Sermon Tone Analysis

Post Pattern

Thankfulness is easiest when it is a habit.

We need to strive to have a pattern of

praise in our lives.

If you were to look back at the last 6 months of social media,

what kind of pattern do you have?

How could that be changed to emulate the

writer of Psalms attitude toward being thankful at all times, in the good times and

the tough times.

Habit: a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

We are what we repeatedly do.

Will Durant

Understanding Habit Formation Habit formation is the process by which new behaviors become automatic.

If you instinctively reach for a cigarette the moment you wake up in the morning, you have a habit.

By the same token, if you feel inclined to lace up your running shoes and hit the streets as soon as you get home, you've acquired a habit.

Old habits can be difficult to break, and healthy habits are often harder to develop than one would like.

That's because the behavioral patterns we repeat most often are etched into our neural pathways.

The good news is that, through repetition, it's possible to form—and maintain—new habits.

And even long-time habits that are detrimental to one’s health and well-being can be shaken with enough determination and a smart approach.

Much of our daily lives are taken up by habits that we've formed over our lifetime.

An important characteristic of a habit is that it's automatic-- we don't always recognize habits in our own behavior.

Habits emerge through associative learning.

"We find patterns of behavior that allow us to reach goals.

We repeat what works, and when actions are repeated in a stable context, we form associations between cues and response.

“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.”

This is a repetition of the fourth verse of .

The original word signifies a glad shout, such as loyal subjects give when their king appears among them.

Our happy God should be worshipped by a happy people; a cheerful spirit is in keeping with his nature, his acts, and the gratitude which we should cherish for his mercies.

In every land Jehovah’s goodness is seen, therefore in every land should he be praised.

Never will the world be in its proper condition till with one unanimous shout it adores the only God.

O ye nations, how long will ye blindly reject him?

Your golden age will never arrive till ye with all your hearts revere him.

“Serve the Lord with gladness.”

“Glad homage pay with awful mirth.”

He is our Lord, and therefore he is to be served; he is our gracious Lord, and therefore to be served with joy.

The invitation to worship here given is not a melancholy one, as though adoration were a funeral solemnity, but a cheery, gladsome exhortation, as though we were bidden to a marriage feast.

“Come before his presence with singing.”

We ought in worship to realise the presence of God, and by an effort of the mind to approach him.

This is an act which must to every rightly instructed heart be one of great solemnity, but at the same time it must not be performed in the servility of fear, and therefore we come before him, not with weepings and wailings, but with Psalms and hymns.

Singing, as it is a joyful, and at the same time a devout, exercise, should be a constant form of approach to God.

The measured, harmonious, hearty utterance of praise by a congregation of really devout persons is not merely decorous but delightful, and is a fit anticipation of the worship of heaven, where praise has absorbed prayer, and become the sole mode of adoration.

How a certain society of brethren can find it in their hearts to forbid singing in public worship is a riddle which we cannot solve.

“Know that the Lord he is God.”

Our worship must be intelligent.

We ought to know whom we worship and why.

“Man, know thyself,” is a wise aphorism, yet to know our God is truer wisdom; and it is very questionable whether a man can know himself until he knows his God.

Jehovah is God in the fullest, most absolute, and most exclusive sense, he is God alone; to know him in that character and prove our knowledge by obedience, trust, submission, zeal, and love is an attainment which only grace can bestow.

Only those who practically recognise his Godhead are at all likely to offer acceptable praise.

“It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.”

Shall not the creature reverence its Maker?

Some men live as if they made themselves; they call themselves “self-made men,” and they adore their supposed creators; but Christians recognise the origin of their being and their well-being, and take no honour to themselves either for being, or for being what they are.

Neither in our first or second creation dare we put so much as a finger upon the glory, for it is the sole right and property of the Almighty.

To disclaim honour for ourselves is as necessary a part of true reverence as to ascribe glory to the Lord.

“Non nobis, domine!” will for ever remain the true believer’s confession.

Of late philosophy has laboured hard to prove that all things have been developed from atoms, or have, in other words, made themselves: if this theory shall ever find believers, there will certainly remain no reason for accusing the superstitious of credulity, for the amount of credence necessary to accept this dogma of scepticism is a thousandfold greater than that which is required even by an absurd belief in winking Madonnas, and smiling Bambinos.

For our part, we find it far more easy to believe that the Lord made us than that we were developed by a long chain of natural selections from floating atoms which fashioned themselves.

“We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”

It is our honour to have been chosen from all the world besides to be his own people, and our privilege to be therefore guided by his wisdom, tended by his care, and fed by his bounty.

Sheep gather around their shepherd and look up to him; in the same manner let us gather around the great Shepherd of mankind.

The avowal of our relation to God is in itself praise; when we recount his goodness we are rendering to him the best adoration; our songs require none of the inventions of fictions, the bare facts are enough; the simple narration of the mercies of the Lord is more astonishing than the productions of imagination.

That we are the sheep of his pasture is a plain truth, and at the same time the very essence of poetry.

“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving.”

To the occurrence of the word thanksgiving in this place the Psalm probably owes its title.

In all our public service the rendering of thanks must abound; it is like the incense of the temple, which filled the whole house with smoke.

Expiatory sacrifices are ended, but those of gratitude will never be out of date.

So long as we are receivers of mercy we must be givers of thanks.

Mercy permits us to enter his gates; let us praise that mercy.

What better subject for our thoughts in God’s own house than the Lord of the house.

“And into his courts with praise.”

Into whatever court of the Lord you may enter, let your admission be the subject of praise: thanks be to God, the innermost court is now open to believers, and we enter into that which is within the veil; it is incumbent upon us that we acknowledge the high privilege by our songs.

“Be thankful unto him.”

Let the praise be in your heart as well as on your tongue, and let it all be for him to whom it all belongs.

“And bless his name.”

He blessed you, bless him in return; bless his name, his character, his person.

Whatever he does, be sure that you bless him for it: bless him when he takes away as well as when he gives; bless him as long as you live, under all circumstances; bless him in all his attributes, from whatever point of view you consider him.

“For the Lord is good.”

This sums up his character and contains a mass of reasons for praise.

He is good, gracious, kind, bountiful, loving; yea, God is love.

He who does not praise the good is not good himself.

The kind of praise inculcated in the Psalm, viz. that of joy and gladness, is most fitly urged upon us by an argument from the goodness of God.

“His mercy is everlasting.”

God is not mere justice, stern and cold: he has bowels of compassion, and wills not the sinner’s death.

Towards his own people mercy is still more conspicuously displayed; it has been theirs from all eternity, and shall be theirs world without end.

Everlasting mercy is a glorious theme for sacred song.

“And his truth endureth to all generations.”

No fickle being is he, promising and forgetting.

He has entered into covenant with his people, and he will never revoke it, nor alter the thing that has gone out of his lips.

As our fathers found him faithful, so will our sons, and their seed for ever.

A changeable God would be a terror to the righteous, they would have no sure anchorage, and amid a changing world they would be driven to and fro in perpetual fear of shipwreck.

It were well if the truth of divine faithfulness were more fully remembered by some theologians; it would overturn their belief in the final fall of believers, and teach them a more consolatory system.

Our heart leaps for joy as we bow before One who has never broken his word or changed his purpose.

In his Turning Point Daily Devotional for March 31, David Jeremiah writes: With the click of a button, we can reach hundreds or thousands of people.

Social media has created a way to share our thoughts instantly.

Most people use social media for this purpose alone, but we have the opportunity to use it for more.

The power of the Holy Spirit equips us to be Christ’s witnesses, and social media can be a method of sharing Christ.

When a friend shares his or her struggles, we can pray and send a message of encouragement.

Social media also can bring opportunities to serve as we hear of friends going through sickness or difficulties.

People are drawn to the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control ().

As we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us, we can become active witnesses instead of passive observers.

Social media does not have to be a black hole of wasted hours.