A Lifelong Occupation

Turn back, if you will, in your
Bibles to the 50th Psalm. I want to speak this morning
on a lifelong occupation. A lifelong occupation. That's the subject this morning.
I want to begin here in verse 14, or verse 15 it is, where
the psalmist said, and call upon me in the day of trouble, I will
deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me. This verse has been a very
special verse to me and many times has challenged my heart
when I was greatly discouraged and we see a few things here
let me just point them out to you quickly so that you might
be able to appreciate what we're going to say this morning. Number one we find the occasion
in this verse and it is trouble the day of trouble that's the
occasion and then the command that we have here is call upon
me, call upon me in the day of trouble and then the promise
is I will deliver thee. I will deliver thee and the design
and that's what we want to get to the design is thou shalt glorify
me. When the day of trouble comes
and you call upon me and I have delivered you, then you shall
glorify me. And you'll do this by praying
and by praising when your prayer has been heard. You'll praise
the Lord because he has heard your prayer and because he has
delivered you. And then look over in verse 23,
when we glorify God, when we offer praise unto his name, it
says, Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me. The man, the woman, the boy,
the girl that offers praise unto God glorifies the Lord. Now praise is a God-exalting
work. It's a God-exalting work. Though nothing can add the least
to God's essential glory, yet praise exalts Him in the eyes
of all those that are around about us when we offer praise
unto the Lord. Praise is a setting forth of
God's honor. It's a lifting up of His name.
It's a display of His goodness. It's a proclaiming of His excellency. It's a spreading of His renown. A breaking open the box of ointment
whereby the sweet savor and perfume of God's name is sent abroad
into the world. Now, beloved, we want to glorify
God. We want to praise the Lord for
his mercy and his goodness. Praise, Thomas Manton said, is
a soul in flower. Self-love may lead us to prayers,
but love to God excites us to praise. If we love the Lord and
if we've been delivered by the Lord, then we ought to praise
the Lord. Praising God is one of the highest
and the purest acts of religion, praising the Lord. Now we know
that in prayer we're like men, but as the old prophet of God
said that I read this last week, he said in praise we act like
angels. In prayer we'll act like men,
but in praise we act like angels. Now I'd like for you to turn,
if you would, this morning over to the book of Hebrews, chapter
13. And here we have our main text
for the message today. And I hope that the Lord will
give us hearing ears, receptive hearts to receive the message
this morning. on a lifelong occupation. And we read here in verse 15
and verse 16 of Hebrews chapter 13. It says, By him, therefore,
let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to his name. But to do good and to share,
communicate or share, forget not, for with such sacrifices
God is well pleased. And so we have in verse 15 it
says, by him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise
to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks
unto his name. Now I wish this morning to stir
up your mind as many of you as have been made kings and priests
unto God by the Lord Jesus Christ, I hope to stir you up to exercise
the holy office which God has given you, and that is the office
of offering a sacrifice acceptable unto God, a sacrifice which would
be pleasing, which would please the Lord, which would be well-pleasing
unto Him. Now we're told over in the 115th
Psalm, I like these two verses, verse 17 and 18, it says, The
dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.
But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord. Now then, the
dead praise not the Lord. Certainly the physically dead
cannot praise the Lord. And certainly those that are
spiritually dead, those that are in a state of nature, those
who are unaffected by the gospel of God's redeeming grace, those
who've never had faith to come to them, they cannot and will
not praise the Lord. But we this morning that have
been made kings and priests unto Him, we have an office. and we
have a duty, and that is to offer praise and thanksgiving unto
his name continually. First then, concerning a believer,
let me describe to you the sacrifice that he's to make. By him, therefore,
let's begin right there, by him, therefore, Now I want to begin
here because that's where the apostle begins in the text. We
begin with Christ. We cannot go one step without
him. We cannot proceed one step without
a mediator. We can make no advance to God
apart from Christ. There is no acceptable prayer.
There is no pleasing sacrifice of any sort that we can make
by him therefore. by the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore,
it is if Christ, the great high priest of our profession, meets
us at the sanctuary door and we place all of our sacrifices
into his hands that he may take them before the Father and present
them for us. Now, beloved, that's the way
it is. We cannot advance to God and offer any sacrifice to Him,
not even the sacrifice of praise, unless we come through the Lord
Jesus Christ. If we could do anything without
Him, which we cannot, John 15 says, without him, without me,
Jesus said, you can do nothing. And so I think this morning we
ought to be afraid to try to approach him to offer anything
unto God apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us never venture
upon a sacrifice apart from him, lest it be the sacrifice of Cain
or the sacrifice of fools. He is, the Lord Jesus is that
altar which sanctifies both the gift and the giver, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I want you to observe this
morning with me that we approach God, come with an offering of
praise, an offering of thanksgiving unto Him, and we offer it in
the name of the Lord Jesus, just as we would offer a petition
unto God for something that we desire, something that we need. We must come in the name of Jesus,
because you might think, well, God would receive it otherwise,
but he won't. By him, therefore, the apostle
says, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. And I want you to observe next
that this sacrifice is to be presented continually. And I
want you to pay attention to that word. Not on Sunday only. This is not an occasional duty. It is to be continual, the text
says, which means seven days a week, which means the rest
of our pilgrimage here in this world. It means that this is
a lifelong occupation, this offering up of this sacrifice of praise
unto God. Now then, not just when we retire
at night and not when we arise in the morning, although we ought
to do that, And we certainly ought not neglect doing that,
but it says continually, that is without ceasing. Now the Bible
says pray without ceasing and Paul here says that we ought
to praise without ceasing also. Not only in this place here where
we are this morning or in some other place which people have
set aside maybe for public worship. But in every place we are to
praise the Lord our God. Not only when we're in a happy
frame of mind, but when we are cast down and troubled also.
We're to bless the Lord at all times. Now, I recognize this
morning that we all have different dispositions and there are times
when we don't feel like praising the Lord. There's times when
we don't feel happy enough, contented enough, when we don't feel trusting
enough in the Lord to praise Him and to lift up our voice
and glorify the Lord by praise. But my friend, this morning,
we ought to bless the Lord at all times. I'm telling you what
the duty is. I'm telling you what the duty
is. We'll deal a little bit more as we go along this morning with
our disposition and our frame of mind and how we're to deal
with that and so on. But now listen, I know that we
cannot always be speaking out and praising the Lord in a verbal
way, but we can always be living the praise of God in our heart.
The heart once set on praising God will like the stream, it
will continue to flow in its chosen course. If the heart is
set on praising the Lord, a soul that is saturated with divine
gratitude will continue almost unconsciously to give forth that
sacred order of praise unto God. If we're living out this praise,
if it's in us, if it's in us, then it will be coming out. And
even sometimes when we're unconscious of it, we'll be praising the
Lord. Now there is no time in which
it would not be right to praise the Lord. There's no time when
it would be right to suspend praise unto God. We ought to
offer, Paul says, let us, that means all who have an interest
in the things of God, all who are in the Lord Jesus Christ
and have an interest in the eternal covenant of grace. all those
who have had provision made for them by the Lord Jesus Christ
at Calvary's Cross, all of those who have been received by Him,
accepted in Him, all of those who have been chosen, called
of God effectually, all of those, they should be offering this
sacrifice of praise unto God. You see then that there are two
important points at the very outset this morning of this message
and that is that we're to offer this praise always and it's always
to be offered through him, through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the
next thing the Apostle goes on to tell us here is that this
sacrifice is, he tells us what it is, it is the sacrifice of
praise. Now praise, I believe that this
is heart worship or it's adoration. It's heart worship or adoration. Now adoration is a great, and
maybe it's the grandest form of earthly service, to be able
to adore the Lord. Now we ascribe unto Jehovah,
the one living and true God, all honor and glory. When we see his works, When we
hear His word, when we taste of His grace, when we mark His
providence, when we think upon His name, our very spirits are
made to bow before Him in the lowest reverence and magnify
Him as the glorious God of heaven. We are made to honor Him, we
adore Him, we magnify Him. Let us abide continually in the
spirit of adoration as the Lord's people. For this, I believe,
is praise in its purest form, to adore the Lord, to magnify
the Lord. Now, praise really, I believe,
is heart trust and it's being content with God. I think that
if a man can praise the Lord, that it means that he trusts
the Lord, that he has laid all and given all over and abandoned
himself over into the hands of the Lord, and that he is content
in his heart with the Lord, that he's not in a running battle
with the Lord, that he's not mad at God, that he's not frustrated
with God, that he's not in some way or another out of sorts with
God. He's not wrangling with God.
He's not so discontented with God that he's give up prayer
and he's give up praise and he's give up the reading of the Word.
He's giving up delighting in the Lord. No, it means that he
has a heart that is content with God and therefore he can praise
the Lord. Now, beloved, it's worthwhile
to live the most afflicted and tried life that you can imagine
as long as we know God and we taste his love in our daily experiences. Let him do what seemeth him good
as long as he will, but let him be a God to us and permit us
to call Him our Father and our God. Now, beloved, we've got
to deal with this thing of our heart contentment and it being
the very, what I think, motivating force of praise unto God. Now if you cannot delight yourself
in the Lord, and if you have no ability to do that, if you
cannot see there's enough revealed of Him to your heart that you
ought to be content with Him, then you'll never be able to
offer this sacrifice in the way that the Apostle Paul here tells
us to offer. Now, praise is not only heart
contentment and heart trust, it's heart enjoyment. Heart enjoyment,
the indulgence of gratitude and wonder toward the Lord. The Lord
has done so much for me that I must praise Him or feel that
I'm an ungrateful soul. Now we must offer this praise
unto God. It's a joy to do it if we're
the children of God, if we're the people of God, if we're born
of the Spirit. The poet said, blessed is the
man, O Lord, who was chosen by your grace. Your election and
your love causes our hearts to sing your praise. God of love,
you sent your Son to redeem your chosen ones. Precious Savior,
precious blood, for our sin your blood atones. When the time of
love has come, God the Spirit comes to some. By grace we cannot
resist. God's elect are our cause to
come. Come to Jesus, yes we do. Come
to Christ alone for grace. By God's sovereign grace and
power, we the Son of God embrace. Blessed Father, blessed Son,
blessed Spirit, three in one, we for grace our praise return. Thank you, Lord, for all you've
done. My friend, how can we, as being
the recipients of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, how can
we, having the blessings of God so wonderfully bestowed upon
us, we having partaken of the cup of salvation, we having experienced
the deliverance of the Lord, How can we continue on with an
ungrateful heart and keeping away the praise that he deserves?
He has done these great things for us. The psalmist said, the
Lord has done great things for us. We're glad. And so, brethren
and sisters, the Lord has favored us greatly. And before the earth
was, as the poem said, the Lord chose us and entered into eternal
covenant with our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave
us His Son and He gave His Son to us. in the eternal covenant,
and He was manifested. The Lord Jesus was Himself to
take away our sin. He was manifested to us in a
way that He is not manifested to the world. There are so many
that have never received a revelation of the glory of God in the face
of the Lord Jesus. There's so many around us that
has never tasted and seen that the Lord is good, that's never
been enabled by pure and divine grace to come to the place where
they feel that their souls have been liberated from the guilt
of their sin. Not very many around us. There
are few, beloved, that have been saved, few that know the Lord.
And He put His Spirit in us, a childlike spirit whereby we're
unable to cry, Abba, Father. my father. Now surely then we
must feel praise in our hearts toward him. How can we satisfy
our hearts if we do not extol him, if we do not exalt him,
if we do not praise him? It is our obligation and we cannot
get any peace in our hearts without praising the Lord. There just
simply has got to be a praise coming out of our hearts unto
him for all of his manifold blessings and mercies. Now the next thing
I'd like to say is that we have a heart love towards God also,
which finds its expression in praise to God. I'd like to ask
you this morning, if you're a blood-bought child of God, if you truly know
the Lord, and if you know your election of God, if you know
this morning where you stand with God, that you're accepted
in His Son, the Beloved One, could you love anyone as you
love God? Could you? Is it possible that
you could love anybody as you love him? The Bible says we love
him because he first loved us. Could we love anyone like we
love the Lord? Well, my God, I love thee. Thou
knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee. That's what Peter said. Thou
knowest that I love thee. And I think that every child
of God loves the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, brethren, it is not ours
to arraign the Almighty, but to submit to Him. If you love
Him, it's not your business to quarrel with God, it's your business
to submit to Him. Now the point I'm trying to get
to here is that we have a great deal of difficulty in praising
the Lord. Somehow or other, we are so blinded
by the, we're spoiled in a manner Our lives, although we've had
many ups and downs and many tests and many trials in our life,
many afflictions in our life, yet our lives to some measure
have been so free from many, many of the cares that others
maybe have experienced. We have been so blessed in many
areas of our lives that somehow or other, We just, when we run
into a little period of difficulty and a period of when it looks
like our lives are going to crumble and everything's just going to
come down around us, somehow or other we just panic. And we get so full of resentment
toward God and we're so full of discontentment and so full
of murmuring toward God that you would wonder that if we love
the Lord at all or not. We're bothered by every trifle. We get to the place where there's
pain in every trifle, as John Newton said in his poem. And
so, beloved, listen, it's not ours to argue with the Almighty
and to be in rebellion against Him, but if we love Him, it is
ours to submit to Him. We're not His censors. We cannot
censor the Lord. We're His servants. We're His
servants, and it's our business to praise Him. It's our business
to let love magnify and honor and extol the Lord as it's in
our hearts. We do not legislate, but we love. He is good. God is good. The Bible says that the Lord
is good. He's supremely good. In our esteem, and I think in
your esteem this morning, if you're a child of God, the Lord
is supremely good. We do not consider what he ought
to be. Somebody says, well, God ought
to be this. God ought to be that. God ought
to do this. God ought to do something else.
My brother, my sister, that is not our prerogative to consider
what God ought to be. But we learn what he is. And
as such, we love Him and adore Him. As He has revealed Himself
to us, we learn what He is, and we submit ourselves to Him as
He is. And I'm telling you here this
morning, God's ways are not your ways. I'm telling you, your thoughts
are not His. And we just simply can't submit
ourselves to the chastening of the Lord. It kills the praise
of our hearts. And it's because we do not understand
the Lord. We do not know Him as the scripture
reveals Him. God is a God of mercy and grace
and love and justice and power, and he's a holy God. And he's
a God that we ought to adore, and he's a God that we ought
to praise, and a God that we ought to love. But we spend much
of our time trying to figure out why. Why this? Why that? Why something else?
We spend our time censoring him. We figure that we somehow or
other ought to have an explanation as to why things are like they
are in our lives. And we forget who he is. We forget
what the scriptures revealed about him. And we forget our
duty as the children of God, and that is to offer sacrifice
unto God. That is the fruit of our lips
giving praise unto his name. Now then, The next thing here
I'd like to call your attention is that the text deals with spoken
praise because the apostle says that is the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to his name. So then we're to utter the praise
of God. It's not sufficient to feel adoring
emotions. They must be, they must be uttered
unto God. They must be uttered. That's
the fruit of our lips. Giving thanks unto His name. Has your children ever heard
you praise the Lord? Has your children, has your relatives
ever heard you sing unto God? The priesthood of believers requires
them to praise God with their lips. If you're a child of God,
you're a priest unto God, and you're to offer a sacrifice,
and Paul says it's a sacrifice of praise, and it's to be offered
with the lips. Has anybody ever heard you praise
the Lord? Psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs ought to abound from the hearts of God's people. It's
our duty to sing. We may not have a trained voice.
We may not be able to sing as some, but listen to me, it may
not sound good to the human ear But I believe that it's offered
from the heart, that it will be melodious in the ear of God. And so, beloved, I think we all
ought to be the Lord's troubadours. We ought to be the minstrels
of the Lord. We ought, on life's way, we ought
to be humming and singing out praise unto God as we go along
life's way. And whether it sounds good to
anybody else or not, we should be praising the Lord and singing
to Him. The ungodly sing, They sing and
their songs are silly and they're garbage and you can hardly tell
what they are saying and if you could have you wouldn't be edified
thereby and so you and I would not be ashamed to sing unto the
Lord these songs of grace and these songs that adore and magnify
and praise the Lord God the King of Heaven and so we should be
joyful before our King and we can talk and we can speak well
of his name. Jesus healed a man, the maniac
of Gadar, and he said to him, go home to thy friends and tell
them how great things the Lord hath done for thee. Go home to
your friends and open your mouth and tell them what God has done
for you. Speak. Listen to me. Speak and
speak and speak. Tell what God has done for you. But people generally don't know
too much about what God has done for us. They rather know about
how bad things are with us and how bad circumstances and situations
are. We complain rather than tell
what God has done for us. We somehow or other have been
tricked into just being able to see how bad things are, and
we just simply are not able to see how good and merciful and
gracious and kind God has really been. in His providence. Things are sometimes rough in
this world, I will admit to that. I know something about that.
I know a great deal about that. But I must discipline myself
as a child of God, as a servant of God, as a recipient of God's
grace and mercy, I must discipline myself and get myself into a
vein where that I am occupied with the Lord and praising of
His name. Now then, how can we obey this
text and rail on the providence of God? You just simply can't
do it. You can't do it. You can't be complaining, and
you can't be going around all the time. Everybody knows you.
Say, well, I know what kind of situation so-and-so's in, because
when I meet them, they tell me always about their troubles and
their problems. They're not interested in just
praising the Lord. Well, my friend, this rebukes
us all. Hear the word of the Lord, neither
murmur ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of
the destroyer, the scripture says. So let us come back to
our duty, then brother and sister, and praise the Lord. This is
our office. It is a holy and it's a privileged
office. as a child of God, as a priest,
as a priest unto God. Well, you say, I just cannot
force myself to praise the Lord. Well, we're not saying, and I
don't hope nobody thinks that I am saying this, that you ought
to force yourself to praise the Lord. This praise is to be natural.
It is called the fruit of the lips. The fruit of the lips. Now fruit is a natural product
of the tree which bears it. And this praise is to be natural. It's to come from a heart. It's
to come from a heart that's been affected by the grace of God
and by God's Christ. It's to come from a heart that
has experienced the love of God and tasted of God's love and
God's mercy. It's to come from a heart that
feels something toward the Lord. I'm not asking some unregenerate
sinner. I'm not asking some alien sinner
to get up and praise the Lord. I'm asking those who have tasted
I'm asking for those who have been redeemed by the hand of
the Lord. I'm asking for those who know Him, and to know His
goodness, and those who have experienced something from the
hand of God. I'm asking them to praise the
Lord, and with them, praise to God is natural. It's natural. Now this praise is to be sincere
and real, I said, and if you look at verse 16 here, but to
do good. and to share, communicate, forget
not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Do something. You're to do, to be active, to
do good, and to share. Not to forget these things. This
shows the sincerity and how real this is with you as a child of
God. Now then, I want to, in the last
place this morning, spend just a little bit of time in commending
this blessed exercise to you, this lifelong occupation of praising
the Lord. I just want to commend it to
you. I've been talking about it now, but I've got to say some
other things about it. Number one, I've got six or seven
things here, and I'm not going to preach long on them, but I
want to give them to you, and I want you to have this commended
to your heart in a way so that you won't ever forget it. Number
one, I believe that it'll answer the end of your being. Offering
the sacrifice of praise unto God it will answer the very end
of your being. Now I think that every creature
is happiest when it is doing what it is made to do, what it's
made for. Listen, Christians are made to
glorify God. God's people, those that know
the Lord Jesus Christ, those that have been newborn souls
from heaven, those that have been given the treasures of His
grace in Christ, they have been fashioned to glorify God. Isaiah 43 and verse 7 says, Even
everyone that is called by my name, For I have created him
for my glory. I have framed him or formed him. Yea, I have made him. They've been created for my glory. Those that have been called by
my name. And we're not in our element.
as the people of God, as those that have received from Him. We're not in our element until
we are praising the Lord. For the praise of God, our new
nature was fashion, and this, my friend, is where we find rest
and where we feel that we're doing what we've been called
of God, what we've been formed by God, what we've been rescued
by God to do. We are praising His name. God
is deserving of praise. Now the second thing I would
say is this. that we're to praise God because it is His due. I'm commending this exercise
to you. Number one, because it'll answer
the end of your being. Number two, because it is His
due. God has glory and praise coming
to Him. from you if you're his child. Should Jehovah be left unpraised? Now listen to me, praise is the
rent which he asks of us for the enjoyment of all things. I like that. It's the rent that
God requires of us for the enjoyment of all things from him. Will
a man rob God? Will a man fail to pay his rent
unto God? Listen, it blesses us to bless
the Lord. Give unto the Lord the glory
that is due unto His name. Is God worthy to receive praise? Is He worthy? In heaven above,
He shall receive glory and honor and praise and might and power
for all eternity. And He's worthy of it now. I
commend to you this exercise in the third place. We're to
praise Him, for it'll help you do everything else. Now you hear
me out on this. I know something about what I'm
talking about. I'm no novice in this. If I can praise the
Lord, if I can truly from my heart, if I am content with the
Lord, if I am in love with the Lord, if I can praise the Lord
from my heart, I can come here on Sunday morning and preach.
I can go anywhere else and preach. if I can praise the Lord. If I can praise the Lord, I can
pray. If I can praise the Lord, I can
trust the Lord. If I can praise Him, and if I,
listen, I can be content and I can testify of the grace of
God anywhere where I'm found if I can, in my own heart and
soul, praise the Lord, if I can. But when the day comes that I
cannot praise the Lord, then I can't preach. I don't want
to. I don't want to come. I don't
want to stand up anymore. If I can't praise the Lord, then
I can't pray. If I can't praise the Lord, I
can't witness. I can't testify. I can't do anything
unless I can praise the Lord. If I can do that, Then that means
everything is as it ought to be in my soul and it'll help
me do everything else that I gotta do. Everything else I've got
to face, everything else I have to do. Yes, praising God is both
meat and it's medicine. It's medicine to the soul. Now the fourth thing that I give
you in commending this exercise to you is this. This will preserve
us from many evils. from many evils. The praising
of God will preserve us from many evils. When our hearts are
full of praise to God, it does not have time to find fault with
others. It does not have time to grow
proud. It does not have time to be out
of sorts with folks around us if our hearts are praising the
Lord. It will keep us from many, many evils. Now this is a great
work and we don't have time just to come down as the amount would
say i don't have time to come down and wrangle with anybody
don't have time this is a great work building the wall of jerusalem
he was referring to and i'm talking about this business of praising
god it's a great work and we don't have time to self or self
love and we don't have time to be wrangling with everybody we
just our business is praising the lord now self love and natural
irritations die when we praise as we ought They just die out. If you praise God continually,
the vexations and the troubles of life can be cheerfully borne. You say, well preacher, I got
so used to grumbling and complaining and griping and it feels so good
to me. I don't think I'll ever want
to get rid of the vexations and the troubles of life. I don't
want to bear anything cheerfully. I'm tired of bearing things cheerfully. My friend, listen to me. If we're
children of God, it's high time that we arose above what we are
in flesh and what we are just after the flesh and that we become
something above that and beyond that. We're servants of God. We're God's people. And we must
bear cheerfully those things that we bear. And if we can praise
the Lord, we can bear cheerfully the vexations and the troubles
and those things that grate us in this world. We can bear it
cheerfully if we praise the Lord. Now, am I telling you the truth?
I'm telling you the truth. I really am. This is gospel. This is the truth of God. The
joy of the Lord is our strength. Praise makes the happy man the
strong man. It makes him strong in the Lord. We will not fear while we can
praise. If you can praise God, you don't
need to be fearful and worrisome about everything that's going
on around you. Fifthly, brethren, in my commending
of this to you, let us praise God because it will be a means
of usefulness to others. A praiseful heart is eloquent
for God. Now you can say what you want
to about eloquence, but I'll tell you what, eloquence for
God is a praiseful heart. That's what it is. If you can
praise the Lord, you're going to help somebody. See, I'd just
like to be a help somebody. You want to help your wife? Praise
the Lord. You want to help your husband? Just have a praiseful
heart toward God. You want to help your children?
Just dry up and stop talking about this and that and everything
else and just have a praiseful heart toward God. Now that'd
help us all, wouldn't it? It'd help us everyone. It would
help us all if we could just do that. Now that I'm telling
you the truth, brothers and sisters, this is the way to be a means
of usefulness to others is take up this lifelong duty and give
yourself to it from now on out and just praise the Lord and
be eloquent for your God. Now the sixth thing is this.
Praise God because this is what pleases God. It pleases God. Now hear me out. For with such
sacrifices, we read here in verse 16, for with such sacrifices,
God is well pleased. He's talking about the sacrifice
of praise mentioned in verse 15, and he's talking about this
doing good and sharing. In verse 16, he said, with such
sacrifices, God is well pleased. Now then, listen to me. It seems
too good to be true that we could impart any pleasure to the Lord. Yet it is so. It is so. The text says it is so. Can I
please Him in this way? Can I please the Lord in this
way? He don't want the bullocks, and
you can read back over there in Psalm 50. He said, I don't
want them bullocks anymore. If I wanted them, he said, I
own the cattle on a thousand hills. I'd just go out and get
me one. I wouldn't have to wait for you to bring me an offering.
No, he said, you offer the sacrifice of praise. You praise me. You
glorify me. My true worship is you call on
me, and when you're in trouble, I'll hear you, and I'll deliver
you, and then you glorify me. That's what I want. Whoso offereth
praise glorifies me. That's what I'm looking for.
I'm not looking for you bring me anything other than praise. That's what I want. I want glory. I want praise. Now then, I'll
do it then if this will please you. Would you agree with that?
Would you say amen to that? I'll do it. If this pleases God,
if this is a sacrifice He wants me to offer, and if I'm in a
position in Christ to offer it, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll praise the Lord. Now the
seventh thing, and the last thing is this. Remember that this will
fit you for heaven. This will put you in tune with
what's going on up there now. This will put you in tune with
what's going on in eternity forever. This will put you in tune. The
poet said, I would begin the music here and soul by soul should
rise. Think of how you'll praise the
Lord when you see Him face to face. Never, never more to sin,
always to be in His presence to be praising Him, looking upon
His beauty and the glories of an eternal and pure heaven. Think
of how you will praise Him then. Praise Him, praise Him, praise
Him more and more. Rise up the ladder of His glory
till you reach the top and are with Him to praise Him forevermore. May our songs be ever rising
verse by verse into the eternal hallelujahs. May we be rising
to glorify the Lord each day, each hour, as we go. The poet
said, stand up and bless the Lord, ye people of his choice.
Stand up and bless the Lord, your God, with heart and soul
and voice. Bless the Lord. John Boyes made
this statement, one of the Puritans. He said, the servants of the
Lord are to sing his praises in this life to the world's end. and in the next life, world without
end. And so I think you can see that
this does indeed commend this to our hearts, that this exercise
of offering this sacrifice of praise unto God, remember that
it will prepare you for heaven above to begin praising the Lord
here. You're not going to lose a thing
by praising God here. Don't think you are. Don't think
somebody's not gonna have sympathy on you if you're praising the
Lord. Somebody said, well, that fella,
he don't need anything. That fella's just getting by wonderfully
well. He's praising the Lord. Well,
praise God, he is. He is. But you see, you don't
wait until everything's getting along wonderfully well with you
before you begin to praise the Lord. You just praise the Lord.
Because he's the same as he's always been. And he's not gonna
change. He's not going to change. And
he ought to be praised. He deserves it. He deserves it.
And from the likes of us even, he deserves to have it. And I
hope we can become more taken up with him. Wouldn't it be wonderful
to live and have some meaning in our lives?
Brother, sister, you have meaning in your life if you're living
to the praise and the glory of God. There's meaning there. There's meaning there. Father,
we give thanks this morning for your word. Just help us to remember
this text and bless our Father we pray our hearts from it as
we continue to meditate upon it. Bless this little band of
believers and may we rejoice and be glad in the Lord. May
our souls just be able to magnify the Lord and may we be happy
in the Lord our God and may praise swell up in our hearts And may
we offer it through the Spirit in the name of Jesus unto thee. We offer it now in his blessed
and holy name and righteousness. Amen.

A Lifelong Occupation

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A Lifelong Occupation

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