VOICES OF PRAISE

Religion

This sermon was preached at the Cornerstone Baptist Church, in Cherry Log, GA on Sunday, August 12, 2012 by Rev. Paul Mims.

Psalm 100:1-5

The world has been filled with voices of praise for the 10,960 athletes from the 205 countries of Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas participating in the 2012 Olympics in London. There are 26 different sports with 302 gold medal possibilities. There is only 6 grams of gold in the medal, which is gold plated and it is only worth about $1800. The value is in the achievement and what that will lead to in their lives.

The training of some of these athletes begins in childhood and occupies a major portion of their day for years. Their performance before the world is often over in a few minutes. Praises from their team members, coaches, parents, fans, countrymen, all make it worth it when they stand in the center spot and their national anthem is played with the flag being raised above their heads. All the world praises a winner.

In Christ, we are involved in Life Olympics. Every day is our training schedule. We do not get it right every time. Sometimes we fall, but we get up and try again and the next time we get it right. We often train for years just for one or two life moments that are pivotal in our victories. When we stand in the winner’s box with the flag of the cross flying above us we are filled with praise for our Lord for all he has done for us.

That is where we are today. The long training time has led us to Olympics of Reconstruction. Various ones of us have participated in the events that were laid out before us. There were those who cheered us on during the process. We have made it across the finish line. Now we all stand under the banner of the cross and raise our voices in praise to the One who made it all possible.

Psalm 100 expresses how we feel. We raise our voices in praise to God for his mighty works among us. What voices do we hear?

I. THERE IS THE VOICE OF SHOUTING. (v.1)

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.”

This Psalm was sung in ancient Israel in big outdoor gatherings. When their victories were celebrated they would shout praises to the Lord. The earth itself and all creation is pictured as praising the Lord.

Psalm 65:13 “The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing.”

Psalm 97:1 “The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad; let distant shores rejoice.”

Psalm 98:4-6 “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the rams horn – shout for joy before the Lord, the King.”

Isaiah 49:13 “Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains.

Last Monday morning at 1:30 a.m., NASA landed the rover vehicle “Curiosity” on the surface of Mars after an eight-month space journey. There was a suspenseful 13 minutes until they would know if it was successful. When the signal finally reached earth that it had landed properly, there was great shouting and celebrating among the blue shirts at the control center at NASA.

We had some shouting moments during our reconstruction. One of the first was when Caroline Sisson showed us the drawings that she had made for our new building. When the Christian church offered us their social hall for a month and their Church on the Hill we knew that we had an adequate place to meet during the Interim. Another was when we got the contractor’s bid from Wally Stover and we saw that we could rebuild without debt. When we gathered over here to break ground for the beginning of construction it was joyful time in Cherry Log. It was a shouting time when we saw the walls go up and we could see the outline of the building. We watched the daily and weekly progress and many would come by after church on Sundays to see what was done the previous week. Shouting welded up in our hearts when we saw the steeple raised and put in place. It was with joyful anticipation that we told that we could worship here for the first time on Easter.

II. THERE IS THE VOICE OF SINGING. (v.2)

Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.”

Our singing now has a spirit of victory and joyful praise, which is characteristic of the New Testament Church.

Psalm 95:1 “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation.”

I Corinthians 14:15 “I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with understanding also.

Ephesians 5:19 “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord.”

Colossians 3:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

Psalm 150 “Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, praise him with clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord“.

Richard Stetson has given us some history of the “Singing Church.”

“Song and chant have taken an important place in the worship of God from time immemorial. In Genesis’ fourth chapter as beginnings of human civilization are noted, music is included. Jubal is called the ancestor of “all those who play the lyre and pipe.” The Hebrew hymn book, the Book of Psalms, is a greatly loved and lengthy portion of the Bible.

Joseph Gelineau, a French musician well known for his work on the psalms, has noted in his studies that neither Hebrew nor Greek have a separate word for music. The line between speech and song overlapped. Whenever speech took on a poetic or public quality, it became metrical and, in a way, musical. All the prayers, psalms and readings of the ancient service of temple and synagogue were in chant form.

Christians loved the psalms as much as Jews did. They seem always to have been a part of Christian worship. The apostle Paul encourages the singing of “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” in his letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians. Even in prison in Philippi, Paul and Silas spent late hours of the night in prayer and singing hymns (Acts 16:25). Hymn singing was not even limited to church for early believers!

Latin hymns became popular for the long night vigils held in fourth- century congregations, encouraged by the musical bishop Ambrose in Milan, Italy. St Augustine, influenced by Ambrose, also enjoyed singing. To him is attributed the thought that anyone who sings “prays twice,” once through the words and once through the melody.

Of Martin Luther’s 16th-century reforms, one of the most far-reaching was the reintroduction of congregational song in the liturgy in the language of the people. The hearts and minds of many were won for the gospel through Lutheran worship in what came to be known as “the singing church.” What is learned through singing, many people remember well.”

Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones” (Psalm 30:4). Song is a gift of God and singing a part of God’s service.

In our Baptist tradition singing is at least one third of our worship service. We have learned much of our theology through the hymns that were well written and expressed our faith for us. When we sing to the Lord it is a personal and powerful act of worship.

III. THERE ARE VOICES THAT KNOW. (v.3) “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

When a person has been through what we have been through, he or she will know the Lord in a deeper dimension. We will know better who he is and we will know better who we are. He is God and we are his people. We have heard in the news that someone said recently, “You did not do that.” In this case he was right. We did not do what you see here and what we celebrate today. It was God’s blessings that enabled it all. We could not have done it of ourselves.

We know God. Jesus said, “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Matthew 11:27.

II Timothy 1:12 “I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.”

Through this experience of losing our church building we have come to know that God will never desert his faithful people.

We also have come to know that God must have faith in us that we will be true to him because he has provided for us so bountifully. We need never doubt who we are. We hear the Catholic Church say that they are the true church and that here is no salvation outside the church. Other groups also make exclusive claims. These are man- made interpretations. The only one that counts is the biblical truth. When God blesses his people as we have been blessed – that tells us who we are! Israel had a keen sense that they were chosen by God for a specific mission. Listen to the words again, “It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” We make no exclusive claims of any kind. We do say that all who know Christ as Savior, Messiah, Lord, the Anointed One – belongs to God and are his people.

Jesus said in John 10:27-28, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”

IV. THERE ARE VOICES OF GRATITUDE. (v.4)
Enter his gates with thanksgiving…”

Don’t you have feeling of gratitude every time you enter this building for worship and service? So many times I say in my spirit, “Thank you Lord for what you have done here for this congregation.”

I was asked when lightning struck the ground and sent a powerful charge through the telephone line into our building and set it on fire, “Why did God allow this?” I replied, “I don’t know, but I do know that God will bring good out of it.”

So we have a much better building than we had before. We are a much stronger congregation spiritually than we were before. We can say to the world as the Psalmist said, “For the Lord is good, and his love endures forever; his faithfulness endures to all generations.” (v.5)

“A body is not crippled ’til its heart has ceased to praise. Louis Albert Banks tells of an elderly Christian man, a fine singer, who learned that he had cancer of the tongue and that surgery was required. In the hospital after everything was ready for the operation, the man said to the doctor, “Are you sure I will never sing again?” The surgeon found it difficult to answer his question. He simply shook his head “no.” The patient then asked if he could sit up for a moment. “I’ve had many good times singing the praises of God,” he said. “And now you tell me I can never sing again. I have one song that will be my last. It will be of gratitude and praise to God.”

There in the doctor’s presence the man sang softly the words of Isaac Watts’ hymn:
“I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler power;
My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.”
Our Daily Bread.

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!

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