but our time in Branson together, our yearly event to do that. We are beginning a new year. Open your Bibles, please, to Psalm 31. Psalm 31 this morning. And we'll start reading in this particular Psalm at the end. There's a lot that goes on to bring us up to verse 19, but that's where we're going to start in verse 19 of Psalm 31 this morning. All right, so I will ask those who are willing and able to, as usual, to stand with me, please, as we reverence the reading of the word of God. So David ends with these last few verses. How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you have wrought for those who take refuge in you before the sons of men. You hide them in the secret place of your presence from the conspiracies of men. You keep them secretly in shelter from the strife of tongues. Blessed be the Lord. For he has made marvelous his lovingkindness to me in a besieged city. As for me, I said in my alarm, I am cut off from before your eyes. Nevertheless, you have heard the voice of my supplications when I cry to you. Oh, love the Lord. all you His godly ones. The Lord preserves the faithful and fully recompenses the proud doer. Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in the Lord. So David ends on a very positive note as you can see here. Let's pray together. Father, we come before you, Thorne, we thank you so much for the opportunity, as always, to gather together from week to week, on the first day of the week, to worship you and to praise you and to lift up your holy name, to be reminded of the fact that it was on the first day of the week that you came out of the tomb, that you came out from among the dead, as the Scripture says, and now you sit at the right hand of the Heavenly Father, interceding for us right now. You indeed are very much alive in your glory and in your majesty. And we have come together this morning to bow before you and to express to you our heart's desire for you to take us, to take our minds, to take our hearts, to take our wills, to take our desires, to take our goals, to take our dreams, And make them all yours, Heavenly Father. We know that you have a place for us to work here. We know that you've called us to have jobs and you've called us to live and to make a living. And this is important. This must be done. But at the same time, all of these things are to be submitted to you. for you to use every aspect of our lives as a means through which to share the gospel with lost and dying people. We live in this world not to exist for ourselves, not to exist for our own pleasures and our own desires, but to live for you. And that means putting you first in all that we do. That's what it means to live for you. And it also means that we are to serve other people, to give ourselves, to be living sacrifices, as it says in the book of Romans. Very seldom, I'm afraid, I do not think of my life as a living sacrifice for you. But I pray, Heavenly Father, that that'll be the underlying theme of my life this year, to be a living sacrifice for you. Lord, clear our hearts, clear our minds. There are troubles, there are difficulties, there are heartaches, there are thoughts that even now, the demons would have us to think about that we should not be holding in our minds. Help us to just think about what we're hearing this morning from Your Word, and may it encourage us, may it strengthen us, help us to walk more fully and firmly for You, more completely dedicated to You. We need You, Heavenly Father, to guide us and direct us from the truths of Your Word. In Christ's name we pray, Amen. Thank you, and please be seated. All right, so Wednesday came, January the 1st, we came upon us and I don't know if you stayed up and watched the New Year come in and, you know, watched the, I guess the ball that falls in Times Square, you know, and all the celebrations that go on there. And, you know, the place to be actually on New Year's Eve is in Hershey, Pennsylvania. You know what's coming, right? Hershey, Pennsylvania. Because they drop a giant Hershey kiss. on Chocolate Avenue in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Now, unfortunately, the thing weighs 300 pounds. Unfortunately, though, as I began to read the story, I was highly disappointed because it is not 300 pounds of chocolate. Okay. It's aluminum and fiberglass in the shape of a Hershey kiss. You know, that's how they celebrated. That's how they rang in the New Year's in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Myself I went to bed about nine or ten o'clock. I think it's something like that. I don't know But that's how I celebrated the New Year celebration is nothing new Even though we call New Year. It's been something that's people have celebrated since the beginning of time There's always been a new year since it since creation, right? the Bible says then God said let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. So when God created the earth, or what we might call the cosmos and all that it contains, He set into motion two time-keeping devices, the sun and the moon. And they are the basis for, on the basis of their movements, we are able to keep track of time, days, and years. Based on the movements of the sun and the moon, we get 24 hours in a day, right? And we get seven days a week. and 365 days in the year based on the movements of these two things. We get our seasons and we get our years. Now our calendar is based on the Gregorian calendar, right? The Gregorian calendar. Now the Gregorian calendar was was a renovation of the Julian calendar. The problem with the Julian, as you can guess, the Julian calendar came out when Julius Caesar was in control of the world and of the earth. But the problem with the Julian calendar was it lost Easter. It was 11 minutes off. And so, as the years went by, Easter became disconnected from the spring equinox. And, you know, Easter is supposed to be in spring according to the church at that time, which was the Catholic Church. And so in order to fix this, they came up with a new calendar that would held Easter to the spring equinox, because that's when the early church said Easter was to be celebrated, okay? At the spring equinox. And so Pope Gregory VIII instituted what he called a papal bull, right? and came up with a new calendar on February 24th of 1582. And since then, the world has been using his calendar named after him, the Gregorian calendar. And it was introduced basically so that Easter would be aligned with the spring equinox. They thought that was very important for them to do. When God gave Israel the law, he required the priests to make sacrifices every morning in every evening, and they had sacrifices for the new moon, they had sacrifices for the months, and they had yearly sacrifices as well. Each day, each month, each week, each year was to be A recognition that God had given them another day of life with each sacrifice, another week with each sacrifice, another month with each sacrifice, and another year with each sacrifice. Each sacrifice was a testimony to the grace of God that they had another day, week, month, and a year! Every time they made a sacrifice. The same thing is true for you and me. We get another day by the grace of God. We get another week by the grace of God. We get another month by the grace of God. And we get another year by the grace of God. In the book of Matthew, Jesus taught his disciples, and he said this to them, But I say to you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he causes his Son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. What he was saying there, with the rising of the sun and with the sending of the rain, you experience the love of God. It doesn't matter whether you love God, it doesn't matter whether you hate God, God is going to express to you His unconditional love by giving you the rain and by giving you another day of life. God's love is unconditional. He says, I am going to bless you. I'm going to give you another day. He says this is an expression of how much God loves you. And then he says this, not only that, that's how you are supposed to love other people as well. You are to love other people just like God. When God blesses other people, whether they hate him, whether they like him, whether they dislike him, whatever the case may be, God still blesses them. And he says this is God's love for you to demonstrate to the world. You are to live for the benefit of people, whether they like you, whether they don't like you, it doesn't matter. This is how you be an example of a child of God. By doing what God does. He loves those who hate Him. You love those who hate you. And you do good to them because that's what God does. Every day. Every day. Well, since God gives us then, And He set into motion time, and He set into motion days and years. How do we live? How are we supposed to live out the time that God gives us on this earth? It's clear you can't go back. You cannot reverse time. It's sealed forever. When you do something, it is sealed in time. It's there. It can't be changed, all right? There's no reliving it. You get one shot at each day. You get one shot at each week, one shot at each month, and one shot at each year. And it's clear from the Scriptures that sooner or later, God's time clock for you is going to run out. The time is going to stop. There's going to be an end to us. Just as there's an end to every day, just as there's an end to every week, just as there's an end to every month, and an end to every year, there's going to be an end to your life as well. The irony, the irony to me anyhow is, is that a new year looks back at the same time that it looks forward. There's a synonymous, what's the word I'm looking for? Huh? Simultaneous. Thank you. Simultaneous. There's a simultaneous looking back and ending and beginning at the same time. Every day has a beginning and an end. Each week, a beginning and an end. Each month, a beginning and an end. Each year, a beginning and an end. As long as we're in this body, we're going to have the beginning and the end. The Bible says this, There is an appointed time for everything, and there is a time for every event under heaven, a time to give birth and a time to die. Listen, listen, listen. When God told us that there was going to be a time to die, He wasn't trying to be morbid. God wasn't trying to be discouraging when he told us there was a time to die. The reason God told us there was a time to die, as well as a time to live, was that he wanted you to bring your life into balance. In order for us to fully live and appreciate life, we have to know that there's going to be a day when we die. Death is what keeps us from living like a fool. If you would know the truth, death keeps us from living like a fool. You say, what do you mean? What do you mean by that? How does that happen? Death is like an anchor. It holds us and keeps us from floating out to the sea of vanity where we're going to be battered by the waves of emptiness, meaningless and frivolousness. That's what death does. When we get out of bed in the morning and we embrace both realities, it is death that makes us embrace life with meaning and purpose, and it is life lived with meaning and purpose that makes us embrace our death with contentment and joy. Do you understand how that works? God intends for us to live with both realities. David was not oblivious to the value of every day, and the importance of every day, and the joy of living every day. We're not sure what the occasion was for this particular psalm, but whatever it was, if you were to read the previous verses and get the context of the particular psalm, you would find that David was in distress. Things were not going well with his life. He was in trouble, and he was hurting. But what we're looking at is the end result. We're looking at, quote, the end of the day, so to speak. This is what David says about his life at the end of the day, even though the preceding verses tell us that he had miseries and problems and difficulties in this particular life. So he comes to the end and he makes his conclusion beginning in verse 19. And so he says in verse 19, how great is your goodness. There was a tempest raging in the life of David. I don't know what it was, but he makes this conclusion. He says, how great is your goodness? Rule number one for starting off your new year and beginning each day in the new years with the mantra. How great is your goodness? What would it be like? Get up every morning, every morning and say, how great is your goodness? This is not having a positive mental attitude. That's not what we're talking about here. Christianity has nothing to do with a positive mental attitude. It has everything to do, though, with recognizing the unchanging attributes of a holy God. That's how we live, folks. It's not a positive mental attitude. We're looking at the attributes of God. That's not a positive mental attitude. The world wants you to have a positive mental attitude. You know, it wasn't long ago we were hearing and we were mindfully saying, you know, He knows if you've been good or bad, right? So be good for goodness sake, right? That's what we've been hearing for the last few weeks. Be good for goodness sake. That's the world's attitude. And you can do that. If you want to be good, and you decide you want to be good, and it will affect your mental health, that's great. It will affect your mental health. There's nothing necessarily wrong about that, but it is shallow. It's a godless way to live, to be truthful, just be good for goodness sake. That's what the atheists say, right? Compare that to what Jesus said, though. Here's what Jesus said about being good for goodness sake. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and slammed against the house, and it fell. And great was its fall. Why? Because it didn't have any foundation. Be good for goodness sake. That's no foundation upon which to build your life. That's shallow thinking. It doesn't satisfy your soul. David was focusing on what satisfied his soul. He said, how great is what? Goodness. Your goodness. Why? Why? Because David was saying here, regardless of my circumstances, no matter what my circumstances are, God is good. He was focusing on the unchanging, ever-present character and nature of God. That God is good. That is His unchangeable attribute. Innately, completely, and absolutely good. So here comes the next problem. We've got to define what's good, right? What's good? How do we know what's good? Well, what's good is what makes me comfortable. What's good is what's pleasurable. Well, what's good is something that's enjoyable. It's something I can taste. It's something I can touch. It's something I can see. It's something I can smell. It's something that I can hear. And so we're conditioned by the world to think that in order for something to be good, it has to benefit me in this world, and it has to make me feel good, look good, you know, so I go out and buy new clothes and I buy new shoes, you know. It has to taste good. It has to fill my life with comforts and with pleasures. But do you think that's what David is talking about here? The Lord is good. David understood that God's goodness transcends anything in this world, folks, anything in this world he can compare to. I'm not saying that God doesn't give us goodness in this world. That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm implying. I think we have physical pleasures in this world by the grace of God, enjoyable moments by the grace of God, tasty food, physical comforts and money by the grace of God. I think all those things are true. He gives us the rain and the sunshine and beautiful days, right? Just like Jesus said, I think God gives us health and healing and strength and soundness of minds. I think God gives us all those things. But the truth is, the goodness of God is evidenced by the life of every man in this building. You know how I know that? Because every man in this building probably should have been dead by some of the stunts he pulled as a teenager. We shouldn't have lived up to some things we did as a teenager. God allowed us to live and your life is an expression of His goodness. So now David goes on and he says this, which you have stored up for those who fear you. Now David says something here that kind of throws a wrench into the works, right? This goodness is reserved for those, he has stored up for those who fear God. Don't forget what we're looking at here. We're looking at how David lives his life. Day in and day out, week in and week out, and year in and year out. And so we're getting a an insight into David's personal life, his personal thinking, the processes of his thinking here. And the first thing he says is, don't forget that God's good. Don't forget the goodness of God. We all know that God is good. That's not news to you. It's great theology. But how do we get the idea of the goodness of God worked out in our daily lives. How do we get this principle down into our hearts? How do we live with the reality that God is good? How does that become part of us? How does the fact that God is good crush some of my circumstances in life? David's life was in a mess. The circumstances weren't great. But it didn't blind him to the goodness of God. And then he drills down a little deeper into his experience, into his thinking here. And he links the goodness of God with the fear of God. He links the goodness of God with the fear of God. That's a very strange combination to me. Very strange combination. How do you arrive at that? When I was doing college ministry, sometimes after we'd finish up a project or do something, we'd go out to Wendy's and we'd sit down and we'd share some time together. And for the first time in my life, I saw Randy Ritchie go up and he would buy a chocolate frosty. and French fries. And I watched him as he would take those French fries and he would dip them into that frosting and then he would tell me how great it was. I've never seen that in my time. I've never heard of anybody doing anything. It just, it did not go together in my mind. It's been rumored that Elvis Presley ate peanut butter, bacon, and banana sandwiches. And I'm shaking my head. I'm going, that just doesn't seem to go together. That doesn't make sense to me. But it, you know, apparently it tasted good to him. And so I'm looking at this passage of Scripture and I'm going, how does the goodness of God and the fear of God build together? How does David marry these two things together? compliment each other. As a matter of fact, it looks to me here as though David is saying, you cannot really experience the goodness of God without experiencing the fear of God. It looks like he's saying, you have to have both of them working together. You have to work them in tandem. And as weird and as bizarre as it seems, You can't experience one without the other. And so in my mind, I'm trying to work this out. And I'm not making the rules up here of what David is saying here. He's inspired by God to say what he says here. And I guess if you're looking for a quick fix this morning on how to live a life of freedom from anxious, anxiety, and worry, and the troubles of life, you need to attend a Tony Robbins event or a TED Talk or listen to Oprah. Because what we're talking about here is not something instantaneous. We're talking about a heart change. We're talking about something deeper than just an attitude. We're talking about a change in somebody's heart. You cannot do this. You cannot do what David is telling you to do here if you are lost. You can only do this if you are a child of God. Fearing God is a saved person's blessing and is one of the greatest blessings that you have as a child of God. You know, you don't know if your pastor, your preacher, whoever's leading your church is genuinely preaching and truly preaching the Word of God. You will hear him preach about the necessity of fearing God. If your preacher, your pastor, whoever you listen to on the radio or the TV or whatever, doesn't talk about the importance of fearing God, you have a false prophet. You say, how do you know that? Because he only has a misconception or an incomplete view of who God is. I'll tell you the real reason that a lot of men in the pulpit resist preaching on the fear of God. They resist preaching on the fear of God because they're afraid they're going to run off some of their customers. No, wait a minute. You said customers. I know you didn't mean customers. I know you meant sheep. No, I said customers. I said customers. You see, churches today are made up of customers. They're coming, and they're looking, and they're surveying, and they're trying to find and test it as something that will meet their needs, so to speak. And so the preacher doesn't want to preach on something that might cause them to run off, because he wants to keep them coming, just like all stores. You know, you go to a store, and they try to serve you as a customer, because they want you to come back, right? And the only thing that will offend you, they'll make you not come back to the store and spend your money in their store. And so a lot of preachers won't preach on things like fearing God because they're afraid it's going to run people off and they won't come back. God requires us to fear Him. And that's not something that people find necessarily acceptable. They want a cozy God. They want a comfortable God. They want a self-serving God. They want a convenient God. Someone who makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside and intimate. And I'll tell you what, there have been times in my life when I've had experiences with God that have been cozy and that have been warm. There have been times when I've sensed the presence of God in a very powerful way, in a very meaningful way, but I would never refer to my experiences of God as being something romantic. I've never had a romantic experience with God. And I know that's becoming popular today among some Christians, and mostly women preachers, and they will preach about how they have this romantic relationship with God and describe it in terms of erotic terms. Folks, that is not That is not a true relationship with God. It's an over-the-top explanation of the relationship with God, and they're trying to somehow make God more relatable by describing those particular times. No! That is a subtle offense to God through Satan's attack on Christianity. One of the essential characteristics of a Christian is to fear God. So why is this strange combination here? Why do we have this goodness of God related to the fear of God? Now, we know that the word fear of God here is talking about respect for God and reverence for God, you know, that kind of fear. There's an interesting statement on this, I believe, in Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, and you'll notice there particularly in verses 28 and 29, a reference to the subject of the fear of God. He says, therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, talking to Christians, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming fire." That is an incredibly enlightening statement on the fear of God. You won't find a better statement than that particular statement that the Hebrew writer made there. So let's unpack it a little bit. He's talking to Christians, right? He's not talking to lost people. He is talking to those who have been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, confessed their sins, and know Him personally as their Heavenly Father. And we are escaped from an eternal hell, right? We are not going to go to hell. Jesus Christ paid for our sins on the cross. We are forever free from God's judgment in eternal hell. So we know that He cannot be referring to this part of our lives as a Christian. The blood of Jesus Christ satisfies the wrath of God, right? And by His grace we are saved from an eternal hell. But it says here, He is a consuming fire. He's talking to believers. Didn't Christ's blood satisfy the wrath of God? Yes. So why this dreadful picture of God to believers? Well, let's look closely at what it says here. By which, He says, look, therefore, since we have received a kingdom, the kingdom of God, which cannot be shaken, will not lose it, Let us show gratitude, thankfulness, thanksgiving, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service." Okay? So he's talking about our works, right? He's talking about our obedience. He's talking about our service. He's talking about our efforts that would please God. The fear of God is a motivation for good works. The fear of God, according to this particular passage of scripture, is a motivation for good works. There's a process going on here that we need to look at. It starts with the end of the verse. The end of the verse says that He is a consuming fire. That really is the beginning of the thought here that we're looking at in this particular verse. He is a consuming fire that produces fear and awe. See, we're working backwards in the verse. He is a consuming fire that produces fear and awe in our hearts, out of which comes our good works. That's the process. That's the process. The fear of God and the awe of God generates within us a desire to please Him and to serve Him. We are serving for rewards, not for payment. And there's a big, huge difference. We're not trying to repay God. We're serving Him out of a reverence for who He is, out of a deep sense of reverence for who He is, and it produces works within us, and those works produce rewards. Not payments. We don't earn rewards. We are given rewards. We're given rewards. Any rewards we have from God are expressions of His grace. That's all there is. We can't earn anything from God on the basis of our merits. Anything we have from God is always going to be by His grace, by His empowerment. He empowers us. I'm not saying that God doesn't bless us in the here and now. or that God doesn't bless our obedience in the here and now. I believe He does. But I am saying this, that what the writer is saying here is our greatest rewards are going to come in the future and they are eternal. Our greatest rewards are eternal, part of the kingdom. Part of the kingdom. There is a large passage of Scripture that I want to refer you to in 1 Corinthians 3. In 1 Corinthians 3, verses 10-15, Paul adds this additional instruction. According to the grace of God, which was given to me. Like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation. And another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, and precious stone, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will be evident. For the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire. and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. There is a fire coming for me, There's a fire coming for you as a child of God. The Bible makes it clear that there is going to be a judgment day and fire is going to burn your works. It's going to test your works. I am afraid of God's judgment. I am in awe of God's judgment because I don't want to appear before my Lord only having wood, hay and stubble. That's not what I want to have. I know I'm eternally saved, as it says here in 1 Corinthians. But my works are important to me. I want to see gold. And I want to see silver. And I want to see precious stones. Because when I see those things, I will know I have pleased my Father. I want to please my Father. And God is going to give to me silver, gold, and precious stones when I please Him. That's not my pride speaking. That's not my arrogance speaking. And that is not my ego speaking. It is my desire for faithfulness and trust and obedience. Those are the eternal things that God has stored up for me. I am going to see the goodness of God in what God is storing up for me in heaven. That's what David said. He knew that God was storing up things for him, that God was storing up good things for him. Because of David's obedience, he knows that God has a lot of good things in store for him. And you can know as well, because of your obedience, God has a lot of good things stored up for you. But it's the fear of the Lord that inspires us and motivates us to be obedient. So we can have those good things. I don't know what this world has in store for you this year. I don't know what's coming down the line for you. You know, we count our blessings sometimes by the standards of the world, right? If we have comfort, and ease, and pleasure, and fun, and relaxation, and leisure, and often those things really are just Satan's diversions. Really. Ah, you know, America is, unquestionably the most prosperous country on the face of the earth. But our prosperity and our comforts have softened us. And we've let down our guard. And we've allowed worldliness and materialism and consumerism to suck us into producing wood, hay, and stubble. We're settling for the goodness of the world instead of for the goodness of God. The fear of God is what keeps us vigilant. The fear of the Lord keeps us on guard against wasting our lives, keeps us serving the Lord. Not that we work for the Lord, we serve Him. We get rewards. You say, well, what's the difference? The difference is this. You're in a relationship with the Lord, right? You're in a relationship. Just like you're in a relationship with your husband, you're in a relationship with your wife. You don't do for them good things to get paid back. All right? You do things for them because you love them and you reverence them and you honor them You see them as important in your life. So that's what motivates you. And you know what the result is when you do that in a relationship? Benefits, right? Not rewards, I mean not payment, but rewards, benefits. And you serve each other that way. And this is what he's saying here about our relationship with our Heavenly Father. There are benefits. from fearing God, that He is storing up for us because of our obedience to Him. He doesn't pay us for fearing Him, right? He rewards us. He rewards us. The Bible says this, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good, right? Why? Because God is good. for those who love the Lord, to those who are called according to His purpose. We can see the goodness of God in everything, in everything, no matter what comes, no matter what happens this year. It's going to be a good year. It's going to be a good year, folks. All you have to do To make it a good year is fear God. And that fear of God will motivate you to serve Him. And you will see the goodness of God when it's all said and done. Now, the fear of God for a lost person is different than the fear of God for a saved person. God is a consuming fire, and that's true. And then there is an eternal fire that awaits those who reject God's offer of love in Jesus Christ. There is a place where the fire will not stop burning, a place that the fire will burn forever. There is an eternal hell, and that eternal hell is the ultimate expression of God's hatred for sin. The only thing that can cool God's hatred for sin and an eternal hell is to have His justice satisfied through the death of Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He poured out all of His wrath and all of His anger. And all you have to do to receive that forgiveness is put your faith in Him and repent of your sins. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, God has nothing left, nothing of hell left in Him to pour out on you. Because Jesus Christ took all of hell for you. And you can experience that forgiveness this morning. He'll make peace between you and God through His blood. We're going to have an invitation hymn here. I'm going to ask Brother R.D. to come forward and help us with the hymn this morning.