Make Followers of God by Declaring His Glories Psalm 78:1-8 Abe Stratton, Pastor AM Service November 4, 2012

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1 Make Followers of God by Declaring His Glories Psalm 78:1-8 Abe Stratton, Pastor AM Service November 4, 2012 Introduction As I mentioned in my prayer Danny and Kristen, Dick, and Will are all out in Brighton, CO, visiting Todd and Carissa Davis and Redeemer Bible Church. Phil Adams and Kevin Johnson also went with them to encourage and help the church plant there. Danny has been preaching a short series of messages on our ministry priorities, and one of those is discipleship. This has been a point of emphasis with our leadership (elders and deacons) in the last couple of months, and I want to revisit this theme this morning. I. Our Creator has proclaimed His mission. (Psalm 78:1-8) A. He is declaring His might and glory to mankind. God is in the business of unveiling Himself to humanity. 1. He evokes praise. The phrase glorious deeds carries the idea of praise or songs of praise. Sometimes songs are the only reasonable or conceivable response to what God has done. There is no other way for us to extol the beauty and power and massiveness and mind-blowing nature of this Being. We must sing! Examples: (1) When the Israelites came through the Red Sea and turned to watch their enemies engulfed by the rushing waters, they didn t just turn and walk away into the desert. They had to dance and sing. (2) When David finally brought the Ark of God into the city of Jerusalem, he was so excited that he danced before the LORD with all his might. (And some of you think that raising your hands in a worship service is a little edgy!) There is a God who is glorious beyond our comprehension, and He is declaring Himself to mankind! 2. He displays His incomparable strength. Might carries the idea of sheer, irresistible force. This is massive, mind-numbing, unadulterated power. Examples: You think that the waters of the Atlantic Ocean stirred up by Hurricane Sandy were powerful? What about the Creator who wove that storm together and then hurled it at the Eastern Seaboard? What about the Being who shakes continents to their very core? What about the God who causes planets to swirl amid the galaxies? What about the God who assembles colossal balls of flame into clusters which we call constellations and then guides them through the vast reaches of space? There is a God who is mighty beyond our imagination, and He is declaring Himself to mankind! 3. He reveals His incomprehensible marvels. These wonders are astounding events which cause mind-blowing amazement. Examples: Do you stop to think about the astonishing things that Jehovah God has revealed in His Word? (1) He turned water into blood. (2) He caused the Red Sea and the Jordan River to stand up like walls so His people could pass through. (3) He caused the walls of Jericho to fall down flat. (4) He caused hailstones so large to fall from the sky that more men died from those than from a pursuing army. We easily become numb to the stories which we have heard so often. But there is a marvelous, amazing, awe-inspiring God who is declaring Himself to mankind. But this God doesn t just want to awe mankind, He wants to own them. (Continue reading in verse 5.) 1

2 B. He is intoxicating the hearts of men to hope in Him. (7) 1. He wants their confidence to be in Him. The God of the universe desires that men would recognize His glory, His power, and His wonders so that they would make a personal commitment to Him. He wants the hearts of men. 2. He wants them to remember His works. When we don t gaze on God through the eyes of faith, then we do forget Him, and our confidence in Him fades. Because we can t see Him with our physical eyes, physical possessions begin to look nicer and problems begin to look bigger and people begin to seem more powerful. We find God s grace to be cheap; we see His gifts as our just deserts. But when we begin to gaze on this God as He unveils Himself in His Word, then our temporal toys look cheap in the blaze of His beauty, and our problems shrink to their proper perspective in the scope of His plan, and people dwindle to their true role in the light of His power. When we remember God as He truly is, then we cannot place our confidence anywhere else! 3. He wants them to obey His commands. When our confidence is set on God, when we place our hope in Him, when we remember His magnificent works, then the natural response is to obey Him. Our Creator wants followers who not only affirm who He claims to be, but who also serve Him with all that they are. Transition: The Creator-God is on mission to declare Himself to the mankind and to draw them to Himself. But how does He carry out this mission? II. Our King has declared His mandate. (Matthew 28:18-20) Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. A. The King s authority is universal. He possesses all authority in heaven and on earth. He owns it all, and He rules over all. B. The King s kindness is abundant. This King has given us the opportunity to serve in His eternal mission. He doesn t need any of us to proclaim His name and to draw others to Himself, but He gives us the privilege of serving with Him in His great work. C. The King s command is clear. Make disciples! 1. A disciple is a person who genuinely believes in and passionately follows Jesus. a. There is mental affirmation or belief. I see this God who has revealed Himself to me, and I must believe. b. There is also commitment. Our God is not content to awe mankind by the display of His glory. He wants followers who zealously, passionately, whole-heartedly pursue Him. He wants followers who set their hope/confidence in Him, remember Him, and obey His commands. 2. We make followers by teaching, by speaking. A follower of God must speak of God in order to make more followers of God. Mankind comes to set their hope in God as they see Him unveiled before their eyes. Faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17). So it is clear that the Creator and our King has an eternal plan, and in His sovereignty He will accomplish it. However, in His graciousness He has given us a part to play in it. Yes, God is 2

3 declaring His glory to the nations. Yes, He is drawing men to Himself so that they set their hope in Him. But He uses His own followers to accomplish this! Application: This is a good reminder for us at the beginning of a monumental election week. Our God is sovereign over all things; He rules over the nations of men; He sets up rulers, and He brings them down. But He does this in part through His people; He has given us responsibility to exercise the opportunities we have as a means of carrying out His eternal plan. So we should go to the polls and vote. But on a grander scale, we must continue to proclaim the glory and might and marvels of God to others through and beyond this election. In one sense it doesn t matter if there s a democratic president or republican president or third-party president in the White House on Wednesday. Our King s mandate remains the same: make more followers by proclaiming His might to the nations! Transition: The Creator-God is on mission to declare Himself to mankind and to draw them to Himself. He does this through His followers who pursue others to make them followers. But how do these followers make other followers? We ve mentioned teaching/speaking to others, but I want to get more specific. III. Our God has revealed His method. (Psalm 78:1-8) One generation tells the next. A follower of God of any age can speak to another person of any age in order to declare God s works and to call that person to follow Him. But the pattern throughout Scripture is that one generation tells the next generation the glories of God. Deut. 6:7 You shall teach them [God s words through Moses] diligently to your children. Ps. 34:11 Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Psalm 48:12-14 Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, (13) consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels, that you may tell the next generation (14) that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever. Prov. 22:17 Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge. 2 Timothy 2:2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Titus 2:3-5 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Some of these passages speak of the family context parents, and especially father, teaching their children of God. However, some of them broaden out into the wider context of the people of God one generation is telling the coming generation of God. Example: This is the primary reason why we are seeking to make our children s ministry here at Heritage a greater priority. (1) For several months this summer a team of people who serve in Children s Ministry met several times to determine ways in which we could make our CM more effective. (2) We have a hired a CM Director. This week Kerri Robinson accepted that position, and she and I will be teaming together to determine how we can make changes. We are not doing these things to be novel or because we think we re failing in our task, but we do these things because our God has called us to proclaim His name to the next generation, and we want to do that in the most effective and fruitful ways possible. We want to see them grow up to set their hope in Him, to remember Him all their days, and to obey Him with their lives. 3

4 A. The older generation must speak to the younger. 1. The onus is on you to speak. I don t think we can make a clear age distinction between older and younger because Scripture doesn t. The older generation could be a young dad who has a newborn child. The older generation could be a mom with college-age children. It could be a white-haired grandparent. You cannot and must not rely on a pastor or another teacher. God has placed the responsibility for teaching the next generation on you. There is a God who is declaring Himself to mankind, and He has chosen to use you to tell them about Him. We have a King who has given a mandate to make disciples, and one of the ways you do that is by opening your mouth and testifying to the next generation about Him. 2. The onus is on you to speak of God and His works. God has given the older generation the responsibility to speak, and when you speak, to talk about Him and His works. It is very easy to compare generations, to wonder why things change. It seems to be especially difficult in the realm of our walk with God. The older generation pursued God in a certain way it looked and sounded a certain way. And it can be difficult to understand why the younger generation does things differently. But when you open your mouth and talk to the younger generation, your speaking should focus on the eternal God who spans the generations. We need to hear about God from you, not how things have degenerated, not how they re not the way they used to be. Each generation is different, and our generation looks and sounds differently from your generation. God s people over generations and over centuries and over millennia have looked and sounded and worshiped incredibly diversely. We understand that several centuries removed, but only one or two generations removed can be much more difficult. The eternal God doesn t call us to perpetuate our ideas or traditions or preferences. He calls us to declare His mighty acts and His marvelous works. It takes great humility to realize that the younger generation may be pursuing God as zealously as you did even though it looks and sounds differently. Example: Last Sunday Mrs. Galusha spoke to us of God. Yes, it was personal; yes, we saw how God worked in her life through camp meetings, which are not prevalent today. In one sense camp meetings were a phenomenon an event for a specific period of time; they came, God used them, and they re gone. But Mrs. Galusha s emphasis wasn t on the camp meetings; her emphasis was on God s saving work in her and in others. Application: (1) Who are you pursuing? Is there one younger person whom you are seeking to tell of God and His glories? (2) What is the content of your words? As the older generation we have to continually evaluate our words. Are we speaking of God and His works, or are we trying to perpetuate our own phenomenon those things which God may have used, but which have had their time? B. The younger generation must hear the older. 1. The younger listen. Throughout Scripture God emphasizes that the younger learn wisdom by listening to the older. When the older generation speaks, we should listen. We should seek to learn of God from them. a. We must pursue the older generation. This requires a spirit of humility. Do you even want to hear from the older generation? They are a gift from God, and they are one of the means by which we learn of God and His works. So we should be pursuing them, seeking them out in order to listen. 4

5 b. We must be willing to stop spouting our own opinions and listen. I think it is characteristic of our generation to spout off our ideas, some of which may be wellthought out and some of which are not. Even if we believe that we have biblical basis for our practices or preferences, we need to listen to the older generation who has walked with God much longer than we have. 2. The younger learn from the older. God has given the older generation unique experiences which can be helpful for our own growth in grace. Paul says in Titus 2 that older women are to train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands. That assumes that the younger is listening to and learning from the older. We need to hear from this treasure which God has given to us. Yes, wisdom ultimately comes from God, and they don t know everything. Yes, they aren t perfect, and they haven t done everything right. But most of them would be the first to admit it, and God s method of declaring Himself to us is through the older generation speaking into our lives. Application: (1) Who are you pursuing? Is there one older person whom you are listening to? (2) Are you humbly learning from them? Conclusion What we ve been discussing this morning is basically discipleship followers of God proclaiming God and His works in order to make other followers. Discipleship is a two-way street; one pursues another, and that person reciprocates. This takes great humility. Life is not about us and our preferences, whether we are old or young. Life is about the God who is on mission to declare Himself to mankind. My primary application this morning has been between the older and younger generations. But applications are many. Children s workers, you re not merely telling a Bible story in a few minutes. You are declaring the glories of the eternal God so that those 5s, 3 rd graders, or 5 th graders will some day set their hope in Him. Dads, you re not merely to get your kids to conform to some moral code. You are to declare the boundless strength of God to your children so that they will follow Him all the days of their lives. The Creator-God is on mission to unveil Himself to mankind so that they love Him and obey Him with all their hearts. He is proclaiming His name as His followers obey the command of their King to tell others. And He perpetuates His name from generation to generation as the older speak of Him and as the younger listen and learn of Him. Benediction Psalm 48:12-14 Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, (13) consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels, that you may tell the next generation (14) that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever. 5