The Incredible Value of Praise!

"His praise shall perpetually be in my mouth"

Intro:
Last week we began our 40 Days of Worship campaign by explaining to you what David meant when he said, "I will bless the Lord at all times." He was adopting a lifestyle of worship. It was going to be his pattern of life to surrender himself to the Lord and give him the reverence the honor, the adoration that He deserved because of the great thing that He had done for him.

In Ps. 34:1-3, David uses 6 words that refer to his lifestyle of worship. They are bless, praise, boast, be glad, magnify and exalt. We're using these six words as the basis for the messages we're giving for the next 5 weeks. Today is "praise" and it comes from the second phrase in vs. 1 where David writes, "His praise shall continually be in my mouth."

I. What praise is: Praise means to extol, to laud, to speak highly of.
This past week we saw an incident in Colorado where a gunman opened fire on kids at a school building. A teacher named David Benke risked his life and tackled that gunman so that he couldn't continue shooting at the kids. Someone set up a Facebook page to give people an opportunity to tell what they thought. Within a couple of days more than 25,000 people had logged on and written words that praised this teacher for his courage and willingness to sacrifice himself to stop that guy from shooting at kids. This man has a great reputation. He got praised. He deserved it.

When people graduate from school the ones who worked hard and excel are given cords to drape over their neck. They are called cum laude, magna cum laude and summa cum laude: with praise, with high praise and with highest praise. They've worked hard, excelled and are given the praise they are worthy of.

God is worthy of our praise! Our God is an excellent God! He is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

He is sovereign, just, righteous, good, perfect in all of His ways, and immutable. He is LOVE! He is HOLY! His name is excellent in all the earth!

David declares that it will be his continuous act to speak with his voice and tell of the greatness of God. He is going to use his voice, his mouth to extol the Lord, to praise Him for His greatness. He wants others to hear of how wonderful and gracious and holy and powerful and wise God is because God is worthy of praise.

Praise doesn't do much good if it’s not spoken. It will do wonders if you speak words of praise to your children. It will transform your husband or your wife if you tell them how wonderful they are. All some people would need to be great employees is for their boss to tell them "good job" once in a while.

And when you lift up your voice and praise God it will do wonders for you too!

Ps. 71:8 “Let my mouth be filled with your praise and with Your glory all the day. Vs. 14-15 But I will hope continually, and will praise you yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of your righteousness and Your salvation all the day, For I do not know their limits.

Psa 66:8: Oh, bless our God, you peoples! And make the voice of His praise to be heard,

Psa 107:2: Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy,

Praise is not flattery: flattery is saying something that is not true or that you don’t mean.You can't do this to God because He can see your heart and would know that you didn't mean it.

Praise is not emotionalism, although there is nothing wrong with emotion. We ARE to love God with all of our heart. It doesn’t mean you have to get all teary eyed- although you probably will. There is nothing wrong with that. Away with this so called "macho" stuff that says that a man can't show some emotion- that its womanly to weep with joy or pride or sorrow. The fact is that we are to praise God whether we feel like it or not. We praise if we are happy and we praise God is we are sad- because He is worthy of our praise.

II. What praise reveals: Praise reveals a heart that loves God.
The way you use your mouth reveals what is in your heart: Jesus said in
Luke 6:45 "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." You see a man who's heart is given over to sports and he'll always be talking about sports. You see a woman who is always talking about her grandchildren and you know that her heart is centered on them. You see a man and all he does is cuss and swear and lie and tell rotten dirty jokes and you know that is his heart. His mouth shows what is in his heart.
When you love the Lord, it will show in your speech, in what you talk about. You will talk about what God is doing, and what He is teaching. You will speak of how wonderful He is and what He has done for you. You will sing songs that praise Him and use your voice to communicate how wonderful He is.

III. What praise does: There are great benefits to us when we live a lifestyle of worship and fill our mouths with the praises of God. Come back with me to
II Chron. 20.

King Jehoshaphat is the godly king of Judah. Folks Judah means praise. he is a descendent of King David. He has just been through a very close call where he almost lost his life because he choose to ally himself with God's enemy- wicked King Ahab. Right now his army is depleted. He is weak. The armies of Moab and Ammon know it and they decide to launch an attack. The enemy is just watching for a sign of weakness and he'll attack.

Jehoshaphat is told that a great army is coming against him and he knows that he can't win this fight. He can't run to Ahab- he's dead. he can't get help from Egypt- they couldn't get there in time. The only thing left to do is what he does- he turns to God.

Why is taking our problems to God always the last thing that we do? Why do we run to the doctor? Why do we turn to the bank or credit card? Why do we turn to the ungodly next door neighbor? Why do we run to an ungodly counsellor? Why do we always do that first? And then when we finally do turn to God we expect Him to just pop up like a genie in a lamp and solve our problem?

The King turns to God. He set himself to seek the Lord. he proclaimed a fast to the whole nation. He called the nation to pray and fast and seek for God's help. The people came to Jerusalem and together the nation turned to God to get His help. jehoshaphat prayed to God. vs. 12:
II Ch 20:12) O our God, will You not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You."

vs. 13: (2Ch 20:13) Now all Judah, with their little ones, their wives, and their children, stood before the LORD.

God speaks through a prophet: 15-17. King and people surrender to God's will. The next morning they all got up and headed out to meet the enemy. Look what Jehoshaphat said to them:

II Ch 20:20) So they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, "Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the LORD your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper."

Then they got together and organized a choir. A choir?! You gotta be kidding me! Nope. They sent out a choir in front of the army. And they went out to face the enemy singing praises not shooting arrows. But those praises were more powerful than any arrow. They were like nuclear bombs!

Look what they were singing: "praise the LORD for His mercy endures forever!" Folks thats Ps. 107. They lifted up their voices and began to praise God. And look what happened-

II Ch 20:22) Now when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were defeated.
II Ch 20:23) For the people of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir to utterly kill and destroy them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to destroy one another.

Praise is a deadly weapon in spiritual warfare and we are always always in a spiritual battle.

When you get bad news you can choose:

1. You can worry and fret and get stressed out and anxious.

You'll get lines on your face, ulcers in your stomach and gray hair on your head. You may have a heart attack or a nervous breakdown. But you can console yourself like someone said, "when this is over I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. I've earned it, I deserve it and no one is going to cheat me out of it!

2. You can complain. Murmur. Gripe. Criticize.

Aside from worrying, complaining and criticizing is our favorite sport. We're real good at telling God how unfair it is that life treats us like it does. When we complain and murmur, we just get more and more unhappy and miserable. That is why people turn to alcohol and drugs. They can’t take it! They think that they can get happy with a beer a bottle or a pill or whiff or a puff. They are wrong and the whole world shows that they are wrong. All you can do with that stuff is get addicted and addicted means you are miserable.

OR You can praise. You can turn your heart upward and lift your voice and praise God for His grace and mercy. Listen! When you do that you get God's full attention.

Psa 22:3) But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel. (Psa 22:4) Our fathers trusted in You; They trusted, and You delivered them.

God inhabits the PRAISES of His people- not the complaints and the criticisms and the whines and the murmurs! I could take you to churches today where the people are just incapable of doing anything but criticizing everything that happens in the church. THEY ARE MISERABLE! They've chased God out the door by their complaints and criticisms. And then they wonder why they are so unhappy and the church is dying.

Look at Hebrews 2:11-12
Heb 2:11) For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren,
Heb 2:12) saying: "I WILL DECLARE YOUR NAME TO MY BRETHREN; IN THE MIDST OF THE ASSEMBLY I WILL SING PRAISE TO YOU." That is Jesus talking right there.

Never miss church. Jesus comes to church every Sunday! He even promised, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in their midst." Thomas missed church on Sunday and he forever after wished that he hadn't. Jesus always comes to church. You miss church- you miss being with Jesus.

He joins in when we sing our praises to God!

Did you realize that when we lift up our voice in the church and praise- Jesus joins in with us? With the eyes of faith, every week I see Jesus standing next to you in the pews. You are out there praising- singing away and doing the best you can. Some of you are really pretty bad- you can't carry a tune in a bucket. You squawk and you squeak and you change keys. That's alright. In college I was known as the most versatile singer on my dorm floor. When I would get in the shower I’d be singing away and they said I could change keys 4 or 5 times in a matter of seconds! The same God who made the canary made the crow and the seagull. God loves to hear them all praise Him! He is pleased when you just sing your heart out- no matter how it sounds to those around you. And I look out and see Jesus singing God's praise with you as you sing.

Some of you give a testimony and praise God for what He is doing in your life. When you do I see Jesus standing right there next to you clapping his hands!

Hey- you know what- it’s alright to clap- it’s alright to raise your hands- it’s alright to shout- its alright to dance!
Psa 149:1) Praise the LORD! Sing to the LORD a new song, And His praise in the assembly of saints.
149:2) Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.
149:3) Let them praise His name with the dance; Let them sing praises to Him with the timbrel and harp.
149:4) For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the humble with salvation.

Folks this time of year in 1836, almost 200 men were entrenched in a mission outside of San Antonio, Texas called the Alamo. They were surrounded by a force of several thousand Mexican soldiers led by General Antonio Santa Anna, the ruler of Mexico. We all know what happened. They stood their ground fighting and all of them died. That's what soldiers do when they have to-they die. But they kept fighting until the fight was driven out of them.

Well, God's soldiers praise. That's the weapon we use. And it’s a powerful weapon. I want to tell you, if I have to go down, I want to go down praising the Lord. I want the last word on my lips to be "Hallelujah."

When D.L. Moody lay dying this is what he said,"Earth recedes, heaven opens up before me! If this is death, it is sweet. God is calling me and I must go. Don't call me back! No pain, no valley, it's bliss..."

Praise the Lord! It is wonderful to praise. It is powerful to praise! Let’s praise the Lord!

Now it's your turn. Who will stand and praise God?

"Let the redeemed of the Lord say so...