The Power of Praise • April 26 (Sermon Only, Tony Evans)

well I thought we'd do something different this time I've been missing my pulpit of church so I thought I'd feel a little bit more regular today still in a somewhat casual environment but I'm still behind a little pulpit here and I can kind of feel more normal okay but I am glad to be able to come with you again and to to challenge you doing these challenging days that we're all facing let me ask you a question if your if your health is falling apart you're probably gonna go to the doctor because you think the doctor can help you get it back together again if your house is falling apart you're gonna call a repair person to kind of come and fix what's broken if your car is making all kind of noise that means you need a mechanic somebody who knows what they're doing who can bring resolution to your car dilemma what do you do when your world is falling apart when your nation is in trouble what do you do when you've hit a crisis so big that you have no way to go what do you do when all the human options have disappeared on you and no matter which direction you look in north-south-east-west the answers are difficult and everybody's trying a lot of things but nobody has a definitive answer and it's not only affecting you and your family it's affecting your neighborhood your church your nation and the whole world well that's what Caronia business it's a pandemic which means it's a national and international negative crisis a crisis is a situation that wels you crisis can come in a whole lot of forms they can be economic crisis we know what that's like due to Corona there can be relational crisis there can be social crises there can be career crisis one thing is true though it is overwhelming what do you do when there's nothing you know that you can do well that's why I love second chronicles chapter 20 it is the story of King Jehoshaphat King Jehoshaphat has a problem on his hands it's a problem that has affected his whole nation he says in verse 2 a great multitude is coming against us he looks out and he says every direction that I look and he names him he says every direction that coming against us and they're closing us in he's in a predicament a dilemma he's in a crisis he says that this crisis is hitting him in every direction and you you pretty much know when you've hit that kind of crisis because your emotions begin to take charge because verse 3 of 2nd chronicles 20 says Jehoshaphat was afraid he was scared he was terrorized because this was a problem he didn't know how to fix this was an enemy he didn't know what to do with this was his own Korona a problem too big for him to handle we're told that in the midst of this problem he turned his eyes to seek the Lord that's what verse 3 says he looked up because know we're looking out could solve this problem right now we're seeing more people talk about God talk about faith talk about religion talking about Jesus quoting scriptures or newscast and yeah they are those detractors out there but it is pretty clear we in a dilemma that is a little bigger than us and even if it wasn't this corona so many of us have our personal Coronas don't we the viruses that have messed up our lives he sought the Lord he wanted to bring God into the equation of his dilemma you know you in a crisis that you can't fix when the harder you try to deeper down you go like quicksand you know the harder you try to get out of quicksand the more suck you under that's what a dilemma does that is a pandemic kind of crisis in your life and in your world well that's Jehoshaphat's problem what he decides to do is turn to the Lord get everybody else to do it too because verse 4 says he gathered together to seek help from the Lord and they even came from all the cities of Judah to seek the Lord in fact we told him verse 3 he proclaims a national fast you know that's what we need today we need to call our whole nation to a fast and prayer not just prayer but a fast let me say a word about fasting fasting is a Bunsen burner underneath prayer fasting is giving up something physical to gain something spiritual see most people visit the spiritual while we live and are controlled by the physical but what fasting does is it shifts that it says right now the spiritual is more important than the physical heaven is more important than Earth because I can't fix earth with earth because my problem is too big I need the unseen world to enter to the seen world to affect my dilemma my crisis so he calls a fast right now everybody should fast you should pick up a meal a week a day a week well you leave the smart devices you cut off the television you walk away from a meal and you say God we are crying out to you now for ourselves our families our churches and nation because we all in trouble and we're crying out to you where this is so big and so bad that we're willing to give up something to gain something more and that is to gain you in the middle of our pain uncertainty sickness and death from an unseen enemy if you want God to do something about the problem in chapter 20 you have to address something in chapter 19 you see in chapter 19 keep the King Jehoshaphat got all the nation to get right with God it says in chapter 19 verse 4 that King Jehoshaphat brought the nation back to the Lord to the God of their fathers you see being right with God is a prerequisite to hearing from God you can fast and pray all day but if you refuse to get right with the one you're talking to then you have no guarantee he's gonna respond because he doesn't want to respond so you can leave him out more so that you can ignore him more so you can say a prayer to get out of it and then skip him so they got right first and then they saw the Lord we're in trouble and even before this dilemma we see all kind of trouble in our nation political class race you know all that's kind of kind of become secondary to this bigger problem but we've had a lot of problems that we need solutions for but that starts with God going god word and so he calls everybody in fact verse 13 says that they even brought their children along with their wives which means the men went front and center they brought their wives they brought their children in other words everybody in on this cuz this thing affects all of us and we this invasion hits us everybody's gonna be destroyed Jehoshaphat said and we're seeing with this coronavirus it can hit any of us and it can be deadly with a blow and so everybody got on board that's why we want our church our church in Dallas to at least find some time every week it may be a portion of every day to call you to a fast to tell the children no not now we're not we're gonna take 15 minutes 30 minutes an hour whatever works we're going to give up meat today or we're going to give up a television for this period of time and we're gonna talk to each other we're gonna talk to God because we want our family protected from this virus and we want our nation to be healed of it and we want our medical experts to find a solution to it so let's cry out to God it's called a solemn assembly in Scripture a sacred gathering where people were called to invoke on heaven because history was in trouble and so he calls on them he makes a statement in verse 12 he says the reason that we're calling on you as we don't know what to do and I as on you oh you don't know what to do huh this is outside of your control see we'd like to be in control we'd like to be able to handle stuff well God will let you know how bad you need him by allowing things in your life in my life and our lives collectively that we can't fix on our own he says we don't know what to do and I'm not too proud too big I'm I'm gonna be humbled with this thing he prays a prayer beginning in verse 5 let me tell you the ingredients of this prayer you start your praise with a prayer he starts his prayer by rehearsing God's person and then graduating to God's power let me say it again he starts his prayer by rehearsing God's person then graduating to God's power he tells God how great he is how awesome he is he tells God that he rules from heaven he tells God that he rules over all the kingdoms this is good to know that that there's no problem one are so big that God can't overrule it he tells God that the enemy coming at him is no competition for the God of the universe so he brags on God's person and then he talks about God's power that's what you want don't just ask for his power and skip his person because his power is tied to his character you want to know what he is like in order to get what he can do so he brags on God makes a big deal about God because he got a big virus a big invasion that he needs to be able to address and everybody was with him because that's how big the problem was from outhouse to the White House everybody should be dropping on their knees ideally at the same time so he can hear all the voices calling down heaven in history and calling on God to invade this dilemma that we face after his prayer he got a prophetic word it says God heard what he had to say and he called a prophet and he called the Prophet in verse 14 he said if you listen to the prophet verse 20 you will succeed you know right now we need a word from God let me tell you about the Prophet the Prophet was not a particularly popular person because they usually showed up during times of calamity and difficulty often with negative things to say but always with a positive goal and saying to get right with God so that things could be reversed so the deliverance could take place so that the agenda could be changed and so you want a prophetic word we call that a Rhema word let me give you a few Greek words here that will help you understand the Rhema word there is the graph a the graph a is the book it is as it sits on your shelf on your coffee table it is the written recorded Word of God that's the graph a then there is the logos the logos is the content and meaning of the graph a so you could never even open the Bible but it would still be the Bible because it is the written word of God but the logos is what it says and what it means by what it says that's why Jesus Christ by the way is called the logos of God in John 1:1 because he came to explain the father to us so it is the content and its meaning that's the logos but then there is the Rhema word the Rhema word is the specific utterance into your specific situation you need a Rhema word because you got a real dilemma a real problem a Rhema word is not a general word it's just it's not even a sermon because the sermon can can be one word for everybody a Rhema word is God's Word to you they're in a dilemma and they need a Rhema word which is a prophetic word he says if you listen to the Prophet now now just cuz somebody preaching on Lena the Prophet they've got to be consistent with the written word and with the Living Word before I think it can even be considered to be a prophetic word so if the Rhema word is not consistent with the Living Word and the written word it in fact is not a Rhema word and that's a false prophet but he does give his applicational words to specific scenarios to the prophetic voice today that's why the Bible says in 1st Thessalonians 5 despised not prophecy I know we're listening to the medical experts we're listening to our political leaders but we ought to be listening for word from God and the more of those people that you can get to listen for God the sooner we can get solutions to the dilemmas that we face even in your personal life you want to listen for a prophetic word it may come through your pastor it may come through another believer who has the gift but you want to listen to a word that speaks into your specific reality after they prayed God brought a prophet and then it was time for praise look at how much praise goes on in this chapter without the problem yet being solved it says in verse 18 they fell down before the Lord and worshiped him they say in verse 19 they stood up to praise the Lord they say in verse 21 they sang to the Lord those who praised him in holy attire it says in verse 22 when they began singing and praising the Lord set an ambush in other words praise made the difference they had a problem a virus they couldn't fix an invasion they couldn't overcome that led to a prayer the prayer opened the door for a prophet and then it was time to get your praise on let me talk about praise praise is that accentuating and expressing value to God you can worship privately without saying a word you can worship you can worship in your heart you can worship with your mind you can worship in silence but you can't do that with praise praise is worship gone public praise is declaring your stand that's what the psalmist meant in Psalm 34 when he said o magnify the Lord with me and let us extort exalt and extol his name together in other words he says get your praise on when you magnify God you can't make God bigger but a magnifying glass doesn't make something bigger it just shows you in a bigger way what's really there the Bible says that God inhabits the praise of his people he hangs out in praise when praise is coming from the right heart get your praise on even though your problems that so praise God that he's bigger than Corona praise God that he's bigger than your private Coronas however they may show up in your life praise him that he's greater than whatever the greatest challenge is in your life it says when God heard their praise he said an ambush for the enemy in football but my son Jonathan was a fullback a fullbacks job is to run through the line and open up a hole in one of the gaps for the halfback as one of his main jobs the quarterback receives the ball the linemen at first are coming after the quarterback because the quarterback has the ball the quarterback hands off the ball the halfback everybody shifts to go after the halfback now Jonathan's job was to block them on the shift you see because you've shifted the problem to somebody else well you may have the problem right now but when you get your praise on you shifted it over to God that's why when David was facing Goliath he says in 1st Samuel 17 verses 26 and 26 who is this uncircumcised philistine that challenges the armies of the Living God he shifted it over to God he said no you're messing with God now in other words he made it a spiritual battle not just a physical battle with big boy no he said big boy is big but he ain't that because I know somebody bigger when you learn to shift your pain your problem your dilemma your Coronas over to God now you have somebody bigger than the problem you face and the problem that the medical environment faces that's that's worldwide it's time to shift that thing over it's time to give that thing over the Bible says in your praise so I'm fifty four fifty verse twenty-three is your deliverance that God will deliver you in your praise you say but my problem has not been solved yet I know your problem hasn't been solved yet get your praise on what am i praising for when my problem hasn't been solved I'm praising for the God who can solve it I'm praising that it's not so big that it's bigger than him I'm praising him for what I've seen him do in the Bible see that's why you have to know the Word of God because you need to know what he did yesterday to remind you when he can do today that's why all through the Bible that rehearses God delivering from from Egypt it rehearses God delivering through the Red Sea why to show them when they ran into their next Pharaoh when they ran into their next army when they ran into their next dilemma that same God can handle it because he's already handled it before the problem is if you don't have a history with God and you don't haven't seen what he can do then you won't be as energized appraisin right now because you don't have a history with it ah but throughout the Bible when folk got their praise or when God did something if you don't believe me ask Joshua when they were walking around the wall of Jericho once a day for seven days for six days on the seventh day seven times and they were letting out a shout you know what that shot what everyone just noise that's a shout of praise what were they walking around a thick problem a wall that wouldn't fall in an enemy they wouldn't fall but when they got their praise on crack started cumberly rumbling started taking place when they got their praise on things began to collapse the problem came to an end if you don't believe that praise works as Paul and Silas in jail the in chair in change they're in jail but they got the praise on and when they got their praise on things started to shake things started to rumble and they were delivered they even did evangelism by leaving the Philippian jailer to salvation you see when you get your praise on it causes heaven to move so that earth shakes so that the rumbling down here occurs because God is moving praise is not praise and tell us expressed when's the last time you've gotten your praise or so in your fast get your praise on in your prayer get your praise on in your dilemma celebrate God because he deserves your pray magnify make a big deal about it again Psalm 34 says my fears looked up to him and they got caught if you're nervous about Corona if you're nervous about your economic situation if you're scared about your job tell your fears you want them to take a look at somebody else because as long as they're looking at you they're gonna control you but tell your fears that somebody someplace else I want you to look because there's somebody else that I want you to respond to so the more fearful you get the more enclosed you feel get your praise on I love in football when a football player makes a big play he makes a really big play and then he walks and he does this particularly the defense now do that you know what they're saying to the crowd give it up I mean he's giving up Matt means make some noise now did you see what I just did make some noise and celebrate with me you can't hear what I say but I want to hear what you have to say make some noise because of what you know I have done and can do you know what they did they gave it up they gave up their praise you will never know God is all you need until you discover God is all you have right now God is all you have so let's let him know we know he's all we need because heaven can overrule earth [Music] [Laughter] one of the great offers of our Savior Jesus Christ is life plus abundant life that means a fulfilled life so many people are existing because they don't possess the life of God if you don't know that you possess the life of God let's get that fixed right now Jesus Christ is offering you his life the Bible says he that hath the son had life so if you want light not existence the forgiveness of sins the the guarantee of heaven and having Jesus Christ involved with your life on earth all of that is in this package called life and he's offering it to you for free well not a lot is for free today but this is life for free how do you get it you simply go to Jesus Christ and trust him alone for it you don't work for it you don't earn it you don't you don't go to church for they can't none of that can give you life only the person of Christ can give you life so I'm gonna pray a prayer you pray it after me you just have to mean it for yourself well Jesus I know I'm a sinner I know I can't save myself but you've offered me the free gift of eternal life in exchange from my sin so I place my sin next to your cross believing you died as my substitute and I received now the eternal life that you say you would give me for free if I came to you for it so I received that now and thank you for my new salvation in Jesus name Amen god bless have you ever wondered what ties the whole Bible together and makes it makes sense as one unified document have you ever wondered how the Old Testament relates to the New Testament have you ever been confused about how to use the Bible to answer questions about the confusing things not only in your life but in our world today do you really believe that the Bible has answers to the things we're facing in the confusion that we're living in whether it relates to governments or whether it relates to racial strife or whether it relates to divorce and remarriage do you struggle with understanding what it means and whether it really means what it says well I think we've got something just for you it's called the Tony Evans training center because this training center is designed to answer those and a myriad of other questions related to living life as the Creator meant it to be lived you see what we're going to be teaching is a kingdom based approach to the Bible God's kingdom is his rule over all his kingdom agenda is the visible manifestation of that rule over every area of life and when you understand the kingdom thread throughout all of Scripture and see it work out in your personal life and your family life and your church life and your community life and in the broader society the whole world you will see that there are no questions for which God does not have real relevant and contemporary answers you don't have a problem and issue a challenge that this book when understood from a kingdom perspective is not equipped to answer so get ready for the ride of your lifetime the Tony Evans training center is here just for you and I am so excited that we can give you contemporary solutions from this historical document because guess what it's still alive [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you [Music] you

Channel: Tony Evans

Views: 191,472

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Length: 27min 40sec (1660 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 26 2020