You're listening to audio from Ascend Church. For more information about Ascend or to access more gospel-centered tools to grow as a disciple of Christ, visit ascendkc.org. Well, hi friends. Open up your Bibles to Psalm 66. That's where we're going to be here today. Our ushers will come down the aisle at this time. And if you don't have a Bible, just raise your hand. They'd love to We'd love to get one in your hands, and if you don't have a Bible, you can definitely take that home with you here today as a gift from us. We love giving gifts. We give cookies, and we give bags, and we give Bibles, and there you go. So my name is Tim Yatch, if you don't know me. I have the privilege of leading our student ministry here and our connected ministry. I've been doing that for the last six and a half years. And it's been an awesome thing. So I'm so glad to be here preaching. If I haven't met you, I would love to meet you. So stop me after service and say hello. My wife, Tracy, is in here for this service. And we do have four children. And if you have not seen them, they mostly look like me, to some degree, the boys do anyway, I think. And you can usually hear them coming before you see them, and it's usually related to donuts and things here, so that's an important thing in our family. So this morning, we have a unique opportunity for me to preach on something that's maybe something you've heard about before, but it's maybe something you haven't thought about for a little while, and this is the idea of worship. This is our goal here today, and prayerfully, our desire is that you are spurred on in greater worship of Christ. That's our goal here this morning. The reality is that we all need moments to say la. Say what? Say la, okay? Say la is a term used 71 times in the Psalms and three times in Habakkuk to what it really denotes is a crescendo, which is a building of the music to a point of a worshipful pause. So that's what we see here in this passage. We see worship rising, followed by a pause. And I don't know about you, but I know that I'm a distracted person. I live a distracted life, much due to the little phone that's in my pocket constantly. And I need to pause more in the presence of the Lord, and I know that we all do, both individually and as a body. That's what we seek to do here today, is to say a lot together as a body of believers and worship the God who is worthy of our fervent praise, but also at the same time, not missing hindrances that may be present in our life for greater worship. That is what we seek to do here today. So our big idea is this, God is worthy of our worship. Will you join in? Will you join in? Here in Psalm 66, you're going to see four realities that should cause worship to rise up within you. You'll notice that our response unto the Lord is always the same, and the response is this, that we worship, that we take that step and we worship him. And so why do we worship? Our first point is this, because he reigns, he reigns. Look at verse one of Psalm 66. Shout for joy to God, all the earth. Sing the glory of his name. Give to him glorious praise. Say to God, how awesome are your deeds. So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you. All the earth worships you and sings praises to you. They sing praises to your name, Selah. Selah makes a lot of sense after that, doesn't it? You'll notice that as we study this psalm, that the worship that David, who more than likely wrote this, not for sure, but it's very likely he did, the worship that he directs unto God, it starts very broadly with kind of a world focus, that the earth should and will worship the Lord, going then to the local body, the body of believers, or Israel in this case, but also us, and then to the individual. So it kind of narrows its focus as time goes on. So looking at verses one and two, right at the onset of this psalm, there are three words that describe the way that the earth should or will worship God. He says, shout for joy to God all the earth. The word for shout is to utter a sudden loud cry. It's the idea of raising the war cry. I will never forget my first KU basketball game experience at Allen Fieldhouse. Well, it's my only experience at Allen Fieldhouse. I was blown away by the noise level, the excitement. I was literally getting like chills as I saw the decibel rise to 120. I was like, this is amazing. I haven't heard something this loud. It was really, really cool. Now, as amazing as that was, I was equally blown away by the fully grown adult man who was there by himself at the game, standing in front of us, yelling as loud as he could for the entire game. It was quite the sight to see. He was raising the war cry, right, for his basketball team. He was really excited about that. Apparently he's there at every single game doing the same exact thing. That dude is relentless. Now, there's nothing wrong with cheering for a team, depending upon your perspective on that certain team, but shouldn't your shout, your war cry unto God be that much more passionate? It should be welling up within us and coming out in a boisterous way. We should shout for joy unto God of the universe with unmatched passion. The second word that David uses here is sing. That means to offer praises to God using one's voice as an instrument. Isn't that interesting? Sing the glory of his name. Boyce in his commentary says, singing requires a certain amount of emotion. It could flow from sadness or from joy. But when there is joy, singing follows naturally. And that is why Christians have always been a singing people. They can't help but sing praises to God, for He is a great God. We sing the glory, the beauty, the truth, the majesty, the hope, the love, the holiness, the judgment, the grace, and the mercy of His great name. Now you all have a voice in which to praise God. That is your instrument. Now I know for a fact that sometimes instruments go out of tune and maybe your voice is a little more out of tune than others, but that's okay. That's why some instruments are on stage and some are in the crowd and that's all right. But we should be naturally outpouring our singing unto the Lord because we as believers, we have something to sing about, don't we? Like we have something to sing about. Next he says, give, give to him glorious praise. This is the idea of placing or setting before God the praise that he is due. We set it on the altar of praise to say, Lord, take this, like this is my offering of praise unto you, purify it. Like if there's anything that's in the way, purify it. is to say that God is great. We sing words that tell how wonderful God is, to bring him the greatest amount of glory that we possibly can. We seek to be worshipers in spirit and in truth, as John 4.24 talks about. Content-driven worship, that's kind of our catchphrase here. And so we want content to drive our worship. But what does the passage say, John 4? Spirit and truth, right? So we don't just sing theology books, right? Like it's a little bit more than that. There's a spirit that should rise up within a song once mixed with proper truth. This is what we should be doing as a worship team. This is what Ben and Jeff worked so hard on together, is to make sure that these songs are, they're driving us as believers in the right direction, right? But also with spirit mixed in with that. Words say something profound, truthful, and amazing about God, and we want to be doing it with the correct type of words, but also in the correct type of spirit, not out of order, as was happening in Corinth. There's kind of an out-of-control worship situation there, right? Ordered, passionate, truth-filled, in-spirit worship. That's what we're seeking. And that's why certain songs, as amazingly catchy as they are, do not make their way into our worship services. Like they might say, you're like, man, I love that song, it's so great. But could we say something better about God with a different song, right? Could we offer more truth unto God and sing more fully about who he is in a better way? Those are the questions that we're asking. So look at the first part of verse three. It says, say to God, how awesome are your deeds? Now, when you're shouting and you're singing and you're giving to God in this manner, then you are saying to him, how awesome are your deeds. Like we could proclaim that when you're doing those things. That is the God that we worship, one who is worthy of praise. But unfortunately, the earth does not praise him in this way, does it? The world runs against God. But despite that fact, He reigns and we all, the entire earth, will worship. That's a fact. Look at verses 3b through 4. So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you. All the earth worships you and sings praises to you. They sing praises to your name. The tense that's used here for worships is it's a present tense, but also has a futuristic tone. It's the idea of a promise that is yet to materialize. So it's kind of happening dually. There's worship happening now and here, but there's also worship that will happen in the future. The worship that is here and now is obviously the body of believers at large, worshiping the God of this universe. That's Psalm 19.1 also, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim his handiwork. But then there's the future tense, that all will come cringing, right? Cowering is what that word means, coming in submission and in fear. Our dog, Bosco, he likes to jump up on the table and eat food. We don't like that, and so we say, get off the table, Bosco, in a little more of a passionate way than that. And so he gets off, and what does he do? He kind of cowers. He's like, I shouldn't have been doing that. He knows that, but he still does it again and again and again, right? I need to shepherd my dog better, I think, but there's no books on that. All the earth will come cringing before the Lord. All the earth will come with fear and with trembling when the God of this universe comes again. We will come cringing. The earth will come cringing either willingly or unwillingly. Philippians 2, 10 and 11, that the name of Jesus Every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Every person on earth will end with their knee bowed and with their tongue confessing that Jesus is Lord. Every knee, every tongue. This should cause us to pray, to ask God to search our hearts to see if there's anywhere in our lives where we are trying to prevent His reign. Because that's what we do, right? We would rather sit on the throne of our hearts and say, well, this is what I need, this is what I want, this is best, I'm gonna do this instead, right? We seek to be the ruler, but it's His reign that is supreme. So is there any part of your life where He is not reigning? Is he Lord of your attitude, of your treatment of your family, of your sexuality, of your interests, of your career? If he's not reigning in your life, then your worship will be hindered. But the positive side is that if he is reigning in your life, then your worship will be elevated, right? That's a good thing. So point two in our call to worship, he acts. And when he acts, we worship. He acts. Look at verses five through nine. We'll start just verse five. Come and see what God has done. He is awesome in his deeds towards the children of man. So this is a section that highlights God's saving nature toward his covenant people, in this case, Israel. So he's gone from the world, and now he's getting to his covenant people of Israel. They are the children of man that David is referencing in verse five. This is a reminder to the people of Israel of what God has done. The people of Israel needed constant reminders, didn't they? And are we any different? We need constant reminders of God's faithfulness. There's many reasons for that. For this reason, a reminder, the fathers of the faith often would set up altars or they would set up stones of remembrance. They would do this in different ways in order for the people of Israel to remember what it is that God had done. So there's three famous ones that were done by these different fathers of the faith. Number one is after the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites, they carried the bones of Joseph out of Egypt. It was a remembrance. He literally carried his bones out. It was a symbol, a reminder of God's faithfulness that one day He would redeem and He would deliver. That was in Exodus 13. And then there was when they were entering the promised land, crossing the Jordan after 40 years of wandering in the desert, led by fire and cloud. And as they cross the Jordan, they make a stone monument to commemorate that. It says it still stands to this day in Joshua 4. And then there's one in the book of 1 Samuel where Samuel sets up a stone of remembrance to remind Israel of their conquest and battle and their victory over the Philistines. There are biblical reminders of what God did all over the Old Testament and New Testament, and there's one right here in verse six of our passage. He turned the sea into dry land. They passed through the river on foot, there did we rejoice in Him, who rules by might forever, whose eyes keep watch over the nations, let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Walls of water, as high as buildings, right? Millions of people walking through the Red Sea and also the River Jordan on dry land. In the case of the Egyptian time, the walls of water come crashing down around them, right? Those are the rebellious that were exalting themselves. God's amazing acts towards his people should cause us, should cause you to worship. But this begs the question, why, why did Israel need reminders of God's faithfulness? And the answer is very simple, because they would always forget, right? They would always forget what God had done. It's all over the Old Testament. And we are so easily able to forget at the same time too, right? Albert was an influential guy in my life during my early years of youth group. I've talked about him at youth group before. He was a senior when I was a sophomore. He was athletic, he was passionate about his newfound faith in Christ, and I was not yet a believer. And so he convinced me to come to Washington, D.C. with him, with a group, and that was where God finally broke through and got hold of my heart and I was saved. It was a monumental occasion in my life. I always look back at Albert and say, man, I'm so glad that God brought him into my life to encourage me in that way. So years went by after this and I didn't hear from him. He had gone off to a Christian school. And I ran into him actually a couple of years later at a restaurant around our house. And as I was talking to him, I was like, hey man, like, you remember our time in DC? Do you remember like what God did? You remember you were so passionate about your faith, all these different things. And he literally looked at me blankly and he said this, he says, I have no idea what you're talking about. He had completely forgotten what had happened, right? He had walked away from his faith. It was as if it had been erased from his memory. Unfortunately, he wasn't actually a believer. The fruit didn't, it didn't grow. And he wasn't joking. He had walked away. Deuteronomy 4.9, only take care to keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children. We are so easily forgetful. That is why, one of the many reasons that I think is a very helpful thing to write down our prayers, to write down the ways that we see God moving, the way that he's challenging us, the way that he wants us to grow, like write those things down, like document them, okay? I have a terrible memory. I lost my iPad for a month and I just realized today that it's been sitting in Ben's office, but I had no idea where it was, okay? So these things happen. I'm very, very forgetful. I need to write down a lot of things and especially the things that God has done because we have an enemy who seeks to Help us forget, right? We need stones of remembrance for us, for our families, for our kids. Your children need to hear the story of what God has done in and through you. Your grandkids need to hear the story of what God has done in and through you. As God asks, our response should be, as it says in verse eight, bless our God, O peoples. "'Let the sound of his praise be heard "'who has kept our soul among the living "'and has not let our feet slip.'" I love that. It means that he's kept us stable and secure. He's kept us. One of my least favorite things is the feeling of skidding on an icy road. Anybody relate to me there? I don't like that. Jeff is apparently afraid of deer on the road. I don't like icy roads, not my thing. Prius doesn't handle it well. I don't like the feeling of being out of control, of being shaky, of being unstable, of kind of going and you're like, I have no idea what's gonna happen right now. I don't like doing donuts on the road. That's like eating donuts, but not doing donuts on the road. Christ keeps us. He keeps us secure as his inheritance. He puts chains on the snowy tires of life, right? He gives us security. He gives us an anchor in the midst of that. We must remember what he has brought us through, how he's grown us, how he's challenged us, how he's kept you. When you begin to forget what Christ has done, your worship is hindered. We must set our minds on things above. We must fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith. We must set reminders of his faithfulness before us to not forget. So he acts, we worship. Next, he sanctifies, we worship. He sanctifies, we worship. This section is specifically about sanctification of the people of God. So what is sanctification? Let's look briefly at that. John Piper defines it this way, he says, progressively becoming like Jesus, being conformed to the image of Christ, little by little, over time, from conversion, till Jesus comes back, or you die. You are in the process of sanctification, becoming holy. This is the goal. Our holiness, our maturity, our growth. That is what we are seeking to become. to look and act more like Christ as we live and work in this world, right? Philippians 1.6 gives us an amazing promise in regards to this. It says, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work will bring it to completion to the day of Christ Jesus. He promises to complete us, right? Amen? This is a promise from God. And it all sounds great. It's like, yes, he's gonna complete us. Like, let's worship. Yeah, that sounds great, but the problem, the problem is that there's a how to this sanctification. How does this take place? How does God sanctify his people? Look at verse 10. For you, O God, have tested us and tried us as silver is tried. Two key words are used here that have a similar definition, tested and tried. That means to be examined, to be put to the test, to ascertain the nature of something, including, and listen to this, it's imperfections, faults, and other qualities. That's God sanctifying us, testing us to see where we have imperfections, faults, and other qualities, right? Precious metals such as silver have to be heated to an incredible temperature in order to kind of weed out the impurifications and the sediments and the different things that get lodged in it. 1640 degrees is what they need to be heated to. This is the manner in which God sanctifies the believer. He turns up the heat in their life to remove imperfection. So how does God turn up the heat? Well, we see it with the people of Israel in verse 11. You brought us into the net. You laid a crushing burden on our backs. You let men ride over our heads. We went through fire and through water." For the people of Israel, their sanctification involved being overrun by rival nations, taken as slaves, kicked out of their homeland, having their children murdered once and then yet again in the future. Crushing burdens were put on their backs. The word for burdens here is the idea of pressure, right? The idea here is that enemy horses and chariots had run over defeated soldiers. It's a vivid figure of disastrous military defeat. Israel's sanctification involved death, defeat, failure, struggle, and pressure. And our sanctification often involves these same difficulties. Kind of jumping back to the refining process for silver, it's not done like, you don't heat up silver in like a pot on the stove, okay? You can't quite get it up to 1,640 degrees when you do that, okay? It's a very exact process. You have to use a certain kind of device in order to put it in, in order to heat it, one that is resistant to that material. It has to be done in just a way 338 degrees above that in order for impurities not to arise within the metal as it's being liquefied. Not only that, it has to be done in a way to avoid oxygen infiltration so that the melting process won't ruin the silver that's being formed, right? The refining process requires expertise and intimate knowledge of that exact metal. God refines us in a similar way. He knows the exact way that we need to be sanctified. The exact area of life that we need pressure to become more like Christ. He uses very specific methods in very specific ways and often we don't like them. There is a plan and a process to your sanctification and every part of it is being used to make you more like Christ. So how have you seen God use your failure and your sin and struggle and pressure and death be used to make you more like Jesus? In those moments, it's hard to see the place of abundance, like it says in verse 12, because that's the promise, isn't it? Like the men, they have their heads ridden over by the army. All these things happen, but yet you brought us to a place of abundance. That's the place for Israel. That's the place that we will be brought to as well. That is what awaits the believer in Jesus Christ. You have two choices the way I see it when this crushing burden, when this sanctification that the Lord is pushing you towards comes in your life. You could either run from it or you could run to it. It's a lot easier to run from it at times, just like Jonah did, right? But when we run from it, this is the problem. Josh Harris says it this way, sanctification can be regressive during certain periods. If we choose to feed our sinful desires and indulge our cravings, we make them stronger and we can backtrack in holiness. If you are struggling in your worship of God, it could be because you are rejecting his sanctification. Your holiness is fading. And it's hard to worship God when you're doing that, isn't it? It's this that we must seek to avoid by leaning into the growth that he has for us, by running to the Lord rather than away from him. By embracing sanctification, you'll find a response of worship just like David did. Look at verses 13 to 15. I will come into your house with burnt offerings. I will perform my vows to you, that which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble. I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams. I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Stay alive. What a response this is. This is David going to the house of the Lord and offering unto Him and giving of what he has, being obedient fully in every way. He is committed to his response of worship. This is not just lip service for David. He is going to do something about it. He speaks of a burnt offering of different types of animals. Boyce, in his commentary, again, says this. By its very nature, a burnt offering was more serious, signifying something like the complete dedication of himself to God by the worshiper. The psalmist is saying that what he intends to do is as serious as anything could possibly be. Like this is David offering his living sacrifice. Everything that he is. That is the best place, the best posture for worship. He does this in four statements that he makes. He says, I will come. I will come to the Lord. I will perform. I will offer. I will make. So what is God asking of your sanctification? Will you come? Will you perform? Will you offer? Will you make your stand as David did? As he sanctifies us, our proper response to him is worship. And next and last, God listens and we worship. He listens, we worship. David had already taken the turn from the world to the people of God and now he really drives us into his own personal journey of worship. He says in verse 16, come and hear all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he has done for my soul. Everyone come far, come wide, like come here and see what my Lord has done for me. This is his testimony. Kind of reminds me of Acts 4.20 when Peter and John, they had just been rebuked for healing the lame man in Acts 3, and they're before the authorities, and what do they say when they're told not to speak in the name of Christ any longer? They say this, for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. They just can't stop. Their testimony is of Christ who died and rose, and they were with him. How could they stop speaking about him, right? We've been raised in the same way. How could we ever stop speaking about him? Spurgeon commenting on this passage, he says that testimonies ought to be born of all experienced Christians in order that the younger and feebler sort may be encouraged by the recital to put their trust in the Lord. People need to hear the story of what God has done in your life. They need to hear it. You never know how God will use it. So why is David filled with such praise? Why is he trying to urge the people to come and hear what God has done Because he listened. Because he listened. Look at verse 17. I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue. To cry means to utter in a loud voice. There is a desperation in this type of cry. We cry out unto the Lord. I love when that word is used. There's no pretenses. There's no avoidance. There's just raw passion. God, I am here. It is you that I need. Sometimes it seems that God is far off, doesn't it? Psalm 10, why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? But is he ever far off? No, he's near. Listen to Psalm 34, 17 through 19. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near the brokenhearted. He saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Selah, right? He listens. And eventually he will deliver you to the place of abundance. It is for this reason and so many others that David worships, but there's also a hindrance to worship here too. Look at verse 18. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Cherish means to direct one's worshipful gaze towards something or someone. We worship the creator, not the creator. We cherish the things of this world over God. Listen to Augustine talking about this passage. He said, let iniquity be displeasing to you in order that you may be pleasing to God. Listen to that again. Let iniquity be displeasing to you in order that you may be pleasing to God. He goes on to say, do not regard it, do not love it, but rather despise it and turn away from it. Augustine understood what he was talking about. He was very notably addicted to sexual sin. He understood what it was to cherish sin, but to cherish Christ more. Your worship and your prayers are hindered by the cherishing of sin above Christ. We must come to a right place in order to rightly worship. David, in this case, was not cherishing iniquity in his heart any longer. He says in verse 19, but truly God has listened. He has attended to the voice of my prayer. We pray to a God that hears, he listens, he answers, but he doesn't always answer in the way that you expect. We must confess our sins to God. 1 John 1.9, he is faithful and he is just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Where are you cherishing sin? He will listen and He will forgive and He will respond to our cries for mercy. Psalm ends in verse 20 with another of the countless reasons to worship God. He says, blessed be God, for He has not rejected my prayer or removed His steadfast love from me. His never-ending, overwhelming, constant covenant love will never be removed from you, the believer. And we worship Him. We worship. him.