"Are You Ashamed To Praise God?” / "Why Are You Here

PRAISE!! Praise is a verb that shows action for or to something or someone. Praise can come in many forms. A handshake is a way of praise for showing approval, a simple gesture is a form of praise for showing that you in agreement with or are giving accolades. The waving of a hand or screaming to the top of your voice at a football or baseball game when someone scores a touch down to makes a run is another way of showing praise.

What is praise? According to the Layman’s Bible Encyclopedia, praise is honor rendered for worth; approval; laudation; joyful tribute or homage rendered to God.

The original Hebrew words for praise are halal and yadah. Halal means to show, to boast, or to celebrate and to glory in. It is the source of Hallelujah, which is a Hebrew expression of praise, which is found more than 160 times in the Old Testament.

Yadah, which means to give thanks and praise. It is a verb that is important to the language of worship and it’s found 120 times in the Old Testament.

Development

Looking at the two scriptures I see several points but I just want to briefly touch on two. I promise not to be long on this beautiful and glorious day.

Point Number One: Praise Comes with A Cost

In Psalm 149:3 it says “Let them praise His name with dancing and make music to Him with tambourine and harp.” I know some of you here in your minds are saying, How is it that Sister Jackson is always shouting. I see that Reverend Joe Blow has his dance on. I sure wish I could dance and shout like that.

The question I would like to pose to you is this, “Are you willing to pay the price?” “Are you willing to go through the hell, the pain and suffering day in and day out for that scream, dance or shout?” I dare you to ask yourself are you willing to go through the pain of sickness or having the doctors tell you that you only have 6 months to live.

Are you willing to go through harsh criticism? Are you willing to be ridiculed by those who you think are in your corner? Are you willing to suffer the loss of a loved one? Are you willing to deal with deep disappointments? Are you willing to go through severe loneliness? Are You Willing?

As the exercise trainers use to say, “No pain, no gain.”

Well we’re saved to the bone and have a hallow over our heads 24-7 and have a cross hanging around our neck big enough to kill a vampire 2 miles away and we still have trials and tribulations one right after another.

If God truly loves us and really cares for us, then He should not let terrible things happen to us. Now it would seem that God should do this for us.

Why does God let them happen? Why do the trials, tribulations, and temptations of life fall upon us, especially with such heaviness and sorrow?

My brothers and my sisters, God does truly love us because he sent his only begotten Son, which is Jesus Christ who came to die for our sins. But the fact of the matter is, is that the trials and tribulations that are going on in your life are there to test your faith and make you stronger.

God uses the fire of trials and temptations for a good purpose. He uses them to make us clean and pure and to make us trust Him more and more.

The believer’s faith must be tried. The word “tried” Greek word

 (do- kee-me- ion) dok-im’-ee-on; neuter of a presumed derivative of Greek (dokime); means to prove; to test; to strengthen; to show that your faith is genuine.

Preacher what are you talking about? When we are faced with trials or temptations, we draw nearer to God. We cry out to God more than when things go well.

We even tend to clean up our lives in order to secure His help as we go through the trials. We just live more pure, clean, and righteous lives.

In fact, the greater the trial and temptation, the more we see that we need God. And the more we see our need for God, the closer we usually draw to Him; and the closer we draw to Him, the cleaner we live. The fire of trials causes us to live more pure and clean lives and to learn to trust God more and more. (Give the example of how fire purifies gold.)

Point Number Two: Praise Him While You Have A Chance

In Psalm 150:6, it says, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”