Sermon - Things We Need... Praise - Littleby Baptist Church - October 18, 2020
I don’t do this often, but this mornings message is a re-write of one some of you may remember. It is a reminder that we need and I believe it is an important part of the Things We Need… series.
“Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises.” – James 5:13
I want to focus on the second half of this verse, ‘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 God 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. When things are going great, it is easy to get excited about the Things We Need… Praise!
Then there are the times that five letter word ‘worry’ or that six letter word ‘stress’ role in. When we feel like we have been hit upside the head with a 2” x 4”, it can be hard to sing praises to our King. When we get thrown for a loop, when we get hit with something unexpected, what happens to the Things We Need… Praise, then?
It is easy to sing your favorite hymn when you are thanking God for everything in your life.
It is hard to sing a praise song when you feel like you have been punched in the gut.
No matter how long you have been a follower of our Lord Jesus, it is hard to praise Him every moment of every day. There are going to be days that it will be hard to Praise God in all that you do.
Waking up on the wrong side of the bed, depression, doubt, feeling lost, isolated, anxious, lack of work, bills piling up, medical issues, missing loves ones, and the list goes on… When life happens and the garbage piles up, do we continue to sing praises to our Lord? Instead of shouting to our King, do our voices carry at a quieter tune? Do we stop praising God all together?
As I write this there is a lot of doubt, fear, anxiety, and anger in the world right now. Wish I could say that was different from the last several years, but there always seems to be one thing or another that drives these types of emotions. These types of things drive a lot of people to stress over what is going on instead of holding onto the Things We Need… Praise. Knowing that this is something we all struggle with now and again, let us take a look at what the World of God has to say about Praise.
“Therefore, through him let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.” – Hebrews 13:15
This is one of many verses found in the Bible that talk about the Things We Need… Praise. It states that we need to offer a ‘sacrifice of praise.’ We need to be giving our God an offering of praise.
Now, if you look back a couple of verses or keep reading, there is nothing saying that we should only offer up this sacrifice of Praise when things are great. It has nothing to do with us being happy about what is going on. What this is telling us is that we are to give that Things We Need… Praise to our God during the good times and the bad ones. It has nothing to do with our circumstances and everything to do with who our God is.
Hebrews 13:15 tells us that praise is the confession of His name, which means the Things We Need… Praise is not limited to singing songs. A ‘sacrifice of praise’ includes a declaration of what God is doing in our lives, glorifying His name simply because He is worthy, and singing songs of praise. When we talk about the Things We Need… Praise in this chapter it includes the singing of our favorite song, it includes sharing what God is doing in our lives, and it even means bragging about our God to anyone who will listen.
Bragging might carry a bit of a negative connotation with it, but I think it portrays what is needed here. When we are bragging about our God, we need to be shouting from the rooftops about all that God is doing in our lives, what He has done for us, and what He is doing around us. We need to brag about how Awesome our God is, which in a way is a Sacrifice of Praise. When we are telling any who will listen about what God is doing, when we are taking our time to talk about our God, we are offering that Things We Need… Praise.
As stated earlier, it is easy to brag on our God when things are going great. The hard part for us is to remember that our offering of Praise should have nothing to do with how we feel or what kind of day we are having. In the Book of Acts our God gave us a great example of a couple of guys who had a horrible day, yet they chose to show the Things We Need… Praise.
“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.” – Acts 16:16-18
So far, so good! Paul and Silas were likely on their way to meet up with some friends for what we would call a prayer meeting. It was likely something they were looking forward to, then Paul was used by God to set a girl free from demon possession. I think I would be calling that a Great Day so far. A day that likely filled their hearts full of Praise for their God and all that He was doing in them and around them.
“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.” – Acts 16:19-24
Paul and Silas were seized by a mob, turned over to authorities, had false charges filed against them, stripped, beaten, and thrown into jail. Talk about a good day turned bad!
They were not thrown into any old jail cell. They were not given a cot to lay on. These guys were tossed into the inner most cell of the prison. This is not like a holding cell we see in movies with bars all around it. Would likely be more old the old school solitary confinement in some war prisoner camp. Modern-day solitary confinement with light and some form of air flow would have been a huge 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.
Would be extremely hard to have the Things We Need…Praise with all of this going on.
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 their hearts out earlier, one would expect that their tune had changed, softened, or stopped altogether.
When life is unfair, painful, or scary it has an impact on our sacrifice of Praise. It tends to soften our offering if we give one at all.
When we are battling depression, doubt, lostness, isolation, fear, anxiety, or uncertainty it is easy to let our Sacrifice of Praise quietly stop. When life is getting the better of us, the shouting of Praise, the sharing of what God is doing in our lives, and the singing tend to soften to a whisper. The Things We Need… Praise is impacted by the thing’s life throws our way.
Paul and Silas were having a horrible day, let us take a look at how they responded.
“25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” – Acts 16:25
These guys had been beat, jailed, and tortured for no reason at all and they are still choosing to offer us a sacrifice of Praise to their God!
Maybe their tuned changed from one of excitement to one of surrender, but they continued to Praise God, nonetheless. Maybe they were offering the Things We Need… Praise the same way as they were that morning before things turned ugly. We do not exactly know, but the important thing for us to learn from their experience is that they did not let what was happening to hem impact their offering of Praise to God.
“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.” – Revelation 4:11
Our Lord and Savior is worthy of all glory and honor, He is worthy of the Things We Need… Praise regardless of our circumstances. Our 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 simply because of who He is. He is worthy of the Things We Need… Praise regardless of if our day has been amazing or awful.
Battling depression – Taking time to Praise our God will remind us of the peace that comes from Him.
Struggling with doubt – Sharing what God has already done for us in the past will help us to remember that our God is bigger than our uncertainty.
Feeling lost – Singing the praise of our King 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 remember the Things We Need… Praise and offer it to our God by remembering what He has done in our lives, sharing it with others, we are reminded 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. Offering our sacrifice of Praise to our God for what He has done will remind us that He is NOT through with us and that He will continue to walk with us.
If we are 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 we see God use us. The Things We Need… Praise will touch the lives of others and remind us of who our God is.
Paul and Silas did not let their horrible day stop them from offering the Things We Need… Praise to their God. Their circumstances did not interfere with their offering of Praise to the One and Only Jesus!
Many of us have plenty of reasons to soften our praise or maybe even change our tune. It is likely that life has kicked us in the gut more times that we can count. In order to keep offering our sacrifice of Praise, we need to remember that our God has NOT and will NOT change. His Love for us will NEVER faulter. His sacrifice for us is beyond complete. Knowing this we need to base our sacrifice of Praise on who our God is and not what we are dealing with. The Things We Need… Praise is not limited by our circumstances!
Sing that hymn, read that Psalm, tell someone what God has done for you, or write down a list of things you are thankful for. Make every effort to offer your sacrifice of Praise to Your God, for He is Worthy!
God Bless,
Robert
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