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The River ChurchSermons

Matt Montgomery · 19 Jul 2026

Matt Montgomery · Sunday, 19 July 2026 · 39:47 · 6,790 words

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Praise is the sermon’s theme, drawn from Psalm 136, which says the Lord is good and his steadfast love endures forever. The speaker reminds the audience of God’s unchanging goodness, his creation and dominion, and warns that idols draw us away from the true God. He calls believers to give thanks in every circumstance, trust God’s faithfulness even when we are faithless, and shine the gospel as a light in the world. The closing invitation asks anyone without Christ to seek him and become a beacon of his love.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

steadfast 29 endure 27 forever 28 control 13 praise 23 red 8 idol 8 situation 10 protect 8 scowl 3 bruise 3 sea 8

Topics

Sin 3 Prayer 2 Israel 2 Spiritual Gifts 1 Salvation 1 Obedience 1 Government & Authority 1 Grace 1 Faith 1 The Holy Spirit 1 Righteousness 1

Scripture referenced 14

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Psalms 136 6:23 Psalms 136:1 6:31 Psalms 115 7:27 Revelation 17 11:11 Psalms 139:14 14:20 Isaiah 40:12 18:12 Genesis 3:15 21:46 Luke 4:18 25:13 John 16:13-15 28:02 2 Timothy 2:13 34:28 2 Timothy 2:23 34:28 Psalms 34 36:46 Psalms 34:25 37:08 Psalms 34:26 37:15

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 7 lines, 0:38. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey everyone, my name is Dave Hudgens. Thanks for checking out one of our sermons today.

Hey listen, we're so glad that you are here, and we want to connect with you and your family.

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You can also visit us at our website at theriverchurch.cc to learn more about us and what we have going on as a church.

Thanks again for joining us, and we hope that you are blessed by today's message.

I am Matt Montgomery. I am so happy to be here at the River Flushing. Good morning.

Filling in for Pastor John today. He gets a day off once in a while. We'll let him have one off every now and then.

So happy to be here. Loved hearing the praise this morning. It just does my heart so good.

As I was studying this week, this entire chapter is about praise.

It's a shout or a call to praise, and I just want us to understand this morning,

God is amazing. He doesn't change.

And I'm so happy that we get to be here this morning and study His Word.

But if we would, let's bow our heads. Let's go to prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You, we love You, we honor You, and we praise You.

We lift You up this morning. We just pray that as the message comes forward this morning,

it'll be You speaking, not of me.

I just pray that every ear will be open, every heart will be receptive.

I pray that as we study Your Word, we understand that we have a reason or a call to praise, to honor You.

We thank You so much for what You do in our lives. In Jesus' precious name, Amen.

So normally what I'll do is I'll read the entire Scripture, and we'll go from there.

But today I'm going to do things a little bit differently.

So if we would, let's just think about what's going on in the world today.

If we were to just look at the situation in the world around us, we would be so absolutely discouraged.

I know day after day and hour after hour, if you were to watch the news,

it'd be the most depressing thing you've ever done.

And when I look around the world,

and I see what's going on in the world,

you know, one of the hottest selling books in the world is self-help books and self-love books

and how to get rid of anxiety and how do you get rid of your concerns.

And I look at that and I think it just goes against everything that God's Word says, right?

The biggest mantra in the world today is if you can't love, you can't love others unless you love yourself.

Well, the Bible says love others, and then you'll feel love, right?

So I look at this and I feel this and I fight against this.

Often, because I'm in a world, I work in government securities

and I work in different aspects of the government.

And if you want to talk about sticking out like a sore thumb,

I stick out as a sore thumb as a Christian.

And I will tell you, as I'm going throughout my day,

I'm not afraid to proclaim the gospel of Christ.

And I'm looked at as a bigot and a hater and just someone that wants to spew anger.

And then when they get to know me, they're like, I don't get you at all.

You're the calmest human being.

We get it called in when the war broke out in Iran and we had multiple phone calls.

You know, everybody's in a stress and panic mode.

And here I come in, going to a meeting and they're like, what is wrong with you?

Who are you?

And I've had it said to me many times, who are you?

What are you?

And years ago, I found a scripture that I'm just a tree planted by the water.

I just want my branches to grow.

I want God to speak through me.

And it gives joy when we think and serve others.

And as we study this,

I think,

this is something that the psalmist is reflecting on.

He's reflecting on all the greatness of God.

And when I first studied this, I thought, oh, I'm going to do a whole sermon on Thanksgiving

in July, just like Christmas in July.

Well, I was going to give you Thanksgiving in July, but then God worked on my heart and

I wanted to break it down into a couple sections and make it kind of simple, stupid as to what

we're looking at this morning and how we apply it to our lives.

So as we look at this, I was excited again.

I walked in, I heard him singing happy birthday to somebody this morning.

I saw how happy people were.

I can't tell you how many churches I've been in where it's like going to a funeral.

You walk in, you sit down, you don't meet anybody.

Everybody's concerned, has a scowl on their face.

I feel bad for the pastor.

And then he gets up and he's got a scowl on his face.

I said, well, now I know why the people have a scowl.

And you look around and you think, what is going on in this church?

Do they not know who Jesus is?

Do they not know that Jesus is alive?

And, you know, in Holly, we got this lady, we call her the woohoo lady.

I love it.

And when I sat here and I was listening to his sermon, or the songs being sung,

and I saw the passion, I saw the praise, and I saw people worshiping.

That's what it's about, people.

That's what the glory of Jesus does in your life.

This really excited me.

When I got here this morning, I thought, I didn't know what to expect, right?

John's an amazing guy.

I know he's pretty effervescent, but I don't know his church body real well.

And when I sat there and listened, my heart was full.

And then I'm sitting in the back screaming at the top of my lungs,

sorry for the people back there that had to listen to me.

And singing as loud as I could sing.

But I just got full of excitement because that joy is so overwhelming.

When God is in your life, he becomes number one.

And you can't help but proclaim his gospel.

So as we start looking at this, the psalmist does this in a weird way

because he breaks it down and he just wants, he's having memories, right?

He's looking back on his past life.

And I can say in my own life, as I look back at all the things that God has saved me from,

how great and miraculous he is.

And for me to be able to say,

for his steadfast love endures forever is probably the greatest thing I can say in my life.

So when we look at this, we know that this whole scripture is a call to praise.

I think you're doing a good job of it, but we can all improve.

So let's look at the word.

And it says in verse one,

give thanks to the Lord for he is good for his steadfast love endures forever.

I think this verse one is really just showing you the goodness of God

to remind you how great the Lord is.

This is Psalm chapter 136.

Sorry, I should have said that.

So in verse one, again, we'll say,

give thanks to the Lord for he is good for his steadfast love endures forever.

Understand that our whole premise is to give thanks to the Lord.

If you read in Revelation and you see the end times,

guess what our job is in heaven?

Glorifying God.

Sounds like a perfect job.

I would trade my job right now to be able to do that for eternity.

I'm so excited about seeing the return of Christ.

But as we see, we are understanding that he's giving total reverence

to God.

We understand that the goodness of God is what's true and can be counted on.

And then as we move on in the verse two and three, it says,

give thanks to the Lord or give thanks to the God of gods for his steadfast love endures forever.

Give thanks to the Lord of lords for his steadfast love endures forever.

As we see, we are looking at his deity here.

You know, he alone is God.

We can put up Psalm 115, three through eight.

It says this, our God is in the heavens.

He does all that.

He pleases their idols.

Idols are silver and gold.

The work of human hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak eyes, but they do not see.

They have ears, but they do not hear noses, but they do not smell.

They have hands, but do not feel feet, but they do not walk.

And they do not make a sound in their throat.

Those who make them become like them.

So do all who trust in him.

So we have to understand that there's dominion by God.

He is.

The almighty God.

There's understanding.

There's forgiveness.

And as we read this, we're going to see where he remembers those that make idols and those

that are worshiping other things other than Jesus himself.

And I always thought, oh, you know, growing up as a young Christian, I don't have any

I don't worship idols.

Idols aren't real to me.

And then I wanted that new car or I wanted that perfect house or I wanted better, better,

better all the time.

And then as I got into furthering my education.

And I started getting into other things.

Now it became the clothes, you know, who's got the Gucci, who's got the Louis Vuitton,

who's got this, who's got that.

And it always becomes more and more.

And it drew me farther away from Christ.

And what I realized is the only thing that matters in this world, it's all, it's all

The only thing that matters is the love of Jesus Christ and the fact that I have eternal

life in him.

So as we read this, we see, you know, you can have all these idols, but they have no

purpose in your life.

You might be happy there.

There's happiness in them.

You might be happy there for a while, but after a while, what happens?

They go into a corner.

You forget about them.

You want the new shiny thing.

And God's saying, hey, you know, you have these idols, but they can't hear.

They can't breathe.

They can't talk.

You worship a God who is alive.

We're letting you know that he is alive.

He is real.

He is true.

His deity is real.

And we can understand that.

So as I started searching a little deeper, I started looking at verses three and four,

and it talks about his dominion.

Give thanks to the Lord of Lords.

To him who.

Alone does great wonders.

See, not only is God, God, but he does a miraculous things for us all the time.

And we just don't see him.

I know in my life, there's been times where evil has oppressed me, or there's been situation

in my life where I might have lost everything, or I'm just searching and I'm trying to figure

out, God, why me?

Why me?

And he's been there the whole time.

And there's a situation in my life personally, where I had a lot of things taken away from

me.

And then years later, I found out it was a perfect place.

Meaning, had I followed that path, it would have been detrimental to me.

And I think God always has a plan and a purpose.

And as long as we're attuned to him and understand, he didn't promise us the easy road.

In fact, he promised us a rocky road.

But in the end, is life everlasting?

So when we look at that, and as we traverse throughout our days, we know that he is the

true God, the one true God.

He has full dominion over the entire world.

Why do I know that?

Well, if you go to the Bible, you'll see that.

You go to the very last chapter of the Bible, and you go to Revelation chapter, well, it's

not the very last chapter, but Revelation 17, in the end times, it looks at 17, verse

14, they will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is the Lord

of lords and the King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.

See, we have the assurance that in the end, we're going to win.

No matter what this world can deliver us, no matter what's going on in our lives, we

can be overcomers.

We have the opportunity to be with Christ forever.

So his dominion is so imperative for us to understand, because he's always in control.

See, I'm, ooh, and here's a control freak.

All right, thank you to my honest people.

The rest of you, you can come up here and forgive yourselves to God.

It's hard.

I hate giving up control.

It's one of my worst attributes, I think, sometimes when I'm dealing with things.

And when you're in this mode of, I have to control, I have to control, I have to control,

I'm actually taking away from God blessing me.

It's in those moments of humility, and it's in those moments of silence where I have nothing

left, and God provides, that I've found my best situations in my life.

So as a control freak, I can say, give it up.

It's so hard to do.

But God is truly in control.

His dominion has more power than my control can ever be.

So as we look at that, we know that he's full, and he's Lord of lords, and he's King of kings,

and we know that in the end times, he's going to rule.

What truly causes us to pray?

Praise, right?

We're called to praise, but what is truly going on in your life that's going to cause

you to praise God?

Now, as we look at this, I want to look at verses four through nine, and it just basically

talks about the fact that the Lord has created everything.

And if we read it, it says,

You see, in the trend here, the sun to rule over the day for a steadfast love endures forever,

the moon and the stars to rule over the night for a steadfast love endures forever.

You see, God has a personal uniqueness.

He is the creator of all things.

And the one thing I love about it is in scripture, it says that we are made

in the image of God.

If not, if you don't believe it, go to Genesis, start reading.

But one of my favorite verses is actually in Psalm, and it talks about the fact that

we are made in his image.

We are also very unique.

And in Psalm 139, verse 14, it says,

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works.

My soul knows it well.

I am made in the image of God.

I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.

A few weeks ago, I was dealing with a man.

I've been dealing with him for about two years, became pretty good friends with him.

He was down and out financially.

He was having some hardships.

He was let go from a church he was working at as well.

Just his life seemed to be culminating in a spiral downwards.

And I had been there in my own life.

And it's funny how God can use those situations to help others.

And I was sitting in my room early in the morning, and I got this weird feeling that

I needed to reach out to him.

So I said, OK.

So I just kind of text him, hey, what's going on?

And he goes, I really need you.

Do you have time to talk?

So I gave him a call.

We talked for.

We talked for literally over an hour.

And I'm like, man, I got to go to work.

I got to get to work.

But this guy really needs me.

What I didn't realize is an hour before I had reached out to him, he had sent a text

to a very good friend of both of ours saying, this is the end.

I just want to say goodbye.

I can't do it anymore.

And I would rather go on and see my Savior.

And it was in that moment I realized God will put you in a situation to touch others.

There's times where we just can't fight the battle alone.

But somewhere along the line.

He had forgotten how great God is.

He had forgotten the steadfast love of God.

And I'm so thankful that God puts us in those situations to help each other out.

Because now he's doing really well.

Things have made a change.

The business has made a turn.

And sometimes in your life, you just have to realize you need to take you out of it

and let God take control.

And that's what needed to happen in his life.

It also had to happen in my life.

So as we are reading this, we understand how great his uniqueness is.

How wonderful our God is.

There's nothing else like it.

But we're made in his image, right?

He knows who we are.

And then as we look at verses 5 through 9, we see God's perfect universe.

"To him who by understanding made the heavens, for a steadfast love endures forever.

To him who spread out the earth above the waters, for a steadfast love endures forever."

Again, all the way through verse 9, we understand and we know that he made a perfect universe.

He did this for us.

The sixth day, he created man.

Later on, he realized it was man needed a helpmate.

It wasn't good that he'd be alone.

And that's where man and woman came together.

And I don't care what the world wants to tell me, that's the way it was made.

And we understand on the seventh day, he rested.

But he made it perfection for us.

We would still be living in perfection today if it were not for sin.

But every single one of us has sin of our life.

Romans is very specific about it.

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

But there's a wonderful part of that verse that says, "But the gift of God is eternal life."

The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, right?

We have the ability to have Jesus Christ in our life.

When we have Jesus, we have everything.

And when we look at praising him and honoring him and to want to have true happiness in

your life, the only way is through Jesus Christ.

I don't care what you have, what you do, what you think you have.

Only true happiness comes from the love of Jesus Christ.

So we went into this and I started looking at this and God's perfect universe.

In Isaiah 40 verse 12, it says this, "Who has measured the waters.

And the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span and closed the dust

of the earth and the measure and weighted the mountains and scales and the hills in

If you don't think God didn't put a lot of time and effort and perfection into creating

this world that we're in, you're wrong.

Read the scriptures.

Just read the, in Revelation, just read about heaven, the perfectness of heaven and how

he made that.

And we're going to see as we come along and he makes the new earth and the end time.

His perfection will always reign.

So we see this total perfect universe that he's created for us.

So we've understood and as we read, we know that we have a call to praise.

We have a cause for praise.

We understand that there's a mechanism there, but we also have to understand that the Lord

controls all things, regardless of what we think we do in life.

Verses 10 through 15.

We'll read those.

"To him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt and brought Israel out from among them

for his steadfast love endures forever, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm for his

steadfast love endures forever.

To him who divided the Red Sea into two for his steadfast love endures forever, and made

Israel pass through the midst of it for his steadfast love endures forever, but overthrew

Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea for his steadfast love endures forever."

You see, we see the control of God.

In the life.

So he's looking back.

The psalmist is looking back at what God did for Israel.

He took them out of Egypt.

He took them out of slavery.

He took them out of bondage.

And as they ran away, he made a way for them to cross the Red Sea.

He split the Red Sea.

There's two things I see here in this story when I really reflect on it.

God will always give you a way out of your troubles.

But what had to happen in the meantime, that he needed to hear the plea of his people.

You understand they were there in the first place because they didn't follow God.

They didn't follow his obedience.

They weren't obedient to God.

That's how they ended up as slaves in the first place.

So number one, I'd say follow God.

Don't become a slave.

You know, don't make him make you a subject matter.

But secondly, he will always hear your plea no matter how far away from God you get.

He will always be there for you to run back to him.

And then last but not least, he's going to make a way.

When Pharaoh and his army was coming down on them and they looked around, they didn't

think for a minute they had a way out, but God parted the Red Sea.

The one thing I love about that.

When we see that, you know, they're stuck.

And there's so many times in my life where Satan just seems to be attacking me and he's

coming at me and I can't see the way out.

And then God just parts my own way to let me find him.

And what does he do in the back end of that?

Once I've found my way to him, the Red Sea closes and kills the enemy.

See, it's the same in my own life.

If I pursue Christ and I'm following him and I'm chasing him, he's going to cover my backside.

It's so imperative for us to understand that, you know.

He will deliver his people.

But not only that, when he strikes the enemy down, I want us to go to Genesis 3:15 or we'll

do 14 and 15.

The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all

livestock and above all beasts of the field.

On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise your head."

So, he basically told Satan, "You're done."

I love that.

You can't shout, "Amen," this morning.

I don't know what you can do, you know.

It's a moment of sin.

He knew it was destroying his perfect plan for us as people made in his own image.

But he goes to Satan and says, "Not today.

You're not winning.

You're never going to win.

In fact, you're going to bruise my people.

You're going to chase my people.

You're going to try to attack my people.

But God's people will overcome."

And he's letting you know that from the very beginning.

So, when we look at that, we're going to see that.

When we look at this, we understand that the Lord will strike down your enemy.

He will make sure that you have a way out.

He will make sure that you're whole.

In verses 11 and 12, it shows that he saved his people.

And I think it's so important that we understand when we read this that God will always save

Verse 11 says, "And brought Israel from among them, for his steadfast love endures forever,

with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his steadfast love."

Verse 11 says, "And brought Israel from among them, for his steadfast love endures forever,

to him who divided the Red Sea into two, for his steadfast love endures forever, and made

Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love endures forever."

And as we read on into verse 15, we see him slaying the enemy again, "but overthrew Pharaoh

and lost the host in the Red Sea," again, protecting us, loving us, caring for us, slaying

our enemies, giving us an opportunity to move forward.

But in verses 16 through 22, we see something differently.

He directs his people.

If we are open and our hearts are right, he's going to lead us in direction.

You know, we have one thing over the Old Testament people, we have a couple things.

We have grace and mercy.

They had mercy.

But we have grace.

We have the salvation, the ability to go before the throne itself.

Because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have been granted mercy

and grace.

We have the ability to talk to Jesus himself.

That wasn't the case in the Old Testament, and it was much harder, and when they look

back at what they saw in the Old Testament, it was much harder.

They had to give atonement for sin and make sure that the high priest was no sin, spotless.

And if not, he died, and they had to pull him out by a rope.

I face Jesus every day with sin in my life.

I don't have to worry about being dead because of it.

He wants me to pursue him.

He wants me to lay that sin at the altar.

So as we read this and we see this, we know that his people are saved.

And Luke 4.18, it says this,

When I look at the fact of once we've been saved from something, once we've been protected

from something, is our first instinct is to go do this.

As I read through scripture, I probably read 30, 40, 50 different.

instances of people when they were saved from their calamities.

One of my favorite is Paul and Silas.

They're in jail.

They've been in prison because they're Christians, because they're proclaiming the gospel.

And what are they doing?

They're sitting there singing and praising God.

Who in here, be honest again, if you're in jail, what's your first thought of praising

and singing to God?

I can tell you it probably would not be mine.

I would hope so.

But because of that, there are certain situations when you see where people actually come to

Christ because of it.

I think of the.

The jailkeeper and the earthquake hits, and he's so afraid that they've run away.

And Paul says, no, we're right here.

But at the end of the day, what happens?

That man and his family found God.

They accepted Christ.

And no matter what situation we're in, if we can just continue to put God first, we

will always feel that his steadfast love endures forever.

So we know that he separates his people.

He's going to slay the enemy.

He touches his people directly.

And he's also going to guide us in all our ways.

Verse 16 says,

To him who led his people through the wilderness, for the steadfast love endures forever.

You see, when we think about when they were being led through the wilderness, what happened?

During the day, they had a pillar of what?

Do you remember the story?

Pillar of clouds to shade them, to protect them.

And at night, what did he give them?

Pillar of fire so they could see where they were going.

It's many times in my life that I forget his protection and I forget his guidance that

I end up in the pits of the wilderness.

And here he's making it very specific.

I'm going to guide you.

I'm going to protect you.

I'm going to be your king of king, your lord of lords.

I'm going to help you through all of this.

I'm going to help you in all your ways.

In fact, John 16, 13 through 15 says this.

When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak.

And he will declare to you the things that are to come.

He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine.

And declare it to you.

All that the Father has is mine.

Therefore, I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

This is Jesus himself speaking.

He's talking about the spirit of God indwelling you.

And he's talking about the fact that God is going to encompass and take care of you and yourself.

He is there.

He is in control.

And he is God Almighty.

He's protecting you.

He's giving you away.

I will say if you're in this room this morning a lot and you're not saved,

a lot of this might not make sense to you.

It sounds kind of crazy.

I know that in a world today where you don't have Christ and you're just trying to figure it out,

it can't make any sense.

Because all you're going to see is the bad.

But I'm telling you, there is a loving, caring God.

So many times I am approached that if God is so wonderful, how could he do this?

If God is so great, how could he do this?

And I'm always reminded to tell those people, God is not doing it.

We did it.

When one man sinned and ended the world, death became our punishment for sinning.

You see, we did it.

In all the things, in all the world, when we let evil creep in and Satan attacks us,

yes, Satan is real.

I'm going to use his name.

I get so tired of hearing the evil one from the pulpits today.

There is a God and there is a Satan.

The Bible spells it out that Lucifer is real.

He's a fallen angel.

He took a third of the angels with him.

And if you don't think they're not attacking every day, you're wrong.

And he's sitting there and he's talking about it and he said, listen, I'm giving you away.

Hey, glorify in the spirit.

Glorify in me because God and I am one.

We're one entity.

We're here to protect you, guide you, and save you if you'll just follow us.

And then we get into verses 17 through 22.

And he has a remembrance of all the wars that they'd been in.

To him who struck down the great kings for his steadfast love endures forever

and killed mighty kings for his steadfast love endures forever.

Sihon, king of the Amorites, for his steadfast love endures forever.

And Og, king of Bashan.

For his steadfast love endures forever.

And gave their land as a heritage for his steadfast love endures forever.

A heritage to Israel as servant for the steadfast love endures forever.

You see, God's will is going to be done, even in war.

Even as we get into the end times and when things get worse,

I will tell you, less and less prophecy is needing to be fulfilled before Christ comes back.

You know, I remember I was kind of a bullheaded pastor's kid.

And I remember having preachers come in and we'd have all these revival meetings.

And I was kind of a smart aleck.

I'm like, that guy's lying to you because this prophecy has to happen.

This prophecy has to happen.

This, I was kind of that kid, right?

Like I like to stir the pot.

What I realized is out of 20, 30 years of my lifespan,

I've seen majority of those prophecies come true.

And there's no guarantee as to what prophecies now have to take place

before he comes back, except for a couple.

And I will say is,

God's hand is a hand, he is coming again.

And as we remember what went on in the past wars of Israel,

even when we look at our own country, we just celebrate our 250th celebration.

It was a nightmare and a headache in DC, by the way, just so you know, it was crazy.

But I will tell you, when you think about just 250 years, we're such a young nation.

And you look at the way we were founded.

And I always hear these people fight that we weren't founded on Christ.

And now they've found all these documents where,

it was written with George Washington and others involved and Hamilton,

where it actually was founded on Jesus Christ.

In fact, it was part of the articles that were help writing the independence,

the constitution.

And they made it very clear that the foremost believers and thought process

with the was that God would be the center.

And in 250 years, how far our country has fallen away.

I go to many locations where it's not even allowed to be proclaimed my own government.

Where we can't talk about it.

And one thing I learned is you can have any religion you want in your world.

You just can't have Jesus Christ.

Because you can be whatever you want to be as long as you don't proclaim Jesus Christ.

But Jesus Christ is the only one that can change hearts.

He's the only one that can save you.

You know, Jesus himself said, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No man comes to the father except for through me.

And he's begging you.

In fact, in Revelation, he says, behold, I stand at the door and knock.

You know, we're so bullheaded.

He has to come chase us sometimes.

And we understand that God,

He's protected them through all these wars.

He's protected them through everything.

But sometimes we just forget how great that his steadfast love endures forever.

Next, but not least, he remembers them.

In verse 23, I won't read it.

But in verse 23, it makes me think of 2 Timothy 2.13.

It says, if we are faithless, he still remains faithful.

For he cannot deny himself.

So in times where we forget him and we forget,

that we are his children and we can't see in front of our faith

and our faith becomes weak, he still remains faithful.

Why?

Because God cannot deny himself.

He is a God of grace and glory.

When he died upon that cross and took the sin of the world onto him,

past, present and future, he took all sin onto him.

And there's one time he cries out and he says, my God, my God, why have thou forsaken me?

Because it was at that moment, the sin of the world hit him

and God had to turn away from him.

And when God turns away from him, he feels the emptiness.

For the first time ever.

He left perfection and glory and he came to a world to take on all death for mankind.

And if that doesn't shake you up, I don't know how else will.

In my own heart, I don't know how to accept that sometimes.

The love, the deep love of a man that would die for those that hate him.

And then I strive so hard to be Christ-like.

Would I be willing to give my life for those that hate me?

Would I be willing to go to my deathbed proclaiming the gospel to somebody

that hates me so bad they want me dead?

I can tell you there's many missionaries doing that across the world today.

I have a very good friend, Hani Deco, who's in Lebanon.

It has not been a great situation for him.

He's had multiple people in his group killed by ISIS.

They've done gruesome and terrible things to those preachers.

But his steadfastness for the love of Christ stays strong to this day.

And I thank God for men like him because they are putting it on the line.

And I pray that if there comes a day in my own country and I have to stand for Christ,

that I will be that guy.

And then I'm going to close up.

Verse 24 says,

He rescues them.

In Psalm 34, it says,

The poor man cried out and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

When the righteous cry help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of their troubles.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Many are the afflictions of the righteousness, but the Lord delivers them out of them all.

And in verse 25, he refreshes them.

He lifts them up.

He lets them.

He lets them feel renewed.

And then the last part is verse 26.

And he just reminds us, have a continuation of prayer.

The psalmist comes full circle and challenges us to praise God at all times and all meaning.

When everything is said and done, when we look at what concerns God,

it's never going to be said that God isn't perfect.

He's always going to be somewhere great.

He's always going to be doing something wonderful and big for us.

And as long as there is a God, there will always be a reason to praise.

And if there's one reason to praise,

one thing I can say, thank you this morning for your praise.

Thank you for lifting your voices.

Thank you for praising God for who he is.

I like every head bowed, every eye closed.

This is a conclusion.

You know, years ago when I was a little kid, we had a camp near us and it had an old well.

And we were always taking this bucket and trying to reach this bucket down in to see how deep it was.

And the farthest rope we could get was 500 feet and it never touched the bottom.

And when I think about how great God is, and when we throw our bucket into the ocean of love,

and greatness that God has for us, we're never going to touch the bottom.

It's going to continue to be full for us.

And I will say, I want each and every one of you to search your hearts this morning.

As the last song is saying, just really look into your own hearts and make sure that we're praising God the way he needs to be praised.

Make sure we're giving ourselves to them.

I will say, if you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal savior and you would love to know him this morning,

or if you have questions, please see Pastor John.

Come see me.

Come see somebody in the church.

Grab them.

Because without them, your life is going to be turmoil.

There is no happiness without Jesus Christ.

I'm going to close in prayer.

Jesus, dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for the fact that we just get to praise you as your creation.

We love you.

We honor you.

We thank you.

We just pray that you'll lift up this church right now, that they'll do great and mighty things,

that they will be the epitome of your call, which is to go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Lord, let us be a beacon of light.

Let us be a beacon of light in this community.

Let us reach others for you.

Let us be a helpmate.

In Jesus' precious name, amen.