We have begun asking God what’s next for us. So now we wait for the answer. Which creates another question, “What do we do while we wait?”
Isaiah 40:28-31 “28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. 30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
We will worship and praise God while we wait on His answer. Because in the waiting God renews our strength. If you’ve been running a long hard race, it’s time for a renewal tonight. It’s time to lift up our hearts, hands and voices to God. Let’s spend a while worshipping Him, because He is worthy.
Now let’s talk about praise, because it’s important to understand why we praise and how we are to do it. Fortunately, the Bible has a lot to say about praise. Let’s take a look.
Psalm 100. “4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”
We are to be grateful as we enter His house and that gratitude should turn to praise as we move closer to His presence.
We don’t just praise Him because He has blessed us, but because He is good, His love endures forever and He is faithful. We praise Him simply because He is worthy of praise.
Our circumstances should never affect our praise, because God’s worthiness has not changed, even if our situation has. When things are going great or when things are going terrible, when we’re excited or when we’re sad. Nothing about what we are dealing with has any bearing on how worthy God is of our praise. He is worthy and that should be motivation enough for us to praise Him.
What does praise look like?
1 Timothy 2:8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling;
Psalm 63:3-4 “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. 4 So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
What does praise sound like?
Psalm 100:1-2 “1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.”
This Psalm describe a very loud praise party. The verses say: “shout to the Lord joyfully” and Psalm 150 says “Let everything that has breath praise the lord.” Clearly we are to praise God out loud and everyone is to be involved. It doesn’t say to praise only if you are an extravert and don’t mind people thinking your crazy. As a matter of fact, everything that Jesus called us to do should look crazy to people. Does it look crazy to love your enemy? Does it look crazy to pray for those who persecute you? Does it look crazy to be joyful when you are going through a trial? Looking crazy isn’t actually the issue. Most of the time our pride is what holds us back. What will people think of me if I shout for joy? Is that really the measure of God’s worth, or just our flesh getting in the way?
I’m not talking about shouting every prayer and meditation you have during your personal devotional time. We are talking about what it looks like to Praise God corporately when we come together as the church, in the way Scripture describes.
The church is supposed to be actively attacking hell according to Matthew 16:18. It says the gates of hell will not prevail against His church. Gates are a defensive position and so in order for something to prevail against them, they must be attacked. As we wait on God with praise, He renews our strength for another attack. Praise is our weapon in this attack.
Now this attack isn’t a difficult assignment, because the only thing that keeps you from walking right up to a gate and opening it is the lock. But according tom Revelation 1:17 our King has the keys!
The problem is that the church has accepted the lie from the enemy that a quiet church service is normal and churches that have a loud party praise are “out there” and over emotional. The enemy has told us to sit quietly and not be excited about our God and how great He is. It’s time that we look to the scripture to see how we should praise and not accept the traditions the enemy would have us follow.
Now look at how the book of Genesis ties to Psalm 150.
Psalm 150:6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
Genesis 2:7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
The breath we have isn’t ours, it’s God’s breath that He put in us. That means that using breath to praise God is like a tithe, because we are bringing back what belongs to Him, to be used for His glory.
Psalm 47:1
Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.
Praise requires effort and it’s not optional, just because you don’t feel like it. Maybe you are in a bad mood and just don’t feel like praising…but has your mood changed God’s worthiness? Praise is active, not passive. Praise isn’t something you can do with your hands in your pockets or holding a cup of coffee.
Let’s look at what happened when King David came into Jerusalem praising God.
2 Samuel 6:14-22 14 Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, 15 while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. 16 As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.
20 When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”
21 David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. 22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.
David was confronted by his wife about acting “undignified” in his praise, he responded by saying he was willing to be even more undignified and completely humiliated in order to celebrate and praise God.
This shows an attitude of being ready to do anything to praise God while humbling himself. He wasn’t showing off, he was intentionally allowing everyone to see his public praise and willingness to show that God was great and the king was nothing compared to Him.
Michal had grown up in the palace since her father Saul was the king before David. This caused her to have a sinful pride about how she and her family were viewed by others.
The idea that her husband would look undignified was more than she could take. When David responded to her, he went right to the heart of the matter and said that God chose him to be king instead of anyone from her “royal” family and that pride would not stand in the way of his praise to God.
David valued God’s praise more than his position. You didn’t have to wonder how David felt about God. Does your praise show how you feel about God? Are you allowing pride to affect your praise?
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