Give Thanks: A Sacrifice of Praise

Great.

It's not an emotion.

It's not a feel.

It's not some nostalgic or wistful memory of what has been,

or some nebulous hope of what might be.

It's not a fair weather friend that draws close to you in the summer,

and then abandons you in the winter.

It's not dependent on circumstances

or only for warm, fuzzy moments.

Gratitude, after all, is a choice,

an act of the will where we place ourselves completely in God's will.

No matter what happens, a determination to hope in the most, in the midst

of both happiness and sorrow, to give thanks for the good things he has given

and the good things he has taken away

in inexpressible confidence in his love

and inexplicable peace in his will that turns pain into joy.

Trial and trial.

Side to side and suffering, and to redemption.

Gratitude.

Give thanks to God not because things are good, but because he is good.

In gratitude, our wills become one with God

so that we bless him for the life he has given us

and longed for the day when he calls us home.

Not my will, but yours.

Become.

And so for all the good things that are to come,

and all the heartaches to

oh Lord,

we give you thanks. Oh!

I want to focus this morning

and next week on what it means

to live lives of gratitude and thanksgiving.

G.K. Chesterton said this

that when it comes to life,

the critical thing is whether we take things for granted

or take them with gratitude.

Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers

that the world has been graced with, said this.

It's not about how much you have, but how much you enjoy.

That makes happiness.

Brené Brown

said, what separates privilege from entitlement

is gratitude.

Ironside,

great theologian, said we'd worry less

if we praised more then.

When I was thinking about this whole idea

of gratitude and thanksgiving, I put it this way.

Thanksgiving is what defeats

this discontentment and discouragement.

Thanksgiving defeats it.

The Bible says in Psalm

92 one that it is good

to praise the Lord.

Good.

It's good to give thanks.

Yeah.

Because God deserves it.

Yeah.

It's good for us.

And David writes in Psalm 103,

a model that we can use.

To help us

give thanks, to understand the need for the necessity of it

and how to do it.

David says that giving thanks

and being grateful has to be a priority of life,

has to be a way of life that it needs to come from something more

than a response to the good circumstances that we're in.

And I need to point this out

that most of us find it a bit more natural

and easier

to give thanks, and to be grateful

when things are going well

right?

But we have to understand

that being grateful and giving thanks does not mean

being happy.

Many times in Scripture

we have examples of people and communities that gave thanks to God

because they had just experienced some physical way, his goodness,

and as a result, they just praised him and gave him things.

But there are just as many

individuals and communities in Scripture that learn to give thanks

and to be grateful when things were not going wrong,

when it was painful,

when they didn't necessarily feel

the goodness of God.

It's it's

our words are to praise him in the storms.

And man.

See us. Lewis.

I was doing some some study again last night,

about this idea of Thanksgiving and gratitude.

And I came across this C.S. Lewis quote.

I want to share it with you.

He says we ought to give thanks for all for it.

If it's good because it's good,

if it's bad, fortune because it works in us.

A patience, humility, and contempt for this world

and the hope of our eternal country.

You give thanks.

Do any of you know who Horatio Spafford is?

The master.

Do any of you know the hymn?

It is well, with my Soul and Horatio is the one who wrote that.

And when I was a young man

coming up in church, I heard his story.

And the story that prompted the writing of that hymn.

And so I did some research just to make sure I got the the details correct.

I want to share it with you.

Though.

The story behind it is well With My Soul was written

really out of two tragic events in Horatio's life.

The first was a result

of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

And Horatio was a very successful lawyer,

who had a it was very wealthy,

and he had a lot of investment in property in Chicago.

And the fire of 1871 burned down most of his property,

and he faced financial ruin.

Added to that two years later.

And in 1873, there was the great downturn in the economy.

And he lost everything.

So he knew what it was

to be wanted to lack and have things taken away.

But more than that.

He had planned a trip to England for

he and his family to go help Dwight L Moody's evangelistic efforts.

He was one of the greatest evangelists at this world to see.

And he and his family were going to go to England, set sail from America

across the Atlantic Ocean, and go help Dwight L Moody with his evangelism work.

At the 11th

hour, Horatio got word that there were some zoning issues

that were related to the property

loss because of the Great Fire, and he had to stay in Chicago.

But the tickets already being purchased sent his wife and his four daughters.

Her name was.

And his four daughters names were Annie, Maggie, Bessie.

Antonella sent them ahead and he would meet them in England later,

while crossing the Atlantic, the ship that his wife and four daughters

were in collided with another vessel and sank rapidly,

and his four daughters drowned

and his wife survived.

When he got word that this had happened, he,

right after it got word that it had happened, received a telegram

from his wife that simply said saved alone.

Shortly after

receiving that word, he hurriedly got on a ship

and sell to England to meet in grief with his grieving wife.

And it was during that trip.

That as the ship sailed past

the very spot where his four daughters had drowned,

the Holy Spirit gave him the words

to the hymn it as well with my soul, and I want you to hear

the haunting phrase

that that hymn begins with,

when peace like a river attend this my way.

When sorrows like sea billows roll.

Whenever my lord,

thou hast taught me to say

it as well.

It is well with my soul.

It is good.

To give thanks to the Lord.

And it's a necessity

to learn to do that.

In the middle of the seas.

And so David gives us a model.

Of how to give praise to God.

And why.

But I want us to understand it's not reserved for those times when we're happy.

And you don't have to be happy to do it.

It's what the Bible calls

a sacrifice of praise.

It's it's

it's it's it's it's the kind of praise that I've been through.

Hell type of hallelujah. You.

And so Psalm 103, if you'll turn with me in your Bibles,

Psalm 103,

David writes, praise the Lord, O my soul, all my inmost being.

Praise his holy name.

Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget

not all his benefits.

David begins

with the command to his own soul.

He knows what's inside,

and he makes a command and the demand of his own soul to praise the Lord

all my soul.

Because the truth is that there are times when everything within

us doesn't feel like praising God right?

There are times when everything within us

is filled more with doubt than with praise,

with confusion and pain, than thanksgiving.

And we don't feel like praising the Lord.

And so David starts with the command to his own soul.

You saw

we'll choose as a deliberate decision

to give praise to the Lord Most High.

Gratitude

must be a deliberate and intentional choice,

not simply the response

of good circumstances.

And gratitude is not our natural default.

It's not often

that our first perspective

is a perspective of thanksgiving and gratitude.

Do you ever.

Have you ever known anybody?

That the only things they see in this world are things they wish were different?

Right.

Did you ever know anybody that.

That no matter what is before them,

they see things they don't like?

Like.

Like gratitude.

Thanksgiving is not necessary.

Our natural bent.

And so David has to command himself

that his primary focus will be on the goodness of God

and the blessing of God, not on his troubles

and not on his desires.

And there are times that you and I, like David himself,

must command out of our soul that we will praise the Lord

even when we don't feel like it.

And we'll praise God for who God is,

and we'll praise God for what he's already done.

Because if we're honest, he's already done enough.

Praise the Lord, all my soul and all that is within me.

I mean, think about what he's saying.

Everything in me

turn it into praise.

There are times when what is in me is fear.

There are times when what is within me is doubt.

There are times what is within me is confusion.

There's times that what is within me is pain.

There's times that what is with me is discouragement.

There are times.

And he says, everything in me.

Praise God.

It's living the truth

of Hebrews 1315.

Through Jesus, therefore,

let us continually offer to God a what

a sacrifice of praise

the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.

I want you to know it's worth the sacrifice of praise.

There are times my friends went to praise God

feels like sacrifice, looks like

it's painful and it's difficult.

And it doesn't come easy.

And it's not natural. It is a sacrifice.

Like something inside of me is dying.

And I will praise him.

I was thinking about this.

You know what the opposite of praise is?

David tells us the opposite of praise is forgetfulness.

Praise the Lord, all my soul and all that is within me.

Praise the Lord and forget not all

his benefits.

Praise is remembering

the blessing and favor of God,

and the opposite of praise is forgetting.

So when you and

I live with an attitude that is not gratitude,

when we have this perspective not of thankfulness,

but of lack.

It's the opposite of praise.

The Bible says

that God lives in the praises of his people,

and if God lives in the praises of his people,

who is it that lives in the opposite of that?

If the opposite of praise is forgetfulness, and God lives

in the context of praise of his people, who lives in the context

of forgetfulness.

You want to say it that way?

Yeah.

The evil one.

And David says, stop.

Don't forget God's goodness.

Don't forget his mercy and his grace.

Gratitude. Hear me.

Must be a disciplined daily choice.

It's got to be a daily discipline.

We must sometimes make ourselves

praise God.

I suggest that every prayer

should begin with thank you.

No matter no is we're praying about God.

Thank you.

Thank you for your mercy.

Thank you for your grace.

Thank you for the opportunity to approach your throne.

Thank you that you're not going to ban it.

Thank you.

I give you permission as your pastor

to consider the way of my prayer.

Whenever you hear me pray, hold me accountable

that my prayers would begin

with thanksgiving and gratitude.

I want God to live

in the context of my praise and my prayer, so I will thank him.

And so David starts

with the command to his own soul.

You will praise the Lord, he says to himself.

And then he gives us reasons why it's good to give thanks and praise.

And the first he says, is this reasons to thank God.

It's because of his forgiveness and because of his healing.

In verse three of Psalm 103, he says,

praise the Lord, all my soul.

Do not forget all his benefits and the first ones he lists

who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.

He says the key to thankfulness

begins with remembering the mercies of God.

The key to being grateful

is to remember right up front

the mercy of God, and then his mercy.

He forgives our sins.

It's so interesting and significant to me that the first thing that David says,

the benefit of God is, is not over my physical health.

It's about my spiritual salvation.

He forgives your sins.

Even more than healing, what we thank God for

is the forgiveness of sin.

First John one nine says, if we confess our sins, God is faithful

and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And so David starts off with,

remember what he's done, the foremost priority

of the goodness of God, the mercy of God, the compassion of God, the grace of God

is the forgiveness of sin.

We have to realize

that God does heal.

Certainly our soul,

life, death and resurrection. Jesus.

But he also heals our bodies.

And he does it in a number of different ways.

And it's good to be wise and thankful for all the ways that God does.

Sometimes God chooses to heal, and he's done this throughout

throughout the the revelation of himself to humanity.

He's healed people.

And sometimes it has been through the medical profession,

and sometimes it has been through the direct touch of his hand.

But he's always just think for a moment, let's go back 100 years.

If 100 years ago, we could look forward to our present day

and and see the healing that people can experience

now that they couldn't, then we're think that's what the hand of God

imagine.

So he's always healed.

Sometimes it's at the touch of his hand.

We have all kinds of stories of people in his church,

when the doctors had no idea what they were going to do, and there was no answer.

And then suddenly God showed up.

There's a young man in our youth ministry right now

that that exactly happened to.

But but we have to understand

that after every healing, eventually there's going to be a.

Death.

No heat, no physical healing is eternal.

And I was just studying this.

I don't know if you've heard this study recently. It just came out.

But so far in America,

the mortality rate is just about 100%.

I don't know if you heard that study. It.

And so God can heal and heal and heal and eventually will die.

The one

healing that will never die is the healing of the soul,

the eternal and secure.

And so it's ripe for the able to say, remember all those benefits.

He heals your soul and heal your body.

And the great thing about the body body healing is that ultimately,

if you understand biblical theology, when Christ returns and the new heaven

and the new earth are established, we get a new body.

This one is a frail tent that is passing away.

But when I live with Christ forever on a new earth, he gives me a new body

to the physical world with the new physical body.

So ultimately it's all going to be healed

and everybody in Christ will experience that.

To be the soil on the Bible and all of you.

Be bold because it's beautiful.

When God heals you, right? Matt?

The Bible puts so much emphasis on the healing of our soul.

First,

there's a crazy verse in in Matthew ten, do not be afraid

of those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.

Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy

both soul and body in hell.

And be thankful for all his benefits

that he healed your soul.

And then David goes on and he says, praise the Lord, all my soul.

Forget not all his benefits.

Who forgives your sin?

Who heals you?

And then he says, be thankful for redemption.

Now this is a it's a biblical word.

I want to explain what redemption is.

But but the Bible says in verses 4 or 5, who redeems your life on the pit

and crowns you with love and compassion.

Who satisfies

your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed?

Like the eagles?

This is redemption.

What redemption is, is the beginning of a thing

because of a payment that's been paid,

that I've lost something, I've sacrificed something,

and someone is holding that thing as ransom

and is demanding payment so I can get it back.

And the act of making that payment

is called redemption.

Here's what we have to understand that because of sin,

I was held for ransom

and sin was my captor.

And sin held me for ransom.

And the ransom that sin demanded was a life.

And Jesus stepped in

and paid my ransom with his life.

And when I remember the ransom

that was paid for my redemption, and I praise him for it.

And so David says to be grateful for

not only did Jesus step in and pay the ransom

that was demanded for my life by sin,

Jesus not only paid my ransom by giving his life,

then he took his life back up.

It's called resurrection.

And because of the resurrection, David says

he provides satisfaction and provision of every good thing.

So praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all

his benefits.

He's redeemed it.

And when I give

thanks for God's mercy and for his grace, and for the redemption

that he's provided through his life, it grounds me in the realization of his love.

And when I choose not to be grateful

and not to praise him for this

redemption, it's the opposite of being remembered,

of remembering his love, forgetfulness.

And when I'm grounded in the realization

and remembrance of his love, David says,

you get strength.

Like the eagle.

It's good to give thanks to the Lord.

So praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

You were held for ransom,

and sin demanded that ransom

be paid with a life.

And we have a choice

to pay that ransom ourselves.

And the payment ourselves of that ransom

will be our lives and eternity in hell.

I don't recommend you try that.

Or to accept the ransom payment of Christ,

his life, his death, his resurrection

that pays your ransom for you.

Forget not all his benefits.

In verses six and seven, I'm not going to read the whole thing,

but verse

six and seven, David goes on and talks about God's righteousness and his justice.

And then

he comes back around and verses eight and nine and ten and he says this.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious.

I love these verses.

You need to underline these.

You need to remember these.

You need to highlight these in your Bible.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love.

He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever.

He does not treat us as our sins deserve

or repay us according to our iniquities.

That's beautiful.

David reminds us of God's mercy and God's grace

and how profound they are

and their worth.

Praising God for and thanking God for.

Regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

And the context

to understand the incredible depth and magnitude

and magnificence of God's mercy and his grace, the context for the best.

Remembering that is a context of our own sin.

And so David rightly says

he is slow to anger,

but he is righteously anger over sin.

He will not always accuse, though he will just

so he makes sure that we know our transgression.

He'll make sure we understand.

You stand accused because of your sin.

You need to understand that.

But he won't always accuse.

He'll be righteous.

The anger, the fact that sin is separated us from him, no doubt.

But he won't harbor that anger.

But because his mercy and his grace are so profound

that he will not treat us as our sin deserves, because our sin deserves

to be treated harshly.

And so God took that deserving us of our sin

and place it onto His Son and treated His Son harshly in our stead.

And he won't repay us

according to our iniquities.

He took my iniquity and placed that on his son,

and took his son's righteousness, and placed it on me.

So praise the Lord, oh my soul,

I forget not his benefits.

I want you to know the difference

between the way God treats us and the way

we treat each other.

You and I.

We have the tendency to nurse our grievances,

right? Right.

I mean, probably not.

You, but maybe the person you're sitting next to.

We have we have the tendency to nurse our grief.

You know, that person.

And you know what they did

right?

You you heard what they said.

Right.

You know, you know how they did you wrong.

You you know, that post was all about you.

You remember what they

said behind your back.

We have a tendency to nurse our grievances.

God is different.

He chooses to release

his anger.

And there's a grievance against our sin.

When we're sinned against,

our tendency is to treat others

like they treated us.

Only right.

Right.

Not so with God.

He treats us according to the full measure

and magnitude of his mercy and his grace.

Praise the Lord.

Oh my soul.

Forget not all his benefits.

Forgives.

Heals.

He redeems.

And he responds to us

according to the fullness of his mercy and his grace.

Give thanks.

For as high as

the heavens are above the earth, so great is love for those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the west so far has he removed

our transgressions from us.

The common idea in ancient

times is that there were these levels of have the heavens,

and the first level of the heavens was just the,

the place where the birds fly and the clouds live.

But above that was the heaven of the cosmos,

or the planets, and the stars reside, and above

that was the heaven of God's throne.

And I don't know which of these David may have had in mind.

I don't even know if David understood the fact that the earth was a

is a sphere, though they're the Old Testament

prophets certainly did, and it's clear in their writings

David probably understood that.

And but I don't know which you know, what he was thinking about

as far as the heavens are, brother, but it matter.

Any of those heavens is far above sea level.

Do you understand?

Doesn't matter which one of you.

The fact is, you said, look, there's a great chasm

as far as the heavens are above the earth.

So great is his love for those who fear him.

But watch this.

David goes a step further,

and I love one through the Holy Spirit spiritual Holy Spirit.

He says, he says, as far as the East is from the West,

so as he removed our transgressions from us.

I'm so thankful David didn't say, as far as the North is from the south.

Here's why.

Because you can start in the south and go north

until you get to the North Pole.

And at the North Pole.

Suddenly north meets south.

Is that next step is south getting Kinston.

You go south as far as you can until you get to the South Pole.

And the moment you get to South Pole, South means North.

I'm so glad he didn't say so far as north is from the south,

because that would mean that my transgressions

will meet me one day.

East and west are different.

You start east.

I don't care how far around the globe you go.

You will always go east.

Think about it.

You go west.

I don't care how far west you go.

You're always.

And there's no point in the cosmos where east meets west.

And he's saying God's love and compassion are so profound that he has removed

your transgressions as far as the East is from those they will never meet you again

because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Forget not all his benefits.

He's worthy of praise.

Does any of this that David as enumerated this, is any of it

contingent upon the circumstances of his life?

None.

Forget not all his benefits.

God's mercy and his grace are so much greater than we've ever imagined.

And David says it necessitates our praise.

Verses 13 and 14.

It gets really personal as a father has compassion on his children,

so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him,

for he knows how we are formed.

He remembers that we're dust.

In Genesis two, the story is told the account

of our creation, that human was made from the dust of the earth.

And I'm so thankful that God remembers

that I am a dirty creation.

He knows me,

and because he knows that

I am a dirty creature.

He doesn't have great expectations

of me, and I appreciate that.

He remembers who I am.

And in the knowledge of who I am.

The Bible says, As the father has compassion on his children,

so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him, that

can you adequately put into words the compassion

and the love you have for your children?

Can you put that into words

adequately enough to express that up?

I can't,

I know what it feels like.

But I can't put it into words.

It's so profound.

Mom's.

Can you adequately describe

the depth and the veracity of the love you have for your kids?

How do you express them?

You can't verbalize that, but you can show it.

You feel it.

And as deep as that is,

so the Lord has compassion on us kids.

But also it says on those who let.

On those who fear.

Though God is love.

And that is that's biblical.

Those who experience the pointed

and direct compassion of God

are those who fear him.

Not everybody.

To fear means to respect him,

to honor him, to obey him, to love him

and those who fear him.

This compassion, this incredible, indescribable love.

They feel the direct,

pointed experience of that.

All praise the Lord.

Oh my soul,

forget not all his benefits.

And even more, verse 17 and 18.

But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those

who fear him and his righteousness with their children's children,

with those who keep his covenant

and remember to obey his precepts.

All of this

for those who honor God,

who Revere him, who fear him and respect him,

who love him, who obey him, forgetting all his benefits for you.

And as you live in the context of this relationship

with Christ, even for your children.

Forgetting of his benefits.

And David begins with the command of his own soul.

Oh, so praise the Lord.

All that is within me, within.

Right? Everything.

Praise the Lord.

Don't forget all he starts here.

And then he realizes in this moment

that God is so good and God is so great,

and he's so profound, and his mercy, his grace are so magnificent

that he says it's not enough just for me and my soul to praise him.

Praise the

Lord, you angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey His Word.

Praise the Lord, all his heavenly host.

You his servants who do his will, praise the Lord,

all his works everywhere in his domain.

What David is saying is that I will

make it my choice, everything to praise the Lord.

But he is so good, and he is so merciful, and he is so loving,

and he is so gracious, and his benefits are so profound.

That is not enough just for me to praise God,

but he calls on the angels of heaven to praise the Lord,

and he calls on the trees of the earth to praise the Lord.

And he even says, the rocks will cry out in praise of the Lord.

Everything in his whole dominion, the stars and the planets

and the mountains and the animals to praise God because he deserves it.

And he's worthy.

Yeah, forget not all his benefits.

Who hangs the stars in the sky and calls them by name?

Who put the planets in orbit

and holds them in perfect tension.

Who creates every being intricacy in their mother's womb.

Knitting together their very DNA.

So fearfully and wonderfully made.

Forgetting not all his benefits.

And he calls on heaven above and earth below

to praise this God and.

And he starts with himself, and he says, God

is too big to be contained within my own soul.

And regardless of the situation

or scenario, because of who God is, he calls on

every living being in the dominion of God

to give praise and thanks to this God. For.

We have to understand that earth meets heaven in the context of praise.

Let God to enter into your reality.

Praise him, oh my soul,

praise his holy name and forget

not his benefits.

And then David realizes

that he does not have command over anything other than himself.

And so he ends where he begins.

Praise the Lord, oh my soul!

Though God deserves it in the context

of his domain, and from every creature of being,

he realizes that the only control he has is over his own soul.

And so he returns where he started.

David,

praise the Lord!

I want you, and I want us as a church

to have a focus this week and next

to begin every thought,

to shift perspective and begin every prayer

with thanksgiving.

And just live in that place of thanksgiving and gratitude.

I want to leave you with these two verses,

and you're just going to have to write them down.

One of them is Habakkuk three.

Habakkuk is one of what's called the the minor prophets.

And this is what the prophet Habakkuk says,

though the fig tree does not bud,

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls.

Since no everything has been taken away, though,

everything's been destroyed, though everything has left.

Though I have nothing left.

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord

and be joyful in God my Savior.

You and I may be in those moments

where there's nothing left.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Forget not all its benefits.

He's forgiven.

He's redeemed.

And he loves with an inexpressible

compassion.

There will be those times in our lives

when all of this is called into question.

And you are tempted to reject it and deny it

because of what you're experiencing.

And in those times,

I want to remind you of Psalm 22.

Psalm 22 is known as a messianic psalm.

It's a psalm that was written in prophecy about Jesus and his crucifixion.

And it's the psalm that Jesus repeated on the cross, quoted on the cross

when he said the words, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

That's verse one of Psalm 22.

And I want you to understand

what Jesus is saying and what he tells us

about thanking God

and praising God in the midst.

Of feeling forsaken.

Notice the words of Christ himself.

My God, my God.

Why have you forsaken?

Have you ever felt

as if God has forsaken you?

God, where are you now?

Where have you gone?

Why are you so far from saving me?

So far from the words of my groaning.

God, why haven't you done something yet?

It doesn't even feel like you are listening

to my prayers in the grief of my heart.

Like, where are you?

Oh my God.

I cry out by day but you don't answer.

Like all day long.

I'm asking and begging and pleading.

There's nothing.

And you say you love me

and have compassion.

I cry out by night.

And I'm not silent.

But you don't respond.

And then Jesus says this through the prophet,

the prophetic nature of Psalm 22.

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One,

and you inhabit the praise of your people.

As we sing,

God, I cry out to you,

and I don't feel you.

I don't see you.

I don't hear you.

And when I'm in those moments.

When it feels like you forsaken me, I will praise you. Because why?

Because you inhabit the praise of your people.

You live in the praise of your people.

When your people praise you, you are there and you show up.

And so though I'm crying out time and time again for you to do something

for you to move, for you to act, for me to feel you, God says, praise me.

I will live in the praise of my people.

I'm enthroned.

The Bible says on the praises of Israel.

You don't feel me?

Praise me.

You don't see me.

Praise me.

You don't hear me.

Praise me.

You don't sense me.

Praise me.

You want to know me?

Praise me.

It's where heaven meets earth.

In the praise of his people.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord.

Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

So I will praise the Lord my God.

All that is within me.

Because I want him to live

in the context of my praise.

It's good to praise the Lord.

Yeah.

I want you to pray with me.

Father.

Thank you.

You are such a good God.

Your compassions never fail.

You don't shift

or turn like the shifting shadows.

You are such a good God.

He will never leave us nor forsake us. Thank you.

Thank you that you've loved us from everlasting to everlasting.

Thank you.

We will choose to praise your name

because you are a good God.

We will choose to live with an attitude of gratitude

because you are a good God.

We will choose to give thanks.

Even in the storm,

and even when the sea billows roll.

Because you are a good God.

Forgive us for when we lose sight of that.

And forget.

In gentleness with mercy and grace.

Remind us

of your benefits.

And causes as a people.

To call our soul to action

and to praise you.

From everything that is within us.

And we bless your holy name.

You are a good God.

In our doubts you are a good God.

In our pain. You are a good God.

In our disillusionment.

You are a good God in our confusion.

You're a good God in our failure.

You're a good God in our dysfunction.

You're a good God.

And all that is within us.

We'll choose to praise your name because you

are a good God.

Yeah.

We invite you to live

in the context of our praise.

Your word says you're enthroned on the praise of your people.

So be enthroned in this moment.

And as we draw

attention to your praise, take up residency.

In those moments,

there are times when we don't feel you, when we don't sense you,

and it causes us to run away from you.

Father, I pray that it would cause us to praise you even more.

And as we do.

Take up residency in our lives.

God, you are enthroned on the praise

of your people you live and inhabit in the praise of your people.

And so we will praise you

regardless of circumstances.

We will praise you and we'll give you thanks.

It's an honor for us to be able to praise you.

It's an honor for us to give you thanks.

You don't owe us anything.

We owe you everything.

And it is an honor

to praise you.

And so accept the praises of your people.

In your name I pray. Amen.

You're right.

Friends, listen.

It is good

to praise the Lord.

Let all that is within

you praise his holy name.

So stand up.

And let all dominion.

Praise God.