Magnificent Praise
Sermon by CH(CPT) Keith J. Andrews
All scripture marked ESV: The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
During my last deployment, my family was in South Carolina. On my mid-tour or EML leave, I went through Atlanta to Greenville Spartanburg Airport, saw my family, and two weeks later was headed back.
As hard as this was, I got into the car with my Dad and went to the airport. When I arrived, I grabbed my bag to go inside. An older man stopped me and said; “Thank you for serving”.
When I got on the plane getting ready to take off, the Pilot came over the loud speaker and said; “I noticed that we have some Soldiers on this flight and would like to take a moment to thank you for your service.”
Later that day, after spending the day at the USO, all of us going back to Kuwait lined up to get back on the plane. As we crossed the lobby area the people in this area all began to clap and cheer. It meant the world to me.
Praise. We know what it feels like to receive praise. All of those people where praising me for doing my job. This, in some way, blows me a way, because the praise was for just doing what I do everyday.
If we are praised like this for what we do, how much more should the Heavenly Father be praised for who he is.
He is the creator of heaven and Earth.
He is the Master of all that is Good.
He is the wealth of knowledge over all things.
He is the all-knowing, all seeing, and all powerful God.
We should be a people that praise God. We love to hear the praises of men, how much more does God long to hear our praises?
Psalm 34:1-3 reads:
1 I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad.
3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together! (Ps 34:1-3, ESV)
This Psalm teaches us that praise should not be a simple, show up for church sing a couple hymns type of praise. This psalm shows us that praise should be an integral part of everyone’s life.
The psalm shows us how to make praise a part of our lives in three ways.
Praise needs to be a part of our lives
1. Continually
Verse one says;
I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth. (Ps 34:1, ESV).
The writer of Hebrews echoes this statement in Hebrews 13:15, when he says;
15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. (Heb 13:15, ESV)
This is one of those mysteries of the Bible. How do you praise God continually?
The key to this is acknowledge in both passages. It is a state of mind that you are continually placing in your mouth praise to God. Hebrews says “the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name”.
Jesus frequently used the illustration of fruit, when he was discussing the Christian life. He uses this illustration at different times through each of the four gospels. The principles apply here.
In Matthew 7:17-20, Jesus says;
17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. (Mt 7:15-20, ESV)
In John 15:4, Jesus teaches us how to produce good fruit.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. (Jn 15:4, ESV)
The point is this, if we are abiding in Christ the fruit of our lips will acknowledge his name.
When we are abiding in Christ, completely connecting to the source of life—that is Jesus Christ, we will not be able to keep silent. We will continually praise God.
Ephesians 4:29 says,
29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Eph 4:29, ESV)
Why is it so important that we keep our language clean? Not necessarily so others won’t be offended—but that we will not be praising God. “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit!” You can not speak curses and praise out of the same mouth.
If we are to praise God continually, we must first make the habit of placing His praise in our mouths.
Praise needs to be a part of our lives continually, and Praise needs to be a part of our lives
2. Confidently
Psalm 34:2 says
2 My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad. (Ps 34:2, ESV)
We are to boast in the Lord. When we praise God, we are to know that He is worthy of all of our praise. And as you are praising continually,
1 Peter 1:4 says,
16…let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. (1 Pe 4:16, ESV)
We are to place all of our arrogance, all of our pride, all of our self promoting bravado at the foot of the cross and give God the glory for all that we are—we are to boast in the Lord.
Over the past several years, I have been increasingly convicted of the need to document my sources in my work. Some of my conviction is from learning the importance of using the proper format for my papers in Seminary. Some of that conviction is from a desire to do the right and legal thing. Some of it is a true desire to give credit to the deserving person who provided me with the guidance that stoked the fire of thought in my brain.
In this digital age it is easy to swipe somebody else’s work and place you name on it. With just a simple, cut and paste, and word change here or there, a person can completely plagiarize anybody’s work.
I decided over the last several years, to place a notation on everything I produce that comes from someone else. Whether it is a sermon—where I add annotations throughout, whether it is a PowerPoint presentation—where I add a footnote, or whether it is a blog entry—where I place a link to the site I got the information, I want to give credit where credit is due.
The same is true for giving credit to our heavenly Father. He alone deserves our praise for who he is, for what he has done, for what we are allowed to achieve through His grace.
We not only should give credit, but we should literally boast in the Lord. We should place our confidence in the maker, mover, and molder of all things. Things don’t happen by accident, it is not some ambiguous fate that you should be here in Iraq for 15 months—it is by the guiding hand of God—who places us where he needs us to fulfill His glorious plan for our lives.
We are to be confident in our praise, knowing that we are praising the all powerful and knowing God and giving him the credit for all that we are, and for all that He is.
And when we praise Him, continually and confidently, the Bible also teach us to praise Him;
3. Collectively
Psalm 34: says;
3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together! (Ps 34:3, ESV).
While worship is not a spectator sport, praise is not an individual sport. Many times people, for whatever reason justify to me that they don’t have to attend Church to be a Christian—but we are not talking about going to heaven. We are talking about Honoring God and praising Him. We are to do this collectively.
This is basically the difference between going to a baseball game and watching one on TV.
I enjoy watching a ballgame on TV, once and awhile, but going to a ballgame in person is a completely different experience.
It is in person that you are able to hear the others cheering. It is in person that the players can hear you. It is in person that your cheers can mean something—at home you are just yelling at a metal box.
Now, of course, God hears us when we pray and praise him while we are alone—but Christianity was not meant to be an individual pursuit.
Throughout the Bible, God assembles His worshipers together.
The most obvious is the people of Israel, who He makes a covenant with Abraham to be there God.
The second is the church, whom the Bible calls the “Bride of Christ”. (see Eph 5:22–33 and Rev. 19:7-9).
There are many other incidences of groups gathering together to worship God. Some of these groups followed Christ when he was on the earth, some of them gather shortly after Christ ascended into heaven, and in Revelation 19:1,;
After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude (the King James Versions translates this specifically as “people”) in heaven, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, (Re 19:1,ESV)
Gathering with other believers is Biblical and right.
We should make worshiping with other believers a part of our worship.
It is not enough to simply praise God on our own. We must take the example of Psalm 34 and turn to our right and left and say:
3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together! (Ps 34:3, ESV)
In your quiet hour of prayer, before the day begins or when the sun is going down. Are going to remember how we are to praise the Lord?
Psalm 34:1-3 teaches us that we should praise him
1. Continually—all of the time, with each word we utter, His praise should be continually in our mouths.
2. Confidently—we are to boast in Him, and place our confidence in Him.
3. Collectively—we are to gather with others to praise our God.
This morning, you maybe wonder what the fuss is about. You came here for a word of hope in the particular storm that you are going through and all you hear is a message about praise and how we should praise our God.
This morning, I want you to leave here with a word of hope that Jesus Christ is worth praising because of what he has already done for you.
All of us are sinners. We have all done things and said things and even thought things that make God unhappy—the Bible calls this sin.
And the Bible says
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ro 6:23, ESV)
He is the free gift because, Jesus died on a cross in your place and in my place to pay the penalty ourselves. All we must do is accept this payment, from Him.
Does he make all the problems go away? No, but he will give you the guidance and the confidence to face the each day know that you are in His hand.
I invite you to come to know Him today. After the service, I will be able to talk with you more about it if you wish to make Jesus the Lord of Your Life.
Let Us Pray.
