Living a Life of Greater Adoration Karen Vineyard Church March 19, 2017 1 min Good morning, my name is Matthew Rohrs. Married to Jeanne – three awesome boys. Came to Kenya this past June to help lead a Christ-centered business accelerator called Sinapis. Share a bit more.

30 sec Kenya is amazing, and we have already experienced amazing blessings. Things like the beautiful countryside and incredible animals.

30 sec Having monkeys bless my 4 year old Dillon And really enjoying this community at KVC. This is the only church that we visited, and we have been so thankful to call it home.

Psalm 100 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness!     Come into his presence with singing! 3 Know that the Lord, he is God!     It is he who made us, and we are his;     we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,     and his courts with praise!     Give thanks to him; bless his name! 5 For the Lord is good;     his steadfast love endures forever,     and his faithfulness to all generations. 5 min Chris asked me to come and speak on adoring God in prayer. I am really thankful for the opportunity to share on this topic with you. Not because I feel like my walk with God is full of adoration and my prayer life is where I desire it to be. But because getting to think about this for the past several weeks has been a huge blessing to me. My goal this morning is: (1) See the amazing things that Psalm 100 teaches us about a life of prayer and adoration (2) Explore why having a heart that overflows with adoration and worship for God can be hard (3) Discern a way to consistently grow in adoring God and do some practical application together corporately and personally Introduction If you are new to the Bible, the Psalms are a collection of 150 songs and poems. They give us an opportunity to hear God speaking to us, but amazingly also provide a guide through the authors for speaking to God. Several different genres of Psalms: Celebration Wisdom Lament Judgment Thanksgiving and praise - This is the only Psalm in the Bible with the heading “A psalm for giving thanks” Read Psalm 100 out loud The language is lofty and beautiful. Lot of exclamation points! Vs 1 tells us that this is an invitation to “all the earth” – this includes Gentiles (non-Jewish) people to join in this song of praise God is commanding us to do things – praise Him, serve Him, come into His presence, give thanks, bless Him, and His commands aren’t just actions. They include emotion – gladness, thanksgiving, singing, praise, blessing God clearly doesn’t just want our actions. He wants our hearts, emotions, will engaged with Him While the immediate context of this psalm points to more formal worship in the temple, this is an invitation to an entire life devoted to God and filled with heart-felt praise.

2 min “For the mouth speaks (and prays!) what the heart is full of.” Luke 6:45 (NIV) 2 min We are going to go into the Psalm in depth, but I want to make a key observation – Praise and adoration that brings glory to God is an overflow of a heart that loves Him, admires Him, and invests time with Him. Luke 6:45 Jesus said “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” As we press into the truths of the Psalm, let’s make sure that we understand that God wants our hearts to overflow with true love, gratitude and admiration.

Personal Reflection: How am I doing in living a life of adoration to God? Does my heart regularly overflow with praise to Him? 2 min This is relatively easy (and good) to do when we gather here together on Sundays – being led by a great worship team – but what about the rest of our week? What is this like on our own? I’m confident in a room of this size that there are many of you who are celebrating SHOULD I ASK FOR FEEDBACK? OR ASK THEM TO SHARE WITH A NEIGHBOR?

Why can it be challenging for a believer to adore God in life and in prayer? We don’t see Him clearly We don’t always feel the kind of affection for Him called for by the psalm 1 min Two broad categories

1) We Don’t See Him Clearly We see dimly 1 Cor 13:12 – “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” - We get busy, distracted and have times when we aren’t very focused on Him Unconfessed sin obscures our view and damages our fellowship 1 John 1:5-6 - 5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 5 min

2) We Don’t Always Feel the Affection for Him Called for in the Psalm Our emotions are fickle, and we can’t control them Can feel like a one-sided relationship Seasons/ Suffering Not receiving the immeasurable love of God 5 min We know that as followers of Jesus, we are called to fix our eyes on Jesus, to gaze at the beauty of Christ Suffering brings confusion and doubt May not be true for all of you, but I am certain that in this room, there are many of you who can explain the wonder of the Gospel, but you do not really believe that God loves you Ex: Jeanne – I tell her all of the time that I love her. But do you know what really makes her feel loved? “I like you.” I want to be with you. I am grateful for you. Can you believe that God likes you today? Just as you are? Until we can receive God’s love and affection this way, we will have a lid/ceiling/limit on our capacity to live in a life of praise and adoration?

The Structure of Psalm 100 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness!     Come into his presence with singing! 3 Know that the Lord, he is God!     It is he who made us, and we are his;     we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,     and his courts with praise!     Give thanks to him; bless his name! 5 For the Lord is good;     his steadfast love endures forever,     and his faithfulness to all generations. 3 min The structure of the psalm – there is a way of life implied by the structure that affects any part of your life Exhortation/ encouragement – vs. 1-2, 4 Truth about God – vs. 3, 5

TRUTH → AFFECTIONS → ACTIONS 2 min The truth of who God is guides our heart to feel the affections that He lovingly commands us to feel. And then this foundation of truth and God-centered affection will naturally produce the actions or praise, thanksgiving, and adoration. If you want to have a life of God-centeredness, increasing devotion to prayer, and a white

Psalm 100 – Truth to Know Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness!  Come into his presence with singing! 3 Know that the Lord, he is God!   It is he who made us, and we are his;   we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,   and his courts with praise!   Give thanks to him; bless his name! 5 For the Lord is good;   his steadfast love endures forever,   and his faithfulness to all generations. 3 min The TRUTH about who He is allows us to SEE HIM CLEARLY He is God - RULER He made us and we are His – CREATOR and FATHER We are His people, the sheep of His pasture - SHEPHERD The LORD is good - GOOD His steadfast love endures forever – HESED – EVERLASTING LOVE And His faithfulness to all generations - FAITHFUL

Once we see Him more clearly, we celebrate Him with JOY and ACTION Psalm 100 – Joyful actions Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness!  Come into his presence with singing! 3 Know that the Lord, he is God!   It is he who made us, and we are his;   we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,   and his courts with praise!   Give thanks to him; bless his name! 5 For the Lord is good;   his steadfast love endures forever,   and his faithfulness to all generations. 2 min Once we see Him more clearly, we celebrate Him with JOY and ACTION He is God, so we SERVE Him! He is our Father, so we come into His presence with singing! He cares for us as a Good Shepherd, so we TRUST Him His steadfast love endures forever, so our hearts are full of thanksgiving and praise! And His faithfulness to all generations, so we bless His name!

2 min Romans 5:8 – but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Rom 5:8