Praise & Worship

so let's turn your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 42. I wanted to share some thoughts here. Then we're going to but then we're going to break up. We normally sit there break up in discussion groups. Tonight we're going to break up in praise groups. We're going to break up and share some praise and thanksgiving before we go eat our pie. Uh but as we do that this morning I read from Isaiah 42:es 8-12. These are just uh wonderful verses. The verse number eight says, "I am the Lord. That is my name and my glory will I not give to another neither my praise to graven images. Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare, before they spring forth, I tell you of them.

Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth. Ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein, the isisles and the inhabitants there thereof. Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice. The villages that Kear doth inhabit, let the inhabitants of the rocks sing. Let them shout from the mountain, the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto the Lord and declare his praise in the islands. And so I want to talk again a little bit more about praising God uh in the service tonight. And uh and and you know I like to use object lessons. I like to use illustrations.

Um but first thing is I I have to uh uh remember them because uh I this morning I forgot my plant from home. So I had to go over to Home Depot and buy one. Good thing Home Depot is right next door. And uh and then and I have to also pay for them. So it gets expensive sometimes. And so tonight I'm going to let you provide the illustration. All right. And as we talk about praise though in Hebrews 13:5 it says by him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. When the Bible talks about continually or always praying things like that it's the idea that it just be part of it's like carrying your cell phone with you and any moment somebody can call you any moment you can pick it up and call somebody else and we just need to call on the Lord and and give praise to his name continually the Bible teaches.

And and so as we talk about praise, we think of it just in a verbal way, but you know, God talks about praise in other ways as well. And so what I want you to do is I want you to start out and with my illustration tonight, I want you to use your hands as my illustration. And so I want you to start out like putting your hands out like you're reaching up like a child for somebody to pick you up. I remember when Tupu first came to church, our son Benjamin was four years old, met Tubu in the hallway and said, "Pick me up." And uh just wanted to be picked up by the giant man there. And uh so open your hands and just picking me up now.

Turn your Bibles. You put your hands down. Turn your Bibles to Psalm 63. We're going to use those hands again a little bit later on, but Psalm chapter 63 and look at verses 1-5. Psalm 63 1-5. Oh God, thou art my God. Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. To see thy power and thy glory. So as I've seen thee in this sanctuary, because thy loving kindness is is better than my life, and my lips shall praise thee. This will I bless thee while I live. I will lift up my hands to thy name. My soul shall be satisfied with marorrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.

He just said, Lord, I long for you. I just want to reach out to you. And that's what praise is. It's just a longing for the Lord to see his power, to see his glory. just Lord, I want you to pick me up and hold me close and and just to lift up our hands to the Lord. And then also look at Psalms chapter 134. Psalms chapter 134 and look at verses 1 through3. Psalms 134 and:es 1 through3. Psalms 134 and:es 1. It says, "Behold, bless ye the Lord, all the servants of the Lords, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands, everybody. lift up your hands in the sanctuary that the Lord that made heaven or earth bless thee out of Zion.

You you've often seen people lifting up their hands to the Lord and uh lifting up holy hands. We'll talk about just a moment, but as we lift up our hands to the Lord, it reminds us that God is our God. And it's just a a lifting up our hands in worship and and in longing to the Lord. We often bow when we pray, but God also wants us to lift up our hands in praise to him as well. But before we lift up our hands, go to Psalms chapter 24. Psalms chapter 24 and look at verses 3-5. Psalms chapter 24 and beginning with verse number three. It says, "Who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place?

He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who had not lifted up his soul onto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation." I want you to take your hands right now and just look at them. You know, like you're like you're a little kid and your mom you came to said my your mom would say, "Are your hands clean?" And just take a look at your hands. Turn all over and just take a look at them and ask yourself, "Are my hands clean?" Because if we're going to praise God, we need to have hands that are clean before the Lord.

You know, we need to remember that God's blood is on our hands. You remember in Matthew chapter 27 when Pilate washed his hands when he crucified Christ. But you know, you can't just wash your hands. We're the ones that crucified him. We're the reason he died upon that cross. Your sins and my sins crucified the Lord. In Acts 2 23, it says, "Him being delivered by the determined counsel and fornowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands were crucified and slain." And even though we weren't there thousands of years ago, we're also the ones that our hands put upon the cross. That sin in our lives crucified him.

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's none righteous. And we need to realize as we look at our hands, realize these are the hands that crucify Christ. He died because of my sins. And we um in John chapter 13 and verse number 8, it says, "If I wash thee not, thou was no part with me." I'm so thankful the Lord has washed me of my sins. I'm so thankful that he has cleansed me. And as we lift up our hands to him, we need to praise him for that cleansing. We need to praise him that he died to pay for our sins, that we're washed in his blood. Isaiah 1 and verse 18. Come now and let us reason together, sayeth the Lord.

Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. And part of praising God is just realizing that God has cleansed me. God has forgiven me. He died and shed his blood to cleanse me from all my unrighteousness. In 2 Corinthians 9:15, the Bible says, "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift." And part of praising God is just, "Thank you, Lord, for dying for me. Thank you for sacrificing yourself for me. But also because he's the one that died for us and saved us from our sins, we need to keep our hands clean. 1 John chapter 1 and verse number nine.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all righteousness. You know, I I'm one of those kind of guys that even though I take a shower more, I get dirty all the time. Uh dirt just attracted to me. And and you know what? I love my wife, but there's one thing about her. She will not hold hands with me if my hands are dirty. You know, I'll reach over, grab her hand, she'll go, "Oh, go wash your hands." And and you know, if I want to praise God and I want to be with the Lord, I've got to keep my hands clean. And and I want to uh hold up holy hands to the Lord.

1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse number eight, it says, "I will lift I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubt." Take your hands right now, put them together like this, like you think of with prayer, you know. And we need to remember that praising is prayer. We talked about that this morning. And we need to have our hands, we need to pray to God. Uh the word holy means undeviled by sin. You know, if we were having a greeting time and I uh right before I reached out to shake your hand, I go and pursue my hand. Are you going to want to shake hands with me?

Uh you're not going to want to do that. And you know, you need to realize that God doesn't want to do that either. And we need to have holy hands lifted up to the Lord. And but also in hands that hang down. I want you to just kind of hang your hands down. You know, like when you're just kind of ah, you know, it's hot outside and you're tired and you know that that just kind of discouraged way. In Hebrews 12 and verse number 12, it says, "Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down in the knees." You know, a lot of times we just kind of walk through life like we've got no God. And and that's not what praise is.

We need to walk through life like there's a God in heaven. No matter what's going on in my life, God says, "Lift up your hands. You can rejoice because in God your savior." And we need to remember to lift up our hands and praise to him. In Lamentations 3 and verses 40-42, it says, "Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens. We have transgressed and rebelled. Thoust not pardoned." We need to lift up our heart to God. And just take your hands right now and put them over your heart. And and and God says, "Are you willing to give me your heart?

Are you willing to lift up your heart to me?" And and and sometimes that's difficult to open up your heart to somebody's heart. And yet we need to open up our heart to the Lord. But go over to Psalms chapter 47. Psalms chapter 47 and verse number one. Psalms chapter 47 verse number one. Right now I want you to do something for me. And this what I want you to clap. So every time my hand goes over this hand like that, I want everybody to clap. You ready? Here we go. Ready? Go. Come on, folks. You got to pay attention. When the hand goes over the hand. Well, at least I got one over here. All right, here we go.

Ready? Come on. Every time my hand goes over the hand, you got to clap. See, you got it. All right, let's try again. Here we go. And some of you are really easy. You know, you're just an easy target. Here we go. Ready? Come on, stay with me. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Psalms chapter 47 and verse number one. It says, "Oh, clap your hands all you people. Shout unto God with a voice of triumph." Look at verse six. Sing praises to God. Sing praises. Sing praises unto our king. Sing praises for God is the king of all the earth. Sing you praises with understanding. You know, just to clap our hands.

You know, when we clap your hands, it's you're you're excited about something. you you you're rejoicing to something. You've seen something. Now, in the Bible, I looked up the Bible talks about clapping. Nine different times. One time is for one of the kings in the Old Testament. Two times it was nature clapping. We'll look at that in just a moment. Five times it was negative. It was a bad thing to clap. And one time here it's used in praise to God. So, it's not something we do all the time. Uh in our church, you may notice for specials and things like that, we don't often clap. Some churches they'll clap for the preacher or they'll clap for the specials and and there's nothing wrong with that.

But we don't do that because God's not performing for us and the singers are not performing for you and I. They're presenting to God worship and praise. In Psalms chapter 98, turn over there if you would. Psalms chapter 98:es 1-9. Psalms chapter 98 beginning verse number one. Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song for he done marvelous things. His right hand, his holy arm hath gotten him the victory. The Lord hath made known his salvation, his righteousness. He hath openly showed in the sight of the heathen. He remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth. Make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise. Sing unto the Lord with a harp, with the harp and the voice of a song, with trumpets and the sound of the cornet. Make a joyful noise before the Lord the King. Let the sea roar and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands. Let the hills be joyful together. It's interesting. He he talks about creation clapping. As I said two different times, he talks about that and just rejoicing all of creation. He looks out and said, "Wow, God is amazing." You ever gone out and watched one of our sunsets at night and said, "Wow, what a great God we have."

You you ever gone driving down the road and seen the the mountains and the waves hitting the rocks and and just seen the beauty of God? And we ought to take time to praise God for his creation, to praise God for what he has done. In 1 Corinthians 14:2, it says, "For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God." And we need to give praise unto God for who he is and what he's done. You know, there's a time to clap. In first Kings or 2 Kings 11:12 and 2 Kings 12:2, the Bible said they they clapped for King Johash. He was a good king and they were excited to finally have a good king.

They had a number of bad ones together and they clap for him. And I I don't think there's anything wrong to clap for somebody uh for for serving the Lord and for what they do. And sometimes we'll give honor to people like we clap for those that serve our country in the military or we'll clap for other folks. But we ought to take time to to clap for God. And and it's not that we have to physically clap, but there's some mornings, you know, sometimes I'm driving down that road and I see that sunset and I just want to praise God for his creation. And we ought to give praise to the Lord. In 1 Peter chapter 2:9, it says, "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that he should you should show forth the praises of him who have called you out of darkness into a marvelous light."

And God just wants us to give praise in a clear voice. In Psalms 32:11, it says, "Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart." And not only should we lift up our hands in praise and to give to give the glory to God, but we also need to shout out in victory to God. You remember in Joshua chapter 6 when they shouted and the walls came down in 2 Chron Chronicles chapter 20 this morning we looked at it where they were going into against an enemy that was overwhelming and instead of going into battle they would end up just praising God for the victory that he had already get given to them.

And we need to get excited about things. You know, you get excited about a football game, you're a fanatic. You know, you you're a fan, but you get excited about God and you're a fanatic. and and it's time that we got excited about God. It's time that we lifted up our hands and we praise God and shout and glory to God for what he has done. You know, there's sometimes we look at these things as emotion and there's different emotional reactions to what God does. You remember back in Ezra chapter 3, remember how they'd come out of exile and Nehemiah had rebuilt the walls and Ezra was rebuilding the temple and and they finally got the temple done.

And when they got the temple finished, the the young people were cheering and clapping when it was finally done. But you know what the older folks did? They wept. And the reason they wept is because remember the glory of the temple before it was torn down. And and this was a much smaller temple and and not as glorious as the one before. And and you know, often we'll have different reactions to the singing or to the message or whatever else it may be. We're not talking about emotion. We're talking about the spirit of God. and and you might may not be somebody that's physically and you like to lift up your hands or you like to praise God out loud, but yet at the same time we need to give glory to God in in our lives and give praise to him.

In 1 Corinthians 14:33 it says, "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace is in all the church of saints." In verse 40, he says, "Let all things be done decent in order." And sometimes you go in churches where where it's just confusion. Uh and and that's not what God wants. But at the same time, God doesn't want silence. He wants us to lift up our hands. He wants us to praise him. He wants us to give glory to him. In 1st Samuel chapter 4 in verses 18 5-19, you remember how they were fighting the Philistines and they were losing the battle and and Saul thought, well, I'll bring the ark of the covenant.

So, he had to bring the ark into the battle. And when all the Israel saw the ark, there was a they they brought up this great shout and cheer because the ark of God was there. But guess what? They lost the battle because they they they were cheering and shouting for the wrong things. They were putting their focus on something of this earth rather focus on the God of salvation. And we need to keep our focus on the Lord and we need to give glory and praise to him. Go over to Psalms chapter 100 and look at verses 1-5. Says, 'Make a joyful noise of the Lord, all you land. Serve the Lord with gladness.

Come before his presence with singing, knowing not that the Lord, he is God. It is he that has made us not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and to his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting and his truth endureth to all generations. And so we need to shout out to the glory of God. We need to lift up our voices to him. In Psalm chapter 98 verse number four, it says, "Make a joyful noise of the Lord all you earth. Make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise." The the word noise there means to mar.

Uh it it's not it has to be we have to have this great singing voice, but we do have to give voice to our praise to God. And we need to shout out that praise. I want you right now all of you to shout out the word amen. Let's go. 1 2 3. Amen. Oh, that's not too bad. I was expecting kind of weak response. Andy, say amen for me. Amen. Yeah, right. God, I like Andy's amens. Uh, but you know what? Uh, we the Lord says to say in 1 Corinthians 14:16, else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupyth the room with the unlorded say amen at the giving of thanks, seeing understandeth not what thou sayest.

You know, how many of you know what the word amen means? Most of us think the word amen means the end. And it's the end of our prayer, right? Uh when our kids were little, one of our kids um we would we would serve the food up and then we would pray and then we would eat then we would eat afterwards. And the reason we did that cuz the food was hot. And so they would start to reach for the food before we'd pray and say, "No, it's hot. It's hot. Let's pray first." And and so uh one day we served the food. We prayed for we prayed for the food. And after we prayed for the food, one of my daughters took a bite of the food.

It was real hot. She says, "We got to pray again." you know, she thought that praying an amen was all about, okay, the food's cool enough to eat now. Uh, you know, but you know what the word amen means? So be it. Amen. When you say amen, that's yes, Lord. That's what we want. We want your blessings. We want your goodness. We want you to save souls and change lives. We want the goodness of God. And and we need to say amen a lot more than we do. And then I want you to turn over to Psalms chapter 107. Psalms chapter 107. There's a phrase here. I think you'll figure out what the phrase is real quick in Psalms 107.

And I want you to start with looking at verse number eight. Psalms 107 and verse number eight. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. Look down at verse number 15. Oh, that men would what? Oh, come on. You did real good with the amen. Oh, that men would All right. The whole phrase, praise the Lord. Let's try it one again. Oh, that men would praise the Lord. All right. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. And then look at verse number 21. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men.

Then go down to verse number 31. It says, "Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men." God wants us to praise him. Don't be afraid to do that. And and then look in Revelation 9:6 it says, "And I heard as it were the voice of great multitude and the voice of many waters and the voice of mighty thundering saying hallelujah for the Lord omnipotent reignth." And so I want everybody to say that word allelujah. Ready together? 1 2 3. Hallelujah. We need to praise the Lord to give honor and glory to God to shout out his name to not be embarrassed not be afraid.

You know, again, some of us are not as emotional as others are, and maybe you're not as comfortable, or maybe you weren't raised in that kind of environment, and that's okay. And I'm not saying this should be something that's forced out of you. But yet, don't at the same time, we need to give praise to God, to give praise to his name. Amen. Even so, Lord Jesus, to say hallelujah, and praise the Lord and and also Marinath even so, come Lord Jesus to give praise and honor to his name, to sing unto the Lord. and and and and in Ephesians chapter 5, it says, "Sing singing yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."

It's not just at church. It can be at home. It can when you're doing your devotions, when you're spending time with the Lord, just to sing praises to his name. And it also in Colossians chapter 3, it talks about singing those psalms and hymns to each other as well. And and just singing the praises when you're here in church and we're having that worship time. It's not just about you. it it's about everybody coming together corporately together and praising God in song together lifting up our voices to him and then also we need to worship him in Acts 17 23 says for I passed by and beheld their devotions I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God whom therefore you ignorantly worshiped him declared unto you and not only are unsaved people ignorantly worshiping God but some Christians are as well are we truly giving God worship Worship.

Remember serving God is not worshiping God. In Romans 1 25, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worship to serve the creature more than the creator who's blessed forever. Amen. You see, we need to realize that we are serving God. You're not just serving. You're serving the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And service is a privilege, but service is not worship. We need to know who we worship. In John 4:22, you worship, you know not what. We know what we worship for salvations of the Jews. But the hour cometh now is when the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and truth.

For the father seeketh as such to worship him. God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth. God wants our worship. God wants our praise and he wants our worship. In Luke 4:8, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve. Worship involves bowing before God. In Matthew 4:9, when Satan tempted Jesus, this is what he said. And he saith unto him, "All these things will I give thee if thou wil fall down and worship him." You know, in our churches today, we have forgotten how to bow before God. And and so if you're if you are physically able right now, I want you to get out of your seat and just bow down in front of your seat.

Everybody do that if you would please. I know it's a little difficult, a little challenging, but if you're physically, if you're just on one knee, just coming down now. If you can't, that's okay. But just take a moment right now to bow before the Lord because this is something that we have forgotten how to do in our churches today. The word worship literally means to bow and God wants us to bow before him. All right, you can go back in your seat there. But you know, we need to bow. Now, that's difficult. I've got, you know, for bowing for me physically is a challenge sometimes because my legs and my knees are so bad.

I I tell my wife when I go shopping, it's because of old uh football injuries, I can't go shopping with her all the time, but she doesn't believe that. But, you know, bowing is physically not easy and and I understand that. But at the same time, God wants us to bow before him. Go to Psalms chapter 95. Psalms chapter 95 and look at verses 6-9. Psalms chapter 95:es 6-9. Oh, come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand today if you will hear his voice. Harden not your heart is in provocation as day of temptation in the wilderness.

When your fathers tempted me uh prove me and saw my work. God wants us to worship him and as we worship we need to kneel before the Lord. We need to bow before God. In 1 Corinthians chapter 14 I want you to turn over there too if you would. And let's going to look at a couple more verses. We're in closed, but 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verses 24 and 25. 1 Corinthians chapter 14 24 and 25. Then come at the end when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the father, when he shall put down all rule and all authority. For he must reign till we have put down put all enemies under his feet. I'm I'm am I right?

Just make sure I'm I'm reading chapter 15. That's why it didn't sound right. Let's try chapter 14 and verses uh 24 and 25. Let's try that again. But if all prophesy and there come in one that believeth not, as one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all. And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest. And so falling down in his face, he will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth. We have a reputation for being a friendly church. And I I love that people when I talk to people new to church, I ask them, do you know did you receive friendly welcomeness? always almost invariably yes we did a lot of people talked to us was really nice and I praise God for that

but you know what's even more important to me that when people walk into our church service and they worship God because that's the atmosphere that we present they come in and say I felt like I worship the Lord I don't want to hear people say what a great song service or what a great message I want them to walk understand what a great God we have and I wonder as a church do we cause others to want to worship God. You know, the word worship, and some of you heard me talk about this before, but when I studied that word out many years ago, I I wanted to really understand what worship was. And I was trying to understand difference between worship and praise and all those things.

And so, as I looked up the word worship, I found out that the root word of word worship is dog. And when I read that, it just like where in the world did you get worship from dog from? Where? Why? How would that how would that happen? Because words always come from other words. And and so why would the worship word worship come from the word dog? And shortly after that, I was here at the church. And there was a lady at the church at the time. Her name was Christine. And and she was uh she was a retired firefighter. She'd also been in the army. And uh she had a lot of time. She was in her 40s and she had a lot of time on her hands.

And she came and said, "Pastor, uh I got a lot of free time and I want to help out the church. I love to paint. could I come down to the church and just paint whatever rooms you need, whatever you need painting. And I said, "Yeah, that'd be great." And uh we always need things painted. And and uh so I said, "Well, when do you want to do that?" And she said, "Well, I I was a firefighter and I'm kind of a night owl and I like to do it late at night. So I want to come down like at 10:00 at night or something like that and do the painting." And I said, "Well, yeah, but you know, this is not this not a bad area, but it's also kind of industrial area.

And I don't know if I want you down here by yourself at night. I'm not comfortable with that. She said, "Pastor, first of all, I'm retired firefighter and I'm in I was in the army. I could take care of myself." And she said, "Secondly, I'll have Roxy with me." Now, Roxy was her Rottweiler dog. And Roxy was, you know, she was what you think of when you think of Rottweil. Roxy was a big old dog. And when you first meet her, you know, if you just anything at all, she would she would look at you like, "You better not touch my owner." you know, and uh and and I remember and I said, "Well, if you're going to have Roxy with you, that that that'll be okay."

And so one night I came down to church to get something late at night and I saw lights on downstairs. And so I went down to look and to see what was going on, turned the lights off and and when I got down there was in the garage and I looked through the window of the door at the bottom of the stairs and I looked in the garage and I saw that she was Christine was here painting and Roxy was laying on the floor right across from that door. And so I thought, well, I better let her know I'm here so that she doesn't, you know, when she hears a noise, she doesn't get nervous about that and uh and shoot me or something like that because I knew she would.

But uh anyway, I I opened the door and when I opened the door, Roxy heard that and she got up on all fours and she and the hairs in the back of her neck went up and she started growling and she gave me that look like, "I'm going to tear you to pieces." And and as I opened the door further and she saw who it was, she and I had become friends. And when she saw it was me, instead of coming up to bite me, she came up and her tail was wagging and her tongue was hanging out. And she came up and she started licking my hand. And she started looking at me like, "You're the best thing that's happened to my day today."

And I thought, "That is worship." You know how many of you guys are cap people? Raise your hand. You're a cat. I'm going be honest. I know you're embarrassed by it, but be honest. You know, with cats, cats expect you to worship them. Yeah. Isn't that true? I mean, they expect you to. You're there to serve them. You're there to worship them. When you walk in the door, it's like, "Where you been? You need to take care of me." You know, but dogs, when you come home, your dog acts like you're the best thing that happened to their day. Their tails wagging, their tongue is hanging out, they're jumping up and down.

say, "Where have you been? I have missed you." And they're just so excited to see you back. And that's what God wants from us. He wants us to treat him with worship. Like, God, I I'm so glad you're here. I have missed you and I'm so glad you're here. And just to worship him. And that's what we need to do. Turn over to Matthew chapter 15. Matthew chapter 15 and verses 21- 28. Matthew chapter 15 beginning with verse number 21. Then Jesus went then and departed the coast of Tyra and Siden. Behold a woman of Canaan came out the same coast and cried unto saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David.

My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil." But he answered not a word. And disciples came and besought him, saying, "Send her away." And she crith after. But he answered and said uh said I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshiped him and say Lord help me. But he answered and said is not me to take the children's bread and to cast into dogs. And she said truth Lord yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered unto her, "Oh woman, great is thy faith. He is onto thee even as thou wilt." And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

And when we read the story, it sounds like Jesus was being very mean to her. But he's making an illustration to remind us that we are guests at his table. And God is not just thrown us the crumbs. He's invited us to dine with him. And we ought to worship him for that. We ought to bow down in awe for that. You know, worship is humbling yourself. James 4:10 says, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up." When you worship God, you're humbling yourself. You're bowing down before God. You're saying, "God, I need you. Thank you for allowing this dog to come to your table and enjoy not just your crumbs, but to enjoy the full blessings of God's table."

And worship involves, like we talked about this morning, prayer. As we close out, look at Psalms chapter 18. Psalms chapter 18 and verses 1-3. Psalms chapter 18:es 1-3. I will love thee, oh Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength. In whom I will trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation, of my high tower. I will call upon the Lord who's worthy to be praised. So I shall be saved from mine enemies. God wants us to call upon him. And prayer is not just asking, but prayer is praising. As I said this morning, it's it's ironic that the more we ask for, the less we praise God.

But the more we praise God, the more he's going to give us. And we learn just to learn to praise God. And I want tonight as we are going to break up in just a moment into our smaller groups before we go down and have the pie, I want to challenge you. What do you have to praise God for? There's a lot we're thankful for, and I want you to share some of those things you're thankful for as well. But thankfulness is thanking God for what he does for us. Praise is is praising God for who he is. And we need to God give God our praise and our worship through our prayers. So I want you to take time to say amen.

As you're in these small groups, don't hesitate to say amen, even loud enough for the other group to hear you. Take time to say praise the Lord. When you hear about the goodness of God, take time to say hallelujah. What a great God we have. but also take time to worship him and to praise him. And so we're going to go ahead at this time. Let's bow for a word of prayer and then we're going to break up in small groups and take some time to praise and thank God for his blessings. Father, we thank you for who you are. You're the God of God and the King of Kings and the Lord of heaven. And yet you sent your son to die for us.

Our hands, Lord, are guilty of crucifying the Savior. We're just as guilty as the one that swung that hammers, the one that put the thorn of the crown of thorns on his head, for the ones who gambled over his clothes. And Lord, may we be reminded of the sacrifice that you made to save us from our sins. And we praise you for that. Father, you're the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And yet you have chosen to invite us to your temple, to your table. And may we worship you for even given us more than the crumbs of your table, but the blessings to dine with you. Father, we praise you for the victories that you have given, but also for the ones you're going to give.

Lord, we lift up hands that are hanging down in discouragement and we lift them up and reach out to you and call upon the King of Heavens. And Lord, we just want to embrace you because of who you are. And we pray that we would take time to do that tonight. And not just tonight, but every day we would wake up and say, "This is the day the Lord hath made. We rejoice and be glad in it." And every day we would wake up with a word of praise on our lips. And every day we would take time to look out at the creation around us and at the beauty that you've given to us and for the blessings that we have and praise your name.

And father, we just praise you for who you are and thank you for what you do for us. And we want to worship you. For it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. I'd like to have the leaders of the discussion group stand up here now if you would. Okay. I don't have a list of questions for you, but what I want you to do is just take time with your group and ask to share. First of all, just share what they're thankful for. Some some specific things. It's good to share generic general things, but some specific things you're thankful for. And then share some things you praise God. And again, be specific rather than generic.

And then take time to worship the Lord as you close out with prayer. and and just to take time to worship him and bow before him together as a group. And then we'll we'll head downstairs. Uh we'll be in the teen room because the weather outside and we'll have some pie together, some fellowship together when you're done. And uh but go ahead and take time to do that. So find a group to join in with and take some time to praise the Lord together. All right.