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🎵 🎵 And the Bible reads, He layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast. The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to naught, he maketh the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. The Lord looketh from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation, he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioned their hearts alike, he considerth all their works. There is no king saved by the multitude of an host, a mighty man is not delivered by much strength. A horse is a vain thing for safety, neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waiteth for the Lord, he is our help and our shield. For our hearts shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in thee. Let's pray, dear Lord God, thank you for every soul that's able to make it to church today, Lord. I just pray that you bless this service, Lord. Fill, Pastor, with your Holy Spirit, Lord, as he preaches unto us, and just bless this day, bless this service, we pray this all in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, all right, we're in Psalm 33 this morning. Look down at your Bibles in verse number one. It says, Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. And the title of my sermon this morning is The Right Way to Praise God. The Right Way to Praise God. Now let me read you a dictionary definition of what it means to praise. Number one is the act of expressing approval or admiration, commendation, laudation. The second definition is the offering of grateful homage in words or song as an act of worship. And to put this on the bottom shelf, it's essentially to recognize God, if we're to put it in religious terms, it's to recognize the works of God and his divine attributes and to verbalize it, okay? So it's you recognizing God's works, his divine attributes, and then essentially verbalizing that to a particular audience. And another simple way of defining this would be essentially to brag about God in different ways, of course, in your words and songs to others. Psalm 44 in verse number eight, it says, in God we boast all the day long and praise thy name forever seal us. So you can see how praise and boasting of God are essentially one in the same. Now the term praise, you know, a lot of fundamental Baptists have a tendency to kind of have a knee-jerk reaction when they hear about praise, when they hear about worship. And it's because of the fact that the word praise has been hijacked by a lot of liberal denominations, right? Where you hear people doing praise and worship and the automatic image that you get in your mind is some limp-wristed, effeminate person just kind of singing these CCM-type music songs up on stage. And so a lot of times Baptists will have a tendency to kind of avoid using the term praise or using the word worship and they have a knee-jerk reaction because of that. Now we as Christians, we shouldn't be ashamed of that word or of putting it into practice because of the fact that the Bible says here in Psalm 33 that praise is comely to the upright. What does that mean? It's an attractive thing, not just to others, but more importantly to God. And so when we praise God, when we sing praises unto the Lord, when we worship God, we're actually living in accordance to God's Word. It's actually an attractive thing unto the Lord. It's beautiful unto God. It is comely for the upright to praise the Lord. And we never want to become this church that kind of errs so far to the right in this regard of praise that we start delving into the liturgical way of singing hymns or something, some Catholic view of singing hymns where you're just mumbling or humming or just kind of singing these hymns just out of a chore or something like that and it sounds boring and you're not being comely, okay? You're being very ugly in your praise unto the Lord. Psalm 147 verse 1 says, Praise ye the Lord, for it is good to sing praises unto our God, for it is pleasant and praise is comely, the Bible says. And what I'm trying to say this morning is that we need to define what praise is and how exactly does it look like and in what settings should it be practiced. Now, let me explain a couple things here regarding praise and worship. When we think about praise and worship, we often use those terms interchangeably and a lot of the times they do share some of the same attributes, right? But there are some definite similarities and there are definite differences between the two. One being when you think about praise, praise is something that can be directed towards God but in the Bible it's actually permissible to direct towards man as well. If you think about it, the Bible talks about, it says in the book of Proverbs, it says, Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth and it says, A stranger and not thine own lips. So obviously, God is permitting for us to praise other individuals for the works that they do. Another way of saying this would be to honor someone, right? To honor an individual, to praise them for their works, for doing a good job, things of that nature. The Bible says that as a finding pot for silver and a furnace for gold, so is a man to his praise. When talking about the Proverbs 31 woman, it says that her children and her husband rise up and call her blessed and praise her, referring to the fact that they give honor unto her. And so you see how praise obviously can be directed towards God and most of the time it should be but there's instances when it's appropriate to direct it towards man as well. However, worship on the other hand is something that should only be designated to God, right? And obviously it's something that can be done in private, something that can be done in public. It's something that is done in spirit. They that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And the Bible tells us, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve. So obviously, worship should only be designated to God Himself. We should not worship man, that's called idolatry. Whereas praise, although it shares some of the same qualities as worship, is permissible to be done unto men because it's essentially esteeming them and honoring them for the works that they've done. Now the act, again let me read the definition here. The act of expressing approval or admiration, commendation, laudation to the offering of grateful homage in word or song. And that's essentially what praise is. Now go to Psalm 149 if you would. Psalm 149. This morning I want to give three points as to what praise is. And we don't want to have this attitude of, well that's something that the liberals do, that's something that the non-denom churches participate in and we don't want nothing to do with that. We don't want to use those terms because we don't want to confuse anybody. Well we're not going to confuse anybody because we're going to define what praise is and how to actually institute it. Because the automatic image that you get in your mind when we talk about praise is lifting up your hands and kind of swaying back and forth and making love to the mic when you're singing. But that's not what praise is. This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly, sensual and devilish. And so non-denom churches are notorious for redefining what praise is and it's more of a feeling, right? It's more of an emotion that is expressed whereas praise is something that should be done whether you feel like doing it or not. It's something that is done with our spirit whereas the praise of the non-denom churches isn't done with the spirit at all, or should I say it's not done with the Holy Spirit, it's not done with the inner man, it's done with the carnal mind and it's not edifying at all. Now I may confuse people into thinking that it's edifying because it releases all the dopamine, it releases all the feel-good emotions and all that, but folks we need to learn how to distinguish the spiritual and the carnal. The spiritual and that which is earthly, we need to be able to distinguish that and we do it by proving all things, holding fast that which is good and seeing what the Bible has to say about it. So let's go ahead and talk about the right ways to praise God. Now number one is the most obvious one. This is the one that we're all familiar with and that is praising Him in song, listen to this, before others. So God actually wants us to praise Him before others, before an audience, before people, before even the heathen, but especially amongst His people. So in other words He wants us to brag about Him, brag about His works, brag about His divine attributes in song before others. Now before we go to Psalm, where do I have you turn, Psalm 149, I'm going to read to you from a couple of passages in the book of Psalm, Psalm 22 verse 22, you don't have to turn there, says, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee. Psalm 35 verse 18 says, I will give thanks in the great congregation, I will praise thee among much people, the Bible says. Psalm 28 verse 7 says, the Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusted in Him and I am helped, therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth and with my song I will praise Him. Psalm 69 verse 30 says, I will praise the name of God with song and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. And by the way, another way to describe praise is thanksgiving. When you're giving God thanks, when you're expressing gratitude for who He is and what He's done, that is a form of praise as well. And so what is praise? Praise should be something that turns our attention to God. So when we're singing the hymns and we're praising God by singing the hymns and lifting up our voice, should it turn people's attention to us? No, it should turn our attention to God Almighty, right? To His works and His attributes. It should cause us to think upon the Lord. Whereas when you look at these non-denom churches and people who are involved in these praise and worship bands, people are just admiring the singer. People are admiring the body more than the actual doctrine that's coming forth out of their mouth. Which, by the way, there's no doctrine coming out of their mouth. It's just a repetitious song that is meant to put you in a trance, really. You know, a practice that was adopted by the Ashram cults and Eastern mysticism, and I won't get into all that. But when we praise God, it should cause people to think upon the words. You know, I don't know about you, but one of my favorite times of the year, obviously, is Christmas. One of the reasons why is because the hymns are so deep. They have so much depth to them. They have so much doctrine in them. And I can't help but sing some of the hymns and shed a tear because of how powerful it really describes the Lord and what He's done for us. And it's extremely powerful. But you know, when we're singing the hymns, no offense to John, I'm not up here like, wow, John is just... That guy's amazing, you know that? Look how amazingly beautiful. Look at those boots. That really does. That puts it together right there. I don't really think about that. No offense, he sings great. Our song leaders do a fantastic job. I think they've got great voices, but you know what? The songs that they're singing are not putting attention on themselves. It's putting attention on the God of the Bible. It's causing us to praise the Lord and think upon the birth of Jesus Christ, the fact that He is the second Adam from above, reinstate us in Thy love. I mean, those are powerful words that are causing us to praise God. And what is brother John doing this Sunday morning? He's the praise and worship leader, amen? He's leading us in that praise, but here's the difference between John and the effeminate dude at the non-denom church, is that no one's really paying attention to John. The only time they're really focusing on John is he's leading everyone, with spirit, with enthusiasm, which is why song leaders need to know the song, amen? And not pause too much when you're singing, amen? Because you're leading us in song. It's causing us to essentially take our attention and put it on doctrine, put it upon the Lord. That is what praise is supposed to do. Not cause you to praise the singer, but rather praise God. Now obviously, I'm praising John here for doing a good job, and the song leaders for doing a good job, but here's the thing, is that at the end of the day, no one leaves a song service thinking, man, he sings so beautifully. I mean, if you do, that's okay, but most of the time, if you're in spirit, you're thinking to yourself, what a wonderful song. What beautiful words, what great doctrine. You have a swelling joy within you because you're singing praises unto God. Psalm 98 verse 4 says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth. Make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise. So aside from the fact that praise should turn our attention to God, it should have significant volume to it. Because it says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Now, I don't think this is referring to the fact that we should be obnoxious when we sing. And I don't think anybody is obnoxious here, but it is making a statement that we should have a significant amount of volume when we sing. What that means is that when we're singing the hymns, we're not whispering hymns here. And let me just park it here for just a bit, because some of you need a strong rebuke in this regard. Because when you're in your car singing your rap song or your country music or you're Taylor Swift or whatever, you have no issue singing really loud as long as the windows are rolled up and no one can see you and as long as there's no church members around. All of a sudden when you come to church, you're just whispering hard to herald angels sing. Why? Well, I don't want to embarrass anybody. Well, who said it was about you anyways? Who said that praising God is supposed to bring any attention to yourself? You're bragging on the Lord. Lift up your voice. And you know what? It's a command of God when it says, make a joyful noise. And here's the thing, people will often bring this up, and I'm going to spend a little bit of time on this point. But people will often bring up, well, you know, I'm just not a good singer. Well, then get good. Because here's the thing is that only about 2-4% of the population is actually tone deaf. And there might be two people in here, because it's like two out of every hundred. So there might be at least two people here that are tone deaf, but you know what? There might not be. And here's how you can tell if you're tone deaf or not, okay? This is often referred to, what is it, congenital amusia is the actual medical term that they use. Here's how you can tell. If you're practicing and practicing and practicing and you just can't get it, after like a year or so, you're probably tone deaf. But let me just say this is that most of us are not, okay? Most of you are using the excuse of being tone deaf so you don't practice singing. But this is how you practice singing. You sing in the service. Now, I don't have a wonderful voice. I don't think I have a beautiful voice. But I can carry a tune and it's not because I grew up in church. I got saved when I was 21 and prior to that there was no hymns in my library in my playlist. I had no praise and worship songs in my playlist. You know, I didn't mess with that gay stuff, you know, the praise and worship, whatever. I listened to other types of music. But the way I learned to carry a tune, the way I learned to sing is when I came to church and I opened up the hymn book, I actually put in the effort to sing, okay? And here's a tip for you. If you don't know how to carry a tune, you don't know how to sing, sit next to someone who does and you copy what they do. That's what I did in church. I would sit next to the Bible college students that knew how to sing, that knew how to carry a tune and I would seek to mimic the way they sing as much as I possibly could to the point that I was able to carry a part, carry a tune and I can sing. And at that point, I wasn't embarrassed anymore to sing because now I can carry a tune. But here's the thing, it's going to require effort on your end to actually do it, okay? None of this, you know, liturgical way of singing in the Baptist church. This little ventriloquist thing you got going on here. And as soon as I look at you, king. Lift up your voice. You know, and like, I think of the kids. Kids got no shame. And I like it. I think it's great. My daughter has, and most of you know, has no shame in singing. And she's not thinking about what people are thinking about her voice. She's not thinking about who she might be offending or if she's singing too loud. She's just like belting it out, just singing unto the Lord and she can care, she could care less what people think about that. You know, that's the attitude that Christians need to have, okay? And so, praise God in song and don't use, oh I'm tone deaf, as an excuse. Because if we caught you in the shower, singing in the shower, you're probably singing nice and loud. Okay, for whatever worldly song you're singing. And so you should render that praise unto the Lord, amen? You know, when you come to church, look forward to singing and don't see singing in church as some chore. You know, I remember when we had our church plant years ago, I won this gangster to the Lord. And he was really involved in gang activity. But he got saved and he started coming to church and he really liked the preaching. He loved the preaching, but he just hated the hymns. And he would, even to a point where he told me, I'm going to come to church on time, but I'm going to sit outside because I just don't like the hymns. And I would tell him, you need to learn to like the hymns. It's not something you just like naturally, you know what I mean? This isn't Eazy E, this isn't Tupac, this isn't what you're used to. But you need to learn to switch and to change your appetite for music. And the way you do it is by coming into church. And he just refused to come into church because he just did not want to sing the hymns. I mean, that's a bad attitude to have, right? You should not have this attitude where it's just like, oh man, all right, we just got to get over these hymns. We just got to sing these hymns. We just got to sing these same hymns. We got to sing these Christmas songs. You know, I can't wait until I leave and I can put jingle bells on or something like that. Hey, rejoice in opening up that hymn book and singing praises unto him, lifting up your voice. And let me say this, you know, obviously we should do it skillfully. And part of doing it skillfully is knowing the song. And our church makes it very simple for you to know the song by giving you a hymn book that you could look at. So don't just sing the hymn with the hymn book and you're not looking at it and then you're singing like the third verse instead of the second or something. Or you're singing a completely different song. Make a joyful noise. Make a loud noise. Rejoice and sing praises. And let me just say this is that I guarantee you there are people in our church here and those who are not because they're sick. I guarantee you there's people in our church that think they can't sing, but if they actually just put in the effort to learn how to sing, they would probably have some beautiful voices. They probably can develop a great voice to sing and they don't even know it because they're not willing to put in the effort to actually practice. And you know what, just as you put in the effort to practice soul winning and all other spiritual disciplines, this is a spiritual discipline as well. Okay, put in the effort to sing songs and look, our church provides many opportunities for you to learn how to sing. I mean tonight we're going to have, you know, we're going to line up by the piano and roast marshmallows. But we know we're going to sing Christmas songs and John has even gone to the extent of printing out the sheets with the notes so that everyone can know what they're singing and you can learn how to sing it. I mean we're doing everything we can on our part to help you. But the reality is this is that praise, although it turns our attention unto the Lord, according to the Bible, should be done with volume. Okay, not lethargically, not, I mean this is a sunny morning but man I hope you got your coffee in you. I'm sure you got a couple Red Bulls in you. Okay, you know if you're going to consume that many Red Bulls, it should be done so you can praise God a little better. Okay, a little louder. And so I'm going to be looking at every one of you when we start singing their songs for the month of December, amen. I'm just kidding. I will be scanning the audience for sure. But you know who I'm talking, if it's you, you know I'm talking to you, okay. You know, lift up your voice, stop being ashamed and you know what, I don't even think Eric would have a problem if you came to him and said, Eric can you help me how to carry a tune on the piano? I'm sure he's willing to designate a little bit of time just to show you on the piano how to sing on tune, how to carry a melody, I think he's willing to do that. I think it's up to you though to actually want to do so. And you know you have to esteem praising God in order to actually put yourself in that position. Don't throw out this, well I just have never sung before and so you know. And let me say this, there's a person in our church, I'm not going to say who it is, who I've known for years, who cannot sing at all. He just can't carry a tune. He's possibly part of that statistic. It's very possible, okay. It's very likely that he's part of that statistic. I've known this man for years and but here's the thing is though, is that he does not allow that to impede him from praising God. And anybody who sits around him knows that. Because he'll sing it. You know and I think he's even tried to even like, I mean he's been in church for quite some time now. I think he's even tried to just like improve in singing but maybe he is part of that percentage. Maybe he does have that congenital amusia and you know he is handicapped in that area. But obviously he doesn't care. Because he's actually the one, even though he probably actually has it. I'm not even talking about him because of the fact that he's actually lifting up his voice. You know and he's not looking around to see who's looking at him singing. He's not embarrassed. He's just singing it out into the Lord. And you know what, I think that is fantastic. Because obviously that's the voice that God gave him so he has to do what he can with what he has. So praise should turn our attention to the Lord, not to the singer. You could admire maybe some of the skill of the singer. But the attention should turn to doctrine, to the Bible, to the works of God. It should have significant amount of volume. The Bible says in Psalm 9 verse 1, I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart. I will show forth all thy marvelous works. And when I think of this verse, I think of the fact when I typically say, you know, sing it from the heart. You know, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh but it also singeth as well. And so when you're singing with the heart, it means you're singing with passion. Okay, you're thinking about the words. Psalm 149 and verse 1 says, Praise ye the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song and is praise in the congregation of the saints. You know, one of the ways that we can exhort one another daily is by when we come to church, we sing and other people hear the doctrine that's coming out of our mouth. And what happens is we glorify God on that behalf. Okay, go to Psalm 150. Psalm 150. So we're supposed to sing it in the midst of the congregation of the saints. And in the New Testament, that congregation is the church. So when we're in church, part of a church service is not just the preaching of God's word. We obviously know that's the most important aspect of the service. But along with that is the singing. That's important. You know, the preaching is the meat of the service. The singing is the macaroni and cheese, it's the mashed potatoes, it's the sides. And obviously we can be just content with just having the meat. But you know what, it's nice to have a full plate, right? Of potatoes and stuffing and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and marshmallow candied yams and pie and, you know, all that stuff, right? What else? You know, all the fixings. Psalm 150 says, So according to the Bible, our praise should have doctrine of God's mighty acts and His divine attributes. It should actually have some Bible in it. Not just, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. You know, that's kind of shallow. Oh, but it gets the dopamine kicking in, though. You know, it does put you in that trance. It does, you know, make you feel as though you're in the presence of God, when in actuality the presence is far from that place. It just gives you that feeling. But where is the acts, the mighty acts and the excellent greatness? Well, that's found in the Word of God. Let me read to you from Isaiah 42 verse 10. It says, So praises should be done in church. Praises should have volume. It should direct our attention unto God. It should talk about His mighty acts and His excellent greatness. But also, it should include new songs. So some of you writers out there need to start writing some new hymns. Myself included, okay? I think it's important for us to write new songs. And, you know, the fundamental Baptists have a knee-jerk reaction at this as well. Because they think, well, you know, we don't want to delve into that, because we might get like Lancaster, get like liberal. Well, don't be like Lancaster, there's a solution. Some of the problems have the easiest solutions. Just don't do it. Don't be like Paul Chappell. Don't be like Pastor Polkadot. Don't be like their praise and worship team. Just don't do it and you'll be fine. You know, we need more of God's people, listen to this, we need more of God's people writing hymns. I know we've got some poets out there and people who are skilled in writing. You know what you need to do is start writing some hymns. You know, if God has enabled you to have great writing abilities, you know, you need to direct that writing ability to writing hymns. Maybe we've got some former rappers out there. Okay, some former MCs. Hey, you know, the answer is not Christian music, it's Christian rap music. The answer is no, become like Lecrae. Okay, the answer is start writing some hymns. Why? Because God wants us to praise Him in new songs as well. Why? Because He wants newer generations to come up to be, what's the word I'm looking for, to be, He wants them to be original. Okay, He doesn't want us to just sing the old hymns, although they have a lot of great doctrine. He also wants new generations to come up with their own way of thinking and their own hymns stemming from a heart of praise unto Him and in hymn style. I think that'd be great. And so praise includes new hymns. Praise includes instruments, not Amish, not Mennonite. There should be instruments involved in praise. Psalm 144 verse 9 says, I will sing a new song unto thee, O God, upon a psaltery and upon an instrument of ten strings, while I sing praises unto thee. And so, hey, orchestra, you're praising God when you're playing those instruments. And let me say this, if you know how to play an instrument, you should be praising God with that instrument. Because not everyone has the capability and the talent to pick up an instrument and start playing it and using it. If you have that capability, if God enabled you to learn music or just to know it naturally in that manner, you should use it to praise God because God translates using those instruments of ten strings or whatever in the psaltery and whatever this is, that thing right there, you know, the guitar, the violin, you know, as an instrument of praise. What's another way? Here's another way. Okay, and fundamental Baptists have a huge problem with this one. Okay, they don't like this one at all. But you know what? It's in the Bible and so we're Bible believers here and so I'm going to talk about this and that is praising God with dance. Now, why do fundamental Baptists have such an issue with this? Well, it's because of the fact that in their minds, dance automatically equals sensual dancing. And I don't know why. Maybe it's because that's all they've been exposed to. Maybe they feel like that's all that they've ever known. But there's so many genres of dance out there. I mean, we would not consider ballroom dancing sensual dancing. You know, I mean, not the ones that I've seen. Ballroom dancing where you're just like... You know, I try to ballroom dance with my wife but she ain't got no rhythm. So it's like, it's hard for me to, you know, my wife and I, I try to ballroom dance with my wife but she just ain't got it, you know. It's like the tone depth for dancing. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding, honey. But according to the Bible, you know, we can praise God and dance. Now, there's no examples in the Bible, even in the book of Psalms, where dance was done in praise in a congregation. And especially in the New Testament, we don't see that implemented where dance is done in a congregation. So I don't think we should be implementing dancing in a service, okay? Let me read to you a couple verses here. Psalm 149 verse 3 says, Let them praise Him in... Excuse me. Let them praise His name in dance. Let them sing praises unto Him with the timbrel and harp. Psalm 150 verse 4 says, Praise Him with the timbrel and dance. Praise Him with string instruments and organs. Now, what people seem to forget, go to 2 Samuel chapter 6, if you would, 2 Samuel chapter 6, is that we're not talking about torquing here. Dancing can simply be translated as leaping, shuffling your feet. There's dancing out there, and even some of you are looking at me weird right now, like, you know, are you going to get involved? I've been dancing since I was a kid, okay? And I don't do any sensual dances either. Obviously there's cultures that have sensual dancing, like, you know, Hispanic cultures have that, you know, American culture definitely has a lot of that, TikTok culture has a lot of that. But, according to the Bible, we can't praise God with dance because it's essentially an outward expression of how excited we are about the things of God. And you think about this, you know, the Bible talks about when we get persecuted, we should dance and leap for joy. That's a form of dancing, leaping up and down and dancing. You know, that is a manner of praising God. But look, we don't want to be like these old fundamental Baptists, we don't want to be like Michal, okay? So what are you talking about? Look at verse 15 of 2 Samuel. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet as the ark of God, excuse me, as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart. Why? Why are you so mad, Michal? Why are you so mad of him dancing? And they brought in the ark of the Lord and set him in his place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had pitched for him, and David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And as soon as David had made an offering of burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. Skip down to verse number 20, it says, Then David returned to bless his household, and Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, How glorious was the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself today in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovered himself. Now, he's not dancing naked, he's just simply dancing unto the Lord, but she's saying it's almost as if you're just naked, you're just being shameless. And David said unto Michal, It was before the Lord, which chose me, I like this, before thy father. You know, just kind of throw that in there for good measure. And before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord over Israel, therefore will I play before the Lord. And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be based in my own sight, and of the maidservants, which thou hast taught me, and of the maidservants, which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honor. Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death. So Michal's over here mad because David is so excited of having the Ark of the Lord back where it belongs. You know, he's leaping, he's dancing. I'm sure he's not doing the whole Jewish bar mitzvah type thing or whatever. He's not gesticulating here. You know, he's doing some Israeli dance from back in the day or something, where he's just super excited, and Michal is mad at this. But you know what, why isn't Michal rejoicing over the fact that the Ark of the Lord is back where it needs to be? She's so focused on the dance that she's completely ignoring the purpose of why he's dancing. And you know what, this reminds me of the old IFP. Because the old IFP, you know, they have completely thrown out dancing out of the equation. And again, I'm not saying dance should be implemented in church services. I don't believe that at all. And in fact, liberal churches do this. Pentecostal type churches do that. And it calls attention to them. And really, they're not praising God in their dance, they're praising themselves. And you know, ironically, it's just a bunch of women who are doing it. And so it's attracting men to look upon them and lust after them. And there's a whole issue with that. But here we see that David is simply rejoicing, he's leaping, he's dancing. He said, then what kind of dance is appropriate, you know, to do as a Christian? Well, if it's not sensual, I think it's appropriate. You know, if it's not sinful, I think it's appropriate. Now let me give you a really silly example. I'm not going to do it, okay? Although I might, I don't know. I'll give you an example, okay? Now this is a really bad example, but it honestly illustrates the point, okay? There's a dance that's existed for a long time called the Sea Walk. Let me know what the Sea Walk is, okay? All the ghetto people, all right? And it's a dance, it's a shuffle that Crips do, okay? Now this has become so popular that even just people who are not Crips will do it. Okay, just white people do it. Like when white people start implementing it, you know it's basically. Now can we say it's a sinful dance? No, you can't possibly say it's a sinful dance because it's literally shuffling your feet. You're literally, that's literally what you're doing is just shuffling your feet back and forth like this. Can we say that's sinful? Yeah, but you know, it has sinful origins or whatever. I mean, does it really though? I mean, who came up with it? We don't even know where it came from, right? It's not like Crips keep good records of like their origins. They might have actually gotten it from someone who's a legitimate dancer and then they copied it. We don't know where it comes from. But when we look upon what it is, it's like, okay, it's a shuffling of the feet. We can't necessarily say it's sinful. Now obviously if you're like throwing up gang signs and all that, then you're delving into the other realm. But I'm talking about the shuffling of the feet. And so technically, if you're so excited about the Lord that you just start sea walking, I would say that's permissible. Because you're just excited. You just start, you know, you can't see because I'm behind the pulpit right now, but I'm doing it right now. I've been known to, you know, do a little sea walking in my office when I get someone saved. You know, belief trip comes to a conclusion. We hear about all the salvations. I may shuffle a little bit in my room because I'm excited about what God has done. You say, I don't know. Okay, Macau. Then you come up with your own form of dancing if you want or whatever, you know, then you figure something else out. But I mean, that's that's sometimes I may do that. I don't know. Maybe I might ballroom dance with my wife as a form of excitement that God is doing something great. Okay. Or I might just come up with some form of dancing on my own. I mean, my kids know at home when I'm really excited about something. I'm excited about my family. I'm excited about my kids. Sometimes I just get this jolt of excitement and I just start kind of swinging my arms a little bit. And my kids know because I'm just excited. Oh, man, that's so so so what Macau? You know, maybe you need a little more excitement in your life. Okay. And maybe you need to jump up and down when God you know, we're not going to have this liturgical Catholic attitude where it's just like no music, no dance. Now in the service for sure. I don't believe we should be doing that. I don't think that would be appropriate while we're singing the hymns. You know, and I remember being in that old IFB church plant. There is a lady who would come. And we would be singing at Calvary. And she's like swinging her hips and I don't think that's appropriate. And I even went up to her and I'm like, why are you dancing to at Calvary? It doesn't even look right. Like it doesn't even go with the song. Right. But let's say she just wanted to do that. Why do you got to shake your hips for? Why are you going to shake your butt for? Right. What's the point of that? It's because you're trying to call attention to yourself. Okay. Now those of you who have no rhythm. Maybe you will refrain from dancing unto the Lord. Because it will just look like you're having a seizure or something. I don't know. You'll just look like sizzling bacon or something like that. And you know what? Okay, I get it. Alright. But we can't say that it's wrong because of the fact that it is in the Bible. The Bible doesn't give us a two step that we can do when we dance. He's just saying sometimes the body out of excitement will move. You know. And so I think it's very much appropriate. You know, when we get persecuted, it's okay to do a little dance after that. Why? Because of the fact that God even says that is an expression of your body because you're excited over the fact that you suffer for Christ's sake. Okay. I remember when I first got married and months after, you know, my wife and I were trying to have children. And she just wouldn't get pregnant. And then finally she got pregnant. And so what she did was, you know, she surprised me in a very special way. It's when I found out that she was pregnant with Bruce. And Bruce was literally someone who was on my prayer list for years. Like I had been praying number one for a boy and that I was going to call him Bruce. It was an answer to prayer. And he said, what did you do? I did a handstand. And I danced a little bit. Now I'm not saying I can do the handstand now. That was many pounds ago. Many years ago and many pounds ago. I probably snapped my wrist if I ever tried, you know. But when she told me, and you know what? Every single time my wife tells me that she's expecting, I always dance. I say, why? Because I counter the blessing. Because I'm excited. Because I love children. And I love the fact that God is blessing me with children. And so I do a little dance. Okay? But see, in your mind you're thinking, you know, what kind of dance? Well not the sensual dance that you're thinking about. I'm not doing, I'm not twerking. I'm not doing some weird dance of some heathens out there. It's just a regular movement of the body. Whether I'm leaping, I'm doing a handstand, I might be doing some shuffling there. A little seawalk, a little Christian walk. Okay? And that's it. You know, because that's my form of praising God. I'm excited about that. He said, well I'd be too embarrassed. I mean, then you're too embarrassed to praise God then. You know, if you just feel it's just, because at the end of the day, you know, if your favorite football team won or something like that, you'd be moving your body quite a bit. Throwing up your hands and going, yeah, you know, doing whatever. When your favorite fighter wins, you know, when your favorite whatever wins, oh, you move your body a lot. Okay? You know, when you get all the pins down when you're bowling, you're doing something. We don't just like... You know, we're not made that way. You do something when you get excited. Okay? And so, I want to make that very clear though, because I don't want people to walk out here and say, oh, pastor said it's okay to do salsa dancing. You know what I mean? Well, if that's what you want to do behind closed doors, that's your business. But I don't believe this is what that's referring to. I believe it's a movement of rejoicing. Whether it's leaping, it's shuffling the feet, you know, it's moving side to side or something. It has no sensuality to it. Because obviously that would be a complete contradiction of the Bible. Right? And so, very important there. Go to Psalm 78 if you would. Psalm 78. So we praise God in the midst of a congregation. We praise God by talking about his marvelous works. We praise God with an instrument. By talking about his marvelous works, we praise God with an instrument, with the volume of our voices. Yes, excuse me, even with dance, which is something the whole IFP is not for, but you know, we do it. And you know what? I don't think that this should be like a constant either. You know what I mean? That's like when you're really excited. Okay? And keep in mind that David said, I did it before the Lord. Okay? But you know, here's a wrong way to praise God. And that is with vain repetition. Now in the Bible, the Bible talks about Matthew chapter 6, vain repetition in context of praying, but it can be applied to praising God as well. Now why would vain repetition be wrong in praising God? Well because of the fact that it communicates insincerity. It communicates shallowness. It communicates that you don't know the Bible. You say, what do you mean? Well if we're to use vain repetition, as many of the CCM songs do, now I was gonna like go through some CCM songs like on my YouTube, but I didn't really want it to foul my ears. So I'm just gonna make one up. And I don't think it's that hard. Right? But let's just say, you know, praise you for your marvelous works, Almighty God. Which is a legitimate statement, right? But what if I just repeat that seven times? Praise you for your marvelous works, Almighty God. Praise you for your marvelous works, Almighty God. And you say that like 12 times? After a while it loses its meaning. How many of you have ever said a word so many times it loses its meaning? You guys know what I'm talking about? Where you like learn a word or you just pick a word and you say it so much it's just like, I don't even know what this word, it doesn't even sound like this word is real. Well you know what, that's what that does. It loses its meaning. And when we commune with God, when we praise God, we gotta keep in mind that we do it the way we would commune with another person. So if I told my wife, you know, I love you because you're beautiful. I love you because you're wonderful. But what if I just said that 12 times in a row? Sarah, I love you because you're beautiful. I love you because you're wonderful. I love you because you're beautiful. She'd be like, are you okay? She would think there's something wrong because that's, why? Because it just sounds insincere. It's like, is there anything else you loved before? It kind of shows that you have nothing else in the tank. And so when that happens, when there's shallowness to the praise to another individual, it shows that it's insincere because they got nothing else to say. Well in like manner, when we praise God and if we're praising Him, saying the same exact statement 12 times over, it shows that you're shallow in your doctrine and your knowledge of God's divine attributes and it shows that God's not really doing anything in your life. Because you know when we praise God, we don't praise Him for the same things over and over again. Maybe some of the things we do, salvation, for providing for us. But you know what? God should be doing something for us today. Something new should have been done this week for us. Why? Because we're praying. We're serving God. We're thanking God for what He's done this month. There should be something new that comes out of your mouth of how God's working in your life. Like, well I don't really have needs. Then show me what you learned out of the Bible this week then. Because God is not someone who just takes a break and just doesn't work in your life. He's constantly working in our lives. He's constantly working in our lives. We're being convicted of sin or we're learning something in the Bible where we're praying, we're getting answers to prayer. God is working in our day-to-day lives. That's what we can praise God for. So, I love you because you're wonderful and you're almighty. Seven times, twelve times over shows that God's probably not working in your life. That's all you have to say about Him. Look at Psalm 78 verse 36. Now, let me say this before we read it. If I'm being insincere towards someone, another way of saying that is that I'm flattering them. Well, look what the Bible says in Psalm 78 verse 36. Nevertheless, they did flatter Him, referring to God, with their mouth and they lied unto Him with their tongues. There's people out there that were praising God with their mouths but they're actually flattering God. How? Through vain repetition, through insincere statements. They're lying unto Him. Now, obviously He knows that they're lying, He knows that they're flattering Him but obviously they don't think that. Go to Psalm 100. I love how different the verses are in the hymns that we sing. Especially in the Christmas hymns, there's like five, six verses. These are long songs. And you know what that tells me? It tells me the writer of that song had a lot to say. It tells me that they could have written twelve verses if they wanted to. Some of those are really lengthy songs. God rest ye merry gentlemen. Pretty lengthy as far as I can remember, right? You know, a lot of the hymns are just lengthy, they're deep because the writer actually had something to say about it. And when you read them, you see that there's a lot of, it's saturated with doctrine. It's saturated with praising God. It's not just this shallow, thank God for being born, thank God for being born, thank you for being born, thank you for being born. It's just the same thing. You say, what's the point of that? The point is to get you into a trance so you can release these endorphins of these feel-good endorphins to make you think that you're communing with God but you're actually not communing with God because it's an essential thing. What is communion with God? It's when the Spirit is communing with the Lord in spirit and in truth. Not in repetition. Which is why he tells them in Matthew 6, use not vain repetition, listen to this, as the heathen do, for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking. Well, you think you're praising God by your much singing, by your much repetition of that one specific line. It's not right. Let me read to you from Isaiah 29 verse 13, it says, Wherefore the Lord said, for as much as this people draw near to me with their mouth and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. I mean, you go to these non-denom churches, where is the emphasis really placed? Is it placed on the preaching or is it placed on the singing? On the singing. Fact. In fact, you know, I had this Pentecostal aunt. She's Pentecostal. And I remember years ago, isn't there always a Pentecostal aunt? That always exists, right? I was like, I got this Pentecostal. That's legitimately a real thing. I had this Pentecostal aunt. And I remember when I got saved, I became a fundamental Baptist and I just went all in and singing the hymns. And I remember I invited my family to come hear me preach at a preacher boys meeting. Where we can preach like a ten minute sermon. And so I invited them to come and this is when we used to talk to my aunt. But she was a Pentecostal and she came, she wanted to hear me. And she looked at the church where I was at and she was like, how long is your worship service? Now keep in mind, I was never exposed to that. Like some of you guys are recovering, you know, non-denomers. Okay? Recovering Pentecostals. All I've ever known as far as religion is concerned is fundamental Baptist. Which I'm thankful for. You know, I was a Catholic before but Catholic only in name. Where, you know, you're just a Catholic because everyone else is Catholic in your family. But I've been a fundamental Baptist pretty much my entire spiritual life. That's all I've ever known. And so I looked at the building and I was just like, worship service? She goes, yeah, how long do you guys worship for? And I'm thinking to myself, well the whole service is pretty much, I guess, you know, that's what we do. She's like, well how long is your song service though? And I said, oh that's only about like 20 minutes. Maybe less. Because of the fact that, you know, the most important thing is the preaching I said. And she's like, oh yeah, I can't do that. I can't do that. I have to at least worship for an hour and a half. That's what she told me. And I remember thinking to myself, an hour and a half? I'm like, how long is the preaching? She's like, well sometimes we just don't even have preaching. She's like, I can read my Bible at home. Which obviously she doesn't. And I thought to myself, wait a minute, you come to church to sing songs for an hour and a half and then go home? Like what in the world is that? That's not a church service. But that kind of opened my eyes. Because in her mind she's like, that's like the most, she actually said that's the most important part. I'm like, well worshiping God can be done in the privacy of your own room. Worshiping God can be done in a car. It's done anywhere. But church is for preaching. Church is so you can be fed the word of God. That's what it's for. But it kind of shows you the attitude that people have in regards to praise and worship. That really all they're interested in is that feeling that it provides when you sing. I know I'm hitting hard for some of you in here. But you know what, I'm preaching to you the word of God. I'm giving you a spiritual reality check here. Because we don't want to just be these sensual Christians that are fooling ourselves into thinking we're having a good spiritual experience when it's not really a good spiritual experience. It's making you an emotional person. It's giving you a misconception of the works of God. The hymns should be something that we sing because it directs our attention to doctrine. Just remember this, doctrine is always the most important. Are you just saying that because your spiritual gift is a prophet? Well that would be the teacher. Whether I'd be a prophet or a mercy or a giver or an exhorted doesn't really matter. Because at the end of the day the Bible emphasizes doctrine more than anything else. And so you just need to change your appetite in that regard. And stop listening to gay music. Amen? Because a lot of those dudes who do the CCM are homos. I have a book in my office to a guy who is like a recovering CCM dude. And he was saying like he was exposing what goes on there and he was just like there's all types of adultery going on in those bands. All types of fornication and sodomy. There's sodomites in those bands. And he was like oh you don't say. I never would have thought that by looking at him on stage singing like a little faggot. You don't. He's a ho- wow. He's up there singing like George Michael. He's like a Christian George Michael. Oh he's a ho- wow I didn't know. News to me. Of course it is. Of course they are. And so you know let's sing some manly songs. Amen? Hymns aren't manly. Yes they are. Hey psalms are manly. Amen? Psalm 139 is one of the manliest songs I've ever sung. You won't find that in a non-denom church. Because queers don't like that. They don't like that hymn. And let me say this. If you walk out of here and you're like well I'm still going to sing the way I sing. Okay then the stones would immediately cry out then. Because God's going to find someone to praise him. You know what? But I don't want him to take his attention away from our church. I want our church to be a church that praises God in the biblical manner. You know if you're a bass, sing it out. Amen? If you are a tenor, sing it out. If you are a- what's the other ones? Alto, soprano, sing it out. Sing as loudly as you can. Not in an obnoxious way. And if you feel like you're being obnoxious, come talk to John, come talk to Eric so he can help you carry a tune. Sing skillfully. Because praising God is important. Okay. Now let's move on here. Where do I have you turn? Psalm 100? So we praise God in song, we praise God with instruments, but we also praise God in prayer. Because automatically we think praise is only designated for singing. But praise is also designated for your personal prayer time. Let me read to you from Psalm 119, 164. It says, seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments. I don't believe that David seven times a day was just breaking out in a song somewhere. It could be. I think this is more so referring to the fact that he's praying unto the Lord and he is praising God as he's praying. Look at Psalm 100. This is the best way to start your prayer time. And anytime someone asks me how to pray, I always explain to them this concept first. Look what it says, Psalm 100 verse 1. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Listen to this, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. Now what is this referring to? I believe that this is referring to that when we come before the presence of God in prayer, the first thing that should come out of our mouths is praise. God wants us to verbalize our needs. He wants us to verbalize our worries and cares. He wants us to talk about those things. He wants us to make supplication. But in order to get to that point, I believe we need to praise God first. No matter what situation you're in. Now here's a good way to explain it. I was talking to my wife about this. And you know, it's always good, like if my wife, let me give you a really carnal example. If my wife wanted something from me, it's that she wanted to buy something. Obviously she could always just come to me and ask me for it, but you know I'm more apt to give it to her if she comes praising me first. You worked out today, huh? Did you hit those deadlifts, huh? That 435 look, you know just praising, you know it's going to butter me up. It's going to soften me to kind of give her whatever she wants. Now she doesn't necessarily need to do that, she does do it though. She doesn't need to, but you know it kind of helps the conversation a little bit and it makes me more apt to give her whatever she wants. You know when we come before, and obviously I believe it's sincere by the way. She's just telling me the truth. But you know when we come before the Lord, we come before his gates with thanksgiving, I think the reason he's saying that is because first and foremost, you know when we come before the presence of God, we should thank him for whatever it is we have now. Even though we need more, we should always thank him for what we have. And so anytime I pray, I always say, Lord I come before your gates with thanksgiving and praise. I want to thank you for my salvation. I want to thank you for the fact that I have a church, I have a wife, I have kids. You've blessed me beyond measure. And just kind of go through a list of things that I'm thankful for and praising him for. And when someone is new to praying, I always give them this acronym that I think helps. It's called acts. And you go through that. Acts A being adoration, C being confession, T being thanksgiving, and S being supplication. And so I think you should always start with adoration. I think you should adore the Lord, glorify him, and spend some time, listen to this, especially during this Christmas season where everything has a tendency to slow down a little bit. I think it's very important to turn off social media and spend time in meditation and thought and deep thought. Thinking about the Lord. Communing with God upon your own bed, thinking upon the Lord. A lot of people don't like silence anymore. As soon as silence comes on, they want to turn something on, open Instagram, Facebook or something. Whereas really what we should do is just sit quietly in a room or outside or take a walk and just commune with your own heart unto the Lord. And really those are the instances where the deepest of thoughts come. It's where the Spirit yearns and begins to commune with the Lord and you'll have these pleasant thoughts of the Lord. If you ever have a hard time thinking deeply about God, that's probably the reason why. Because you're so saturated with so much noise from outside, you're really not giving yourself time for the Spirit to commune with the Lord in meditation. You want to know why some of the books from the 1800s are so deeply written? It's because they thought a lot. They just spent a lot of time in thinking which is what meditation is. Just quietly praising him, whispering your prayers unto him, praying in your mind unto him. Just thinking about the qualities of God. That is a manner in praising God. Because here's the thing, we're a church who emphasizes reading the Bible a lot. And that's great. And I think we need to keep that up. And if you haven't read the Bible, you need to start reading the Bible. If you've only read the New Testament, you've got to start reading the Old Testament. You need to start reading the Bible through, cover to cover, and January is right around the corner. You can read the Bible in 365 days, and that's a challenge that I want to give to everybody. Although I'm going to give some other challenges in a couple weeks. One of the most basic of challenges is to read the Bible all the way through. And I think it's important for you to know doctrine. I think it's important for you to pay attention in church. I think it's important for you to know how to verbalize what you believe and what the Bible says. But you know what? Let me just say this, is that prayer is also important. And sometimes I think Christians, especially in our church, they elevate doctrine to the point where almost at the neglect of just like praying. Almost at the neglect of just meditating upon the word of God. And so they become emotionally unstable. They don't necessarily have wisdom to make certain decisions. Whereas a lot of that wisdom is readily available to you through prayer. A lot of the needs that you have are readily available to you through prayer. It's important to know the Bible. But also get to know the God through prayer who wrote the Bible, right? Spend time becoming a deep Christian by spending time in deep meditation. You know, get all stoic about it. You know, just get your coffee. And just think upon the Lord. You're like, well it's too wild in my house, then go take a walk. Well it's too, you know, I live in a ghetto neighborhood or whatever. Too many gunshots and helicopters. Okay then, on your way to work. Well you know my kids are just, well when they all take naps. You know, spend some time throughout the day meditating upon the Bible, meditating upon the Lord, communing with God. The Bible talks about offering the sacrifice of praise. And rendering to God those vows referring to the praise unto the Lord. And so praising God through music, very much important. Start singing in church. Lift up your voice. Sing unto the Lord. Hey, we have, you know, there's in the new IFB, there's music available that you can listen to if you want to learn the hymns. You know, if you want to sing songs, that's always available. Play it in your car, but you don't play, sing in church. Also praise God in prayer as well. And then lastly, praise God in the presence of others. What do you mean by that? When we're in church, my friends, listen to me. When we're in church, it's important to discuss and praise God before one another. So what do you mean by that? How about sharing answers to prayer? Hey, on those chats that you guys have on Instagram or wherever it is that you guys commune with each other. It's important to share problems. But you know, you should be sharing some answers to prayers as well. I'm not saying stop, you know, no more sharing problems on the chats, ladies, you know. But you know what you should be doing also is giving some praise reports. You know, go on there and be like, I just want to share with you ladies, men, you know. I'll use the ladies as an example. You know, that my husband got a raise. He's answered our prayers. I just want to share something, I got something out of my Bible. I think it was just awesome. I just want to share this. That's praising God. So yeah, obviously we need to share our needs, right? For people to pray for us because there's power in prayer. But you know, in like manner, we need to share also what God is doing in our lives. Share something from God's word and don't douse someone's flame for sharing something from God's word. You know, if you're in church and some young guy comes to you and shares some biblical truth that they've learned, don't douse that flame. Don't try to be this little holier than thou and douse that flame. Obviously, if they're teaching heresy, they need to be corrected, right? That's not in the Bible, you know. I appreciate you get an A for effort, but it's not in the Bible. But you know, if it is in the Bible, don't be a hater. Don't be a little hater. If someone got something deep from the Bible and they've been saved less than you, a lot less than you, you know what, you should praise God with him because God revealed that even unto babes. Don't be a little hater in our church. And I know what I'm talking about because I remember in my old church, I was that new guy sharing things from God's word and all of the seniors, senior Christians would always put me down and think that I'm just trying to be a little spiritual Billy or whatever, Bible Billy. And they would just like douse my flame and I'd be like, I feel bad about it. But you shouldn't feel bad about it because God gave you that knowledge. He revealed that truth unto you. Obviously, do it in humility, young men. But you know, share something from God's word. That's a way of praising. That's great communion. When you come to church, it's like, let me share something. I got something out of the Bible, you know, and they share something and it adds up. And it's not like some, you know, like I think you're making this up or, you know, you're being delusional. If it's actually true, this is like, you know, that's really good. That's awesome. Praise God. Because he's revealed it unto babes. And let me say this, in order for you to share something from God's word, you have to get something from God's word. So I hope you're reading the Bible, amen. And I love it. I love it when church members come to me and they share something with me that I've never seen. I have men in our church that come to me and they'll share some things and I'm like, wow, that was deep. And I always tell them, like, I'm stealing that and I'm not going to give credit to you. So there you go. And there's nothing you can do about it. God gave it to you to give to me. No, I'm serious. I love it when, because it shows me that men in our church are communion with God. The Holy Spirit is revealing things to them. He's teaching them. You know, that's a way to praise God. Sharing answers to prayer, sharing something from God's word, magnifying God for his righteous judgments. Okay? Sharing how God is working in our lives. You know, God, how about this? How about sharing how you applied a sermon? Right? You know, pastor preached a sermon, this is how I applied it and this is how my life changed in this area. It helped me really a lot in this particular area. When I listened to the sermon, it helped me. And then lastly, I'm going to say this is praising God, listen to this, to our children. Folks, don't be a fake parent. You need to make sure at home, as spiritual as you are here, you're equally spiritual at home and you're praising God at home to your children. Making God as real as possible to your children and saying God is magnificent. God is doing so many great things in our lives. You know, you talk to your children, you share what God's given you from the word of God to your children. It's important to do that. Don't be all spiritual here and then when you get home, it's all carnal. And then, you know, it's just a complete different story. You need to be praising God to your children. Psalm 34 verse 3 says, O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. Go to 1 Peter 2 and we're done. 1 Peter chapter 2. Psalm 18 49 says, Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen and sing praises unto thy name. Psalm 22 verse 25 says, My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation. I will pay my vows before them that fear him. Here's the conclusion of the matter. And the purpose of the sermon is just to kind of redirect our attention to praise. What it is biblically and why we should be implementing it and how we should be implementing it and what instances should it be done. And at the end of the day, praise should just characterize our life. Because when we talk about praise, we're talking about talking about God. And isn't that something that should characterize our lives? Isn't that what we do as Christians? We should be people who talk about God. Look at 1 Peter 2 9. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people. And we always focus on this when talking about replacement theology, right? It's a great verse for that. But let's look at the second part of that verse. It says that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. This is God's purpose for our lives. What's God's will for my life? To praise God. No, no, no, no. I mean like that specific will though. Well, why don't you take care of the revealed will first? Why don't you learn how to praise God first and then that other stuff will fall into place? Praising God, showing forth his praises, and talking about his marvelous works, talking about salvation. Hey, when we go out in the soul, we're praising God. Because we're bringing tidings of great joy to people. Praising God for the fact that he sacrificed his son Jesus Christ for us and then he resurrected. That's our job. And so let's not be a dead church. Don't be a dead church. I'm not going to be dead. And if our church becomes a dead church, it's not my fault because I'm sea walking over here. I'm going to praise God. And if I'm the only one doing it, and I'm not saying this because no one's praising God. I'm just saying this is a reset button and it's a great time. And you know what? Christmas is a great time to do. It's easy. This is low hanging fruit right here because it's the easiest time. For me, it's the easiest time to praise God because I just love the hymns. I love the Christmas season. Started for me in September. And to just think upon the birth of Jesus Christ and what it means to us for humanity, for us as Christians. It's just an easy time to do it. Well that's not my personality. Then make it your personality. Because God, you know, that's what you're chosen for. To show forth his praises. So you can't use this excuse, oh I'm just not wired that way. Then God, get a different wire. Plug into a different outlet. You know, do what you got to do man. But this is what you're made for. Start doing it. Amen. Let's pray. Father we thank you so much for your word. We're so thankful for the unsearchable riches of Christ and the Bible. And Lord we're thankful for Jesus Christ and what this season means to us. And God you are worthy of our praise. We owe you that. And we are indebted to you Lord. And I pray that on a continual basis as individuals and as a church we would offer the sacrifice of praise unto you for everything that you've done. And obviously there's times when it does make us emotional. And that is perfectly fine. I think that's biblical to do. Biblical to feel. But there's instances when we may not feel like praising you and we should do it anyways because the truth is the truth regardless of how we feel. And I pray that you'd help us Lord to praise you in song. To sing with volume. To talk about your marvelous works Lord. I pray that you'd help us to praise you in private. Whether in dance or in prayer. And I pray that you'd help us Lord to also praise you before one another as we share what you're doing in our lives. Whether it's something that we've read from your word or a prayer that you've answered Lord. Help us never to be lethargic Christians but rather vibrant and full of life filled with the Holy Spirit. We love you. We thank you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.