Sermon - Acts 16:16-26 - Sacrifice of Praise - March 29, 2020

Here we are with week two of our virtual service. I want to remind everyone, of something that Mrs. Linda reminded me of. We have a couple of videos on our YouTube page from a month or so ago of a couple of guys playing guitars and singing songs. They were a blessing then and can easily be a blessing today. You can also pull up lyric videos on YouTube of your favorite hymn. I posted a couple on the Littleby Baptist Facebook page.

We will continue with our break from Daniel today and the plan is to pick up where we left off in Daniel chapter 4 the week after Easter.

James 5:13

“Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises.”

Talked a bit about how prayer is our conduit to God last week and how we should be chatting with Him. Today I want to use the second half of this verse as our starting point.

‘Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises.’

When we are excited about what God is doing in our lives, when we have received some good news, when we have overcome a big challenge, when we see Him working in the lives of our loved ones… we want to celebrate, we want to sing praises, we want to share what God is doing in our lives. It is easy to get excited and sing praises when things are going great.

How about when that 5-letter word of worry or stress role in? When we feel like we have been hit upside the head, it can be hard to sing praises. When we get thrown for a loop, when we get hit with something unexpected, what happens to our praises then?

It is easy to sing ‘I Love You Lord’ when we are thanking Him for everything in our lives.

It can be hard to sing ‘Count Your Blessings’ when we feel like we have been punched in the gut.

No matter how long we have followed our Lord Jesus, it can be hard to praise Him all the time.

Waking up on the wrong side of the bed, depression, doubt, feeling lost, isolated, anxious, lack of work, bills piling up, medical issues, not able to visit loved ones, and more.

When life happens with garbage like this, do we continue to sing praises? Do our voices soften? Does the song change? Do we stop singing praises all together?

I think a lot of people are dealing with this right now in one form or another. There is a lot of doubt, fear, anxiety, and even wondering what God is up to. There are a lot of people who are stressing instead of praising. So, today we are going to take a look at what the Bible has to tell us about offering praise to our God.

Hebrews 13:15

“Therefore, through him let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.”

This is one of many verses in the Bible that talk about offering praise to our God.

The author of Hebrews is telling us to ‘continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise’. If you look back a couple of verses or keep reading, there is nothing saying that we should only ‘continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise’ when things are great. The implication here is that we are to praise our God during the good times in our life and the bad ones.

This verse tells us that praise is the confession of His name, which means it is not limited to singing songs. A ‘sacrifice of praise’ includes declaring all that God is doing in our lives, glorifying His name, and singing songs of praise. So, when we talk about praising God today it includes singing songs, it includes praising Him for working in our lives, and it includes bragging about our God to others.

Bragging might not be the best choice of words here, but we need to shout from the roof tops about what God is doing in us, for us, and around us. We need to offer a sacrifice of praise to His name.

Here is the hard part for us, our offering of praise should have nothing to do with how we feel or what kind of day we are having. Thankfully God gave us an example of two guys who had a pretty rough day, yet they chose to praise God.

Acts 16:16-18

“¹⁶ Once, as we were on our way to prayer, a slave girl met us who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She made a large profit for her owners by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ As she followed Paul and us she cried out, “These men, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation, are the servants of the Most High God.” ¹⁸ She did this for many days. Paul was greatly annoyed. Turning to the spirit, he said, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” And it came out right away.”

So far so good. Paul and Silas were likely on their way to meet up with a couple of others for what we would call a prayer meeting. It was probably something they were looking forward to, then Paul was used by God to set a girl free from demon possession. I would call that a good day. A day that would fill their heart full of praise for their God and all that He was doing in them and around them.

Acts 16:19-24

“¹⁹ When her owners realized that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. ²⁰ Bringing them before the chief magistrates, they said, “These men are seriously disturbing our city. They are Jews ²¹ and are promoting customs that are not legal for us as Romans to adopt or practice.” ²² The crowd joined in the attack against them, and the chief magistrates stripped off their clothes and ordered them to be beaten with rods. ²³ After they had severely flogged them, they threw them in jail, ordering the jailer to guard them carefully. ²⁴ Receiving such an order, he put them into the inner prison and secured their feet in the stocks.”

Paul and Silas were seized by a mob. Turned over to authorities, false charges being said about them, stripped, beaten, and thrown into jail.

They were not thrown into just any jail cell. They were not given a cot to lay on. They were thrown into the inner cell. This isn’t a like a holding cell we see in movies with bars all around, it would have been more like old school solitary confinement. Modern day solitary confinement with light and air flow would be an improvement over where Paul and Silas were being held. They had no light, no air flow, and if that was not bad enough their feet were put into stocks.

These guys had just been severely flogged, they were hurting, they were in pain, but it did not stop there. The guard had boards designed to stretch their legs placed between their feet. Why would this even be needed? They guys were chained, locked in a windowless cell, with guards standing outside. There was no reason for the stocks, except to torture Paul and Silas.

What started out as a wonderful day with hearts full of praise for their God, turned into shear torture. If Paul and Silas were singing something like ‘I Love You Lord’ earlier in the day, one might question if they were still singing it. You might wonder if their tune had changed, softened, or stopped altogether.

When Life is unfair, painful, or scary it can have an impact on our sacrifice of praise, how loud we give our praise, or if we give it at all.

When we are battling depression, doubt, lostness, isolation, anxiety, fear, or uncertainty it is easy to let our Sacrifice of Praise quietly stop. When life is getting the better of us the shouting or praise, the sharing what God is doing, and the singing tend to soften to a whisper.

Paul and Silas were having an absolutely horrible day, let’s look at how they responded.

Acts 16:25

“²⁵ About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”

These guys had been beat, jailed, and tortured for no reason at all and they chose to continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to their God!

Maybe their tune changed from ‘I Love You Lord’ to ‘I Surrender All’… Maybe they were still praising God the same way they were before their day turned south, but the important part for us to see here is that they did not let what was happening to them impact their offering of praise.

Revelation 4:11

“Our Lord and God, you are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, because you have created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.”

God is worthy of all glory and all honor, He is worthy of our praise regardless of our circumstances. God does not change, He is the one true constant in our lives, He is worthy of our Offering of Praise every moment of every day because of who He is not because life is going great.  

Battling depression – Taking time to praise God will remind us of what He has done.

Struggling with doubt – sharing what God has already done in the past will help us to remember that God is bigger than our uncertainty.

Feeling Lost – Singing praises to our God will remind us that He is with us always.

Isolation and anxiety - will be replaced with Love and Peace as we offer our sacrifice of praise.

If we are praising God by remembering what He has done in our lives and sharing it with others, it is a great reminder that our God is faithful. If He has worked in our lives in the past, we should believe that He will continue to work in our lives today, tomorrow, and the next day. Praising Him for what He has done will remind us that He is not through with us and He will continue to walk with us in this life.

If we are offering praise by bragging about what our God has done in our lives, we get to see how others are touched by what we tell them. It is one more way that God uses us, even when we don’t feel worthy.

Each of these things in their own right are offerings of praise to our God.

Paul and Silas did not let their horrible day stop them from praising God. Their circumstances did not interfere with their offering of praise to the one and only God.

Many of us have more reasons today than we did a month ago to soften our praise or change our tune. What we need to remember is that our God has not changed. His love for us will never faulter. His sacrifice for us is beyond complete. Our sacrifice of praise is to be based on who He is, not what we are dealing with. Our praises need to continue.

Sing that hymn, read that Psalm, tell someone what God has done for you, or write down the list of things you are thankful for. Even in these trying times make every effort to offer your sacrifice of praise to Your God for He is Worthy.

God Bless,

Robert