Persistence In Praise Series

Captain Eddy Richenbacker was in an airplane crash in Atlanta

and was rushed to the hospital. He was going in and out of

consciousness. It was thought that he would not survive. The most

famous radio commentator in the U.S. then was the late Walter

Winchell. He said in his broadcast, "Friends, pray for Eddy

Richenbacker. He is dying in an Atlanta hospital. He is not expected

to live out the night." Richenbacker was listening to that broadcast,

and when he heard this he took a jug of water and threw it at the

radio knocking it across the room. He said, "I'm not going to die.

I'm not going to give up." Here was a man wh survived many trials

because he never gave up. When he received the Horatio Alger

Award, which was given to outstanding American men who fought

their way from poverty to success, he said, "My mother, a very poor

woman in Columbus, Ohio, taught her kids to pray, read the Bible, to

follow Jesus Christ and never to give up."

In the literature of success the theme you will confront most often

is the theme of persistence. The athlete who didn't have a chance, but

who by perseverance and persistence became the best. The Bible is

loaded with this theme as well, and one I never saw before is the

persistence of Lot. Two angels came to Sodom, and Lot seeing they

were strangers invited them to come to his house and spend the night.

Their response to his hospitality was very definite. We read in Gen.

19:2, "No, they answered, we will spend the night in the square." Lot

did not know he was arguing with angels or he might have weakened,

but he did not take no for an answer. Verse 3 says, "But he insisted so

strongly that they did go with him and entered his house." His

persistence in showing hospitality led to his being saved from the

destruction of the city. We could go on and on with illustrations of

how persistence is the key factor in every form of success.

Never give up, for the wisest is boldest,

Knowing that Providence mingles the cup;

And of all maxims, the best, as the oldest,

Is the stern watchward of 'Never give up!'

Holmes

This morning we want to pursue this theme as it applies to our duty

as priests in offering to God the sacrifice of praise. One of the

primary dangers with every new idea is the danger of faddishness.

We jump on the current bandwagon of what is hot, and ride that until

we tire of it, and then hop on the next fad express that tingles our

fancy. It is a part of our culture, and Christians are as guilty of it as

anyone else. The church is constantly following fads and promoting

some theme as the greatest idea since sliced bread, and then a few

months after it is passe and nobody even remembers what it was, for

we have moved on to a whole new world of posters, flyers, and

promotional gimmick for a new idea.

There is a risk that we will treat praise like this and go through a

phase of praise thinking, and then move on to something else and leave

praise behind. It is my prayer that we will not treat praise as a fad,

but recognize that the Scripture demands that it become a perpetual

part of our lives. We are to never give up, but be persistent in praise

all of our days, and then on into eternity. To promote this kind of

persistence we want to focus our attention on the word in our

text-continually. "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer

to God a sacrifice of praise." The Greek word is diapantos, which is

used 7 other times in the New Testament. It is used in the very last

verse of Luke: "And they stayed continually at the temple, praising

God."

We know the Apostles did not live 24 hours a day at the temple

praising God. The point is, it was their regular pattern of life. They

did not just stop in on the day of atonement to praise God. They did it

persistently, and so for us also, praise is not to be a periodic function

of the priesthood of all believers. It is to be the regular and perpetual

duty we are to never forsake. In Heb. 9:6 the word is used again to

describe the duties of the Old Testament priesthood. "When

everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly

into the outer room to carry on their ministry." The word regularly is

the same word as continually. Just as the Old Testament priests had a

ministry that did not cease, so the New Testament priesthood has such