First Baptist Church Thomson, GA David Lambert

A.W. Tozer wrote, “God wants worshippers before workers; indeed, the only acceptable workers are those who have learned the art of worship.” Tozer was commenting on our tendency to elevate serving the Lord as workers above serving the Lord as worshippers. If we’re not careful, worship becomes a performance, a job to accomplish. We can allow our egos and preferences to get in the way. When that happens, who or what are we actually worshipping? God, ourselves, or other people’s approval?

Psalms is a great place to turn to evaluate our hearts, motivations, and understanding of worship. In this message, we look at Psalms 100 and 150, two of the best-known hymns of thanksgiving and praise in the Bible, to help us master the art of worship.

Just as Psalm 1 gives us the purpose of the Book of Psalms, Psalm 2 reveals the message of the Psalms: that no matter what is happening in our lives or world, God is on His throne, and He invites us to live as citizens of His eternal Kingdom. Through this messianic psalm of hope, we discover how we can respond to world around us with confidence and compassion, trusting that Jesus is King and is coming again!

In this first sermon in this series of messages from the Psalms, we discover how Psalm 1 introduces us to the overall purpose of the Psalms: to reveal how God's instruction is the pathway to a life of blessing and abundance, of happiness and holiness. The psalmist presents two pathways we can chose to walk down--an ascending path that leads to the presence of God where we experience the abundant life Jesus promises, or the spiraling descent into depravity and corruption that ends in ruin. Which path are you walking?

Jesus’ longest prayer is found in John 17—the High Priestly Prayer. Jesus prayed this on the night He was betrayed. This sermon focuses on Jesus’ priorities, the kinds of things Jesus prays for His followers—for us! This can give us some clues as to what we should prioritize in our prayers.

Through Luke, we see that Jesus is the perfect Son of Man, what Paul calls the new and better Adam, and how He came to serve and save by God’s transforming power. And in today’s passage, we will see how Jesus meets us at our greatest point of need, in our lowest moments, and sees us through seasons of suffering.

It's no surprise that Jesus calls Christians to have a servant attitude and to be generous with our time and resources. But we can struggle to follow Jesus’s example of selfless service. We sometimes need a refresher to sharpen our skills as servants of God. Following the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus uses the failure of the disciples to cast out a demon to illustrate the qualities and attitudes we need if we are going to follow His example and have the heart of a servant.