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[Silence] [Silence] There is one body and one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who was above all and through all and in all.

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[crowd repeats] Jesus said, "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who are to believe through their word that they may all be one." [crowd repeats] Let us pray.

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Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of this day and invoke your presence upon us as we seek to worship you in spirit and in truth. Amen. Good morning and welcome to the worship of God.

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May we greet one another this morning as we shake hands. Now let us turn to hymn number nine, "O Worship the King." the first and second stanzas, "O, Worship the King." [MUSIC - "O, Worship the King"]

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[ Music ] ♪ Oh, worship the King ♪ ♪ Come, O Israel ♪ ♪ Come, let glory ring ♪

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♪ Israel, Israel ♪ ♪ The Savior King has come ♪ ♪ Go and set the King ♪ ♪ The Kingdom is mine ♪

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♪ The throne of heaven is mine ♪ ♪ To them of his right ♪ ♪ All hail of his grace ♪ ♪ Give hope in the light ♪

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♪ To them of his grace ♪ ♪ His cherubim so proud ♪ ♪ For thee one Lord, Lord God ♪ ♪ And all his years ♪

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♪ Have fallen in love with thee ♪ - You may be seated. In this service we are involved in a sermon series based on the Book of Psalms, the Hebrew Psalter, which is the hymn book that was used in Jewish worship.

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of you who have your Bibles, let us turn to Psalm number 5, the fifth Psalm. "Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my meditation; hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer

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unto thee, and will look up. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight; thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

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Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing; the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy, and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.

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Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness, because of mine enemies make thy way straight before my face. For there is no faithfulness in their mouth, their inward part is very wickedness, their throat is an open sepulchre, they flatter with their tongue.

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them, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels, cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against thee. But let all these that put their trust in thee rejoice. Let them never, or let them ever, shout for joy, because thou defendest them. Let them also that love thy name be joyful to thee for thou Lord will bless the

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righteous with favor wilt thou compass him as with a shield thus ended the reading of our scripture may we bow our heads in prayer Gracious God our Father we thank you for every manifestation of your presence and your power. We thank you for this day and we're grateful for the gift of rain

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which you have showered upon us. That rain that refreshes, that causes grass to grow and for the flowers to grow and serves as a means of moisture and nourishment and we pray that you would refresh our souls today, grant unto us that renewal of strength that we so desperately need. Bless each one of us,

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Help us as we seek to live according to your will and your way. We ask your blessings upon those who are sick in hospitals and in homes, for the bereaved. Grant your guidance as we face the perplexing situations of human existence. We pray for humankind everywhere.

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Bless your church and enable us to be workers together with you. In Jesus' name, amen. [MUSIC PLAYING] (sighing)

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(eerie music) [Sigh] [music] (eerie music)

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(eerie music) (eerie music) (eerie music) (eerie music)

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(eerie music) (eerie music) (soft music) [MUSIC PLAYING]

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[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (footsteps)

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[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (dramatic music)

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[MUSIC PLAYING] [Music] [Music] My Lord, what a morning!

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My Lord, what a morning! When the stars begin to fall. ♪ My Lord, what a morning ♪ ♪ My Lord, what a morning ♪

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♪ My Lord, what a morning ♪ ♪ When the stars begin to fall ♪ ♪ You'll hear the trumpet sound ♪ ♪ To wake the nations underground ♪

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♪ Looking to my God's right hand ♪ ♪ When the stars begin to fall ♪ ♪ My Lord, what a morning ♪ My Lord, what a morning!

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My Lord, what a morning! When the stars begin to fall. You'll hear the sinner morn To wake the nations underground

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Looking to my God's right hand ♪ When the stars began to fall ♪ ♪ My Lord, what a morning ♪ ♪ My Lord, what a morning ♪

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My Lord, what a glory, when the stars begin to fall. We worship the Lord now in our giving. Let us all give according to how the Lord has prospered us. The Lord loves the cheerful giver and as disciples of the Master we are to give regularly, proportionately, voluntarily, sacrificially.

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Let us pray. Lord, we bless your name for the privilege to share as thou has given so freely of thyself. that we may give self and substance as we offer unto you this day our gifts. Amen.

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I want to commend the sanctuary choir, Brother Boyd, the director, all of you for the marvelous that was done last Sunday. It was absolutely tremendous. It was fantastic. It was stupendous. It was all those things. It was a great rendition on the part of our musical organization, on the part of our director, and all of the

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supporters of this effort. We had a glorious time going to Dallas. We left on time and got there early, had a good meal and good service and the choir represented us in a very commendable way. The trip was not without some difficulty on the way back we had trouble with the bus and the bus decided

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not to run when it got around Waxahachie and they had left a little before us and we were able to see them waving on the highway their signs of distress and pick them up and we all got on the bus some had to stand but we got home all right and I've been Fortunate enough to get

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Interested persons brother Elder who was driving the bus went back with my wife and They got sister Canada's purse out. Sister Canada was so excited that she left her purse. So, you know, she was excited and

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Went back and got her purse and got the bus in the shop. We found out that the thing of the crank Sheriff I think that has given difficulty whatever and we need a new motor And so that new motor will cost $3,000 you have a new motor the other part of the bus is in good shape and

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We didn't have that in the budget. So we're gonna have to give some more money to do that and they Will be have the bus in shape and when that is done, we'll have it back Next Sunday is high attendance day for the church in training

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Department of our church Is that it's today, isn't it today? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's today Church and training is celebrating High Attendance Day today. So we hope that the rain will

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encourage us to Make this day an unusual day in every way as we express our gratitude to God. Sister Austin, our director and her staff have been working very hard and making this day what it ought to be and

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Let's respond by doing all that we can today is high attendance day for our Sunday Training union and get this straight after while the training union church and training high attendance day At 5 p.m. The WMU Council meets at 5 p.m WMU Council

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now I want to See the hands of those who are 35 and under who are single that means you're not married Are you you've never been married? Are you? been divorced and then all your mate has

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passed on Whatever may be the situation, but you're single. So we those who are 35 and under Let me see the hands of those 35 and under who are single here today All right, that's good. I want to get your names today

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so that we can begin to focus attention on this particular group 35 and under so I want to get your names want to meet with you for just a few minutes after the service today 35 and under who are single. Unicircle will meet at the church tomorrow at 5 p.m. instead of on the 15th

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Tomorrow at 5 p.m. Unicircle meets instead of the 15th. So let's keep that in mind. I do not have any cards for our guests or if there are persons worshiping with us who are not members of this church would you stand now that we may recognize your presence.

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[Piano music] [ Music ] [Music] I am tired and weary, but I must toil on, till the Lord comes to call.

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♪ Be aware, be aware ♪ ♪ For the morning is bright ♪ ♪ And the lamb is blind ♪ And the night is as bad as the day

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I am tired and so weary But I'm lost alone 'Til the Lord comes to call Call me away

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♪ The morning is bright ♪ ♪ And the land is light ♪ ♪ And the night is as fair ♪ ♪ Fair as the day ♪

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♪ There'll be peace in the valley ♪ ♪ For me is a name ♪ ♪ There'll be peace in the valley ♪ ♪ For me, I pray ♪

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There'll be no sorrow, no sadness, no trouble, will there be? There'll be peace in the valley of peace. There'll be peace in the valley of peace. There'll be peace, there'll be peace in the valley of peace.

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Amen. No more sorrow, no sorrow. No trouble will there be. There'll be peace in the valley.

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For me. For me. Amen. Hear this word as recorded in the fifth Psalm, verses 7 and 8.

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I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy, and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. me O Lord in thy righteousness because of mine enemies. Make thy way straight before my face."

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The subject of the message, going to God's house, going to God's house. Going to church Church is a familiar experience in the life of every God-fearing individual or family, as long as many of us can remember, we've been going to church. For some of us, going to church is a periodic and isolated occurrence.

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true for many persons. For them, going to church is associated with being hatched, matched, and dispatched with birth, marriage, and death. The psalmist belongs to the community of faith. He's identified with a peculiar people, for every pious Jew looks forward to going up

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to Jerusalem to worship in the temple. No matter where the worshiper lives, whether in the country or the city, in a mansion or a hut, whether in Palestine or scattered among the nations, the pious Jew looks forward to going to worship in God's house.

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When I was a boy, going to worship in God's house was the main event in every week. Many of us looked forward to it, most people in the community. We could easily identify with the words, "I was glad when they said unto me, 'Let us go into the house of the Lord.'"

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It was a place where we not only met our friends, but where we had our courtships and all of that in connection with the church. Hundreds, thousands, yea, millions make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship, to the Lord's house.

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located the temple. And as we think of it today in a modern sense, we think of going to church, going to church. We have buildings, they may be synagogues, mosques, local church dwellings, but they are places where people gather together to worship. The fifth Psalm is associated with the period after the exile. During the exile, the time when

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Israel was carried into Babylonian captivity, they could not physically and geographically make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They were in Babylon and Jerusalem was approximately 700 miles away. They were slaves in a foreign country and could not worship in the gorgeous temple in

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Jerusalem, but in a sense, they continued to make the pilgrimage to God's house. In fact, it is during the Babylonian captivity that we see the religious practice of the Jewish people reaching a new dimension. Prior to that time, they had been in the habit of making the physical journey, so to speak,

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geographical journey to from their home to God's house in Jerusalem, but now they cannot go to Jerusalem in a physical and geographical sense. And so their religious experience seems to reach a new dimension because they recognize more than possibly ever before that they can still make the journey to Jerusalem.

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it is for them now more of a spiritual journey. And so they continue to make the journey toward Jerusalem or to Jerusalem to God's house for even though they are in Babylon they pray with their faces turned toward Jerusalem. So Psalm 5 is concerned with acceptable worship. When you read this Psalm the main emphasis

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here is acceptable worship. What is acceptable worship? It's a hymn to be sure that seeks to portray what it means for an individual to live in harmony with God. We sang just a few moments ago about peace in the valley. What does it really mean to have peace in the valley? But what are we talking about? What are

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we thinking about? What is the human experience that we may relate to having peace with God, having peace in the valley. Going to worship in God's house is a spiritual journey, a journey taken by the little eye to the great vow. In Psalm 5 in our Bibles, we notice the caption, "To the choir master on the flute."

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To the choir master on the flute. It's interesting that the flute is the instrument used for this particular musical selection. flute is an instrument that has sounds of a soft, sweet, gentle. I think it's somewhat symbolic of the meekness that is related to worship, humility that we

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should possess as we approach the Almighty. So let us keep in mind the fact that here in this message concerning acceptable worship to God that here is a a song played by an orchestra of flutes. Let's notice first of all the requirement for divine worship. God is spirit and they that worship him must worship him

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in spirit and in truth. We dare not go to God's house boastfully or arrogantly but with a humble and penitent spirit. Humility is required for the worship of God. "Oh come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God. Humble yourselves ye sinners." Special preparation is required

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of the worshiper in order to engage in acceptable worship. The worshiper must have an attitude of prayer, not feeling self-sufficient but humble and dependent. This is the attitude of the psalmist. He approaches the heavenly throne with a a humble cry, "My King and my God." The worshiper is servant, he is the one who

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is to be obedient to the eternal King. The worshiper is the creature who bows before the Creator. And all those surrounded by adverse circumstances, all those situated in Babylon dwelling in a far country. Here he is a stranger far from home with no rights of his own. He must depend upon citizens of Babylon to

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take him under their wing. Nevertheless he makes the spiritual journey to God's house. Well you see the worshiper, the true worshiper of God is a seeker. The psalmist says, "I will look up no matter how dark and how depressing may be the human situation, no matter how devastating may be the defeat which I

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have suffered, I will look up." Mind you, this is the prayer of a worshiper who is away from home. That's important, notice that, because some people break the continuity of their worship habit when they are away from home. They have certain changes but here is one who does not permit the changes in the human

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situation to prevent him from making the journey to the father's house. You know ever so often somebody says, "Well you know Reverend I couldn't make it to church today because I had company. I had company. Why not bring the company to church? But we let company prevent us from worshiping it breaks the continuity.

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So often people go away on vacation and they take a vacation from God. They don't think they ought to worship you know I'm on vacation like one of my friends who said you know when I take a vacation I'd vacate from everything. I don't shave, I obey thy vacay." So what does one do? What does a college student do when you find

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yourself away from home and you don't have anyone to say look get up and go to church this morning and you're out on your own? Find yourself in Babylon, strange country. What do you do? Well the Psalmist here is a good example. What he has to say to us concerning this experience, he says, "I will look up even

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though I'm away from home, even though I find myself in a valley, I will look up. In Babylon surrounded by hostile forces, I will make the journey, the spiritual journey if you please, to God's house." There are times when we attempted to look down when things go wrong, when the wicked seem to have the upper hand. But

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the divine requirement for acceptable worship is to look up. We must look up to the one who elevates the human spirit. If you're down in the dumps, you're not going to get down in the dust by just looking down in the dumps and being down in the dumps? The answer is to look up to the one who lifts the human spirit. Look

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up though we be in the valley to the Holy Hill. Must look up to the one who helps us attain understanding and I want to emphasize not just understanding but self-understanding to understand ourselves as well as those around us to gain that kind of understanding one must look up if we would have proper

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discernment, spiritual discernment for the human situation, we must look up. In order to be hooked up to heaven, to be able to make the journey successfully here on earth, we've got to be hooked up to heaven and to do that is to look up. That's a requirement for acceptable worship, to look up to God, source of our

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help and hope. And secondly there needs to be a commitment, commitment on our part to worship. The worshiper must commit his way unto the Lord. He must trust God. The psalmist here says, "I will come into thy house." See he's making a spiritual journey. "I will come into thy house." Even though in Babylon he's making

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spiritual journey, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy hill. Lead me in thy righteousness because of mine enemies, make thy way straight before me." And you notice in this Psalm and many others that we will

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consider that the psalmist is greatly concerned about his enemies. As I've said before in these Psalms we have man talking with God, talking with God, so we get the human view it being emphasized. It's not God talking to man in the Psalms but man talking with God and so he's concerned he's in Babylon

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he's a captive he's finding himself so entangled with people every day who are out to get him and to keep him down keep him from climbing up that's the kind of situation that he's confronts every day on his job in his community everywhere turns. But so he's talking about his enemies and he says now my enemies have

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no faithfulness. They're not concerned about you, they're not concerned about what's right. He said they are inwardly wicked. Their throat is an open tomb, an open grave, an open sepulchre. They're doing everything they can to destroy me, says the worshiper. Idle, malicious gossip, all of that, their throat is an open grave.

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They're out to destroy me. They flatter me with their tongue, but in spite of all of that he says I will make the journey to thy spiritual house. And every one of us finds ourselves surrounded by hostile forces, hostile forces. We find ourselves up against obstacles. We find ourselves in Babylon as captives many times and yet

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in the midst of it all to be able to offer acceptable worship. You've got to up, look toward Jerusalem. And so he says, "I will come to thy house." He comes to God's mercy. And the word for mercy, that Hebrew word he said for mercy, is that he's going to trust in God's faithfulness. God's faithfulness. In the midst of it all,

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no matter what happened, God is faithful. So he commits himself to God's faithfulness, for great is his faithfulness. And he says I'll do that not because of my own righteousness but because of the righteousness of God. So acceptable worship makes a difference. It enables one to accept whatever life brings. Did

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you hear what I said? It enables one, acceptable worship, enables one to accept whatever life brings because through acceptable worship one receives refreshment and renewal. After the worship service is over, what then? The psalmist prays to God asking him to deal with his enemies in the way that is most

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familiar to him, within that context he says, "Destroy them, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Cast out the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against thee." So what the worshiper does, mind you, is he turns his enemies over to the Lord. He turns his enemies over to the Lord. For he

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recognizes the fact that God provides succor in distress. That in the midst of our distress, that God comforts us and so he leaves the worship service with a note of joy. You know sometimes you can come to the Lord's house real low down in spirit, down in the dump so to speak in the valley, but when you really

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worship question is how do you leave? I can remember when I was a student in college going to to the service without a penny in my pocket not knowing how my bill was going to be paid and my clothes had not been cleaned and pressed and really feeling low in spirit but when you really worship and listen to the

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message and God does something to your heart you leave feeling like you own the world when you may not have a penny in your pocket. So the psalmist here has commune with God in the midst of his distress and somehow he has had his life refreshed and renewed and he experiences a sense of victory through worship. If you

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ever find yourself sort of entangled with the difficulties of this life and when you really take it to God and worship God you experience a sense of victory. The present situation is still gloomy, benighted by error and trouble, but he looks toward the morning. It's a dark night. There seems to be no star in the sky, the sun is certainly not shining, there's no moon, no stars. The dark night is here, but he looks toward the morning.

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time of deliverance the morning the experience of redemption and release he looks toward the morning time for a fresh start he looks toward the morning the dark night of lawlessness disappears and justice comes in the morning you know some people say this is a song you see some all these songs there they're

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hymns 150 of them this is the fifth one and some people say you know that you have the glad tunes in the major key I had to, like in the monarchy. [BLANK_AUDIO]