Living to Praise
Psalm 103
Essential 100 Series
May 4, 2008
Evening Service
Introduction
In his book ’The One-Minute Manager’, Kenneth Blanchard recommends developing the practice of "one-minute praisings," where the manager (or parent, spouse, etc.) tries to "catch someone doing something right" and then spend a full sixty seconds praising that person for the good deed. This is a lot more difficult than it appears. Where we might not find it difficult to criticize someone for even sixty minutes, many times we find it almost impossible to praise someone sincerely for a full minute.
Many people might find it difficult to praise God for a full minute.
Benefits of Praise
1.) Praise allows us to experience God’s presence
2.) Praise allows us to experience God’s peace
3.) Praise allows us to experience God’s power
4.) Praise allows us to experience God’s provision
5.) Praise allows us to experience God’s person
Hebrew Words for praise
A. Shâbach-to address in a loud tone (expound)
B. Bârak-to bless God (expound)
C. Yâdâh-to reverence or worship with extended hands (expound)
D. Tôwdâh-an expression of thanks, praise, confession (expound)
E. Tehillâh-to extol highly
We become overwhelmed by life
The fact is that life will control us if we allow it to. Life tends to move like a river and we far too often just go with the flow. We allow the situations and circumstances of life to control us. When we allow this to happen we lose much more than stability or security in life; we lose a part of ourselves.
Life can get overwhelming
There is not a person in this sanctuary that has not seen some type of difficulty in life. The problem becomes when we become so focused on our problems that we lose focus on our creator. We are all guilty of allowing our feelings of hurt, disappointment, fear, frustration or even anger to drive us through life. There are many who feel like they have been cheated by life, dealt a bad hand or blame God for their problems. When we flow into this mode of living we begin to think that there is nothing to be thankful for.
1 Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-- 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 6 The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
Preface of praise (1-2)
1. Total praise for God: The phrase “O my soul” means to praise God with your entire being. It means that every aspect of your life is focused on giving praise to God and nothing is held back.
2. Reminder for praise: The psalmist is calling us to focus on the fact of God’s mighty deeds as reason enough to praise God. No matter what our circumstances might be or what difficulties we might face that there is always a reason to give praise to God.
Benefits that God bestows (3-6)
1. Forgiveness of sin: God gives us proof of both His love and His mercy by His offering forgiveness to us. It is the forgiveness of God that allows us to have a relationship with Him. The mercy and grace of God is a free gift because He offers it with no expectations and no conditions. God’s grace can never be earned by anything we can do. If we could earn God’s grace it wouldn’t be a gift and it wouldn’t be grace.
2. Healing of diseases: God’s power is available for His people and one of the many ways that God shows His power is through divine healing. Is it so hard to believe that he who created us would not also be able to heal us as well?
3. Redemption from death: We all deserve to go to Hell, we deserve the pit of spiritual isolation from God but God’s desire is that none should perish. One definition of grace is being given what we need and not what we deserve. God wants every person to find redemption in Him.
4. Crowning with love and compassion: God extends to every believer His love and compassion because it is the fuel of His divine mercy. As a Christian we are to be filled with God’s divine love and compassion for others. We are meant to live out our lives as an example of God’s love.
5. Satisfaction of our desires: God has promised to supply our every need and He more than abundantly delivers. He supplies us richly out of His resources and provided us with good things. The fact is that God’s provision is powerful and all sufficient.
6. Awards of righteousness and justice: God gives us the ability to be righteous, to be made completely right in His sight. This is clearly something that we cannot do on our own. God also gives us real justice. This life is simply not fair and things may be unjust in our lives but God will measure out His justice in the end.
Why do most people fail to give thanks?
Five barriers to gratitude
1. Over abundance
Sadly, America is blessed and we fail to remember who gives the blessings. We take credit for blessings and feel that we have either earned them or somehow we deserve them. We cannot imagine life without the things we have become so accustomed to. We have been blessed with such an abundance that we have become spoiled.
Can you imagine having to walk to church? Can you imagine not having running water in your home? Can you imagine trying to live without electricity? Can you imagine having to live on only one meal every few days?
2. Lack of contentment
We have been blessed in so many ways that we no longer know what contentment looks like. Contentment simply means to be satisfied with what you have. We are constantly bombarded with message that we need more this or more of that. We have a culture that sells materialism and we buy into it.
3. Selfishness
We are too busy looking out for #1 to see the fact that the world needs us. In the midst of our amazing abundance, we fail to truly give. I believe that God has blessed the United States, so that, we can bless the world.
God told Abraham that He would be a blessing so that others would be blessed. This applies to us as well, we have been blessed by God to bless others.
4. Self Indulgence
We seldom ever give up something in our society. True sacrifice is a rare thing in our nation today. We are so busy indulging our desires and our wants that we forget where our blessings came from and how truly blessed we are. We indulge ourselves and think nothing of it. We are surrounded with the message
5. Lack of perspective
We live in a world where the wealth division is becoming greater and greater. One of the things that we discussed this past week at my meeting with the General Superintendents was the fact that we are serving in a dying world. At one point a clip of people from around the world was played. All that was seen was face after face and the voice over said if all the lost people were photographed and displayed at this rate it would take 35 years to see them all. The pictures were slowed a bit and the voice over said these are the people who will die before hearing the gospel.
Conclusion
Let’s take a few minutes to pray and offer praise to God for several areas
Our relationship with God
Praise God for His love
Praise God for the gift of Jesus
Praise God for the ministry of the Holy Spirit
Our personal Lives
Our church
Our family
Our work
Aspects of God’s divine nature
• Love
• Grace
• Mercy
• Eternal
Works that God has done
• Creation
• Separating His people from the world
• Salvation
• Sanctification
