What did you come here to do
What Did You Come Here To Do?
Phelix A. Lockhart
Scripture Reading
Psalms 100
1) Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2) Serve the Lord with gladness: come before His presence with singing.
3) Know ye that the Lord He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
4) Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise; be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.
5) For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endureth to all generations.
What Did You Come Here To Do?
Why do sports fans go to games? Why does a lady go to a stylist? Why do men go to a barber? They all go to these places for specific reasons. The fans go to the game to cheer on his or her team. Ladies go to the stylist to get their hair done. Men go to the barber to get a haircut. Now the big question is why do people come to church? More specific why do, Christians come to church?
Everybody knows that when you go to certain places what you went there for. When you go to the grocery store you’re there to get groceries. When you go to the car repair shop you are going there to get your car fixed. But when it comes to church do you know why you came here? Honestly do you really know why you come to church? In Psalms 100 it tells us why we should come to church.
Let’s look at first verse it talks about making a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. That means everyone supposes to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, but is this true in today’s time. We are all making joyful noise unto everything, but the Lord. We make a joyful noise for the game, we make a joyful noise to a TV show and we make a joyful noise in the club. But as soon as we get to church we are quite, sometimes we are so quite that we can hear a pin drop. Is this how we’re supposed to act for a God who has done great things for us? Is this how we supposed to act for a God that has taking good care of us? A God that has protected us from ourselves; for when we get to heaven that’s all we are going to be doing is making a joyful noise unto the Lord. For our golden age will never come until us with all our hearts reverence God.
In the second verse we are to serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with singing. Let’s deal with the second part of this scripture: come before his presence with singing. We should always have a song of praise in our heart for the Lord. When you come into the presence of God we should come singing and rejoicing because this is when you have your one on one time with the Lord. Enjoy this time because you can tell Him everything that is on your heart, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. In this particular verse the meaning of singing is the same as make a loud noise. So you don’t have to sing to make a loud noise.
In the first part of this same verse we are to serve the Lord with gladness. This is the part that a lot of us have a problem with. SERVING THE LORD WITH GLADNESS. Why because we don’t have the determination to serve Him with gladness. Why do I say this, ask yourself these question? When that person in church that you don’t like asks you do something, do you serve the Lord with gladness or do you do it with an attitude or maybe you don’t do it at all. When you at the job and that boss get under your skin do you serve the Lord with gladness or do you half do your job. But I wonder have we every heard the saying “kill them with kindness.” Serving the Lord is a choice.
Let me ask a question? Have you ever been at a restaurant and the waiter or waitress had an attitude or you been in any place where they are suppose to serve the customer? Or better yet and I know when I say this that I am not talking about Mt. Traveler because I know Mt. Traveler don’t have a problem with this. You come to a church and the usher that you meet at the door has an attitude. They look at you funny; is this serving the Lord with gladness. We all have to choose our attitude. For I heard a saying “that you attitude determines your altitude.
Third verse is letting us know that the Lord is God and He made us and we are his people. This has to be reassuring to know that we are God’s people. God is not just for black, white or Hispanic; He is for everyone. He has made us and has and is still providing for us. And we should always know where our help comes from. Because if you know that the Lord is God and He is the head of your life you know that in every situation that God will provide. Don’t you know that we serve the only true God and all others are just cheap imitation. For Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in 1968 had a song titled “Ain’t nothing like the real thing.”
Fourth verse is our key verse and it states: Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. When you leave home to come to church are you determine to give God the praise? Are you determine to give God thanksgiving and to bless His Holy name? For some the answer to these questions could be yes, no, or sometimes, but whatever your answer is you need to make a choice today that I will come to church praising God’s Holy Name. It is going to be hard for some of us, because we come to church to see what someone has on. Or to catch up on this week’s gossip. But I wonder what would happen if we as individuals vowed to come to church with a made up mind to praise the Lord and give Him thanks for all that He has done, what would the church be like? I wonder if we left our homes praising and giving the Lord thanks what would happen at Sunday School. I can imagine the Spirit just moving everyone learning and having a good time, no one looking at the clock. Then it would spill over to devotion, the church is on fire and the presence of God is dwelling among us. So if you didn’t come to happy that as soon as you hit the door the Spirit just moved you. The choir is singing oh so beautiful. Then the pastor comes out and he doesn’t have to get the people going during service, but the Spirit is so high that it gets him going.
I know that it has to be hard on a pastor to come out his office and into a congregation that he has to motivate all the time. I believe there’s going to come a time that nobody has to motivate anyone to praise God that we are going to come to church on fire each and every Sunday. We are going to have a good time, but it not going to stop on Sunday when we come back for bible study the Spirit is going to be high. God is going to sit with us and we are going to have a good time.
The last verse says that the Lord is good and his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. God is a good God. God don’t every change. He has been good from the beginning of times and His word has stood the test of time. So why not come to church and praise Him and give Him thanks. The Lord has kept us through the years and will continue to keep us if we just trust Him.
How do we know that the Lord is good and his mercy is everlasting…for I heard in Genesis 3:15 (ESV)
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring5 and gher offspring;
hhe shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
[1]Not only that but in Daniel 3:24-25 (ESV)
24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was tastonished and rose up uin haste. He declared to his vcounselors, “Did we not cast three men wbound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” 25 He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, xwalking in the midst of the fire, and they yare not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like za son of the gods.”
[2]
Not only that but in the NT, I can see his parents looking for him after going to the Passover and as they were going home Jesus was not in the group and when they went back that found him in the temple and he told them did you that I must be in my father’s house.
The great thing that shows how good God is and how his mercy is forever is when Jesus went to a hill call Calvary. (Talk about how he died)
(Pause)
What did you come here to do? Why should we come to church? We should come to church to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, serve Him with gladness and come into His presence with singing, we should come because He made us and we should come into His house with thanksgiving and praises and to bless His name, because His mercy is everlasting and His word has brought us through the generations. We all have to make this choice as individuals. This is a personal choice and if you choose to forever have praise for the Lord in your heart THEN YOU WILL KNOW WHAT YOU CAME HERE TO DO!!!
(Pause) the doors of the church are open.
----
5 Hebrew seed; so throughout Genesis
g Isa. 7:14; Mic. 5:3; Matt. 1:23, 25; Luke 1:34, 35; Gal. 4:4; 1 Tim. 2:15
h Rom. 16:20; Heb. 2:14; Rev. 20:1–3, 10
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001.
t ch. 4:19
u ch. 2:25
v ch. 4:36; 6:7
w ver. 20, 21, 23
x [Isa. 43:2]
y [ch. 6:23]
z [ver. 28; Job 1:6]
[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001.