Have You Gone Public with Your Praise?, Part 2

gratitude is praise. And so if we're not praising, if you're, you know, going to church and you're sitting there like a bump on the log, you know, it seems to me as if we're not truly appreciating what Christ has done for us.

the resurrection prove from Romans one one through four? I cried through the whole sermon, man, because I kept thinking about where I was and how he's brought me and where I am now. And oh, all by the grace of God. I told him, I just have to stop. Excuse me. And I just threw my hands up and I said, thank you, Jesus, I love you. I appreciate all that you've done. I'm so grateful. Glory to your name. You know, just just had to do it.

Here's what he's saying. I don't care what everybody else around me came to do. I came to praise the Lord. I don't care if nobody else says Amen. I'm going to say Amen. I don't care what anybody else do me. Let me tell you. Let me tell you I don't know what you came to do. But I came to praise the Lord. I came to bless his name. I came to jump and shout. And that's exactly what he's saying. See, if you came to get something from God, then you

came for the wrong reason. If you're one of the ones who only come for the sermon, then you came for the wrong reason. Uh, because it's not about a sermon. It's not about a band. It's not about a choir or praise team, or even the preaching of the Word of God, even though it should be central. But it's about coming together in a corporate expression and expressing to one another, and to God how grateful we are that he let us come back one more time. Yeah, here's

what he's saying. Yeah, it ain't just about a sermon. Now notice he says it must be voluntary will. It must be voluntary. In other words, he's saying I got the Lord's praise on speed dial. That's what I have. See, he's teaching us that praise is not an option. Praise is an obligation. Oh, yeah, it's an obligation. Yeah. Okay. Get this. Uh, I like sports, but I like football. I'm not a baseball fan. Even though Pirates is my team, I just say Pirates. My team. I don't even watch

the games. And I was wondering, what's the uproar? What are y'all hauling about? And, you know, all in the store. Yeah, yeah. High five slapping high fives. The Cubs are going to the World Series. I said really? Yes. Finally we're going to. Oh. Hey, bro, check this out. Yeah, you heard right. You heard. Now, it's not just because I'm not from Chicago. But let me tell you what I start thinking about. I start thinking about y'all. I said, how many of them right

now who sit there all service. Don't open their mouth. Don't move. Don't say nothing. Don't stand. If you say, look at your neighbor, they're like, I don't want to see him. Look at my neighbor. I ain't high fiving nobody. I live in the suburbs. What are you talking about? High five. I said, I wonder how many of them was in the store talking about. Did you hear? Or at the job? The cup we in, we in. And then I begin to think the Cubs didn't go to

Calvary and die for you. But you can holler for them. But you can't holler for Jesus. The cubs didn't cover you in their blood, but you can holler for the cubs, but you can't holler for Jesus. The cubs didn't write your name in the Lamb's Book of Life, but you can holler for the cubs. But you can't holler for Jesus that the Cubs ain't coming back to get you. But you can holler for the Cubs. But you can't

holler for Jesus. The Cubs don't come in the middle of the night when your body is racked with pain. You don't say, oh, Cubs! Huh? Yeah. No one has to coerce you. No one has to prompt you. You ain't praying with me. I submit to you who tell me. Well, you see, when I worship, I'm a kind of person who doesn't get excited. Then there's something wrong with you

and your worship and your relationship with your God. Because if, if, if, if Uptown Funk can make you move and a song about somebody who died for you can't make you move, then there's something wrong with your salvation. Amen. Amen. Oh, I'm in Bible territory. Oh, yeah, I'm in Bible territory. It's in the book. And so it has to be personal. Yes, personal. Now listen, listen. He's saying, I don't need a choir. I don't need a musician. I don't need a praise team.

I don't need anything. Notice. Secondly, it's visible. Okay. I don't have time to go through all of it. Let me do this real quick. Here's the words that are in Psalm 34. I will bless Barack 330 times in the Old Testament, and it means to bow the knee. So tell me about that. If you bow the knee, can anybody see that? Yes. Then there is yada. It means to extend the hand, to give thanks. Can you see that? Yes you can. Okay. Toda. It means to extend the hand. Can you see that? In other words,

praise can be seen. Don't tell me you praising God. Y'all heard about that? About the person that died in the worship service. They called the paramedics. They took out 12 people before they found a dead person. Yeah. Now it's not to impress, but to express. And so basically what David is saying and all the Psalms will concur with me. I can preach on ad infinitum, ad nauseam, that the degree of your gratitude should equal the degree of the glory that you give to God, not about us.

It's all about him. Why? Because. Listen, listen. If you gave somebody something they didn't deserve. And what would they say if I said I gave somebody $100 bill? What did they say? Thank you. Thank you. Uh, but if I said, oh, I have one. And they say, are you going to give it? Well, no, you can take it. They probably sit down. I don't I don't want it. I don't want it because you don't want me to have it. Now, why would you think that God would want you to be forced to praise him when he

is willingly giving you? He's willing to give it to us. He wants us to say thank you. See. John 423 says he desires that Psalm 106 111 says he demands it. 117 one and two says he deserves it, and this text says he delights in it. He dwells in the midst of the praises of his people. The Bible says, let everything that have breath praise the Lord. Do you have breath? Yeah. So you have to praise the Lord. Here it is. Here it is. Thirdly. Thirdly, you have

to do it persistently. He says, at all times. At all times. Uh, what do you mean by that, David? What do you mean, all times? All means all. That's all. All means. In other words, there's three kinds of praisers. Uh, according to me, there's a conditional praiser. And they praise because of the car. Uh, because they got healed. Because the loan came through. Because the children started acting. Right? Because the marriage started coming together. Uh, yeah. And, uh,

you know, their their praise is modest. They don't want to wrinkle their suit, uh, mess up their hair and all that kind of stuff. They're strong in the Lord as long as they're not going through anything. Then there's the fair weather appraisers and and there's the individuals that it it's gotta be right. But then there's the appraiser. You say, who are those? In spite of the lost job, in spite of the credit report that looks like a rap sheet. In other words, they understand that that praise

of God is not conditioned on your condition. So. So here's what David says. You praise him in the good time, but you praise him when it's bad times. You praise him in the bad times, but you praise him in the bad times. You praise him when the tender times, but you praise him in the tough times. You praise him in the smooth times, but you also praise him in the rough times. So in the rich time and the poor time, you praise the Lord when you got a new house or it goes into foreclosure, you should

praise the Lord. Uh, when he when he's put your marriage back together or you're sitting in a divorce court, you ought to be praising the Lord. In other words, this psalm is for individuals who are crazy. Praisers. You know, uh, I'll never forget this. It happens to me all the time. But, uh, I was bumping, uh, some gospel music and it was, you know, music you could shout and rejoice to. I'm shouting and rejoicing, acting a fool. So I stop at

the red light and I'm still acting a fool. And a sister pulls up in her car, looks up and gives me that. What is wrong with you? Like. Like I know she thought I was crazy and and so, you know, she kept looking and I kept looking. And so finally I said, okay. And I put my window down. She put her window down. She could hear the music and then she start bumping. Then we got blowed on because the light was turned green. We so busy praising the Lord. We done forgot you in a car. You

better get moving. And I wrote it down. I said, man, that'll preach. Because she didn't understand why in the world I was acting like I was acting until she could hear what I could hear. Once she begin to experience what I experienced, then she began to do what I was doing. Isn't that church praise? Somebody gets up and gives a testimony. God heal me and I'm so grateful. And everybody that got healed. Amen. Praise the Lord I got healed to thank the Lord, everybody that God got

a job. Yeah, I think I came to praise him for, you know, this morning my wife was in service. My wife's been sick the last three weeks. She's in emergency at least once a week for three weeks. I sit up here. I was talking about this message. I could hardly preach it because I looked at her. I got choked up and I said, thank you, Lord. Thank you Lord. She's back. She's able to worship. Amen. Yeah, I can get out the kitchen. Praise God.

There's that and a lot more at Treasure Truth Radio. Back to the message again. Here is Pastor Ford.

Sometimes he let the storm rage and calms his child. Here it is. Let me give you these last two. Let me drop. I'm not going to push them perpetually. Uh. That is. I will praise the Lord at all times, and his praise shall continually be in my mouth. What do you mean, continually? You just said at all times. Doesn't that cover continually? No, it doesn't, because what he's saying, in essence, is in every situation now, it doesn't matter what the situation is. So, uh, if you're taking notes,

Psalm 3527. Psalm 40, verse 16. Psalm 44, verse eight, Psalm 71, verse eight, Psalm 71, verse 14, Psalm 145, one and two. Let me say it again. Psalm 35, verse 27, Psalm 40, verse 16, Psalm 44, verse eight, Psalm 71, verse eight, Psalm 71, verse 14, and Psalm 145, verse 12. Here's, here's all he's saying. He's saying, listen, if you look at those passages, you'll see every one of those psalms. It was a different enemy. It was

all kind of things coming after him. But in each psalm, what you'll see is I'm still going to praise the Lord. We just study Psalm 45 or 55 where enemy had been a friend had become an enemy. So a frenemy and and in verses one through 15, if you remember, he said, this is how I feel about it. Then he said, in 1516 through 24, this is what I'm going to do. In other words, I will not let my feelings control my actions because I start off with praise. Just try it the next time you feel tore up

from the floor up, just start praising him. Just lift your hands and say, I don't like what's going on, but I'm giving you thanks in everything I'm giving thanks for. This is your will for me in Christ Jesus. I'll magnify you. I'll praise you, I glorify you. You're my rock, my sword, my shield, my will in the middle of the will. I mean, what you'll see is I'm telling you, praise will pull that schleprock cloud off of you. And it ought to be proclaimed. Uh, what do you mean,

it's verbal? It's verbal. Let me let me just just shorten this. I'm. I'm ready to go home to. I'm tired of listening to me. Just like you're tired of listening to me. It says you gotta say something. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. The word is tehila. It means to exalt God by singing to him. Listen, God is like a woman. He's voice activated. He want us to talk to him. He really does. Okay, okay. I can make this point real quick and then end,

and we can get out of here. You finish this for me. Let the redeemed of the Lord think so. Think so. Let the. Let the redeemed of the Lord act so. Let the redeemed of the Lord meditate. So. Yeah, yeah. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. In other words, it ought to be verbal. Do you know what the word Shabak means to address the Lord in a loud voice? See, I guarantee you, some of you are going to be very uncomfortable in heaven. Read through the book of revelation.

Just read four and five. Read. Read 15. There are five worship scenes in revelation. And guess what words you will find in every one of them. Loud shout. Imma be very comfortable in heaven. And there it is that that we we need to understand. Hebrews 1315. It says, even when you don't feel like it, you ought to sacrifice and say something to the Lord, because let me read it and and then Imma give you the illustration and close. I'm I'm done. Listen to what he says.

Hebrews 1315 by him that's Jesus Christ. Therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise. Now earlier he told us the only way we can get into the presence of God is through Jesus Christ. Then he says by him, therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is what is the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips. We don't bring a lamb. We don't bring a dove. We don't bring a goat. What do

we bring? The fruit of our lips? What should be coming out of our lips, giving thanks to his name. So he's saying, count your blessings. Name them one by one. And so what we ought to have is we ought to have a time, uh, in the service. Don't have to be long. It could be 30s. Now I'm going to give you 30s to stand on your feet and count your blessings. I want you to just out loud everybody. It sounds like the day of Pentecost, but thank God for the things that he's done for you. So I

thank you for healing my wife. I thank you for bringing my sons back to you. I thank you that my daughter is becoming an evangelist. I thank you, I got food on my table, clothes on my back, that's all. That's all. We did it today. You can sit down. Yeah. That's it. Yeah, yeah. That's it. And so we ought to have a time where we're doing that. That's what we ought to have. A time where, where if we if we don't do anything, we're biblical in that we

say God wants us to give him thanks. And so we come in at at least 30s where we have an opportunity just to thank God for everything he did from Sunday to Sunday. Now we won't have time to do it all but 30s of just saying thank you. Praise your name, bless your name. Now let me close. You've been so gracious. I know you feel like I've been fussing. I ain't been fussing. I'm telling you what the Bible say. Tell me one thing I said wasn't in that Bible. Because I know. Because I know. Some

of you are saying. But wait a minute. The Bible also says, be still and know that I am God. Huh? What you going to do with that? Huh? That's what I'm doing. I'm being still. And so I'm being biblical too. So I don't know what you talking about. I'm being still. And Ecclesiastes says there is a time for that. Yeah, yeah. He says there's a time when we ought to be weeping. Yeah. There's a time when we ought to be rejoicing. Yes, sir.

There's a time when we ought to be silent. And there's a time that we ought to tear the roof off of this place, giving God glory for what he has done. Now I'm getting ready to take my seat. But let me tell you this. I was watching the game. Uh, it was about two weeks ago or three weeks ago. I don't remember which one, uh, but. And I can't remember his name. You might remember he got fired because he went into the end zone, made a touchdown, and

the touchdown was fantastic. Even the announcer said he broke a tackle. Wait a minute. Let's replay that. Look at that one tackle. He broke two. Tackle. He broke three tackles. He broke four. Some of the ladies are saying, what is he talking about. Football. And four. He broke four tackles to get into the end zone. And then he celebrated. He threw the ball up and they threw the flag on him the yellow flag. And they fined him $25,000 because in the NFL now you are not allowed to

have excessive celebration. So did he know that? Yes, but let me tell you what he said. I broke four tackles to get across that touchdown line. I'm going to celebrate. I don't care who like it or how much it cost me. See, when I come into the house of the Lord. I done fought too hard to get here. I've been fighting the devil, the world and the flesh all week. And when I cross over that finish line, I don't care who like it. I'm going to go

into excessive celebration. Because I know if it were not for the Lord on my side, where would I be? If it wasn't for Jesus? I wouldn't have peace. If it wasn't for Jesus, I wouldn't have joy. If it wasn't for Jesus, I wouldn't have mercy. And so I crossed the line. So give me my sign. Because I'm about to rejoice in him.

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