Praise The Lord

Praise the Lord!

July 7, 2012

Text: Psalm 147: 1-6

1 Praise the LORD. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him! 2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel. 3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. 4 He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. 5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit. 6 The LORD sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.

This morning all around the world, Christians have gathered together to worship the One True God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…the God that King David wrote so many of these Psalms about…the Lord, the One who sustains, who strengthens, the One who saves. Is that who you came to worship today?

All around the world Christians have made their way to meet together, with one purpose, with one goal, with one heart…with one spirit…the very Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit who unites us together when we come together to worship in spirit and in truth. Have you come this morning to worship in Spirit and in Truth?

All around the world, Christians have come together to Worship the Creator of the universe, some have made their way to homes in hiding, some to shade trees and lean to’s, and a few like us who have the privilege to come together in freedom, and in the open, and in an air conditioned building, where we can have church in the front of the building, or even in the back….aren’t we a blessed people this morning?

Friends, we are not going to focus on the minor problems that we face, we are going to focus on Praising God because of Who He Is, Because of His Great Love for Us….it might be easy for us to complain and say, how come this has happened to us again????? Why not us? What does God want to teach us as we go through some of these things? I want to challenge you to look for ways to grow your faith through the inconveniences of your life…God how can I learn from this… instead of the childish, why me?

I say, Let’s Praise God this morning…will you praise Him with me today?

Let’s look at the first verse in chapter 147 and see what we can learn together…

1 Praise the LORD. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him!

The Amplified Bible says it this way…1 Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God, for He is gracious and lovely; praise is becoming and appropriate.

1. We were Created to Praise God with all that is Within Us! v. 1

There is no doubt in my mind that God created us with this awesome capacity to worship Him, to Praise Him, to honor Him. It’s in our DNA, it’s wrapped up in who we are as humans to get excited and praise God and Worship Him. When God created Adam and Eve, they had this perfect, sinless relationship that was centered on worship of their God, their Creator. As we know, sin came and the fall has brought about a break in that perfect relationship, sin has in many ways moved our Praise away from God to other things, mostly to ourselves.

Have you ever been in a Stadium that was filled with 70,000 adrenaline filled, screaming, Razorback clad fans going crazy over their football team? It is wild. We were made to get excited and enthused, and to give Praise…the question is not are we going to praise in our lives, because I believe we all will and do…the question is who or what are we giving that Praise too?

Praise God when you get up in the Morning. Praise Him for giving you a good night sleep. Praise Him for keeping you alive through another night if you didn’t sleep that well.

Praise God on your way to work, Praise Him that you have a job. Praise Him that he has given you the health and the strength to help provide for your family. Praise God for the people that he has put into your life through your job so that you can influence them for Christ…Praise God that you can be a missionary and never leave the country, or even the state.

We were created to Praise God. I think we need to get beyond the idea of just praising God with the things that we do…even though that is part of it…we need to realize that we Praise God with who we are. WE Praise God with every choice that we make, because the choices that we make are what determine the people that we become. Who are you giving your Praise too? As Christians, when we are in intimate relationship with Him, it should be a no brainer who is going to receive our Praise. But friends, we all know it’s not automatic…it takes choice.