The Story - Chapter 20

I want to begin reading with verse 4. May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth. May the people praise you, O God. May all people praise you. Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear Him. Whenever the Bible talks about praising God, it talks about expressing in different ways His power, authority, majesty, greatness, whatever way you say. To praise somebody means that you tell good things about them. If you praise your car, you tell all the good things about your car. And if you praise somebody, you tell good things about them. And praise can be done in singing, or it can be done in lifestyle. For example, if you were to ask me how to get to St. John, and I gave you instructions about turning on this street and turning on that direction, and then you got in your car and started driving and you turned the opposite direction, you would say, I don't trust that person's direction. If God says this is the way I want you to live, and you start living your life, and you make choices contrary to what God says you should do, you're saying to God, I don't trust you. If you listen to God and follow His instructions, you're saying God knows what He's doing. His instructions are always reliable, and so I'm going to follow Him. So He's saying, may the people praise you, O God, and may all the peoples praise You. Then the land will yield its harvest, and God our God will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear Him. He doesn't mean if you get in church and sing to God that all these things will happen. But He means if you make the choices that God tells you to make as He tells you to make them, then the end result will be God's blessings. Would you bow your heads for a moment, please? Do you make a pattern of your life of beginning your day and asking God to guide your decisions and your choices that day? That's praise to God. Can you think this week of some choices you made that were maybe difficult to make, that you made them because you knew they were right in God's standards? When you do that, you're saying, God is right. He is the ruler of my world and my life. You've praised Him. I know that the words we sing today, Father, are rather hollow to you. If all this week, we have ignored you as the ruler of our lives, we have ignored you as the ruler of our lives, and we've made the choices about our time and life and money and circumstances and relationships based on what we wanted or felt like instead of what you told us was right. We come today to examine our hearts and ask you to examine them. And we ask that not only would our words and our songs tell of your greatness, but our lives would tell of your authority. And we come to praise you because we believe in praising you. We will find the fullness of life. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen. Will you please stand with me? We know that God loves us. One of the last things we did in our lesson today was to talk about how God loved the Jews even if they were just kind of on the...