At this moment, we’re going to have our sermon that’s kind of based a bit around the catechism off of the 1689 London Confession. It is for our children and for our young people, but we have heard a lot from our adults saying I think I understand a lot of things through these sermons that I’ve never understood before. Before we get there, again, I want to teach you. You’re probably right now, if you were singing with all your heart right now – this song – you’re reeling. Your head is so full and I hope your heart is that you’re literally almost, wow, I don’t know if I can take anymore. What is that? You could sing choruses, and there are some wonderful choruses – we’re not against choruses – but you could sing some choruses that are out there for an hour and a half and they would not wear out your mind. Why? They’re really not saying anything. My mother used to call it 7/11 music. You sing 7 words 11 times.
And here, what were you doing? It was almost like when you’re reading Scripture, isn’t it? I mean, it’s like drinking out of a fire hydrant. There’s so much truth. Now, here’s something that I want you to see. We do live in a certain culture. And it’s important to recognize that. At the same time, we must not succumb to our culture. At the risk of offending you, I want you to know we are something of a superficial and frivolous people. And we like superficial and sometimes trivial things. But I think it’s the responsibility of the church to help us turn from that. It’s not that we should always sing a song with this much in it. My mind can’t handle it.
And again, I do love many of the beautiful choruses that are written today. We need to learn to sing them. But what I want you to see is that worship should be substantial. It is didactic. That means it is a means of teaching. The purpose of worship according to Ephesians and Colossians – one of the purposes – is to teach or communicate truth. Do you see that? Well, there was a lot of truth here. And one last thing about worship. Isn’t it amazing – and there’s nothing wrong with instruments and beautiful music; I can really rejoice in that – but isn’t it amazing that if we had come in here today with a lot of beautiful instruments, with a beautiful rhythm and sound and all sorts of things, maybe some of you would have been filled with a lot of emotion and passion. Now, there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, but here’s what I want you to recognize. We want emotion and we want passion, and it can come through instruments. That’s fine. But first of all, I want you to learn something. If the emotion and the passion does not come through the magnificent truth that you’re hearing, something’s wrong. Now, I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and I don’t want to reject one in favor of the other, but I think we need to mature in this, don’t we. We truly do need to mature.
Now, if any of you need something of what we call the family catechism, just raise your hand. Anybody? Okay, there’s one back there. Could you take that over there for us? Here’s a young man here who also needs one. We’ve been studying a very important question, and it is this: What is the chief end of man? Okay, listen to me all you youngsters out there. What is the reason why you were made? That’s very important. Why did God make you? Remember the story I told you? If you walk up and you see a man standing out on the sidewalk in the rain and you ask him, “Sir, why are you standing here in the rain?” And he looks at you and says, “Well, it’s because… well, I work out here. I watch the traffic. I do things for the government.” You’d go, “Okay, well, I can understand then why you are standing out here in the rain.” But if you walk up to that person and say, “Sir, why are you standing in the rain?” And he says, “I don’t know.” You walk away thinking that man’s not very smart. Well, do you know if you walk up to most people, even people who are very driven, they go to the university, they work at jobs very hard, but if you ask them, “why are you alive?” do you realize that most people would say, “I really don’t know.”
Well, why are we alive? We are alive for the glory of God. Now, I want to explain just really quickly what we’re talking about. It’s this. We live for His purposes and for His joy; for His good pleasure. We live in a sense – now this sounds kind of childish, but that’s okay, we live to make Him happy. And you know what? When we do that, we’re happy. Do you know why? Because He teaches us how to live in a way that glorifies Him, but it’s also a way that brings the most pleasure to us. Now another thing that I want you to see is how can we develop this attitude of wanting to live for God? There’s only one way. That is to know more about Him. Have you ever seen maybe a little boy or a little girl and you thought to yourself, man, I want to be their friend? But then you got to know them, and you thought to yourself, I don’t want to be their friend. I mean, they’re not very nice. They’re very selfish. They’re ugly. They’re mean. And so you walk away from them. But then there’s other little children, maybe a boy or a girl, and you walk up to them and you think I would really like to know them. And then you get to know them and they’re wonderful! And so you say to yourself, I would like to get to know them more. I would like to be with them more. And the more you know about them, the more you like them, the more you want to be with them, the more you want to do things with them. I know you’ve experienced this before. That’s the same way. I know we use all these big words, but that’s the same thing we’re talking about when we talk about God. You see, the more you know Him through His Word; the more you know Him through just walking with Him and seeing what He does, the more you’ll want to be with Him if He’s changed your heart. If He’s changed your heart and you truly are a Christian, then the more you hear about Him, the more you want to be with Him and the more you want to serve Him.
Now what are the proper ways; how should we live before God? Well, first of all, we’ve already studied that God deserves our love. We should love Him. And love has to do with emotions. Don’t let anybody kid you. It has to do with just, oh, I love Him! You get up in the morning and you say, I love Him. But you need to understand that the emotions are not always there. Sometimes you get up in the morning and your heart’s kind of dull. But still, you can show your love for Him by doing what? By keeping His commandments. By doing what He says. Some of you young guys out there, you boys, you’re fighters. You like to fight. I know my two boys – they just love to fight. Well, why don’t you fight? Fight to love God. You get up in the morning and you say you know I really don’t feel like I love God, but I’m going to fight. I’m going to get into His Word. I’m going to study. I’m going to obey His commandments. I’m going to fight.
Now, another thing is that God deserves our respect. Listen, young children, you do not treat adults like you treat each other. You should respect each other, but when adults walk into the room, you do not talk to an adult like you would talk to one of your little friends. You show them respect. One of the good things that you can do is when an adult walks in the room and you’re playing with a friend of yours, you should stop playing and look at that adult. And ask them maybe, how can I help you? It might even be good to stand up and say, “Sir, can I help you?” You want to treat adults and especially your parents with respect. But if that’s the case, then how much more should you respect God and honor God. Do you see that? We don’t tell jokes here about God. We don’t giggle and laugh about God in an irreverent way. When we talk about God, we have a seriousness – a joy – but a seriousness, why? We’re talking about the One Who sent His Son to die for us! We must show Him respect. We must.
So, we also reverence Him, but also we worship Him. You realize what I’ve been telling your parents? He deserves our worship. We ought to worship Him. We ought to be worshiping all the time. And one of the reasons why you have trouble worshiping on Sunday morning is because you don’t worship throughout the week. You don’t need to be with someone else to worship God. You just worship Him! Just worship Him.
Okay, and then also He deserves our gratitude and our thanksgiving. Brother Shannon was moved in his heart because he was thinking about, my, look at what I deserve! I don’t deserve anything good. I deserve to go to hell. I fail all the time. But look at what God’s done for me! He’s died for me. He sent His Son for me. Oh my, I must have gratitude. I must have thanksgiving. If God didn’t give you any other blessing the rest of your life, you should still worship Him because He’s given us His Son. His Son!
Now, it goes on, He deserves our trust. Our trust. (incomplete thought) Elijah, let’s say I walk up to you and I say, “Elijah, if you mow my yard, I’m going to pay you ten dollars.” And then you go, “Okay.” But then you don’t mow my yard. And I say, “Elijah, why didn’t you mow my yard? I promised to give you ten dollars.” And you said, “Well, I really didn’t think I could trust you. I was thinking, well, I’ll mow his yard, but he won’t pay me ten dollars.” Do you realize how offensive that is to me? He’s saying I’m a liar. He’s saying that I’m not trustworthy. He’s saying I won’t do what I say. Do you see? That’s offensive. That hurt me when he said that about me. He doesn’t trust me. Alright, I want you to look at faith that way. God says He will do these things. He says if you believe in His Son, He will give you eternal life. Do you see that? He will! He said you call upon the name of the Lord, He will save you. The ones who trust in Him will not be disappointed. You see, He’s got all these promises, but when you don’t believe it, what you’re saying is: God’s a liar. God doesn’t tell the truth. I want to tell you something. I can stand here as an older man with Joshua and so many other people down through history and many of the adults here, and I can testify to you, not one word God has ever spoken has ever failed. He’s fulfilled every promise. How many parents here today can raise their hand and say God’s Word has never failed me one time? Keep your hands up. Just the parents. Now children, you too, all the adults, I want you to raise your hands. Now children, look around. Look at all these people who have lived a long, long, long, long time. And they say God has never failed them one time. Now put your hands down. Do you see that? He’s never failed, so we ought to trust Him.
And then, finally, to close this out. He deserves our obedience. Jesus talked one time about one son. His father came up to him and said, “son, do this.” And he said, “I will do it.” And then he walked away and didn’t do it. But another son, he walked up to him and said, “son, do this,” and the son said, “no, I’m not going to do it.” But then the son was convicted in his heart. He realized in his heart he was wrong and he went ahead and did it. You can talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Listen to me, kids. You can talk, talk, talk, talk… The world is full of talkers. Even in Pilgrim’s Progress which I hope you all will read with your parents, there’s Talkative. He just talks and talks and talks about how obedient he ought to be and this and that, but he never obeys. Don’t be that way. Remember what we read in James? Don’t talk too much. Just obey His commandments. Alright. I hope this has been a blessing to you. And I pray – I pray that you will come to believe in Jesus. And I beg you, children, I beg you, listen to me. If you’re sitting there and you’re thinking I don’t know if I’m saved, go to your parents. And parents if they come to you and they don’t have questions, come to me. Come to somebody here. Alright? Little children, listen to me. If you want to be saved, you can be saved. You can. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you’ll be saved. And little children realize this, this is the most important thing. There’s nothing more important. There’s nothing more important than believing in Jesus. There’s not. Alright, let me pray.
Father, I pray for everyone who’s heard this, oh God, that by the Spirit of God, they would be converted; that their sins would be made known and they would see everything clearly as it truly is and that they would trust in Christ; that they would seek the Lord until You let them find You, Lord. Lord, I praise You that no one comes to You and is cast out; that no one truly seeks You that will not find You. Oh Father, bless this service. Bless Your people. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Please visit our website at heartcrymissionary.com. There you will find information about the ministry, our purpose, beliefs, and methodologies, and extensive information about the missionaries we are privileged to serve.
