Joe Mueller: I want to start today in Luke 10, so if you find Luke 10 in your Bibles. We kind of just put topics for these workshop sessions in the notebook, not actual titles, I haven’t really come up with a really great title. I thought about just calling it Praise and Worship.

And that would be a good title. Biblical Praise and Worship, that might be even better. Kind of use that term for little different things sometimes.

All right. There are some seats still if people are brave enough to sit up near the front. There’s a few over here.

People want those.

When we first began to discuss the idea of having these workshops here during the Youth Summit, really we were just trying to think, okay, with this theme of total devotion to Jesus Christ, and certainly I hope you’ve caught that burden or sensed that burden over the course of yesterday and even this morning. And we wanted to think, what are some practical areas of our life that affect our relationship, that attitude of devotion that we have towards Christ? What are some practical things?

And so that’s where we’re dealing with prayer. We’re dealing with Bible study. We’re dealing with Bible application.

And, of course, that purity journey is a part of that. And the Lord put on my heart to look at the topic of praise and realize that’s very closely connected to our devotion to Jesus Christ. It’s something that’s really inseparable.

And so we’re going to take some time to look at that. But before we jump into that, as we’ve considered this theme, This is not what we’re going to look at really as far as a text for this time together. But here in Luke chapter 10, I cannot think of this subject of total devotion without thinking of these verses in Luke chapter 10.

At the very end, we find a story here. We’re not going to spend a lot of time on it, but I just want to put our eyes on it here. Verse number 38 says, Now it came to pass as they went that he, this is speaking of Jesus, entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.

and she had a sister called Mary which also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving and came to him and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me go.

So do you notice the scene? Do you understand the scene? So here Jesus is at Mary and Martha’s house and Martha is busy with all the details.

and some of you maybe are like that or you know people that’s how my mom would be she’s just busy people are there coming over she loves to host people and she’s busy with all the details we need a little more food here this is out of place just busy busy with all those details and this is where Martha was but Mary she should have been right alongside

but Mary was sitting listening to Jesus she was just sitting there You say, I want to hear what he has to say. And Martha comes to Jesus and says, Jesus, do you see what’s happening? Mary should be helping me here.

Can you just maybe give her a little reprimand about that? Hey, there’s details to take care of. And notice what Jesus says.

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. You’re concerned about a lot of things, but one thing is needful. and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.

When we think of the theme, total devotion, I just think of this text. I can’t help. Here’s Mary, and you know, there’s things, yep, there were things that needed to be done, that there was details, but there was only one thing in that moment that was really important, and that was sitting at the feet of Jesus, and Mary chose that.

That’s, to me, a beautiful picture of this idea of total devotion. Now, we’re taking and we want to take that theme of total devotion and look specifically here at praise. How does praise fit into this theme of total devotion, of having that relationship with the Lord?

Go to Revelation chapter 5. We’re going to look at several different passages here this morning. Praise really is a theme all throughout the Scriptures.

And it’s remarkable as I’ve been going over this hundreds of times, this matter is addressed, whether it’s through the word praise or worship or thanksgiving. But this idea of praise is all throughout the scriptures. But here in Revelation chapter 5, we come to what I really think of as one of the climax moments, not just of the book of Revelation, but of history itself.

Here we have in Revelation chapter 5, this is right after Jesus has raptured away his saints, and there’s this scene that John is seeing and saying that there’s this scroll, and no one’s worthy to open this scroll, and they were all weeping because no one could open. Whatever this was, there’s this scroll that had the events of the future wrapped up in it, and said no one can open this, and said no, no, there is one who is worthy.

and in verse number 5 it says and I beheld and low in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as it had been slain and it says in verse number 7 he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne and notice what happens now it says and when he had taken the book the four beasts

and four and twenty elders fell down before the lamb having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of saints and they sung a new song saying thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof for thou was slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood notice this out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation and has made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth.

I say this is a climax moment of history because here we finally see the reality, what’s on the heart of God, what’s the Great Commission all about, right? That every people from every tribe and every tongue and every nation would be there present in this moment around the throne and here it is happening and the climax moment here of history is a moment of praise. It’s a moment of praise.

Now read on. It says, Do you know how many that is? I don’t either, but it’s a lot.

Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. Notice it says here, And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as were in the sea, and all that are in them heard I saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb forever and ever.

and the four beasts said amen and the four and twenty elders fell down and worshiped him that liveth forever and ever my point is not to exegete all the details of this passage that’s not the point at all it’s simply to understand here where where is where is all of history going where is the whole story what what’s it moving towards can i tell you it is moving towards a moment of praise and not just a moment of praise, but an eternity of praise.

Now, do you think that that’s what all of eternity is about? Should it be a part of our life right now? Absolutely.

Absolutely. When we have that part of this scene there around the throne, we’re going to be living a life of total devotion, will we not? And what are we going to be doing?

Praising. praising. And so if we’re going to live a life of total devotion here in this life, our life has to be a life of heartfelt praise.

You can say it this way, a life of total devotion is a life of heartfelt praise. You know, we were created to worship. Infused into the very fabric of our being, every single one of us, is a desire to worship.

You look at all of, why is it you go all around the world and everywhere, whether you’re in the most distant, unreached tribe, right, or you’re in some city, but everywhere people are worshiping. Oh, they’re not all worshiping the true God of heaven, certainly not, but there is something in us that says, I’m supposed to be living a life of worship, of devotion to a God.

now we know who the true God is right we know who he is but can I ask you are you as dedicated to praise as some of those people are to their system of ritual well I look at some of those that think about Nepal I have a brother-in-law who’s a burden for that country and boy you think about that and there’s literally people there

that will daily literally walk just in circles reciting prayers part of their worship and it’s literally something every day they spend hours of time they’re turning these prayers why why are they doing all that stuff well of course they’re trying to attain salvation certainly will understand that but they’re they’re really saying listen i’m devoted to this god who is nothing more than a statue but they they realize this is this is i’ve got it just

because we all have that that desire to place ourselves in submission and devotion to some god now when we talk about praise here in a moment I’m going to define what we’re talking about that, but I want us to just think about this, first of all, that not everything that we call praise or worship is actually praise or worship. You see, unless praise comes from the heart, it is a mere formality.

I’m afraid that sometimes when we think of, when we say, well, we’ll talk about praise. Oh, that’s what we do in church on Sunday when we sing those hymns, you know, guy stands up and he’s waving his hand and we’re all holding the hymn book or looking at the screen and we’re trying to sing those things. Or we know those words so well, we’re just singing it like, you know, so-and-so here.

Can I tell you, not everything that we think of, well, that’s praise, right? Yeah, we’re praise, we’re worshiping God. Are you?

You see, we can go through the motions of praise without actually praising God at all. And what we’re talking about here is not just something you do on Sunday. We’re talking about a life that is permeated with praise.

Can I put it this way? If the only time that you praise is at church, then your praise at church probably isn’t really praise either. Because true praise comes from a heart of praise.

Now let’s go to Hebrews 13. This is where we’re going to spend the majority of our time here. Hebrews 13, one simple verse here.

But it provides so much for us in understanding what a life of praise is all about. Hebrews chapter 13 and verse number 15 says by him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is I’m defining, I’m helping you understand what I mean by what I said there that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. So first of all, let’s ask this question.

What is praise? What praise is? That’s my first point here.

Very complicated outline. We’re going to look at what praise is, what praise does, and what praise looks like. Wow, that’s a really sophisticated outline today.

That’s what we’re doing. Okay, well according to the Oxford Dictionary, praise is the expression of respect and gratitude as an act of worship. That’s helpful, isn’t it?

You say not really, brother. Okay. Here’s another definition.

Praise is to express enthusiastic approval or admiration of someone or something. It’s the idea of saying, listen, this is awesome. Whoa, I can’t believe this is true.

But I really like this about you. I really appreciate this. Well, that’s something that’s amazing to me.

Another word that’s closely related to praise is the word worship. And that word literally means to incline the face to the ground. We’ve all seen this, right?

You’ve all seen probably pictures or videos of perhaps a group in a mosque somewhere, and they’re all together going, right? Now they’re doing that to pray, but they’re in a position of worship. Our American mentality, if somebody says worship, you know what we all think of?

right I’ll tell you that’s the exact opposite of what worship actually is now my point here today is not to talk about contemporary worship that’s not at all, that’s not at all what’s on my heart I can tell you it’s the exact opposite of what true praise and true worship is it’s a position of submission of reverence of saying I’m devoted to you completely. That’s not just words that we say. It’s supposed to be the attitude of our heart.

And can I ask you here this morning, you’ve been hearing this preached last night, and again, a little more this morning, we heard it in the testimony. Is that the, do you have an attitude of saying, Lord, I am devoted to you. I am in a place of submission to you completely.

You cannot praise, you cannot worship, if you’re not in a place of submission to God. You can say the words, but it’s not real praise. It’s not real worship because real worship and praise comes from a position of reverence and submission.

Another word that’s very closely related is the word thanksgiving. That’s an expression of gratitude. Thank you so much.

Can I tell you some of the most moving prayers I have ever heard people pray? And there’s a lot of things to put, but there are some prayers. When someone just simply, from the depths of their heart, not complicated, not sophisticated, just says, thank you, Jesus.

You are so good. That does something in my heart. That’s where we need to live.

Genuine thanksgiving. Genuine gratitude towards God. we’re naturally complaining people.

We’re naturally people who, well, we can find reasons to be grumpy. Some of us easier than others. To be irritated.

And you know what? People who are living in that relationship with Jesus become people of gratitude. Gratitude.

That’s part of this life of praise. Thanksgiving isn’t just a holiday that we celebrate. It’s supposed to be a way of life.

Now, what are the qualities of praise that we see here in Hebrews chapter 13? There are quite a few. In this one verse, there is a lot we can learn about praise and what praise really is.

I want you to notice, first of all, that praise is dependent. Do you see that the verse starts off and says, By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise. by him.

Who’s this talking about? Well, it’s just laid out Jesus and how he was the sacrifice for us. He was the scapegoat.

He took, he bore our sins on himself. It’s through him, it’s by him what he’s done, who he is, that’s how we can offer the sacrifice of praise. Can I tell you, we can’t even praise God as we ought without Jesus.

This idea of total surrender, total dependence on him, you need that even to praise Jesus Christ as you will. When you go into church on Sunday morning, you know what we’re going to do? A song session, let me get in there.

When’s the last time you went into Sunday morning, and maybe whether you’re singing in the congregation, you’re singing in the choir, you’re singing a special number, you’re playing, and you say, God, I need you to be able to praise you like I should right now. As you spend that time alone with God, and if you follow the hour with God pattern that we have taught here at the Youth Summit, it starts off with praise.

You know, very often when I’m at that point, I’ll say, Lord, I need your help right now to praise you like I should. Because I can’t praise you. We need him.

It’s by him. It’s dependent. Real praise is dependent upon him.

Even in that, we need his grace. Praise is volitional. It says here, by him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise.

Praise doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a deliberate choice. It’s a deliberate choice of your will.

I think of the words of Psalm 57 and verse 7 where the psalmist says, My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed. I will sing and give praise. That is, listen, I’ve made a decision here.

And praise comes out of that. I’ve made a decision to look to you. To put my eyes, my heart in submission to you.

my dependence upon you, that’s why I’m praising you. It’s a choice. You will never praise God truly by accident.

God doesn’t force you to praise him. Now there is coming a day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, whether they want to or not. They will.

But right now you and I have the choice. Am I going to praise God as I ought? You say, well, it doesn’t feel very natural to praise God sometimes.

and it doesn’t. I can tell you, the more you choose to praise, the more natural it becomes to praise. It’s not our first response when good things happen or when bad things happen.

But if we’ll choose that response, we’ll grow in that matter and become people of praise. Praise is dependent. It’s volitional.

We see as well here that praise is directed. It’s directed. It says, By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.

Notice that that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. Sometimes we can talk about how good God is to other people. And that is a form of praise.

We’ll talk about that. That is a form of praise to do that. But how often do we just talk to God himself about how good he is?

About who he is? About what he’s done? How often do we express praise to him directly?

I just remind us that when we praise, whether it’s in church or out of church, He is our first audience. That’s really hard sometimes when we’re in church, right? And we’re singing in the choir or whatever, because there’s a lot of people looking at us and a lot of people around us.

And we can think, oh, it’s them. No. No, in our hearts, if we understand what we’re doing when we praise, it’s all about Him and to Him.

If I’m singing a special number, sometimes I get the opportunity to do that. I sing a special number. I’m singing to him.

Y’all get to get in on it. That’s a blessing. I hope it’s a blessing for you, but it’s really about him.

But that’s not just supposed to be something we do when we’re in church. That’s supposed to be all the time. What Brother Reed was talking about, that relationship of all the time.

Am I constantly directing my praise to God? In the morning, through the day, as I walk through life. Now notice this word, continually.

Okay, we see that praise is continual. Now this word is actually two Greek words here that is translated continually. Literally the idea of those two words is this, through all.

So, by him let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God through all. The idea of this is in all things, in every circumstance. I think of Psalm 34, verse 1.

I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall be continually in my mouth. You see, it’s easy to praise God in the moments when things are going good.

It’s a whole lot harder to praise God in the moments when things are not going so good. Right? I think of earlier this year, my wife and I, we have seven children, and my wife was expecting another child, and we’re excited about that and thankful for that.

We love having kiddos. It’s challenging, but it’s wonderful. What blessings from the Lord.

But there were some things about the pregnancy that seemed a little bit unusual. Anyway, to make a long story short, we ended up coming and realizing that the pregnancy was a rare kind of pregnancy.

The baby passed away in the womb, and she ended up having to have surgery and all things, Ended up with a blood transfusion and we lost the baby and a whole lot of just difficult things about that I had to end up having to cancel a couple weeks of meetings That we had scheduled and because of everything that was going on and just the difficulties event Can I tell you it was a hard hard moment?

I mean, I remember coming home from that From that doctor’s appointment where we found out. Hey, everything’s not okay. The baby’s gone and coming home to my seven children, my oldest is ten, and having to gather them around and say, your little sibling that mommy, they all knew mommy was expecting to be, it died.

Having to explain to them. And in my heart, the thing burning in my heart, the passion in my heart is just, Lord, I don’t want them to question you in this moment. I want them to trust you in this moment.

And we had a choice in that very, very difficult situation in our family life. We had a choice. Are we going to question?

Are we going to just struggle our way through this? Or are we going to praise God through this? And we had to make an on-purpose decision.

God, we’re praising you. Not just in spite of this. but we’re praising you because of this.

That’s where our praise is tested. But can I tell you, that’s what God wants of us. That’s what he deserves of us.

He is just as worthy of praise when he puts us through trial and suffering as he is when he gives us a great blessing. At all times, through all things, continually, that sacrifice of praise. You know, we often don’t think to praise God until after we have seen God deliver and the moment of crisis has passed.

And it certainly is right to praise God. Well, wasn’t it, did you realize what God just did? Praise the Lord, he did this.

Boy, he delivered us in this way. That’s awesome. But can I tell you, where God wants you to praise him is not after the crisis has passed.

Do it then, but don’t wait till then to start. He wants you to praise him in the midst of the crisis. And if you’ll take that step, you’ll find your relationship with God goes a whole lot deeper.

Your devotion to Him goes a whole lot deeper. Because that’s not just easy praise. It’s a whole new level of praise that is an offering of praise born out of trust in who God is.

Even when we don’t have the sight to back it up. And can I tell you, trusting praise brings great delight to God. are you willing to praise him do you praise him in the midst of the difficulty for the difficulty that’s that’s where god wants us to live in all things a life of continual praise that’s a life of total devotion we see as well here that praise is verbal it says here the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

I think of Psalm 109. I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth. Yea, I will praise him among the multitude.

Can I just challenge you, don’t just think about God and the praise he deserves. We do this sometimes. We pray in our mind and we certainly can.

God knows those things. We pray silently and that’s fine. We can do that.

Can I challenge you, verbalize your praise. Say it out loud. Say, there’s people around me.

Okay. There’s something about actually speaking the words. Letting them come across your lips.

That brings a greater reality, your praise. And we see it all throughout Scripture. Say those words of praise.

Let them cross your lips. Throughout the day, there’s something that comes up and you realize, God, Lord, I just want to say I love you. Have you ever said that out loud to God?

Lord, I’m just thankful you’re so faithful. You don’t change. You say that out loud.

Let it cross your lips. It’ll change your praise. It’ll change your praise.

We see here as well, it says, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. Now that word giving thanks is not the normal word for thanksgiving that we find throughout the New Testament. This is a different word, and it literally is the idea of a public declaration.

So it’s like a guy standing on the street corner making a proclamation for everyone to hear. Hear ye, hear ye. It’s publicly declaring your praise to God.

Try it sometime. Go up to somebody. Maybe somebody you know really well.

Maybe somebody you don’t know really well. Say, hey, can I just tell you something about my God? I’ve just been thinking about this.

God is so awesome because, you know what, He just loves us unconditionally. Or God is so amazing because, you know what, He’s merciful. And this is what that means to me when I say He’s merciful.

Just say it out loud, publicly, to somebody else. I told you, that is a part of praise, that public side of it. There’s praise that is to God, but there is, well, this public declaration, Let other people in on it.

That’s part of this life of total devotion. We have no problem talking to people about things that we’re really, like we talked about yesterday, passionate about. No problem at all.

People say, oh, I’m just not that kind of extroverted person. Yeah, I’ve seen you in the cheering contest. Yeah, at that baseball game or football game, you’re on the sidelines.

But at home on your couch, you’re like standing up saying things.

it’s just a matter of how much do we really feel that matter of praise from our heart you say well I don’t feel like praising like that remember it starts with a choice it starts with a choice now that’s what praise is now what does praise do and we’re going to move quickly here I want to be practical here as much as I can I’ve got some practical things I want to get to at the end

but I want us to realize praise is not a small matter. It is incredibly powerful. First of all, praise expands our view of God.

Praise expands our view of God. I can put it this way. If you don’t have a regular practice of praise in your life, you have a small view of God.

Because there is something about this matter of praising God that increases our understanding and our view of who He is.

the more that you praise God the more that you realize there is to praise God about and when you realize how much there is to praise Him about you realize how big He is then the more you want to praise Him and the more that you praise Him then the more you realize that He’s worthy of your praise and it is a cycle that grows and grows into heavenly proportions

and that’s why we can sing for all of eternity we can praise Him for all of eternity And sing His praises. Why? Because the more you know about God, the more there is to praise Him.

And the more you want to praise Him. I love the words of John Newton. When he says, when we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun.

Psalm 145, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. And His greatness is unsearchable. but I tell you, you will never run out of things to praise the Lord for.

Never. So get started. Say, I don’t feel like I really know what to do.

Just start. Praise Him for the things you know to praise Him for. And you’ll find out, oh, you’ll start discovering, well, there’s a whole lot more here to praise Him for.

Oh, wow, I haven’t, I never thought about that. Oh, boy, His mercy endures forever. What does that mean?

Whoa, that’s, wow, no, no, no, that’s, that’s huge. Whoa, this is awesome. The more we praise God, the greater our view of who our God is becomes.

Isn’t that what devotion is really about? So praise expands our view of God, but it also calibrates our perspective. Praise calibrates our perspective.

You see, as we praise God, and we’re reminded of who He is, and how He works, and what He does, and we say, well, God, this is how big our God is, how awesome our God is, This is how he works in ways with wisdom that’s far beyond ours. As we direct our eyes to him, the needs, the challenges, the difficulties, the issues that we’re facing in our life begin to shrink. Because we realize in real perspective, that’s nothing big for my God.

There’s something in your life that just seems overpowering, overwhelming. How, I don’t know how I could ever overcome this. I don’t know how this could ever change.

This just seems so difficult. This seems like so confusing. How does this work?

Spend some time praising God for who he is. And you’ll find out that, oh, that’s still real. It’s still there.

It’s still a challenge. But it’s not nearly as big as I thought it was. Because our perspective is calibrated to what is real reality in the light of who our God is.

Can I tell you that situation I told you about with our child? It was hard. It was really hard.

But as we made that choice to praise God, I’m not telling you that now it wasn’t difficult anymore. Now there was no more tears and no more suffering. No, there was.

There were still hard moments. But can I tell you, it was brought into right perspective. and it became something that we could walk through with joy in the midst of the pain.

Not because we had just figured out, okay, well, we’re just going to gut this out and keep a smile on our face. No, no, there was hard moments. But in the right perspective, understanding who our God is gave us what we needed to have the right perspective to walk through that moment.

It calibrates our perspective. Praise also develops our trust in God. It develops our trust in God.

You see, as you rehearse who God is, when you rehearse what He’s done in the past, you read the psalmist writing, he says, remember how God did this part of the Red Sea, and He provided manna here, and He did this, and He did this, and this over here, and remember how God did this, and how He delivered us here and worked in this way. What’s that all? Why?

Why is the psalmist praising for all those things? Because praising God for what he’s done in the past builds our confidence in what he can do now and in the future. And when we praise God, it develops our trust in him.

I tell you, the more you praise God, the more you will trust God. And that’s where we want to live, right? That relationship that we’ve been talking about, that’s a relationship that comes when we trust somebody.

So start praising him for who he is. And you’ll find that your confidence, your faith, your trust in who he is grows. Finally, in what praise does, praise moves the hand of God.

Praise moves the hand of God. I think this is fascinating. I want to remind you quickly of two Old Testament accounts.

I won’t read them all, but remember the account of Jehoshaphat as he’s going forth. And he tells the people, he says, believe the Lord and you’re going to be established. And here’s what we’re going to do.

He said, let’s take a group of singers, and let’s put them in front of the army. We’re going out to battle. Let’s put them like they’re going to be the front line of the army.

You’re not the strong guys. No, no, no. The guys with the good voices.

Put them up there. The guys with hearts of praise. Put them up there.

I know they can’t fight. They don’t have a weapon. Put them up there.

And it says that as they went forth singing praise to God, that God fought for them. God gave them victory over the enemy that, frankly, they probably couldn’t have defeated. Because praise moves the hand of God.

How about this? When Solomon is there and they’ve just built the temple, and now it’s this time of dedicating the temple, and they’ve got everything together, And, of course, this is another moment of musical praise. Not all praise is musical, but this praise was.

And they sing these songs of praises. And as they do, God comes down. His glory fills the temple.

Why? In response to their praise. I tell you, praise moves the hand of God.

There are moments in time when we say, God, I’m believing you. God is waiting for us to get the moment. And we’re not just saying, God, we know you can do this.

but saying, God, we are expecting you to do this. We are praising you that you are doing it. That you are delivering us.

Well, that’s a whole other level of faith. Not just saying, God, you can do this. Saying, God, you’ve got this covered.

It’s who you are. You’ve already done this. That’s who you are.

Praise moves the hand of God. Now, let’s quickly, what are some practical things? What does praise look like?

Or maybe we could say, how do we do this? How do we praise God? Well, here’s some ways to praise God.

Ways to praise God. Praise God in prayer. Okay, like I said, we start that hour with God time, with praise to the Lord.

It’s that just verbal communication. Can I tell you, let me just, okay, in your prayer, as much as you can, I challenge you, pray out loud. I know that’s not necessarily what we naturally want to do, but it’s helped me.

I’m just saying this. This is anecdotal. I don’t know, like, have a Bible verse.

I mean, there are verses, a lot of verses that talk about crying out with our voice. Okay? Probably more verses than talk about just praying in your spirit.

Okay? We can pray in our spirit, absolutely. But as much as you can, pray out loud.

It helps me. It helps me. It brings focus to my prayer.

It brings reality to the fact that there’s a depth of what God can do in your own heart. as you’re praying and praising out loud. Use those times of prayer to praise the Lord.

Don’t just go and ask God for things. Sometimes we think that’s all prayer is. And that is, prayer means to ask.

But prayer should be accompanied with praise. Praise God in singing. In singing.

When you go throughout your day, do you have a song in your heart? Not just because you like the melody, but because the truth of who God is, that you’re, Lord, I’m just, I’m going to sing about your love here. I’m going to sing about how infinite you are here.

Sing. Praise God using the word of God. Can I challenge you?

Go to the book of Psalms. Open a psalm and pray through it. And as you pray through a psalm, you know what you’ll end up doing?

Praising through the psalm. Because that’s what many of the psalms are all about. praise through the psalm.

And if you do that, as you take note, you read through a psalm and you think, oh, here’s something about God. God, I praise you because of this reality, because of your loving kindness. God, I praise you because you’re just.

God, you always do what’s right. You do. You do punish the wicked.

And you show mercy to those who turn. You’ll end up praising God for things that you maybe wouldn’t normally think to praise God for. Because you’re allowing the word of God to guide your praise.

And it will grow your relationship with God. Praise God in conversation. Talk with people about just how good God is.

About what God’s doing, about who God is, how he’s working in your life. But just last night I sent a text to a good friend and said, you know what, I’m just so grateful for what God’s done in your life. I’m just amazed.

It brings tears to my eyes when I think about what God’s doing in your life. God is so good. and that was a text message I think that was a moment of praise to God that brought him glory in that conversation praise God in serving an attitude of just full submission saying God I want to praise you not just with my lips though I need to praise you with my lips but Lord I want to have a life

that demonstrates praise to you everything about who my life is says God is awesome by the way he is the one we can rightly use the word awesome for we use it a lot in our colloquial that God is the only one who truly renders us in awe or should be the only one who does alright what are some reasons to praise God some practical things oh

that men would praise the Lord for his goodness for his wonderful works of the children I want to challenge you if you don’t have something actually write down take time over the course of time to write down things to praise God for. Don’t just wets us off the time ahead. Make lists of reasons to praise God.

Praise God for who he is. Go through his names. What are the names?

How is he described? I thought about printing off some lists and things like that to give to you here in this session. But I thought, you know what?

It would probably be good for maybe these young people to just discover themselves. What does God say about who he is?

If you have the Christ Walk Journal, in that Christ Walk Journal there’s a good starter list on reasons to praise God for who He is, His names and His attributes His qualities of who God is He’s holy, He’s just, He’s righteous He’s the God of wrath We could go on and on and on By the way, don’t just praise God for the positive qualities which there’s no positive and negative qualities

but the ones we think, don’t just praise Him for the ones that think oh that’s really good praise Him equally for His mercy and His wrath for his love and his righteousness and his justice. Praise him for all of who he is, because he’s perfect in every one of those things. Okay, praise God for what he does.

Praise him for who he is, and that’s first and foremost, and really that should be, but then praise him for what he does. Praise him for what he does for everyone. He sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Right? But then praise him for what he does for you specifically, what he’s done for you in the past, what he did for you yesterday, What he’s done for you today. Praise him specifically.

And can I remind you, regularly glory in the cross. That should be a regular part of our praise. What God has done for us in saving us.

Praise God for his word. Praise God for specific promises of his word that he’s given to you. Praise God for specific blessings on your life.

Okay, make lists of those things. And work your way through those things. Can I tell you, there’s nothing more encouraging than taking time to just, Maybe actually, God, I’m just going to take some extra time today and just work through and praise you for who you are.

And it takes some time, but I tell you, it will lift your heart in true devotion to who he is. It will calibrate your perspective to be right for that day. Nothing greater than that.

Now here’s a few just practical things to remember as you praise. Praise requires honesty, not perfection.

what do I mean by that it’s not that you have to have every little detail exactly right in your life but you do need to be honest you do need to be as clean as you can be if you’ve got sin in your life you can’t praise him as you want if you look at Isaiah chapter 6 what did God do before Isaiah could join in the praise before his lips could proclaim he had to be

cleansed so it requires honesty but it doesn’t mean I’ve got to wait until I’m really spiritually mature before I can praise God like I should Just be honest. Praise requires honesty, not perfection. Be specific in your praise.

This is a big one to me. The more specific your praise is, the more potent your praise is. When you praise God in generalities, that’s good.

But I’ve found that when I take time to meditate and get specific in my praise, it brings my praise to a whole new level. And it brings my understanding of who God is and leaves me just in awe. But it’s not just saying, well, God, you’re merciful.

What does that mean in my life? How has God shown his mercy to me? Get specific.

Okay? And God will use that. Be intentional in your praise.

We talked about that. And finally, I want to challenge you this. Praise in all three tenses.

Sometimes we can just praise, Oh God, you did this. This is who you were or how you worked. Praise him for the past.

Praise him for who he is and what he’s doing right now. And praise him in future tense.

God, this is what you’re going to do this is who you’re going to be tomorrow still you are always the same and you are working praise is so powerful and friends, a life of total devotion is a life of heartfelt praise and I hope this has been helpful for you here and there’s some practical things you can take home in praising let me challenge you praise, again it doesn’t happen by accident you’ve got to choose to say I want to grow in this area of praise.

And as you do, you will grow in your love and devotion to God and your relationship with Him.