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The River ChurchSermons

No One Else

Chuck Lindsey · Sunday, 9 August 2026 · 47:06 · 7,766 words

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Psalm 150 reminds us that our purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, to know him and make him known. The sermon warns against elevating people, urging us to reflect God’s light alone and trust his wisdom over our own. It describes heaven’s worship with an array of instruments and loud praise from who have breath. The speaker calls listeners to examine whether they are using their breath to praise the Lord and invites those who do not know him to turn to him in repentance and faith.

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.

exalt 16 limitless 8 praise 36 breath 16 stop 20 mighty 13 ever 26 enjoy 11 partially 5 allow 14 firmament 4 granddaughter 5

Topics

Prayer 3 The Holy Spirit 2 Suffering 2 Salvation 1 Faith 1 Sin 1 Spiritual Gifts 1

Scripture referenced 7

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

Psalms 150 1:02 Psalms 150 1:05 Psalms 150 2:06 Psalms 150 2:56 Romans 12:17 14:52 Psalms 1 31:08 Psalms 1:16 31:08

Transcript

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

Pre-service announcement — 14 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.

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Thanks again for joining us

and we hope that you are blessed by today's message.

It's so good to see all of you here this morning.

Good to be together with you.

Welcome to all of you joining us online today.

Well, we've been making our way

through the book of Psalms this summer.

And so today we come to the very last Psalm,

Psalm chapter 150.

So if you have a Bible,

I'm gonna ask you to open it to Psalms 150.

Apparently I have said that my favorite Psalm

is pretty much every Psalm.

And so a dear friend gave me this today.

It's a t-shirt that says, my favorite Psalm.

Then you turn it around and it has all of them.

So I thought that was amazing

and that you needed to see that.

So yeah, we come to another fantastic Psalm.

And next week we will actually jump

into our Hebrews fall series.

So we'll spend almost two months

in Hebrews, obviously not being able

to cover the book extensively,

but we'll be looking through Hebrews,

one of my favorite books.

And I know, I know it should say that

my favorite book of the Bible.

Yeah, the whole Bible.

Okay.

Yeah.

So anyway, so next week, that's what we'll be doing.

But today we're gonna finish up the Psalm, Psalm 150.

And so let me just read this.

Alexander McLaren said this about this Psalm.

And I thought this was just a beautiful way

to begin this morning.

He said,

this Psalm is more than just an artistic close to the book.

It is a prophecy of the last result of the devout life.

Meaning you as a follower of Christ,

this is a prophecy of what it's gonna look like.

It says, and in its unclouded sunniness,

as well as in its universality,

it proclaims the certain end of the weary years

for the individual and for the world.

Man, is that true, right?

Yeah.

This is what the end of it all is going to be

for us together, right?

It is worship of him and joy in his presence.

So Psalm 150, an incredible blessing.

Let's pray together.

Let's ask the Lord to speak this morning.

Lord, thank you for being here with us.

Thank you, Lord, for your word.

Thank you for what it does in our hearts and in our lives

that it does not return empty.

That Lord, it does a work in us.

And we trust that it does a work in us.

And we trust that this morning,

we pray you would use your word to speak to us

and to encourage and to counsel and to comfort and to help us.

I pray, Lord, we would see you today.

We would hear you.

Lord, we would leave here knowing we are loved

more than when we came in.

And Lord, knowing you better than when we came in.

Thank you, Lord, for being among us today.

Thank you that you will speak.

We trust you now in Jesus' name, I pray.

So if you were asked,

what is the meaning of life?

How would you answer that?

Someone called you and said,

hey, I got a question.

I need to sit with you.

I need to ask you this thing.

It's really important.

What is the meaning?

What is the purpose of life?

Why are we here?

How would you answer that question?

It's a question that has been wrestled with by many people

for many, many centuries, all through human history.

But I think that the Westminster Shorter Catechism

written in 1788,

1647, actually defined it perfectly.

I think it defined our purpose as people perfectly.

It said this, you maybe have heard this,

the chief end of man.

What is the point?

The chief end of man is to glorify God

and enjoy him forever.

That's so simple, but there's so much there.

It's such a beautiful way to say this,

our purpose in life.

Let me simplify it just a little bit.

The goal of life, if you were to simplify it,

is to glorify God.

to know him

to make him known that's how simple it is to know the lord and make him known so you expand a little

bit right so it is to do whatever we do whatever you've been gifted to do whatever you've been

you know given by god to do in life it is to do that for god's glory not for mine not for others

for god's glory to bring him pleasure to use what i have to bring him pleasure to bring him glory

and then to make him known through that thing right through our lives but then the second half

of it is really simple it's just to enjoy the lord can i ask you do you just simply enjoy the lord

or is it like a constant fight for you you know he wants you just like any relationship he wants

you just to simply enjoy him i have four kids and now two granddaughters you know and i don't want

anything from them i want

you to enjoy him i have four kids and now two granddaughters you know and i don't want anything from them i want

you to enjoy him i have four kids and now two granddaughters you know and i don't want anything from them i want

you to enjoy him i have four kids and now two granddaughters you know and i don't want anything from them i want

you to enjoy him i have four kids and now two granddaughters you know and i don't want anything from them i want

them i want to i want to know them i want them to i want to enjoy relationship with them it's the very

same thing god wants from you he doesn't just want workers he wants you he wants you to know and love

him to enjoy him relationship with the true and living god that is the purpose this is what you

and i were built for and by the way this is why when you are not in relationship with the lord

life doesn't make any sense it feels lost it feels

purposeless we have no idea nothing makes sense nothing's right because you were built to be in

relationship in union with god it's your purpose now that's what this last psalm is really all

about it's like we fast forward all the way to heaven and we're with him now and we're celebrating

who he is it declares this simple purpose of man's existence to glorify god and to enjoy him forever

to know him and make him known right take a look at verse one it says praise

the lord praise god in his sanctuary praise him in his mighty firmament we'll move a little bit

slowly first through the first couple of verses there's more there than in the remainder of the

psalm so the first word there praise the hebrew word halal uh it's a word that means to praise

or celebrate what someone has done or who someone is and so the root of the word means to shine or

to shout out it's like this

idea that you're sort of bursting forth with thankfulness with recognition of who this person

is what a beautiful thing to say right shine out what you think about god about what he has done

let it just exude from you it's this uh it's this picture of just us shining in our in our glow in

our excitement in our thankfulness for god and you imagine standing in heaven and here we are

we are these ones who shine with with

affection and with love and with thankfulness and with joy over the lord over what he's done

in our lives over his faithfulness that's the picture kind of reminds me right you think about

like the moon the moon doesn't have any light in and of itself uh it doesn't it's got no illumination

of its own it is very simply any light it has is just a reflection of the the light of the sun

right it's the same thing like you and i don't have light in us it's him we reflect him as we

get to know him more

and more we we begin to reflect him more and more clearly that that lesson is very simple it's this

we are not the source of all good things he is he's the source it's not in me it's in him

that we find these things we as his people we shine because he is light because of his goodness

so who do we reflect who do we celebrate who do we praise the answer please hear me only the lord

notice we are told

praise shine shout reflect only right look what it says the lord the words the lord of course refer

to our god who is a triune god so one god not three gods three persons father son the lord jesus

and the holy spirit so when we say praise the lord we mean we are praising god all that god is we are

exalting the father we are exalting the lord jesus we are exalting the holy spirit of god we are

exalting the holy spirit of god we are exalting the holy spirit of god we are exalting the holy spirit

people. Please don't do it. Never exalt people. Never hold up a person as anything more than just

a person. This happens, right? In our culture, we live in a celebrity culture, right? Evidence of

it is every sports thing, every concert, every, you know, if an actor walked past you, I mean,

this is what we live in. We live in a celebrity culture because we were built to worship.

We often put it into the wrong places, wrong people, wrong things, but we live in celebrity

culture. And so we hold people up as being above, right? So actors are more and sports stars somehow

are more and, and, you know, musicians and singers are, are more and, and political leaders are more

and the wealthy, they are more. And, and even so weird to think in some people's minds, pastors

are more. Listen, it's never true. It's never true. There is no human being who should

ever be exalted. Not ever. We can admire what people do and that's good. And that's right.

We can be grateful for something that someone has done that is worthy of celebrating. We'll

come back to that in a moment, but we never exalt people. We don't put people up. You put

them on pedestals. They're going to fall down. It's going to happen. Please hear me. I see this

a lot in, in churches, uh, pastors, myself included. There's whole, there's whole churches that are built

in a culture of the leadership of the church. It is it. First of all, it's a sham. Okay. It's a sham

pastors, myself included are no more than anybody else. We're not special, not closer to God than

you are. Well, we're not more anointed. We're not more gifted. We don't have a secret hotline to the

Lord that you don't have. I don't have like a red phone at home that I can pick up and just like

call the Lord and he picks up. And when you do it, he doesn't, you know, I don't have that.

I might have a red phone, but I don't, it doesn't go to the Lord. Okay. Um, listen, right,

we are people. Well, we're all just people, right? And please hear this. Please hear what I'm saying.

Anybody that acts like they are more, okay. Anybody spiritual leader or anything else.

If they act like they are more, I want you to hear me. Two things I have found have always been true.

Number one, they are full of pride. And number two, they are hiding sin. Those two things go

hand in hand. When people act like they're more, they are always full of pride and they are always

Believe me, this is true. The, the, the pride is sort of the tip of the iceberg. It's what they

can't keep below the water, but you don't want to know what's below the water. If people are big

leaking and making it seem like you are below, there's something very serious going on because

listen, we are nothing as people. We understand this, right? It's what John the Baptist said.

I must decrease. He must increase. Every believer knows this to be true. So we don't exalt people.

Not ever.

We only exalt the Lord. That's it. And so, you know, I would just say this to you. Exalting

people is just bad for everybody. It's bad for you to exalt someone because they're going to let

you down. Anything on a pedestal is going to fall. It's bad for them when they start to believe these

things. What does the Bible say? Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

I have watched way too many leaders believe their own press and it's not long before they fall. They

And then finally, it's bad for others. As we exalt people, we're sort of teaching people around us to

do that. And that's not a good thing, right? Don't do it. All people are just people. We're all in

the same need. We're all in the same place. It's been said, right? The ground is level at the foot

of the cross. We're all standing there looking up to him and him alone. Now, before we move on,

I think it's important to say this. This does not mean that we never stop to recognize or

celebrate things that are done that are good. It doesn't mean that. There are some people I've met,

you know, they won't ever celebrate anything anyone else has ever done. They're like, well,

we only worship the Lord. We're not worshiping what the person's doing. We're recognizing,

right? And usually their resistance to recognize what you've done comes from being filled with

self-pride, right? And what they mean is, is nothing really matters except what I do,

right? That's usually what they mean. So we don't want to go that route. We should stop and recognize

good things being done. Romans chapter 12, verse 17 tells us to have regard for good things in the

Do you do something that is worth noting,

that is good, that matters?

We should celebrate that.

But we cannot make the switch in our minds

that those people are above or beyond everybody else.

Don't do that.

We praise the Lord alone, okay?

Now, there are reasons for this,

and the rest of the Psalm tells us why.

Why we only exalt him and nobody else.

First of all, it's because of who he is.

Look what it says, praise God in his sanctuary.

Now, the word sanctuary there,

you might think it's talking about heaven,

but it's really not.

It's a Hebrew word, the word kodesh,

which means apartness or separateness.

So it's really saying, worship the Lord

because he's not like you.

And I can get behind that, right?

I am thankful God is not like me.

He is different than me.

He is not like you.

He is different than you.

He is set apart,

and this is one of the reasons to worship him.

The word is the opposite of the word kodesh.

Common, common, and God alone.

He exists alone.

He is separated.

And so the idea is, he is like no one.

He is like nothing else.

And this is the first reason that we exalt only him.

No one is like the Lord, no one.

He is beyond, he is above all things.

He exists in perfect holiness at all times.

He is unlike no one and nothing else.

So this is the first reason that we should worship him,

is that he is not like,

Next, we worship him because of where he is.

Look at the end of verse one.

Praise him in his mighty firmament.

The Hebrew word translated mighty firmament,

it literally means incalculable expanse.

So the words, they're referring to what is seen

and what is unseen.

Everything physical, everything spiritual.

It's reminding us that we worship God

because he is everywhere.

Again, he is like no one else.

One of the attributes of God

is that he is everywhere at the same time.

It's a really interesting thing to think about.

Nobody is everywhere at the same time.

Nobody can be, only God.

Even the devil is not everywhere at the same time.

He is in one place at any given time.

He cannot be everywhere at the same time.

Only God is everywhere at the same time.

I was thinking about this.

The more you think about it,

the more it's just like hard to get your brain around this,

but he's here with us.

Right now, completely.

He's not partially here with us

and partially with another church down the street

and partially with another church in Kenya

and partially with...

He doesn't have to do that, right?

God does not have to say...

He's completely with us this morning

and completely with them this morning

all at the same time.

Not a problem at all.

Now, go a step further, right?

If that didn't cause your brain to start smoking,

this will, ready?

Okay, he's also in all time.

He's in all time at the same time.

Watch this.

He's there with Abraham right now

while he's here with us right now.

He doesn't have the limits of linear time.

He's outside of all of that.

He's there with Adam and Eve right now

just as he's here with you,

listening to them as he's listening to you.

He's there at the very end of all things

just as he's here today with us in the church.

And by the way, in the scriptures,

he talks about things as being already done

that haven't happened.

Yet it's called prophecy.

It's his thing.

It's what he does.

He's the only one who can do it

because he sees the end and he's outside of time.

And he can speak about it

as though it's not a possibility.

It will happen.

That's why it's his thing, prophecy.

But he talks about all these things

as though they've already happened

and they haven't happened yet.

This is mind blowing.

It's one of the reasons to only worship the Lord.

Nobody else can do any of this.

Now, one thing to say,

and it's, you gotta be careful.

When we say God is everywhere,

we do not mean that God is in everything.

Okay, there's a difference.

This isn't a Disney movie, okay?

God is not in everything, okay?

That is new age spiritualism.

That is not Christianity.

God is everywhere, but he is not in everything, okay?

He's not in the tree.

He made the tree.

He's not in the rock.

He made the rock.

He's not in the ocean wave.

He made the ocean wave.

He controls and orchestrates those things.

but he is not those things. He's not mother nature, right? There's this nature show we've

watched recently and you see these people, they'll like catch a fish and then they'll thank the

universe. And you're like, oh my goodness gracious. And they're going to stand before the Lord and

the Lord's going to say, why did you deny me? Well, because I didn't know. And he's going to

play back that clip, right? Thank you universe for giving me this fish. And the Lord's like,

I have given all of this. I created all of this, right? He is not mother nature,

which is not a person at all. God has revealed himself of who he actually is. He is God. He is

separate from all others. He's above all things. He's not a tree. He's the God who holds the entire

universe in the palm of his hand. Now, astonishingly, the only thing he says he lives in

is you and me as his people, his throne, according to scripture is your praise.

That's crazy to think about. He lives in us, his people, first Corinthians three 16. Do you not

know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you? The Bible is

extremely clear about this. This is where God is right among his people. So to praise him in his

mighty firmament, it means to praise him because he transcends all of time, all of space. No one

else can do this. Only him. He is. It's mind blowing, right? And again, it's wild to think

about these things.

Adam and Eve and us at the same moment, but this is, we praise him for these things, for these

truths, but we also praise him for what he has done. Look at verse two, praise him for his mighty

acts, praise him according to his excellent greatness. The words mighty acts are just a

single word in Hebrew and it refers to God's power and his strength. And we could spend hours

talking about God's mighty acts, like what he has done. No one else has done. Nothing else has even

come.

Come close. His mighty acts, right? Would include the creation of all things. You think about he

literally brought all of creation into existence just by saying it. You can't even walk into your

garage and just say it and have stuff come together. I wish we could, you know, walk up to

my sink and be like plumbing fixed, you know, it'd be amazing. No, instead I got to go to the hardware

store 19 times, you know, which is always fun when I go there, anything plumbing and I buy something

and then they like, I don't know, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know

what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know

what to do. And they say, see you in a few minutes. I'm like, no, no, this is the right part. And

they're like, see you soon. You know, I wish I could just be like, speak it. It's done. There

it is. That's the Lord. That's what he does, right? The creation of all things. These are his

mighty works. It includes, of course, all of his miracles. It includes his orchestration of

everything. The Bible says the angels are in awe of the wisdom of God, that they're stunned. The

only thing in creation that is not shocked by the greatness and the amazingness of God, ready?

Us. We're the only ones so delusional that we're not overwhelmed by the amazingness of God all the

time. Crazy to even think about. But of course, his mighty acts would include the greatest of his

acts, which is more than creation. The greatest of his acts is his redemption, his saving of us.

I mean, to save us is the greatest miracle that has ever occurred. To pass a person from spiritual

death to spiritual life, the greatest miracle that has ever occurred is what has happened inside of

you who know and love him. That's the greatest miracle that's ever occurred. And it's God's

mighty power. His mighty acts are beyond comprehension. And by comparison, no one has

ever even done anything that even comes close. No human invention has even scratched the surface

of God's mighty acts. He's incomparable in these things. And so this is another reason to praise

him alone. Another is at the end of verse two, it says, because of his excellent greatness. And this

of God's ability, he is limitless in his power and in his resources. Uh, no human being has ever

been limitless, right? All human beings are limited. We are limited in every way. He is not

limited at all to us, right? I mean, you even think about it. Uh, it's, it's, it's self-evident,

but I mean, you think about things like we read in the scriptures, you know, him multiplying two

fish and five small bread loaves, five little dinner rolls. He multiplies that into a meal

that feeds more than 15,000 people. And if you're not overwhelmed and amazed by that, it's because

you've heard it too many times. But if you had been there, you'd be like, this is the greatest

thing I've ever seen in my entire life. This kid walked up, he had two fish, he had five dinner

rolls, there were 15,000 people. They all ate till they were full, it says. What happened? If you were

there, it'd be the story you would tell everybody in your life. Like every dinner party, they'd be

like, we know, we know, we heard, we got it. But you'd be like, no, no, no, you don't understand.

This is the greatest thing I've ever seen. For him, it's nothing, nothing. He spun the entire

universe into its existence with a single word. Him making more food, no big deal, not a problem.

It's like he's saying to you, it's not a problem. I am limitless in my ability, right? To us, the

raising of Lazarus from the dead when he'd been buried four days,

to us, that's a shocking miracle that no one has ever been able to replicate. Not ever.

He simply spoke and it happened. He literally said two words, Lazarus, come, and out walked

Lazarus from the dead. Limitless, holding the keys to life and death. He controls it all, right?

The parting of the Red Sea. If you had seen it, you would tell everybody in your life about this

thing, right? That you walked through the middle of the Red Sea. I mean, these are things that we,

and then, and then,

we come to our stuff and we go, man, that bill, it's too big. And the Lord's like, really? Really?

I rained down food for 2 million people for 40 years and you're worried about your gas bill?

Seriously? But Lord, the transmission on the car, how am I going to get to work? Lord,

it's an insurmountable miracle that has to occur. And the Lord's like, really? How many things have

I shown you? How many times have I said how limitless I am in my ability to live? And the Lord's like,

in my power and in my ability. And we think, Lord, it requires a massive amount of your power

to take care of that thing. Because for us, that's what it would require. But for him,

because of his limitless power, his excellent greatness, these things are nothing,

nothing for him to accomplish. Now, to this point, some questions come up. And I know that

you might think when you hear that, that God is limitless in his power, a question comes up.

Well, then why doesn't he do what I need him to do?

Why doesn't he heal me? Why doesn't he heal that person? Why didn't he stop that person

from the car accident or from dying or whatever it was? Was it too hard for him? Right? The question

is always how could a good God let bad things happen to good people? We talked about that last

week. Was it too much? Like it was just too extreme. And so God couldn't handle it. Were

there too many requests at that time? And so mine didn't make it through. No, none of those things

is true. But this is a question.

People wrestle with if God is limitless in his power, how come it isn't stopped? These things

will hear this. Let me say a few things before I answer that. First, we've said it before. God will

only ever do what is best. He cannot do what is worse. God cannot do that. He cannot do what is

worse for you. He can only do the best thing for you. He will never do less than that. Now, does

that mean that whatever happens in our life is the best? No. Why? Because people are involved.

You and I are involved. And we often choose less than the best. So God wants, let's say, God wants

this, but we decide to ignore him and do our own thing. And when we do that, we are always choosing

less. We're always choosing worse. And please hear that. If you ever go against what God has said,

just know you are never choosing what is best. You are always choosing what is worse. Well, I

think this person is going to be better. You are always choosing worse. Well, you know, I know God

wants me. So we, you know, we go, we're going to buy this, this house. And his best is that we buy

this moderately priced house that doesn't overextend us. But then we see the other house.

wow, what a house, you know, and that house is like amazing. And so we decide to go against what

God says and we buy the house. And then we realize after like five payments, this was a mistake.

I shouldn't have done this. And now we're stuck. This is what happens, right? We get offered this

promotion at work. It's more money, but we know it's more time. And the Lord wants us to turn it

down. He wants us to give our attention to the right things. And this is going to pull us away

from those things. But man, who turns down that much money? And so we take it. And then when we

look back, we realize we have made a mess of things. We chose what was worse, not what was

best. You cannot lose following the direction of the Lord. Now, the question comes up though,

right? In the case of illness or loss, you know, or loss of loved ones, couldn't God stop them

from dying? That's a question we hear. Yes, of course. But first you have to remember this.

Their day was written before there was ever one of them. Psalm chapter one, 39 verse 16 says that

the Lord has written down every person's day before there's ever even one of them. They can't

go home any sooner. They can't stay any longer. So you got to remember that. But the second thing

is, is that God does sometimes step in. Lazarus is an example of that. It wasn't Lazarus's day.

And so the Lord stepped in and we know many of you, you know, of stories where people,

they were pronounced dead and then the Lord brought them back. He does do this,

but the most important thing to know when we answer this question is this, this is not heaven.

Say, what do you mean? Well, we want God to stop that thing. And we want God to stop that thing.

And we want God to stop that thing. We want God to stop this thing. And I would ask you,

follow it out and think about it. Where does God stop in stopping things from happening? Where does

God stop? How many things does he stop from happening? Does he stop all the bad things

from happening? And you go, yes.

Listen, that's heaven. That's not earth. You're not there yet. We live in a broken sin sick world.

You are not in heaven yet where nothing bad happens. You're in a fallen world. And so then

I would ask this question, keep going, right? Does he only stop bad things from happening to you?

Well, yeah, for me. What about for your spouse? Yeah. For my spouse too. What about your children?

Yeah. No bad things for my children. What about your extended family? It doesn't really matter.

Like, I mean, where do you stop? What about your friends? Maybe some of them, right? What about

your families? What about your friend's family? I mean, how far does he go? What about my family?

Do I get included in the nothing bad happens, right? Like how far do we go, right? And so this

is where we wrestle. We go, well, God, you should have stopped that, but we don't know.

And this is where we must come to a place of, and many of you have, right? When this stuff happens,

we come to a place where we say, I don't know, but I know the one who does know. I trust,

I trust him. Now, if he does not step in, there are right reasons for that. I may not know what

they are. Maybe one, I mean, one day I will, I don't today, but listen, if he allows it,

if he allows it, good things happen. He might allow those things, good things to happen in you

because of it, right? But there might be another reason he allows it, not just because of what it

does in you. This one's actually kind of hard to receive sometimes is that God will allow things

to happen in my life to benefit other people. So I suffer. I suffer. I suffer. I suffer. I suffer. I

for your benefit. And then I have to accept that. And sometimes we don't accept that. Sometimes we

go, I don't want to suffer for the benefit of other people. Paul said, I suffer all things

for the sake of the elect. Paul says, my life is constantly being crushed so that other people will

see the faithfulness of God. Would you submit to that God crushing you so that other people can see

his faithfulness? Would you submit to that? Knowing people will come to faith in Christ as they watch

people of suffering in Christ's faithfulness. It might be that God is allowing it for those

purposes. Here's the thing we have to realize as people. We do not see everything. We think we do,

but we do not really. I don't think we see anything. Honestly, we really don't. I

I don't see 10 years from now.

I don't see 10 minutes from now.

And I think I know.

He sees, he knows.

Please hear me.

While he doesn't cause these things,

he does, as the scriptures say,

bring them together and work all things together for good

to those who love him

and are called according to his purpose.

We've said it over the last few weeks.

God never allows anything into your life to happen

that is useless.

He uses all of it for your good,

for the good of other people and for his own glory.

Nothing's ever wasted.

Not by God.

Not in your life, if you know and love him.

Now, let me be clear.

God does not cause these things.

He doesn't cause the car accident

or the illness or whatever,

but he does allow them.

And some people would say,

well, that's just semantics.

If he's allowing them,

doesn't it mean he's causing them?

But there's a total difference, right?

You understand the difference?

We live in a broken, sin-sick world,

full of illness and loss and trouble.

It is not how God originally designed the world.

It is the result of sin entering this world.

And we live in it.

And because,

as we said,

God does not stop all bad things from happening,

that means there are times

that he allows those things to happen.

He might allow illness.

He might allow job loss.

He might not step in and stop the car accident.

Again, why?

Why wouldn't he do it?

Well, we said, this is not heaven.

And where would he stop with all of those things?

But if he allowed it,

there are reasons that you and I may not know

until we get to heaven.

And then you will see the truth

of what you have to believe,

right now.

And that is that God only ever does what is right.

He only ever does what is good.

He cannot do less than that.

And so we must remember

that if he allows something,

if we are his,

he will work it together for good.

But this is where we, as his people, land.

In whatever happens,

we land right here.

We have to land with,

God, I don't understand.

God, I do not see.

I don't want this.

Sometimes I wish it did not happen.

But because we don't see,

because we don't know,

we don't know what's best.

We have to just trust in the one who does.

And sometimes the Lord is gracious

and he lets us see it later, right?

You ever heard someone say,

man, I went through this.

And at the time I didn't want it.

But now looking back,

I wouldn't trade it.

You ever heard someone say that

about something that's really rough?

You know, really rough.

And you look back and you say,

I didn't want it.

I hated it.

It hurt.

But now I wouldn't trade it.

I came to know the Lord through it.

I grew in him.

I changed the way I live life

because of these things.

At the end of the day,

we have to remember that we are not God.

I don't know if that's a challenge for you.

That's always my problem.

I think I know what's best.

I think, Lord, I know what's best.

This, that's not good.

And the Lord goes, really?

No, no, I can't be good.

This would be good.

Really?

Is that, that would be good?

Yeah, yeah, that would be good.

How far do you see?

Do you see what that is 10 years from now?

Well, no, but I mean,

I'm just putting two and two together.

That's what's good.

That's what's good.

That's what's good.

The Lord just laughs.

He's like, you have no idea what's good for you.

You have no clue.

You don't have any understanding at all

about what's good for you.

I'm reminded of an ancient parable

regarding this exact idea.

Maybe you've heard it.

There's many variations of it,

but it goes like this, right?

An old farmer lived near the northern border

with his son and one horse.

One day, the horse ran off into nomad territory.

His neighbors came to console him and said,

what bad luck?

The farmer replied,

maybe so, maybe not.

A few months later, the horse returned,

bringing with it a fine wild horse.

Well, the neighbors came back over

and they congratulated him.

What good luck?

The farmer replied, maybe, maybe not.

Well, his son, delighted with the new horse,

began to ride it.

He was thrown off and broke his leg.

The neighbors, they came back over,

offered their sympathy and said,

oh, what bad luck?

The farmer said, maybe, maybe not.

Soon after, war broke out

and the army came through the village

conscripting every able-bodied young man.

Because of his broken leg,

the son was passed over and stayed home

while most of the other young men from the village

were sent off to war and died.

right? The principle is really, really simple. We think we know what is best and we have no idea.

We don't know. We don't see clearly. So we have to trust God and his wisdom. We have to trust that

he knows what's best. And I don't know about you, but I have to remind myself all the time that I

am not God. I don't know what's best. I don't see clearly. We have to remind ourselves he always

does what's best. And so we praise him for his excellent greatness. Now, finally, we come to

these three verses right here that tell you why we use instruments here in our church. Okay.

So we've had people ask us before. Well, look at verse three. Praise him with the sound of the

trumpet. Praise him with the lute and harp. A trumpet is just what you would think of. And

a lute and harp is the beginning of guitars. Then he says, just in case you thought that drums were

of the devil. I don't know if you grew up with that.

But right. Drums are of the devil. You shouldn't read verse four. Okay. Praise him with the

timbrel and dance. Oh, dancing. That's of the devil. Right. So praise him with the timbrel and

dance. Praise him with stringed instruments and flutes. Timbrel was like a tambourine. So like

a hand drum. And and then, of course, dancing and then stringed instruments and flutes. And then

but if you're like still unconvinced and you're like, well, yeah, the Lord might be OK with

tambourine, but he's not OK with that thing over there. All right. Big old drum kit.

Yeah. Don't read verse five. Verse five. Praise him with loud cymbals. Praise him with clashing

cymbals. Wow. So no soft acapella chanting. Right. Here we have loud cymbals, crashing

cymbals. All of this, of course, is not really about instruments. It's really more about the joy

that we are going to have in heaven, worshiping and praising the Lord. It is going to be joyful.

It is going to be loud. It is going to be wonderful. Listen, if you have this idea that

heaven is just like a bunch of clouds and little cherub, fat cherub babies strumming harps with

wings, that's not heaven. Right. If you I mean, you're not going to be playing a harp for like

ever. That doesn't sound like heaven. That sounds like the other place. I don't want to be playing

a harp for a million years. That sounds terrible. Right. So you got no concept of heaven. This is

like this is so joyful. This is literally we're shining. We're we're exploding with how joyful

and happy we are. And everything you've ever known here that has brought blessing to you

is just scratching the surface. It's not even come close to what is coming. That's what the

Bible says. Right. No eye has seen. No ear has heard. Nor has it ever even entered into the

heart or the mind of man, the things that God has prepared for those that love him. Nobody's even

come up with an idea of how amazing this is going to be. This is what heaven will be as we worship

the Lord for who he is, who alone he is. And so, of course, last verse here, you don't need

instruments to worship. So verse six says, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise

the Lord. Can I ask you a question? Do you have breath today? I didn't ask if you have good

breath. Just you have breath today. If you have breath today, recognize it was given to you.

Your breath has been given to you by God. You probably have not thought about breathing while

we've been sitting here today. You didn't have to. God has given you your breath. He brought you

into life. He keeps you breathing. Here's what I would say to you. Use your breath to worship and

praise and thank him. Use your breath, not for yourself, but for the Lord. Use your breath,

not to curse him, not to curse others, but to bless him, to bless others.

Use your breath to worship and praise the Lord. As Charles Spurgeon said, he gave them breath.

Let them breathe his praise. Finally, Meyer said this of this psalm. He says, your life

may resemble the psalmist with its varying moods, its light and shadow, its sobs or sorrow and smile,

but it will end. Please hear this. It will end with hallelujahs. If only you will keep true to

the will and way and work of the most holy. Do you understand? Your life, if you know and love him,

it's going to end with hallelujah. To be absent from this spot,

is to be present with the Lord.

We've said it before.

The greatest day of your life

will be the day of your death

where you enter into life forever.

And so I would ask you, do you praise the Lord?

Do you ignore the Lord?

Where are you at today?

Can you say, he is my Lord?

Can you celebrate who he is?

Can you celebrate what he's done?

Is that what you're using your breath for

is to praise the Lord?

What do you do with the breath that he has given to you?

Maybe you don't know the Lord.

You can today.

Nothing is needed except that you recognize

that he is Lord and he is God.

It is to come to him, the Bible says,

and repent of your sin

and believe in what he did on that cross.

If you are not saved today, you can be before you leave.

Bible says, all who call on the name of the Lord

Let's pray together.

Lord, we love you.

We thank you for your word.

We thank you for the truth of it.

Lord, I pray for any person here,

any person watching that does not know you.

I pray they would turn to you now.

And if that's you, if you need the Lord to save you,

just admit that need.

Ask him to save you.

The Bible says, all who call on the name of the Lord

And if that is your need, he will save you.

And need will separate everyone.

The unsaved will be on one side thinking they have no need.

The saved will be on the other side,

knowing that we are in deep need.

We thank you, Lord.

We thank you for loving us.

We thank you for Jesus and his work on the cross

for our sin to forgive us and to cleanse us forever,

to make us yours, Lord, to give us heaven.

We trust you.

We love you.

We look.

you. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

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