God inhabits the praise of his people.
“Lord what can I do?”
Have you ever said that?
Have you ever cried out to God in that way?
I have said that on numerous occasions in my life… as I am sure most of us have…
if not word for word… still we have made a similar statement…
In my personal prayer time and Bible study this week I even saw where King David cried out to God…
David… the most beloved King of the Nation of Israel… even to this day…
David… the man who wanted to please God
David… the Man we know as a man after Gods Own Heart…
David cried out to God and said “My God My God why have you forsaken me”…
Then He continued on…
Psalm 22:1–2 (NIV84)
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.
David tells us that he cried out to God… he called out to God… Day and Night he called on God… Seeking… Longing… Looking for the answers…
Have you ever been there?
Has there been a time in your life where you have called out to God…. Cried out to God seeking answers…
Seeking HELP…..
…..David said… basically….
…. Lord… what can I do?
… I actually found myself repeating that phrase a couple of times one day this week… due to different situations going on around me…
“Lord what can I do”
“Lord what can I do”
I even wrote it in my prayer journal this week… because the question kept coming up, coming to mind, and flowing from my lips…
Lord what can I do…
And my friends… I got an answer…
I wrote the answer down as well….
And I kept getting an answer from God…
But I will be honest with you this morning..
The answer I kept getting… caught me off Guard…
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Take your Bibles this morning if you would…. And turn to the 22 psalm…
And I am going to read part of it now and touch on a little more in a minute…
Psalm 22 (NIV84)
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent. 3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. 4 In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. 5 They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.
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When I asked the question this week… just as I have asked before… just as most of you have asked in one way or another…
The answer I kept getting when I asked “Lord what can I do”…
Is…. Praise the Lord…
Lord what can I do?
Praise the Lord…
…. But…Where does that come from?
How can that be the answer?
What is praise all about…
The passage we just read gives us a glimpse into some difficult time in King David’s life…
And in this passage… he tells us how he feels… and when he gives us the illustrations here of how he feels… we can relate…
David said starting in verse 12.. 12 Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. 13 Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me. 14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me…. 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. 16 Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. 18 They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.
David is illustrating to us this list of troubles… and as I read it I feel he is almost at the point of giving in and giving up…
I feel like he comes to the point where he says “Lord what can I do”
… and 5 times in this psalm… David mentions praise… praising God… praising the Lord…
…. But… realistically… How can that be the answer…
…. There are of course… many Biblical examples of Praise…
The word praise is used more than 470 times in the Bible… and most of the time it is referring to Praising God…
Psalm 150 tells us different ways how to praise God… and some reasons to praise Him…
Psalm 150 (NIV84)
1 Praise the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. 2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. 3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, 4 praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, 5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. 6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.
All these different ways mentioned… and of course there are many many more…
… and remember how when Nehemiah was rebuilding and then dedicating the walls of Jerusalem, he assigned two choirs to be part of the work… and part of the dedication… as he set them up specifically to thank and praise God…
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… I have always loved 2 Chronicles 20:21-22 where scripture says…
2 Chronicles 20:21–22 (NIV84)
21 After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: “Give thanks to the LORD, for his love endures forever.” 22 As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.
…As men were appointed to go IN FRONT OF the army… praising God… so that the praise of God came first…
…. The Lord defeated the enemy…
It’s as if Jehoshaphat were sitting there strategizing about this invading army coming to wipe Israel off the face of the map…
Sound familiar?
And as he is making his plans old Jehoshaphat looks up and says…
“Lord… what can I do”…
And God gives the answer…
Praise the Lord…
And when that Praise of God came first… the Victory was WON…
But…
Why?
Well my friends… if you will look at the original passage of scripture we started with this morning…
I want you to focus on verse 3… Psalm 22:3
Psalm 22:3 (NIV84)
3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.
I want to give you that in a couple of other translations… just so you understand what is being said…
The New American Standard says..
Psalm 22:3 (NASB95)
3 Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
The King James Version says…
Psalm 22:3 (KJV 1900)
3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
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… Have you ever heard the Phrase…
“God inhabits the praise of His people”?
That song brother ------ sang a few moments ago has been made famous by Russ Taff… and others…
My wife and I love that song…
She listens to praise music all night long as she sleeps…
she has specific praise songs picked out and they are on a little MP3 Player that she listens to all night long… over and over…
And that is one of the songs…
That song says…
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When you're up against a struggle, that shatters all your dreams
And your hopes have been cruelly crushed by Satan's manifested schemes
And you feel the urge within you to submit to earthly fear
Don't let the faith you're standing in seem to disappear
Praise the Lord, He will work through those who praise Him
Praise the Lord, for our God inhabits praise
Praise the Lord, for the chains that seem to bind you
Serve only to remind you, that they drop powerless behind you
When you praise Him
…Now, Satan is a liar and he wants to make us think…That we are paupers, when he knows himself we're children of the King
So lift up the mighty shield of faith for the battle must be won
We know that Jesus Christ has risen and the work's already done
And then the chorus again… PRAISE THE LORD
What a powerful message… in a beautiful song
But one of the things we always have to be careful of when we like a song…Is to see if it is actually true…
Is it Biblical?
…well.. our focal verse tells us that God dwells… or inhabits… or is ENTHRONED on the praise of His people…
… and there are scriptural examples of that…
if you remember reading the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho… there really was no battle was there…
Scripture tells us in Joshua chapter 6 that
the walls of Jericho came tumbling down… not because of some great military undertaking…
but because the Ark of the Covenant was being carried around the walls of Jericho…
while the priests went before the nation of Israel blowing… not just any old trumpets… but they were blowing the jubilee trumpets…
The Jubilee trumpets were specifically used to announce the presence of God…
And of course the Ark of the Covenant was where the presence of God dwelt with the nation of Israel…
And when the presence of God dwelt with the nation of Israel as they praised God and announced His presence… THE BATTLE WAS WON… without a fight…
…Listen…. As believers… God is always with us… the spirit of God resides within our bodies… which is the temple of God…
…My friends… when we Praise God… we announce that presence of God to ourselves… and to the world around us…
…. But still there is doubt by some…
What does that actually DO…
Well my friends… it places God where He should be…
it places Him FIRST in our lives…like we touched on last week
You see… you cannot look at pornography on the internet while you are praising God… because God is first… and God wins that battle…
You cannot cheat someone in a business dealing while you are praising God because God is first… and God wins the battle
You cannot cuss out your neighbor or landlord because of some issue or disagreement you are having while you are praising God… because you are announcing the presence of God in your life… God is first… and God wins the battle over your temper and over your attitude…
You cannot get drunk with your friends while praising God because God is first in your life and the Word of God says do not get drunk…
…. Now… your friends may make fun of you…. But I promise you… they also see what God is doing in your life…
You cannot be having an affair outside of marriage while you are praising God… because that is contrary to God’s word… and when God is first in our lives… we will not disobey…
you cannot miss church because you want to go to a ballgame or even watch one on TV while you are praising God… because when we praise God.. God is first in our lives and scripture tells us to not forsake assembling together in worship as some have done…
….you see… you cannot willfully sin while praising God… because as we praise God.. He is enthroned or dwelling in that praise..
God is first in our lives… and we are announcing that God is first in our lives to all those around us as we praise Him…
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But again… realistically… how about when we are trying our best to put God first… and it seems like there is still trouble… how can it actually help us?
What does God inhabiting or dwelling in or being enthroned upon our praise really mean?
… if you will remember… in our study of Genesis… Adam and Eve had a special relationship with God before the fall…
They walked with God in paradise… and had an intimate close personal relationship with Him…
… The Bible also says that Enoch walked with God… and he never died… he was taken up to be with the Lord…
The Bible says that Noah walked with God… He also had that special relationship with God…
And my friends… when God is first in our lives… when we praise Him… when we announce His presence to ourselves and the world around us… we have a closeness… an intimate relationship…. That we cannot have when we are in opposition to the will of God..
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But back to the beginning of the message…
Lord what can I do… “Praise the Lord”…
How is that the answer…
Well my friends… when we get that report from the doctor… and we are not happy with what we hear…
Yet we specifically seek to Praise the Lord… we announce to ourselves and to the World that His presence is with us… and we grow in our faith and knowledge of the fact that Scripture says Christ is the Great Physician… and He CAN heal us in this lifetime…
But as a believer… we WILL BE HEALED ultimately… no matter what…
…You know… we tell those who are going through difficult times that we will pray for them…
But the Bible tells us that when we pray we must pray believing that God will answer…
Jesus said in Mark 11:24 that whatever we ask for in prayer we are to BELIEVE that we have received it…
Now listen… I’m not talking about the name it and claim it you hear so much about… like Creflo Dollar saying you can have a Rolls Royce just like him… just name it and claim it… Scripture tells us that we have to pray in accordance with God’s will to begin with…
But so often when we pray… we treat prayer like a phone call…
We pick up the phone… and we dial the number to God…. Hoping that the line is not busy… and then we wait to see if God answers the phone….. when He does… we say “Lord… I want to pray for ole Jimmy Johnson… you know He is in Bad shape”… and then we hang up the phone… and we say to ourselves… boy… Jimmy is a goner…
My friends… our God is able…
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….. when we see that our portfolio has plummeted… our finances are broken… we don’t know where we are going to turn…
Yet we specifically seek to Praise the Lord… we continue to grow in our understanding that HE OWNS IT ALL… and He has promised to care for our EVERY NEED
Psalm 37:25 says…
Psalm 37:25 (NIV84)
25 I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.
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How about… when we feel all alone… and we cry out… “Lord what can I do”
We can praise Him… and remember that He has said He will NEVER LEAVE US OR FORSAKE US
…. We praise Him… and as we praise Him we focus on Him… and as we focus on Him He is first in our lives…. And as He is first in our lives… He will do the work in us…
And understand my friends… that as we praise God… as we proclaim and announce the presence of God to ourselves and the world around us…
Old satan cannot stay…
as we praise God… satan must flee…
Just as that song says…
Now, Satan is a liar and he wants to make us think…That we are paupers, when he knows himself we're children of the King
Praise the Lord, He will work through those who praise Him…Praise the Lord, for our God inhabits praise…Praise the Lord, for the chains that seem to bind us…Serve only to remind us, that they drop powerless behind us When we praise Him
….. Lord… what can I do… Praise The Lord…
Psalm 22:3 (NIV84)
3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.
Wont you praise Him today?
