For Better Or Worse

For Better or Worse

Scripture: Psalm 34:1 Date: 25 April 2010

Purpose: Worship God during all times, not just when things are tough.

“For better or worse, for richer or for poorer in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, ’til death do us part.”

That’s the vow that we make when we marry. But what does the “for better or worse” mean?

We’re told by Jesus how important it is to “count the cost” when we become his followers. Whatever vow we enter into, there are important matters to consider before we make solemn promises. And that’s especially true for those of us that have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

When you accepted Jesus into your life, you were telling God that you were going to Love, Honor, and Obey Him at all times. That loving Him was the most important thing to you and that you would serve Him at all times.

Sadly, for many of us, it just didn’t turn out that way .What would you say is the greatest enemy of the Christian faith?

Many of us would point to Satan, or to the moral decline of our nation, or to society’s influences that diminish the role of God, as our greatest enemies.

However, I believe that our most dangerous threat doesn’t come from outside the faith. Instead, our greatest enemy is in the hearts of believers. We as believers have given our lives to God but for some reason through a process of time we seem to have placed God in the closet. Much like the heavy winter coats each of us have here in Iowa, we keep God hung up and simply forget about him until the storm comes.

When the sun is shining and life is grand, why would we need God? We have bought into one of Satan’s most successful lies, “We Only Need God during Hard Times.”

Psalm 34:1

• New International Version: “I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.”

• King James Version: “I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

• Contemporary English Version: “I will always praise the LORD.”

*RELEASE CHILDREN FOR CHILDREN’S CHURCH*

- I want us to notice that Scripture tells us that we are to praise and worship God ALWAYS. Scripture never tells us to worship God only when things are TOUGH in life.

Too many of us treat God like we treat our military forces, He really isn’t important to us until we are attacked by the enemy. Then all of a sudden God is great and mighty and He can beat all of our problems and we talk about Him and get tuned into what is happening in the Christian world, we go to church more, pray more, and even read His Word more. God becomes all we seem to talk and think about.

Then our troubles pass and our zeal and passion slow down for God. We slowly back off of being tuned into God. We stop praying as much, our church attendance drops, and reading God’s Word is never a thought. Times are good, why would we need to go to church? Why do we need to pray, if we prayed, what would we pray for? Life is Good!!

But we soon realize that we are in a never ending cycle and difficult times come again and what do we do? We run back to God. And this is the game we play. Over and over again.

Why do we do this? We know better but for some reason we fall into the same trap time and time again. I believe that what happens is that we lose our focus of what is truly important to us and what it is that sustains us. Our priorities get all mixed up and before you know it we are in a situation aren’t we?

I. Prioritize

A. The things that we should be doing for our spiritual health fall behind things that are bad for our spiritual health.

1. We are taught early in life that some things are simply bad for us if we place them first over other things.

Illustration: I can remember my father telling me as far as I can think back, “Eat your meal before you eat your desert.”

2. This is a healthy thought. Dad knew that I needed to eat the good stuff first in order to grow healthy. The meat and the vegetables gave my body the nourishment that it needed. I wouldn’t have received any nourishment for my body if I had filled up on sweets before eating my meal.

3. I needed to hear that from my father. As a child our priorities are all mixed up. We want to eat the bad stuff rather than the good, stay up all night rather than get some much needed sleep, and never take a bath rather than take one and do everyone a favor around you.