Responding to the Faithfulness of God

Responding to the Faithfulness of God – Psalms 105 Pastor Matt Davis – Long Valley Bible Church So, last week I had planned on preaching on giving thanks, when it seems like there's nothing to give thanks for. And today as I was packing, God kind of changed my mind on that a little bit. So maybe I'll preach on that at some point in the future, maybe I won't, who knows. But we're going to do something different today. That will lead Well, we'll discuss Thanksgiving, and it will lead into communion service. Two weeks ago, I had planned on doing communion service, and then I got quarantined about 30 hours before church, so it did not happen. So it'll happen today. But before we do that, I did want to discuss something about Thanksgiving that I've seen on Facebook lately. And it's, I think I'm getting ahead of myself. So if anyone has a Mormon friend on their Facebook page, they have probably seen them doing this. Every day, they give thanks for something on Facebook, they've turned Facebook into a Thanksgiving journal for seven days. Now, I don't want to bash the Mormons on this. It's great to give things and it's great to give thanks, publicly. But what I'm going to say applies not only to the Mormons, but I think to Christians, of every denomination worldwide, which is why I'm going to say this. It's just the Mormons that are making it public to make something to talk about. They are not giving thanks on Facebook, because they're thankful. Now, I am sure they're thankful for the things that they are posting on Facebook. But that is not where the outpouring of gratitude is coming from. It should come from the heart. Instead, it is coming because their leader, Russell M Nelson has told them to do this for seven days. At the at the end of seven days, most of them will stop. This happens every time they do this. It happened when I was a member. The they're the Prophet says we want you to do something on Facebook for seven days. And they do and so this shows Christians, it shows me the condition of the heart of most Christians. We should have gratitude that's just flooding out of our hearts. Flooding so much we don't need a church leader to tell us Hey, you need to go Be thankful. if we're only thankful because we're told to what is the condition of our heart. And I was thinking about that, How awesome would it be to see these posts on Facebook on a regular basis not because some guy in Salt Lake or a guy in Orderville or a guy wherever, said hey, I want you guys to do this. But because people were really that thankful. The Bible tells us that gratitude comes not because we are thankful for what we have received. But because there is a love in our heart for God to begin with. It is the love for God that produces a spring of gratitude for what we have in it, that love of God is not there. While we may be thankful, you know, hey, I'm thankful I have this nice core house. And it's not a gratitude that's pleasing to God. So while I am specifically talking about the Mormons that are doing this, this is my plea to all Christians is that we need to examine our heart and examine where our gratitude is coming from. And make sure that it is gratitude that's pleasing to the Lord. So, with that, if you have your Bibles with you, turn with me to Psalms Chapter 105. Today, we're going to talk about how do we respond to the faithfulness of God. I think we can agree that God is faithful. He is faithful in everything that he says he will do. He's even faithful in things that he has not outright said he will do. But because we have a God that is faithful, there should be a response from the Christian to God for this faithfulness, we're going to read verses one through four from psalms 105 Oh give thanks unto the Lord. Call upon his name, Make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing songs unto him, talk ye of all his wonderous works. glory in His holy name, let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord, seek the Lord and His strength, seek his face, evermore. And psalms 105. The Psalmist writes several things, six things in these four verses that should come from the heart of a believer, six things that we should do in response to the faithfulness of God. Number one, and two is found in verse one. Verse one says, give thanks unto the Lord. So the first thing that we should do is thank the Lord, we should have this attitude of gratitude. The heart of a Christian should be a heart of gratitude, being ready to give thanks and praise to God for His faithfulness, for the things that he has done for us, for his love for us and out of our love for him. We should, as Christians be the most thankful people on the planet. And all too often, I actually find that there are atheists more thankful then we are. It's sad, but it's true. Sometimes I see the atheist walking around with a more grateful heart for what they have than Christians, who have more than this world could ever give them. But we should have a heart of gratitude, we should just be overflowing with so much gratitude that and I know I'm what I'm saying. It's never going to happen. But this should be the heart of the believer, we should have a smile on our face. Because there's so much gratitude that not the weight of the entire world could turn that smile into a frown. We should have this gratitude. But it says give thanks unto the Lord. We should respond by going Thank you, God, thank you for my house, thank you for my car, thank you for my salvation from hell, for whatever it is, he's been faithful, we should respond with a heart of gratitude. The second thing here, it says in verse one, make known his deeds among the people. So more than thanking the Lord for what he has done, it says, to proclaim, make known. Now we should be braggers we should be boastful, but not boastful in ourself. What we have is not of our own works of our own capability, but we should be boastful people in the Lord. And we should boast in the Lord and we should brag about the Lord, we should proclaim what he has done, and make it known unto the inhabitants of the earth. You know, when we make it known what God has done, people want what people want, what we have. And when we make it known where it comes from, people want to see God. We should respond to the faithfulness of God not by keeping secret and going, Oh, I shouldn't. If I tell people about what happened, they're gonna think that I'm not humble. They're gonna think I'm boastful. Well, let them think I'm both for as long as they as long as they think I'm boastful in God, not myself. Let's proclaim! With this, I have two verses I want to read with you. Colossians 3:15 I better put a bookmark here. So I can turn back. Colossians chapter three, verses 15 through 17. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which you are called to one body and be thankful. Other things we should be thankful for, it says that we are called one body, we are called as a church were united in Christ. But it says, Be thankful, all throughout the Bible. And I think we, I think we read this verse last week as well. Not sure. But all throughout the Bible, both Old and New Testament, we are told to be thankful. One thing that I think about when it comes to being thankful as God is always faithful. But for someone who gives so much to undeserving people, I think that God wants to receive praise, and a thank you, and gratitude in return. I do find that the more I acknowledge what God does, the more faithful he appears to be. I don't think its so much that it's he's becoming more faithful, as much as it is that as we start to recognize what God is doing, we begin to see more of what he is doing, and praise and glorify him more. But I also find the more I do that, the more I receive as well. In addition, in Hebrews 12, verses 28 and 29. It says, Wherefore we are receiving a kingdom, which cannot be moved. What more is there to be thankful for? We're receiving a kingdom, which cannot be moved. So it says let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. Let us have grace, let us be thankful. Let's be thankful for the church. Let us be thankful for the kingdom in which we will inherit and receive. Notice be thankful for the faithfulness of God. The first and second things we can do is give thanks, and make known the works and wonders of the Lord. In verse two, We find the third thing that we can do. It says in verse two to Sing unto him, sing songs unto him, and talk ye of his wonderous works. You know, the Lord loves joyful noise. I know that as humans, we love music. When we're happy. We love we like to sing when we are sad. We like to put I don't know why, but we like to put on the sad, depressing songs. But whatever our emotions are, we love music. But the Bible tells us that God loves a joyful noise. And psalms 105 verse two, it tells us to respond to His faithfulness, by singing unto him. Sing, songs, make joyful noise, just call out and talk about the wondrous works. You know, half of the songs that we read in the book of Psalms, David is praising God for His works for what he does, and he's doing it in the form of song. We can do the same thing let us spontaneously just start singing. I am not great at this. Pastor Tim, When I was driving with him in Maine, a couple months ago we were we were on whatever freeway we were on, I don't know the highway numbers enough to remember there. But we were on the highway and he would just spontaneously start singing hymns and songs and i was like, what are you doing? He's says, I'm just grateful. You know, what an example pastor Tim is to me. Thankfully, you know, he is 26 years older than I am has 26 years more experience and and haven't worked that out so but I'm going to justify why I don't know. No justifications here, but the the heart of the believer, the heart of somebody who has received from God should burst out with praise, burst out in song in hymns. I have written down here some verses for you. Ephesians 5:19 When I say burst out randomly, a lot of people, they feel weird just on their own. making noise singing, I know I do. If I'm going to sing, I want to sing with music, with everything. So if I don't have that I tend to not sing. But it tells us speaking to yourself and songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. It would be appropriate when we're just on a walk to hum. I don't think we have to even sing out loud all the time. It says sing in to make a melody in your heart. We can worship and praise God as we are doing our things, as you're doing your rock cutting, and I'm going to pick on you just humming in our heart. In our mind singing in our car, we can mimic pastor Tim, burst out randomly in song. Pastor Tim doesn't even turn on the radio, when he does, hey, just out of nowhere start singing. Good Thing he can carry a tune because I know I can't do that. I find myself, I'll wake up if I can't sleep. Wake up 5:30 in the morning, I'll usually fall asleep pretty quick. But I noticed when I wake up, Im usually singing a worship song in my head. I don't know why, it's not conscious. But I'll wake up and I'll realize I'm in the middle of a course in a song. And that well, that's interesting. But I can't sing and carry a tune. But I'm I constantly playing Christian music in my car. If you get in my car and turn it on, right now one of two things will come on. Because my phones in here are not connected to the Bluetooth, you're going to hear a sermon from some preacher somewhere, because I have the car set to turn to that satellite station. So if my phone's dead or what not, that's what I'm listening to otherwise, all my playlists are Christian music, we listen to that at home when we clean. When we play games. When we go to sleep, I tend to either play sermons, the Bible, or music. But we should respond to the faithfulness of God by lifting up and send them to him a joyful noise. James 5:13 you want to know how else we should respond to God is respond before he acts. In the Bible, we see the Psamist, particularly David begins to rejoice in God before God even fulfills his wish. David starts singing Oh god, I'm so grateful to you because you're going to give this to me. David had a lot of faith, David's like, I already know it's comming. So I'm gonna Thank you. But the Bible, in the New Testament, it tells us to do the same thing. Is any among you afflicted? You know, I was afflicted for three days, when I was sick, I wish that I would have done this. But when we have back pain, when these aofflictions can be illness, back pain, it can be financial worries, car problems, looking for a job, not liking your job, whatever it is. It says or any of you afflicted. Let him pray. That's obvious, right? Don't like our circumstance? Turn to God - But it says, is any marry, let him sing songs. More than praying, we should sing songs. These two go hand in hand. God loves music - when we did our study in the book of Revelation. Remember what we saw in chapters 4, 5, and 6 with the angels and the elders that surrounded the throne of God, what were they doing? Singing day and night. Non Stop - It says forever more. They were singing to God. God loves music. God gives us things that we love, we love our health. We love the salvation we have, we love the blessings. In return, we should give God what he loves. And that is a joyful noise Acts 16:25 You know, we can also sing right in the middle of a problem. And I think when we just turn our heart and pour it out to God, things get better. But there's a great example of a person who was afflicted, who had life just bearing down on him. And yet, all he could think to do was lift up praise unto God. And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises under God, and the prisoners heard them. So this is during one of the many occasions that Paul was imprisoned. And he is shackled. He's sitting in the prison cell. And all of a sudden, at midnight - I don't I don't know why he chose midnight. Maybe from the time he got locked up until midnight he was grieving, upset, angry. I don't know. Maybe he was just thinking maybe he was praying. And then after he was done praying. I don't know what was going through his mind - But I do know that at midnight, he got up and it says, sang praises unto God. Just imagine this for a minute in prison. And this isn't even like the prisons we have today. Today's prisons have plumbing, running water, sewer systems, heating, cooling. They even have television. as uncomfortable as our prisons are. They are 2,000% better than what Paul was in. So just think of the circumstance and conditions that Paul was in. Everything he's going through, he wants to be out with his friends. He wants to be out doing missionary work spreading the gospel, living his life - he's in prison. He's surrounded by these other people. He's in filth. And what does he do? He sings. And he doesn't even sing woe is me. He doesn't sing depression - says he sings praises unto God. what faith Paul must have in the middle of all of that to start praising God and His faithfulness. But you know what, God responded, I didn't have this in my notes. But just look at verse 26. And suddenly, there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors are open, and everyone's bands were loosed. When we can focus on God, in our time of tribulation, when we can say, you know what, I'm not placing my faith in what's going on around. You know, fear is a type of faith. Fear is. Faith in God is not fear. When we place our faith in God, and we don't let the circumstance around us, drag us down. We have faith in something that's powerful. But fear is also faith. Fear is just faith in the circumstance, in the world and the things around us. But when we can take our attention, and our faith away from the world and place it in God, and we can do that, just by singing praises, by praising him and building trust and faith in Him, God moves mountains. Number four, is going to be found in verse three. It says, Glory ye in His holy name, let the heart of them rejoice, that seek the Lord. In Philippians 4:4 it says, Rejoice in the Lord always, again, I will say, rejoice. When Paul wrote that he didn't say rejoice in the Lord only in your good times, or rejoice in the Lord when you are happy. He says, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. Peter tells us to rejoice in the Lord in our tribulation, because in our tribulation, God's strength is made perfect in our weakness. So in all times, we should rejoice, the heart of the believer should be overflowing with joy, not just gratitude, but with joy. We should just be this bubbling spring that's overflowing out of our mouth joy of happiness. You know, God. Christ said in john 15, I believe, when he talks about bearing fruit and the things he wants us to do, he says, I tell you, I tell you these things, that you may have joy and have it more abundantly. God wants us to not just have joy, but he wants us to have abundant joy. He wants us to be happy. But he wants us to be happier than anything this world can give us. When he has given us all he can give us why should we not rejoice? I can hardly believe that the proper response to the faithfulness of God is walking around like this. "Poor me. Today was not a good day." Every day is a good day. Because God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, and are called according to His purpose. Every day is a good day because guess what I have today? I have my salvation. Today, I have a room in heaven, waiting for me. It's there. It's just waiting for me. Today I have a God just waiting for me to ask so that I can receive. So I can hardly imagine that that is the proper way to respond is just today was okay. No, no, today was great. I think if we could have that perspective, that outlook and rejoice for today was great, today I have God. How much more will we then be able to rejoice tomorrow in the next day in the Lord? Number five. So, when we talk, it's still in verse three, verse three and verse four. Let the heart of them, rejoice that seek the Lord. Then it says, Seek the Lord and His strength. seek His face evermore. You know, we've seen this in some of our worship songs, the Bible says, it says, The joy of the Lord is my strength. So the joy of the Lord is our strength, we should respond in a way that brings the Lord joy. And then we should seek the Lord more. Because it's in the Lord, we find our strength. The believer does not draw strength from his own power, I'm not going to flex because I have no muscle. Okay, but we do not draw power and strength from the fibers that run through our body. We do not draw strength, from that capacity and power of our own mind. We do not draw strength from the world, from our friends, we draw strength from God. But how can we draw strength from God if we're not seeking Him? If we're not following him? If we're not with him, we must be in fellowship with the Lord to draw strength from him. So the proper way to respond to His faithfulness is to further seek Him. And as we seek Him we must stay in step with the Lord. Too often we like to say, you know what, God, I don't like what you're doing. But I invite you to get on board with what I'm doing. We've all done that. But we need to stay in step with the Lord of Matthew 6:33. This is when Christ is telling us to not worry about tomorrow, to not worry about money to not worry about clothing, about bread, about shelter. But in verse 33, he says, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness and these things shall be added to you. The heart of the believer responding to the faithfulness of God should be seeking His kingdom. We shouldn't be worried about our needs that are temporary. We should be seeking the kingdom of God. I have to say something as a precursor to what I'm going to say next. I don't know what anyone here tithes at all. I don't see that. I don't want to see it. So I'm not calling anyone out with what I'm going to say next. Because I can't call anyone out not knowing who tithes and who doesn't and how much - but I do want to say something that I've noticed. Even when I give more than my tithing and I i tithe, regularly, faithfully, but even when I go above that, when I see a need in the kingdom and because I'm seeking the kingdom, I look and go, what I, and everyone knows I'm a gamer, I like to buy games, because I get, eventually I get bored of what I'm doing, I want to buy more, or I want to buy a better mouse or a better this or a better whatnot, but I find or even pay my bills. Cuz you know, I like having heat, electric water. But I find that when I see a need in the kingdom, and I can address it on my own without saying to the church, Hey, why don't you pay for this. And I find that when we just address the need and give to the need, and so on to the kingdom of God. somehow, some way that always comes back to me. Because God is faithful, he says, Seek ye first the kingdom. And these things will be added unto you. So when I see a need in the kingdom and go, okay, and we did this buying this equipment, I really wanted to get it so we can get going. And then I ran into hiccups that we're still trying to work out. But when I said you know what? Shawnee, I have faith in God that he wants me to do this. Let's take our water bill, and our power bill, and not pay the water and power and get the stuff for the kingdom of God. And Pastor Troy, he says are you sure you want to do that? And I said, Yeah, I'm sure I'm not worried about it. But the thing is, about two days later, it came back to me. I don't know how, but it came back to me. And we were able to still take care of the phone bill, the water bill, the electric bill. So I find when I seek the kingdom of God and when there's a need. And I am not hesitant, like I don't know if I want to take care of that. But when I just give to the kingdom and seek it and want it to grow, I find that always comes back to me and the faithfulness of God, as always shines, he has made perfect. It's like he's a show off in a way but, and he is I mean, I think part of the Grand creation when we look and see everything out there. When we see the the Pillars of Creation, those nebulas, but God always comes through for me. And so I have faith, that next time there is a need and I seek to take care of that need and not worry about my own stuff. God is going to work it out. I don't have to worry about that. I have a clear example. That happened this week. We were running short on money and we we run in the red red is bad, right? That's the negative. Okay. We I'm not a financial person or whatever they're called. So, accountant. Thank you. Yeah, I'm not that so I had to ask - but we run in the red every month. Yes, some months, somehow we end up with quite a bit extra. But with everything going on right now - we lost an entire litter of puppies. Ann got sick almost overnight, she got an infection. And there was nothing we can do because she was pregnant. So our only the only thing we can do is make her feel comfortable. And then after the puppies were born, get her treated. Well the infection septic while she was carrying and lost all the puppies and we lost Annie a couple days later. So we have some had some unexpected stuff there unexpected bills in other places. And I was like, You know what, God, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm starting to run out of money. We started giving more to the online church because we want to reach out to the younger generation. I think right now with COVID. And with everyone at home and most places, it's a perfect opportunity to use technology and reach people. And so we started getting them on that. Hey, God, I don't know what we're gonna do. And everything is getting tight for us again, can you do something? And two days later, I got my phone bill and my phone bill which is normally $200 is $50. Don't ask me how I did not call and ask about it... I've done that when I call and ask about it and be like, hey, you're not charging me enough they fix it. I don't know what happened. But my $200 phone bill became $50 this month. Yeah, so I know, I, God worked that out. So it, it works. I can't explain it. But I do know what the Bible says. The Bible says, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and these things shall be added to you. I know that it says it. And I know that it works. Because I have seen week after week, where I seek the kingdom of God. And these things get added to me. So my encouragement to you guys is in response to the kingdom of God. And like I said, I don't know who tithes, how much they tithe, I don't want to know. So if you're doing this fantastic, if you're not, this is my encouragement. My encouragement is seek the kingdom of God. Let's not be caught up in our temporal needs, God will take care of our temporal needs. And let's get caught up in the kingdom of God. Proverbs 8:17, I love this. It says, I love them that love me. Well, God loves all of us, the Bible says that we love Him because He loved us first. So he does love those that love him. But it says, and those that seek me early shall find me. I'll tell you what, it's a lot better to seek God now than in a crisis. So it's a lot better to know that we can rely on God, know how to get our strength from him, know how to be in fellowship, and fine tune now than it is, when you're holding, I'm going to say this one from experience when you're holding a gun to your head. And even as Christians, we need to seek God continually. A couple weeks ago, we discussed working out our salvation, daily with trembling and fear. As Christians, we need to seek God every day. Because if we stop seeking Him, we will distance from him. And it will be harder to hear from him, harder to reach out to him, harder to go through life. So those who seek Him early shall find him. I can take this to mean a few things. Those who seek Him early in life will find him. And I believe it's a lot better to find God earlier than later on life. But those who seek Him early in tribulation, talking to Christians on this one, we go through tribulation. But as Christians, as humans, we like to have this mentality of I've got this. And so we don't seek God until we made this entangled web of mess that we can't find our way out of anymore. And then we seek God, but we have this entire mess that God's still got to drag us through. So those who see Him early in tribulation will find him and will avoid that tangled mess. We need to stay in step with the Lord. Matthew 7:7, I don't know why I did this to you. I could have done both verses a Matthew first. But Matthew 7:7 says ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you. What a wonderful blessing if we seek God. It says if we ask it shall be given. Now because I'm not a prosperity preacher, I do have one requirement that has to be added to this. It has to be within the will of God. But if we are staying in step with the Lord, if we are seeking Him, and praising him and fellowshiping with Him - We'll already be - if we're seeking first the Kingdom of God. We will already be aligned with as well. And if we do those things, ask and it shall be given. He says if we seek, we shall find. And knock and it shall be open. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be open from eight. Too often we go through life and we don't have. And finally it hits us. Well, we don't have because we're not asking. And Christ says the same thing. He says, You receive it not because you ask not. In line with proverbs 8:17 that said that he that seeketh me early shall find me. If we ask early, it shall be given. But in response to the faithfulness of God, we must continue to seek further, to rejoice further, to sing and praise further, and to give thanks and proclaim further. The final thing is in verse five of Psalms 105. It says, remember his marvelous works, that he has done, his wonders and the judgment of his mouth. In response to the faithfulness of God, the final and most important thing that we shall do is remember. What do we remember? Well, we can remember when we got saved, we can remember the feeling, the circumstance, the condition, so that on days where we don't really feel like we're saved, we can draw from that. We can remember the faithfulness of God throughout our life. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about that. We talked about how I remembered how God helped with the car wreck with everything I went through. And we can draw on that in our tribulation as we seek God, and go, okay, God, I need you, and asking me for this. But then we can know that he will come through while we wait by remembering all the times he had come through. We can remember his word. If we place the Word of God, on our heart, and in our mind, we can remember the word of God. We can remember the promises of God. He said, I will never leave or forsake you. He said, If you seek me, you will find me, if you ask, you'll receive. We can remember what he has done. But the most important thing that we can do is we can remember the greatest gift that He has given that we cannot receive of ourselves. We can remember the precious Body and Blood of the Lamb that was slain. We’re going move into our communion service. The Bible tells us that we should take communion, partake of the body and blood of the Lamb, in remembrance of what he has done.