...understand. Suppose we postulate an omnipotent being who,
for reasons inscrutable to us, decided to create
something other than himself.
Why should he expect us to worship him?
We didn't ask to be created.
Our lives are often troubled.
We know that human tyrants puffed up with
pride crave adulation and homage, but a morally
perfect God would surely have no character defects.
So why are all these people on their
knees every Sunday?
You hear what the objection is there?
The only incentive that Michael Prowse can conceive
for why a God would demand that we
praise him is that he's needed.
That's what we are when we demand that
people praise us.
If I were to demand you to praise
me, I would be needy and you would
be disgusted.
So what's it with God, right?
You can see why people would stumble at
this.
Everywhere I go and talk to believers about
God's God-centeredness and God's passion to be
praised, I see question marks on people's faces.
They stumble over this.
Some people see why they stumble and some
people don't.
Some people like him put it into an
objection.
Others just could feel uncomfortable.
So what's the answer to that objection for
why we should be okay with God saying,
praise me all you peoples?
What if admiration were the highest pleasure?
And what if God were the most admirable
being?
Would not his beckoning us, summoning us, indeed
dying to help us, admire him be called
love and not arrogance?
If he's the most admirable person and admiration
is one of the deepest longings of the
human heart, not to be admired.
Oh, that's a sinful longing, believe me.
I feel it and I try to crucify
it over and over again.
But I feel the wonder of having my
heart drawn out before an admirable thing.
Beauty, a person, that's a freeing pleasure.
That's a selfless, self-forgetting pleasure.
And what if God is the most admirable
person?
And what if that is the highest pleasure?
And then wouldn't he be loving in order
to draw us into that experience and say,
admire me if you want to be.
C.S. Lewis had the same stumbling block,
stumbling block, and he found the answer.
I hope Michael Kraus does pray for him.
I'll read you C.S. Lewis's discovery.
Changed my life in 1968.
The most obvious fact about praise, whether of
God or anything, strangely escaped me.
I thought of it in terms of compliment,
approval, the giving of honor.
I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously
overflows into praise unless, sometimes even if, shyness
or the fear of boring others is deliberately
brought in to check it.
The world rings with praise.
Lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poets,
walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite
game, praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors,
horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers,
mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians
and scholars.
I had never noticed how the humblest and
at the same time the most balanced and
capacious minds praised most while the cranks and
the misfits and the malcontents praised least.
I had not noticed either that just as
men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they
spontaneously urge us to join in praising it.
Isn't she lovely?
Wasn't it glorious?
Don't you think that magnificent?
The psalmists in telling everyone to praise God
are doing what all men do when they
speak of what they care about.
My whole more general difficulty about the praise
of God depended on my absurdly denying to
us, as regards the supremely valuable, what we
delight to do, indeed what we cannot help
doing about everything else we value.
I think, he said in conclusion, I think
we delight to praise what we enjoy because
the praise not merely expresses but completes the
enjoyment.
That sentence changed my whole way of thinking
about God.
I think the reason people praise what they
enjoy is not merely to express the joy
but to complete the joy, which means that
if God would have your joy complete, He
must command you to do what will make
you infinitely and eternally happy, namely see, savor,
and say His praises.
God is the one being in the universe
for whom gathering attention for Himself is not
arrogant, is not selfish, is not abusive and
manipulative, but is love pure and simple.
If God is to be loving towards us,
He must do for us what is most
satisfying to us, as He is most satisfying
to us, and therefore He must draw us
to Himself, get attention for Himself, tell us
to praise Himself, and move every obstacle out
of the way so that we can do
it, which is why Jesus Christ died.
Missions is calling the world to do what
they were created to do, namely enjoy making
much of God forever.
If we fail, if we do not penetrate
a people where there is no gospel and
where there is no Christian God, God will
be dishonored and they will be miserable forever.
So we have two motives in missions, right?
And they are one.
This is a great discovery.
You don't have to even, Scotty, think about
am I going for the glory of God
or I'm going for the deepest joy of
my own soul in ministry and sacrifice, because
the enjoyment of God in walking with Him
is an honor to Him and praising Him
completes the enjoyment.
So the honor of God and the joy
of those people and us, one, if it's
joy in God.
A great discovery, I commend it to you.
Finally, third point, last point.
What's the basis of the people's praise?
We've seen what people's means and we've seen
what the purpose of God for the people's
is, namely the praise of His name for
their joy and our joy.
Now what's the basis of the people's?
Well, it's in verse 2 which begins with
a basis word, right?
Praise the Lord all nations, extol Him all
peoples, for great, for, for, great is His
steadfast love toward us.
And the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord.
Now this is really surprising because right here
we find ourselves led right to Jesus Christ.
It's not mentioned, but we're led right to
Jesus Christ.