Well I do hope that Derek's sermon this week has blessed you - go and check out his Well Versed teachings on his church's YouTube channel, I think you will love those, if you enjoyed his preaching this week – as well as these old sermons of his I am uploading to a new channel called Classic Trinity sermons.
Let's close off the week listening to what Derek has to say about worship bringing gratitude out of us:
Worship Opens the Door to Gratitude
Fourthly, we need to open ourselves to worship, because the more we worship, the better it gets. The more we worship, the more we realise we have so much to give thanks to God for. We need to do that.
Worship is not consumerism. You know, if you think about it, this whole scenario that we have here is totally unnatural. It's not natural for one person to stand up and beat their gums for 20, 30, 40 minutes and for everybody to sit and make believe that they're listening. It's not normal! The normal human interaction is exactly that - it's interaction. It's not normal to do what we're doing here.
What God Does With Imperfect Words
Yet God manages to just do something with this time. He manages to take the imperfect words that come out of a preacher's mouth and use them to bless and to touch people's lives. The more we do it, the more we realise that indeed, it is a blessing - always assuming that the preacher has done his preparation.
Worship is not consumerism. We need to be free to worship God. We need to be free to come back like that leper and say, "Thank you, Lord." Did you come here tonight saying to yourself, "I want to thank God for the things He's done in my life this last week"? I guess not, if you're really honest. But that's what it's about. Ask yourself - have you said thank you to God for all the blessings He's given you just today? Just today.
The most recent gift He gave us was that sunset. Did anybody else see it, by the way? Looks like we were the only two. You were all inside watching TV. Okay.
Beautiful stuff! Worship services, and just ordinary things in our lives give us great occasion to be thankful. Oh may it be that we have eyes to see His blessings, and that we rush to the sanctuary to say thank You God for what You’ve done!
Dressing well isn't wrong, but Paul reminds us that our clothing should always be appropriate for the setting we're in. Consider what you're dressing for today, and check whether your choices suit the occasion and honour those around you.