impossible as this seems the psalmist goes on in verse 5 to say great is our Lord and mighty in power but his understanding has no limit even though it seems impossible to us and we can't even remember all the names of the people in our own family you know in our own class at our job God knows us all and he's capable of doing that. One more thing it says that he does here in this verse this psalm for the broken heart and it says the Lord sustains the humble cast the wicked to the ground. I think one of the things that often happens not all the time but often happens when our heart is broken as we find ourselves in a place where we are on our knees on our face helpless before God with nowhere else to turn. It leads us in a place of humility before him and the psalmist says the Lord sustains those who humble. Peter says humble yourself in the sight of God and what God will do what he will lift you up. And so how does God heal the broken hearted? I think he does it in a couple of different ways. I think he does it by offering hope. I think he does it by the sense of value that we are to him. I think he does it by sustaining us when our hearts are humble. God doesn't shame the humble. He sustains the humble and he gives them what they need. And I think in this first section I think the point that the psalmist is making is that the compassion of God is extended to those who are healing. The compassion of God is extended to those who are hurting, excuse me. And as you think about this past year, can you identify sometimes in your life when you were hurting, when you faced difficulty, when you faced uncertainty, when pain showed up in your life, when your heart ate and you couldn't get rid of it, a loss that you faced, old wounds that were opened, dark closets that God invited you to go into, abandonment, rejection, fear, loneliness. The truth is God didn't remove those circumstances from most of our lives. But he sustains us by bringing us to our knees, by bringing us to a place of reliance upon him and by bringing us a place to recognize that he is with us. He is with us. And so where is the compassion of God shown up in your life this week, this year? Where is that shown up in your life? I think the psalmist then moves from the compassion of God to the provision of God. And again invites us to sing in verse 7, sing to the Lord with grateful praise, make music to our God with our harp. God doesn't invite us to sing in perfect pitch and perfect melody. I kind of like when the music is loud in here because I can sing at the top of my lungs and nobody knows I'm off key, they laugh at me when I clap off beat, but they can't hear me. Only I can hear me. A guide can hear to me. The psalmist says, sing to the Lord with grateful praise. It just invites us to, that should be part of our lives, part of our world, part of our relating to him. And then he goes on to talk about the process that happens all year long that sometimes we can easily overlook. Look what he says in verse 8. He says, he covers the sky with clouds, he supplies the earth with rain, he makes the grass grow, he provides food for the cattle. And he just kind of describes the process of what happens every year and what happens all throughout year as the skies get dark and they get filled with dark clouds and we know that the rain is coming and then eventually the rain comes and it pours down and as the rain pours down we know what that does as it gives life to the grass and all the things that grow that allow our lives to be sustained and then the cattle and the other animals eat those things and they're able to live and be sustained as well. And as we're coming into the fall season things are still green. I was talking to someone about some of the plants and just care for them around the building they're like, hey there's still buds, it's still green, leave it alone, it's still green you know because of the goofy weather we've had. But that won't continue for much longer. But he makes a very unusual statement at the end of this because look what he says at the end of this verse he says he provides food not only for the cattle but also for the young ravens when they call. Now these could be young birds inside of a nest I'm not sure what that could be that you know the parents have abandoned but I thought about why did God choose the ravens? The ravens. You know what's true about ravens? They have what's called an omnivorous diet. He means everything right God is omnipresent. He's everywhere present at the same time. Ravens have an omnivorous diet. You know what that means? What does a raven eat? Everything. Everything right? I mean it eats things that are dead, it eats little animals, it eats berries, it eats you know grains, it eats insects, it eats fruit, it eats everything. But the psalmist in this passage says that not only does God allow all these things that happen in nature but he even provides for the birds that find it whenever they need it. Do you remember what bird Noah sent out of the ark to go see if it could find something after the flood? You remember what that bird was? It was a raven. And so God says to us he said even the animals that can find anything to eat. I'm the one taking care of them. He goes on in verse 10 and now tend to say this is pleasure is not in the strength of his horse nor his delight in the legs of his warrior. He said God doesn't get pumped up and excited and thrilled with strength and power. We do. We do. You know one of the things that we hear a lot of in the news these days with the incident that happened over in Paris and the threat of ISIS is what is our military going to do and what's the response going to do and are we powerful enough to fight this enemy that seems like it can spread itself anywhere and everywhere and attack without any warning. And the question is our strength and power and will it protect us and will it defend us? God says that's not what thrills him. He says in verse 11 the Lord delights in those who fear him, not those who cower in fear because of what God might do or God might come down on you but a fear that's an honor and respect and a trust and a reliance. It's a fear that admits that I need you every day for everything God. I need you. I need you when I'm sitting here taking this test. I need you when I'm having this hard conversation. I need you when I'm faced with this challenge. It worked out. I don't know how to solve it. I need you when my kids are struggling and I don't know what to do. I need you when I can't resolve this tension with my spouse. I need you when the boss says you're done and it's time for you to move on. I need you when I'm waiting for that phone call from the doctor. I need you when I'm waiting for the outcome of those results. I need you when I don't know how much longer I'm going to live. The psalmist says that he delights in the one who fears him and second of all who puts their hope in his unfailing love. I think as much as I want to love my wife and love my family in an unfailing way, never to let them down as much as I want that to be true. I can never do that all the time. I just can't and it's not because I love them any less. It's because I'm I'm not capable of doing that all the time. The only one that's capable of that unconditional unfailing love is God himself and the Lord is delighted, the Lord is thrilled with people who say I'm not going to put my hope and my trust in anything else. I'm going to put it in you and I think the second thing that the psalmist talks about here is the provision of God for those he loves. The provision of God for those he loves, whether it's taking care and providing for things that happen, what appears to be very naturally in creation, whether it's taking care of the animals that seem to be able to care for themselves or taking care of those who choose to follow him. That's who he's going to provide for. So as you think about this past year, ask yourself this question, how has God provided for you this past year? How has he provided for you? How did God surprise you this past year? There's some way he just showed up and surprised you. I mean, I had one of those just this past week. I had some blood work done earlier and you know, I get sent in and you know, to insurance and you forget about it and then you get this bill, you're like, oh my goodness, look at that. I can't believe there's like $1,600 some crazy number like that. Then I'm like, oh man, where are we going to pay for that and where's the money going to come from? I was not expecting this. And for about a week, I kind of sat with this and was kind of stressed over it. And then I started digging into it and I called the insurance company and called the medical provider. And what I came to find out is the insurance company hadn't provided the medical provider with the statement of benefits of saying, instead of $1,600, only 350, I'm like, oh, feels a lot better. I think I can manage that one, you know? But there's things like that that happen in our lives all throughout the year. And I want to just challenge you to say, where has God shown up this year? Where has there been an unexpected gift, an unexpected blessing, where somehow God just did something in your life? And as we saw in the life of David, something that appears to just happen, David discovers God's hand was in this. Well, this almost takes a step back and gives us a bigger view of God beyond those who are hurting that God has shown compassion, beyond those he loves, and he now looks at the entire nation of Israel and all of creation. And he says there in verse 13, he says, "He strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your people within you. He grants peace to your borders and satisfies you with the finest of wheat." And remember, I mentioned that the people of Israel had come back from exile and they were now back in their land. And this cup bearer, Nehemiah, who had come back to the land, his job was to build up the walls because without walls, there was threat of enemies coming in and attacking them and defeating them and killing them and harming them. So without the walls, they were very, very unsafe. And he says, "He strengthens the gates, he grants peace to your borders." Imagine how much the people of Israel long for that today, peace to their borders where they're just surrounded at every turn with growing, increasing conflict. What God was saying to his people in that day, he was saying, "I'm going to protect you. I'm going to make sure you're taken care of." And then he goes on in the next couple of verses and takes us back to creation. And notice what does this, it's his commands in verse 15. He sends his commands to the earth, his word runs swiftly and look what his word does. First thing it does is it spreads snow-like wool, scatters the frost-like ashes, curls down his hail-like pebbles, and who can withstand his icy blast? And just as much as we enjoy the warm sunshine and the rain and the green grass, guess what's coming? Snow. Snow. Now some of you are saying, "I hope it doesn't come. I hope it doesn't come." Some of you like Barb who's heading south here in a little bit, it's like, "I'm trying to avoid the snow. I'm trying to avoid the snow." But we just generally think about the snow is, "Okay, what's the weather report and where's it coming from, and is it El Nino, or La Nino, or Ya Nino, whatever it is that's coming from California and that it's going to affect our weather?" But the psalmist reminds us that God speaks his word, his command is what releases this. When God's talking to Joe, he talks about he speaks and the heavens open up and pours it out on us. He talks about the snow falling like, "Whoa, we got a glimpse of that. We're doing some demo in the space on the other side in the sanctuary because they had some blown in insulation in a few areas and just knocked down a few ceilings and it was snowing in there as what it appeared to be with insulation everywhere." But he talks about not only the snow that falls like wool, but he says it scatters the frost like ash. It just goes over and covers everything. And after the ash, it says he hurls down his hail like pebbles and who can withstand his icy blast and what happens when the ice comes? It does what? It stops everyone in their tracks. We can get out when there's snow. But when the ice comes, you can't go anywhere. And you are reminded this sense that not only is God taking over and protecting and caring for his people Israel, but he has control and he's involved in what happens to this whole earth, to the whole world that we live in. But he doesn't leave us there. Verse 18, he sends his word again and he melts the snow and the grass starts to push his way up and he stirs up the breezes and the waters start to flow once again. And so I think the psalmist in this last section wants to point us to the protection of God for his own people, the protection of God for his own people. It says in verse 19, he's revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and decrees, he has done this for no other nation for they do not know his laws. The Bible and other places says that God will never leave you or forsake you, that God will meet all your needs that beyond the people of Israel, that if you have a personal relationship with God through Jesus, that he will be there with you, he will provide for you, he will protect you and he will walk with you. And so as you think about this last year, how has God protected you? How has God walked with you? As we think of protection and physical safety, there's protection in a lot of different ways. Maybe your company has gone through a difficult time and your job has been protected and secure. Maybe your family has been through some difficult emotional struggles and there's this sense of God protecting them and his hand over them and watching over them. Certainly in physical ways, through things that come into our lives that we're not prepared for anticipating. So how has God protected you this past year? Sometimes the protection of God is through people, he brings people in our lives that provide guidance and direction. I want to give you a couple of minutes to think through these questions that I've asked you and our ushers are going to come forward and they're going to pass out some cards to you. And if you have a pen, I want to encourage you to pull a pen out. Our ushers also have some pens and make available so we need everybody to pull out a pen and be ready to start writing because what we want you to do is we want to give you some time in this service to actually sit and think about what God has done in your life. So they're going to be passing out a card to you and we want to make sure everybody has a card and everybody has a pen. And on this card, there's four questions. The first question is what is something difficult that God has brought into your life this year? It's something difficult that you have encountered. The second question is what is something encouraging that you've experienced this past year? Something that just lifted your heart, lifted your spirits. The third question is what is an unexpected gift or blessing you have received? Something you weren't expecting, something you didn't plan for? It just showed up in your life. And then lastly, who has walked with you through the good times and the hard times in the past year? You know, sometimes the way that God is with us is through people that come into our lives, through people that are with us during hard times, through people that are with us to celebrate good times in our lives. So there's a song that the guys are going to, that Drew's going to put on back there and I want you to listen to this song. And as you listen to this song, I want you to take the next few minutes and write some answers to these questions on the back of this card. We pray for blessings, we pray for peace, comfort for family, protection while we sleep. We pray for healing, for prosperity, we pray for your mighty hymn to ease our suffering. All the while you hear us spoken means, yet love is way too much to give us lesser things. 'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if it's all asleep at night, so what it takes to know you're near? What if troubles of the life are your mercies in disguise? We pray for wisdom, your voice to hear, and we cry in anger when we cannot feel you near. We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love, as if every promise from your word is not enough. All the while you hear us desperately, and love that we'd have faith to be in need. 'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if the thousands leave this night, so what it takes to know you're near? What if troubles of the life are your mercies in disguise? What if troubles of the life are your mercies in disguise? What if troubles of the life are your mercies in disguise? It's love 'cause what if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if the thousands leave this night, so what it takes to know you're near? What if my greatest disappointments are the aching of their life? Is the revealing of the greater thirst this world can't satisfy? And what if troubles of this night, the rainest storms the hardest nights? All your mercies in disguise? I'm going to share a couple of them with you, something difficult that I've experienced this past year, many of you know lost an aunt that was very close to our family this past year just a few months ago, and so even in the last couple weeks just have thought of her and have missed her, will miss her being with us this holiday season. Something encouraging that I experienced this past year, and I would say the encouraging thing that experienced was the blessing of this place that God has allowed us, moved into this place in June after being renters for 18 and a half years and enjoy this space that we hope God will continue to allow us to use to love and serve this community and point people to Jesus. So I've got a few of our ministry leaders here up front, if any others of you want to come and join them feel free to do so, but they're going to share with you some of their answers. So Greg, you want to get us started? Okay, something difficult, I can tell you this has been a tough year, I feel like I have a million pounds on my shoulders, and one of them though would be my nieces son Hudson who's diagnosed with brain cancer, and it's devastating. But within that, I can say something encouraging has been seeing our church family just reach out to this guy, this little cute little kid who's only three years old, and just seeing people just lifting him up, lifting his family up and showing the love of Christ to them. As many of you know, Tim and I, my name is Jen Van Dallen by the way, but many of you know that Tim and I were able to lead along with Meldab, a team of students this past summer, and when we were up here this past summer sharing, just about our trip and stuff, we had talked about collecting money for Pastor Robbie's church down there, so mine is falling under the unexpected blessing. Shortly after we had shared with everyone, Tim had said, "I would love to take that money personally to Pastor Robbie and be able to take hand it to him, but we just didn't know financially how we could make that ever work." A few days later, we got a phone call from someone saying that they would pay for our plane tickets to go, so we worked out the rest of the details, and we were able to do that, and that was a huge blessing to us. This past year, Ruby even fell more in love with Haiti, and so we were able to go back, we just got back this past Thursday, but tying that into just something encouraging is this past week on Sunday we were at the church, and there was a couple of guys that had given us a box of stuff, and they put it in the car so that we can open it on the way home. And inside the box were bananas and mangoes, avocados and sugarcane, we're all inside this box for us, and that just encouraged me because they have so little. I don't know where these guys got the money to purchase the fruit for us, but they were able to do that, and it brought tears to my eyes and just encouraged me in a way that something so little that they have just that meant a lot to us. Thank you, Gray. Thank you, Jen. You know, one of the things that we believe God wants us to do with these things that we see Him doing is not just hold that in, not just keep it to ourselves. We haven't asked you to do anything yet today other than just write it down, but we hope you take this with you, and whether it's over lunch this afternoon, maybe it's around your table with Thanksgiving, maybe it's with a friend or two, maybe it's a co-worker, you just say to them, "Hey, what's happened this year that you're excited that's been a challenge, and can I share with you what's happened in my life?" So we hope this is just the start of you being able throughout this week, being able to celebrate and praise all the amazing things that God has done in our lives. And we're going to close with a song that reminds us that when we are of hearts that are full of gratitude, that it gives us a sense of freedom, a sense of freedom to live, and a sense of freedom to love, and a sense of freedom to follow God with our whole hearts. Johnny? Thanks. Let's all stand together for our final song, "I Am Free." [BLANK_AUDIO]