Praise Conference// 11 October 2026

Amen.

Amen.

Good morning, OneChurch.

It's great to be here with you.

I'm the really handsome American that Scott was telling you about a few moments ago.

It's good to be here.

I was actually in London on uh Friday morning.

My my one of my uh kids is here with me, and we went to London to see the changing of the guard.

While we were watching, there was this small group of Americans, and I noticed the Boston accent.

So I finally turned, I was like, Oh, where are you from?

And they were like, Oh, we're from Boston.

And we chatted for a minute and they were like, Oh, where are you from?

And so I was gonna say, I live in Ireland, but I'm from uh Tennessee, and I said, Uh, Ireland, oh, we noticed the accent.

All right, sure you did.

Uh so you might hear a few words that sound a little bit Irish.

Uh sound a little bit like an Irish accent, but I am definitely American.

And also, I wanted to say that hotel is exactly 14 minutes from the door of the hotel to the door of our church.

Uh, he sounded like we put him in like three counties over.

Uh however, my mother-in-law can't find her post box and it's attached to the outside of her house.

So that is true.

Uh, she gets lost wherever she goes.

Uh, it's great to be here today.

I just briefly, I pastor the bridge church in Selbridge, County Kildare, in Ireland.

You're all very welcome to come anytime you want to come hang out with us.

Uh, I have five children and one wife.

Praise the Lord for the one wife.

Uh, and so uh it's it's great to be here.

I've been pastoring the church almost two years now, and uh we've seen God just continue to do amazing things uh over the last few years.

And I just I'm in this, in this uh, as I'm in this building, I'm just thinking of our own building.

So we can see 150 in the in the room uh a little bit uncomfortably, but 150 and we're we're running two services right now.

And Scott took me around your building, and it is just there's stuff everywhere, there's rooms everywhere.

Uh, and so I just want to put it out to you guys.

We're praying and believing at the moment, uh, we're getting ready in the next few months to launch a campaign to raise the funds to buy either property or buy a building.

Um, and so I would like to ask you guys to pray.

I know a lot of prayer went into this room that I'm standing in about 20 years ago, or even before that.

Um, and so I just ask that you pray for us that God would just provide exactly what he has for us.

You know, the Bible says men make their plans, but the Lord orders their steps.

And so we're making our plans, we're trying to be obedient, but we want the Lord to order every step that we take.

If you have a Bible, I'm gonna ask you to turn to the book of Habakkuk this morning.

If you have an app, I'm gonna be reading from the NIV version, so you could change over to that version, but you're welcome to read along with whatever you have.

Uh, just while you're finding that in your Bibles or on your phones or devices, I just want to thank Scott and the leadership here at OneChurch for inviting me over to be part of uh this weekend conference.

We had an amazing time last night at the praise party, as I'm sure you can hear in my voice.

Uh, it's a little bit tired and a little bit raspy this morning, but thank you so much to the worship team for doing such an incredible job and everyone just joining in and worshiping with us last night.

Uh it's it was great to be here and it's great to be back here today.

I know over the last few weeks you've heard a bit about praise and different types of praise and expressions of praise.

And so today I've I've chosen, because I I'm not your pastor and I'm not a teacher here, uh, I've chosen not to teach on a specific type of praise, but rather I want us to call us to a place of looking at the reason that we praise.

Uh many of us uh would have grown up in church or around church, and and even maybe some who are only new to faith would have heard some bad uh theology about praise.

And and uh, you know, one thing I grew up with is uh kind of in some of the word of faith things, and I'm not I'm not ridiculing the word of faith, but this one portion of it, which was we could never say how we actually felt, because if you said it, the enemy would hear it and then it would attack you and you'd be dead.

Uh and so we didn't say it.

Uh, I also need to let you know I have ADHD, so God help you today while I preach this sermon.

Um, and so we um we would we couldn't say anything.

We couldn't say I'm having a bad day, we couldn't say I'm feeling bad, we couldn't say I'm depressed.

And yet, isn't it incredible that all throughout the Bible re we read stories of incredible men and women of God saying, I'm having a bad day.

I'm depressed.

If only I was dead, things would be better.

One one person wrote that in the Bible.

Anybody ever felt that before?

Amen.

If only I were dead, things would be better.

And so we know that all throughout scripture, and if you came with that belief today, hopefully by the end of this, maybe your belief system would have changed.

If you came in here feeling heavy and weighed down, hopefully you'll leave feeling a bit lighter and encouraged because the reason that we praise today.

You know, just a few questions before I read the main text this morning is why is it so easy when things are good to praise God?

We don't struggle with praise when life is good.

There's actually a really old song uh that says, uh, life is good when you're up on the mountain.

Amen.

But he's the God of the valley, is what the song goes ahead to say.

Uh, the God of the mountain is still God in the valley.

Anybody know that old song, Dottie Rambo, I think, is maybe who sang it.

My Tennessee roots are coming out.

Um but it the God on the mountain is still God when you're in the valley.

The God of the living is still God of the dead, the God of the good is still God in the bad.

And so we have a reason to praise.

Because it's easy to praise when it's good, but what about when that prayer we've been praying over and over isn't answered?

It becomes a little bit harder for us to find a praise.

What about when we're going through seasons of disappointment or seasons of grief or seasons of uncertainty?

It's a little bit harder.

There's more challenge to be able to praise when we're in seasons like that.

What about those battles that nobody knows about?

The battles that go on in our mind, the things that the thoughts that we think in the middle of the night that we wish we wouldn't think, that the desires, the ideas that we might have that we wish would go away.

Nobody else knows about it.

We're carrying it by ourselves, and we might find it a little bit harder to praise.

See, if our praise is entirely dependent on our circumstance, then we're at the mercy of our circumstance.

Our praise has to be on something bigger and greater and more praiseworthy than anything else, whether it's good or whether it's bad.

If we only praise when we feel good, what happens when we don't feel good?

If we only praise when we're smiling, what happens when we're crying?

We have to have a reason to praise.

We need a reason for praise that is greater than the situation we find ourselves in or the circumstances we may be in.

So I want us to look, we're gonna look at a few scriptures today, but I'm just gonna use a main text, and and I hope this is okay just to help me.

I'm actually a little bit nervous.

I'm I'm kind of shaking up here this morning uh because I'm not home.

So it's a little bit, I want to make sure I say and do the right thing, and Scott doesn't kick me out of the church and not let me come back.

And so what we do at home when we read the main text, everyone stands just as a sign of honor and respect.

And so I'm gonna invite you, if you're willing and if you're able, to stand with me uh as we read the main text this morning.

Amen.

Habakkuk 3, verses 17 and 18.

Habakkuk 3:17

It says, Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crops fail and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

I will be joyful in God, my Savior.

Father, we thank you for your word, Lord.

We thank you that your word promises us that it will not return void.

And so today, as we proclaim the word, as we hear your word, I pray that we be not only hearers, but doers of the word, and that we can we can sense your presence, Lord.

I I've made a plan of what to say, God, and I've sought your face, God, but I pray that you just order every word that comes out of my mouth.

God, I don't want us to hear from Matt Riles, I want us to hear from heaven today.

We praise you, we glorify you.

In Christ's precious name we pray.

Amen.

You can be seated this morning.

Thank you so much.

Just a bit of backstory on this uh guy called Habakkuk.

Uh, he was a prophet in Judah during a time where they were seeing a significant amount of injustice, of violence, uh of spiritual turmoil and trouble.

And he questioned, if you start back at Habakkuk 1 and I I encourage you this week, go back and read.

It's just three chapters and they're all quite short.

Go back and read the whole story for the full context.

But you can see he he kind of questions God.

He goes, God, why is this thing happening?

God, when are you gonna show us your glory like the stories we've heard from days of old?

And the Lord answers him, and he gets a little bit of relief, and then he goes back into questioning again and he goes to the Lord and the Lord answers him.

And then we read the conclusion of the story here where he prays this prayer faith that even though the crops have failed, even though I can't see anything, even though all the animals are dead, yet I will praise him.

Some translations say, Still, I will praise him.

One way you could read it is, in spite of all this, I'm gonna praise him.

Because it doesn't matter.

I'm gonna rejoice, I'm gonna give him glory because who am I rejoicing in?

Habakkuk said it there.

He said, I will be joyful in God, my Savior.

See, he learned something through this journey of these three chapters that his joy was not found in sheep.

His joy was not found in cattle, his joy was not found in olives, his joy was not found in the fields, because all of those things have been wiped away.

His joy was found in one place, and actually in one person.

His joy was found in Jesus.

His joy, I know Jesus hadn't come on the scene yet, but before the foundation of the earth, the lamb was slain.

Amen.

And so we know that his joy was found in Jesus, his rejoicing was found in him.

He questioned why God allowed this wickedness in his time and for his people, and why he allowed it to continue.

And actually, when you read the other two ver uh chapters in the in this passage or in this book, you see that God actually says that this is all going to bring judgment or Babylon is going to bring judgment on the people.

And this brings more questions.

Anybody ever gone to God with prayer and you leave more frustrated and with more questions than how you arrived?

See, I'd love to get up here and just preach to you about how when you come to the Lord and He does all these things, ah ha.

But sometimes he doesn't.

Sometimes he doesn't speak, sometimes he doesn't move in a way that we can see his movement.

He's always moving, but we can't always see it.

Sometimes it's just because we're in a wrong position to recognize it, and sometimes it's because he's hidden it from us for the right time, for the right purpose, for the right reasons.

And so we see that he wrestles with God.

He wrestles with why God is doing these things.

But by the end, he learns to trust God's character.

He learns to trust that even though I can't understand all the reasons why, I trust the person behind it all.

I trust God with everything.

By chapter three, it closes with this prayer where it's really a declaration of faith when you read the whole thing.

He's declaring to himself, and I read it like I know you're not supposed to put your own twist on scripture, but I read it sometimes when I need encouragement.

I read it the way I might pray it sometimes.

And it's like this I don't fully believe what I'm saying right now, but I'm gonna keep praying it until I do believe it.

I'm gonna keep saying it until I I'm gonna keep declaring it until it becomes a reality in my heart and in my mind, and eventually, hopefully, a reality in my life.

Habakkuk describes that there's no figs, there's no grapes, the olive, uh, the olive fields have have have failed, the the fields are empty, the sheep are all dead, the cattle are all dead.

And you have to understand these aren't minor inconveniences.

This is a loss of earning, this is a loss of food, not just for him, for everyone.

This is a huge inconvenience.

This is a loss of security, of provision.

And he declares, yet I will rejoice, even though all the things I need to keep me alive, to sustain me are gone, yet I will rejoice.

What does that word rejoice mean?

Because we're talking about praise today, amen.

Well, the Hebrew word translated into the English word rejoice actually carries an idea of exalting, rejoicing, or triumphing.

And so he's saying, even though all these things have failed and they're gone and they've passed away, I am going to exalt.

I'm going to rejoice.

I'm going to triumph, not in these things, but in God my Savior.

Rejoicing and praise are actually really closely connected to one another.

While they're not the same word, they are connected to each other.

Rejoicing describes the joy and delight that we have or that we find in God.

And then praise is our expression of that delight.

Praise is the way we express honor, worship, adoration toward God.

And in this, in this reading today, Habakkuk declares that even when his circumstances are devastating, he still finds his joy in the Lord.

He still finds his joy in the God of his salvation.

See, church, he doesn't deny his circumstances.

He doesn't do that, what I referred to earlier, where the fields are full, the pens have plenty of sheep, there's loads of cattle.

And when if you grew up in a type of word of faith movement, you know how ridiculous what I'm saying right now sounds.

But when you're in the middle of it, you're like, yeah, if I just keep saying the right thing, they're gonna poof into their pens and they're gonna, the fields are suddenly gonna crop up.

But we can see here in scripture that this prophet, he doesn't deny his circumstances, he doesn't pretend that the harvest is good, he doesn't claim that he understands why God is doing what God is doing.

In fact, he says, I don't know why.

God, why aren't you doing all the things we've heard that you've done before?

Why aren't you doing them again now?

And he chooses to rejoice in God in spite of all of what he sees, in spite of everything that's going around him.

See, the harvest can't be my ultimate reason for praise.

God has to be my ultimate reason for praise because the harvest will fail, the crops will fail, things will fade away, friends will turn their back on me.

But God never will.

Our circumstances change, but Jesus doesn't.

What I face tomorrow will be completely different from what I face today, but Jesus will be the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And Habakkuk knew this, he had confidence in the God of his salvation.

And for you and for I, our hope is grounded in what God has done through Jesus Christ.

He made a way, he came and he sent his son Jesus, and Jesus came, he lived, he died, he was buried.

But praise God, that was only the beginning of the story.

Because he rose again, he reigns victorious.

The Bible says he's seated at the right hand of the Father, ever interceding on our behalf.

What a gospel, what a story, what good news that is.

Amen.

Jesus is worthy.

In 1 Peter 1:3, it says this.

1 Peter 1:3

It says, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

See, our hope is grounded in the resurrected Christ, in that Jesus Christ is alive.

He is alive and well.

And if you believe in him, if you trust in him, he is in you, he is with you, he goes before you, he's beside you, he's behind you.

You're filled with the Spirit of God.

Our hope is grounded in this resurrection.

And in spite of a newer gospel that's only emerged over the last 100 years or less, if you look all throughout Christian history, you will see Christian suffering.

It's part of what we what we believe, it's part of our theology that there is suffering.

Jesus said, in this world you will have a great life with no problems.

No, he promised us we would have trouble.

Come on, Jesus.

In this world you will have trouble.

But there's no full stop there.

It says, But be of good cheer or take heart or be encouraged.

I have overcome the world.

So while it might sound bad when you believe you know I he's already overcome it all.

So I can face tomorrow because he lives.

I can face tomorrow because he lives, all fear is gone.

Because I know, oh oh, who holds the future?

That's a song, by the way, for some of you that don't know.

Could be Dottie Rambo.

I have no idea who did that one.

Because he lives, I have hope.

And our hope rests on what God has already accomplished through Christ.

That's where our hope rests.

The cross, the resurrection.

See, Friday looked like defeat.

The disciples watched Jesus be crucified.

He was beaten so badly that his own mother couldn't recognize him.

He took that for us.

He took that for me and for you.

But Friday wasn't the end.

Jesus rose from the dead.

Sin and death do not have the final word for us as believers.

Will we still sin?

Most likely.

Will we all die?

Unless the Lord comes back, yes.

But that's not the end.

Because we'll spend eternity worshiping the Father.

We'll spend eternity praising the Father.

Revelation 5 talks about worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

It says that He He deserves all praise, all glory, all wealth, all honor.

One way you could read that is that every single thing he deserves it all.

Because everything you could list falls under one of those categories that it mentions.

He deserves all of our praise.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

Heaven's worship is centered around Jesus.

God forgive us when we center our worship around anything else.

Let's model heaven here on earth.

Let's worship Jesus and everything we say and everything we do here on earth.

Let it be about him, for him, to him, unto him, because of him.

The Lamb is worthy because of who he is, because of what he has accomplished, because of the finished work of the cross.

And his worthiness doesn't depend on my circumstance or your circumstance.

That's easy for me to stand up here and say that because I've had a great weekend.

I went into London.

I took my little boy.

He he just had the best time of his life.

And you know, as a parent, you've had the best time if your kids have had the best time.

My feet hurt, I'm tired.

I wanted to chop them off by the end of the day Friday.

But he was smiling and he was happy, so I was happy.

And so it's easy for me to stand up here and say, Life is good.

I was at praise party last night.

I got to eat smoked ribs on Friday night, and they were good.

Life is good.

By the way, just a shout out to the Nook, I think it was called.

If you're ever hungry for smoked meat, go there.

It's very good.

But what about when life's not so good?

What about when you when you go to order the smoked ribs and the way it's like we're out of those?

Thank God that didn't happen Friday.

What about when you when you're trying to do something?

What about when you're praying for something, you're believing for something, and nothing is happening the way you and you've got all the faith and you're saying all the right things.

The fields are full, and the the sheep are all in their pens, and the cattle are all where they're supposed to be, and the olives are falling off the tree.

There's so many of them, and none of that's happening, but you said all the right things, praise God.

And yet God is silent.

There's no answer.

Or maybe He answers, and it's not the answer you wanted to hear.

I spent years of my life praying to God, and I literally mean years of my life.

I grew up in church.

My mom Water broke on the pew in the middle of Sunday night service.

I'm very Christian.

In fact, write this down.

I'm more Christian than you all.

That sounds like something that was said in the Bible.

I was born and raised in church.

That's all I ever knew.

From a young age, things happened to me that should never happen to a child.

And I struggled with thoughts, and I struggled with confusion, and I struggled with fear, and I struggled with depression, and I struggled with not wanting to be on the earth anymore.

What happens when that's your situation?

And you've heard all the sermons and you've heard all the teachings and you've heard all the misinterpretations of scripture.

And nothing that you've heard is working, and nothing that you pray is working.

And I remember one time I lay for 12 hours on the church floor.

It was a church similar to this, a bit more square, and I was about right in that section there.

And I lay for 12 hours and I sobbed and I cried until no tears would even come out of my eyes anymore, saying, God, take take these memories away, take these thoughts away, take these feelings away.

I didn't have the word depression.

I was only about 14 or 15.

And our church didn't believe that depression was real, it was just a demonic attack.

If that's what you believe here, please listen to your pastor.

But I believe that circumstances can make you experience depression.

Do I think the enemy's behind it?

Absolutely.

But I was struggling, I was facing these things, and everybody's preaching all these sermons and they're aha and doing all these things, and people are dancing all around the front of the church.

And I began to just set at the back because God was absent.

God wasn't there.

And why am I telling you that?

Is it so that you know I'm not up here saying life has been peachy and rosy.

And in fact, in 2009, in my in my early 20s, I followed through and I'm aware of the crowd, so I'm being very uh discreet here, but I think you can read between the lines.

If not, come chat to me after.

And a decision that I made landed me in hospital under observation for a week.

And in that moment, I cried out to God.

I remember laying in the hospital, and I wasn't planning to say any of this today, but I feel strongly to share this.

I was laying in the hospital after wishing I no longer was on the earth, and my family had gone out, and I was in a room by myself, because we don't have public health care in America.

I'm in a room by myself, and and I said, God, if you're real and if you love me, and if there's anything you can do with my life, you've got to show me right now.

Because if you don't show me when I leave this room, I will go back and I will finish what I tried to do a few days ago, and I will be successful this time, is exactly what I said to God.

About half an hour later, there was a knock on the door, and this man that I only know how to describe as a typical American televangelist.

His suit was shiny.

His hair was perfectly hairsprayed into this smooth thing up here.

I wasn't jealous then because I had hair.

And he he knocks on the door and he comes in and he says, Could I pray for you?

I can't tell you a word that he prayed.

I can't tell you anything that he said.

I can't even remember our conversation after he prayed.

But I knew that God was telling me, I'm not finished.

Your story's not over, this isn't the end.

I'm real, and I have a plan for you.

And I began to pray, I began to repent, and it took a long time for me to figure things out and for me to get out of certain things and situations that I had gotten myself into.

But I knew that the Lord was telling me that he loved me.

And actually, I became really great close friends with that that pastor, that older pastor guy with the he still wears shiny suits to this day.

But I knew God loved me, and I feel a strong sense in the room today that somebody walked in needing to know that God loves you.

Because you've been struggling.

Maybe not even just this week, maybe you've been struggling for a while with thoughts in your mind that you wish were not there.

And the Lord says today, He wants to take them away.

It may not look like the way you want them, it may not be the way you envisioned.

I told you I prayed for 12 hours one time.

Let me tell you how I prayed for years, from the age of 12 to the age of about 22 when that experience happened in the hospital.

I used to pray this, God, take these things away.

God, make me feel this way.

God, make me have these thoughts.

Can you see any issue with that?

I'm telling God how to do God's job.

He's pretty good at it.

That day in the hospital after that pastor left, I was still by myself for a while.

And I said, God, I prayed a very specific prayer.

And I said, God, I want to do whatever you tell me to do.

And I want to be whoever you tell me to be.

And if it's this person, I'll be that person.

And if it's this person, I'll be this person.

And if it's a version of me that I've never even thought of, I'll be that person.

I'm sick of listening to the church.

I'm sick of listening to the world.

I tried both.

I said, I want to listen to you, and I want to be who you could tell me to be, and who you've called me to be.

And from that day on, it was like God just began to remove all the things that had covered over who I was in Christ.

And he began to reveal his son in me.

And that's what he wants to do for you today.

Rely on him, praise him, give him glory, give him honor.

I'm gonna get ready to close.

I had a bit more.

I didn't intend to say any of that, but I'm gonna ask the worship team, please, if you if you would come up this morning.

And I don't know.

I don't know if if you guys know holy forever.

I just really felt a sense during the time of worship just before I came up this morning.

That whatever you're facing today, whatever the situation you might have in your life, Jesus is still on the throne.

Jesus is still worthy.

I some of you may have walked in here today having fought with your husband or wife or partner all the way to church, and one of you're on this side and the other one's on that side.

I don't know any of you, so I wouldn't know.

But you're here today and you're struggling.

You've had a rough week in work, you've had a rough week with your kids, your teenager's gone off and done things they're not supposed to do.

You're you you've been let go, you can't pay your mortgage.

You you don't even know some of you if you're saved.

Some of you dragged yourself in here today because you thought, if I can just get to Sunday, it'll help me make through the rest of the week.

That's not the way God wants you to live.

And it comes down to this that I have a reason to praise, and the my circumstance does not determine my praise.

If you were here last night and you saw me on the stage, I know that I look like an absolute lunatic sometimes.

I don't care.

I do not care.

David said in the Psalms, he said, I'll become even more undignified than this.

You know how undignified he was?

He was naked dancing backwards down a street.

Thank God I didn't do that last night, amen.

And he says, I'll become even more.

How do you how?

I'll take naked dancing backwards down the street for 500.

Thank you.

But some of us need to become a little more undignified.

Some of us need to become even more undignified because we're not praising our circumstance, we're not praising Pastor Scott, we're not praising Jess, we're not praising the worship team.

We are praising Jesus Christ, who is alive, he's well, he's risen, he reigns in victory and power and authority over every situation.

The light comes into your dark situation, and scripture tells us that the darkness can't comprehend it, it can't overcome it, it can't overshadow it.

Well, Matt, you've never been in my head.

No, thank God, and you've never been in mine, and thank God for you.

But I know that when I praise God in spite of what's happening, my circumstances began to change.

And I may not get olives on my tree, I may not get vegetables in my field, I may not get cattle and sheep, but my perspective begins to change, and I began to get a heavenly perspective.

I began to put my eyes on Jesus, the Holy One, the resurrected King, who will always be holy, he will always be worthy, he will always be righteous, not because of what he's done for me personally, but because of what he has done for everyone, for you, for your children, for as many as the Lord our God shall call.

He's done it for all of us.

Receive him today, praise him today.

If you don't know Jesus, it's really simple.

The Bible says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.

It says to repent, just turn from sin.

You don't need to list it all out.

Just turn away from it, repent, turn your back on sin, follow Jesus.

It's that simple today.

But I wonder, can we just spend a few moments, and the worship team's gonna lead us after that?

But could we just spend a few moments worshiping the holy one, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords?

If you if you don't mind, just stand to your feet.

Let's lift our voice, lift our hands, and let's praise God in spite of what's going on in our life right now.

Oh, you will always be holy.

You will always be always being a little bit.

That we would see the goodness and the glory, the righteousness, the worthiness of Christ our King.

And no matter what's going on around us, no matter our situation, that we can praise you.

You will always be holy, you will always be worthy.

We give you glory, we give you honor, we give you praise.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.