Jentezen Franklin - Are You Still In Love With Praise?
I'm reading today from Psalms 118, I'll begin reading with Verse 24. Would you read it with me at all the campuses if you can. This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Keep going. Save now, I pray, oh, Lord. Oh, Lord, I pray, send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Come on. Keep going. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. God is the Lord, and He has given us light. Bind the sacrifice with the chords to the horns of the altar. Keep going, everybody. You are my God, and I will praise you. You are my God. I will exalt you. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. For His mercy endures forever. You read that like a bunch of Spirit-filled, Bible-believing, Blood-washed, Holy Ghost filled, bunch of crazy Christians. Hallelujah!
I wanna talk to you today, and the message that I'm preaching comes in the form of a question, "Are You Still In Love With Praise"? I want you to understand that there's a difference between worshipping and being a worshipper. One is a lifestyle. The other is moments of euphoria. John McCain, the deceased Senator from Arizona, was captured during the Vietnam War, and he served seven years imprisonment of the Vietnamese army. 30 to 40, he tells in a book that he wrote that 30 of 40 of them were placed in each cell.
Many of our soldiers there for many years, and he said in what they called the Hanoi Hilton, there they were incarcerated, and there was a man that he served time with in that prison camp by the name of Mike Christian, and Mike Christian did something soon after he was captured. He took different colors of threads from different clothing, and he got a bamboo needle, and he sowed an American, a tiny American flag into the garment that he was given that he had to wear, the prison clothes, and every day when he would hang the shirt up on a nail in his prison cell with the other 30 or 40 men, they said that he would put his hand on his heart and the others would join him, and they would say, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all".
And of course the Vietnamese prison guards couldn't understand why every night they turned toward the garments that were hanging on nails, and only the prisoners knew there was a tiny red, white, and blue flag that had been sewn in under what the eye could see. And one day there was one of the guards who examined the clothes and found that tiny American red, white, and blue flag and when the found it, the first thing they did is they came in and they ripped it to pieces, ripped the shirt to pieces, and caught it on fire and burned it up, and then they took Mike Christian, and they beat him for hours and hours and hours until he was literally at the point of death, according to John McCain. And they brought him back around 11 p.m. at night and threw him stripped naked with no clothing, threw him into that room. They said that one side of his face was beaten so severely that he was purple almost or blue on the whole side because his eye was bruised. His face was so bruised that it was blue, and he had blood all over, all kinds of injuries and blood just all over his body, and they gave him a white uniform to put on.
So, I want you to see the picture. All of the sudden, all of those soldiers as he's laying there in the red of his own blood and the blue of his own bruises and the white of the cheap prison garment that he had put on, one of the soldiers noticed he's not wearing the colors. He is the colors. So, they put their hand on their heart, and they said, "We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States," and went through the whole Pledge of Allegiance because he wasn't wearing the colors. He had become the colors. You see, there's a people who come to church to worship, but I wanna tell you that you don't just need to wear worship. You need to be worship. It's not just something that I am to do. It's what I'm supposed to be. It's not what I come on Sunday and do. It's what I am. I've got to do more than wear it. I've got to be it. I've gotta really love Him. I've gotta be in love with praise and worship and honoring and glorifying Jesus.
David was more than anybody in the Scripture God's song and dance man. He was the man who wrote the Psalms that this is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. He and Moses were songwriters and musicians, and they wrote the Book of Psalms, and the Bible said that when David went down to the battlefield one day to take some cheese and bread to his brothers that he noticed the army of Israel in the trenches, and he heard the giant, and something in him began to get annoyed that the people of God were better at digging foxholes than fighting, and he knew they had lost their praise, but he had been out in the mountains praising and worshipping God singing. Do you know David took praise breaks? That whole phrase really is David's. The Bible said he said seven times a day I will praise the Lord. That's a Bible verse. We take tea breaks and coffee breaks. He took seven praise breaks a day, and he'd go along and every few hours he'd stop everything and dance and praise the Lord and sing a song or turn on, put on his garment of praise and worship the Lord.
And here he is, and the Bible said that somebody came up to him and they said, "Hey. You know, if you're gonna fight that giant, the king said you get three things. Number one, you get a free house with no taxes. Number two, you get a part of the king's wealth, and number three, you get to marry his daughter". And David looked at the giant and said, "He's ugly," and looked at his daughter and said, "She's pretty," and he said, "You're gonna die today. One of us is gonna leave this field". And he went out there, and he got to thinking about no taxes, and he said, "Hallelujah! This is worth fighting for," and he went out there, and he said, "You know, getting the wealth and being in the palace," he was country before country was cool.
There was nothing about, he was a country boy. He was more country than corn bread. This boy had never been anywhere near a palace, and he thought if I'm gonna get to do it, and the Bible said after he slew Goliath that Saul called him to the palace, and he said, "I wanna introduce you to my oldest daughter. Here she is. Her name was Merab. Merab". And the Bible said that when he introduced her, and I could almost see him in my mind. He probably had on Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots and a tractor hat. What do you call it? John Deere hat and all of that, and he's looking at this beautiful, stunning girl, and he says, "How ya doing"? And she takes one look at him, this is in your Bible.
Now, I'm paraphrasing the John Deere part in there, but you know what I'm saying. And most people read right over this and forget this. The Bible said that Merab looked at him, and she called her dad and said in so many words, "Dad, I've got a problem. I don't want to marry this thing. Why did you bring him? Look at him? Look at him. Look at him". And the Scripture said that she told her father, "I am in love with Adriel". That's some guy named Adriel. "I'm in love with Adriel. I don't want this country boy". And all of a sudden, the Bible said that there was a crisis, but then it says in 1 Samuel 18:20 that there was another girl named Michal, and she spoke up, and the Bible said she loved David. And the Bible said in Verse 28 again, "She loved David". Now, David could be a type of praise, and in other words, she was the king's daughter, and she loved praise, but there was another king's daughter in the house that didn't love praise, and I wrote this question many years ago, and I wanna ask it to every one of you listening to me at all of our campuses today. How can you be a king's kid and not be attracted to praise? How can you have royal blood in your veins and not be attracted to praise?
I don't understand how born again people can get saved and never ever have a desire to praise the Lord. What water is to a fish, what air is to a bird, what air is to a human, praise is to a Christian, and just like a fish won't make it long without water and a bird won't ever be much and go high without air, and human won't live long without oxygen, a Christian will not make it long without praise and worship and if you're not used to it, it's not a Baptist thing. It's not a Presbyterian thing. Praise is not a Pentecostal thing. It is a Bible thing, and you are commanded if you have breath. Praise the Lord. Don't care how cool and smooth you are. Praise the Lord. If you're a king's kid, praise the Lord. Any king's kids listening to me? I give you this chance. Praise the Lord. There was a day when Michal loved David. The Bible said her father Saul despised David. Saul is a type of the devil, and the devil despises praise 'cause he used to be heaven's praise leader, and when you praise God, you take his place.
And the Bible said in 1 Samuel 19 that Saul hated David so much that in 1 Samuel 19 he sent assassins to his house to kill him while he was sleeping, and Michal woke up and something in her intuition said something's not right, and she heard the assassins knocking on the door, and she ran and opened the window and woke praise up and said, "You've got to go out this window and escape lest you die". You know what she was doing? She said, "You've gotta learn how when you get in dark times and when trouble's at the door, you've gotta learn how to open the window and let praise out". You've gotta let praise live to see another day. That's what you do when it's dark. That's what you do when real trouble comes to your life. You don't just sit there and let your praise die, but you open up the window and let praise out and know that weeping may endure for the night, but praise is gonna see another day, and I'm gonna send this praise on out in this dark hour.
Now, I want you to understand it was Michal who enjoyed and encouraged in the darkest time of their life this man to praise the Lord, but if you fast forward 20 and a half years later the Bible said that a lot of things had changed. David was now King of Israel. He was coming back to Jerusalem with the Ark of the Covenant. He had singers and musicians and every six paces they would stop, and he would offer sacrifices, and the Bible said he would dance before the Lord with all of his might and strength. All of his might, all of his strength. This man was a warrior and a killer, but this big old man would begin to praise God and dance so wildly that he did it, one translation said, with every fiber and muscle in his body moving praising, dancing, shouting, jumping, leaping, and his wife now 20 and a half years later looked out the window, the same window she had opened, maybe, and let him escape and kept praise alive.
Now, life has done something to her. Problems have done something to her. A lot can happen in 20 and a half years. You can start out on fire. You can start out in love with praise and church and God and the Bible and what the Lord means to you, but a lot of trials can come in 7,478 days. A lot of setbacks, a lot of deaths, a lot of divorces, a lot of illnesses, and there came a day as he was bringing it back that the Bible said she looked out her window, and she despised him for praising the Lord. Maybe she said to herself I don't need to be in love with praise like I used to be. I don't need to thank God like I used to be when I first fell in love with him. Something happened to her, but I've got a word for you today. If He is the same yesterday and if He is the same tomorrow, He is the same today. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.
And David, when she said, "You embarrass me. You're acting crazy. You shouldn't be doing this," he looked up at her, and he said, "I want you to understand something. Before your daddy ever put me in the palace, before your daddy knew who I was, God knew who I was. Before the army of Israel ever knew who I was, God knew who I was. Before Samuel the prophet ever poured oil on me and before my own father knew who I was, he didn't even ask me to stand in the line because he didn't think I was kingly material, and he said bring all the sons of Jesse, but he didn't call for David 'cause he knew that boy's a loser, but he said what my daddy, earthly daddy didn't know my Heavenly Father knew," and he said, "If you think I'm not gonna praise Him now".
See, David, 20 and a half years later was still a praiser. I don't know about you. Some of you have been praising the Lord a while, but if you don't have as much as you had when you started, it's time to go back and get it and begin to praise the Lord again. We can't go out with a whimper. We've gotta go up with a shout. Don't let years of life divorce you from what you once loved. The Bible said that when she cursed him for praising she became barren and never produced children again. You wanna become barren? You wanna stop seeing the fruitfulness of God? Then you stop worshipping. You stop praising.
There's something about praise that is so powerful when we understand it and we fall in love with it. It just takes one generation, one generation to lose praise in a church. That's why I defend it. That's why I constantly rehash and come back with messages on praise because the Bible said that we are in Psalms 145:4, "One generation shall praise Him to another, and they shall declare His mighty works". One generation is supposed to praise and when one generation is kind of fading out, they're supposed to praise God so much that it's passed on to the next and passed on. It's not supposed to be diminished. It's not supposed to get quieter. It's not supposed to get more distant and distant and distant from God, and if we don't way it and if we're not intentional about our praise, we'll lose a whole generation, and all it takes is one generation to drop the baton.
May we never say we don't need that anymore in the church. As long as I'm pastoring, I will be a long time, and as long as I'm pastor this is going to be a praising church, and it's gonna be that way at all our campuses and if you're not comfortable with it, get comfortable with it 'cause we're gonna... do you know there's only 30 minutes of silence in heaven? God's gonna say, "All right. Cut it out. Shh"! and all of heaven will go quiet. So, start the clock, angel. This is for all those little, quiet, mousy Christians. And He's gonna give you 30 minutes out of all eternity, and this is in your Bible, and at the end of 30 minutes, He's gonna hit it, and He's gonna say, "All right. Let it rip," and we're gonna go back to praising God throughout all eternity.
I close with this, but in first Samuel 22 there's an amazing story. The Bible said that there was an uprising, and Saul was trying to kill David, and there were 86 priests that assisted David that were slaughtered and only one them, there were 86, and 85 of them were slaughtered, and only one of them escaped and when he escaped he came to David, and the Bible said he had his ephod or his praise garment in his hand.
There's something wrong with that statement because worship, and an ephod, that's not how you wear it; in your hand. It's supposed to be on you. And the Bible said that he took the tunic in his hand. He carried it his hand but because there's a difference between worshipping and being a worshipper, sooner or later you're gonna find out through the trials of life do you have this thing called faith and praise in your hand or in your heart. Because when trouble comes, when problems come, when Christ has come, it's not enough to I praise in church, it's like a robe in my hand. It's something that I have to be. I have to be a worshipper. I have to be a person of worship. Do you worship or are you a worshipper?