What's the World Coming To?

Well grab your Bibles this morning and let's go to Psalm 96. I'll apologize one time for my voice, I'm doing the best I can.

So it may not be as ample or as substantial as normal, but the Lord knows. Psalm 96, I am aware that you studied this in small groups. I wasn't aware that you were going to, but I am aware that you did. Psalm 96 is sort of a foundational text that we have used from time to time to lay out the basis for our global missions work and why we commit to these things that we commit to. So I wanted to pull from it afresh this morning and maybe you can compare my notes with Brother David and Brother David's notes can straighten out what I get wrong.

How about that? Be good? Psalm 96 beginning in verse 1, sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth, sing to the Lord, bless his name, proclaim good tidings of his salvation from day to day, tell of his glory among the nations, his wondrous deeds among all the peoples. Notice the emphasis on everyone, all the nations, all the people. Verse 4, for greatly is the Lord and greatly to be praised, he's to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, oh families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name, bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in holy attire, tremble before him all the earth.

There it is again. Verse 10, say among the nations the Lord reigns. Indeed the world is firmly established, it will not be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice, let the sea roar and all it contains, let the field exalt and all that is in it. Then all of the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the Lord for he is coming.

For he is coming to judge the earth and he will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness. Well you don't have to watch the news or look at anything on social media to have this piercing question in your mind and that is, what is the world coming to? I mean it's almost like, what can they think up next?

So many bizarre, shall I say, idiotic, weird, strange things. What is the world coming to? Well brothers and sisters, we know what the world's coming to. It's coming to what Psalm 96 is all about. It's coming to a day when every inhabitant on this earth will worship King Jesus.

That's what the world is coming to. And God lets us get in on that early, but that's what the world is coming to. Now in this Psalm we have what most scholars would say is a projection out to the future messianic Kingdom. Now when you're dealing with Old Testament prophecies, almost always, maybe 100% of the time, you're gonna find an application for the people to whom it was originally written, but then you find the ultimate fulfillment in Christ, his church, and then in his coming Kingdom. And so we keep that in mind as we look at this. So this Psalm is a vision of the Lord's coming and his universal Kingdom on the earth.

And what do we see that marks that? Over and over and over is this, worship. Worship over all the earth, because worship is ultimate because God is God.

That's why worship is ultimate. In that day the world will finally be set aright. In that day all on the earth will know him, all will love him, all will treasure him, and all will worship him. Matter of fact, flipping over to the maybe a parallel truth in the New Testament in the model prayer, Matthew 6 9 and 10. How the model prayer exemplifies this universal prayer or this universal purpose of God for worship when he says, pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, God you are esteemed by all in heaven, you are treasured by all in heaven, you are served by all in heaven, you are worshiped by all in heaven. And God, our prayer as Christians on the earth today is, let's get it down here the way it already is up there.

That's our job, is to be on mission with God to get it down here to where it already is up there. You know today the world does not know him, does not treasure him, and does not worship him like it will in the fullness of time. But God's time clock is ticking and it's counting down until that day when all the earth will be filled with his glory and every single inhabitant of earth will indeed worship him. And Almighty God, now listen to this, it's very simple but it's very impacting to me to think of this, the Almighty sovereign God is orchestrating every event of time, every event of time to that desired end, that he will be worshipped.

Everything. You think things are out of control and things are just happening and what's going to happen next? I'm going to tell you where it's going. It's going to the day when every single person left on earth will worship him. Revelation 5, 9 and 10 reminds us and they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals, for you were slain and purchased for God with your blood, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and you have made them to be a kingdom and priest to our God and they will reign on the earth. Notice the emphasis there.

What? God is all about this whole earth being filled with his people so he is worshipped. Now God has purchased a lot of people from all the tongues and tribes and nations and when he returns and executes judgment then all those who are left will be those who worship him. But for us right now, us during what we're calling the church age, what are we? Well we're kind of on layaway if you will.

You remember the layaway plan when you were buying things for your kids for Christmas you could get it laid away and then kind of pay it off over time? Well God says I'm accumulating for myself some worshippers right now. The world doesn't know much about them and they don't pay much attention to them and they scoff them and deride them and mock them but I've got them on layaway for the great day when all the earth will worship me. So right now there's comparatively speaking little pockets of true worshippers all over the world in these local churches and we're part of God's, how shall we say it, we're the warm-up event. We're the preliminary group. Years ago I used to go to concerts and they'd have a warm-up band.

Sometimes you didn't know who they are. Well that's what we are. We're sort of the warm-up band getting ready for the great great choir that's going to be a global choir.

We're just getting in on it early folks. Local churches are God's purposes in the earth to worship him and bring him glory and serve him. But as we saw during our earlier ceremony and the little girl that came out last that was dressed all in black and it reminds us that as we sit here in this room today there are over 4,000 distinct people groups who do not have the gospel available to them. Now that's the people with their own language, their own culture and almost without exception they have not one Bible in their language, not one gospel tract, not one magazine, not one internet or our social media thing that's directed to them in their language that can share the gospel.

There's not a church, there's not a preacher, there's not a missionary or it's so so so small it's considered as none. 4,000 distinct people groups that don't know him, can't hear about him, don't love him, they don't treasure him and they don't worship him. And that should break our hearts but even more so he deserves their praise too. He deserves worship from them too and that motivates us and we believe from the teaching of Scripture that he has indeed purchased for himself some of those precious souls and they need to hear the gospel. Proverbs 11 18 speaks of he who sows in righteousness will get his reward.

Ultimately that has to point to Christ. He is the only true sower of righteousness as he comes with redemptive righteousness and purchases his own people, his church for himself and he will get his reward. And so there's going to be a world full of people who will reward him if you will by worshipping him when he returns. Isaiah 53 10 prophesying of the great work of Christ speaks of him as he who will see his offspring.

He will have his people. I remind you of Fresh Church that everyone for whom Christ came and everyone for whom Christ died he will secure unto himself. That they might treasure him and joy in him and have pleasures in him and worship him and that he might have the joy of having them for himself.

And it's all coming to that grand day of fruition when the earth will as a totality worship him. Romans 1 14 the Apostle Paul was writing and he talks says that I'm under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians both to the wise and to the foolish. In other words we're under obligation that God has a work that he's laid out and he has a people that he's going to save and we're under obligation to be on mission with God to bring these people the gospel that they might believe on Christ and might join the global choir of worshippers of God. Most of us have heard about the Moravian missions movement it was Moravian missionaries on the boat coming across from from Europe that were witnessing to John and Charles Wesley and they cast in their religion and became true believers in Jesus Christ. The Moravians were amazing in their missions movement missiologists tell us that up to 50% of Moravian church members now listen to this 50% of them went into global missions. The familiar story is told of when those Moravians would get on those ships and leave the coast of Europe and going out into lands all over where people had not heard the gospel that they packed their belongings in caskets and loaded them on the truck on the ship because they had no plan to come home. And they said the motivation for the Moravians could be seen as they would sail out of the port and they would take their handkerchief and wave it in the air to their relatives that they were leaving would never see again and they would say may the Lamb receive the reward of his suffering. He saved for himself a people we're gonna go out there and secure them for the Lamb that he might have his worshippers.

Well a couple of quick outline points here as we go further. Roman number one, worship is ultimate because of his intrinsic worth. His worth it's who he is and I have wrestled and I've seen our other preachers this week wrestle with how do we come up with the vocabulary and the articulation that gives any justice to the person of God and you just leave at the end of the day and say it's just he's too great. We do the best we can but there is something of God's very being his very inherent being that deems him worthy of all worship and all honor and all praise and like so much of the scripture the Psalms in particular Psalm 96 bleeds with a proclamation of his intrinsic worthiness. Just look at verse 6 if you will of the text. Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

He is just intrinsically worthy. He's worthy and he deserves all worship and all throughout revelatory history we see God is all about his own worship. Abraham was called to go to a new land and in Genesis 12 7 the Bible says he built an altar and he worshiped. Moses is told by God in Exodus 3 12 to leave Egypt that he might take the people out and they might worship and again in Exodus 7 16 God tells Moses command Pharaoh let my people that they may go serve same word as worship that they may go worship me.

Not first and foremost that they might be free. God certainly is concerned about that and cares about that but first and foremost that God might be worshiped. You're released from Satan's bondage that you might have the joys of worshiping God. In Exodus 34 11 through 14 God commanded Israel to tear down the altars to the idols in the land because he wanted exclusive worship.

Solomon built the temple of first Kings 8 60 and the Bible records the purpose is that all the people of the earth may know that the Lord is God and there is no other. That's worship. When Jesus was born the Magi came and said we've come to worship. Jesus departure into heaven and he said before his departure going to all the world and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them deserve all things that I've commanded you. What is he saying? Go and make worshippers everywhere.

That's what he's saying. Paul stated the goal in Romans 1 5 that my ministry is to bring about the obedience of faith among the nations for his namesake. Make them worshippers of his name. And I've asked you this before church, why is God so consumed with his own worship? Is he having an identity crisis? Is God an egomaniac?

Is he struggling with a public relations problem? No, he's just intrinsically worthy of all glory, all honor, and all praise. So that's the first thing. Worship is ultimate because he's intrinsically worthy. Here's a second thought from our text. True worship must be according to his name. True worship must be according to his name. Look at verse 8, if you will, in the psalm, ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name. In other words, God says I want to be worshipped according to the truth of who I have revealed myself to be. We're not to come to God with just some subjective feelings about God. God's given us a whole book to reveal who he is. It's funny how things stick with you through the years. When I was growing up we had moved into a brand new neighborhood and so there are always new houses going up and as a little boy I was just fascinated with those carpenters and I would try to go out there and help them and I was always in the way I'm sure but they were kind to me usually.

But there was one guy out there who's a carpenter and he used to sing this little line of a country song ruby red lips and cold black hair and I'm just remember that ringing in my mind ruby red lips and cold black hair and I often thought what if his wife doesn't have black hair? You see it's not right just for you to feel a certain way about someone you need to know the truth about someone. That's why he says worship me give me the glory due to my name.

What is true of my real attributes and my true character. So we do not worship now according to how we feel about God. Your subjective feelings about God just doesn't matter to God unless your feelings have been informed by his word. Then our emotions are good, amen? But our feelings and our emotions follow truth and that's why we go into all the world we don't just take a good story or our warm sentimental message that might stir the emotions of people. We take them the truth that's revealed in Holy Scripture. The gospel of Jesus Christ and trust the Spirit of God to work on their hearts where they begin to feel the truth of the Word of God.

Their sinfulness and Christ's loveliness and his goodness and his salvation that he's offered to them. You know we do not raise our children to honor us according to how they feel. Surely you wouldn't pair it this way. You look down at your little three, four, five-year-old and say sweetheart I want you to obey daddy when you feel like it's best. I mean when you feel like it's good for you then you do what mama's telling you to do. No, we tell them it's right whether you feel like it or not.

But you know what you find when you do what's right then your emotions catch up. We do what's right then our emotions catch up and that's one of the challenges for preachers in today's world. Quit giving people what they feel they want, give them what the Bible says they need and the Spirit of God will attend you at preaching and bring their hearts to have a deep emotion about the truth of the Word of God. Now in our text the psalmist has said quite a bit about who this God is. First of all he says he's the true God in verses 4 and 5. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He's to be feared above all you could say so-called gods. For all the gods of the people are idols but the Lord made the heavens. He's the true creator. Last part of verse 5 it's the Lord who made the heavens.

So we can praise him for all of those things. He's the true judge. Verses 13 and 14 says before the Lord for he's coming for he's coming to judge the earth.

He's not like the other judges we've known in the world. There's a true judge coming because he will judge verse 13 in righteousness and the peoples in faithfulness. And then he's the God of a true kingdom.

Look at it in verse 10 if you will. Say among the nations the Lord reigns. Again this is a messianic projection to the messianic kingdom.

Indeed the world is firmly established and it will not be moved. We've seen all kinds of kingdoms and and armies and dictators and monarchs and rulers and talk about their kingdom and the enduring nature and none of them endure but his is the true kingdom. Let's worship him according to truth, according to his name. And he is the one of true justice.

True justice. Look at verse 10 again if you will. The last part he will judge the peoples with equity and then the one that I think is the crowning truth of all. Notice in verse 2 he's the true Savior.

Seeing to the Lord bless his name, proclaim good tidings of his salvation from day to day. So we praise him and worship him according to his name, according to the truth he's revealed about himself. You know in one sense you have to know the Bible well to worship well. You need to know the Bible well to worship well. Now don't misunderstand me if you take a fella like myself converted at age 19, brand-new Christian with very very little Bible training in my background. We're not going to correct and rebuke a person like that if they don't understand things and they're just coming from a heart of gratitude to praise the Lord of course. But we do want to be teaching them the truth so if they can know more of who the true God is they need to be worshiping.

But you know I thought about it for a while. Even in the moments of conversion you're already learning theology and sound doctrine. I mean even in the moments of conversion. I mean I remember so heavily the conviction of sin. I would not have known to have called it conviction of sin. I just knew I felt rotten and ruined before this God. So already I was learning something of the sinfulness of man and by correspondence the holiness of God. Because I saw what I was and I was sensing what I was.

So I was already learning doctrine and didn't even know what the words were that defined or were descriptive for that doctrine. When I received his love I remember so powerfully driving in my car through Columbia, Tennessee, a college freshman and it was like a beam of light came through the top of that car just liquid love just flowed all over me. His love was so amazing and I knew I didn't deserve it. And that taught me something of God's character and nature. His love's not like our love.

Oh so much we learned just at conversion. And then I thought about his forgiveness. I couldn't describe it but I knew he had cleansed me. I knew he had forgiven me. I knew he had made me his own. I couldn't have said the words but that was already teaching me something of his redemptive righteousness.

And on and on we could go. So what happens when a person gets saved? It's a pastor's job the church's got to begin teaching them the truth so that their experience gets defined by the Word of God. Well worship is all about knowing Him and adoring Him for what His Word teaches us about Him. One of the grandest things I've ever read was don't just preach the doctrine, adore the doctrine.

If you understand all the great doctrines of Scripture, they were written to inform our minds but they were written to impact our hearts because they are the description of the very nature and the character in the heart of our God. We worship with our heads as we learn the truth and grasp it. We worship with our hearts as we treasure the truth we've learned in our heads. We worship with our lips as we speak of Him and sing of Him and share His truth with others. We worship with our lives when we obey Him and when we serve Him. God deserves worshipers from all the earth and we're getting in on it early. We're getting started now but there's still more that need to get in on it because He deserves worship from all the earth.

So let me come to Rome numeral three. God's ordained means to bring Himself the worship He deserves. Here's where I take in the balance of biblical truth and take this text and say, okay, what does this mean for us today? If God is all about worship and God is of such character and nature that it requires the entire earth worshiping Him to do Him justice. If that's true, then what does that mean for us today?

What are we to do? First of all, let's remind ourselves that He brings Himself the worship He deserves by using true churches. By using true, I would even say, local churches. You see, God has always ordained His people as the center of His purposes and His glory. Let me say that again, it's always been about His people. Excuse me, Israel in the Old Testament, the people of God and that is a type of the ultimate fulfillment of His people in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm very sorry. That is what God, that is how God has ordained to accomplish His purposes in the earth and to bring Himself true worshipers. So I don't go into missions work with, okay, we might do it this way, we might do it this way. God's told us how He wants it done. He wants us to go preach the Word, i.e., preach the gospel, win the loss and establish churches. Israel, how many times did Israel backslide and God would judge her and bring her to maybe some level of repentance?

Why was that? Because Israel was meant to send out God's light in God's truth and she began to send out darkness and even idolatries and other kind of pagan things of the culture of the day and God would have to bring her, He would say, that's not your job. Your job is to shine the truth about me to the world. We come to the New Testament and the day of Pentecost and God's moving and people are getting saved by the thousands and thousands and I've got a whole section of teaching on this because it's so powerful to me and right in the middle of this incredible, incredible revival and all these conversions, God shuts the whole thing down and disciplines Ananias and Sapphira. What's God saying? God's saying it's just not about the numbers, it's about purity. You see the purity of the church affects the power of the gospel. You can't have a church that's unbiblical and man-centered and fleshly and centered on quote the needs of men or the passing whims and fads of the culture. You can't have a church like that and say well if we just preach the gospel right we'll win souls.

I'm telling you God is not going to honor that. He wants his people to be his people. So we must strive, we'll never be perfect, but we must strive to establish true churches, biblically, spiritually healthy churches so that our gospel has credibility by the character of our lives. In Paul's ministry we see the holiness of doctrine taught and taught and then we see him going back around and back around and back around to the established churches to do what? To gird them up, to revitalize them, to get them out of error and get them more, if you will, anchored in truth.

So his truth will go forth with power from them. I struggle with this a lot because in a lot of our minds we have a more church culturally defined view of what defines missions. We'd say now this is missions, but this, this, this, this, and this, that's not missions. But you look at the New Testament and you find missions included lots of energy and effort to keep the churches right with God because true missions is the overflow of healthy churches.

Did you hear that? And there's been a lot done, I think, that has damaged our effectiveness in world missions at just trying to get the message out without worrying about the quality of the messenger. Got to be balanced here. Churches are never going to be perfect, I don't mean that, but brothers and sisters there are glaring biblical deficiencies in so many local churches who consider themselves great missions churches. One of the, one of the best things some of our professing evangelical churches is to come home off the mission field. I don't know how many times I've been in some sort of pastoral leadership or training thing around the world, and I spend most of my time correcting American Christianity, and I'm not talking about the fact that we, well none of us are perfect, we're all trying, I get that.

I'm talking about glaring doctrinal and moral even deficiencies. So effective true missions is the overflow of true churches, not sharp programs, not human craftiness, not human cleverness. Well secondly, he honors true prayer. He honors true prayer. I use the word true because, in this context, prayer that comes from the motive of God's heart.

Prayer is far more about us getting in line with God than getting something from God. And so the Lord has taught us so much about what his desires are. Now again in balance, God cares about your children and your home and your job and we can take every burden to him, amen?

He cares. But above and beyond all, he cares about his kingdom and his worship. That's true prayer.

And let everything else fall in line after that. Pray then in this way, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Our Father who art in heaven, he says before that hallowed be thy name. May you be worshiped, may you be hallowed by building your kingdom in the earth. So praying a true prayer is praying a missionary prayer and praying a missionary prayer is praying a prayer that God might use us to bring him more worshippers. That's why anchored in truth ministries exist and that's why we do all this stuff we do is trying to, if you will, stir ourselves afresh to be putting first what God puts first, the worship of his own name.

Paul reminded us in Colossians 4-3, praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the Word that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ for which I've been imprisoned. So Paul says pray for the ministry of the Word. So when we pray for missions, we certainly want to pray for our church planters and our missionaries.

By the way, we have the tables back there and you go put your name on the top card, you keep that, put the other two in the slot, we'll send it to them. It's a blessing for them to get that record that you're committing to pray for them. But above and beyond all, when you pray for that missionary, say Lord I pray for Joe, I pray for Tom, whoever it is, that through him you might gain more worshipers. That's true praying. That's getting right to the heart of God. He uses our financial support.

Well this is such a simple and practical thing. Just a couple of quick verses here. Well let me mention this first, Israel had an elaborate financial system for supporting the work, particularly the priest work and the work of being God's people to send out God's light and God's truth. And you come over to the culmination of God's work in the New Testament in the local church. And Paul gives this statement in Philippians 4 15.

Very interesting. He writes to the Philippians and he says, but you yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church was doing it right. That's not what it says but that's basically what he means. No church got God's plan down for how this is supposed to be supported. No church shared with me in the matter of giving receiving but you alone. The point is God uses the gospel going out and changing lives, helping build up churches, mentor pastors, help them reach the lost and then as God gets their feet on the ground and they have some blessed growth and their finances start getting better, then they're to give back because they've already received so much. And we're blessed and anchored in truth because there was many years of just being very frank and honest, many years where it was literally a one-way street. We gave out, gave out, gave out, gave out, gave out and glad to do it. So much so in the early years, brother Steve, it was like even good brothers didn't know they were supposed to give back and help us help even more and help us help even more and help us help even more.

That's what Paul's saying. And so here at Grace Life Church of the Shoals, let's just shrink it down to us this morning. How much have you received? Have you been faithfully preached to and taught the Word of God? Have you been taught the things of Christ so that he's lovely to you and precious to you and wonderful to you and you love him and you joy in him? That didn't just happen.

How much have you received? Now let's all give back, that that might go still further. And more be saved and more churches established and more worshipers be brought unto our God. Fourthly, very simple stuff here, he uses sent out preachers. I'll be honest, this week as these guys have paraded up here and this is, I guess this is kind of a confession on my part, you know, I forget about how many guys have come through here that's gone out from here and it's a blessing.

It's a blessing. Romans 10 1 and 14 and 15. Brethren, my heart's desire and pray to God for them is for their salvation. Then jumping down to verse 14, how then will they call upon him in whom they've not believed and how will they believe in him in whom they've not heard and how would they hear without a preacher and how will they preach unless they're sent? We need to ask God to thrust out labors, send out those who will preach the gospel that we might be a faithful part of the preliminary work of getting worshipers ready all over the earth for this day when the entire globe will worship him. You see the Lord is one of transcendent holiness and glory and it does require the worship of the entire earth to do him justice. One day he will return and reign on the earth and he'll be worshipped by the inhabitants of the entire world and God is on mission today to fill this ultimate goal of universal worship and he's invited us to get in on the task with him because only those that the Son saves and clothes in his righteousness are enabled to know him and worship him as he deserves. Well this is why we have the True Church Conference that we might stir ourselves afresh to pray and renew our commitment that God's ordained those who've received to give to let it go still further and to hope and pray that some of our young boys and our teenagers and our grade school boys and maybe some of you dads or whoever might be stirred to say I'll go. I'll go.

If you'll go, we'll send you. Familiarity does breed contempt. I don't know why I've thought about that a lot lately because I've been preaching here for over four decades and you sometimes wonder, Lord I've just, they've heard it so many times I mean over and over and over again. We need to be like the villagers in a Southeast Asian village missionary told the story of going to this remote area they'd never heard anything of the gospel, didn't understand anything about it and he had spent many hours with them that day just explaining the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God and that God justly would pour out his wrath on sinners and those who are unholy, those who were were offensive to this holy God and then he spent a few hours explaining but God has love like man doesn't have and God sent his son to die and when his son died that that son died in the place of all of us sinners that that holy God should judge and these dear people have never heard anything like that before and it got late into the evening and the missionary said I know you're tired let's go home and we'll meet tomorrow and we'll talk some more about this and they didn't move he said no you don't understand I know you're tired and I've been preaching a long time but you can all go home now and we'll talk about this tomorrow and one of the village elders stood up and said sir you've told us that God is holy and he's righteous that we're all sinners and we're offensive to him and he ought to judge us and we deserve it but you said he sent his son to die for us so we could have complete forgiveness how can we go home and go to sleep how could we go home go sleep after hearing that let's stir fresh what we have what we've received the glorious glorious mission to be on mission with God that the whole earth may be filled with his glory and the whole globe be his choir in his worshippers