There we go. I guess we're shaking hands. Wow, this microphone is very large. Nice to be here this morning. Good to see everybody. My name is Jeremiah Hightower. I got my wife, Christy, with me. I would love to embarrass her, but I have to go home with her later, so I'll just point her out in the front row. She's down there. So glad that we could be here. When Brother Rusty called me, I did that all day yesterday. I keep calling him Brother Rusty. His name is Pastor. I'm sorry. Please understand who I'm talking about, and I mean no disrespect. I've been doing it constantly, and I'll try not to address it if I do it again. Anyway, when he called me back in, I don't know, what was it, like February, January-ish, probably first of the year, to ask if I'd be interested in doing something like this, I'm like, I don't know, I've never really done anything before. But I really enjoy music. I've got a passion for it in the church. It's important. I'm excited about the next service. I don't know what you guys normally have, but I know the choir really sounds good, and I hope that you'll receive a blessing from it next hour. Psalm 100 is where we're going to be. Psalm 100, it's a short psalm. We're going to look at all of it. Just talking this morning about the idea of serving the Lord with gladness. Hopefully this can be a help to you. Nothing too heavy. But anyway, let's read Psalm 100. Won't make you stand, but Psalm 100, we'll just read the entire Psalm. Verse one says this, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, He is God. It's He that hath made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations. Pray with me if you would. Father, we're grateful to be here today. I'm so thankful for these folks who gave up time on their weekend to come because it was a priority to them to be in the house of God. I pray that you'd speak to their hearts this morning, pray that you'd challenge us. In Jesus' name, amen. Again, verse number two there, that idea, the Bible instructs us to serve the Lord with gladness. Hopefully It's not something that we struggle with a whole lot But I think it's just the human condition that that we just get kind of caught in the rut of life You know get up on Monday go to work if your brother Conrad you about the time you're all going to bed He's getting up to go to work. It seems like working all night, but we get up and we go to work and just The rut of the week Wednesday comes around we drag ourselves into church. We're glad to be there Maybe by the end the Lord's kind of lifted our spirits a little bit But then we're back into the drudgery of things on Thursday and Friday. We love the weekend but you know if you're involved in the ministries of the church you're serving and Just as time goes on in life is I don't say beating you down, but it can do that at times I think it's easy to get caught in a little bit of monotony as we serve the Lord But the Bible tells us to serve the Lord with gladness What does it mean to serve? As I was thinking about this, the idea of serving kind of goes against our nature. It's kind of like work. I know that there are some who just love work. We've got the janitor at our church. He's a retired fellow. I think he's 70. He is a working machine. I'd like to think that I work hard. This guy outworks everybody. I mean, he's there sometimes at like seven in the morning and he'll be there till eight o'clock at night. On July 4th, we found out after the fact, well, I think it was on July 3rd, we found out that he had worked on Memorial Day. Like he just came into work and like cleaning the floors and the bathrooms in the church. And my dad, the pastor's like, Brother Ron, what are you doing? Why are you here? It's a holiday. It's a paid holiday. And he's like, well, I don't deserve a holiday. What are you talking about? You get the day off. Well, I don't deserve that. Okay, Ron, tomorrow is July 4th, don't come to work. But I, don't come. He is a working machine. But most of us don't have that problem if you're at all like me. I've gotta fight my flesh, fight my sin nature to make sure that I'm working hard because it's easy to be lazy. Serving sounds a lot like work. You can work your way through life, like we talked about, just the grind of life. You can work your way through life, but be miserable. Serving, however, is a specific kind of work that indicates a direction. Work is just what you do to provide for your family. Work is what you do because work has to be done. But serving is a very specific kind of work. You can work without thinking of others, but you cannot serve that way. Working, you sometimes do for yourself, but serving, you do for others. That's a little bit of the difference there. Serving is just simply this, labor for someone else. I hate doing the dishes. I despise it. I hate it. You ask my wife. I was having a conversation with Sam, Sam Ellis, just the other day, because he was in there helping with dishes. I'm like, Sam, you're washing the dishes? He's like, yeah, I like it. I'm like, why are you so weird? I hate doing the dishes. I told him, I said, I would rather be outside mowing and weed eating in 100 degrees than doing the dishes. He's like, you're crazy. Now granted, I don't live in Houston, I live in Detroit, so maybe my perspective would change if I spent a little bit of time down here. But I hate the dishes. But I tell you, occasionally, I choose to do the dishes. Not because I want to. Not because she makes me, even though she could, but she doesn't, thankfully, and I probably would say no anyway. Then she just gave me the look. Yes, ma'am, sorry. I hate the dishes, but occasionally I do them. because I love her, because I want to do something that I know will help her. It's a blessing. We have two boys at home. Our oldest is getting ready to go off to college, which is unfortunate because my dishwasher's, my dishwashing crew's about ready to be cut in half. Usually I'll say, this is how it usually goes at home. Hey Christy, do you need anything? Oh yeah, I could really use the trash taken out. Hey Kyle, would you take that trash out please? Has that happened at anybody else's house? Yeah, there you go. Amen, good man. My boys are like, here goes dad again, just telling us what to do. Well, I'm happy to do it, fellas. I'm trying to teach you to look out for your mom. That's what I'm trying to do. So occasionally I jump in and I take the trash out and do the dishes, but they don't see that. But serving is labor for someone else. I do the dishes. I serve because I love my wife. The idea, I think, sometimes of serving, working for someone else, I think to an unbeliever, maybe can sound miserable a little bit. Like our old man, our natural man, our flesh, just that nature in us says, why should I do something for someone else? I just got to look out for me and my own and look out for myself. It's all about me. Our flesh doesn't want to work for others. And so this morning, just as we get started here, I'll ask you a few questions. Just kind of apply these in your life. In your life, in your ministry, are you working or are you serving? Are you working in ministry? Are you there for some sort of Whatever it might be that you might get out of it, the satisfaction that I'm where I'm supposed to be, and this is what I'm supposed to be doing, and so I'm here, and so I'm glad. You're working. Serving is when we do it for someone else. And then I'll ask you this question. So are you working or are you serving? And then are you serving? are you serving the Lord? Because there's a difference. We can serve in the ministries because this is what we do and we enjoy ministering to people and we enjoy doing things for others, but are our priorities out of line? Are we serving the Lord? Serving the Lord is really something entirely, entirely different. Can I tell you that serving Will affect the way that you work if you truly care about someone and you are wanting to serve them It affects how you work and how you serve them I'll tell you this take it a step further If we're serving the Lord out of the heart of love and devotion and service to Him, we're going to serve for the right reason. Serving the Lord affects how you serve. So why is that? Why does serving the Lord affect how I serve in the ministry? Where's that correlation? Look at verses 1, 1, 2, and 3 here of Psalm 100. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands." Here it is, serve the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing. Verse 3, know ye that the Lord, He is God. Why does serving the Lord affect how I serve? Well, it affects how I serve because when we serve the Lord, we serve because of who God is and what He's done in our life, the change that's taken place in our heart. Verse 3 says, Know ye that the Lord, He is God. In Genesis 1, verse 1, the word there for God is the same word in Genesis 1 that it is in Psalm 100. In other words, the same in the beginning, God. has no beginning, no ending. He's the Eternal One, the Creator of the universe, the everything to us. In the beginning, God, Psalm 100 says, know ye that the Lord, He is that same God. He is God. It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves. So He is not just God, who's so great and glorious and worthy of everything that we can talk about, and we'll talk about worship in the next hour, but He's our Creator. It's He that hath made us, and not we ourselves. He's our Master. He's our Master. Look here, it says, we are His people. We're His people. God is in control. God is in control of our lives. And if we yield to Him, not just if we yield to Him, our lives, everything revolves around God. And I don't mean the choices that we make, but I mean look around us, creation, the world that we live in, our bodies, our lives, our family. We have a place to live because of God. He made us. He created the world that we live in. I have a family because God created another life and saw fit for that life to join my life and then to give us two knucklehead lives that we have tried to raise to the best of our ability. God gave us that. He's the creator. It's He that has made us and not we ourselves. And we have the opportunity to understand this, that we are His people. He's in control of life. The sun rises and the sun sets because of God. The tides of the ocean and the moon and all of the inner workings of how our world, our planet worked together, it's because of Him. How in the world people can say that we just got here by accident? I cannot fathom that. We've got some pretty incredible technology in our world. How many of you work in some sort of an industry where there's some pretty incredible tech that's around you every day? I see a few hands, yeah. Okay, so very good. It's incredible what this technology can do. But think about a camera, all right? A camera is just like a kind of they try to take a human eye and make it so that where we can capture images and take them and cameras are incredible. But have you ever tried to be in a room that would be lit like this and imagine now it was a sunny day outside and we're standing by this window over right here and we're trying to take a picture of someone who's standing in front of the window but we're inside. What's that picture going to look like? It's either going to look like the outside with a shadow in front of someone's face, or it's going to look like, hey, there's that person's face and they have this giant halo and a big white... blob behind them, because that camera can't determine, can't discern enough, quickly enough, between what's happening. But our eye, our eye can focus on that and instantly it's, oh, it's either inside or it's outside. And there's so many things. It's about just how our bodies work together and how our nervous system, we could talk forever. God is incredible. He is our creator. He's our master. We are His people. He's in control. All things lead to Him. It's like the spokes on a wagon wheel. These spokes run in all these different directions, but at the center, at the hub, it's God. He's our master. And He's our shepherd. Look there, we are His people. And what's the next part? And the sheep of His pasture. Sheep are dumb. Has anybody ever seen that, I think, YouTube video, I'm sure it's on a bunch of platforms at this point, and I've seen more than one, about a sheep. So there's like this ditch. I see some of you smiling. Anybody know which video I'm talking about? Okay, a few of you. There's this ditch and there's this sheep that basically he's stuck in this ditch like head first. Like, you know, you can't move. That was free. You didn't pay for the bar this morning when you came to Sunday school. All right. But he's stuck in this ditch head first. And so, you know, there's a there's the guy. I don't know. It's modern day. I don't know if it's the shepherd or just the one who's who's owns the sheep or whatever it is. But a guy kind of gets down there and he's trying not to get wet. You know, he's straddling all this and he struggles and he gets that sheep out kind of sets them over on the thing and that sheep kind of you know shakes himself out and like bobbles himself around and then just takes a big old nosedive right back into the ditch. And you can just see it on the guy's face. Sheep are so dumb. I don't think it's by accident that the Lord calls us his sheep. How many times do we do the same dumb things over and over and over and over and you get the idea. But the Bible says that in there in Psalm 100 verse 3 that we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. He loves us. He doesn't push us. He doesn't prod us. He doesn't force us to love Him. That shepherd is just there to hopefully guide those sheep in the right direction where it needs to go, but they sometimes just have a mindless will of their own, and they are stubborn, and so are we. But God just loves us and leads us and guides us, and He is our God, our Creator, our Master. He's our shepherd. And can I tell you that the Bible says we serve the Lord with gladness. Why is that? Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Why? Because the Lord, He is your God. It's He that hath made us and not we ourselves. We're His people and the sheep of His pasture. We don't serve the Lord to be saved. We don't serve the Lord to earn God's favor. We don't serve the Lord to repay our debt. We serve God because of who He is and because of what He's done for us. He's our God, our Creator, our Master, and our Shepherd. Romans chapter 16. Verse 17 and 18 says this. It says, But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Okay, so take a time out for a minute. What is this verse saying there in Romans 6? God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, Right? At the end of verse 18 it says, you were then made free from sin. Great! We were servants, now we're made free. Wait, what? Now I'm a servant of righteousness? So I... was a servant, and now I'm a servant, and this is supposed to be a good thing. Something doesn't compute in our minds a little bit if we don't pay a little bit of attention. In other words, what happens is, here's the question I guess I can pose is, how can I serve with gladness if all I did is trade an old master for a new one? That sounds kind of miserable. I guess I would equate it to getting married, in a good way. So, before, How many of you are married? I see lots of you, several couples around here. Before you were married, you had basically the opportunity to choose anyone on the planet to be your partner, your spouse. Okay, so you were free to choose, okay? We're gonna use that analogy as the servants of sin, all right? Not equating sin with being unmarried, all right? Just for the sake of the analogy, before you're married, you have all of this at your disposal. Before salvation, you have all of the opportunity to, I say opportunity, before salvation, you are not God's child. You are just out in the world and hopefully going to find your way to Him, all right? So before you're married, you have all of this available. But the day that I stood at that wedding altar, in front of my wife, in front of Christi, in front of the pastor and those witnesses, and I said, I do, at that moment, I no longer was a part of this world over here. I became A new kind of a servant. I got a new kind of a master. And I don't mean that in a weird, funny sort of way, because think of this. Because I think some people do like, oh, God, I'm chained down to the old woman. No way, are you kidding? Like, she's my best friend in the world. And for the last 19 and a half years, we've got to share life together. And all of the things that, you know, maybe I would, maybe I, I don't want to say I'm, Time out. I do not miss going on dates with other women. That is not what I'm trying to say. That almost came out wrong. I love you, honey. All right. But before I got married, I had the opportunity to go on dates and to meet new people and all these things. At the time I got married, now it's just her. Now, based on my perspective, I could say, wow, this kind of stinks. I traded like a whole world full of women for one. Well, no it doesn't stink, because of the blessings that I get out of that relationship with the one that I love. Of the camaraderie, of the someone to laugh with, and to cry with, and just to share life with, and we raise our children together, and we try to serve alongside of each other. And all of the blessings that come with marriage, and y'all are nodding along with me, you understand what I'm saying. Can I tell you, I wouldn't trade what I have right now for anything over there. When I'm talking about my wife and my marriage. I wouldn't trade what I got now for anything. So when the Bible says, you were the servants of sin, but now you're servants of righteousness, man, I hope that as a believer, you understand that the blessings that you have because of a God who loves you and gave his son for you, and now you can commune with the creator of the universe? And I have fellowship with, like, why would God want to fellowship with me? I don't have that answer for you, but the Bible says that God so loved the world that He gave His Son, that whosoever believed in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. What an incredible opportunity that we have, that we were the servants of sin, but now we're the servants of righteousness. Do you understand a little bit more how it can be easy, if our mind and our perspective gets right, to serve the Lord with gladness? Because we serve the Lord with gladness because of what He's done for us and just all that we get to partake of as believers that so often we're just stuck here in maybe the monotony of life that we don't just open our eyes and like, oh wow, God is so good. Raising our two teenage boys and being around teenagers in our Christian school, it's really frustrating sometimes. Maybe those of you who have had teenagers or have them currently or have worked with teenagers understand this. Teenagers don't see very far past the end of their own nose. It's what makes me happy, like right now, that is not fair that you won't let me do that. They have no idea what you have in store for them. You know, can I go to my friend's house? No, we've got plans. Ah, you know, throw the fit or whatever. They don't understand that no, you can't go to your friend's house that week because we're going on vacation. It's going to be awesome. You understand what I'm saying? They just live with these like blinders on that they see right in front of us. I think that so often as believers we act like a bunch of teenagers that spiritually we just have these blinders on and we can't see past the end of our own noses where God just says, look around and see all that I've done for you and serve the Lord with gladness. It's just such a blessing, the opportunity that we have. See, it's not just about working. Serving, excuse me, serving is labor for someone else. But it's not just about serving others and serving people or serving in a church or serving because this is what I'm supposed to do. Serving the Lord begins in the heart because of what God's done for us. Flip over to Luke chapter 10 real quick. Luke chapter 10. We'll be back in Psalms, so hold your place there, but Luke chapter 10. I think I heard somebody say, whoops. Luke chapter 10, verse 38. Let's read these, 38 down through verse 42. This is the story of Mary and Martha. Jesus has come to their house, and the two sisters, Mary and Martha. And they're both there with Jesus. Let's read it, verse 38. Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village. And a certain woman named Martha received him, Jesus received him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary. So Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word, but Martha was cumbered about much serving. All right, you see what's happening there? So Jesus comes, He's visiting in their house. Mary is at Jesus' feet, and Martha is serving. Martha is preparing food and trying to be a good host, because that's what you ladies do, because when you have guests, you have to clean everywhere, including the top of the refrigerator, you know, underneath the washer and dryer and scrub out the windowsills and all the things that nobody ever sees because that's what the ladies do. And all of a sudden we have a guest unannounced and I see some nudging each other and smiling back there. Yeah, happens at everybody's house I think. But Jesus is there and now Martha is like, I wasn't ready for this, excuse me, and I've got to prepare a meal and I've got these disciples and all these people and she's, the Bible says, cumbered about with much serving. But Mary's there at Jesus' feet, and Martha was getting frustrated. So Martha was cumbered about with much serving, verse 40, and she came to him, to Jesus, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me. I bet Martha was the tattletale as a kid. Mary is there at Jesus' feet, and Martha is bustling around and doing the work. She's like, I can't believe Mary's just sitting there watching me do all the work. And I don't know what goes through you ladies' heads, but I know that like 42 different scenarios can go through your heads in about 20 seconds. And don't ask me how, but I don't know, I don't get it, but Martha's doing it. She's grumbling and griping and complaining. She would do this, and I could do this, and we could be done early. Jesus. Don't you care that she just sits there while I'm just working all alone? Will you tell her to help me, please?" It's like, oh, goodnight. And Jesus answered, verse 41, and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. Martha, you're working. You're working a hard night. Jesus maybe expressed some gratitude in how he said that. We can't see the tone of his words. But Jesus said, but Martha one thing is needful and Mary hath chosen the good part which shall not be taken away from her. In other words, Mary understood who was there. Martha knew about Jesus. Martha knew who he was. And I think just the human nature of maybe not wanting to impress him, but just in the culture of wanting to take care of guests and all the thing, Martha got busy and she lost sight of the presence of God in her house, in her home. But Mary didn't miss that. And Mary sat at Jesus' feet worshiping. And Jesus said, Martha, you're cumbered about with much serving. He says that you're troubled about many things, but one thing is needful. Mary gets it. Mary sees who I am. Mary sees that the serving is okay, but the Lord is here. And serving the Lord begins in the heart. You know, it's important that we serve the Lord. It really is. None of us would argue this morning, your pastor especially. Serving the Lord is important, but can I tell you, don't just serve the Lord out of drudgery or out of necessity or out of... This is just what I've always done, and I want my kids in church, and we have good intentions, but life gets in the way, and we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life, just like Martha, but we forget about the fact that the Lord resides in our hearts, and the Bible commands us to not just serve the Lord, but to serve the Lord with gladness. See, that gladness flows from a grateful heart because of the goodness of God, because of what He's done for us. Look at verse four, if you would, back in Psalm 100. Psalm 100 verse 4. The Bible says, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. We've mentioned it and all weekend at the music conference, we've been talking about this, the praise and the thankfulness of our heart to God, it flows from our heart because of who he is. I hope we've established that this morning. It says, enter into his gates with thanksgiving, into its courts with praise, be thankful unto him and bless his name. That comes, flows out of our hearts, out of gratitude, out of praise and thankfulness for who he is. But let's read this again with maybe a little bit different perspective, right? So, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. See, I can serve the Lord with gladness and I can do it regardless of my circumstances. Again, we talked about it. Life gets difficult. Life's hard. But I can serve the Lord regardless of my circumstances. Why is that? Well, Psalm 100 verse 4 tells us to enter in His gates with thanksgiving and give praise to Him and He's good and bless His name. But why can we do that regardless of our circumstances? Verse 5, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations. The Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations. What truth? What truth endureth to all generations? Well, the truth about who God is. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord. with gladness. Know ye that the Lord, He is God. The truth about His character, about who God is, truth about the promises, the promises found in the Word of God. The scripture is so rich with the promises of God to us to help us through the grind of life. And when we get caught in the monotony, and when we get caught up in the serving for serving's sake, when we get caught up being a little bit more like Martha, we can understand who God is, and what He's done for us, and His character, and that He's good, and the truth of the promises found in the scripture. His truth endureth to all generations. I wanna read some of these verses over here. Oh, my iPad's being weird. It's all right, I'm gonna make it happen. His truth endureth to all generations. I've got links built in, and there we go. Psalm 27, verse one. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? Fear thou not, Isaiah 41, verse 10 says. Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. See, the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations. The truth that we need not fear because God is with us. What a powerful, comforting truth that He will uphold us. with the right hand of His righteousness. 1 Peter 5, verse 7. Such a comforting verse. Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. Psalm 46, verse 1. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." It tells us there in verse 1 that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. See, we can serve the Lord with gladness because His mercy is everlasting. and His truth endureth to all generations." Psalm 62 verse 1 says this, "...truly my soul waiteth upon God, from Him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation." Psalm 16 verse 8 and 9, "...I've set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand." I shall not be moved. Did you catch that? I've set the Lord always before me, and because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad. My glory rejoiceth, my flesh also shall rest in hope, for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life. And here it is, in thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Can I encourage you? Serve the Lord with gladness. Remember that it's Him that's made us. We're not our own. We don't live our lives for ourself. It's He that has made us. You know, maybe you serve, maybe you're involved in the ministry here at Cornerstone Baptist, but maybe you've been lacking a little in the gladness department. Serve the Lord with gladness. not because of our circumstances, not because it's what we do, not because we were raised in church, but serve the Lord with gladness because He is good. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, He is God. It's He that hath made us and not we ourselves. We're His people and the sheep of His pasture. enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name. Why is that? For the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations. Can I just encourage you today? Don't just serve, don't just serve the Lord, but serve the Lord.