Speaker 1: Good to see you. Thank you. Have a seat, everybody.
Speaker 1: We've got a little bit different service this week. As
Speaker 1: you can tell, I've got some friends here on stage.
Speaker 1: They're going to help me through this service. One of
Speaker 1: my roles as your pastor is not just to teach
Speaker 1: you new truth, but to remind you of stuff you
Speaker 1: already know. We have good forgetters. You agree with that.
Speaker 1: Parents have to remind their kids of things they know.
Speaker 1: Employers and bosses and supervisors and managers have to remind
Speaker 1: you workers what's going on. It's part of my job
Speaker 1: to help remind you stuff because human nature is we forget.
Speaker 1: Now today, as we start a new year twenty and
Speaker 1: twenty two together, I want to remind you of a
Speaker 1: powerful habit and the benefits of this important habit, this
Speaker 1: morton spiritual habit. It's a habit you're gonna need to
Speaker 1: use every single day of your life in twenty and
Speaker 1: twenty two. This habit is particularly useful when you're going
Speaker 1: through tough times. So today I want us to look
Speaker 1: at the awesome power of praise. But we're not just
Speaker 1: gonna think about it. I'm not gonna just teach you
Speaker 1: on it. We're actually going to practice this. This will
Speaker 1: be an unusual service because I'm gonna teach you a
Speaker 1: point about praise, and then we're gonna practice it, and
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna teach you another one and do that.
Speaker 1: So get out your message notes right now. Okay, go
Speaker 1: ahead and pull them all out. And not only pull
Speaker 1: out your message Jose, but start warming up your voice
Speaker 1: because you're gonna use it a lot in this service.
Speaker 1: Now at the top of your outline. Psalm one fifty
Speaker 1: verse six says this, let everything that has breath, what
Speaker 1: praise the Lord? Do you have breath? Yes, then you
Speaker 1: are to praise the Lord. Everything in the universe brings
Speaker 1: praise to God. Actually, even the stuff that doesn't have breath, trees, plants, rocks,
Speaker 1: they honor God. They bring glory to God by being
Speaker 1: what God created them to be. Everything brings glory to God.
Speaker 1: Only human beings reject that. And so even Jesus once said,
Speaker 1: if human beings don't praise me, the rocks will cry out.
Speaker 1: Now when it comes to praise, When it comes to worship,
Speaker 1: it's not really complicated. In fact, Jesus said, there are
Speaker 1: only two marks of real worship. This only thing you
Speaker 1: have to remember the entire Bible, there are only two
Speaker 1: qualifications for worship to be correct. And Jesus says this
Speaker 1: in John chapter four, the next verse on your outline,
Speaker 1: verse twenty three. Jesus said, true worshippers worship the Father
Speaker 1: in spirit and in truth, circle spirit and truth, In
Speaker 1: spirit and truth, that's the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.
Speaker 1: Now what does that mean? To worship God in spirit
Speaker 1: and truth. Now, Spirit, it's not a capital s. So
Speaker 1: it's not talking about the Holy Spirit. It's talking about
Speaker 1: your spirit. You're not just a body. You have a
Speaker 1: spirit in your body. And when you worship God in
Speaker 1: the correct way, it's from your spirit. You don't just
Speaker 1: mouth the words. You don't just mindlessly go through rituals
Speaker 1: and prayers that you've memorized and not even think about it.
Speaker 1: It comes from your spirit. And it has to be
Speaker 1: in truth. In other words, for worship to be accepted
Speaker 1: by God, it has to be authentic. You're going to
Speaker 1: really mean it, and it has to be accurate, authentic
Speaker 1: and accurate, devotional and doctrinal, in spirit and in truth.
Speaker 1: The one thing that really ticks God off. If you
Speaker 1: want to know what God doesn't like that. God really
Speaker 1: hates it. What God hates more than anything else is
Speaker 1: luke warm worship, where we go through the motions, we
Speaker 1: sing the songs, we say the prayers, we do the
Speaker 1: right thing, but we're not even thinking about it. We're
Speaker 1: just going through the routine, the ritual without even thinking about.
Speaker 1: God says, I'd rather you just mail it in skip
Speaker 1: that if you're gonna do it. In the Book of Revelation,
Speaker 1: Jesus says, I see that you're neither hot nor cold,
Speaker 1: but you're lukewarm. He said, I don't like that. I
Speaker 1: don't like lukewarm worship. He said, I'd rather have you
Speaker 1: be cold totally against me, or hot totally form me,
Speaker 1: just not lukewarm, he said. Because you're lukewarm, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: spit you out of my mouth. That's a euphemism that
Speaker 1: says you make me sick to my stomach. You nauseate me.
Speaker 1: God says. When I see people who are taught coming
Speaker 1: to worship, but they don't really mean if they're not
Speaker 1: even thinking about he says, it makes me want to
Speaker 1: throw up. It makes me want to puke, It makes
Speaker 1: me want to vomit because I am so nauseated by
Speaker 1: lukewarm worship. It needs to be in spirit and in truth.
Speaker 1: It needs to be passionate. Now, God talks about this
Speaker 1: in the Book of Isaiah. They're on your outline or
Speaker 1: here on the screen Isaiah twenty nine. God says this,
Speaker 1: these people claim to be mine, okay, and they praise
Speaker 1: me with their lips. They're saying all the right things,
Speaker 1: they're singing all the right things, but they don't mean it.
Speaker 1: Their hearts are somewhere else. They're thinking about the ballgame,
Speaker 1: they're thinking about where we're going to go for lunch.
Speaker 1: They're thinking about all these other things said. Their hearts
Speaker 1: are somewhere else, far from me, and their worship is
Speaker 1: just routine, repeated without thinking. You know, anytime for the
Speaker 1: last forty two years, as I've been the pastor of
Speaker 1: this church, I'm out on the patio talk to people.
Speaker 1: When somebody comes up there and say, you know, Rick,
Speaker 1: I really didn't get anything out of that service. Today,
Speaker 1: when somebody says that to me, I always ask the
Speaker 1: exact same question question and I get the same answer
Speaker 1: every single time. When people say I didn't get anything
Speaker 1: out of worship, I say this, did you attempt to
Speaker 1: sing all of the songs with your whole heart or
Speaker 1: did you just stand there watching other people sing? And
Speaker 1: I've gotten the same answer every single time. The answer
Speaker 1: is I just stood there, I didn't try to sing.
Speaker 1: And I reply, that's your problem. That's why you got
Speaker 1: nothing out of the service. You didn't put anything into it.
Speaker 1: You didn't put your heart into it. Now, let me
Speaker 1: tell you this worship isn't for you anyway. Worship is
Speaker 1: for God. When we come to worship, we're expressing our thanks,
Speaker 1: our gratitude, our praise to God. Worship is not about you. Now,
Speaker 1: anytime you do anything that God wants you to do,
Speaker 1: God always builds benefits into it that will bless you.
Speaker 1: So yes, you're going to get something out of it.
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about some really big things
Speaker 1: you get out of praising God today. But the point
Speaker 1: is I worship God because he deserves it. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be alive, I wouldn't be able to breathe, my heart
Speaker 1: would not be beating everything in my life. I owe God,
Speaker 1: so certainly, on the first day of each week, I
Speaker 1: pause from you a few minutes ago, Thanks God, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have anything without God. Now when you do that,
Speaker 1: you will get something out of it. But it's got
Speaker 1: to be in spirit and truth. It's got to be authentic.
Speaker 1: It's got to be from your heart. That means you
Speaker 1: put some emotion into it. Now in the Bible, I
Speaker 1: can give you a list of over fifty different benefits
Speaker 1: physical benefits, financial benefits, relational benefits, emotional, mental benefits, all
Speaker 1: kinds of benefits for your life when you do what
Speaker 1: God tells you to do when he says, let everything
Speaker 1: that has breath praise the Lord. There. We could look
Speaker 1: at a lot of them, but I'm only gonna give
Speaker 1: you seven today. I just picked out seven benefits that
Speaker 1: and the reason I only picked out seven because I
Speaker 1: want you to have the time to not just listen
Speaker 1: about it. I want you to practice these forms of praise.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna get your exercise today. You're gonna do
Speaker 1: a lot of bit of standing thing. Now, here's your
Speaker 1: instructions for this service. Even if you have never, ever, ever,
Speaker 1: ever in your entire life sang a song in church,
Speaker 1: I want you to give it your best shot today. Okay.
Speaker 1: I want you to try to sing praise to God
Speaker 1: today with your mouth. Okay, I don't want you to
Speaker 1: stand there with your mouth kind. I'm cool. I'm cool.
Speaker 1: Look at everybody else. Okay, no, now, because some of
Speaker 1: you have had a hard time with this, let me
Speaker 1: answer the three most common excuses. It's not like I
Speaker 1: haven't heard them for not singing in church. Okay, here's
Speaker 1: the first one. And this particularly comes from men, but
Speaker 1: women can do it too. Rick, I'm not really an
Speaker 1: emotional person, and I don't feel comfortable with my emotions,
Speaker 1: so I don't want people watching me, and I certainly
Speaker 1: don't want to get emotional in front of them. I'm
Speaker 1: not an emotional person. Well, the answer is this, You're wrong.
Speaker 1: You are an emotional person. You're just frightened by your
Speaker 1: emotions so you deny them. You're made in God's image.
Speaker 1: God is an emotional God. God gets angry, God gets frustrated,
Speaker 1: God gets impatient. God loves, God weeps. The only reason
Speaker 1: you have emotions. What makes you a human being is
Speaker 1: you have emotions. Now, the question is are you in
Speaker 1: touch with them? Are you denying them? Are you are
Speaker 1: you can you feel your emotions and a true man
Speaker 1: or a true woman? Or are you are you scared
Speaker 1: to death? You're frightened. You were taught to push your
Speaker 1: emotions down, shut them down. I want to tell you,
Speaker 1: saddleback Church is a place that you need to set
Speaker 1: yourself free to feel the feelings you have. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is a safe place for you to feel the feelings
Speaker 1: that you have. What because you're made in God's image.
Speaker 1: If God didn't want you to feel him, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have given you those feelings. But maybe you were taught
Speaker 1: by your parents and somebody else to shove them down. Now,
Speaker 1: let me just say this, you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about how you look to other people when you're praising God,
Speaker 1: because guess what, They're not looking at you worship. They're
Speaker 1: focusing on God. Nobody is looking at you right now.
Speaker 1: Nobody in this auditorium is thinking about you. Nobody. So
Speaker 1: why are you so concerned? How do I look? Look? Cool? Am? I? All? Right? There?
Speaker 1: You know what everybody's thinking about themselves. Nobody cares how
Speaker 1: you worship God. Nobody cares how you praise God. Why
Speaker 1: they're focusing on God not you? By the way, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes people raise their hands when they praise God. People,
Speaker 1: what's that all about? Is this some kind of wooooo
Speaker 1: weird thing. They raise their hand, they're going to a trance. Now,
Speaker 1: it's just a symbol of joy. You do it all
Speaker 1: the time. It's forced games. You go to a game,
Speaker 1: you go touchdown, or you go to a soccer game
Speaker 1: and your kid, you know, hits a go. What do
Speaker 1: you know? It's it's just saying touchdown Jesus, yay God.
Speaker 1: Now let me tell you what. Why do you go
Speaker 1: to a game and when you go to a game
Speaker 1: you raise your hand when you're full of joy, you
Speaker 1: called a fan But if you came and you dared
Speaker 1: to raise your hand in church, you're called a fanatic.
Speaker 1: So really it's okay us joy to other people, but
Speaker 1: it's not a Kate express joy to God. Come on,
Speaker 1: get over it. Grow up. And if you feel like Raisianda.
Speaker 1: If you don't, don't. It's no big deal. It's not
Speaker 1: some special uiguey thing. It's just the Bible says we
Speaker 1: lift our hands and praise to God and says touchdown God,
Speaker 1: yay God. You know I'm feeling this right now at
Speaker 1: this moment, and you will. Your heart moves when your
Speaker 1: body moves, So don't be afraid to move your body
Speaker 1: in worship. Now another excuse people here say is this one.
Speaker 1: You know, Rick, I'm not really a musical person. I
Speaker 1: can't sing. I can't carry a tune in a baggy. Okay, well, first,
Speaker 1: let me just say this. God is moved by the
Speaker 1: sincerity of your heart, not the sound of your voice.
Speaker 1: So you don't have to be a metropolitan opera singer
Speaker 1: for God to like your worship. Okay, let me just
Speaker 1: say it this way. God wants to hear your voice
Speaker 1: because He gave you that voice. What do you think
Speaker 1: you got your voice? God gave you your voice. He
Speaker 1: wants to hear your praise in your voice, not in
Speaker 1: somebody else's voice. What if my wife Kay said to me, Honey,
Speaker 1: I don't really like the sound of my voice, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to stand silently and let other people tell
Speaker 1: you how much I love you. Would that make sense?
Speaker 1: Because I don't like the sound of my voice, then
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna tell you how great I think you are.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let other people say it and I'll nod. No,
Speaker 1: I want to hear it in my kid's voice. I
Speaker 1: want to hear it in my wise's voice. God wants
Speaker 1: to hear your voice, not somebody else's. Some of you
Speaker 1: have never used your voice to praise God. Today is
Speaker 1: your day, all right. Now, here's the third excuse that
Speaker 1: people give for not singing in church. I don't know
Speaker 1: the tunes. Okay, it doesn't matter if you know the
Speaker 1: tunes or not. Let me ask you this. Can you read?
Speaker 1: Can you read? Because if you can read the lyrics
Speaker 1: on the wall, you can say them aloud without any
Speaker 1: tune to it. And that's praise too. You hear what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. You don't have to sing the words, but
Speaker 1: you do have to say the words. So if you
Speaker 1: don't have a voice or you got laryngitis, what I
Speaker 1: want you to do. I want you, and you've never
Speaker 1: done this before. I want you to read the words
Speaker 1: aloud of the songs we're gonna sing. But I want
Speaker 1: you to read them with a little bit of emotion
Speaker 1: and passion, not like, Oh God, you're a great God,
Speaker 1: You're incredible, you really do great things. I'm really glad
Speaker 1: to be one of your kids. Now, good God, thank
Speaker 1: you God. This is You're amazing. You rose from the grave,
Speaker 1: you got power, you could change my life. Say it
Speaker 1: with a little bit enthusiasm, so I'm telling you, if
Speaker 1: you can't sing, you don't know the tune, say the
Speaker 1: word aloud, but just say it from the heart. Okay,
Speaker 1: you don't have to sing for this to work, but
Speaker 1: you do to receive all the blessings that I'm going
Speaker 1: to share with you. And there's some really big blessings
Speaker 1: that you're going to miss out on in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two if you don't learn the habits that I'm going
Speaker 1: to teach you or remind you of today. But you
Speaker 1: have to put your heart into it. So read it
Speaker 1: dramatically like you actually mean what we're saying. Now. For
Speaker 1: those of you who are still thinking that you can
Speaker 1: opt out of this and you don't have to say anything,
Speaker 1: you're dead wrong because I am watching you. More important,
Speaker 1: God is watching you to see if you will praise
Speaker 1: Him or not. It doesn't really matter what I'm watching.
Speaker 1: God is watching you. Nobody else is, but God is.
Speaker 1: But if you don't sing in this service, I may
Speaker 1: have to put a cameraman on you to focus on
Speaker 1: you and put your lovely picture on the screen so
Speaker 1: everybody't see you standing there like a mannequin. I'm just kidding. Okay, relax,
Speaker 1: take a deep breath. I would never do that. That
Speaker 1: would be embarrassing. Embarrassing is not loving. I would never
Speaker 1: embarrass you, So I would never do it, but I might.
Speaker 1: So just read the words aloud with authentic feeling. Don't
Speaker 1: give lip service. Remember God says, I'd really have you
Speaker 1: a hotter cold, not lukewarm. Read the words while you're
Speaker 1: thinking of something else, No, while you're thinking of him.
Speaker 1: So I'm one thirty eight. They're on your outline. Verse
Speaker 1: one says I will praise you Lord with what my
Speaker 1: whole heart circle that. So that's what we're gonna practice today.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be an exercise, and when you finish here,
Speaker 1: you're gonna know how to praise God. By the way,
Speaker 1: you know what we're gonna do in heaven. One of
Speaker 1: the things we're gonna do in heaven is praise God.
Speaker 1: So what we're gonna do here is practice. So when
Speaker 1: you get to heaven you're not a dufus. Okay, you
Speaker 1: know how to do this. When you get to heaven,
Speaker 1: you don't want to get down. Oh I never really
Speaker 1: learned how to praise God. Now today, as I said,
Speaker 1: God gives benefits when we do what he tells us
Speaker 1: to do. I'm gonna share with you is seven incredible
Speaker 1: benefits and blessings to your life that God guarantees when
Speaker 1: you praise God with all your heart. Now, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start with a couple real simple, real obvious ones right
Speaker 1: up front. But as we move through these seven, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into some heavy duty, major, macho blessings of
Speaker 1: God that you have been missing out on if you
Speaker 1: haven't been praising God as a habit of your life.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get right into this number one. This
Speaker 1: is a real simple, kind of obvious one. Number one,
Speaker 1: Praising God lifts my spirit. That's the first thing that does.
Speaker 1: Praising God lifts my spirit. If I came to church
Speaker 1: today tired, exhausted, discouraged, fatigued, praise is a mood enhancer.
Speaker 1: In fact, praise, particularly with other people. Worship with others
Speaker 1: is an energizer, which is why you need to come
Speaker 1: to worship, not simply passively watch a service online. So
Speaker 1: you're the smart people. There are a lot of our
Speaker 1: members right now who stayed home today and they're watching
Speaker 1: online and they're pj's, eating cheerios. They're not gonna sing,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna get involved. They're not gonna get the benefit.
Speaker 1: You get the benefit by being involved in the family
Speaker 1: to get and there is power in corporate worship. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons that I wanted to look at the
Speaker 1: habit of praise and our first service out out of
Speaker 1: the gate in twenty twenty two is because the thing
Speaker 1: I've been hearing most from people in the last two
Speaker 1: or three weeks, the week before Christmas and even since then,
Speaker 1: the thing I've heard the most people saying, you know, Rick,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling a little discouraged right now, I'm feeling a
Speaker 1: little down. I'm feeling a little discouraged, a little dismayed. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to be discouraged about. If you look
Speaker 1: in the world, there's a lot of problems out there,
Speaker 1: But if you don't keep your eyes on God, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get discouraged. And so praise takes your focus off
Speaker 1: of the problems around him and put your focus back
Speaker 1: on God. Recently, there was a cover of Business Week magazine,
Speaker 1: and the cover of BusinessWeek magazine said searching for hope.
Speaker 1: That's what the world's looking for right now. This is
Speaker 1: not a Christian magazine. The world is searching for hope
Speaker 1: right now, Well, we know where it is. So let
Speaker 1: me ask you a couple of personal questions right off
Speaker 1: the bat, as we start a new year together. What's
Speaker 1: discouraging you right now? Whatever that is, we're going to
Speaker 1: deal with it in this service. That problem, what's discouraging
Speaker 1: you these days? And the second question is what are
Speaker 1: you looking to for the source of your hope in
Speaker 1: the new year? What are you going to put your
Speaker 1: hope in in the new year? If you put your
Speaker 1: hope in the wrong thing, you'll just be more and
Speaker 1: more disappointed. Now, if you're feeling a little down, a
Speaker 1: little depressed, a little tired, a little empty, that's typical
Speaker 1: in the first few weeks of January. It's after the
Speaker 1: holiday hangover where you spent so much time and energy
Speaker 1: and all the holidays. Now you've taken all the Christmas
Speaker 1: lights down, and you know, and we're just kind of
Speaker 1: going through and you're feeling a little discouraged. I recommend
Speaker 1: to you Psalm forty two. It's there on your outline.
Speaker 1: Psal I'm forty two. Verse five and six says this,
Speaker 1: Why am I discouraged? Why am I so discouraged? Why
Speaker 1: am I so troubled and upset. Instead, I will put
Speaker 1: my hope. Remember the world's looking for hope. I will
Speaker 1: put my hope in God, and I will praise him
Speaker 1: once again as my savior and my God. And when
Speaker 1: my heart is breaking, maybe your heart's breaking right now,
Speaker 1: I remember your kindness. Now, if you're taking notes, circle
Speaker 1: three words in that passage, Hope, praise, and remember, because
Speaker 1: those three go together. If you want hope in your life,
Speaker 1: you want to be a hopeful person, you gotta do
Speaker 1: the too. Praise and remember. When you praise and remember,
Speaker 1: it builds hope in your life. Now, when you praise God,
Speaker 1: Here's what God offers to you. It's the next verse
Speaker 1: in your outline Isaiah sixty one. It says, to all
Speaker 1: who mourn in Israel, I mean, what's morning? It's grief
Speaker 1: when you lost something. You lost a lot the last
Speaker 1: couple of years because of COVID and other things. There
Speaker 1: are things that you lost out on this year, past
Speaker 1: year and the year before that. To all who mourn
Speaker 1: in Israel, he gives beauty for ashes, joy instead of sadness,
Speaker 1: and praise instead of despair. God gives your choice. What
Speaker 1: do you want, beauty or ashes? You know, praise instead
Speaker 1: of despair, joy instead of sadness. Now we're going to
Speaker 1: start with a song of hope. It's actually called living Hope.
Speaker 1: And if you're going to sing it, or if you're
Speaker 1: going to read it aloud as your praise, let me
Speaker 1: show you how to read it aloud. Don't just read
Speaker 1: it in your mind. Say the words aloud, but say
Speaker 1: it expressively. Okay, put it on the screen. Here's some
Speaker 1: of the words of the song we're about sing. Who
Speaker 1: could imagine so great a mercy? You think about that?
Speaker 1: Who could imagine so great a mercy God's wished to be?
Speaker 1: What heart could fathom? Such boundless grace? God's grace to me?
Speaker 1: You're thinking about this? The God of ages step down
Speaker 1: from glory. Let's eat Christmas, to wear my sin and
Speaker 1: bear my shame. Oh, the cross is spoken. I'm forgiven,
Speaker 1: completely forgiven. The King of Kings calls me his own
Speaker 1: beautiful savior. I'm yours forever, Jesus Christ, You're my living hope.
Speaker 1: That's how you sing it, or that's how you read
Speaker 1: it aloud. Okay, Now there's another benefit. This is just
Speaker 1: a little one. We're gonna get to the heavyweight ones
Speaker 1: in a minute. But this is another benefit of developing
Speaker 1: the habit of praise in your life, and it says,
Speaker 1: write this down. Praising God helps me sense his presence.
Speaker 1: Praising God helps me sense God's presence. Now, notice I
Speaker 1: said sense because God is always present with you, whether
Speaker 1: you feel it or not. God is always with you.
Speaker 1: There's never been one second of your life that God
Speaker 1: was not with you and paying attention to you. But
Speaker 1: I don't always feel it, and neither do you. And
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel like God's a million miles away. He's not.
Speaker 1: God says, I am always with you, I'm always near you,
Speaker 1: I'm always close with you, But I don't always feel
Speaker 1: God's presence. And I want to feel God's presence. What
Speaker 1: do you do when you want to feel God's presence?
Speaker 1: What should you do? What you're doing right now? First place,
Speaker 1: get together with some other people and praise God with
Speaker 1: your whole heart. I guarantee you by the end of
Speaker 1: this service you will be feeling God's presence. I guarantee
Speaker 1: it because you got When you get in the point
Speaker 1: of praise, praise makes God's presence more real to me
Speaker 1: than when I'm I don't feel them at all, but
Speaker 1: God says you got to do it with your whole heart.
Speaker 1: Now you say, well, wait a minute, Rick, how do
Speaker 1: I praise God with my whole heart when I don't
Speaker 1: feel like praising God right now? In fact, I don't
Speaker 1: feel very good right now. I just kind of force
Speaker 1: myself to come to church and I wasn't really in
Speaker 1: the mood. I'm kind of tired. How do I praise
Speaker 1: God when I don't feel like it? Here's the answer.
Speaker 1: You do it anyway. You've heard me say this before.
Speaker 1: I've taught it to you many times. It's easier to
Speaker 1: act your way into a feeling than feel your way
Speaker 1: into an action. If you wait for a certain feeling
Speaker 1: to come before you do something, that feeling will often
Speaker 1: never come. But if you act your way into the feeling,
Speaker 1: you do act it even though you don't feel like it.
Speaker 1: The feelings always follow actions. Now. This is true in
Speaker 1: every air of your life. If you don't feel close
Speaker 1: to your wife or your husband right now, or your
Speaker 1: boyfriend or girlfriend, you feel a little estranged from them
Speaker 1: right now, what do you do? You start acting in
Speaker 1: a more loving way, and the feelings will return. When
Speaker 1: God Guy comes to me and says, you know, Rick,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving my wife. Why, oh, I just don't love
Speaker 1: her anymore. Well, it's your choice. Love is a choice.
Speaker 1: Don't blame anybody else. You choose to love, and you
Speaker 1: choose not to love. So if you're not loving your wife, right,
Speaker 1: that's because you're choosing not to love. It's your choice.
Speaker 1: Accept the responsibility, buddy. It's not like you don't have
Speaker 1: any control over it. Love is a choice. If you
Speaker 1: want your wife to treat you like a king, treat
Speaker 1: her like a queen. Let me give you a little experiment.
Speaker 1: Next ten days, act like you're in love with your wife,
Speaker 1: date your mate. Do all the things that you did
Speaker 1: when you first started dating, like open the door for her,
Speaker 1: treat her with respecting. Guess what the feelings will return,
Speaker 1: because feelings always follow actions. Now, that's true in every
Speaker 1: area of life. It's also true in praising God. When
Speaker 1: I don't feel like praising God, that's usually when I
Speaker 1: need to praise him. What I've discovered, if the only
Speaker 1: time I ever pray is when I feel like it,
Speaker 1: the devil makes sure I never feel like it. And
Speaker 1: if the only time I praise God is when I
Speaker 1: feel like it, the devil makes sure I never feel
Speaker 1: like it. Surety is when you act on what is
Speaker 1: the right thing to do, whether you feel it or not.
Speaker 1: Immature people live by their feelings. I don't feel like
Speaker 1: doing it, so I don't do That's about babies can
Speaker 1: do that. Kids live one by their feelings. But when
Speaker 1: you grow up, you do the right thing because you
Speaker 1: do it out of love, not out a feeling. Those
Speaker 1: of you who are moms, you remember when your babies
Speaker 1: are small and you had to get up multiple times
Speaker 1: in the night to go either nurse them or give
Speaker 1: them a bottle. Did you ever feel like doing that? No?
Speaker 1: But you did it because you loved that baby. And
Speaker 1: as you nursed that baby or you gave that baby
Speaker 1: the bottle, the love returned, and the feeling as you
Speaker 1: held that little one, and as you cared for that
Speaker 1: the feelings followed your actions. Now the same is true
Speaker 1: in praise. There are many times I don't feel like
Speaker 1: praising God. That's when I need it the most. That's
Speaker 1: when I need because my mood is frozen. This is
Speaker 1: the mark of maturity, Psalm verse thirteen. On the screen
Speaker 1: on your outline, the righteous praise your name, and they
Speaker 1: live in your presence. Now you're in God's presence all
Speaker 1: the time. What does it mean to living in your presence?
Speaker 1: They recognize it, they feel it, they sense it, they
Speaker 1: know it. If you want to feel God's presence in
Speaker 1: your life, just praise him more, because praise and presence
Speaker 1: go together. Psalm seventy five, Verse one says this, God,
Speaker 1: we praise you and we thank you because you are near.
Speaker 1: We don't praise you and thank you to get you near.
Speaker 1: We know we praise you because you are near. God
Speaker 1: is never not near, You're just not tuned into him.
Speaker 1: So a second, one of the smaller benefits, but it's
Speaker 1: a big one, is that when I praise God, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I start feeling his presence. All right,
Speaker 1: let me give you a third one. Here's a third
Speaker 1: benefit of praise. Praising God enlarges my perception of him.
Speaker 1: Praising God makes God bigger in my eyes. Praising God
Speaker 1: enlarges my perception of him. Now, I'll explain why that's
Speaker 1: a big deal in just a minute. But in Psalm
Speaker 1: sixty nine, verse thirty, it says this, I will praise
Speaker 1: the name of the Lord. Praise the name of God
Speaker 1: with a song, and I will magnify him with thanksgiving circle.
Speaker 1: The word magnify, magnify is praise to do the same.
Speaker 1: Now I've got up here. I got a little magnifying glass.
Speaker 1: When I take a magnifying glass and I look through,
Speaker 1: what does a magnifying glass do? It makes things bigger, bigger.
Speaker 1: When I magnify God, God gets bigger in my eyes?
Speaker 1: Is that a big deal? I want you to write
Speaker 1: this down. When God gets larger in my life, my
Speaker 1: problems shrink. When God gets larger in my life, my
Speaker 1: problems get smaller. Now the opposite is true too, When
Speaker 1: I look at my problems and my problems get really big,
Speaker 1: then God gets small in my life. One thing is
Speaker 1: going to be big in your life, either your problems
Speaker 1: or God. When you praise God, you focus on God,
Speaker 1: you magnify him. That makes him bigger. The bigger God
Speaker 1: gets in your life, the less worried you're about your problems. Go.
Speaker 1: This is nothing for God. God can handle this. This
Speaker 1: is nothing. My problem shrink inside because God is so
Speaker 1: much bigger than my problems. And so that's one of
Speaker 1: the benefits. Worship and praise and magnify God are the
Speaker 1: same thing. That's why we often call our worship team
Speaker 1: at Settleback our magnification team, because it's their job to
Speaker 1: magnify God, to make him bigger in all of our eyes. Now.
Speaker 1: PS One, verse three says this, the Lord is great. Okay,
Speaker 1: he's big. He's great, and the Lord is worthy of
Speaker 1: our highest praise because his greatness is beyond understanding. I
Speaker 1: can't ever know or understand how big and great God
Speaker 1: really is. You can't either. I said this many times.
Speaker 1: It's like an aunt trying to understand the Internet. You
Speaker 1: don't have the brain capacity to understand how big God is.
Speaker 1: If you could completely understand God, you'd be God. You're not.
Speaker 1: I'm not God's God, and we're not. But when we
Speaker 1: praise God and we sing to God in a song,
Speaker 1: God gets bigger, our problem gets smaller. So whatever problem
Speaker 1: that's got you scared right now, got you intimidated, got
Speaker 1: your word read, got you fearful. The antidote is to
Speaker 1: sing about the greatness of God, because the bigger I
Speaker 1: see God, my problems shrink in the sign Now a
Speaker 1: praise song. A lot of people think a praise song
Speaker 1: has to be fast, like hippie skippy happy yappy clappy,
Speaker 1: you know, dance around. Yeah, there's goods. There are good
Speaker 1: praise songs. You want to you can't even Yeah, gotta
Speaker 1: dance to them. They got to beat. Okay, And the
Speaker 1: Bible says you can dance before the Lord. Okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: But a praise song can be fast or a praise
Speaker 1: song can be slow. It can be very slow, and
Speaker 1: we're singing it very slow word for word. Either way,
Speaker 1: a praise song focuses on some attribute of God, God's goodness,
Speaker 1: God's greatness, God's love, God's mercy, God's holiness, which means
Speaker 1: I'm not at all like him. He's totally different than me.
Speaker 1: He's perfect, God's perfection. And our song, our our worship
Speaker 1: team while back wrote a song about God's greatness. It's
Speaker 1: called Alive and Well. And the chorus goes like this,
Speaker 1: and if we're gonna sing it in just a minute,
Speaker 1: but gonna, I'm gonna say a chorus to you. The
Speaker 1: chorus does this, all things are possible. I think about that.
Speaker 1: That means the problem. I've got no big deal with God.
Speaker 1: All things are possible. There's nothing too hard for you.
Speaker 1: There's nothing too hard for you. Now, let's go to
Speaker 1: some more. We're gonna get into some of the heavyweight benefits,
Speaker 1: but here's a big one. Number four. Praising God reveals
Speaker 1: solutions I can't see. Praising God is the way you
Speaker 1: see things that you can't see any other way. It
Speaker 1: reveals solutions to problems you have in your life. You
Speaker 1: know that you have things that you you just can't
Speaker 1: figure out. They're like the Gordian not you can't untie them,
Speaker 1: and you go, I don't know how to fix this relationship.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to fix my chronic health problem.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to fix the economy. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to fix my finances. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to There's all kinds of things in your life that
Speaker 1: they are seem to be intractable problems. They're so complex,
Speaker 1: so convoluted, and you've had them so long you wonder,
Speaker 1: am I ever going to get a solution to this?
Speaker 1: And you've thought, and you've thought, and you've tried. A
Speaker 1: year after you you came to the end of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one and go, well, I still haven't figured out
Speaker 1: the answer to that. What do you do when you
Speaker 1: have a problem you can't figure out? You praise God.
Speaker 1: You praise God, and in praise God will give you
Speaker 1: an answer you will never come up with on your own.
Speaker 1: Psalm seventy three is an example of this. So I'm
Speaker 1: seventy three, sixteen and seventeen. David said this. I tried
Speaker 1: to understand all that was happening to me. You've done
Speaker 1: this many times, trying to figure out why is this
Speaker 1: happening to me, What's going on in my life? Why
Speaker 1: am I stuck here? Okay? I tried to figure out
Speaker 1: what is happening to me, but it was too difficult
Speaker 1: to figure out until I went into the sanctuary of God.
Speaker 1: What do you do in the sanctuary of God? You come?
Speaker 1: It means it's a metaphor for coming into the presence
Speaker 1: of God. It means coming in the presence of God
Speaker 1: with praise. What do you do in the sanctuary? You
Speaker 1: thank God, You praise God, You worship God in the sanctuary.
Speaker 1: He says, it wasn't until I started worshiping and praising
Speaker 1: and thanking that all of a sudden, Bam, the idea came.
Speaker 1: I wish I had time to give you a thousand
Speaker 1: examples from my life as a leader. When I had
Speaker 1: no idea what to do next in the direction, whether
Speaker 1: I was leading saddleback or leading a movement, or coaching
Speaker 1: and counseling a world leader in one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: five different nations that I've been in, dealing with businessmen,
Speaker 1: or talking to Congress, or talking to the United Nations
Speaker 1: which I have, or dealing with parliaments of other nations
Speaker 1: which I have. And sometimes people will ask me questions.
Speaker 1: I go, I haven't the slightest idea. What's the answer
Speaker 1: to that. I don't know how to solve that problem.
Speaker 1: But in my worship time, in my praise time, as
Speaker 1: I'm thanking God for who he is and what He's done,
Speaker 1: and I'm thanking God and I'm praising God, bingo, the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit drops that idea into my brain and I go,
Speaker 1: that's the billion dollar idea that I was looking for.
Speaker 1: That's the entrepreneurial key, that's the big creative idea. The
Speaker 1: best way to be creative in your business is to
Speaker 1: get in touch with the creator of the universe. Nobody
Speaker 1: is more creative than God. If you want creative ideas, worship, praise,
Speaker 1: thank God. The more you're in tune with the Creator,
Speaker 1: the more creative you will be, David goes. I couldn't
Speaker 1: figure out the problem until I went into the sanctuary, said, great,
Speaker 1: how do I get into God's sanctuary? How do I
Speaker 1: get into God's presence? Next verse some one hundred verse four,
Speaker 1: enter his gates with thanksgiving and come into his courtyards
Speaker 1: with praise. The doorway to creativity is praise and thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: You want to be a creative leader. You want to
Speaker 1: be a creative business owner. You want to be creative mom,
Speaker 1: creative dad, creative teacher, creative artist, creative musician. Come into
Speaker 1: the presence of God. The Creator will give you creative ideas.
Speaker 1: That's a big benefit. You're going to have problems in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. You'll never solve on your own fly
Speaker 1: because God wants you to connect with him. And when
Speaker 1: you connect with the Creator in praise, those ideas. Oh,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many brilliant ideas I would
Speaker 1: have never come up with. But in a moment of
Speaker 1: me just thanking God and praising God, whether in a
Speaker 1: crowd or by myself, the Holy Spirit goes, Rick, here's
Speaker 1: what you need to do, Boom, And that inspiration is
Speaker 1: genius and it's not my genius. It's the genius of
Speaker 1: the creator of the universe. You know, we sing a
Speaker 1: song here at Saddleback called Promises, and it's a song
Speaker 1: about trusting God when you don't understand the situation, when
Speaker 1: you've got an impossible problem. And it's a song about
Speaker 1: praising God for his faithfulness when we can't see the future.
Speaker 1: The fact is, we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow,
Speaker 1: much less the rest of twenty twenty two. I want
Speaker 1: us to sing to God that song promises right now.
Speaker 1: And remember, if you don't know the tune, that's okay,
Speaker 1: just read the words aloud, but read it with some enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: with some meaning, with some passion. Okay, let me show
Speaker 1: you again how to praise God just by reading. Here's
Speaker 1: a part of that song. It goes like this, God
Speaker 1: of Abraham, you're the God of Covenant. That means you
Speaker 1: make promises and faithful promises time and time again. You
Speaker 1: have proven that you do just what he said. All right, now,
Speaker 1: these last three are really important, the last two particularly.
Speaker 1: But here's a big one, number five. A big benefit
Speaker 1: when you develop the habit of praise. Praising God helps
Speaker 1: me remember his blessing now I'm going to explain why
Speaker 1: this is really important in just a minute. But praising
Speaker 1: God helps you remember the blessings of God. Why have
Speaker 1: you noticed that? When you're going through a tough time,
Speaker 1: and you may be going through one right now, When
Speaker 1: you've got a big, overwhelming problem in your life, a
Speaker 1: big pain, a big hurt of you know, something going
Speaker 1: on your eye, you tend to overlook all the good
Speaker 1: in your life and you can only see the bad.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about. You get imbalanced when
Speaker 1: you got a big problem in your life. All you
Speaker 1: can think about is the problem. You can't think about
Speaker 1: smelling the roses and enjoying life and it's beautiful out
Speaker 1: time today, all you can see is your problem. Anytime
Speaker 1: I have a fight with my wife, Kay, the whole
Speaker 1: world smells like Limburger cheese. It just stinks. Because you
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. If you've got a relationship
Speaker 1: that really matters to you and it gets out of whack,
Speaker 1: everything else sucks. Okay, nothing else is good. If you're
Speaker 1: out of whack with the person you love the most,
Speaker 1: it just messes up everything else. And what happens is
Speaker 1: in your problems, you tend to get imbalanced. And what
Speaker 1: praise does is it rebalances you. Praise corrects is the
Speaker 1: imbalance of your life. Praise reminds you that not everything
Speaker 1: is bad in your life. Let me give you an
Speaker 1: example of this. In Psalm one oh five, the first
Speaker 1: five verses uh, the psawmist had been going through some
Speaker 1: really tough times. And so the person who wrote this
Speaker 1: decides to enumerate the things they can thank God for
Speaker 1: and praise God for. They're going through a very tough time,
Speaker 1: and Psal one O five says this, Praise the Lord.
Speaker 1: I tell myself, with my whole heart, I will praise
Speaker 1: his holy name. I tell myself, I'm talking to me.
Speaker 1: You like you don't do this. You talk to yourself
Speaker 1: all the time. Praise Lord, I tell myself, And I
Speaker 1: remember all the good things He does for me. He
Speaker 1: forgives my sin. He starts listening, just a few of them.
Speaker 1: He forgives my sins, that's a big one. He heals
Speaker 1: my illnesses, He saves my life. He surrounds me with
Speaker 1: love and tender mercy. He fills my life with good things. Now,
Speaker 1: why is it important to remember God's blessing? Well, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of reasons. First one is that in your life,
Speaker 1: when you get a problem, you tend to overemphasize that
Speaker 1: to the neglect of all it's good in your life.
Speaker 1: Your life is never all good and your life is
Speaker 1: never all bad. You get both through life the entire time.
Speaker 1: On the cover of kse book, choose joy as a
Speaker 1: pair of railroad tracks, because the rails represent the good
Speaker 1: things in your life and the bad things in your life,
Speaker 1: and they're paralleled, and you get both of them all
Speaker 1: the time throughout your entire life. There will never be
Speaker 1: a time in your life when everything is good, because
Speaker 1: we're on a broken planet. So no matter how good
Speaker 1: things are in your life, there's always going to be
Speaker 1: something you need to be working on. Okay, that's not right,
Speaker 1: But there's never time in your life when everything is
Speaker 1: bad either. Even in the worst days, there's things you
Speaker 1: can be thankful to God for. And so what praise
Speaker 1: does is it brings your system back into balance. It
Speaker 1: corrects the imbalance, because when you're having a problem, you
Speaker 1: tend to think everything sucks, everything's bad, the whole world's falling,
Speaker 1: sky is falling down, chicken little And what happens when
Speaker 1: you do that, when you get imbalanced. Now listen really closely,
Speaker 1: you forget who you are and you lose your identity.
Speaker 1: Many of you are struggling right now with insecurity. The
Speaker 1: truth is you're pretty insecure about who you are, and
Speaker 1: you're not even sure who you are, and you're struggling
Speaker 1: with your identity. Who am I as a woman? Who
Speaker 1: am I as a man? And the reason why you
Speaker 1: struggle with your insecurity and you struggle with your identity
Speaker 1: is because you listen to what other people say about
Speaker 1: you instead of what God says about you. And that's
Speaker 1: what praise is all about. Listening to what other people
Speaker 1: say about you is none of your business. What other
Speaker 1: people think of you is none of your business, usually
Speaker 1: not paying any attention to it. Why you don't need
Speaker 1: anybody's approval in life to be happy. You're as happy
Speaker 1: as you choose to be. If you're miserable because of
Speaker 1: what somebody else thinks about you, that's your choice and
Speaker 1: that's dumb. Nobody can force you to be unhappy. Only
Speaker 1: you can let other people control your emotions. When you
Speaker 1: say you make me so bad, you're admitting you have
Speaker 1: the power to control my emotions. So what you think
Speaker 1: about yourself is not even important. You think stuff about
Speaker 1: yourself that really it doesn't even matter because you lie
Speaker 1: to yourself all the time. I lie to myself more
Speaker 1: than I lie to anybody else. So do you. The
Speaker 1: Bible says, the heart is deceitful. You should not trust
Speaker 1: everything your brain tells you, because your brain isn't accurate.
Speaker 1: You get misperceptions all the time. What matters is not
Speaker 1: what other people say you are. What matters is not
Speaker 1: what you think you are. What matters is what God
Speaker 1: says you are. And He always tells you the truth.
Speaker 1: And he says you're lovable, you're forgivable, you're capable, you're usable,
Speaker 1: you're valuable. These are things that God tells you. That's
Speaker 1: the truth. And so when we praise God, we remember
Speaker 1: not only how God has blessed us, but we also
Speaker 1: remember whose we are. We remember our identity. I'm a
Speaker 1: son of God. I'm a daughter of God. He made me,
Speaker 1: He created me, He sent his son to die for me.
Speaker 1: He wants me with us in heaven. If you have
Speaker 1: a problem with me, that's your problem. If God likes
Speaker 1: me and I like me, what's your problem. Now? This
Speaker 1: is why we want We're going to sing a song
Speaker 1: called who You Say I Am? Because one of the
Speaker 1: things of praise is it not only balances your life
Speaker 1: between the negative and the positive, but it also balances
Speaker 1: your life between what other people say you are, what
Speaker 1: you think you are, and who you really are. This
Speaker 1: is the antidote to your insecurity. This is the antidote
Speaker 1: to why you feel bad about yourself. This is the
Speaker 1: antidote to low self esteem. Praising God, God, why are
Speaker 1: the universe? That the more you praise Him, the more
Speaker 1: secure you are in who you are now. On these
Speaker 1: last two benefits, I've been saving these because they're the
Speaker 1: biggest ones of all. If you're experiencing any kind of
Speaker 1: conflict in your life or any kind of frustration in
Speaker 1: your life, these last two points about praise are going
Speaker 1: to be especially helpful to you in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: If you feel like you're in a battle right now,
Speaker 1: if you feel like you're under attack. Maybe your health
Speaker 1: is under attack with some kind of chronic illness, or
Speaker 1: your finances are under attack, or your reputation or your
Speaker 1: integrity is under attack, or your marriage is under attack,
Speaker 1: or your business or your dream, anything that's under attack.
Speaker 1: That's you're gonna need these next two. And if you're
Speaker 1: frustrated and you feel like I'm caught, I'm stuck. I'm
Speaker 1: like in prison. I can't get out, I can't get on,
Speaker 1: and I can't get out of what I'm doing right now,
Speaker 1: then you need to be practicing the habit of listen
Speaker 1: praising God in advance. I'm gonna explain this. Praising God
Speaker 1: in advance. Okay, here's the sixth benefit. Number six. Praising
Speaker 1: God enlists God's protection. God starts fighting your battles if
Speaker 1: you praise Him in advance. Now I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: after the fact. The timing of your praise determines what
Speaker 1: it is. Follow me on this. If I thank God
Speaker 1: after he answers a prayer, that's called gratitude. If I
Speaker 1: thank Him after he's done something for me, if I
Speaker 1: thank Him in advance before it happens, that's called faith.
Speaker 1: It makes you see the difference. Thinking or praising God
Speaker 1: after God's done something in my life is called gratitude,
Speaker 1: But thanking God and praising God before it happens is faith.
Speaker 1: And you need both of them in your life. Both
Speaker 1: gratitude and faith draw you closer to God. Now, classic
Speaker 1: example of thanking God in advance when you're in a
Speaker 1: when you're in a battle, when you feel like you're
Speaker 1: under attack, when when you need God to defend you
Speaker 1: and you get you need God's protection. Classic example this
Speaker 1: is Second Chronicles chapter twenty, which is the story of
Speaker 1: a battle that Israel is in Israel's little tiny nation,
Speaker 1: and one day in Second Chronicles twenty in the Bible,
Speaker 1: three larger enemy nations ganged up against Israel to annihilate them.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be three to one. The odds
Speaker 1: were incredibly against Israel. They were vastly outnumbered in the battle,
Speaker 1: and so they knew the only way they could win.
Speaker 1: The only way would be if God miraculously saved them,
Speaker 1: because they were going to get their rears kicked by
Speaker 1: an overwhelming odds stacked against them. Maybe you feel the
Speaker 1: odds are stacked against you right now in some area,
Speaker 1: and maybe in your business or your education or whatever,
Speaker 1: the odds are stacked against you. So the king his
Speaker 1: name was Jehosephat They probably called them fatty for short, Okay,
Speaker 1: nick hey, fatty. So the king decides that praising God
Speaker 1: in advance is going to be their strategy for the battle.
Speaker 1: It's their only protection. And so he organizes a very
Speaker 1: unusual battle plan that has never been used before or
Speaker 1: since this particular battle. And he decides to put a
Speaker 1: choir in front of the army as they march out
Speaker 1: into battle. Now, here's what says, look on your outline.
Speaker 1: Such Chronicles twenty verses twenty one and twenty two says this,
Speaker 1: So the king appointed singers. That's what I've got next
Speaker 1: to me. These are singers. The King appointed a choir
Speaker 1: to walk notice a head of the army in front
Speaker 1: of the infantry, and they were to praise the Lord,
Speaker 1: singing praise to the Lord and praising him. What did
Speaker 1: they sing, It says, they sang, give thanks to the Lord,
Speaker 1: because his faithful love endures forever. We sing that song.
Speaker 1: Give thanks to the Lord. His love endures forever. Praise God,
Speaker 1: Praise God. His love endures forever. We sing that song. Now,
Speaker 1: so get the picture. Here. Over here, on this side
Speaker 1: of the of the valley are the the enemy tribes,
Speaker 1: enemy nations of Ammon, Mohabban, Mount Seir. They're ready for bear,
Speaker 1: They're ready, they're ready to go to battle. Over here
Speaker 1: is the Israeli army, and the king says, okay, choir,
Speaker 1: you guys get out in front of the infantry and
Speaker 1: you walk out into battle singing praise. What are they doing?
Speaker 1: They're they're symbolizing thanking God in advance. Now the three
Speaker 1: nations over here see this choir walking out. They go
Speaker 1: what is going on? And the choir. The army behind
Speaker 1: the choir is going, yeah, what is going on? And
Speaker 1: the choir the singers in front of goes, yes, we'd
Speaker 1: like to know what's going on because we're the tip
Speaker 1: of the sphear and we don't even have weapons on us.
Speaker 1: Now here's what happens. This is a great miracle. Notice
Speaker 1: the rest of the verse. The moment the people started
Speaker 1: singing and praising the Lord caused the opposing forces to
Speaker 1: start attacking each other, and they were completely defeated. Israel
Speaker 1: didn't have to do anything about it. These guys get
Speaker 1: in the fight with each other and they get confused
Speaker 1: and they start fighting and they decimate themselves. Israel wins
Speaker 1: the battle without even picking up a sword. Now that strategy.
Speaker 1: General George Patten would have fainted if somebody had suggested
Speaker 1: that to him, send a choir in front of the infantry.
Speaker 1: It is a symbolic act of faith. They're praising God
Speaker 1: in advance for their deliverance, for their victory, for his protection,
Speaker 1: for winning the battle. Okay, have you ever tried that
Speaker 1: with any of your battles? Thank you God. Maybe you
Speaker 1: feel like you're under attack right now, under attack from
Speaker 1: a competitor, under attack from the devil, under attack from
Speaker 1: you know, illness, COVID, under attack who knows, But you're
Speaker 1: in a battle right now. Have you thought about thanking
Speaker 1: God in advance? Remember, if you wait till after God
Speaker 1: gives you a solution, that's not faith, that's gratitude. There
Speaker 1: is power in praising and thanking God in advance. So
Speaker 1: let me ask you this question. You know the problem
Speaker 1: that you're going through right now, that you feel like
Speaker 1: you're under attack with, When are you going to start
Speaker 1: thanking God for the answer after he's answered? Why not? Now?
Speaker 1: The Lord wants to be your defender. The Lord wants
Speaker 1: to be your protector. The Lord says, I will fight
Speaker 1: your battles. In fact, in that second Chronicles twenty passages,
Speaker 1: he says, you don't need to fight in this battle.
Speaker 1: Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. The
Speaker 1: battle is not yours, it's God's. And so Psalm twenty eight,
Speaker 1: verse seven. The next verse on your outlines say, is
Speaker 1: this The Lord protects and defends me. When I trust him,
Speaker 1: he helps me, and he fills me with joy as
Speaker 1: I praise him. When we see this next song, I
Speaker 1: want you to be filled with joy and praise him.
Speaker 1: That the battle is not yours, it's God's, and that
Speaker 1: whatever is trying to pose you right now, God is
Speaker 1: greater than the opposition against you. Many of you know
Speaker 1: that for a few months now, I've been going through
Speaker 1: some very painful health problems, but I'm not waiting for
Speaker 1: the cure to praise God. And while the doctors I've
Speaker 1: been trying to figure out what's causing severe pain and
Speaker 1: paralysis all over my body, I have been practicing praising
Speaker 1: God in advance, and you should too. And I've been
Speaker 1: telling God, thank you that this is not the end
Speaker 1: of the story. Lord, thank you that what I'm going through,
Speaker 1: I'm going through, this too shall pass. Thank You that
Speaker 1: this is not the end of the story. Thank you
Speaker 1: that You're not finished with me. Thank You that you
Speaker 1: are bigger than my problem, that you're greater than my pain.
Speaker 1: And I'm thanking God in advance even when I don't
Speaker 1: feel it. Why because I know that that's how God
Speaker 1: fights your battles. All right, you need to do that too.
Speaker 1: Now here's the seventh one, and this is another big
Speaker 1: one for using thanking God in advance. The seventh benefit
Speaker 1: is this, Praising God breaks chains and opens doors. Praising
Speaker 1: God breaks chains in your life, things that are holding
Speaker 1: you back, and opens doors for opportunity that you can't
Speaker 1: seem to bust through. When you feel like you're stuck.
Speaker 1: And many of you right now feels like, you know what,
Speaker 1: nothing changed since last year. I went through all twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one and nothing really changed. And you're in a
Speaker 1: situation right now that you cannot control. You can't get
Speaker 1: out of it, you can't get on with it. You're
Speaker 1: just stuck. You might feel you're enslaved. You are imprisoned
Speaker 1: by an attitude, You're imprisoned by a fear, You're imprisoned
Speaker 1: by an addiction. You're imprisoned by a situation that's out
Speaker 1: of your control. You're stuck, you're in chains. There's never
Speaker 1: a time for you to thank God and praise God
Speaker 1: in advance. Now, the classic example of this, I could
Speaker 1: give you many in the Bible is the Acts, chapter sixteen,
Speaker 1: and in Acts sixteen, Paul is in prison. Paul and
Speaker 1: his friend Silas were talking about Jesus in this town
Speaker 1: and the city council. The people didn't like them, and
Speaker 1: so they throw them in prison. And Paul and Silas
Speaker 1: are in this dark, dank, dirty cold down in the
Speaker 1: Dungeon Roman prison. And in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: at midnight, they decide to have a praise session, a
Speaker 1: praise and worship God session in the prison, not after out.
Speaker 1: While they're in prison, Acts six sixteen says this verse
Speaker 1: twenty five twenty six about midnight, Paul and Silas were
Speaker 1: pray and praying and singing songs to God after midnight.
Speaker 1: Paulsing in praise to God after midnight. That's what that
Speaker 1: song is really about. You didn't know it, but that's
Speaker 1: after midnight. Silas praised Lord after midnight. Yeah, so anyway,
Speaker 1: it says after midnight they start praising and thanking God
Speaker 1: and singing songs to God in prison, and it says
Speaker 1: notice and the other prisoners listen. Well, I guess, so
Speaker 1: it's deadly in the middle of the night. They can't help,
Speaker 1: but hear the guys. Listen. Your praise of God is
Speaker 1: always a witness to non believers. We think people are
Speaker 1: impressed by our prosperity, they're actually impressed by how we
Speaker 1: handle adversity. It's not how successful you are that makes
Speaker 1: people want to come to Christ. It's how you handle
Speaker 1: the problems that they're going through too, and you handle
Speaker 1: them in a better way. Now, it says, here they
Speaker 1: start praising God. It's at midnight, it said, Suddenly there's
Speaker 1: a strong earthquake that shook the foundation of the jail.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, this was the original jailhouse rock. Okay,
Speaker 1: I waited all week to tell you that. Then at
Speaker 1: the doors, it says, of the prison of the jail,
Speaker 1: the doors of the jail broke open, and all the
Speaker 1: prisoners were freed from their chains. They came undone, and
Speaker 1: they all walk out free. That is a miracle, But
Speaker 1: it's also a metaphor of what God does in your
Speaker 1: life when you praise Him when you're stuck, when you
Speaker 1: praise Him when you're bound up, you're in chains, when
Speaker 1: you need to be set free from an attitude, an addiction,
Speaker 1: a habit, situation, when you need the chains broken off you.
Speaker 1: Now here's my challenge as we start twenty twenty two together.
Speaker 1: I want you to make the habit of praise your
Speaker 1: natural response to everything you face, good or bad. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna thank God. I'm gonna praise God in this situation.
Speaker 1: Develop that habit and watch what happens. Watch all these benefits,
Speaker 1: and there are many others we didn't cover. Second, make
Speaker 1: the habit of attending worship every weekend, so you get
Speaker 1: your weekly B twelve shot, you get recharged, you get
Speaker 1: re energized. You're gonna walk out of here with a
Speaker 1: better attitude than you came in with. So every week
Speaker 1: you be here this on the weekend. Unless you got COVID,
Speaker 1: then you stay home, okay, because we don't want to
Speaker 1: get that. But otherwise we'll see you here every week.
Speaker 1: And I just want to say that I love you.
Speaker 1: I thank God for you. This is gonna We're starting
Speaker 1: our forty third year together and I couldn't be more
Speaker 1: excited about this. Now, we may have some more really
Speaker 1: cold days in the winter, but we're gonna keep these
Speaker 1: doors open. So we're technically an indoor outdoor church and
Speaker 1: they're not gonna shut us down no matter what happens. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if it rains, if it gets freezing cold the
Speaker 1: next couple months like it was last night, It's okay
Speaker 1: to wear a park at a church. It's okay to
Speaker 1: bring your thermous of hot chocolate with you. Just show
Speaker 1: up and we'll praise God together. Okay, all right, let
Speaker 1: me pray a blessing on you, father. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for these people. I look out on their faces.
Speaker 1: I love them, We love you, We love each other,
Speaker 1: and thank you that we're part of a family called Saddleback,
Speaker 1: and that everybody in here, all of the women, and
Speaker 1: my sisters and all the guys, are my brothers. And
Speaker 1: thank you that no matter what we go through in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, we're not going to go through it alone.
Speaker 1: We got a family that's going to pray for us.
Speaker 1: It's going to support us. It's going to be with us.
Speaker 1: And one plus God is a majority in one plus
Speaker 1: God and a family. We got this. And so we
Speaker 1: greet the new year with anticipation. More than that, we
Speaker 1: greet it with praise to you. I ask you to
Speaker 1: bless everybody here, bless their health. In twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Bless their finances. For those who are out of work,
Speaker 1: give them jobs. Lord, give them creative ideas. Give us
Speaker 1: what you want us to have. Bless their memories, Bless
Speaker 1: their minds, Bless their relationships, Bless their businesses, bless their vocation.
Speaker 1: I ask you to bless every person in every way
Speaker 1: that you can. And I pray this blessing in the
Speaker 1: name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: And everybody said, Amen, I love you guys. God, bless you.