-Transcript-
00:37 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the cafe.
00:42 Good to have you here today at KJV Cafe. We are looking at a great truth in God’s Word. That’s from 1 Chronicles 16:8, How to Praise God.
00:55 David, King David’s instructions for praise. And this is the third part in a multi-part series on this topic. It’s too big for one episode.
01:05 It’s too big for two or three episodes. Praising God should be done in an orderly way. You know God is a God of great order.
01:16 God is very disciplined and precise in what He does. And He calls us to be obedient to His plan and to be disciplined and precise and obedient in what He wants us to do. And that includes praising Him.
01:33 And so I want you to start thinking about that here today. What does it mean to be obedient to God and to praise Him as He wants to be praised instead of praising Him in a way that you think is appropriate or is popular in culture today. You know there is a very big difference between those two things.
01:52 Amen. And when we try to do it our own way it never works. We have to bring God an appropriate offering.
01:59 Think of Cain and Abel. We got to bring God an appropriate offering and that offering is to live as God called us to live and praise Him in giving thanks and calling upon His name and in telling others about Him. And we’ll be so blessed for it.
02:16 Blessings that are hard to quantify, hard to even count, like gratitude. Gratitude leads to discovering God’s mercy in your life. I’ve heard it said that gratitude and fear cannot coexist.
02:31 If we are so grateful for God we won’t fear for our life. Right? When we understand His sovereignty and His power as we go to Him and giving thanks as David instructs us to do, King David I should say, well what happens?
02:43 We then become grateful to God and thankful to God. And what was a burden now becomes an opportunity.
02:49 Right? Things that we looked at and murmured about now we thank God for because we know that He put them there and there’s a good reason for it. There’s no better relationship to work on than the one of you and God.
03:02 And many people if they’re told you need to get close to God because you’re all messed up.
03:09 Right? That may not work. Well obvious reasons may not work. But when you say okay to praise God you got to be close to Him.
03:15 Then that’s okay well I want to be close to Him because I want to give Him praise. Right? It’s a nicer way to look at it. But there’s no more more important relationship we need to work on than the one between ourselves and God.
03:27 Amen And that comes by calling upon the name of the Lord frequently and often. And also too you’ll understand better as you praise God how important God is in your life and your purpose for what He wants you to do.
03:44 And finally you’ll help win souls and backsliders back to Christ as you tell others about what God has done in your life.
03:50 As you share those things. 1 Chronicles 16:8. Give thanks unto the Lord. Call upon His name.
04:00 Make known His deeds among the people. As you do that you will win souls to Him. So for no other reason do it for that.
04:08 Okay so here we have David giving instructions on how to praise God. Why is that important? When God delivers us do we offer Him praise? Do we even know how to offer Him praise?
04:23 Are we paying attention when God delivers us? We need to realize that God is fully sovereign and fully in control. The Bible says that all good things come from God.
04:37 Amen? But do we give Him credit for all good things in our lives? Or do we want to give ourselves credit? Or give a friend credit?
04:46 Or give the universe credit or something ridiculous? We need to get back to the book. Amen. And David here in 1 Chronicles 16:8 writes, Give thanks unto the Lord. Call upon His name.
05:01 Make known His deeds among the people. Give thanks unto the Lord. Call upon His name.
05:10 Make known His deeds among the people. Well that right there is a wonderful prescription for praise. That right there is great instructions for how to praise God.
05:17 That right there is given by a man of God for people that love the Lord. Amen. And think of the context in which David was giving this. David was giving this Psalm of Thanksgiving in 1 Chronicles 16:8.
05:33 He was giving it as he had just been able to bring the Ark into the Ark of the Covenant where God resided into the city of David, which is now modern-day Jerusalem.
05:47 And in the past program we spoke about the idea of giving thanks because that’s how this Psalm starts. Give thanks unto the Lord. I want you to think about how often we really do that.
06:01 As I’ve mentioned earlier, is it all the time 1 Thessalonians 5:18 tells us in everything to give thanks. And we want to do the will of Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says it’s the will of Christ Jesus concerning you.
06:15 And David gave thanks for God’s presence in his life, for the victory over his enemies, entering into the chosen land as the superpower.
06:22 These are all things worthy of giving thanks to God for. And then we look at our lives.
06:28 Are we giving God thanks when we overcome an enemy in our life? Maybe it’s an issue at work or school. Maybe it’s something with family. Maybe it’s even a virus and we’re sick or something and we get better.
06:41 Are we giving God the proper glory? We used to do prayer requests in our church alone and every once in a while there’d be a praise report. Now I’ve started to add praise report to our bulletin and we’re starting to do praise reports and prayer requests to get our people focused in on this idea of praising God.
06:59 Not just praying to God and making our requests known unto him though he wants that, right? But also to giving him praise.
07:08 Giving him thanksgiving because those things go hand in hand. I mentioned in the previous episode about Philippians 4:6.
07:15 Be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. So again prayer and supplication goes right along with thanksgiving.
07:26 We are to give thanks in all things for what God’s done in our life and that means spending time praising his good works. Praising him throughout the day. Finishing your day in prayer.
07:51 Thanking him for what he’s done and if you don’t know how how to do that necessarily you always can just simply recollect and you just sit there and say okay I’m gonna walk through what happened today and amazingly how much of it you will see God’s hands
08:02 and well Lord you blessed here and Lord I wasn’t planning this but you really lined this up here and oh God how you really sent this Saint of God over to comfort me here and oh Lord even though I had this obstacle here you got me through it.
08:10 You see how that just shapes our minds and puts our minds on the true one holy God and how David would do that and how David did that throughout writing the Psalms and all his his adult life
08:22 he’s turning to God even when he sins he turns to God in repentance beautifully and part of the beauty of what David was doing is pointing out what God had done for him
08:35 and his chosen people and do we do that and I think by taking time to look at just honestly are we people of praise are we people of Thanksgiving or are we just out in the world
08:51 look at the modern church look at the most modern church you can think of right how often are they able to articulate proper praise to God if they don’t know God’s Word and I’m not saying that the modern church doesn’t as a whole but many modern churches I’ve seen they’re real light on the scriptures
09:09 if there’s any scripture included at all it’s just one to match up with a message that’s aimed at entertainment or for the preacher or whatever it may be again I’m not criticizing all modern churches I was saved in a large church we just finished our foster care training in a beautiful large church and both those churches offer a modern service but they also happen to be heavily involved in the scriptures
09:33 but there are many modern churches that just don’t teach the word and so they’re not teaching the word how can people know how to properly praise God when that’s in the word and our text verse here 1 Chronicles 16:8
09:45 give thanks unto the Lord call upon his name make known his deeds among thepeople that is crystal clear instructions for praise and giving thanks unto the Lord again
10:02 if you listen to the previous episode we’ll get it online eventually you can hear a lot more details about giving thanks and all the ways that we give thanks and and and all the ways that David gave thanks for time’s sake we’re going into the second part of this instruction which is call upon his name call upon his name well how do you do that I mean to truly praise God we must be in fellowship with God we have to have communion with him right praising God equals fellowship with God
10:28 or better yet if you don’t have fellowship with God you can’t properly praise him now you may think otherwise but think about this I mean give this some thought okay
10:38 can you imagine someone praising you that you’ve never met how inauthentic would that feel how awkward would that be I mean if someone you’ve never met
10:49 and they don’t know anybody that you know right they come up to you and they tell you you are just the smartest person I’ve ever met you are so smart and so kind and you might wonder well what’s the basis for your opinion I mean you’re just trying to flatter me
11:04 I mean I don’t know you you know I haven’t done any math problems in front of you you know I haven’t helped anyone that you know and you know how can I be kind
11:14 and smart in your eyes you see is that not how God feels when people don’t know him and don’t fellowship with him and yet they want to offer him some kind of awkward praise maybe again at a service on a Sunday
11:25 or maybe just randomly trying to maybe gain favor or something I mean is that not how the Lord feels in order to call upon his name we have to be motivated to do so the Bible says the natural man is at enmity or warfare with God
11:43 that no one wants to turn to God so we have to be in his word we have to be saved and born again by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior by his finished work on the cross realizing
11:55 that it’s his blood that saves us amen from a death destiny of hell and brings us to heaven only by what he did on the cross realizing that our sin debt had to be paid by him because we couldn’t do it on our own
12:05 we get to that point we accept Christ with the Holy Spirit living within us then we get in the word it’s discipline I’ve been running lately amen very slowly very slowly but I’ve been running and that takes discipline the body doesn’t want to do it amen
12:23 you eat dinner what do you want to do you want to hop on the couch and and watch a football game if you’re me okay but hey it takes discipline so you know what that’s good for the body let me go run you know the Bible talks about this you know if that’s temporal
12:34 and everything and that’s good for the body how much more so is turning to God and seeking the Spirit good for the soul and good for the good for eternity amen good for you good for your eternal being seeking God and we use that same kind of discipline you know you say well I’m very busy brother Clark
12:51 especially in the mornings I got a lot going on I do too and so you have to say what comes first Lord I’ll always put you first and let those consequences fall where they be and that means that you know if you have to get up early
13:05 and you’re more tired through the day or if you have to set an appointment for later on or whatever it is use that discipline as you use it as you get into the word you are going to be calling on the name of God
13:18 and what does that mean that means having that close relationship with God you know he’s not gonna force himself upon you he’s not gonna force himself on you he’s not going to make you praise him he has given us free will
13:34 and with our free will we have to have enough sense about us to say we will praise him God sees us execute our free will every single day he sees us choose the restaurant we’d like to go to he sees us choose the show we’d like to watch on TV or online
13:54 or whatever it is he sees us choose what Apple download or who we may want to spend time with at work or at home he knows we have free will and we have to spend our time calling upon him
14:03 that wraps it up for today tune in tomorrow for the next part in this series on David’s instructions for praising God
14:10 I thank you so much for listening take care God bless we’ll see you next time amen