[Gary Petty] I remember a conversation I had with a man years ago…I’ve had other similar conversations over the years, but this one particular one really sticks out in my mind. He believed in the existence of God, but he resented God. And the reason he resented God was because…you know, sometimes people resent God because they say, “My life has been unfair,” or “I’ve had many trials.” You see people that have suffered so much and you understand why them may resent God, but this person resented God because he said that God was only concerned with being obeyed and worshipped, and God was so egotistical – God was so arrogant. All He cared about was His own power. So he had this great resentment towards God.

Well, you know, when I look through the Bible, God does command – He desires and commands – obedience. He desires and commands worship. But is it because He is egotistical? Is it because He gets something out of it, in terms of His ego is built up every time we pray, or every time we sing a song to Him? King David had a totally different viewpoint of God. Let’s look at Psalms, chapter 18, verse 1. I want you to notice, as we go through this, there are expressions here on a lot of different levels. I haven’t heard anyone say that they resent God because He’s egotistical in a long time. That conversation just sticks in my mind. I tried to talk to the man, but I couldn’t get any place. “God’s just arrogant” – sort of like, “God and I meet each other on equal terms” was kind of his approach. David says:

Psalms 18:1 – I will love you, O LORD, my strength.

Now, first of all, David’s expression here is out of his love towards God. He loves God. That’s his expression. It’s his expression not only of his emotions, but of his reason, of his mind, of his lifestyle – everything. When David says, “I love God,” he meant everything he had was given to God. And notice he says, “I love you, my strength.” He received an undeserved benefit that he did not have himself. The Psalms are so interesting, because see this expression of how David and others – Agar and others – express to God their dedication, their love, their obedience. And they always did this because of this value they put on God. He says, “You are my strength.” Verse 2 says:

V-2 – The LORD is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer. Here’s what God does for me that I can’t do for myself.

As we go through this today, I think, for all of us, it’s a good time – from time to time – that we think about - even write down on a piece of paper – “what God does for me that I cannot do for myself.” And there are times to go to God and say, “I cannot do this myself.” What is it that God does for us? Actually, as you go through it – if you really understand it – you realize, there is nothing we can do for ourselves, in an eternal sense, or even in a sense of living this life, without being self-destructive. But He says:

V-2 – The LORD is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom I trust –  my shield, my horn of salvation, my stronghold. Over and over – this is where God helps me – over and over. He’s my shield – He protects me. He’s my strength when I have no strength. He’s my deliverer. He’s my fortress where I can be comforted and hid from problems. Verse 3 says:

V-3 – I will call upon the LORD who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies. “Who is worthy to be praised.”

What a totally different viewpoint than the man who said, “God is just arrogant! He wants praise. Who does He think He is that I have to praise Him?” Now notice David’s approach. From the bottom and core of his being, David was motivated to praise God. David said that God is worthy of praise. God has an intrinsic value that surpasses everything He’s ever created. And, if we understand that intrinsic value – something that is in Himself that He has – then we’re going to be motivated to obey and honor and worship and praise – obey, honor, worship and praise – from the bottom and core of our being.

We’ve been exploring the Bible in a series of sermons about holiness. When we look at God, He says that He is holy. He makes things holy. God is unique. God is righteous.  God is powerful. God is incorruptible. And, as I said in the beginning of this series of sermons, only He can make an object or a person holy – or a time or a place He can make holy – because He is holy. Now we know about God’s uniqueness and He’s incorruptible, but I really want to talk about that a little bit. I’m going to be stating the obvious today. This is a sermon where I’m just going to state the obvious, but we need to understand God’s worthiness. I want to talk about His holiness, His worthiness, because only when you understand God’s worthiness do you get to the place where you can take Psalm 18:1 through 3 and it actually means something to you at the core of who you are – where you could write Psalm18:1 through 3, where you could sit down one day and say, “I can write this. I’m going to express how I love God and He is worthy of praise.”

I know he won’t mind me telling you this, because…I even asked him one time if I could use a couple of his poems in my Pastor’s Update, and he said, “Yes.” But Sam Urbina writes poems to God and he sends them to me on a regular basis. And I just read through them and they’re just…and they come from the core of his being as he praises God.  If you know Dr. Sam, that’s part of who he is. It comes from the core of his being. He writes poems about God and praises to God. And I always appreciate them. I know every couple weeks, or once a month, at least, in my box, one of his poems is going to appear. He puts a lot of time and thought into it.

Where does that come from within us? So let’s first look at five ways that we need to recognize God’s holiness. And then I want to talk a little bit about obedience, honor, worship and praise – our response to the holiness of God. These are obvious things. You’re going to say, “Okay, you’re giving us an obvious statement.” Well, I want you to think about these obvious statements. Have you ever seen the commercials, you know, “Captain Obvious,” on television. I forget what they’re advertising. It’s so stupid I can’t hardly believe it. The guy goes through the commercial just stating the obvious all the time. Someone’s house is flooded and he comes through in a canoe, and he says, “I wouldn’t stay here tonight.” “Thank you, Captain Obvious.” You think, “This is so stupid!” If you can’t remember what they’re advertising, it failed. Right? I just remember Captain Obvious. And to say, “It’s stupid,” is so obvious. But I’m going to state the obvious. But I want you to think about the obvious. That’s the problem with the obvious. Sometimes we don’t think about it – because it’s there in front of us, and because it’s there in front of us, we don’t think about it. We miss something.

First of all – in understanding God’s holiness – God is the Sustainer and Creator of all life. Without Him, there is nothing. When we talk about arrogance, it’s amazing, when God is the Creator and the Sustainer of all things, that He’s absolutely humble. If you were the creator and sustainer of all things, would you take from us what we do to Him? He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things.

I read some of the book of Job last night. It’s interesting. Of course, his three friends do nothing but attack him and point out that he’s a sinner. And Job does nothing. I mean, this is the major part of the book of Job – Job saying, “I’m not a sinner. I’m not a sinner. I’m not a sinner. God is just sort of being unfair here.” “Yes, you’re a sinner. You’re a sinner.” “No I’m not.” “Yes, you are. And it just goes on and on, and back and forth. And then, the young man, Elihu, who comes up and says, “I know I’m a young man and I should keep my mouth shut, but I’ve got something to say here.” And read through what he says in chapters 32 through 37, because he says, “Let me ask you something here. Does your sin change God? Does your righteousness change God? God is God. And here we are, arguing as if we’re all equals to God! – like our arguments have any effect on God – our thoughts, our reasoning have any effect on God!” And he is wise and gives a brilliant explanation of what’s going on. And he says, “I just don’t understand. The three of you attacked your friend. And all you do, Job, is defend yourself. And nobody is understanding God!” Now, as soon as Elihu is done, God shows up. Now, God actually punishes Job’s other three friends. He doesn’t do anything to Elihu – he was the young one in the group. In fact, he even says, “I wasn’t even going to say anything, because I’m too young, but I don’t understand what’s going on here.” It’s fascinating what he says.

So God shows up. And to put everything into perspective, for four chapters, God simply asks questions. Now, I’ve turned to this passage before and read bits and pieces of it. I’m going to go back to it again. Job, chapter 38…because I think we have to go back to Job 38 through 40 on a regular basis to put things in perspective when we’re in these battles with God – when we’re judging God, we’re judging what He does, we’re judging other people, we’re just angry and bitter and upset. And we forget God made everything! He keeps everything alive. Is He worthy or not? You are alive. Your heart beats this very second by the will of God. If He will it doesn’t beat, it doesn’t beat another second. And there’s nothing any human being can do about that. He keeps the universe from falling apart. In verse 4, He says:

Job 38:4 – Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determines its measurements? Surely, you know. Who stretched out the line upon it? Or, upon what was its foundations fastened? Or, who laid its cornerstone?

He said, “Okay, Job, I just want to explain a few things. Just explain to Me how in the world did I measure the earth to be exactly the size it is and why?” You go through here and He asks him, basically, “Explain tides. I won’t even give you a hint. It has to do with the moon, but I’m not even going to tell you that. Just explain the ocean and how it goes back and forth.” And there is no way that Job could have known it was because of the moon. We know that. He says, “Well, how do I do that?” In verse 31, he says:
V-31 – Can you bind the cluster of Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion? Can you bring out the – now this word here, literally means the constellations – Can you bring out the constellation in its season? O can you guide the great Bear with its cubs?

In the ancient world, they looked at the stars and they thought they made designs. You know, it’s very interesting, last year when the teens went to the observatory, they about how, if you went back 5,000 years, the stars did look different – just the rotation of the earth has changed and, of course, everything in the universe is moving. So, if you went back 5,000 years, what sort of doesn’t look like a bear and cubs today, actually looked more like a bear and cubs when they looked up and saw that. We look up and we see the Big Dipper. 5,000 years from now, all things being equal, it won’t look like the Big Dipper – not like it does now.

When I went to Australia, I remember the first night I was there, everybody’s getting ready for bed, and I’m going outside. They said, “Where are you going?” I said, “I’m going to see the Southern Cross.” They said, “Yeah, we see it every night.” I said, “I’ve never seen it. You’ve got to be here to see it!” Right? So everybody had to go outside and look at the Southern Cross with me, like we’re all seeing it for the first time. They said, “Well, we just get used to it.” I said, “Well, I’m used to seeing the Big Dipper, too. You don’t get to see the Big Dipper.” There it was – the Southern Cross.

And He asked him, “Explain that. Explain what those are.” Job would not have known those were suns out there – just like our sun – bigger, many of them. We need to remember that God’s value – His value as Creator, His value that He sustains everything, His value that He’s not going to let this world run down to just die out…. He has a plan. So we go before the great Creator and Sustainer of the universe with all power – God Almighty – that – that obvious thing should be a reminder and we need to be reminded of that – understanding God’s holiness.

The second obvious issue about God is that God’s character is absolute goodness. I say it’s obvious, but we wrestle with that sometimes when God doesn’t do what we want, when He doesn’t heal us immediately, or He doesn’t take care of our problem immediately. And we struggle. So, we decide that He’s not absolute goodness. I’ve known people that have actually thought God is a being of great will power, so whenever He’s tempted with sin, He’s always able to resist. No. God is goodness. God is incorruptible. God can’t be tempted with sin. His very nature is good. See, we have a hard time with that, because we are a mixture of good and evil, so God must be tempted, sometimes, to lie. The Bible says – God says, “It is impossible for Me to lie!” It is impossible for Him to lie. It’s not possible, because it goes against His nature. He just can’t do it! He can’t hate – I mean, He hates things, but I mean hate in the way that we do – just destructive hatred that people have. God can’t covet. He can’t do those things. He is absolute goodness. God is incorruptible.

Psalms 71 – we’re actually going to go to a couple of Psalms, here, today. Then we’ll go to the New Testament here in a little bit. Psalms 71, verse 14 – look how David says his life has meaning because he understands the greatness and holiness and uniqueness and incorruptible goodness of God. It would be horrible to think that God could be corrupted! Can you imagine living for eternity with us always living on the edge, that as soon as God gets corrupted, this all goes back to what it used to be? Who would want to live in eternity like that? We’d just all go back to Satan’s world, only worse – because Satan has limited power. It is great to know that God is absolute goodness and incorruptible. His character cannot be corrupted. Verse 14 says:

Psalms 71:14 – But I will hope continually – see the benefit David gets in his life, because he understands the uniqueness of God and the holiness of God – I will hope continually and praise You, and yet more and more – he says, “Just more and more – I can’t stop in my adoration of You and my praise of You and my worship of You!” My mouth shall tell of what? Your righteousness. God doesn’t sin. God can’t sin. God doesn’t do things to hurt…there’s no viciousness in God. He may do things to hurt, as far as a punishment, but His motivations are always good. His motivations are always to bring out good. …and Your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits. He says, “I don’t know the limits of God’s righteousness and salvation.” There are no limits. He says, “How do I define something…I can’t even put it into a sentence because there’s no limit.” There’s a limit to a sentence. There’s a limit to words. And David says, “I can’t find limits to the greatness and goodness of the Being I worship as God.” I will go with the strength of the LORD God. I will make mention of Your righteousness – of Yours only. David said, “I’m not going to talk about my righteousness, because there are extreme limits to my righteousness. But I’m going to talk about Yours.”

The third way that we need to recognize God’s worthiness – His holiness – is that God’s wisdom will always produce the good for everyone involved – Gods wisdom. The truth is, we really don’t trust God’s wisdom much of the time. Because God doesn’t give us the answer that we want, we believe that, either He disengaged, or that, maybe, He doesn’t know what He’s doing, or He just doesn’t love me – God just doesn’t care for me, because the answer I get isn’t what I want. At that point, what we’re actually saying is, “I do not value God’s wisdom. I believe my wisdom is better. I believe my wisdom – my solutions – are better than God’s.” Come on! We hide that we don’t think that, but yes, we do! “That’s not what I think it is”…what you feel. Every time God doesn’t work out what we want, and we feel angry and upset and filled with anxiety, what we’re saying is, “You know what? You really don’t know what You’re doing here. I have a better idea – a better solution.” (or maybe I’m the only one who’s done that), because we don’t honor God’s holiness, because we don’t accept that His decisions – His wisdom – always leads to what’s good for everyone involved.

It’s interesting how Paul says this, and yet, when I go back and forth here between the New Testament and the Old Testament, we’re going to be looking at people’s experiences, because that’s what I want to talk about today – and God’s holiness. I can sit here and theologically talk about God’s holiness, and we can have seven points of God’s holiness. I want this to get into the core of who we are, so I’m going to explain it in other people’s experiences, just like we looked at David’s experiences. This is how David experienced it.

Let’s look at how Paul experienced this idea of God’s wisdom. Romans 11. Because, even though Paul is the greatest theological writer of the New Testament, He also shows enormous emotion in his writings. Romans, chapter 11 – let’s pick it up in verse 33.

Romans 11:33 – Oh – when a sentence starts with “Oh!” or “Wow!” or “Hey!” this is an expression of an emotion – he says, “Wow!” I have no idea what that word is in the Greek; I’ll have to look it up some day. It’s not like, “Okay, let’s sit down and let’s study the etymology of the word.” It is an expression that comes out from the person – an emotional expression. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! He says, “When I look at the wisdom and knowledge of God, I am just overwhelmed. It’s deep and deep and deep.” And it’s sort of like what David is saying. “There’s no limit to this! I can’t find the bottom to the depths. I can’t find the top to the heights of how God thinks!” How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out. He says, “The more I know about God” – what Paul’s saying here – “the more I am absolutely fascinated and overwhelmed with the way He thinks!”

 I’ve thought about that. The older I get and get these little glimpses into God, the more I’m absolutely amazed that…this is just fascinating and this is just way beyond me. This is so far beyond the way I think, the way I feel. Sometimes I don’t feel like a child of God, I feel like an amoeba. Wow! Do you still have wow-factors with God? What’s missing in our lives if we still don’t have wow-factors? Are we not understanding God’s holiness and that He is interacting with us? Paul could still say, “Wow! I don’t understand and this is absolutely amazing!” He says in verse 34 – he quotes from the Old Testament:

V-34 – For who has known the mind of the Lord? For who has been His counselor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. He is everything! God created it. He sustains it. He owns it. He does have the right to rule over what He’s made.

You know, if you went out and made a garden – planted a garden – and all your neighbors came and said, “We’re going to steal what’s in your garden,” you would say, “No, it’s my land. I did the work. It belongs to me.” But when God, who created everything, says, “It belongs to Me,” we say, “Oh no, it doesn’t. Uh-uh, no, no, no. I am your equal.”

I was talking to someone the other day who saw the movie, Noah – I haven’t seen the movie, Noah – and they made an interesting comment. They said there’s a part in there where one man says to Noah, “Look, I am like God. I was made in the image of God and I give life and I take life.” And the person said, “You know what? I thought about it,” and he said, “that is the way we are as human beings. I’m like God.”

Now, we may be in the image of God, but we’re not God. This is His and He gives it to us. So, Paul…you see this expression from the depths of who he is. The more I understand about God, the more wow-moments I have. He didn’t say, “I understand everything.” He said, “I don’t understand much of it. I just follow because I believe in Him.” In the end, there will be times in life when you follow God not because you understand, but because you simply trust. That’s the wow-factor. “I don’t know where this is going, but let’s go, because God is leading.”

A fourth point is, God’s character defines love. What we do is, we judge God by our definitions of love. It is God who defines what love is. And, of course, His greatest expression of love, according to Romans 5:8, is, He sent Jesus Christ to die for us.

And then, the fifth point in understanding God’s holiness is – this is very important – we’re not going to spend a lot of time on it, but it is important – God will judge those who refuse Him. His holiness, His incorruptibility, His goodness requires eternal judgment on those who refuse Him. And that’s something we always must remember in our relationship with Him.

So when we start to consider these things, instead of saying, like this man did – “God is sort of arrogant and egotistical” – we get to a point where David did in Psalm 8. Psalm, chapter 8, verse 4 – well, let’s start in verse 3 – he says;

Psalm 8:3 – When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars which You have ordained – he says, “When I look at Your creation, when I look at what You do – what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man, that you visit him? You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. He said, “You made us less than angels and why would you even pay attention to us? And yet, you have given us the earth.” This is God’s gift to us. Verse 6:

V-6 – You have made him – human beings – to have dominion over the works of Your hands. You have put all things under his feet – all sheep and oxen, yea, the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and all that passes through the paths of the sea. O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth!

This is where we are: What is man that You are mindful of him? We also know this is a messianic prophecy, referring to how Jesus Christ will be given rule – as God who became man. But it also has a greater context in us. Now, who are we that God should be mindful of any of us. God is mindful of human beings because we were created in His image to be His children, and because we can receive His Holy Spirit and become holy – some of the uniqueness of God – incorruptibility, goodness, love, mercy, creativity – all those things can be given to us as we are created into His children and prepared for eternal life.

And so that brings us to the four things I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon that help us hallow God – in other words, as God gives us holiness, we are to give holiness back. Jesus said, “Pray, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name….” You look at the first four of the Ten Commandments, which I went through in that Bible study last week…. You know, that Bible study was a really important Bible study to show how the Ten Commandments are not only negative in their application, but positive in their application. (Are we going to be able to put that online? With the slides? No. Okay. But we will put that online so you can, at least hear it. There were slides involved, but you don’t need the slides to get everything that was said.) So for those of you that missed it, that’s a very important Bible study. And those first four commandments tell us how we are to – as God gives us holiness – we are to express holiness to Him. We are to express the holiness He is giving us back to Him in the way that we keep the Sabbath, in the way that we have no other gods before Him, or don’t have idols.

The four things I mentioned at the beginning…the first one was obedience. We express the holiness that God has given to us through our obedience to Him. 1 Peter, chapter 2 – 2:9 – 1 Peter 2, verse 9 says, speaking of the church – those who have received God’s Holy Spirit:

1 Peter 2:9 – You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are a holy people. Now that holiness wasn’t something we generated. You say, “Well, I don’t want to say, ‘I’m holy.’” You didn’t make yourself holy. The person next to you didn’t make you holy. We are holy because God said, “I will make you holy.” You are here, on the holy Sabbath day, because God has declared you holy. That’s not just some kind of label. You can take a big label and stick it here that says, “I am a horse.” That doesn’t make me a horse. This has to become reality. We have to be a holy people before God. And why? Why are we a holy people? This is really important. That you may proclaim the      praises of Him who called you out of the darkness into His marvelous light. We are made holy so that we can proclaim God – not so that we can hide and wait for Christ to return, not so we can live in a cave and wait for Christ to come back. We aren’t allowed to do that. We are to proclaim – well, that’s pretty dangerous at times. Yes, it is. But that’s why you are holy – to be His child and to proclaim Him. He says – verse 10:

V-10 – who once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now obtained mercy. God gave us something we did not have – mercy. God gave us something we did not have – holiness, uniqueness, specialness to Him. God gave us something. What is our response supposed to be? Verse 11:

V-11 – Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against your as evildoers, they may, by your good works, which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. You and I can’t hide this. We’re not supposed to hide this. Notice: we glorify God by our works to the world as a holy people, so that while we are persecuted for doing so, God may be glorified in the resurrection when those people say, “Oh, You really are God! You really are God. Yeah, I remember. Somebody told me that.” They may not even remember a name. Some of the people who stoned Paul probably don’t even remember his name. “Who was that crazy guy we stoned a couple years        ago? Remember him?” “Yeah, he lived. That was so bizarre! He lived. Man, he looked terrible. That guy was all gnarled up the rest of his life. What was his name?” Didn’t even remember his name! But when Christ comes back, and in the Great White Throne Judgment when they’re resurrected, and they say, “Remember Paul?” “Oh, that’s the guy we stoned.” They will glorify – not Paul – they will glorify God.

You and I are made holy so that every day we are to glorify God in our obedience – our obedience to His laws, our obedience to what the New Testament teaches us, what Jesus Christ taught us. And that obedience…but that isn’t just between you and God. It would actually be a lot simpler if it was. It is to be an obedience that is exhibited to the Gentiles – that just means nations – to the nations, to the people around you. You are to exhibit holiness and righteousness.

What happens when we don’t? Romans, chapter 2. I mentioned this in the Bible study last week, but I’m actually going to read it – Romans, chapter 2, verse 21. Paul is talking to the church here. In Romans 2:21 he says:

Romans 2:21 – You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make boasts in the law, do you honor God through breaking the law? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.
You can’t hide holiness, because what holiness means is, you’re unique, you’re different. Not everything is holy, right? You can’t hide holiness. And we have to be careful that we don’t dishonor God’s holiness because we bring discredit to His name when others see what we do. If your neighbor thinks you’re just a weirdo that hates people, that never helps anybody…. You know, “That guy’s so crazy, if you’d go over to say hi to him, his wife might shoot you with a shotgun or something. They’re just nutty people!” Now if they think we nutty because we keep the Sabbath, that’s okay. If they think we’re nutty because we’re holy, that’s okay. If they think we’re nutty because we’re nutty, it’s not okay. As holy people, it isn’t just between us and God, because, as we already read in 1 Peter, we are to shine in the darkness of the world so that they will glorify God. And they may not glorify him until the resurrection. And when we don’t, according to Romans…Paul says, “When we don’t, people can blaspheme God because of our example.” Obedience is so important. And it’s not just between us and God.

Our calling is great because God said, “You be My example of holiness.” The uniqueness of God is to be shown through us to the world. That what the problem is, when we get into “We’re the true church, we’re the true church, we’re the true church. We’re so unique, we’re so unique.” Ah, we’re already in a bad place. We are to exhibit God’s uniqueness. That’s what we’re all about – God’s uniqueness. Or, we’re just interested in making disciples come into our church so they can be just like us, so they can go around saying, “I’m part of the true church, so I’m special.” No, you were put into the church by God. It was God who called you. It was God who put His Spirit in you. It is God who does this in us. It is not us. We simply submit and follow.

The second one – after obedience – was honor, which means to show great respect. You honor somebody, or you honor something, you show it. It’s very interesting. The Greek word translated honor in the New Testament, literally means a valuing. In other words, you value something. You value it. You honor it. And it’s like I said at the Bible study last week, “If I offered you a penny or a $50.00 gold piece” – which is worth over $1,300.00 ($50.00 American gold piece – it’s minted every year – it’s worth the price of an ounce of gold, which is over $1,300.00 – and I said, “Which one do you value the most?” nobody would pick the penny. It costs more to make a penny than the penny’s worth! Nobody would pick the penny. It’s what you value.

Honoring God means we value God. We value what He says. We value His interaction in our lives. We value His greatness, His goodness, His uniqueness, His incorruptibility. We value that and we honor it. We honor it in the way we talk, in the way we act, the way we think.

1 Timothy 1 – interesting – another emotional expression by Paul. Once again, I’m trying to do this today not just by going through “Okay, here’s the theological reasons; here’s what the Bible teaches,” but experiences of people and what they felt and thought as they went through these experiences. 1 Timothy 1, verse 12 – think what Paul is saying here to a young man he is teaching to be a minister. And he says to him:

1 Timothy 1:12 – And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Although, he could say, “Look, I’m a minister of God,” and nobody could argue with that. But Paul was also aware of something else. He was aware of how he got there. Although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man – literally, it could mean he was violently arrogant – “I was just a violently arrogant man” – but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. And this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

The honor he pays God here – and Christ – is because he recognizes his worthlessness without the Father and Christ. The man who said to me, “God is just arrogant!”…he did not understand his own worthlessness without God. We are nothing without God. Nothing! It’s like Elihu said, “All your righteousness, Job, what does that mean to God? Does that change Him? Does that make him better?” God’s righteousness makes me better. My righteousness doesn’t make God any better. My righteousness doesn’t make God any better. “You can’t measure the depths. You can find the limits,” as David said. It doesn’t make Him any better. He makes me better. And this is what he’s saying. He understood. He honored God and he honor Christ, because he understood he own worthlessness without Him.

Notice what he says – verse 16:

V-16 – However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me, first, Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering as a pattern for those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. Now to the King – eternal, immortal, invisible, to God alone is wise. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Notice all the things we’ve been talking about: Creator, Sustainer, wisdom, power. But it all, in Paul’s mind, came down to, “I obtained mercy so God could show other people how it works.” And that is where we must go. That’s where we must go or all we do is become people who condemn everybody else. “Oh, you don’t know. You think you have an immortal soul. Boy, will Christ show you different when He comes and fire comes out you melt on your bones!” We literally can get to the place where we despise others.

What’s interesting is all through Sabbath-keepers’ history, there is a point where groups form who don’t want anybody new, because they’re not good enough. They’ve grown to the point, “Well, these new people will make us dirty.” There was a group in the 1800s that did that. It was called The Closed Door Doctrine. God wasn’t going to call anybody else because they would make us dirty, because we’ve grown to such a high status.” Can you imagine the apostle Paul thinking that way? The apostle Paul thought, “I am a proto-type. If God can take me and show me mercy, this is what I’ll tell everybody else. If He would show me mercy – the chief of sinners – think what He’ll give you! What will God hold back from any of us, if He’ll do this for me?”

You know, we’re working on this seminar up in Cincinnati and the one thing they said…I’ll talk more about this as we get closer to it, but it’s an interesting concept. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. We looked at a writing manual that Herbert Armstrong had written – Herbert Armstrong wrote a writing manual back in the late 1960s/early 70s for all the writers of The Plain Truth and Good News and Tomorrow’s World – and we realized we were breaking almost everything he said, because he said, “Stop talking to them in church-speak. Go to them where they are.” So, they produced books like Don’t Be a Crime Victim. “What in the world? That’s not preaching the gospel.” To him, it was, because you went where they were. And he produced books like 7 Laws of Success, where he didn’t even mention God until the seventh law. He said, “You’ve got to go where they are.” Other booklets mentioned God in the first sentence, but you see what I mean. He did different things to reach people where they were.

Of course, I’m brought in really late into this discussion – because I wasn’t part of the original…. Did I tell you how I got to be part of this project? Ad agency said, “Who are you having do this?” “Some other guy is doing it.” They said, “Okay, what we want you to do is a Google search on all the names of your ministers.” And I had the best Google search. That’s how I got…I had the best Google search. My name is not…Richard Petty and Tom Petty come up, there are not a lot of Gary Pettys out there. And that’s why I’m doing it. That’s sort of humbling, you know. “We didn’t pick you because we thought you were best. You just had the best Google search.”

But one of the things we talked about…if we go where they are…I’ll show you…maybe I’ll bring it next week…we actually went out…the message is Why Were You Born?...we went out on the street and asked dozens of people, “Why were you born?” and we produced a little video that we’re going to play at the beginning. Most people had no idea. One man said, “Because my mother and my father planned it, I think. That’s why I was born.” One woman said, “Because my parents had a romp in the sack. That’s why I was born.” A lot of people just stared. They didn’t know how to answer it. Now we’re going to go tell them, “Let’s turn to Deuteronomy 24.” That doesn’t mean anything at that point – where they are.

So they said, “Okay, what have you got to do upfront to let them know you have something you want to give them – you want to share with them.” And I said what I’ve said to you many times. I said, “All I’m going to say is, ‘What I’m going to give you tonight is one starving man telling other starving people where to get food.’” Yes, there is a time to get up and tell people, “Repent or God’s going to judge you.” And we do that. We do that on Beyond Today all the time. But you know, there’s a time to sit down with people, like Jesus Christ did….  And Jesus Christ sat down with prostitutes. Have we become so self-righteous that we wouldn’t sit down and teach the prostitutes the gospel? The Pharisees wouldn’t. The Pharisees said that they would be made dirty by them.

I don’t know how I got off on that. It’s Paul here. Paul’s attitude is so different. It’s so different. What I just read here is a man just pouring out his whole insides to a young man, trying to explain to him what this is all about. And this older man says, “I’m a proto-type. God didn’t call me because I was the best man in Judaism” – which he was. He was a Jew of Jews! He said, “When I realized what that was all about, I realized my Judaism was dung.” That’s what he calls it. “My Judaism was dung when I realized what I was missing in that religion.” Judaism today is not the religion of the Bible. Understand that. It has elements of it, but it’s not the religion of the Bible. If it was, they would not have denied Jesus Christ. So we have to understand that.

There’s a very emotional statement there that we read through and don’t realize what this man is doing. You have to think of it. This is an older man – toward the end of his life – trying to tell a younger man, “Honor God. I honor Him because I realize my own worthlessness.” We honor God in the way we dress, in not using His name in vain. We honor God in all the things that we do.

The third point was worship. Worship means to show a deep – now this is what it means in English – a deep respect, love and awe. It means you’re impressed, okay? Worship is to outwardly express that you were impressed, you were overwhelmed – that you love. Sometimes people say that they get very uncomfortable with worship – or what they consider worship – mainly people think of Pentecostalism as worship. And that’s not worship. But worship is expressed in our prayer towards God. How humbly do we do that?  It is expressed in our attitudes and how we approach God on the Sabbath. When we get into how to keep the Sabbath holy, many times, we’re missing the blessing of the Sabbath, because we’re not keeping it holy.

It is expressed in how you give your tithes and offerings to God. I’ve had people say, “Well, I don’t know. I think the church has too much money. Why should I give my offerings to the church?” And I say, “Well, then, don’t. Give your offerings to God. Find someplace that you feel that God’s there, and give them your money. Or, I don’t know, give it to God somehow. You don’t want to give an offering at the holy days? Don’t give it. But give it to God, because that’s a command. So you find a place to give it.” Everybody is a little surprised at that. Aren’t you going to defend the church? No, this isn’t about the church. It’s about God! We are the church. But, if you worship God in awe, in reverence, in love, then you will give because you want to. A dollar given out of a desire to worship God is better than a million dollars given grudgingly. It’s doesn’t mean anything to God. He owns everything. What does He need a million dollars for?

Worship is this giving to God of our time and our service. There is a lot of unhappiness in the world because we don’t serve God. The foundation of happiness is serving God and then serving other people.

Look at Psalm 96. We keep going back and forth between two Jews that express things so amazingly. David was a Jew. Paul was a Jew. Well, actually, Paul was not. He was from the tribe of Benjamin. Psalm 96, verse 1:

Psalm 96:1 – O sing to the LORD a new song. Sing to the LORD, all the earth. We’re talking about singing, in a minute, too, in the next point we make. Sing to the LORD, bless His name. Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day – proclaim it! Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples, for the LORD is great and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods, for all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD has made the heavens. Honor and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty are His sanctuary. Give to the LORD, O families of the earth. Give to the LORD glory and strength. Give the LORD the glory due His name, bring an offering and come to His courts. O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. Tremble before Him, all the earth.

Look at all the elements we’ve been talking about and David brings it down into nine verses! It’s taken me 50 minutes to say what he wrote in nine verses. Honor God. Look at His creation. Look at His strength. Look at His goodness. Look at His wonder. Have a “Wow!” moment from time to time, because of God. Are we so tied up in the world, and our own problems, and our own issues that we don’t have any “Wow!” moments? What a “Wow!” moment Psalm 96 is! There’s almost this energy…I don’t know…it would be interesting to see this one put to music. I tell you what, it wouldn’t be like singing By the Waters of Babylon, okay? You know, “by the waters of Babylon….” I’m not saying we shouldn’t sing that song. I’m just saying, “Let’s not sing it every Sabbath,” okay? Now, some of you, that’s your favorite hymn. I’m sorry. That one just popped into my mind. “There we wept, and there we sat down….” This one isn’t like that. By the way, that is a psalm. It is a song from the Bible, so it’s a song. So it should be sung. But this one, I don’t know. You’d have to have some…I think you’d have to have a mariachi band for this one! You’d have to have some drums and a guitar. I mean, you couldn’t do this one! Right? Sing to the LORD a new song! Sing! Sing! Sing! This is an expression of emotion. I’m not saying we’ve got to be Pentecostal. I’m not saying that. I’m saying this is an expression – it’s in the Bible, folks! – of worship and honor and praise. The whole psalm is like that. You can read the rest of it – the whole psalm is like that. Worship to show this respect and awe.

Now, you may have a personality where you don’t express things the way others do. Some people would sing this dance! David would dance! I wouldn’t dance, okay? Some of you may have a quiet personality, where this would be expressed privately in some little secret prayer to God. That’s okay. Okay? You understand? That’s the thing about worship. There’s corporate worship, where we come to church and we do this as a group, but worship is also private. I know people who say, “When I pray, it’s very quiet and I get on my knees every time.” Good. That’s your worship of God. I’ve had other people come to me and say, “Is it okay that sometimes I just put on a song that’s about God and I sing praises to God in my house?” Sing away!

Worship God! There’s has to be a connection between us and God. The moment I say this, I know someone is going to accuse me of preaching Pentecostalism, and I am not. But you know what, sometimes I think we’d kick David out of the church. I think we’d kick David out of the church. There’s a personal connection everyone has between you and God, and it’s different. I know. I had three children – and how each of them relates to me is different. And how I have to relate to each of them is different. I love them all the same, but it is slightly different. That doesn’t mean that they love me any less. It means they are their own person and I have to acknowledge them as their own person. God acknowledges you as your own person. If He didn’t, He would stipulate exactly how you are to do everything, and He doesn’t in the attitude of how you personally worship Him.

Now, when we get into group worship, we have to put…you know, read 1 Corinthians. He said, “You’ve got to put some stipulations to this,” because it was mayhem when everybody worshipped just however they wanted. There are stipulations in a group. You worship God in a way that expresses the connection you have between you and God within reason. You’re not to speak in tongues. Okay? I’m not saying, run around the house, dancing in the back of the yard under the moonlight naked. Okay? I’m not saying anything like that! That’s paganism.

The last one is praise. Now, praise is acknowledging God in an action. Usually, it’s by singing, or praying, or telling other people. So, many times, praising is a public thing. And that’s why our congregational singing is important. Congregational singing is important. That’s why special music is important.

Mr. Isaac is very careful when he picks music. He knows there is certain music that some people might like, that might be offensive to others. See, he tries to be very careful that we don’t do anything that would be offensive to people, because that’s not what we want to do. I mean, there are certain people that would like certain kinds of music more than others. And we have to very careful what we do in this kind of setting.

When I drive to Austin this afternoon, I will have the Myers Brothers on, and I’ll be singing at the top of my voice – which, for you, is a blessing you’re not there! I’ll forget. I’ll put on the Myers Brothers and I’ll be singing away, and my wife will say, “You’re hurting my ears.” In fact, I do it so much that my granddaughter said – she knows the Myers, because two of the brothers go to the church where she is – and she said, “You know, Grandpa, you’re starting to sing just like them.” I wouldn’t play most of their songs at Sabbath services, okay? Although, there are some that I would like to see done at Sabbath services, because I think they would be proper.

Psalms 66 – I think, too, sometimes, we have to be careful. I’ve thought about this. As a man, I approach God is a certain way and I find that, many times, women approach God in a different way. And so, because all the ministers are men, I’ve had dozens of women come up, over the years, and think there is something wrong with them. No, you’re His daughter. You know, the way my son and I relate is a little different than the way I relate to my daughters. That relationship is very personal between you and your Father. One woman came to me and said, “I think there is something wrong with my prayer life.” She said, “I’ll pray for a half-hour at a time….” Instead of using her dishwasher, she’d wash her dishes, because looking out her window was a beautiful mountain range. And she’d wash her dishes and she would just pray. And she said, “Is that wrong?” I said, “Are you connected to God? Is He answering your prayers? Does He interact with you?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Who am I to say that’s wrong? That’s the way you relate to your Dad!”

But praise is, many times, done in a public manner. Sometimes it’s not, but it usually has to do with a voice, or a singing, or a discussion, or simply saying, “Thank you, God.” Praise has to do with thankfulness. And really, when you get down to it, every time you thank God, you’re praising Him. “Thank you!”

If you feel you are unappreciated, or you feel that you don’t have what other people have, I want you to do something. I want you, every day, to make a list of what you should be thankful to God for and read it. I did that recently when I was thinking about all the work that I had to do on my house. And I got just discouraged. Man, I’ve got this to do and that to do. And I went outside, and I looked at my house, and I said, “You know what, God? This is a pretty nice house. Thank you.” And it was funny, because I can honestly say, all the work I had to do on the house didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter anymore. “Wow! I have a brick house. I don’t live in a hut some place – dirt hut some place. Thank you!” In fact, I got so lazy, I didn’t do any work.

Psalms 66:1 – Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth! Sing out the honor of His name. We’re back to this obedience and honor and worship and praise over and over again. Make His praise glorious. Say to God – you don’t have to sing it; it doesn’t even have to be public – say to God, “How awesome are Your works! This is amazing! This a ‘Wow!’ moment, God. How awesome are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power, Your enemies shall submit themselves to You.” All the earth shall worship You and sing praises to You. They shall sing praises to Your name.

Sometimes we get… “We don’t want to have too much music.” And I agree. We don’t want to make the church nothing but music. That would be wrong. And music can be overworked. And music can be used to work people up into a mood, but you can’t read that psalm and not believe that music has something to do with what God wants us to do. Praise God. Praise God when you sing together in services. Sometimes, in services, I find myself not singing, but looking around and looking at everybody else singing, and it makes my joyful. It makes me joyful.

At the beginning I stated that the scriptures say that God is holy, unique, righteous, powerful and incorruptible, so only He can make a person, object or place holy. God has given you some of His holiness. It is His desire to make you and me holy. If you understand His intrinsic value – who He is – then you will respond in obedience, honor, worship and praise. We will respond in all four of those areas – not just in intellectual understanding. I urge you to make these four attitudes definite goals in your life. Write them down. Put them on a 3 x 5 card. Put up so you look at them. Obey, honor, worship and praise God today. And use every day – find every day – whatever you’re doing – find a way every day to do those things – to obey, honor, worship and praise.