As we continue this series on Praise, last week we talked about, that there is victory in your praise, and this week we want to talk about, “After our Prayer comes our Praise”.
When we search the books of the Psalmist we will notice that there are many prayers and many of those prayers include a time of praise, admiration, commendation, and acclamation, which is nothing but some big word for Praise. In these Psalms, you will see the communication, the association, and the connection, the joining, the linkage and the assembly between prayer and praise. No matter if it was David experiencing a mountaintop experience or rather he was singing the blues in a dark, gloomy and in a misfortune.
In fact, in this particular Psalm, Psalm 63, we so happens to find David in the infertile, unfertile, unproductive, unfruitful, fruitless Desert of Judah. Here in this desert David were dealing with some stuff, David had some problems. He was lonely, isolated, in solitary, as thou he was introverted. David felt like he was at the end of the rope He was not hanging out with any of his friends, he was not in the house of worship. He was not observing the praise and prayer team. Davis was seriously dealing with some thoughtful, severe, harsh things that made him have to talk to the master. He had some stuff that he knew only God could handle, so David had to pray about as he was encircled by his adversaries. What I love about David is that, David didn’t stop at praying, but David went another step farther. After David prayed about it, he then began to praise God. That’s really enough to stop right there.
There are some important reasons why we ought to travel from prayer to praise. There are some reasons that we ought to step into the next dimension of God. For one, you will understand and know that praise doesn’t exclusively or solely happen at church. It not just when the choir or the praise team is up. It’s not just when the mime dancers are dancing.
We have to know that Praising God is beyond these walls, praising God is beyond a worship leader asking you to raise your hands, and stand on your feet, how do you know pastor, I know because we can see that from this scripture here. David, shares with us all of the ingredients needed to move to the next dimension after we pray. Because when David looks back in retrospect and He remembers how he was praising the Lord in the sanctuary, and then he also remembered that it was a part of his daily life as he walked with God, and as he dealt with his daily circumstances.
Here’s a nugget, and that is when we move from our prayer hour to our praise segment we are saying that we are no longer focusing on the problems that are before us instead but we focused on the answers and the solutions. As we pour out the problem to the Lord as David did in this Psalm, there should be a time when we have prayed about the problem long enough. the old saints used to say that I’m praying my way through it.
When we begin to praise the Lord and thank Him for the answer, it is a good indication that we have quit rehashing and know that it is “settled.” There comes a time when we need to move from prayer to praise. Today I want to give you a few practical reasons why I feel that scripture urges us to do this.
The Word of God instills in us to praise the Lord, why Pastor for this is the will of God. 1st Thess. 5:17, 18 says, “Pray without ceasing, in everything GIVE THANKS for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” There is a tight link between prayer and praise here. It is an inseparable part of prayer.
So let’s look at how David breaks this thang down. In verse one he says; 1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, and my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
David is expressing just how desperately he longed for the Lord. He says, “Thou art my God emphasizes David’s personal relationship with the Lord and is the heartbeat of God’s covenant with His people. Because He so passionately loves us, God offers us a way to be reconciled to Him.
David described his intense spiritual need in terms of his physical surroundings. Having fled for his life from Jerusalem, he is stranded in the Judean wilderness or desert, a dry and thirsty land where there was no water. His dust-dried mouth was a symbol of his parched soul: just as his tongue craved a refreshing drink from a cool stream, his soul desperately thirsted for living water God’s presence and fellowship.
In verse 2 he says “To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary”. David recalled how his soul was thrilled when he went into the sanctuary, the holy tabernacle where God’s grandeur was so splendidly displayed. Time and time again, he had witnessed God’s power and glory when God’s people focused on Him in worship. And David longed to enter God’s courts once again, to bask in the radiant glory of God’s holy presence!
Verse 3 say’s “Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. As he envisioned the delight of being in the Lord’s company, David considered one of the strongest reasons for worshipping God: and it was because of His lovingkindness toward us.
So he says in verse 4 Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name. Verse 5 says, and My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: David was saying that God satisfied the cravings of his spirit the way a large meal would fill him physically, until he wanted nothing further. It was like saying bread of heaven feed me til I want no more.
He goes on to say in verse 6, and 7 “When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. We must understand that sleep did not come easy for David while he was hiding from his rebellious son in the desert. But as he lay awake on his bed, he remembered or thought about God. During the night watches, the troubled king meditated on God.
Understand that “the Jews had three night watches, from sunset to ten o’clock, from ten to two o’clock, and from two to sunrise.” All throughout the night, whenever David was awake, his restless soul was soothed by dwelling on two great truths about God (v. 7). First, he remembered that, the Lord was his helper. As David looked back over his life, he saw that God had sustained and assisted him in every crisis. Secondly he knew that the Lord was his protector. He kept David under His wings, the way a mother bird draws her young to her bosom and covers them with her wings.
Davis said in verse 8 that “My soul followeth hard after thee: and thy right hand upholdeth me. 9 But those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth. 10 They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.11 But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that sweareth by him shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.
So, I stopped by to tell somebody this morning that since you’ve prayed about it and left it in the hands of the Lord now it’s time to praise God.
