Worship and Praise God For His Holiness

Last week, I mentioned about a man that I knew many years ago who believed in the existence of God, totally believed in the existence of God, but he resented God. He was consumed with resentment of God because he didn't trust him. He said, how could a God who was supposed to be loving have a God who has all power have my life be absolutely filled with trials and horrible experiences and pain and suffering?

He said, no decent God, no decent being would do that to somebody. And he just struggled and struggled. I spent many hours with the man over the years, and then I lost track of him. I don't know whatever happened to him. But this resentment that God, how dare God treat me this way? Because he said, how could He tell us to obey him? How can He say, well, you obey me and you worship me? There are a lot of people that look at God as being egotistical. Now, I've read a lot of articles recently, in the last probably year or two, and some research we were doing for Beyond Today and the New Age movement and different things that are happening in Christianity.

And one of the things I found interesting that came up over and over and over again on major Christian sites were articles or questions from people, how can we believe in the God of the Old Testament? He killed people. He's cruel. The God I worship could never be like that God. I would not worship a God like that. I sure wouldn't obey a God like that. Fortunately, Jesus came to tell us that the Old Testament God was just a fluke. Something wrong with Him. He didn't know what He was doing. Or the common belief is the Old Testament God is made up by men. They misunderstood God, and Jesus came to say, look, you don't even understand. In fact, an article I read this week said that one of the reasons Jesus came was to do away with the paganism and infiltrated Judaism like the killing of animals, the sacrificing of animals with paganism, because no God would be cruel to animals.

So Jesus had to come to get all this paganism out of Judaism. That is as much of our common belief than you realize. And yet, last week, it was the second sermon and a series of sermons on holiness. And I said that we have to have two responses to God's holiness. We talked about sanctification and we talked about God's holiness. And that is we must obey and honor Him. And we're going to carry that over a little bit farther here today into other responses we should have for God when we understand what holiness is. Holiness simply means something is unique.

It's different. It's separate. And that's what the little meaning is. Meaning is it's separate. It's not like anything else. And that's why there's angels in heaven that proclaim before God that He is holy, holy, holy. You are unique. You are different. You are separate. God is above all things. He's transcendent. We talked about that last time.

In fact, we talked about that in the first sermon. He's transcendent. There are no physical laws that make God do anything. He's not subject to any physical laws. He's above His creation. He interacts with His creation, but He's beyond it. A concept that we can't even understand. And so what God says, this holy person, this is, I am holy. I am separate. I am unique. I am different. I'm above everything. And then He says, I choose people.

I choose places. I even choose time. And I say, this is holy. And this concept of the doctrine of sanctification, one of the most important doctrines in the entire Bible, is one that we haven't explored in the way that we should. What does it mean when God says, this is holy? He literally says, I separate you from all the common and mundane, all the corrupt things of the physical universe.

I take all this corrupt, mundane, common things, or people, or places, or time, and I pull this out and I say, this is separated for me. That's what God says. So it's separated from something. It's separated from the common and the corrupt. And it's separated to something.

It's separated to God. And if we really understand that, then when we get to the concept of sanctification, and we went through a number of scriptures that talked about how God calls us to be sanctified. And Paul especially talks about how we are in the process of sanctification. And sanctification is a process. It's very interesting. To be sanctified simply means whether it's Greek or Hebrew, you are made holy. You are holy. God said, this tabernacle that He created with Moses and Aaron, He said, this is sanctified. This is holy. It's mine, separated from everything else. It now takes on attributes of holiness. That's why if you face the tabernacle, you died.

It was a personal attack on the holiness of God to profane something He had declared holy because it was His, His personally. We're into the sovereignty of God, that He owns everything, and it's His right to do with it whatever He wants.

So we have people that are called in the New Testament to be holy. We went through some of those scriptures. You are a holy people. That God has separated for Himself to take on aspects of holiness to be sanctified, to go through the process of sanctification.

You and I are in the process of sanctification. And the other way that can happen is through God's what? Holy Spirit. His unique, special, different spirit that is given to us and that makes us holy. To be declared holy and stay corrupt is to not be holy. And I use the example of someone who lives in a sewer, and you bring them up out of the sewer and say, I declare you clean, and then you allow them to still be filthy.

Well, the declaration that you're clean is meaningless, isn't it? You're still covered with sewage. To declare you're clean means you have to become clean. To be declared holy means you have to actually become holy. It's very interesting. In the Old Testament, you will find the concept of holiness tied into cleanliness or cleanness. You were always cleaned to become holy, including you had to take a bath.

You had to become clean in order to be holy. Well, spiritually, we must take on attributes of holiness or sanctification isn't taking place.

So we talked about our response as obedience and honor. We're going to talk about two more responses today. Two more responses. Worship and praise. So we respond with obedience and honoring God. We also respond with worship and praise. We're going to have to discuss what those terms even mean. First of all, let me talk about some of the reasons why God is worthy of worship and praise. So this is where the friend of mine years ago, we talked about these things. He could not grasp how could He be worthy of worship when He allows people to die. He allows people to get sick. How can He be worship of praise when He allows crime, when He allows war? How can that God be worthy of worship and praise? Well, let's look at some ways what the Scripture says He is worthy of worship and praise. The first one is He is the Creator and Sustainer of all life. You know, from a purely selfish viewpoint, we need to worship and praise the one who made us and the one who sustains life. All life exists because of one thing. God decides it exists.

When He decides that someone does not exist anymore or something does not exist anymore, you know what happens to it? It dies.

Everything exists because He sustains it. And we know from the New Testament, He sustains it through Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, we are so removed because of technology and just the fast pace of our lives from nature itself. What you will find in the Scripture is nature drew people to God. The creation drew people to God because they would say, how does this happen? This is so amazing and so complex. God sustains it. You know what it means that if God sustains the universe, I'm not just talking about the earth and all of its complexity, the whole universe is sustained. In other words, everything stays in its motions. Everything stays where it's supposed to be. Everything does what it's supposed to do because God is keeping it going that way.

He makes sure it goes that way. You know, I saw something on the Smithsonian channel here, I know in the last six months or so, about how the world is probably going to be destroyed sometime in the near future by a giant asteroid. And all these scientists talked about what's going to happen and, you know, one just missed us recently and I'm not scared by that.

Because God sustains His universe. It's not God's plan for an asteroid to hit this planet. So it's not going to. I mean a big one, enough to destroy the planet.

This means God has to be able... His power goes beyond the earth, goes beyond the little things we look at. His power is throughout the entire universe.

David dealt with that. Let's go to Psalm 139.

David wrestled with concepts of God. And as we go through holiness, these first three, especially three sermons, and then we'll start to get into the even more specific aspects of sanctification. But when David looked at God, he wanted to understand God. The more he tried to understand God, the more he said, I worship you and I praise you. We're going to have to, like I said, break down what worship and praise actually means. Psalm 139, verse 7. I'm going to read a little bit of a long passage here, but just to capture everything that David says. Verse 7 says, where can I go from your spirit, the mind, the power of God? Where do I go from you? Where do I go from your love? Where do I go from who you are? Or where shall I flee from your presence? That's a very interesting concept. The Spirit of God meant God's presence. God is there. The special presence of God. He said, where can I go where God can't find me? He says, if I ascend into heaven, you are there. He didn't say, if I go into heaven, you'll find me. He says, if I go there, you're already there.

No matter where I go, you're already there. He says, if I make my bed in hell or down inside the pit, down inside the ground, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even if your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me, or even there your right hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall fall on me. Okay, I'll just go into the darkest place. God isn't there. Even the night shall be light about me. Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to you. So darkness, lightness, we can say vacuum, atmosphere, it means something. He's there. For you formed my inward parts, you covered me in my mother's womb. What does this cause him to do? Now, remember, he's not thinking about all the bad things that's happened in his life. He's thinking about God. And when he thinks about God, he says, I will praise you. I've got to say something here. I've got to sing something here. I've got to shout something. I've got to say something about how wonderful you are. He said, I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret. He says, you knew, you know, when I was in the womb, formed, you knew me. You were there.

As skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And in your book, they were written, the day's fashion for me, when as yet there were none of them. Now, notice his response from this. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God. How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more than the number of the sand. And when I awake, I am still with you. I can't go anyplace that God isn't already there.

And he says, I will praise you for that. The first reason, and the reasons we're going to go through here that we should worship and praise God, is He is the Creator and Sustainer of life. Like I said, even from a selfish viewpoint, you live because He says so. I live because He says so.

And He sustains the universe. The second, and this is something that my friend had a hard time dealing with, and a lot of people do, is that God's character is absolute goodness.

You know, I've talked to people that said, well, you know, God, the thing about God is that His character is so strong that He just always is able to resist temptation. You know, that's a wrong viewpoint of God. God can't be tempted. See, we try to fast you like us. Yeah, if you have strong enough character, you can resist temptation.

Or who was it? Oscar Wilde has said, I can resist everything but temptation.

So we think He's like us. He's not tempted because it is not His nature to be attracted to evil. I don't know if you realize how thankful we should be that He can't be attracted to evil. It's repulsive to Him. It is His intrinsic value. It is who He is. He can't be attracted to evil because His very nature is good. His very nature is goodness. That's why God is incorruptible. And there is something we need to praise and worship Him for. He can't be corrupted like we are. He can't be corrupted. You and I are all corrupted. And He can't be. What are you going to bribe God with? I own the universe. Bribe me with something. Go ahead. What are you going to tempt God with? Well, God, you know, I know everybody else gives you 10 percent. You get 12 to half percent. What are you going to bribe God with? He's incorruptible.

So we get into these meaningless debates, you know. If God can do anything, can He sin? That is the most ridiculous question. God doesn't sin because God won't sin.

That other thing is just meaningless sophistry. It's just meaningless. God won't sin because He won't sin. Sin is repugnant. He has no desire. Therefore, there's no temptation.

He will not do anything against His own nature. And nothing can make Him do something against His nature. See, that's where you and I was again. We limit God because you and I do all kinds of things that are against what we want to do.

You know, okay, I'm not going to yell at my husband. I've been yelling at him too much late. I'm not going to yell at my husband. Then he does something stupid and you're yelling at him.

Right? And then it's like, oh, I wasn't going to do that. I wasn't going to do that. I was going to try. I prayed. God helped me not do that. And then I did it. Then we think, well, God must be that way.

What could make God go against His own nature? It's sure not you and me. We're not that big.

We're not that powerful. There's a very interesting passage in Hebrews 6.

Hebrews 6. It's one of those passages we read through many times. Don't pay a lot of attention to it. And yet the writer of Hebrews is making a very important point about the nature of God. We'll pick up the context here in verse 13. Hebrews 6. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, He swore by himself, saying, Surely I will bless you in multiplying, I will multiply you. Now, we don't live in a culture of swearing, but I guess we do, but it's in a form of contracts. When you sign a contract for that new car, and the notary – notarizes it – you have sworn, you have said, even if you say, I don't swear, you've made a promise. You have made a promise, I am doing this.

And what they would do is collateral. Get a load, they would collateral, right?

Well, what they would do in the ancient world is, okay, swear by God, because He's greater than you. In other words, if you don't fulfill your promise, God will take care of you.

Or swear by the temple. I swear by my mother's grave. I've actually heard people say that, you know? Like, well, my mother come out of the grave, or why not go to heaven if this happens? And people swear by it. It's a dangerous thing to swear. And here he says, God simply said, I will do it. And it was a form of, I swear, I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to do it.

And then he goes on to explain. So this is the promise that He made Abraham. Verse 15. And so, after He made, meaning Abraham, and patiently adored, He obtained the promise.

Which was Isaac, which was the beginning of the promise. I mean, the great promise was eventually Jesus. The great promise was eventually that all humanity would be blessed by Him.

Those promises have a long time to go before they're all fulfilled. The promises made Abraham aren't completely fulfilled until the great white throne judgment and New Jerusalem comes to this earth. And then finally, all the promises Abraham won't be fulfilled. There's a lot of promises in Abraham. But here he says, okay, when he got Isaac, the next step's taken. In other words, God's doing what He said. God's doing what He said. Christ hadn't come yet, but He was going to. There was nothing that could stop Jesus Christ from coming. Nothing! Satan, humanity, nothing.

And he says, for men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Okay, I swear by it. I sign it. The notary does it. Even like we said, we may not say, I swear, but the moment you sign it, the notary does it. You're made of promise. And that's it. That's the end of it. You don't pay your payment on your car. They come repossess it. There's a consequence for breaking that promise.

He says, Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise, the immubility of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, though which is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong resolution, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope that's set before us. Two things. What two things? Basically what we have is God says, I promise. Oh, I've got a promise. How do I know you keep a promise? Because I say so.

I promise and I notarize it. You don't need anything else. And He says, actually, there's two things here. I promise. How do I know you will keep your promise? Because I me, I say I will do it. So He's swearing by Himself. I am God and I am swearing I will do it.

That's the goodness of God. That's the faithfulness we can have in God, the trust that we can have in God, the confidence we can have in God, is because He is goodness. He's not going to break His word.

He's never going to lie to us. He's never going to break His word. He's going to do what He says.

Psalm 71. Psalm 71. We're going to go back to Psalms a couple of times here. Psalm 71.

And verse 14.

Notice, hope is in here. I will hope continually. Now what does this hope produce? And will praise you yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of your righteousness and your salvation all day, for I do not know their limits. And I will go in the strength of the Lord God, and I will make mention of your righteousness of yours only. He says, I'm going to tell everybody I can. Anybody who will listen, David, said I'm going to tell them about you. This is praise, by the way.

We have a very limited understanding of praise. I'm going to tell everybody about you, about who you are. Oh God, you have taught me for my youth. To this day, I declare your wondrous works. Verse 18 means a lot to me. At my age. Okay. Now also when I am old and grayheaded, oh God, do not forsake me. Until I declare your strength to this generation, your power to everyone who is to come. God, don't let me go yet. I still have a generation to teach.

I actually, I like that verse. Don't let go yet. There's still people to tell.

There's still people to tell. And you're righteous to know God is very high.

You have done great things. And he goes on and just continues to talk about, I look at you, I don't look at the troubles in my life, I look at you and I find somebody to praise.

Absolute goodness. Because God is absolute goodness, He is deserving of worship and praise.

Third, God's character defines love. Now this is very important because many, many, many people feel disappointed in God because He doesn't fulfill what they think a loving God should do.

And that is because we are defining love and forcing God into our definition. God defines love. He created it.

We come along and we recreate it and then we're disappointed in Him or we're angry with Him.

And so sometimes we judge God. If we, you know, this is such a big subject, but if we're ever going to really worship and praise God, because a lot of worship and praise, you know what it is?

It's done for the emotional benefit of the person doing it. That's why people worship and praise.

Our worship and praise has an emotional benefit for us, but that shouldn't be the motivation. The motivation is who we're worshiping and praising.

It's who we are worshiping and praising.

And that's why we're here. Romans 5. Here is the summation of the love of God.

And God says, if you can't get this, you're never going to understand His love.

Verse 6 of Romans 5. For when we were still without strength and due time, Christ died for the ungodly.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrated His own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. You know, how many times have you heard stories going way back? You know, it's the hand grenade because this has happened over and over again, coming back in World War I. A hand grenade follows Him among a group of guys. Someone throws a hand grenade. And one of the men throws Himself on the hand grenade to save His friends. Happens all the time. Great act of love.

I don't know what the greatest acts of love a human being can do.

But if anybody's ever heard a story like this, I would like you to please come tell me. A man is in a room being beaten and tortured by people. Beaten and tortured by people.

And someone throws a hand grenade in the room, and he jumps on it to save the torturers.

Anybody ever heard a story like that? I have. It's Jesus Christ.

What Paul is saying here, if you want to understand the love of God, you start there.

You don't start with, but He killed all the people in Sodom. Oh, He told the Israelites to go in to this tribe of people and kill all the babies. You don't start there. You start here. You find who God really is, and then you find out His reasons for what He did. Because He is goodness.

You start here. We are to worship and praise God, because God is worthy of worship and praise, because He is absolute love. And then our fourth point, we should worship and praise God because He will judge those who reject Him. You have to understand, He, as absolute goodness, will not abide with evil forever. He will not. No, He does for periods of time. Some of us seems really long to us. Why does this person get away with this? And God's answer is, they don't, but they have for 10 years. Yeah, 10 years isn't much when you inhabit eternity.

To us, it's a long time. God will judge those. He will.

And so we can't, when we talk about God's goodness and love, we cannot ignore His judgment on those who reject Him, on those who will not turn towards Him, on those who will not become sanctified.

Anyone that ends up in the Kingdom of God will have gone through sanctification, being pulled out of the corrupted mundane, being separated, remember the word means separate in Hebrew, separated from this, separated to God and made for God, made holy. Take on the attributes of holiness, which only God has, that He can develop in others or impute in others, but it's something that has to come out of the corruptness to become that way.

So God is the perfect judge and is deserving of worship and praise. So just think about the four things we talked about. The Creator, Sustainer of all life, He is worthy of worship and praise. God's character is absolute goodness. God's character defines love. And God will judge those who refuse that, who refuse His goodness and love.

Those reasons alone, and we can be on a long list, just like last week when I said, the reasons to obey and honor God is a lot longer than the few that I gave.

This list could be a lot longer. But just in these things alone, this being is worthy of worship and praise. So then, what is worship and praise? What does that actually mean?

And so I want to, in a very short period of time, capitalize those concepts.

Worship. A lot of times when you say worship, the first thing people think of is a worship and praise service, which aren't wrong, but that's the first thing we think of, with singing and music and maybe a band or something. But that's not in Hebrew what the word worship means. Now, you'll see worship in ancient Israel, and they have drums and tambourines and horns and stringed instruments. There's lots of music sometimes. Sometimes there is no music at all in worship. The word worship in Hebrew, and I use the Hebrew word because it's so dramatic, specifically means, it's a very specific meaning, it means to prostrate yourself.

It means to throw yourself flat out on the ground. It means to make yourself as low as you can get.

That's what worship actually is. Worship is to go before this majestic, incredible being and throw yourself out on the ground and say, if you don't listen to me, I can't make you. If you don't love me, I can't make you. If you don't understand me, I have no power here. I am dirt. I am in the dirt before you. That's worship, and He is worthy of us getting down in the dirt.

That's what He's worthy of. That's what it means.

It is an absolute humility before God.

We can express that worship in so many ways. We express that worship in our prayer.

And I don't mean you always have to be flat on the ground to pray to God.

It's in the attitude in which you do it, where we come before God in His majesty, in His transcendence, in His brilliance, in His power that we can't even imagine. It's beyond us. We're like little children. We're like wee little children, laying down on the ground and saying, you're really big.

You're really big. And that doesn't mean, actually, by the way, that you're doing us out of fear.

You know, it's my two-year-old granddaughter today at services. She wandered off away from the new hall downstairs, and I just happened to be downstairs. And there she is walking around, you know, and she's looking at everybody. And suddenly she saw me, and her face got real big, and she runs up, and she's like hanging on, like, okay, somebody I know, you know.

I said, you got to go upstairs now. And she just stared at me.

One of the men said, you want me to take you up? She said, no.

You want Grandpa to take you up? Yes, you know.

You know, she'd have fallen right on the ground, you know. Grandpa's here. I'll be okay now, right? So I took her hand and took her upstairs. That's God.

We have to go before God with that childlike throwing ourselves down and saying, I can't, you can. You're awesome, I'm not. I need you. You don't need me. But you love me. See? That we're back to God's goodness and God's love. So I come and I ask for it. I ask for it.

It worship has shown in our attitude how we, when we come to services, how we come to services, how we think about coming to services, how we dress to come to services. Oh, that's part of worship. I am going before God.

You know, if we came here only to play bingo, which I'm sure nobody did, we have a serious worship problem, okay? I mean, I'm being facetious to make a point. We are here before God to worship Him. And sometimes you might go home and say, but I'm sort of a weak sermon. But my question is, did you worship God?

Did you come here with an open heart, throwing yourself before God and saying, on your holy Sabbath day, wait till we get into the Sabbath, it is holy. On your day, I have come and I have thrown myself down before you.

It is shown in the attitude in which we pay tithes, because God doesn't need your money. And if you do it because you feel like you have to and you hate it and you do it anyways, you're not going to get much spiritual benefit from what you're doing.

If you do it because you're worshiping God, your benefit will be way greatly beyond whatever money you give in tithes and offerings.

Because it's an act of worship.

Now the second one is praise. Praise is different than worship.

It literally means praise in Hebrew literally means to shout. It is used to mean singing. It is used to mean instruments playing. It's used to mean to celebrate.

One of the uses of the word praise in Hebrew is interesting to me. It means to boast.

Remember what we just read about David saying, now that I'm old, keep the strength in me. I have a whole other generation to talk to?

That's boasting. Let me go boast about my God. One of the words that you could translate the Hebrew word we get praise from into in English is boast. I'm going to boast about my God.

I'm going to tell you. I'm going to sing. I'm going to present my God. I want my God to hear what I have to say or what I have to sing because I'm celebrating Him. I'm celebrating God.

Puts a whole new idea on coming to church and singing Congregational hymns. We're here to celebrate and boast about our God.

Performing special music in services is an act of worship and praise.

When the choir gets up here to sing, you are helping lead us into worship and praise of God.

Understand the importance of that. When you have ability to perform sacred special music and you don't do it because you're too busy or just not interested enough or whatever, think about how God has given you an opportunity and an ability to help all of us in worship and praise.

And then ask, why don't I do it? Why don't I do that? If you want to, go see Mr. Fushi.

Now, unfortunately, some people want to do it. Really can't. I'm likely to go to Mr. Fushi and say, I want to sing because he's going to be in real bad trouble singing. I shouldn't say no to the pastor, but the guy's really bad. Okay, so I put him in a bad position.

So we have to say, pastor, maybe you shouldn't do this.

Gary, please listen to me. You shouldn't do this.

So we take these praising and worship that we do, both individually and collectively, and we really are pretty flippant about it. God is worthy of our songs, as weak as they are.

He's worthy of that. Look at Psalm 96. Psalm 96.

What's interesting about this psalm, and it was a musical piece, it's a song, is that it's about the coming of the Messiah to rule on the earth. So this is about the coming of God's judgment on earth. Verse 1, O sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth, sing to the Lord, bless His name, proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. Now, what are we singing about? When we look at that book and we're praising God, is this what we're thinking about? Or are we thinking about Bob over there, you know, his kids acting up. You know, Mary really shouldn't wear that dress. It makes her look heavy. Are we thinking like this? For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised. David never considered I should stop praising God because he's not doing what I want. He praised God because he knew who God was. He knew who He was. He knew who God was.

And his desire and his will and his weakness was never an issue to be praised. God was always to be praised, even when He was upset with God. Remember when we read about Uzzah in the very first sermon? David got so angry with him, he took the ark and stuck it in a barn and said, that's it, God. You can have your ark back. And a few months later was like, you know, I'm sorry I really messed that up. I did not do that right. But his initial reaction was not to praise God, but eventually he did. He always came back to who God is. He is to be feared above all other gods. For all of the gods of the people are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. See, it goes back to who made this. In all of his Psalms, you will see the four things that we talked about as motivations for his worship and praise.

It's always, he's the Creator. He's all his goodness. It's his love, and he is the judge. And he looks at all those things and says, I'm going to praise God. I'm going to worship God for these things. Honor and majesty are before him. Strength of beauty are in his sanctuary.

Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples. Give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory of his due name. I wish I could have heard the tune to this. This must have been fascinating, especially when you think about Middle Eastern music.

Bring an offering and come into his courts. O worship the Lord in the beauty of his holiness, of holiness. Treble before him all the earth. And the beauty of what here? Of separateness. His separateness and that we've been called to this uniqueness. We've been called to come out of the corrupt and the mundane and the common and the nothingness. We've been called to come out of that and to be separated for him. And then Psalm 66. Psalm 66.

He says, make a joyful shout to God. That's praise. Make a joyful shout to God all the earth. Sing out the honor of his name. Make his praise glorious.

Say to the Lord. So this is what you say when you praise him. O God, I come before you to praise you so that you will solve my financial problems and get me a new car. That's not what it says.

He says, say to God, how awesome are your works, through the greatness of your power, and your enemies shall submit themselves to you. All the earth. Now look, here's a statement about judge. Remember, he's always talking about how God is a sustainer, a creator. He's always talking about how God is good. He's always talking about how God is love. And it's like, remember, also, he's the judge. And he judges, and everybody will submit to his judgment. You know why?

No one has the power to resist it. No one has the power to resist his judgment.

All the earth shall worship you and sing praises to you. They shall sing praises to your name.

God is the only one with the answers to our questions of life. God is the only one that can give us a purpose to life. He's the only one that can tell us how to live life, how it works. And he's the only one that can give us a hope of an afterlife. He's it. There's no other place to go.

Part of worship is to understand you have no other place to go.

There isn't any other place to go.

And then you realize, he's it. He's where I must go.

In this concept of God's worship, of God's praise, eventually that worship and praise comes from love. And when I say that, understand something. You and I don't know how to love God.

I don't know how to love God. I want to. I try. It's just bigger than me, but I want to.

It's bigger than me. I'm not big enough to love God. I'm trying to, though.

Even he has to lead us into loving him to understand who he is.

But look at this will be our last scripture, Psalm 18.

Because when you look through the Psalms, you also see that David's love of God was rooted in his thankfulness. The one thing my friend did not have when he said, God should not be praised because he is the reason for my problems. David, on the other hand, didn't see it that way.

In chapter 18 of Psalms, and I want to read the notes that are given here to the performers.

To the chief musician, a Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spoke to the Lord the words of his song on the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of his enemies and before the hand of Saul, and he said. So David wrote this song because God saved him from Saul, who was trying to kill him. And what does he say? Here's how he starts this praise and worship. I will love you, O Lord, my strength. And he meant it for the bottom of his heart.

He meant that in an emotional way. He meant it in a reasoned way. He meant it every way that you could say and talk about loving somebody. I love you. He says that to God. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I will trust, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. And so shall I be saved from my enemies. He is worthy to be praised. It was an expression of his thankfulness.

Loving God begins with thankfulness for what he does. Now, it starts with our understanding, our need for him. It's flat out in the dirt. Okay. You are God and I am not.

And finding this value that God gives to us. David had great value because God gave it to him. I am valuable because God makes me valuable. I am valuable because God loves me. I am valuable because God says, I am his child. I have value. I have value from God. And therefore, I thank him.

And in that process, we begin to love him. We begin to have him respond.

We obey, we honor, we worship, we praise. And now it's starting to happen because we love him.

God declares that one of his names, one of his literal names, is holy.

I am separate. What's your name? Unique. What's your name? Different.

How many adjectives you want to put in here? I am not like anything else. I am not like anything else. And his creation is just an expression of who he is. It's not who he is. No. God is not pantheistic. We don't worship nature.

And yet we know that God sustains nature. He keeps it going. He created it. It's incredible. But it's not God, is it? We don't worship trees. It's something he made. Something he created. He is separate from his creation. He is beyond the limitations of anything we can come up with. He is absolute good. He's the Creator. He's absolute good. He's the absolute love. And he is the judge of good and evil. He is the judge of good and evil.

When God calls a person to be holy, that person is to become separate. And I pound that away, every sermon. You're going to hear it for the next three or four sermons.

We are called to be separated from and separated to. This is the doctrine of sanctification.

And I bet now more and more of you, as you read through the Bible, you're going to find the word sanctify and sanctification in holy a lot more than you ever realized. It's throughout Scripture. It's all over the place. And what that means? How is being used? When God sanctifies you, you enter. It is a matter of Him saying you are sanctified. Because you and I can't make ourselves holy. You can't declare I am holy. It means nothing. Only the one who is separate and unique can make something else separate and unique.

And when God says, you are mine, you are now separate, you are holy, you must take on the attributes of holiness. In other words, we must go through sanctification. And sanctification is a process. You don't become holy in a moment. None of us are totally holy, right? And yet the Holy Spirit sent us.

But He's actually literally making us holy. And our response to that begins with, by the way, it's not everything. This is just the beginning. Our response to God saying, I sanctify you, is obedience and honor and worship and praise.