Recently, I ran across this illustration that ties into what praise and worship are to our spiritual lives. In the Chilean village of Chungungo water is nearly as valuable as precious metal. The region is arid and parched, forcing the village to truck in freshwater over dirt roads from miles away. Until recently the average person could afford a mere four gallons a day (compare that to the average American who uses ninety gallons a day), and buying even that meager amount soaked up 10 percent of household incomes. In Chungungo bathing was a luxury. But then scientists experimented with an ingenious new system for obtaining water. The 330 residents of Chungungo now drink water—the freshest they have ever tasted—from high above, atop nearby El Tofo mountain.
Under the direction of Dr. Robert Schemenauer, a Canadian cloud physicist, workers hung on eucalyptus poles a “wall” of finely woven propylene nets, each the size of eight queen-size bed sheets sewn together. Seventy-five such nets sift the clouds that sweep in incessantly from the Pacific Ocean. A close look at the plastic nets reveals propylene fibers meshed in tiny triangles. Like dew collects on grass, infinitesimally small water particles from fog collect on these fibers. Ten thousand such water particles must coalesce to produce one drop of water the size of a tear. Still, each water net collects forty gallons of water a day. The seventy-five nets on El Tofo sift a total of three thousand gallons daily from the drifting clouds and fog.
Sometimes our lives feel as dry and parched as the rocky soil around Chungungo, where only shrubs and cactus grow. What we need are spiritual water nets. Few things will flood the reservoirs of your soul like giving thanks to God.1 It’s that Thanksgiving time of the year. Worship, praise and thanksgiving, that’s what we’re talking about in this week’s Light on Life.
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Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put into operation.
This weeks call is:
There is a danger of things becoming commonplace in our everyday lives. Things are mundane. We lose our spiritual edge. We don’t feel thankful. Your mission, should you choose to accept is to establish the pillar of praise and worship in your everyday life. It’s to get out of the spiritual funk.
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Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believers life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
This week’s question is:
Question: What are the pillars of your house? What values, principles, or scriptural truths are foundational pillars in your house and in your family?
Episode Resources
You can find more information on the subject of Praise, Worship, and Thanksgiving by clicking on the links above.
About Emery
Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 37 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.
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Podcast Notes
What Are the Pillars of Your House?
1 Timothy 3:15 (ESV) — 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
- What are the pillars of your house?
- What values, principles, or scriptural truths are the foundational pillars in your house and in your family?
- You understand that pillars support things that without the support the house falls.
- With that thought here’s the illustration of the day.
- These pillars are to be embedded deeply into the very foundations of this church.
- This is a personal illustration: One of the houses that we lived in developed some shifting in the foundation.
- And so, we had to have piers put in the house.
- Workers drilled down into the ground and they put ten piers in to make sure that that house would not move.
- It was costly to put those piers.
- There was a price to pay to make sure we had a firm foundation and that our house would not be moved.
- Today, we are talking about spiritual piers, spiritual pillars for your spiritual house.
- Remember this about your spiritual house.
The Higher You Go, the Stronger You Need Your Pillars to Be
- The Lord digs deep when He means to raise the building high.
- The higher you go in God, the stronger, the more stout your pillars need to be.
Psalm 11:3 (ESV) — 3 if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
- The answer to that is obvious, nothing.
- Jesus warned us about this very thing in the book of Luke.
Luke 6:46–49 (ESV) — 46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
The Pillars of Our House: Worship
Ephesians 5:20 (ESV) — 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
- Jesus must be, and ought to be properly worshiped in your house.
- There is a danger of things becoming commonplace in our everyday lives.
- We get up, we go to work, we feed the capitalist machine, we punch the clock, and we go home.
- Here it is, it’s Thanksgiving but it doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving.
- We don’t feel thankful.
- People have jobs but they’re not thankful.
- They have health and we take it for granted.
- We have families and we don’t value them as we should.
- They easily get into a spiritual funk.
- In the book of Deuteronomy, the Lord warned Israel not to become complacent with the everyday blessings of life.
The Blessings of Living In a Good Land
Deuteronomy 8:7–18 (ESV) — 7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
To Know Blessing, Don’t Forget the Lord
11 “Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,
The Power of Blessing Comes from the Lord
15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
Give the Lord the Credit
- A wine company advertisement in Newsweek magazine read, “The earth gives us wonderful grapes. The grapes give us wonderful wine. The wine wins us lots of new friends. Thank you, earth.” How easy it is to give credit and thanks to everything or everyone but the real source of all our blessings!22
Superior Results Come from Superior Worship
- You cannot expect the superior results that come from the Holy Spirit manifesting Himself in your life if you don’t value His input into your life.
- If anything good has happened in your life, it’s because God did it and you should thank Him for it.
- Much in the New Testament connects to and centers around the worship of God.
- Worship, for example, is tied to the healing anointing.
- In the New Testament, many people who were healed came and worshiped Jesus.
Thanksgiving and Worship: The Example of the Leper
- Notice the leper in Matthew eight.
Matthew 8:2–4 (ESV) — 2 And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” 3 And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”
Thanksgiving and Worship: The Example of Jairus
- What about Jairus daughter in Matthew nine?
Matthew 9:18–19 (ESV) — 18 While he was saying these things to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 And Jesus rose and followed him, with his disciples.
Thanksgiving and Worship: The Example of the Syrophoenician Woman
- And yet one more, the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter.
Matthew 15:21–25 (ESV) — 21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
- And you know what, He did.
- Jesus delivered this woman’s daughter.
Thanksgiving and Worship: The Example of the Madman of Gadara
- Even a demon-possessed person worshiped Jesus one day.
Mark 5:1–6 (ESV) — 1 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him.
- Well, if a half-crazed demon possessed person can worship God, man you ought to have no problem.
- You should have no problem saying, ‘Lord I worship you, I honor you, I thank you for life, health and strength.
One of Jesus’ Temptations Had to Do With Worship
- In the wilderness, Satan said he would give Jesus the very thing that Adam gave up in the garden, the kingdoms of the world, in exchange for worship.
Matthew 4:8–11 (ESV) — 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ” 11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
- God alone is to be worshiped.
- That’s what Jesus said.
- That’s what you should say.
- If it’s good, it’s God and you should praise Him.
- Quit giving the credit to other things.
- God is the source of good and He alone is to be magnified.
Don’t Worship Angels
- In Acts ten Cornelius tried to worship.
Acts 10:26 (ESV) — 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.”
- The same thing happened to Paul and Barnabas.
- The people of Lystra tried to worship them over the crippled man who was no longer crippled because of God’s power.
- You see that’s what we do.
- We don’t give the credit where the credit is due.
- We take a prescription for a condition in our body and we give the doctor the credit.
- Was it really the doctor or was it the Lord who gave put that wisdom into the earth?
- Who are you giving the credit for the good in your everyday life?
- Even spirituality has gone awry.
- There are places in the world today and people today who are worshipping angels.
- It’s nothing new.
- They were doing that back in the first century.
The Colossian Church Worshipped Angels
Colossians 2:18 (ESV) — 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,
- It’s so easy to go astray, that’s why we are talking about this pillar of Thanksgiving during this Thanksgiving season.
- Even the Apostle John got a bit confused in the book of Revelation.
Revelation 22:8 (ESV) — 8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me,
- John tried to fall at the feet of the angel that showed him all those things. He was forbidden to do so and commanded to worship God.
There Are Multiple Admonitions to Thank God
- In the Bible, in the New Testament, there are multiple numbers of verses where we are encouraged, yes and even commanded to thank God.
To Whom Should We Offer Thanksgiving?
To God
2 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV) — 14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.
To Christ
1 Timothy 1:12 (ESV) — 12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service,
- Who gets the credit for the strength that you have to walk, to talk, to go about your day?
- The Lord is one who is deserving of praise.
Through Christ
- Try Romans 1:8, and Colossians 3:17 for those.
- If you want to look at another verse try Hebrews 13:15.
Hebrews 13:15 (ESV) — 15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
- I’m telling you worship, praise and thanksgiving ought to be pillars in your house.
In Everything
1 Thessalonians 5:18 (ESV) — 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
- We often say that we want to be found doing God’s will.
- If you worship Him in everything, if you thank Him for everything, that’s the will of God.
- An old gentleman got up once in a meeting and said he had lived nearly all his life on Grumble street, but not long ago he had moved over on Thanksgiving street. His face showed it.4
- If you worship God in everything, it will show.
- It should be a pillar of your house.
- Most importantly, it’s part of vibrant Christianity.
Setting the Pillar Is Not Easy
- So, praise, worship, and thanksgiving is a pillar easily set.
- Thanksgiving might not be celebrated in the United States today, were it not for a patient, persistent woman named Sarah Hale.
The Story of Sarah Hale
It is well-known that the first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated by the Pilgrim Fathers in 1621 to give thanks for their winter in the New World. In 1789, President George Washington issued a Thanksgiving Day Proclamation to commemorate the first Pilgrim celebration. But Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States discontinued it, calling Thanksgiving, “a kingly practice.” After this, Thanksgiving was observed by some individual states, and on whatever date suited their fancy. Then in 1828, Mrs. Hale, the editor of the magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book and author of the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” began campaigning for the restoration of Thanksgiving as a national holiday.
She wrote letters and sought appointments with national leaders from the President down. Time after time she was politely rebuffed, sometimes being told it was “impossible” and “impractical,” and sometimes being dismissed with a this-is-none-of-your-business scolding. Finally in 1863 President Lincoln listened seriously to her plea that North and South “lay aside enmities and strife on (Thanksgiving) Day.” He proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November to be the official “National Thanksgiving Day.” This day was finally ratified by the U. S. Congress in 1941.5
It Takes Patience and Persistence to Set a Pillar
- This is true of any Bible principle.
- The rewards always go to the diligent.
- They go to people who refuse to move because of the impossible or allow discouragement because of delays.
- Are you going to set the pillar of Thanksgiving in your life?
- I love Proverbs 15:15 as we get ready to close this holiday edition of Light on Life because it reminds me that Thanksgiving is not just about family, turkey, and dressing.
Proverbs 15:15 (ESV) — 15 All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.
- A cheerful heart is a thankful heart and a thankful heart is a celebration every day, not just on the last Thursday of the month of November.
References:
- Craig Brian Larson, 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers & Writers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 577–578. ↩
- Craig Brian Larson, 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers & Writers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 578. ↩
- Craig Brian Larson, 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers & Writers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 578. ↩
- D. L. Moody, Anecdotes, Incidents, and Illustrations (Chicago; New York; Toronto: Fleming H. Revell, 1898), 56. ↩
- Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996), 1459. ↩