God Does Amazing Things

Good morning. So we're going to be reading out

of Psalms chapter 111. I'll give you some time to get

Psalms 111 · chapter mention

there. Praise the Lord, I will give

thanks to the Lord with my whole heart and the company of the

upright and the congregation. Great are the works of the Lord,

study by all who delight in them.

Full of splendor and majesty is His work, and His righteousness

endures forever. He has caused us.

He has caused His wondrous works to be remembered.

The Lord is gracious and merciful.

He provides food for those who fear Him, fear Him.

He remembers His covenant forever.

He has shown His people the power of His works and giving

them inheritance of the nations. The works of His hands are

faithful and just. All His precepts are

trustworthy. They are established forever and

ever to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.

He sent redemption to His people.

He has commanded His covenant forever, holy and awesome in His

name. The fear of the Lord is the

beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it have a

good understanding. His praise endures forever.

This is the word of the Lord. What's going on?

Port City family and friends, how are we doing?

Good, my name is Tanner, the lead pastor here is good to be

with you y'all. Every week at Port City.

We got three goals. Number one, we trying to empower

you. You can do this thing with God,

you can walk with God. We want to help.

You can do it, we can help #2 we want to challenge you.

We hope that something in today's service challenges you

in your walk with God that you would leave challenged and and

ready to walk with the Lord in the way he's calling you.

But more than anything, we want you to walk away thinking about

God. That's our goal.

We want you to walk away not insecure about yourself.

Convictions different, but conviction pushes us back to the

Lord, not looking at ourselves, but looking at Him.

We change when we look at him. So that's our prayer for you

today as we get started in our new series in the book of Psalms

for the summer in Psalm 111. So I'm going to pray that we

would set our minds on the Lord and our hearts on the Lord, and

then we will dive in. OK our Father, we do just pray

those three goals, God of empowerment, of challenge, and

most of all sight of you. Worship of you God.

Nothing matters if we don't see you.

Lord, help us. Help us not to play games here

today. Give us courage and honesty.

We pray in the mighty name of Jesus, Amen.

Y'all don't know the last time you tried to learn something

new. I have been on and off the last

couple years. The people who own the house

before us left a piano. So every once in a while I do

what people do and I YouTube how to learn the piano 5 minutes a

day, right? And I get on there and.

Do do do do do and I'm so hyped. And that's it.

Like it. It lasts like one day because

the reality is I don't know piano.

I know nothing now. Those videos that mindset are

just 5 minutes a day right? Maybe if you use Duolingo or

something like that, you've tried to learn Italian like 15

times, you get to level 10 and you realize you still don't know

nothing. OK, and here's the point.

We get hype, we hit a wall, we quit.

That's kind of how it goes. We get hype, we hit a wall, we

quit. Learning something new is really

hard. And what that process reveals is

really not getting in you. And it takes so much time for

that new rhythm, that new habit, to actually become who you are,

right? We all, as we get into the

Psalms this summer, something similar could happen.

Here's what's going to happen. You're going to like the Psalms,

OK? They're speaking to us.

And we aspire to love God the way the psalmist does.

Hallelujah. Praise the Lord, God is good.

Amen and Amen. We on YouTube. 5 minutes a day

and then we. Walk outside and life's hard.

Bosses lie about us, friends talk junk about us behind the

back. Life's just monotonous and

boring and it hits US in the face.

And then we're left with three options.

Number one is this Psalm stuff, this God stuff.

This Jesus stuff isn't real but I can fake it till I make it.

That's option one. Let's fake it till we make it.

Option 2 is I quit, I'm out, this is stupid.

Or option 3 is we press in until what the psalmist is doing isn't

just fake. Praise the Lord, Praise the

Lord. You know, like I'm not just,

that's not just a set of words, but it becomes true of your

heart. That rhythm is actually who you

are. So this is my goal for the whole

summer, for the next 8-8 weeks for us as a teaching team.

Here it is that the Psalms wouldn't just speak to you.

They will begin to speak for you.

That makes sense. They're going to speak to us as

we listen, but the goal is that they begin to speak for you and

that your soul, through the rhythm of soaking in this, this

becomes an expression of your soul, not just to your soul.

Does that make sense? But yes, it takes rhythm.

Yes, it takes time, but that's the goal.

That's my prayer. OK, So what we're going to do

today is we're just going to walk through the verses.

We're going to camp out in the text for a while.

And then I have 3 pairs of like implications and applications,

things that are true and things to do.

If you are ready to dive in, let me hear you say I'm ready.

OK? You may know this, but you may

not. If you don't know now, you know

there's 150 psalms. David wrote about half of them

in our series this summer. We're going to be camping out in

111 to 118. OK.

None of those were written by King David.

They do thematically go together.

They're all in what's known as book five of the psalms.

There are five books. You might think, oh, is it 30

per Psalm? Because 30 * 5 is 150 or 30

psalms in a book? No.

OK, book 1 is mainly about a king, like it's about this rise

of a king. Book 2 is mainly about the rise

of a king and a Kingdom. Book three, it all falls apart.

It's exile, lots of lament type Psalms.

Then book 4, Psalm 90 to 106 is, is this these, this hope in the

midst of ashes. And then book 5, where we are is

a lot of praise, a lot of celebration, a lot of God's king

and God's place. The book of Psalms isn't just a

random selection of songs that they threw together.

It's actually a story through the way it's compiled and the

last five are all just all of creation is screaming and

shouting God's goodness because of the full restoration of the

king in God's place over God's people has been culminated,

which we are closer to as Jesus followers than those who first

read and sang the Psalms. Isn't that pretty cool?

OK, that's what you need to know as backdrop as we jump into

Psalm 111. Let's start in verse.

One, OK, that's what it says, praise the Lord.

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in the

company of the upright in the congregation.

Here in verse one, there are kind of three parts.

What the psalmist going to do, how they going to do it and

where they going to do it. OK, So what they going to do?

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.

Somebody say I will. Y'all, they're making a

decision. I will do it.

Y'all, when you love something it's pretty easy to do it right?

It's pretty easy. Like for me, I love hamburgers,

I love them. I love high end like 8020 burger

bar love it. But I even love like a Wendy's

burger. I love I I.

Just love it. I like burgers.

Nobody makes me eat hamburgers. You track it with me.

I just do it because I love it. It's important that we see that

that in a lot of this Psalm. This is a very spontaneous

reaction to somebody who loves something.

It's easy to do what you love. Nobody makes you do what you

love. You do what you love because you

love it. And he's saying I will do it.

Y'all track with me. I will give thanks to God in the

congregation. Isn't it interesting that even

for the psalmist who loves the Lord and it's as easy as eating

a Five Guys hamburger, which hello Five Guys, we love you.

Can you lower your prices? Amen somebody because you got to

have Cheesecake Factory money to go get a burger and a little fry

and burger means 2 patties. Little burger means one.

It don't even make no. Sense.

They're either geniuses are out of their mind.

I lean out of their mind. You got to have about $40 to go

there. But even for the person who

loves the Lord, they got to make a decision to express their

praise to the Lord. Are you tracked with me?

Somebody say I will y'all. Here's how I'd say it.

Praise should be effortless and must be practiced.

It should be effortless. It must be practice just because

it should be effortless if you. Never do what you don't feel

like doing. You never going to do even what

you think you should do. You know what I'm saying?

That made sense, but I'll say it one more time.

In the Lord, purchased by Christ, you love Him.

You are full of the Spirit. If you don't leverage your will

to tell yourself to do what you want to do, you won't do what

you want to do. Y'all know that makes sense?

If you don't tell yourself to do what you want to do, you won't

do what you want to do. You'll do what you don't want to

do, right? So even though praise should be

effortless, like eating burgers, sometimes we got to tell

ourselves to eat burgers with the Lord.

Does that make sense? Even for those of us who love

the Lord? So he says, I will give thanks

to the Lord. Now how will he give thanks to

the Lord? With my whole heart, all of me

undivided, The the Bible kind of paints this picture that

somebody who's been captured by the Lord is, is united.

They're not divided. Psalm 8611 says unite my heart

so that I might fear your name. This idea of like, I'm in a

million pieces. There's anxious me, there's

insecure me, there's this me, there's this me, there's that

me. And it's this idea of pull me

together, unite my heart so that I might fear your name.

We all know what it's like at 6:00 AM to be on our knees.

We love you, Jesus. And at 9:00 AM, we just tweak

the truth a little bit to impress a boss.

We tweak the truth a little bit to impress a friend.

We all can feel that pull to be different people sometimes at

different times of the day. Right?

But the psalmist is envisioning wholehearted Thanksgiving.

You know, our culture is really into holistic, that word, like

it's used all the time. And by it, we tend to mean you

got to be spiritually fit, economically fit, financially

fit. I'd just say economically and

financially, those are different.

Physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally and

that's true. But y'all you can be holistic

and not be wholehearted. Are you tracking with me?

You can do all. The stuff and still be divided

as a person. So I I would say like the goal

of being wholehearted is that the entirety of who you are

loves the Lord your God and is submitted to him, trusting him.

So the goal is to be holistic and wholehearted and the

holistic movement. Submitted to Christ should push

us towards being wholehearted but be careful that you equate

those two. Does that make sense because you

can be getting in the word working out and your heart be

far from the Lord. Are you tracking with me so just

I just want to push on that just a little bit So what are they

going to do they're going to give thanks to the Lord how they

going to do it with their whole heart.

Where are they going to do it. The text says I will give thanks

to the Lord with my whole heart in the company of the upright in

the congregation. That's this.

That's a gathering that's the Psalms are songs, right?

They're singing this together and you'll notice in this Psalm.

This is the only verse where the psalmist uses I if you just.

Scan your eyes through the rest of the way the Psalm is talking

about God. Verse 1 is like I will and the

rest is God is and he did and imagine a group of people

singing. This is why like in our in our

worship song, sometimes you'll notice it's like we're talking

to God. It'll be like you, God.

And sometimes it's talking about God.

That's because we're singing those songs to one another and

to God. So sometimes songs emphasize who

God is and we're speaking it over each other.

And sometimes we talk directly to the Lord.

Does that make sense? And our our team that helps

build each worship set and each week with our our sermons, we

are conscious of have we talked to God in the service we are

conscious of? Are we speaking to one another

because we're trying to build both the healthy?

Me and God dynamic and then a US and God dynamic and a US with us

dynamic. Does that make sense?

And I think that's healthy and faithful to what the Psalms do.

So y'all, let me just say this. I pray that we become a church

that is wholehearted and making the decision to give praise to

the Lord with one another and culturally speaking.

Praise the Lord the way you praise the Lord.

I pray we get weirder, Wilder run around the room.

I don't care. Express yourself the way you

need to express yourself to fulfill what verse one is

saying. Do you make the decision before

you show up to Port city? Are you saying I will give

thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in the congregation.

I know sometimes I have to have that conversation with myself

because I can become. I don't know if you do this very

calculated. I'm thinking about.

Others in the room, I'm thinking about dynamics, but this type

verse helps us know we're here to give thanks to the Lord with

our whole heart in the congregation and whatever

cultural expression you want to do with that, do it.

Does that make sense? That builds the body of Christ

up and helps it get healthier. Look at verse 2.

Great are the works of the Lord studied by.

All who delight in them and notice the process right like

they're his works are great. So you got works they're they're

studied who studies them those who delight in them.

So the the assumption of Psalm 111 is that this person loves

the Lord, which we'll return to but greater the works of the

Lord studied by all who delight in them and that word studied if

you want to put this there in your Bible, that word means

ponder somebody say ponder. Ponder is like.

Sitting down over the cup of coffee, it's like you're just,

you're just thinking, you're ruminating, you're mulling.

I don't know what your favorite drink is.

Mine is a straight up Coca-Cola Coke, not Coke 0, not Diet Coke,

not Cherry Coke, not Vanilla Coke, not Orange Coke.

And if I'm honest with you, I could tell the difference when

it's in a can or a bottle. I could tell the difference when

it's glass or it's McDonald's. I could tell the difference when

it's Jimmy John's, which has incredible Coke.

I like my Coke chilled, no ice. I want it cold but not able to

be watered down over time. And when I get a Coke that is

chilled, not watered down, I take my time.

When you love something, you ration it out through the meal.

You might save a little for after the meal, right?

You eat a fry, you take a drink, you take a bite.

That's what you do when you delight in something.

You take your time. That is the way the Psalms think

about how the person who loves the Lord interacts with what

he's done. Does that make sense?

It is as delightful to their soul to ponder the Lord's works

as it is for me to enjoy a Coke. I can almost taste it.

Now I need to swing by Jimmy John's on the way home.

So y'all, I just want to ask the question, is that the way you

relate to what God has done? It's like you just got your

drink and it's chilled and it's perfect and nobody, no kids

interrupting you, your phone ain't ringing.

You're just vibing, uninterrupted time, daydreaming,

ruminating, thinking about God and what he's done.

Right now I've just been thinking about John 1427.

Y'all it says this, Jesus says my peace I leave with you.

My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to

you. Let your hearts not be troubled,

neither let them be afraid. I'm just like.

What does that mean? And then there's like, I know

what it means, but then that's not pondering, you know what I

mean? Like it's a Coke, but you taste

Coke, you don't look at Coke. So y'all, I'm just asking the

question, are you pondering who God is and what he's done?

Just daydreaming, ruminating, sipping on it.

Look at verse 3. Full of splendor and majesty is

His work, and His righteousness endures forever.

Here's what I want us to begin to do OK, I want us to notice

from here on out I'm going to read the verses through verse 9.

There's a comment about something God has done, and then

there's a comment about who He is.

So pay attention to works versus character.

Y'all with me. So as we start to read these

verses, I'll try to do it a little slowly be looking for is

this something God did or is this a comment on who he is?

Did is y'all with me? So let's read through the

verses. Which one is it?

Be thinking about it. Here we go verse four.

He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered.

Did The Lord is gracious and merciful is he provides food for

those who fear him did he remembers his covenant forever

and some days you like did is is did that's good.

He has shown his work to the power.

I'm sorry, shown his people the power of his works did and

giving them the inheritance of the nations did the works of his

hands are faithful and just. I would say that's a did is all

his precepts are trustworthy is they are established forever and

ever. It is, I don't know, to be

performed with faithfulness and uprightness.

He sent redemption to his people did He has commanded his

covenant forever did holy and awesome is his name is.

Hopefully y'all are tracking with that pattern there in verse

9 it says holy and awesome is his name.

You know, there's this funny expression we say sometimes I'll

put some respect on my name. Y'all heard that one?

I say that a lot jokingly to my kids don't get the image and I'm

like, respect me children. I'm more like.

Come on man, just bought you some Jimmy John's.

Put some respect on my name. Like it's this idea of like

evaluate the person correctly, like understand who they are,

like their name, that's who they are.

So when somebody is joking about that, they're meaning you're,

you're incorrectly identifying me, right?

Like you're not seeing me correctly.

His name is holy. It's awesome.

How do we know that? We know his name is awesome

because of the works he's done. That's the connection you got to

make. We know who he is because of

what he did, and what he did tells us who he is.

It's and you do this all the time.

You got a friend, friend named Phil.

You go to your friend named Fred.

You say Fred, you need to meet Phil.

He's awesome. They look at you like you crazy.

That don't mean nothing to them. Cool.

They trust you Immediately you feel the impulse to tell Fred

something Phil did. Phil gave me Knicks tickets.

I want to meet Fred. Or you're like, I want to meet

Phil. Does that make sense?

Like you explain to people who your friends are based on things

your friends do. That's that friend I was telling

you about that brought me food when I was sick.

That's that friend I was telling you about.

The reason Bible me. That's that friend that did this

when this happened. That's that friend that did

this. The way you know who people are

is based on what they do. Does that make sense?

We do that all the time. And if you're more skeptical

here, you're just kind of like, hey, Jesus stuff in general.

I don't know. Why should I take this

seriously? I don't know if I'm all the way

there. Here's what I'd say to you.

Nobody is asking you to blindly believe in some mystical thing

that can't be understood, that has no proof to it.

There's very credible evidence to trust the Lord.

But on top. Of that I just want to say.

Look. The proof is in the pudding,

like God has been in the business of rescuing people out

of their addiction out of just pain for years, thousands and

thousands of years. And it's all rooted in what

Jesus did on the cross. The evidence is right before you

just look at the works. One of the last things Jesus

said was like, look man, if you don't believe me, believe on

account of the Father. If you don't believe on me on

account of me or account of the Father, believe on account of

the works. Just kind of like the proofs in

the pudding, you know. So y'all, all through the

Psalms, what you'll notice is this blend of focus between what

God did and who God is. We know who he is because he

did. God is Somebody say God is.

That's this idea that God is a certain way and he can't help

but be him. God will be God.

So God provides because he's provider.

God created, He's creator. We know who he is because of

what he did. He does what he does 'cause he

is who he is. It's important you understand

that God is. God can't help but be God.

He's always going to be Himself. So like with other people, it

doesn't operate this way. You really don't know if they'll

be to you that way the next day because we are so finite,

fickle, not really trustworthy. Movie tickets change and price.

You don't. Things won't be that way next

time because they're always changing.

God doesn't change. God isn't just loving.

God is love. God doesn't just do loving

things. He is love.

And until you connect that God does because he is, he did

because he is, because he is, he will do.

That's the connection. But if we don't see that he is,

he's hard to trust because what you'll do is you say he did, but

he's not doing so he should, he isn't.

Does that make sense? So what you begin to do is you

flip it and you begin to do a prove it, prove it disposition

to God instead of he's proven he's done.

He is. We interpret our reality through

who God is. We don't interpret who God is

through our reality. And when it gets backwards,

you're so angry, so angry. And again, guys, if I could sit

with you and you told me your story, if you're angry, I'd

probably weep with you. I'd be angry on your behalf.

And the Psalms can handle that. They can handle that kind of

response to life just not going well.

Be all God is. He can't help but be him, so

we've got to consider what He did.

OK, so in the Psalm, what are the works the Psalm is focused

on? I would say in verse 9 you have

the best summary. Look at the 1st.

Line there in verse 9. He sent redemption to his

people. He has commanded his covenant

forever y'all. Here's the idea.

God isn't just randomly good. He's good in a direction.

His goodness does something. What does his goodness do?

It creates a people y'all. The world was in chaos.

Tower of Babel nobody give to RIP about the Lord was looking

for the Lord. We are all worshipping random

God superstition. Wicca boards.

It was wild. Think of that kind of

environment of just chaos, right?

And out of that, God calls a man named Abraham.

Abraham was not looking. For the Lord, the Lord.

Went and got Abraham, he called him and he says through you all

peoples on the earth will be blessed, which is crazy because

this dude was sinful. But God is saying, Believe me.

And he goes. I believe you.

And he believed God, not in God. He believed God and got credited

to him as righteousness. So he's following the Lord.

He has a promise on Isaac. From him comes this family.

It's a family rooted in the faith of Abraham, not just the

flesh of Abraham. Okay.

And from this family comes this story of the exodus and

deliverance from slavery to a place in a blood of a lamb was

broken and spilled. And it just kept pointing to

this person who would come in the lineage of Abraham, in the

lineage of King David, in the lineage of all these patterns

and symbols. And he would one day come, and

he would conquer all that is wrong with us.

Not by conquering it the way we think about conquering it, but

by being conquered, by being killed, by being crushed, by

dying alone. That is the story of the Bible,

is that God is making a people. We are the people, the church.

Those who trust in this king, this Christ, are the people of

God. He has sent his redemption to

purchase a people. God is good in the direction of

taking dead people and making them alive.

God doesn't recruit those. Looking for him, that's not what

he does. He resurrects those who want

nothing to do with him. So God's goodness y'all if you

get this wrong, you just it's so important that we understand

this. Nobody was looking for the Lord

and as you interpret your own story, you did not come out the

womb once in God. It's just not true.

No one is righteous. No, not one.

Nobody cares. We don't want him.

God is in the business. His righteousness endures

forever. The truest essence of who God is

is to take people turned against him and.

Woo them to himself and turn them back to himself by dying in

their place. That is who God is.

He makes a people out of people who had their backs turned on

him. That's who God is.

That's what he's done is while we were still sinners, Christ

died for us. That's the good news is that the

King has come and died in your place and you didn't want him.

God makes a people out of all people.

And we the church can sing this Psalm all the more greater than

the original singers of the song because his righteousness has

made us righteous. He has sent his redemption to

us. He has taken all the brokenness

in US, looked at it and said, I'm in.

I take it OK, verse 10. I want to read it.

I'm not really going to teach on this one a ton.

You're about to know why the fear of the.

Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it have a

good understanding. His praise endures forever.

OK, next week Pastor on is going to teach on Psalm 112.

Y'all. Psalm 111 and Psalm 112 are a

pair. They're both acrostics in

Hebrew. You would notice this.

OK, so they match all of the character in Psalm 111 is about

God. All that character shows itself

in the blessed people of God in Psalm 112.

So it's kind of like a like father, like son.

Like as we behold God, we become like God.

So he will kind of help us connect.

How Psalm 112 is the overflow of Psalm 111 because the people of

God become like the God that they are united to.

OK all right, now that we've kind of camped out in the

texture allow we understand what's going on.

I got 3 pairs of implication application, a few things that

are true, something you should do Y'all ready?

OK, first thing that's true. God is the most important person

in the world. That's true.

God is the most important person in the world.

Verse 9 Holy and awesome is his name.

Yo God is amazing. God is righteous.

He sent his done son to die for us in our place, unites us to

himself. He is amazing.

And if that's true. We have to make the decision

right here and now that he is more important than anybody

else. Anything else.

And almost I want, I want you to go home tonight before you go to

bed and literally tell yourself like that.

Because part of what your body wants to believe through your

flesh and through our culture is that the God stuff is its own

category of like religious stuff.

But like, real important people are like my boss, like actual

important people is like that friend I want to like me or my

coach. Those are important people.

Like if you ever told yourself God is more important than

anybody, you know, it's more important than your spouse.

It's more important than your Mama, your daddy.

He's more important than your sister.

He is the most important person in the world.

Yo, we get to choose who. We are impressed by, you know,

you're all impressed by people, right?

You try to act like you ain't, but you are.

I remember the first time I acknowledged I'm impressed, and

I was willing to admit it. My friend Jack in high school, I

was walking around. I was, I was like a Hooper

dresser, you know, like I dressed like a sports player.

But Jack was the man. He was so smooth.

We always wear like a polo type thing, some Plaid shorts or

something, some khaki shorts and then the like flip flops that

you're that go between your big toe and the other toe and then

they flop behind you like like on your heel, like rainbows.

I was like, I got to have that. Mama.

And then you're the teenager demanding your Mama take you to

go buy that outfit. Please mom, please you even love

me and I just pressed her for weeks.

She finally buys me the outfit. I'm walking around school for

one day. Polo, Plaid shorts, rainbow

sandals. It was the worst day of my life.

These things are flopping all around.

Like he was so smooth with it. I felt like a dinosaur, just

like clonking. I was like how do people do

this? I was like taking the flops off,

walking up the steps and some of y'all have that swag where you

can do that. I could not.

I looked like an imposter. OK, but this is what I know.

I did that because of my friend Jack.

I was impressed by Jack, so I copied Jack.

We are all copycats, y'all. So the question isn't, are you

impressed with someone? The question is, who are you

impressed by today? Because if you're impressed, if

somebody's important, they impress you.

And when they're important, they impress you, but you become like

them. The question is, are we

impressed by God? Does God impress you?

The way he moves, he operates, he thinks.

Because if that's true, what we need to do is ponder His works.

What we need to do is ponder His works.

We need to watch His every move, study Him, be curious about the

Lord. The way we scroll our phones is

closer to pondering than many of us realize.

We're just letting it, just kind of we just hanging out with it.

Do we do that with the Lord and just watch Him?

Watch how He works. Watch how he thinks.

Just stop and pause, like a friend telling you something

crazy, like what'd you say? And then just interact with it.

Ruminate on the Lord's works. Think about who He is Just.

Hang out with him #2 true God's church is the most important

story being. Lived in the world.

And that was very intentional language.

God's church is the most important story being lived in

the world. Because if you read the Psalm

correctly, He has sent redemption to his people.

So remember, God is thus God. Did we know who He is because of

what He did. What God is, is that He did make

a people. So the people don't just have a

story, the people are the story. Y'all think about it in the Old

Testament, the fact that Israel existed as a nation, that they

were the ones who left Egypt. Egypt couldn't hold them.

They get their own place. They were given the the promised

land. Their existence was a testimony

to their God that they exist means he does, that they're

flourishing means he's awesome. There was a direct link.

Do you see that Y'all? All the more so, the church is

the bride of Christ. We are tied to Christ, so we

don't just have a story to tell, which we do.

We are the story. Isn't that crazy?

The church, everybody united to Christ by faith.

Everywhere that looks different ways, speaks different languages

is the church. And they don't just have a story

to share with their neighbors, They are a story to their

neighbors. Their very existence testifies

to the God who makes sinners righteous by faith.

So if that's true, what we tend to do is we downplay the church.

We are ashamed of it. But y'all, the church is, we are

the friend with the friend that others need to meet.

You need to meet my friend Phil. Here's what Phil did.

We have the friend. In some kind of way, we are the

friend. That's what the church is.

God's goodness leads to church. That's the truth of the Bible.

God's goodness purchases a people.

We are his masterpiece. And to be clear the people not

the brand right? Like we are his masterpiece.

So y'all just want to call us to commit to his church.

If you love God, love his church, and on some kind of way

with everything that just went down, even even with the Pope,

and like we're in different places theologically, we ain't

Catholic, but that was important and we sensed it worldwide.

Like everyone's watching because in some kind of way, something's

happening that we're tied to in some kind of way, right?

We're watching because their testimony impacts ours, right?

Commit to His church. Pray for His church globally.

Pray for brothers and sisters being killed right now under the

gun, under tons of pressure. Pray for the good of the church,

the health of the church, the multiplication of the church,

the forwarding of the church. And then, yes, a local church.

If you don't have one, we'll love for you to be a part of

Port City for God's glory, our joy, and Norfolk's good.

OK, third thing, that's true. God's presence is the most

important factor in my well-being.

He's the most important person. Our story is the most important

story, and God's presence is the most important factor in my

well-being. If you want to thrive, the path

to that is not podcast hacks, OK?

They can help us live more efficiently.

They can help us get better at life.

The, the way I think about like the way our culture thinks of

thriving is that you just need to get clear on your goals.

You need to get clearer, more efficient, right?

Hyper vision, hyper focus and then execute it.

So it's almost like, I imagine like our culture can help us

pull the arrow back, but not aim it.

Well, does that make sense? It can make us better at Target

practice, if you will, but that doesn't mean they're helping us

choose the right target. Does that make sense?

So like, there's a lot of hacks, there's a lot of leadership

advice, There's a lot of good stuff out there, but we can.

Begin to think practical stuff is what matters, right?

Helping me pull the arrow back is what I need.

God is the most practical person in the world.

Does that make sense? Because he's the most important.

Studying his works is more practical than even hacks.

Does that make sense? Because you can get it backwards

where the Lord is boring and not really applicable to life, but

this stuff helps me win. That makes sense.

And when we get that backwards, God is just something in the way

of what I really need to do to really become who I really want

to be. So what do we?

Do delight in the Lord. The big assumption of this song,

huge assumption, is that you love God.

Great are the works of the Lord studied by all who delight in

them. So I say delight.

Delight. Challenge you to use that word

this week, huh? A delight in this Coke.

Just it's a fun. Word, there's a word for you.

Word of the day. Delight y'all if you love.

Something you just do it. And for many people in many

church services all over the country, all over the world, the

last thing they actually think is that God wants them to want

him. Y'all more than anything, God

wants you to want him. Isn't that crazy?

I don't naturally tell myself that your impulses think, what

do I need to do? That's a good impulse.

What you need to do is delight in the Lord.

Yo, the way the Bible kind of thinks of it is that what you

want matters. Not just what you do, not just

what you think, but what you want matters.

And then you begin to think. So what I'll?

Want needs to change yes can I change what I want for the life

of me y'all all these Mexican spots put cilantro on a rice and

it just bothers me because I'm in that group of people where

cilantro is death like it just tastes like death in my bowl

like y'all got any rice without like they asked me you want

brown or white I want to be like you haven't got cilantro in it

like just just say cilantro. No cilantro because the people

who don't want it, they're just staring at that rice like which

one of those it really doesn't matter how you cook to these or

what they look like. Is there cilantro in there?

Did you hide it? Is it under that?

Here's the point you can't change your taste buds right.

You know the Bible presents that you are called to delight in the

Lord and part of you knows you can't you don't want to.

So what we do is we scramble. And we avoid that and we tell

ourselves we're just going to, we're going to, in our own

strength, force ourselves to tolerate God as much as

possible. He'll be honored by that.

The more I can tolerate him, the more he's honored.

I don't want him, but I'll not want him as much as possible.

Like I will tolerate him more than anybody.

And we all have our limits of the Lord can get up to this line

right here. But after that, I'm in charge.

And some of us, year over year over year, sermon over sermon

over sermon, you're expanding your control.

But really, what you're doing, you're giving the Lord a little,

you think you're giving him a little more slice, but you still

run the show and you don't want him.

You tolerate the world, the Christian stuff, you're willing

to cut some things out, but all the while you in control you at

the driver's seat and you don't want him.

Y'all delight is the goal and delight is the problem.

It's the goal and the problem, because we don't.

If I asked you what's the biggest?

Sin you've ever done? I wonder what will come to your

mind. I'm going to give about 10.

Cycles. The biggest sin you've ever

done? Preachers.

Trick question because the answer isn't something you've

done, it's that you don't want the Lord.

Before we do sins, we are sinful.

The nature of sin is to say I don't want God is to yawn at

him, is to turn our back on him, is to fight him.

But any way you slice it, I'm out.

I stay in control. So y'all, I just want to put

that over us. And what that sends you to is

like if that's really the goal is to want him and I can't, then

what do I do? Now I can answer that question,

but I want to ask you about your heart before I answer that

question. If you just want to escape from

feeling guilty in your conscience, you can self

righteously apply the answer I'm about to give.

You and deceive yourself, but the truth of the Bible is if you

want to be delivered, you're on the verge of wanting to be saved

from yourself and from the fact that you can't conjure that.

You're ready to throw yourself on your knees and say, who will

deliver me from this body of death?

But thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given

us the victory. The idea is you.

Cannot throw yourself on your face and beg the Lord to give

you new taste buds. Throw yourself upon the mercy of

God. Some of us have so assumed God's

love for us. And we've been told that from

such a young age or whatever it is, or maybe you're new to the

Bible, but we so assume God's love for us, but our taste buds

have never changed. What can happen is you actually

never have a moment where the Spirit gives you a new heart,

which is what the New covenant is.

I will take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of

flesh. That's what He promised to do.

He will make us want Him. I will put the fear of me in

them that they may not turn away from me.

See y'all, I just want to put that over you because if you

think you have the wrong problem, you'll look for the

wrong solution. Our problem is that we don't

want him. And for some of you, you need to

be born again. You need the Spirit of God to

invade your life and take over. And for the rest of us who are

in Christ, when we hit the doll, when we hit the lull, and the

Spirit is indwelling us, it doesn't make us panic about our

salvation. But it does.

Send us in a similar process where mercy is the path forward,

it's grace, it's sitting ourself between before him, not because

we've been kicked out, but just because we want to be renewed.

Spirit of God, please wake me up, help me, help me.

Let this Psalm speak not just to me, but for me.

Y'all, I'm praying that for us, this series, that as we keep

going forward, the Psalms wouldn't just speak to us, they

would speak for us. Let's pray together.

Our Father, we love you so much. We're so grateful for the

Psalms. We're so grateful for the

articulation of what's possible by grace, by your Spirit, and a

broken world. Because life is so hard Lord So

I just pray God that we wouldn't respond to the Psalms with this

is too good to be true. This is ideal but it's not real

God would this be real? Would this be the the truth of

our hearts? Will we study your works because

we delight in them. God, give this church love for

you. Got to pray for any of my

friends right now who know maybe for the first time that they

think of you like cilantro. God, would you gift them?

Would they throw themselves upon the mercy of God?

Would you gift them new taste buds?

Would you gift them a new heart? Would you gift them a sight of

your son that changes everything It got from our family in Christ

who are maybe just weary, thirsty, hungry.

God, give them newness. Refresh them once again.

God, would this Psalm speak for us?

We pray it in the mighty name of Jesus, Amen.