Psalm 50:14-15; Psalm 51:17

Psalm 50:14-15 “Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” Psalm 51:17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Last week we learned about the person who is able to dwell in the tent of God. Today we will look at the heart of one who comes before the Lord to worship. Rather than worshipping from our hearts properly we are more concerned with the formality of worship. At times it is our image that we are more concerned with than proper worship. When there are a large number of people that gather together, it becomes easier to focus on people’s image. When the number is small, and the atmosphere is like a family, there is less that one can hide. You know the life of those around you so the focus is less of the image and more on the individual and their personal life. In a large church, it is harder to know everyone, so when you gather once a week for service, rather than knowing what is really happening in their lives, we tend to look at their outer appearance and decide if they are well or not. Rather than looking into their heart, we notice their new attire, new car and make a judgement based on the image. We fail to see their beautiful heart which they bring to worship the Lord. If many people are gathered in this manner, will the Lord accept such worship? Worship is what we offer to God, and in order for it to be worthy, He must accept it. When you make a contract between two individuals there must be an agreement of what will be given and received. Why do we come before the Lord and offer our praise and worship? Is it for personal satisfaction or enjoyment? Then the worship is wrong. If we offer our worship it is because there is someone who is going to receive it. If the one who receives it is God, then we must ask ourselves “is God pleased with our worship?” We must ask ourselves this question when we offer our worship to Him. When we desire to make a request or to celebrate an occasion we give gifts. Why do we give gifts? The gift symbolizes gratitude and it can also be used as a bribe. Does not the gift of gratitude have to symbolize the value for which one is giving thanks? Does not the bribe need to be of value that symbolizes the nature of the request? Would a small gift be sufficient for making a grand request? A grand request must be matched with a grand gift, and an important request must be matched with an equally important gift. If someone were to bring joy into my life, would I not be moved to give that person a gift of gratitude? We must first open our eyes and see the truth about ourselves, so that we may give God the true and proper worship He is worthy of. If I do not see myself as a sinner, and think that I have done nothing wrong and do not have much to be grateful for, then the worship I give to God is nothing but formality. You may think that everyone is the same, that you have not received as much as someone else, and you think that there is nothing special happening in your life so you question why you should be grateful. You are grateful for nothing, and when you come to worship all you do is complain and are discontent. You compare yourself with others and question why they have so much while you have little. Unless you look at your life in light of the word you will continue to complain and be discontent. You do not come before God to worship with joy and thanksgiving, you come before God and ask Him “why?” Will the Lord accept this worship and will He answer this type of prayer? Fasting will not get your prayer answered because in your heart there is discontent. There is no gratitude, only blame and frustration. With a heart like this fasting will not change the outcome, but now that you fast you complain that you have fasted and complain to God even more. What kind of fruit do you expect to harvest in your life when you live foolishly like this? “Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” Aside from the prerequisite of having our prayers answered, when God does answer your prayer, what should we do? When God delivers us from our troubles we are to realize that He has saved us so that we may honor Him, but rather than giving Him glory by living our lives in honor of Him, we begin to get proud and lift ourselves up thinking that we have done something great. This is wrong. What does God desire in order to answer our prayers and save us? Is there anyone who has never prayed to God offering Him everything that we had, even our very lives if He would just answer our prayers? We pledge allegiance to Him and make countless promises. If we acknowledge that there is a proper life that we are to be living then we must first start living this life. Then as we live our lives in gratitude then we can expect God to answer our prayers and bless us. We must change the order of things and do it the right way. We do not come before God in praise and thanksgiving. We come before Him with our complaints and our requests and demand that He answer our prayers so that we can live for Him. If the order of our lives is reversed then will God be able to accept our worship? If He does not accept our worship then it is a waste of time. Our prayers, offerings and fasting will be of no use. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Do we come before God and pray in this manner? Are we really broken and contrite? No. Rather we come before Him seeking blessings, asking us to use Him for His glory so that we can be lifted up. We do not come before Him repenting and broken for not living according to word. If we are not praying this way, then are our prayers not wrong in comparison to the word? Psalm 57:2 I cry out to God Most High, to God, who vindicates me. If I cry out to God and it is He who vindicates, then it is not I who vindicates myself. I must put all my trust in Him and follow Him. We pray that He vindicates but after praying we go and do everything with our strength. There are things that I must do, but we must live a life that cries out to God and trusts that He will do His will. Psalm 57:7 My heart, O God, is steadfast, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music. What does it mean to be steadfast? It is the determination to live my life for God to give Him praise and thanks. With this steadfast decision you can come before God to sing praises and worship Him. Do you come before Him steadfast in this decision or are you only offering lip service to the Lord? Where do many of out trials come from in our life of faith? It comes from the words that we speak and misunderstand. A Sunday school teacher asked her students “who goes to heaven?” “Is it the rich person, the one who does good works, the pastor, the elder?” The children answered “No.” When they answer “no” that means that they must know who goes to heaven. Who do you say goes to heaven? A five year old raised his hand and answered “the one who dies goes to heaven.” The rich man, pastor and everyone must die if they want to go to heaven. The answer is simple. I ask you who live a life of faith, who partakes in the resurrection? One must die first so that they can resurrect. One must die before they go to heaven. You can change the words and say it this way or that way. But if you want to have Jesus be the light of your life and if you want to live as if you are in heaven then you must die to yourself. We say this but do we really die. We refuse to die to our spouse, our children, our parents. How can we die when we refuse to even honor the commitment that we made during our wedding vows and cannot even die to our spouse? Laboring hard for yourself to make it in this world is not dying to yourself. You are making compromises with yourself and refusing to die. If God accepts the praise and worship of those who offer it with thanks then what is the prerequisite of gratitude? It is the absence of complaint, discontentment, blaming and desires. Then you can be grateful. When you can see the rod of discipline as a guide to better my life and not as a source of pain then you can grateful. If we complain, argue and rebel then it is because we fail to see the error of our ways and have no remorse. This is why we blame someone else. If we come before God not with gratitude but with complaining and the needs that we want satisfied then we have failed to come before God the right way. True gratitude means that you lack nothing, there is nothing to be discontent over and there is no one to blame. If I serve in the lowest position in the company, or am given the most meaningless jobs to do, I must do that which I am entrusted with a heart of gratitude so that God will accept my life as pleasing worship. If you complain about where God has put you and demand that God lift you out of your place and put you in a higher place that you desire, have you ever considered that you are rebelling against His will? God has made both the rich man and the poor man. God has made both the doctor and at times the sickness. Why? It is through the suffering that the person may find His way to God. But what do we do? We bring our complaints to God first. We demand to know what it is that we have done wrong? There are times that we are sick and hurt because of the fault of someone else. We can get hurt in accidents or other fault. But there are also times that we are sick because we did not take proper care of ourselves. Many people are sick because they have lived for their pleasure and in so doing have acquired some sickness. When this happens we need to realize that He is giving us a warning, telling us that He is in control, so that we can turn back to Him. You may be going smoothly with your life and then suddenly be involved in an accident to wake you up and show you that He has the power of life. He can do as He pleases. But what do we do? We argue against God and ask Him what it is that we did to deserve our troubles. We do not see His hand at work in our lives. When we are stricken with sickness we should humble ourselves and confess to God that we are the ones who have failed to take care of the body He has given us and change our lifestyle to get better. We should be grateful for the warnings and the chance to get well and turn our lives back to God. Gratitude should be flowing out of us. Our prayers go unanswered because we still think we are in control of our lives and refuse to acknowledge that God is the one in control. Psalm 66:12 You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance. Unless we allow God to bring us through the fire and water we will not be able to reach the place of abundance. When God has placed us in our circumstance so that we may be disciplined through the trials so that our faith may increase and we can turn our eyes towards Him. We must open our spiritual eyes. But rather than opening our eyes we complain to God about our circumstance. No matter how perfect we may think we are if other people notice our faults how much further from perfect will we be in God’s eyes? If God desires to use me for a specific purpose, then I must endure the trials so that I may be made into the vessel He deems worthy for that purpose. Before I can be lifted up for His use, I must be humbled and trained. We are not to broaden our shoulders and lift our heads the moment something goes our way. When you water the garden and want to spray the water far what is the best angle to spray the water? Is it high or low? If you spray to high the water will come back down on you. If you spray too low you will be getting yourself wet also. The angle must be right for where you are and where you desire to spray the water. When you are in high position you spray down and when you are in a lower position you spray up. You need to find the perfect angle for where you are aiming. The moment God answers our prayer we immediately become proud and our heads go up. We act as if everything is finished. What will happen? It will all come back down on our own heads. In Proverbs it says that the blessing and the curse come from the same place. The blessing and the curse is the same. You can have the greatest feast set before you but if you do not eat of it will you be full? Can you be filled just from looking at the feast? If you must eat to be filled, then likewise you must obey the commands to receive the blessings. Why are there curses? The curses follow disobedience. If you do not obey the commands then you will not receive the blessings. If you obey then your curse will turn into a blessing. If you receive the answer to your prayers and do not act upon it then the blessing becomes a curse. We are to live our lives in gratitude and obedience to HIm, but if we are proud we are told that God will destroy us. If I am banished from the presence of God then nothing else will matter. Neither should you torture yourself and stay discouraged and wallow in self pity. You are spraying yourself with the hose and ruining yourself. Either way you are bringing the curse on yourself. I must find the perfect balance between pride and humility through obedience to God’s word so that I may achieve the greatest distance in living for God. We will not be able to reap the benefits of our spiritual life unless we find the right balance. This balance is not what I define but it is determined by the word of God. The Bible tells us in this situation to do this, in that situation to do that. When we pray it teaches us how we should pray. It gives us the answers that we seek. By saying “yes” and obeying we are finding the balance that we need to humble ourselves before God. By living this way, you are watering your garden well and allowing it to grow abundantly. If I live a life of humility that reflects that of Christ then through my life God will be glorified. My life will be an example of the presence of God to those around me. If I am unable to live this life, then my life will not bring glory to God and my life cannot be a testimony to others. Is your only purpose to come and worship to have God answer your requests? Is God our slave or is He our Master? If you bribe someone to have an issue resolved what happens when the bribe comes to light? There will be greater repercussions and more trouble for those involved. This is not natural. That means that the issue had not been resolved properly. When you come to God with discontent in your heart but you give your offerings and worship and you get your prayer answered, is this natural or unnatural? When things seem to be resolved for you they are not normal. Even though it may seem as though you have gotten what you desired in the end you will have nothing. Even if I were to receive nothing, like Job, I must confess that though the world point fingers at me and persecute me, I will neither grumble nor complain nor speak against the Lord. Then my relationship with God will be true and just and He will accept my worship which I offer in thanks. Then He will save me from my troubles. If God put me in a difficult situation so that He may be glorified and I were to die, then my death would give Him glory and I will reap great rewards. The problem is we think that our reward must be here on this earth. God’s purpose and my purpose are different. God’s thoughts and my thoughts are different. God’s purpose is to give me eternal life and bring me into His presence by guiding me in the paths of righteousness. If my purpose is to use the name of God to reap the benefits of this life then my purpose is not the same as God’s purpose. Who’s purpose must be achieved so that you can say that you have live the life victory? If I achieve my purpose, it is possible that people of this world may say that I have succeeded, but the people of God will see that I have failed. Moreover God will say that I have failed. If God judges me as a having failed, then it will not matter that the world thought of me as a success, I have but one place to go. Is this not so, if God says I have failed? No matter what the entire world may say, if I worship the Lord and He does not accept my worship then I have failed. My worship will be in vain. It is no use how much I fast and pray if God does not accept my prayers. What purpose is it to worship God when He does not accept your worship? Why waste your time and money doing so? Do you just go as if going to a business meeting where many people gather to make an appearance? Is this not a life that has nothing to do with God? I must have the determination within me to give thanks to God no matter what the world says to me or how it persecutes me, as long as I find favor with God. This is the attitude that God desires and accepts. It does not matter if my earthly father disowns me, or my friends desert me, as long as I can lift my eyes to the Lord and He acknowledge me. No matter how hard or difficult my situation I will confess that I lack nothing and give thanks to Him with joy and praise. Then the Lord will save me from my troubles and I will dutifully live my life to honor the Lord. God will dwell with me in my life as I live continuously in this pattern of worshipping Him. In every moment of our lives there are countless temptations that are trying to make us fall. In these moments we are lacking. As a child who wants something from their parents but does not receive it, rather than complain we should try to see the purpose of why we have yet to receive what we have asked for. Could it be that they desire to give us something greater? Is it because they know that it is something that I will not need? If I am able to look within myself and come to understand the heart of my parents then I will have no reason to complain. Parents have a natural desire to want to give their children good things even though the child does not ask. But if I ask before the time is right, I end up complaining and being discontent. Wait for God to provide you when He says it is the right time. Humble yourself before God. Live in obedience to His word. The foundation of life has been given to us in the Bible. If you will live in obedience to His word, God will use you for His purpose. When you say “yes” to His purpose, and give thanks from your heart, and if you live the life that you confess before God, then He will save you from your troubles. You cannot question His way, and take a step backwards, and expect to receive the same blessings. The Bible says that God does not despise a broken spirit or a contrite heart. Do not have complaints or discontent when you pray. Pray in gratitude for His grace in saving a sinner like me, and be repentant that you have been unable to live a life worthy of that gift. We must be contrite. We must not complain. Although both are prayers that cry out to God the one of contrite heart is crying out because we are remorseful of our sin and we desire to live a life that pleases God. This is the prayer that God will accept. May you pray so that God will accept your prayer. When God accepts your prayer and lifts you up may you live your life so that your life is a witness of Jesus, so that you may be the salt and light of this world. May God be glorified through your life and may you receive the blessings that God desires to bestow upon you.