IBC Bremen Sermons

Why Do We Give Thanks? Psalm 30:1-12

What is the purpose of thanksgiving? Why do we give thanks? This is the question I want to answer for you today. I want to answer this question and then apply it to our lives spiritually.

Here is a definition of thanksgiving. We give thanks to acknowledge someone else's goodness.

ILLUSTRATION: You say thank you to someone because they have done something good to you.

1. Thank you for your help.
2. Thank you for your phone call.
3. Thank you for your thoughts that helped us here.
4. Thank you for your prayers.


We thank other people when they do good things for us. There are times that God wants to be thanked for His goodness in your life.

Here is a visual to help you see what it means to give thanks.

VISUAL: Set out a basket with things that represent the good things that God has given me.

We have some examples of people of thanking God for the good things that He has done.

Example: David thanked God because of God's act of justice in David's life. (Psalm 7:17). David sang a song of thanks to God.

Example: People of Israel took times in the years and offered parts of what they received at harvest time, and they gave it in worship to God. (Exodus 29:27-28)

Example: Psalm 30 is a psalm that David wrote to give thanks to God.

So what can we learn from this Psalm about giving thanks about God's goodness.

Thanking God does not deny the hard times that we go through.

You and I will go through hard times. You see that David went through some hard times.

1. We all go through physical hard times from enemies around you.(30:1)
2. We all go through hard times that affect your health. (30:2-3)
3. We all go through times of sorrow.

There will be people and things that will really try to bring you down. There can be things that can hurt you. But these hard times won't stay.

STORY: You boy who was handicapped. He said that the Bible says that these things come to pass. They don't come to stay. They come to pass. They will pass you by.

Thanking God reminds us of His power in our lives.

Psalm 30:4 tells us to remember God's holiness by giving thanks. What does that me? It means that when we take time to thank God for the good and the bad times, we remind ourselves of how powerful God is. We need to take times in our lives and reflect on the fact that God is bigger than we are. He is stronger than we are. We can't do it all by ourselves. Sometimes, we need a reminder of that. Sometimes it takes a hardship for us to really accept the holiness of God. Job had to go through that. David had to go through it.


Thanking God requires times of sorrow and times of joy.

This is where the idea of the modern Thanksgiving celebration comes in. In the Old Testament, the Jews had the Succoth festival. They would spend time praying to God, and then enjoying the harvest that God provided. Because in those days, you were dependant on your conditions for survival. If no rain came, you would starve. So, when the harvest came, you thanked God because you knew He provided it.

The same was true with those first settlers who came to America. Here is the story:

For those who will ask, here is a simple history of the idea of Thanksgiving and its origins:

http://www.thanksgiving.org/2us.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

http://members.aol.com/calebj/thanksgiving.html

There were two festivals as a result. A time of prayer and fasting, and a time of feasting. But as time went on, the fasting part went away. The people continued to have Thanksgiving, but it was more the feasting type. That is not a bad thing. But we have to remember, that it is God who brings us the joy in our lives. Psalm 30:11 tells us that God turns our sorrows into dancing. He makes us leave the hardships behind and lets us point heavenward in joy.



HOW CAN YOU GIVE THANKS TO GOD ABOUT HIS GOODNESS?

1. You can do it privately.

Make a list every morning of what you are thankful to God for.

2. You can do it publicly.

This is what we are doing today. This is what many people do in countries around the world (Example: Canada, Korea, Germany, USA).


ACTIVITY: Ask people to take two minutes and tell someone else what they thank God for.

Posted by Jim Erwin at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments

Matthew 5:43-48 Anger, Patience, and Prayer

LET IT GO (Anger) (5:43)

"love your neighbor and hate your enemy"

This has to do with yourself.

ILLUSTRATION: Bottled Up Anger is like A Bottle of Carbonated Drink

Hate is bottled up anger that is spewed on someone else. You are shaking and agitating the relationship in a way that will later explode. You make a stable relationship unstable when you get angry. The problem with anger and hating someone else is not them. The problem is with yourself.


EXAMPLE: Middle East conflict

There are people who have pent up anger that they have kept for years. When you look at a conflict between people, it always starts with an anger that has stayed quiet for a long time.

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

-- William Blake

Anger is an erroneous zone (error zone), a kind of psychological influenza (flu) that incapacitates you just as a physical disease would.… Anger is a choice, as well as a habit. It is a learned reaction to frustration, in which you behave in ways that you would rather not. In fact, severe anger is a form of insanity.
—Wayne W. Dyer, Your Erroneous Zones
Charles R. Swindoll, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart and 1,501 Other Stories, (Nashville: Word Publishing) 2000, c1998.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is a part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
-- Herman Hesse

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction ... The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jesus is saying here to His people - "You have learned to hate. I am teaching you to learn to love." In order to really learn to love, you have to unlearn your hate.

How do you let it go? You don't let it explode. You set it aside. You go away so that the anger does not get a direction. When you go to someone with your anger, you are going to explode it in their face. When you go away, it is like when I set this bottle down. I am giving a place for my anger. I am slowly, letting it go. This leads me to my second point:

LEARN TO LOSE (Patience) (5:44)

"love your enemies"

This has to do with others. Loving your enemies takes enourmous patience. It takes time to really learn to love your enemies. Because these people seem to be your enemy (because you have not learned to let it go), you have to learn patience with them. Even when you have learned to let it go, when you let go of your anger, you will begin to look at people different. The person with whom you became angry stops becoming your competition, and starts to become your co-worker.

As you start to love your enemies, there are some attitudes that you will learn to put away. As you are putting these selfish attitudes away, you are growing in patience. I call growing in patience, "learning to lose." Let me explain.

When you hate someone, it is because there is an internal competition or fight going on in your life. How you react to people on the outside shows the inner conflict going on in your inner life (your spirit). As you stop holding your anger in, as you learn to let it go in a healthy way, you will start to look at other people differently. You will learn to stop hating people, and begin to start loving them. In order to start loving people, you have to learn to be patient.

YOU DON'T NEED TO WIN ALL THE TIME

You can learn to lose. This is related to the phrase "bless those who curse you"

Some US Congressmen learned this past week that sometimes you have to learn to lose.
Winning is not everything in life. There can be winners and losers. But just because you lose, losing does not make you a loser. It gives you more patience.

I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.
-- Thomas Edison, responding to a reporter who asked how it felt to fail 2000 times before successfully inventing the light bulb

Patience will achieve more than force.
-- Edmund Burke

Some people think that they have to force things, that they have to win all the time. They look at other people as competition (as their enemy), and not as their co-worker. As you change the way you look at other people, God will start to teach you to be patient. One of the lessons of patience is the fact that you will lose. You won't win all the time. And you don't have to. You can learn to be encouraging to people who before were your enemy. Instead of cursing them, you can bless them.

With our tongues we praise our Lord and Father. Yet, with the same tongues we curse people, who were created in God's likeness. Praise and curses come from the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, this should not happen! (James 3:9-10 GW)

Great people learn to lose gracefully. It prevents you from creating your own enemies.

"Love needs to be given to those who you think don't deserve it."

YOU DON'T NEED TO BE RIGHT ALL THE TIME

Sometimes we feel like we should be right all the time. But frankly, we don't know everything. We have to learn that sometimes, we don't need to be right all the time. Now sometimes we run into people with other views. While we may passionately disagree with their views, we don't have to say that we are right (in which we are really saying that you are wrong) all the time.

Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind. (Philippians 3:15-16 NKJV)

ILLUSTRATION: The time I tried to convince a Catholic that she was wrong in her faith...

YOU DON'T NEED TO FIGHT ALL THE TIME

Learning to lose, prevents you from fighting. Trying to be right all the time brings more fights, and causes more enemies. Sometimes, husbands and wives, and parents and children can turn into enemies under one roof.

ILLUSTRATION: I remember one time my sister was dating a guy. They argued all the time. It was simply because each one thought that they were right and they both thought that they had the right to win. So since they both thought they were right (which can happen), and they both thought they should win all the time (which does not need to happen), it led to a fight.

Thinking you are right and thinking you must win can result in fights. Fights cause lovers to turn into enemies.

I watched this one time, and I told my sister after a nasty fight, "Give in". Tell your boyfriend: "Perhaps you are right dear." The fight ended immediately.

The Bible calls this submission in Ephesians. We are all supposed to submit to each other. To submit means that you are not going to get your way. Another way of saying this is to say that you must let yourself lose.

Anger and Patience are opposites.

ANGER + WIN = PRIDE
PATIENCE + LOSS = HUMILITY

LIFT IT UP (Prayer) (5:44)

"Pray for those who persecute you."

What do you do when you seem to be losing to your enemies? You pray.

Vent upwards to God. The working out of your anger, which can get directed to people you learn to hate, should be directed at God. This is not crazy. This is healthy. You begin to realize that you can't win, you can't be right, and you can't fight against these people all the time. It just becomes wasted energy. They are not the ones who will get worn out by hate. You will. So you have to learn to let it go. You have to learn to lose. And more importantly, you have to learn to lift it up.

Where do you go when you know you still hate other people? You take it to God. Why? Because God is the only One who will change you and your situation so that hate turns to love. God will change you. God will change them. God will change the cirucmstances. But He will start to do it when you go to Him in prayer.

Jesus said to pray for those who hurt you. Jesus is talking about forgiveness. He is saying that you have to vent your frustrations to God so that you can forgive the people who have hurt you. You are not going to persecute God. You are really taking the hurt that you carry and you are giving it up to God. You lift your hurts up to God and He takes them and heals these hurts. As God begins to heal you, You can learn to pray for people whom you once hated.

You know what prayer will do. It will turn you from a hater, to a lover. When you pray for your enemies, you can't help but start to love them. Jesus did this on the cross. He prayed to God and asked God to forgive His enemies.

Remember our two bottles of water. Did you watch what happened when the second one (the one that did not explode)? It bubbled up to the surface, little by little. The bubbles that earlier were used to explode, can slowly be lifted to God. These bubbles are like all of your hurts, all of your pain, all of your emotions, all of your thoughts. God wants you to send up bubbles of prayer to Him. This releases the pressure that can cause you to explode.

Did you see the first bottle build up pressure and explode? Did you see the second bottle? It started to settle after a time of rest. This is exactly what prayer does to your hate and anger. Prayer will relieve the pressure that you feel as you lift up what you have let go. As you let your anger rest, and as you learn to not look at another person as competition, you learn to pray for them. Prayer gives you the proper channel that helps you turn your enemies into friends.

Let it go, learn to lose, and lift it up.

Posted by Jim Erwin at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments

Luke 18:1-8 The Power to PRAY

Have you ever had a time when you really did not want to pray? Have you thought about praying and then said to yourself: "Why should I bother?"


Jesus answers your question. He says you ought to pray because you need to pray. Christians need to pray. Christians need to pray like humans need to breathe.
Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, (Luke 18:1 NKJV)

This expression does not mean that a man should be continually performing the act of prayer. It means that a man should constantly keep up the habit of prayer, and endeavour to be always in a prayerful frame of mind. The reason is obvious. Prayer moves the heart of God. As we will see, it has power.

The Prayer That Has Power

What is prayer? Has every prayer power with God? Let us endeavor to get some clear ideas on that point. Some people seem to regard prayer as the rehearsal of a set form of solemn words, learned largely from the Bible or a liturgy, and when uttered they are only from the throat outward. Genuine prayer is a believing soul’s direct conversation with God. Phillips Brooks has condensed it into four words—a “true wish sent God-ward.” By it adoration, thanksgiving, confession of sin, and petition for mercies and gifts ascend to the throne, and by means of it infinite blessings are brought down from heaven. The pull of our prayer may not move the everlasting throne, but—like the pull on a line from the bow of a boat—it may draw us into closer fellowship with God and fuller harmony with His wise and holy will.

—Cuyler

Let me share with you in these verses first the parts of consistent prayer, and then four ways to see your prayer life grow.

HOW TO PRAY AND GET AN ANSWER


Persistent

For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, 'Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.'"
(Luke 18:4-5 ESV)



The Prayer Chain

In 1722 Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, troubled by the suffering of Christian exiles from Bohemia and Moravia, allowed them to establish a community on his estate in Germany. The center became known as Herrnhut, meaning “Under the Lord’s Watch.” It grew quickly, and so did its appreciation for the power of prayer.
On August 27, 1727 24 men and 24 women covenanted to spend an hour each day in scheduled prayer, praying in sequence around the clock. Soon others joined the prayer chain. Days passed, then months. Unceasing prayer rose to God 24 hours a day as someone—at least one—was engaged in intercessory prayer each hour of every day. The intercessors met weekly for encouragement and to read letters and messages from their brothers in different places. A decade passed, the prayer chain continuing nonstop. Then another decade. It was a prayer meeting that lasted over 100 years.
Undoubtedly this prayer chain helped birth Protestant missions. Zinzendorf, 27, suggested the possibility of attempting to reach others for Christ in the West Indies, Greenland, Turkey, and Lapland. Twenty-six Moravians stepped forward. The first missionaries, Leonard Dober and David Nitschmann, were commissioned during an unforgettable service on August 18, 1732, during which 100 hymns were sung. During the first two years, 22 missionaries perished and two more were imprisoned, but others took their places. In all 70 Moravian missionaries flowed from the 600 inhabitants of Herrnhut, a feat unparalleled in missionary history.
By the time William Carey became the “Father of Modern Missions” over 300 Moravian missionaries had already gone to the ends of the earth. And that’s not all. The Moravian fervor sparked the conversions of John and Charles Wesley and indirectly ignited the Great Awakening that swept through Europe and America.
The prayer meeting lasted 100 years. The results will last for eternity.
Morgan, Robert J., On This Day, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 2000, c1997.

Relational

Even he rendered a just decision in the end, so don't you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who plead with him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? (Luke 18:7 NLT)


God has given us the privelege of being His children. He has chosen us as His children. One of the priveleges of being a child is that you can come to your Father for help when you need it. The same is true with our Heavenly Father. God does not answer the needs of a Buddhist, a Muslim, or an Athiest. He answers the prayers and needs of His own children.

Think of it this way: Would a father continue to ignore the needs of his children when they come to him all the time needing something? Of course not. No father would ignore his own child. Good fathers listen and help their children. That is what fathers do. Prayer is not a set of words that we say to God just so that we have satisfied a certain religious ritual. God has designed us to be in relationship with Him. He wants us to come to us when we have a need.

Authentic

And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? (Luke 18:7 NIV)

The way in which the widow was making her pleas to the judge is the same way that we should make our pleas to God. It needs to be authentic. Authentic prayer means with emotion. Sometimes when we have a need, we have to do more than just say a few words. We feel like we need to cry out to God - even scream to Him. This reminds me of the Christians in the book of Revelation:
When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed. (Revelation 6:9-11 NKJV)


Yielding
I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8 NKJV)

Jesus gives this instruction because the Pharisees had asked Him

FOUR STEPS TO DEVELOP YOUR PRAYER LIFE

We can learn a lesson from the widow in this story. She gives us four steps to develop our prayer life:

1. Responsive

Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, "Get justice for me from my adversary.' (Luke 18:3 NKJV)

Widow saw a need and took the need to where she could get help. When you have a need, you should immediately go to God with that need. Don't try to go somewhere else for help. Go to God first.

2. Regular

Widows have to go somewhere to get justice. Widows need help on a regular basis. Widows by their very nature are unable to be independant. The same is true for Christians. We need help. We need to ask for help from God on a regular basis. There are going to be problems in our lives and we need to ask God to help us.


3. Repeated

yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me."' (Luke 18:5 NKJV)


She kept going to the judge until she got an answer. You and I need to keep going to God until we get an answer. Sometimes we ask and keeping asking, but we don't notice that God is working. So we quit asking. We quit going to God.


4. Rewarded

And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? (Luke 18:7 NKJV)
The widow got what she asked for. Christians will get answers their their needs. Persistent prayer gets results. When you keep praying, God answers.

Notice the difference between the judge and God:

JUDGE GOD

Unjust Just
Godless Godly
Cares about no one Cares about every one of His children
Puts the widow off Puts no one of His Children off. He answers quickly
Hates the people Loves the people

The widow could go to an unjust judge and by pestering Him to death, get answer. Jesus says that even if a widow could do that, you and I have a better chance of getting answer when we come to God.

Because there are fewer obstacles. Look at all the obstacles that the widow could have seen. Look at how the judge is. The widow could have said: He is unjust, he is godless, he doesn't care about me, and he is going to put me off. He hates me and so I shouldn't ask. Now look at God. There is no obstacle to come to God in prayer. God even wants us to come to Him. We have to come to Him in faith. The Bible teaches that when we come to Him in faith, He rewards us.

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6 NKJV)

Don't Give Up

The famous 19th century philanthropist and evangelist, George Müller, was a prayer warrior who began praying earnestly for a group of five personal friends who were antagonistic toward the gospel. After five years, one of the men came to Christ.
Muller continued praying for the other four, and in ten years, two more were saved. He prayed on for twenty-five years, and the fourth man was converted. For the rest of his life, Muller continued praying for the remaining man, but when he died in 1898, the man was still unsaved. He had prayed for him for fifty-two years.
A few months after Muller’s death, the fifth man also found Jesus Christ as his Savior.

D. L. Moody once wrote, Though we may not live to see the answer to our prayers, if we cry mightily to God, the answer will come.

Morgan, Robert J., Real Stories for the Soul, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers) c2000.

Jesus has told a parable of persistence, of a widow -- weak in the world's estimation -- who has won a victory because she didn't give up hope, she doesn't give up her plea, and finally wins the day. But what about you and me. We sometimes become so worn down and discouraged by our lives that we stop praying, stop hoping, stop expecting God to intervene. Will we be religious, church-going unbelievers who have given up expecting an answer, whose prayers are just going through the motions? Jesus wonders. "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (18:8b)

My dear friend, Jesus told this story to us disciples so that we might be encouraged. None of you is weaker than the widow. None of you is facing longer odds than she. But because of her persistence and faith even the unjust judge gave her what was hers by right.

How much more you can expect God to intervene on your behalf! How much more will God bring justice to you, since you are his beloved, chosen child! Yes, we become discouraged. Paul did (2 Corinthians 1:8; 4:8-12). But we must not quit, not give up praying.

(Taken from http://www.jesuswalk.com/lessons/18_1-8.htm)

God is just and He answers the prayers of His people. When I continue to pray, I get results.

QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY AND DISCUSSION:

1. Describe the judge in this parable. What do we know about his motivations? (18:2, 4-5)
2. Describe the widow. What makes her tick? Why do you think she is so persistent? (18:3)
3. What is the stated purpose why Jesus told this parable? (18:1)
4. What kinds of things can happen that cause us to lose hope, and lose any heart to pray consistent and believing prayers? How can we get out of these "pits"?
5. He can we believe in swift justice from God when he hasn't brought it yet?
6. Do YOU think Jesus will find faith on the earth when he returns? Why or why not?
7. What is this parable saying to you personally? What disciple-lesson are you taking away from this?

Posted by Jim Erwin at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments

Why Do I Worship?
1 Chronicles 13:1-14, 15:1-16

Why do I worship?

We are coming to the end of a series of sermons on different attitudes that we need to change. Today, we are going to talk about changing my attitude about worship.


What was the reason that the people in this passage decided to worship God? What is the reason that you and I decide to worship God? DO you and I come here to worship God because we like to sing? Do you and I come here to worship God because we like the kind of music that we hear at this worship service? Do you and I worship God here because we like the time of day that it is done? Do you and I come here to worship God because you and I have to do it as a job? Why do you worship?

I want to challenge you this evening to look at worship in a different way. You see, there is a right way to worship and a wrong way to worship.

The Ark of the Covenant is the metaphor for worship in these verses. More importantly, the Ark of the Covenant represents the presence of God. The Ark was a reminder to the people of Israel of the power and presence of God in their lives. The Ark held the Ten Commandments, and the Aaron's staff. These objects represented the ways and powers of God that He had showed in the lives of the people. But the Ark when it was carried properly, allowed God to speak to the people and lead the people. When the Ark (as a symbol of His presence) was carried, the people could see God in their lives.

Worship, as seen here is defined as "seeking the presence of God."

and let us bring back the ark of our God to us, for we did not seek it in the days of Saul."
(1 Chronicles 13:3 NASB)

Worship is therefore seeking the presence of God. How do you seek the presence of God? How should we worship? We should worship or seek the presence of God in a way that God wants it. We should worship God or seek Him in a way that honor and glorifies God, not me.

Let us first talk about what the presence of God is NOT. God wants worshipers who worship Him in spirit and truth. So how do I seek God's presence in my life?

THE PRESENCE OF GOD IS NOT:

PROP - You don't worship the tools of worship. You don't worship the Ark (the container of the covenant.) You don't worship the guitar, the piano, the screen, the overhead projector, or any other thing.

PERFORMANCE - You don't worship the worshipers who seek God, nor should you worship the style. Worship cannot be planned for maximum efficiency. You can't simply say that we need to worship in this order with so many songs. Worshiping God is not the same as going to a concert.

The presence of God is not a performance. You can't plan "How to get into the presence of God." Entering the presence of God is an art, not a science. You cannot fake worship. Worship is not like watching TV. You go to the TV to turn off your MIND. You go to worship to turn on your HEART. Real worship requires your head and your heart.

PLACE - You don't worship the location. This church is no holier a place to worship God than any other place. Until this point in the history of God's people - the people of Israel, there was no place for them to worship. The tabernacle was simply a tent. The ark rested in a tent.

We went to a museum of Jewish history while we were in Paris this past week. I was amazed at how many props that were used in worship in the life of Israel. There were pieces of clothing. There were rings, bells, and the shofar horn. There were objects used in the sacrifice of the animals before God. There was a podium where the Word of God was read. There was even an object used to help a person point to the words of God. But there was no place.

After the Babylonians came to Israel and scattered the Jews, they built boxes that held all these tools. But in their entire history, there was no actual place. Now David help with his son Solomon to build a building that would house the ark and could be used to show the presence of God. But God never was limited to a place. He has never been limited to any place. Wherever there have been worshipers who have seeked God, they have found Him. He said this many times.

The LORD will stay with you as long as you stay with him! Whenever you seek him, you will find him. But if you abandon him, he will abandon you.
(2 Chronicles 15:2 NLT)

With my whole heart I have sought You;
Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!
(Psalms 119:10 NKJV)

And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
(Jeremiah 29:13 NKJV)

It is good to seek God with your whole heart.

I love those who love me,
And those who seek me diligently will find me.
(Proverbs 8:17 NKJV)

If you seek God, you will find Him.

"I was sought by those who did not ask for Me;
I was found by those who did not seek Me.
I said, "Here I am, here I am,'
To a nation that was not called by My name.
(Isaiah 65:1 NKJV)

Even if you are not seeking God, even if you don't have a relationship with God, He is seeking you.

The presence of God is not a PROP, a PLACE, nor a PERFORMANCE. The presence of God, which is symbolized by the ark, is a POSITION. The presence of God is a position in which we stand with God.

So I should seek the presence of God in my life. I worship because I recognize that I need God. I need God and so I seek His presence. I propose to you this evening that the way to seek God's presence is to "raise sounds of joy."

Read with me the second passage for this sermon:

1 Chronicles 15:1-16

Notice in this second passage that David realized that the people had been seeking God (or worshiping God) in the wrong way. They never bothered to ask God how He wanted to be worshiped. They never looked to God and His ways. This is the reason why Uzzah was killed. He was not killed because God hated the man. God had an order to how He should be worshiped and the people had not looked to God for that order. In the Old Testament times, there were one tribe called to carry the ark. That tribe were the Levites. Uzzah was not a Levite. God was saying, worship Me in a way that honors Me. Seek Me and I will show you how to worship Me in a way that honors Me.

So David goes back to God in prayer and He discovers when He reads God's Word some ways in which God wants His people to seek Him. Here is what He discovered.

Then David spoke to the leaders of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers accompanied by instruments of music, stringed instruments, harps, and cymbals, by raising the voice with resounding joy.
(1 Chronicles 15:16 NKJV)

The way to seek God's presence is to RAISE SOUNDS OF JOY.

There were many ways in which the people were asked to raise sounds of joy.

There were people who played MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS:

All kinds of musical instruments can be used to worship God. God does not forbid the instruments of music. You can play the drums and worship God. You can play a gong and worship God. You can play any instrument and use it to worship God.

There were people who sang SONGS:

13:16 and 13:19 shows that these worshipers played and sang.

There were people who KEPT THE GATES:

and with them their brethren of the second rank: Zechariah, Ben,[1] Jaaziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattithiah, Elipheleh, Mikneiah, Obed-Edom, and Jeiel, the gatekeepers;
(1 Chronicles 15:18 NKJV)

The word used here for gatekeeper is the same that is used for the word janitor or custodian. There were thousands of these custodians in the nation of Israel. There were many people who were needed to take care of the physical matters related to worship. If these people were here, they would be preparing the baptistery, running the technical parts of music. So these people can help raise sounds of joy in a way that is clearly understood.

There were people who CARRIED THE ARK:

How do I raise a sound of joy by carrying? If the Ark represents the presence of God. So the people who carried the Ark carried the presence of God into the lives of the people. Everyone of us worships God when we carry the presence of God into our lives.

Let's go back to the definition that we saw earlier. We noted that worship is when we seek the presence of God, and that we should seek God's presence by raising sounds of joy. Since we learned that God's presence is not found in just one place, we can carry God's presence with us. Just as people carried God's presence in the midst of the people, you and I can carry God's presence in our lives to other people around us.

This joy that we express to God today should be carried to other people who need that joy. You carry the laws of God in your heart. You carry the example of Jesus in your life. What is carried is meant to be shared. You don't seek the presence of God so that you can be joyful for your own sake. You can carry that joy and give it to other people.

The ark of God remained with the family of Obed-Edom in his house three months. And the LORD blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that he had.
(1 Chronicles 13:14 NKJV)

Charles Spurgeon said about this text: We are responsible to God for our faith; we are bound to believe what he tells us to believe, and our judgment is as much bound to submit to God's law as any other power of our being. When we come before God, it will be no excuse for us to say "My Lord, I did wrong, but I thought I was doing right." "Yes, but I gave you my law. but you did not read it, or, if you read it, you read it so carelessly that you did not understand it, and then you did wrong, and you tell me you did it with a right motive.

So they carried the ark of God on a new cart from the house of Abinadab, and Uzza and Ahio drove the cart.
(1 Chronicles 13:7 NKJV)

I want you to notice the reason why God struck Uzzah. Because it all has to do with blessing. It all has to do with how we carry the blessing of God when we have seeked Him. The Ark stayed in the house of Abinadab - the father of Uzza. When David had the ark moved, the ox falls and Uzzah panics. We don't know the reason why he panics. We only knows that he tries to take the Ark and save it. God became angry. Why? Uzzah stopped seeking the presence of God with joy and became worried about the tool of God's presence. He took His eyes off of what God wanted him to do. Now, Uzzah's reasons may have been honorable. He did not want to see the Ark break into pieces. But God was angry because Uzzah stopped seeking the presence of God. I agree with Spurgeon in that I don't think Uzzah lost his eternal salvation. I also agree with Spurgeon. I believe we should be responsible with our faith. And I believe his death was an example to the people. Uzzah and Obed-Edom have one thing in common. Both were blessed. As they decided to seek God's presence with joy, God honored that quest and blessed the family. However, when Uzzah decided to stop looking for God's presence in his life and start to worry about other things, the consequences came. They were personally difficult consequences. When we decide to not seek God's presence in our lives with joy, we run the risk of the consequences that Uzzah encountered.

When you and I seek the presence of God in our lives, God is honored. When we carry God's presence to other people, He blesses us.

So to answer our question that we posed at the beginning. Why do I worship? I worship because I want to seek God's presence with joy, and I want to carry that presence with me to other people. As I do this, I will take the blessing that God shares with me and share that blessing with other people.

Posted by Jim Erwin at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments