June 19, 2025 • 24 mins
On the next Treasured Truth, as we continue to consider the privilege of worship, Pastor Ford will ask, “Where are those with the same mentality that David had when he wrote, ‘I would rather be a door keeper in the house of the Lord?’ Where are those who come into the Lord’s presence with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise? Where are those who are glad to be in worship?” To further consider how you might respond to these questions from Pastor Ford, join us for the next Treasured Truth.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:00):
And where is the mentality where? David said, I would
rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord.
Where are those who come into his presence with thanksgiving
and into his courts with praise? Where are those who
are glad to be in this place?
S2 (00:25):
Welcome to Treasure Truth with pastor and author James Ford,
junior senior pastor of the Christ Bible Church in Chicago.
I'm Steve Hillard. Glad you're with us. Today we're continuing
to look at Psalm 65, in a message called The
Privilege of Worship. And pastor. Over the past couple of, uh, programs,
we've talked a little bit about the fact that when
we have a right understanding of who God is and
(00:45):
a right understanding of who we are, you know, the
natural outflow of that should be worship. But frankly, sometimes
it's not. Maybe our hearts have just kind of grown cold. Uh,
we are choosing, for whatever reason, not to engage with
recognizing who God is and who we are. Talk to
the person who's maybe just feeling like I don't feel
like worshiping pastor.
S3 (01:07):
Well, you know, I tell people when you come into
his presence, what you need to do is engage yourself.
So the preparation that God gives us as we come
into his presence there is preparation. Uh, a call to worship. Uh,
what is that? That's when a worship leader says to
(01:30):
the individuals, okay, forget about the roast. Forget about going
to church. I mean, join the church. Forget about going
to the mall. Yeah. Uh, you know, because I'm thinking
out loud and sometimes they forget about church and go
to the mall. The mall? Right, right. Uh, but you're
coming into the presence of an awesome God. So there
(01:50):
ought to be a setup for worship. Uh, and it
ought to be high liturgy. Uh, that is some psalm
that talks about the greatness and the glory and the
grandeur of God. As a matter of fact, Steve, I'm
going to tell you the place to begin, for the
corporate worship is at home before you even get to
the building where you're going to worship with other believers.
(02:13):
So at home you get up. And what I generally
do is I get up, I sing a song to
the Lord, I open up my Scripture and let him
speak to me. I go to him in prayer. And
it doesn't have to be long and extended, but it's
kind of like lighting the fuse on the dynamite of worship.
(02:34):
And then by the time I'm, you know, I get
in my vehicle and as my young people would say,
I'll bump somebody on the box, uh, Kirk Franklin or
Nicole Mullen. You know, I know my Redeemer lives. You know,
something like that. On the way, I'm preparing my heart.
So sometimes I get up and I'm like that, that
(02:55):
that little story where the mother said, son, get up.
It's time to go to church. I don't want to go.
I don't like those people. They don't like me. But
you got to go. Come on, son, give me two
good reasons why. Mama. Number one, you're 45. Number two,
you're the pastor. And so sometimes even I don't want
to go. But I tell you what, Steve, uh, there
are times when this has prepared me and became a
(03:17):
catalyst and a motivation to me wanting to go. Then
I'll tell you always, even when I don't want to preach,
the choir will sing something. Somebody will say something that
I know is from God to fire me up for worship.
S2 (03:32):
Yeah, well, hopefully most of us can relate to that
and remember that the next time we're feeling that way.
But right now, join us in Psalm 65 as we
continue a message entitled The Privilege of Worship. Here's Pastor Ford.
S1 (03:47):
Let me give you Christ's Bible. Church stats tell you how.
S3 (03:52):
We love this place. 25% of our congregation only come
one Sunday a month. That's first Sunday when Hebrews 1025
is a command that says, forsake not the assembling of
yourselves together, as the manner of some is exhorting one
another so much the more as you see the day approaching. Yeah,
you see the day of Christ coming. Amen. You should
(04:13):
go to church more, not less. Yeah. 69% don't come
to Bible study, even though the Bible says in acts
chapter 241 and 42, they continue steadfastly in the apostles
doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers. 72%
of our people don't give at least 10% of their
income to God. As a whole. We average 2%. The
(04:34):
world averages for, well, we average 2.5%. And the world
gives to their charities 4.5%, which means then unbelievers give
about two times as much as believers give. And we
say we're going to heaven and say they're going to hell.
Yet they're more concerned about what's going to happen on
this earth in an earthly existence with no hope of heaven.
(04:56):
And it's not a cash issue, it's a commitment issue.
You know what? Some of us spend more money going
to the movies than we do giving to God. Some
people spend more money on getting their lottery tickets than
they give to God. Listen, most of you now don't
look around at your neighbor. I'm talking to your neighbor,
not you. Most of you would have more to give
(05:17):
to God if you would give God some of your
beer money. If you give God some of your wine money,
if you give God some of your reefer money, if
you would spend on God what you spend to go
to a show, 65% aren't involved in any ministry within
the church. They're not using their gifts for the body.
(05:37):
According to First Corinthians 12, 89% don't come to corporate
prayer Wednesday or Saturday. It's a sad state of affairs,
but yet we all say we love Jesus. Now, let
me just let me just let me just read the script.
I'm going to go ahead and just read the script
because I'm going to read the script. Okay. So some
years ago, you know, Bible study was just it was
(05:59):
worse than this. Only about 5% of people came. So?
So we're about 800. If, you know, if I could
get everybody here at the same time on a Sunday morning,
but only about 5%. So we're talking about 20 to
25 people coming to Bible study out of 800 coming
to Bible study. So then I said, okay, this gotta
stop because either I have to cut everything and say, okay,
(06:22):
here's what we're going to do. We're not doing anything
but Sunday morning worship, Bible study and prayer. No choir
or come in and we'll sing a couple songs, and
then we'll have the word take the offering and go home.
And then on Wednesday, we're not going to do anything
but pray and have the Word of God. And we're
having nobody doing any ministry whatsoever. And God talked me
(06:42):
out of that because he said, uh, no, no, no, no.
Because once some of them stop doing something, they ain't
coming back. I said, okay, okay, Lord. Okay, so what
should I do? So I said, let me see if
I can minister to you. What's the issue? So here's
what the choir said. Well, look, we got families, and
(07:04):
that's why you don't have a lot of stuff around here.
You don't have a lot of stuff. I don't even
got you out. You look at some of these churches
in this city, and they got their people out 4
or 5, six times a week, every week. You come
here twice, most times. And so I said, okay, choir,
you know what's going on? Why don't y'all come to
Bible study? You know, the choir told me, well, we
come out Wednesday and we come out Thursday, pastor. And
(07:26):
that's just too much time. Okay, so what I did
was I said, okay, we'll take care of that. Then
I said, okay, why don't some of you others and
I did it anonymously so everybody can say what they
want to say and have to worry about. He knew
I said that. No, I ain't know who said what.
So some people said, well, uh, I work in the evening,
so I can't come to evening Bible study. And then
some people said, well, I get off of work. I
(07:46):
work downtown by the time I get home from work,
you know, and eat and, and do the kids homework.
Bible study halfway over ain't used to me coming late.
I don't like to be coming nowhere late. Then. Then
some people say, you know, and we're hungry, you know,
and we want, you know. So here's what I did.
I combined the choir rehearsal on Wednesday and said, okay,
(08:08):
now you don't come on Thursday anymore. You ain't got
no excuse for that. So you could come to Bible
study because choir rehearsal is right after Bible study. But
you know what? That wasn't the real reason. How do
I know that? Because some choir members didn't come this Wednesday.
Want to know why? Because the praise team was singing today.
And since they don't sing today, they ain't come to
Bible study because the only reason they come to Bible study,
(08:29):
some of them, is because they know somebody's going to
get up in their grill talking about, hey, you, you
came to rehearsal. How come you didn't make it to
Bible study? I had three teachers volunteer. They teaching the
public school system. They with kids all day. But yet
they said on Wednesday from 5 to 630, we will
help the children with their homework. We had a homework
(08:51):
room and we had three teachers that came for a
whole month at 430 right after school and came over here.
Guess how many kids came in one month? None. None.
Not one. And then those who talked about feeding. What
happened to that? Because we feed, we said, okay, now
(09:12):
that they're feeding the people who are outside, y'all come
on in. Well, y'all ain't feeding them good food, are you?
How come we aren't? Because I go up there and eat, too.
And you ain't give me no junk. So sometime there
was fried chicken. And everybody know every Christian love fried chicken.
Especially we who are pastors. Fried chicken done had roasts,
(09:33):
done had turkey. And sometimes we get low level hot
dogs and beans and chips. But that's alright. We got
Kool-Aid too. And so where is everybody that say I
can't come to Bible study because this, that and the other? Yeah,
I gotta get this one because this is the one
I love. I do this one all the time. I'm
(09:54):
never going to retire this one. I love my church,
I really do. I love her with all of my might.
I go on Sunday morning, but not on Wednesday night.
I give my time and treasures there, do everything just right.
I do it Sunday morning, but not on Wednesday night.
My preacher preaches very well. He really is quite bright.
(10:16):
I hear him Sunday morning, but not on Wednesday night.
I know the Lord Jesus is coming soon and I'm
ready to take my flight, but I hope he comes
on Sunday morning and not on Wednesday night. Mm. Yeah.
That's it. Yeah. And where is the mentality where David
(10:39):
said I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house
of the Lord. Where are those who come into his
presence with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise? Where
are those who are glad to be in this place? Okay,
(11:03):
here's the last one. Here's the last one, he says. Uh,
we come in his presence. It's a privilege. And it's
a privilege of his person. It's the privilege of his place.
It's the privilege of his praise. Now get this. Where
do you get that? Listen to this. And unto thee
(11:25):
shall the vow be performed. Say, what in the world
is going on here, Pastor Ford, where he talks about.
And the the vow. Now, here's the context. I'm just
going to. Bottom line, you got to do your own work.
Here's what he's saying. We're waiting to praise God because
praise is fitted for him. It's custom made, designed for God.
(11:47):
So then it's part of the vow that I have made.
Has anybody ever said, Lord, if you get me out
of this. Has anybody ever said, Lord, if you just
do this one thing, Lord, if you just forgive me
one more time. Anybody ever say that? Yeah. Yeah. Mhm.
(12:12):
That's what he's talking about. We owe God praise. And
so since it's not ours we are cheating him. Because
praise belongs to God.
S2 (12:29):
You're listening to treasure truth and a great reminder of
praise and the privilege that it is to worship God.
We're going to get back to this teaching from Psalm
65 in just a moment. I want to let you
know Pastor Ford has written a number of books. You
can check those out when you come to our website, npr.org.
Click on the link that says Books by Pastor Ford.
You'll see the different titles available as a paperback or
(12:52):
an e-book format. Again, that's at Treasure Truth Radio. Dot org.
Back to our message. Here is Pastor Ford.
S3 (12:59):
Now, I could have broken this down several ways. You
know I am. I'm a teacher, not a preacher. And so,
you know, even on this, uh, you know, I just
worked on it yesterday and, and I got three different outlines,
but but here's what I want you to see. What's
he talking about? In verses one through four, he focuses
on the grace of God in verses five through eight,
the government of God, and verses nine through 13, the
(13:23):
goodness of God. Now get this he's saying, because of
God's grace, because of his government, because of his goodness,
we owe him praise. Now let me show you how
he does it. If we'd have followed this outline, here's
what we would have said because of the grace of God.
And that's when God gives us what we do not deserve.
We are to want him. That's verses one through four.
(13:46):
We ought to want him. We ought to desire him.
We ought to have a passion for him. But because
of the government, that's his rule and reign, his sovereignty,
that he's King of kings and Lord of lords, then
we are to walk with him. One preacher say walk
with the king and be a blessing today. And then
(14:07):
the goodness of God. You know what that means. We
ought to wait for him. There's things we want and
we in a hurry. I want it like yesterday. And
sometimes what we'll do is we'll rush. And I done
told you ladies over and over again. But it's good
to plug it in right now. You rushing God about
a boo. And you get in the Ishmael. And God's
(14:27):
trying to send you an Isaac. And the devil will
always send you Ishmael before God sends you your Isaac.
So the next one that try to step to you,
just look at him say, gotta be Ishmael. I'm waiting
on Isaac. And so what's it all about? Let me
summarize it because Imma let you go home. AP Gibbs, uh,
(14:49):
has a book called Worship The Christian's Highest Occupation. Now,
here's what he said, and I quote, praising God is
the occupation of the Christian soul. It's a job when
the soul of a Christian is occupied and comprehends the
(15:13):
blessings God has given. That soul is overcome with gratitude
for the grace of God. So then it's the nature
of the believer to praise God. He's saying, you can't
separate believer from praise. Amen. And he goes on and
(15:36):
let me get let me get the rest of it.
He goes on to say, you can tell what something
is by its nature, because. The nature of a thing
tells what it is. Okay. And he goes on, and
I quote, it is the nature of a dog to bark.
(15:57):
If you have a dog and your dog don't bark.
Something wrong with your dog? It's the nature of a cat.
And this morning I said to meow. And Elder Dixon
was like. He said, no, pastor, you know purr. I said, okay,
I must have been thinking about meow mix. Meow meow
meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow.
S4 (16:19):
Meow meow meow meow meow meow.
S3 (16:21):
But it's the nature of a cat to purr. If
your cat doesn't purr. There's something wrong with your cat.
It's the nature of a fish to swim. If your
fish don't never swim, it's dead. It's the nature of
a believer to pray. And if you don't know. Praise God.
(16:47):
Something's wrong with you as a believer. And I'm going
to close and take my seat. But I need to
tell you that some miracles only take place in the
context of worshiping God. We talk about them all the time.
But whenever the children of Israel walked around the wall
on the seventh day, they were to shout to the Lord,
(17:10):
now what did they shout? I'll tell you what they shouted,
because Psalm 135 three says, Shout hallelujah to the Lord.
So they didn't shout anything. They want to shout Hallelujah
is the highest praise. And so here's what they did.
All those over 2 million. Walking around the rock. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
(17:36):
And the wall came tumbling down. Want to know why?
Because some miracles only happen in the context of worship.
Paul and Silas in jail. They start worshiping. And what happened?
You have jailhouse Rock for the first time. Because some
(17:56):
miracles only happen in the context of worship. Jehoshaphat three enemies,
they got him surrounded. And what happens? They begin to
praise and sing, and it says. And the Lord set
ambushes for their enemies. Because some miracles only happen in
(18:16):
the context of worship. Oh, oh, come, magnify the Lord
with me, and let us exalt his name together. That's
(18:38):
worship folk, that's worship. Let me close. I said, one
for the father, one for the son. This for the
Holy Ghost. Blessed. Three and one Luke 1710. Lepers come
into the presence of Jesus Christ. Now wait a minute.
You're supposed to stay away from people, and I think
it's 40ft. And when you get close to people, you
(18:58):
gotta let them know you're a leper. So you you'd
say unclean, unclean. But they got close to Jesus. Why,
he let them in their space. In his space, when
they came in his space. You know, I can imagine
they're like, he doesn't do us like everybody else. He
let us into his space. And then they didn't even
have to say anything. They say, Lord, will you heal us?
(19:18):
And he said, go show yourself to the priest. Now,
what does that mean? Leviticus says, after you're healed. But
what they do, they go before they're healed. Why? Because
we walk by faith and not by sight. So they
have faith. And they. And Jesus said, do you believe
even when you don't see it, that I'm able to
be it and do it for you, but then walk
like you already have what you don't have? And it
(19:40):
says as they turn, they were healed. And you know
the rest of the story. Only one came back and
Jesus said, did I heal? Ten? Well, how come only
this Samaritan came back? You're getting ready to get up
on out of here and break camp. But I want
to ask you a question before you leave. Did you
(20:01):
really worship God today? Did you pay your bill on
time because it's due every first Sunday.
S5 (20:10):
Right? Yeah.
S3 (20:12):
Did you make a full payment or did you make
a partial payment?
S5 (20:16):
Right.
S3 (20:19):
And do you know that until we are raptured or die,
we can't praise him enough to pay it at one time? Yeah.
So I'll see you Wednesday night or Wednesday morning so
you can make another payment. And then I'll see you
next Sunday, Lord willing, should he let us live. So
(20:41):
you can make another payment. And then every Sunday and
every Wednesday you make a payment. You're giving praise. You
give him honor. You say, I can come into your presence. When? Now.
All over this country, there are over 100 countries where
they cannot do what we're doing right now. Darfur, Sudan. Uh, Syria. Uh,
(21:03):
in Aleppo and Iran. Iraq. Turkistan, uh, Kyrgyzstan, uh, North Korea, China,
all over the world, Christians are dying just for carrying
a Bible, just for saying it. And you can come
in here and you can stay almost two hours and
worship him without fear, without failure. Do you understand the
(21:26):
privilege that you have? And I have to worship the
true and the living God. We ought to praise him
because he's the bright and morning star. We ought to
praise him because he's the lily of the valley. We
ought to praise him because he's the fairest of 10,000
to our souls. We ought to pray because he wrote
(21:46):
our name in his book. We ought to praise him
because there's nobody else worthy of the glory of the
honor of the praise all the time He richly deserves it.
He rightly deserves it. He rightly deserves it. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Glory to your name.
S2 (22:10):
That is Pastor James Ford Jr, inspiring us to come
before the living God with passion and sincerity. You're listening
to Treasure Truth, a message called the Privilege of Worship.
And to hear previous programs come to our website, treasure
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(22:33):
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(22:54):
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(23:21):
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(23:42):
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And where is the mentality where? David said, I would
rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord.
Where are those who come into his presence with thanksgiving
and into his courts with praise? Where are those who
are glad to be in this place?
S2 (00:25):
Welcome to Treasure Truth with pastor and author James Ford,
junior senior pastor of the Christ Bible Church in Chicago.
I'm Steve Hillard. Glad you're with us. Today we're continuing
to look at Psalm 65, in a message called The
Privilege of Worship. And pastor. Over the past couple of, uh, programs,
we've talked a little bit about the fact that when
we have a right understanding of who God is and
(00:45):
a right understanding of who we are, you know, the
natural outflow of that should be worship. But frankly, sometimes
it's not. Maybe our hearts have just kind of grown cold. Uh,
we are choosing, for whatever reason, not to engage with
recognizing who God is and who we are. Talk to
the person who's maybe just feeling like I don't feel
like worshiping pastor.
S3 (01:07):
Well, you know, I tell people when you come into
his presence, what you need to do is engage yourself.
So the preparation that God gives us as we come
into his presence there is preparation. Uh, a call to worship. Uh,
what is that? That's when a worship leader says to
(01:30):
the individuals, okay, forget about the roast. Forget about going
to church. I mean, join the church. Forget about going
to the mall. Yeah. Uh, you know, because I'm thinking
out loud and sometimes they forget about church and go
to the mall. The mall? Right, right. Uh, but you're
coming into the presence of an awesome God. So there
(01:50):
ought to be a setup for worship. Uh, and it
ought to be high liturgy. Uh, that is some psalm
that talks about the greatness and the glory and the
grandeur of God. As a matter of fact, Steve, I'm
going to tell you the place to begin, for the
corporate worship is at home before you even get to
the building where you're going to worship with other believers.
(02:13):
So at home you get up. And what I generally
do is I get up, I sing a song to
the Lord, I open up my Scripture and let him
speak to me. I go to him in prayer. And
it doesn't have to be long and extended, but it's
kind of like lighting the fuse on the dynamite of worship.
(02:34):
And then by the time I'm, you know, I get
in my vehicle and as my young people would say,
I'll bump somebody on the box, uh, Kirk Franklin or
Nicole Mullen. You know, I know my Redeemer lives. You know,
something like that. On the way, I'm preparing my heart.
So sometimes I get up and I'm like that, that
(02:55):
that little story where the mother said, son, get up.
It's time to go to church. I don't want to go.
I don't like those people. They don't like me. But
you got to go. Come on, son, give me two
good reasons why. Mama. Number one, you're 45. Number two,
you're the pastor. And so sometimes even I don't want
to go. But I tell you what, Steve, uh, there
are times when this has prepared me and became a
(03:17):
catalyst and a motivation to me wanting to go. Then
I'll tell you always, even when I don't want to preach,
the choir will sing something. Somebody will say something that
I know is from God to fire me up for worship.
S2 (03:32):
Yeah, well, hopefully most of us can relate to that
and remember that the next time we're feeling that way.
But right now, join us in Psalm 65 as we
continue a message entitled The Privilege of Worship. Here's Pastor Ford.
S1 (03:47):
Let me give you Christ's Bible. Church stats tell you how.
S3 (03:52):
We love this place. 25% of our congregation only come
one Sunday a month. That's first Sunday when Hebrews 1025
is a command that says, forsake not the assembling of
yourselves together, as the manner of some is exhorting one
another so much the more as you see the day approaching. Yeah,
you see the day of Christ coming. Amen. You should
(04:13):
go to church more, not less. Yeah. 69% don't come
to Bible study, even though the Bible says in acts
chapter 241 and 42, they continue steadfastly in the apostles
doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers. 72%
of our people don't give at least 10% of their
income to God. As a whole. We average 2%. The
(04:34):
world averages for, well, we average 2.5%. And the world
gives to their charities 4.5%, which means then unbelievers give
about two times as much as believers give. And we
say we're going to heaven and say they're going to hell.
Yet they're more concerned about what's going to happen on
this earth in an earthly existence with no hope of heaven.
(04:56):
And it's not a cash issue, it's a commitment issue.
You know what? Some of us spend more money going
to the movies than we do giving to God. Some
people spend more money on getting their lottery tickets than
they give to God. Listen, most of you now don't
look around at your neighbor. I'm talking to your neighbor,
not you. Most of you would have more to give
(05:17):
to God if you would give God some of your
beer money. If you give God some of your wine money,
if you give God some of your reefer money, if
you would spend on God what you spend to go
to a show, 65% aren't involved in any ministry within
the church. They're not using their gifts for the body.
(05:37):
According to First Corinthians 12, 89% don't come to corporate
prayer Wednesday or Saturday. It's a sad state of affairs,
but yet we all say we love Jesus. Now, let
me just let me just let me just read the script.
I'm going to go ahead and just read the script
because I'm going to read the script. Okay. So some
years ago, you know, Bible study was just it was
(05:59):
worse than this. Only about 5% of people came. So?
So we're about 800. If, you know, if I could
get everybody here at the same time on a Sunday morning,
but only about 5%. So we're talking about 20 to
25 people coming to Bible study out of 800 coming
to Bible study. So then I said, okay, this gotta
stop because either I have to cut everything and say, okay,
(06:22):
here's what we're going to do. We're not doing anything
but Sunday morning worship, Bible study and prayer. No choir
or come in and we'll sing a couple songs, and
then we'll have the word take the offering and go home.
And then on Wednesday, we're not going to do anything
but pray and have the Word of God. And we're
having nobody doing any ministry whatsoever. And God talked me
(06:42):
out of that because he said, uh, no, no, no, no.
Because once some of them stop doing something, they ain't
coming back. I said, okay, okay, Lord. Okay, so what
should I do? So I said, let me see if
I can minister to you. What's the issue? So here's
what the choir said. Well, look, we got families, and
(07:04):
that's why you don't have a lot of stuff around here.
You don't have a lot of stuff. I don't even
got you out. You look at some of these churches
in this city, and they got their people out 4
or 5, six times a week, every week. You come
here twice, most times. And so I said, okay, choir,
you know what's going on? Why don't y'all come to
Bible study? You know, the choir told me, well, we
come out Wednesday and we come out Thursday, pastor. And
(07:26):
that's just too much time. Okay, so what I did
was I said, okay, we'll take care of that. Then
I said, okay, why don't some of you others and
I did it anonymously so everybody can say what they
want to say and have to worry about. He knew
I said that. No, I ain't know who said what.
So some people said, well, uh, I work in the evening,
so I can't come to evening Bible study. And then
some people said, well, I get off of work. I
(07:46):
work downtown by the time I get home from work,
you know, and eat and, and do the kids homework.
Bible study halfway over ain't used to me coming late.
I don't like to be coming nowhere late. Then. Then
some people say, you know, and we're hungry, you know,
and we want, you know. So here's what I did.
I combined the choir rehearsal on Wednesday and said, okay,
(08:08):
now you don't come on Thursday anymore. You ain't got
no excuse for that. So you could come to Bible
study because choir rehearsal is right after Bible study. But
you know what? That wasn't the real reason. How do
I know that? Because some choir members didn't come this Wednesday.
Want to know why? Because the praise team was singing today.
And since they don't sing today, they ain't come to
Bible study because the only reason they come to Bible study,
(08:29):
some of them, is because they know somebody's going to
get up in their grill talking about, hey, you, you
came to rehearsal. How come you didn't make it to
Bible study? I had three teachers volunteer. They teaching the
public school system. They with kids all day. But yet
they said on Wednesday from 5 to 630, we will
help the children with their homework. We had a homework
(08:51):
room and we had three teachers that came for a
whole month at 430 right after school and came over here.
Guess how many kids came in one month? None. None.
Not one. And then those who talked about feeding. What
happened to that? Because we feed, we said, okay, now
(09:12):
that they're feeding the people who are outside, y'all come
on in. Well, y'all ain't feeding them good food, are you?
How come we aren't? Because I go up there and eat, too.
And you ain't give me no junk. So sometime there
was fried chicken. And everybody know every Christian love fried chicken.
Especially we who are pastors. Fried chicken done had roasts,
(09:33):
done had turkey. And sometimes we get low level hot
dogs and beans and chips. But that's alright. We got
Kool-Aid too. And so where is everybody that say I
can't come to Bible study because this, that and the other? Yeah,
I gotta get this one because this is the one
I love. I do this one all the time. I'm
(09:54):
never going to retire this one. I love my church,
I really do. I love her with all of my might.
I go on Sunday morning, but not on Wednesday night.
I give my time and treasures there, do everything just right.
I do it Sunday morning, but not on Wednesday night.
My preacher preaches very well. He really is quite bright.
(10:16):
I hear him Sunday morning, but not on Wednesday night.
I know the Lord Jesus is coming soon and I'm
ready to take my flight, but I hope he comes
on Sunday morning and not on Wednesday night. Mm. Yeah.
That's it. Yeah. And where is the mentality where David
(10:39):
said I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house
of the Lord. Where are those who come into his
presence with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise? Where
are those who are glad to be in this place? Okay,
(11:03):
here's the last one. Here's the last one, he says. Uh,
we come in his presence. It's a privilege. And it's
a privilege of his person. It's the privilege of his place.
It's the privilege of his praise. Now get this. Where
do you get that? Listen to this. And unto thee
(11:25):
shall the vow be performed. Say, what in the world
is going on here, Pastor Ford, where he talks about.
And the the vow. Now, here's the context. I'm just
going to. Bottom line, you got to do your own work.
Here's what he's saying. We're waiting to praise God because
praise is fitted for him. It's custom made, designed for God.
(11:47):
So then it's part of the vow that I have made.
Has anybody ever said, Lord, if you get me out
of this. Has anybody ever said, Lord, if you just
do this one thing, Lord, if you just forgive me
one more time. Anybody ever say that? Yeah. Yeah. Mhm.
(12:12):
That's what he's talking about. We owe God praise. And
so since it's not ours we are cheating him. Because
praise belongs to God.
S2 (12:29):
You're listening to treasure truth and a great reminder of
praise and the privilege that it is to worship God.
We're going to get back to this teaching from Psalm
65 in just a moment. I want to let you
know Pastor Ford has written a number of books. You
can check those out when you come to our website, npr.org.
Click on the link that says Books by Pastor Ford.
You'll see the different titles available as a paperback or
(12:52):
an e-book format. Again, that's at Treasure Truth Radio. Dot org.
Back to our message. Here is Pastor Ford.
S3 (12:59):
Now, I could have broken this down several ways. You
know I am. I'm a teacher, not a preacher. And so,
you know, even on this, uh, you know, I just
worked on it yesterday and, and I got three different outlines,
but but here's what I want you to see. What's
he talking about? In verses one through four, he focuses
on the grace of God in verses five through eight,
the government of God, and verses nine through 13, the
(13:23):
goodness of God. Now get this he's saying, because of
God's grace, because of his government, because of his goodness,
we owe him praise. Now let me show you how
he does it. If we'd have followed this outline, here's
what we would have said because of the grace of God.
And that's when God gives us what we do not deserve.
We are to want him. That's verses one through four.
(13:46):
We ought to want him. We ought to desire him.
We ought to have a passion for him. But because
of the government, that's his rule and reign, his sovereignty,
that he's King of kings and Lord of lords, then
we are to walk with him. One preacher say walk
with the king and be a blessing today. And then
(14:07):
the goodness of God. You know what that means. We
ought to wait for him. There's things we want and
we in a hurry. I want it like yesterday. And
sometimes what we'll do is we'll rush. And I done
told you ladies over and over again. But it's good
to plug it in right now. You rushing God about
a boo. And you get in the Ishmael. And God's
(14:27):
trying to send you an Isaac. And the devil will
always send you Ishmael before God sends you your Isaac.
So the next one that try to step to you,
just look at him say, gotta be Ishmael. I'm waiting
on Isaac. And so what's it all about? Let me
summarize it because Imma let you go home. AP Gibbs, uh,
(14:49):
has a book called Worship The Christian's Highest Occupation. Now,
here's what he said, and I quote, praising God is
the occupation of the Christian soul. It's a job when
the soul of a Christian is occupied and comprehends the
(15:13):
blessings God has given. That soul is overcome with gratitude
for the grace of God. So then it's the nature
of the believer to praise God. He's saying, you can't
separate believer from praise. Amen. And he goes on and
(15:36):
let me get let me get the rest of it.
He goes on to say, you can tell what something
is by its nature, because. The nature of a thing
tells what it is. Okay. And he goes on, and
I quote, it is the nature of a dog to bark.
(15:57):
If you have a dog and your dog don't bark.
Something wrong with your dog? It's the nature of a cat.
And this morning I said to meow. And Elder Dixon
was like. He said, no, pastor, you know purr. I said, okay,
I must have been thinking about meow mix. Meow meow
meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow.
S4 (16:19):
Meow meow meow meow meow meow.
S3 (16:21):
But it's the nature of a cat to purr. If
your cat doesn't purr. There's something wrong with your cat.
It's the nature of a fish to swim. If your
fish don't never swim, it's dead. It's the nature of
a believer to pray. And if you don't know. Praise God.
(16:47):
Something's wrong with you as a believer. And I'm going
to close and take my seat. But I need to
tell you that some miracles only take place in the
context of worshiping God. We talk about them all the time.
But whenever the children of Israel walked around the wall
on the seventh day, they were to shout to the Lord,
(17:10):
now what did they shout? I'll tell you what they shouted,
because Psalm 135 three says, Shout hallelujah to the Lord.
So they didn't shout anything. They want to shout Hallelujah
is the highest praise. And so here's what they did.
All those over 2 million. Walking around the rock. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
(17:36):
And the wall came tumbling down. Want to know why?
Because some miracles only happen in the context of worship.
Paul and Silas in jail. They start worshiping. And what happened?
You have jailhouse Rock for the first time. Because some
(17:56):
miracles only happen in the context of worship. Jehoshaphat three enemies,
they got him surrounded. And what happens? They begin to
praise and sing, and it says. And the Lord set
ambushes for their enemies. Because some miracles only happen in
(18:16):
the context of worship. Oh, oh, come, magnify the Lord
with me, and let us exalt his name together. That's
(18:38):
worship folk, that's worship. Let me close. I said, one
for the father, one for the son. This for the
Holy Ghost. Blessed. Three and one Luke 1710. Lepers come
into the presence of Jesus Christ. Now wait a minute.
You're supposed to stay away from people, and I think
it's 40ft. And when you get close to people, you
(18:58):
gotta let them know you're a leper. So you you'd
say unclean, unclean. But they got close to Jesus. Why,
he let them in their space. In his space, when
they came in his space. You know, I can imagine
they're like, he doesn't do us like everybody else. He
let us into his space. And then they didn't even
have to say anything. They say, Lord, will you heal us?
(19:18):
And he said, go show yourself to the priest. Now,
what does that mean? Leviticus says, after you're healed. But
what they do, they go before they're healed. Why? Because
we walk by faith and not by sight. So they
have faith. And they. And Jesus said, do you believe
even when you don't see it, that I'm able to
be it and do it for you, but then walk
like you already have what you don't have? And it
(19:40):
says as they turn, they were healed. And you know
the rest of the story. Only one came back and
Jesus said, did I heal? Ten? Well, how come only
this Samaritan came back? You're getting ready to get up
on out of here and break camp. But I want
to ask you a question before you leave. Did you
(20:01):
really worship God today? Did you pay your bill on
time because it's due every first Sunday.
S5 (20:10):
Right? Yeah.
S3 (20:12):
Did you make a full payment or did you make
a partial payment?
S5 (20:16):
Right.
S3 (20:19):
And do you know that until we are raptured or die,
we can't praise him enough to pay it at one time? Yeah.
So I'll see you Wednesday night or Wednesday morning so
you can make another payment. And then I'll see you
next Sunday, Lord willing, should he let us live. So
(20:41):
you can make another payment. And then every Sunday and
every Wednesday you make a payment. You're giving praise. You
give him honor. You say, I can come into your presence. When? Now.
All over this country, there are over 100 countries where
they cannot do what we're doing right now. Darfur, Sudan. Uh, Syria. Uh,
(21:03):
in Aleppo and Iran. Iraq. Turkistan, uh, Kyrgyzstan, uh, North Korea, China,
all over the world, Christians are dying just for carrying
a Bible, just for saying it. And you can come
in here and you can stay almost two hours and
worship him without fear, without failure. Do you understand the
(21:26):
privilege that you have? And I have to worship the
true and the living God. We ought to praise him
because he's the bright and morning star. We ought to
praise him because he's the lily of the valley. We
ought to praise him because he's the fairest of 10,000
to our souls. We ought to pray because he wrote
(21:46):
our name in his book. We ought to praise him
because there's nobody else worthy of the glory of the
honor of the praise all the time He richly deserves it.
He rightly deserves it. He rightly deserves it. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Glory to your name.
S2 (22:10):
That is Pastor James Ford Jr, inspiring us to come
before the living God with passion and sincerity. You're listening
to Treasure Truth, a message called the Privilege of Worship.
And to hear previous programs come to our website, treasure
Truth radio.org. Well, our program exists to nurture your faith
in Christ and provide practical instruction for your daily life. Now,
(22:33):
we do that through these audio messages and also through
the resources that we choose to supplement Pastor Ford's teachings. Now,
right now, when you give a gift of any amount
to the ministry, we're going to send you a book
by Pastor Ford called Seven Reasons Why God Created Marriage.
So what's the difference between a Christian marriage and a
secular one with someone who didn't really know? You? Be
(22:54):
able to tell that you're a believer simply based on
the way that you interact with your spouse. The book,
seven Reasons Why God Created Marriage Will Strengthen the Pillars
of Your Marriage. Whether you're newlyweds or you've been with
your spouse for decades. So give a donation and request
Pastor Ford's book, seven Reasons Why God Created Marriage. Call
us at 888644 7660 or come to treasure truth. Radio.com.
(23:21):
By working together, we can spread God's Word to places
neither of us could reach on our own. It's your
support that allows us to broadcast into homes, cars, and
workplaces across the country. So thanks for giving generously, and
remember to request seven reasons why God created marriage. Again,
our phone number is 888 644 7660 or go online
(23:42):
to Treasure Truth Radio. Treasure truth is a production of
Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
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