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The River ChurchSermons

Praise Always

Josh Yates · Sunday, 9 August 2026 · 44:19 · 6,947 words

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A summer journey through the Psalms ends at Psalm 150, the final hallel that calls every breath to praise God. The preacher explains that praise is not a warm‑up for a sermon or a reaction to circumstances, but the eternal purpose of every soul—an intentional, vertical outpouring of adoration toward God. He urges listeners to declare God’s worth with their mouths, lift their eyes from burdens, let worship shape everything they do, and invites everyone to stand, lift their voices, and join the chorus of everything that has breath.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

worship 117 praise 88 psalm 46 idolatry 10 declare 16 cymbals 8 yah 6 lament 7 signal 4 lift 10 voice 11 loud 8

Topics

Freedom 1 Obedience 1 Prayer 1

Scripture referenced 38

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Psalms 22 1:13 Psalms 23 1:36 Psalms 25 1:47 Psalms 27 2:00 Psalms 37 2:11 Psalms 46 2:17 Psalms 62 2:31 Psalms 73 2:47 Psalms 93 2:55 Psalms 112 3:04 Psalms 22 3:36 Psalms 23 3:38 Psalms 62 3:39 Psalms 73 3:42 Psalms 150 3:46 Psalms 150 4:33 Psalms 150 4:40 Psalms 150 5:04 Nehemiah 8:5-8 11:59 Revelation 4 12:43 Psalms 150 14:31 Exodus 19 17:55 Isaiah 42:8 21:01 John 4 21:27 John 4 27:01 Psalms 134 32:04 1 Timothy 2:8 32:18 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 35:46 Mark 12:30 37:20 Psalms 1 38:10 Psalms 2 38:12 Psalms 150 38:12 Psalms 1 38:15 Psalms 150 38:23 Psalms 150 38:23 Psalms 150 39:32 Psalms 90 39:53 Luke 19:40 41:50

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 14 lines, 0:38. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey everyone, my name is Dave Hudgens.

Thanks for checking out one of our sermons today.

Hey listen, we're so glad that you are here

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You can also visit us at our website at theriverchurch.cc

to learn more about us and what we have going on as a church.

Thanks again for joining us

and we hope that you are blessed by today's message.

We reached the summit of a journey

we started at the beginning of the summer.

Week after week, we've opened this book of divine prayer,

the Psalms, and we've leaned into worship-based prayer.

We've learned that prayer isn't just about a robotic,

rehearsed laundry list of our demands,

but a real dynamic conversation with our Heavenly Father.

We didn't just study these chapters,

we learned how to live them.

We tried to apply them to our lives.

We brought our honest hearts, our emotions, our questions,

and I pray we brought our burdens before the Lord too.

And I just got to thinking about where God has led us

over these last two and a half months.

We started in the Valley of Agony in Psalm 22

and we learned how to remember that God is close to us

even when he feels most distant.

We saw how David's cry of anguish

pointed to Jesus on the cross

where he endured ultimate forsakenness

so that we would never have to be forsaken.

And he ended with a victorious shout

that he has done it.

God has done it.

And then we rested in Psalm 23

discovering Jesus as our shepherd king,

who guides us through dark valleys,

restores our souls,

repairs a feast in front of our enemies,

and promises that we dwell in his house forever.

Then we went over to Psalm 25

and confronted our own hearts,

asking ourselves the crucial question,

do we simply want the Lord to lead us

or are we actively allowing him to lead us?

There's two different things there.

We found confidence in Psalm 27

declaring that Yahweh is our light,

our salvation, our stronghold.

We learned that when we wait on him,

we will see his goodness in the land of the living.

Then in Psalm 37,

we learned how to drop our grip,

standing against the trap of fretting,

complaining, and envying.

Then we're reminded in Psalm 46

that the king is in the room,

that he is always with us,

that even when the world around us

is shaking and uncreating itself,

God calls us to stop striving

and know that he's God.

Then in Psalm 62,

we sat in some uncomfortable silence

and we stripped away our plus ones,

our money, our status,

our people pleasing,

so that we could actually anchor our souls on God

and not on those plus ones that so often we do

in our lives.

We faced some doubts in Psalm 73

as we walked through Asaph's crisis of faith

when it seemed like the wicked were prospering

and we could see that in our world around us.

We gained wisdom in Psalm 93

as Moses reminded us that sin is a life robber,

but God is the ultimate life giver.

And then we anchored our lives in Psalm 112,

choosing not to waste our days,

chasing self-made shadows,

but establishing a righteous, generous foundation

built on the fear and delight of the Lord.

At least those were all the messages

I preached this summer.

We talked about some of the things

and talked about some other stuff too,

but that's what we got through this summer.

Now there's this awesome crescendo

at the end of this Psalms,

of this book of Psalms,

because it doesn't end in the valley of lament.

It doesn't end in confusion, anger, or silence.

Psalms has been marching toward this single destination.

Every tear in Psalm 22,

every valley in Psalm 23,

every silent waiting room in Psalm 62,

every sanctuary moment in Psalm 73,

it builds up to this huge crescendo moment

in Psalm 150.

The final doxology of the Bible's hymn book

is what it is.

It contains no complaints, no petitions,

no heavy questions, no laments.

It is pure, unadulterated, unrestricted praise of God.

The psalmist gathers every breath, every instrument,

every voice, and every creature under heaven

to make one single proclamation.

God is worthy of our praise always, always.

So whether you came in this morning on a top of a mountain,

or whether you've been dragging yourself through a low,

dark, deep valley,

the God who sat with you in the dark all summer long

is sitting with you now,

and he is worthy of your praise.

And that's what we're going to be looking at today.

So turn to your Bibles to Psalm 150,

either your device or your paper Bible,

your hard copy, if you will.

Psalm 150 is the very last psalm of the book.

Sometimes those are the hardest to find.

There's Proverbs, and there's Psalms.

I warned our volunteers this morning

that it's been a week since,

it's been two weeks since I've been here,

and this passage,

which really is,

I am passionate about.

It's in my wheelhouse.

So hang on this morning, all right?

Hang on.

Psalm 150, let's read this.

Praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary.

Praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his mighty deeds.

Praise him according to his excellent greatness.

Praise him with trumpet sound.

Praise him with lute and harp.

Praise him with tambourine and dance.

Praise him with strings and pipe.

Praise him with sounding cymbals.

Praise him with loud, clashing cymbals.

Everything that has breath.

Praise the Lord.

And all God's people said,

Praise the Lord.

Let's try it again.

One, two, three.

Praise the Lord.

My friends, I think there's something happening here, yeah?

That we're called to do something here.

What do you think it is?

Praise the Lord.

Good, you're catching on.

The word here actually is hallelujah.

It's the last, this is the final hallel,

the final praise of the book of Psalms.

It means praise Yah.

Yah is a shortened version of the covenant

and personal name of God.

Yah is a shortened version of the covenant and personal name of God.

Yah is a shortened version of the covenant and personal name of God.

Yah is a shortened version of the covenant and personal name of God.

Yah is a shortened version of the covenant and personal name of God.

This word occurs 13 times in these six short verses.

I think it's something we're supposed to do.

I think we're being called to praise the Lord.

A couple of quotes on praise and worship.

Gordon Fee says,

Show me a church's songs and I'll show you their theology.

Show me a church's songs and I'll show you their theology.

D.A. Carson says,

To worship God in spirit and in truth is the first and foremost way of saying

that we must worship God by means of Christ.

In Him the reality is dawned and the shadows are being swept away.

Christian worship is new covenant worship.

It's gospel-inspired worship.

It is Christ-centered worship.

It is cross-focused worship.

See, the Psalter ends these psalms with a declaration of praise to the Lord.

Worship is often coupled with praise.

And they are intrinsically linked.

But they do differ a little bit.

Worship, by definition in the Old Testament, is to bow down or to prostrate oneself.

In the New Testament, it is to kiss toward, to pay homage, or to adore.

Now, praise, on the other hand, in the Old Testament, is to commend, laud,

to glorify, celebrate, or boast in God.

Halal, like in our pastors today, is to shine, boast, celebrate, or be clamorously full of joy.

Yadah is another word that says to throw out the hands in thanksgiving confession or thanksgiving offerings.

In the New Testament, it's to speak well of, applaud, extol, or to give public commendation.

Aineo is to praise, extol, or sing praises to God in response to His works.

Epineo is public praise, commendation, or laudation.

This is loud!

Worship is intimate.

Both point to something greater than ourselves, and we were made to worship.

So if we're praising, you know, we're going to be like,

Yes! I can't stop speaking about Him!

Worship is here.

I can get back up. We'll see what happens.

It's here, it's here, and it's here.

We have got to understand that worshiping God, because He's so holy,

we can't get low enough, fast enough, because of how awesome He is.

He is amazing. He is holy. He is righteous.

Annie, help me get back up.

The reality is, is worship and praise are intrinsically linked.

But, and David had the idea of proclamation in this passage,

of proclaiming how awesome God is.

I'm going to say something that I know over the years, people haven't always liked,

but I really do believe it.

Service, in and of itself, is not worship.

Service can be worshipful, but praise and worship of God declares who He is aloud.

Service can be worshipful. We can do it because we love God.

But service is not worship.

Service, in and of itself, is not, and necessarily, worship.

They're indirect acts of worship.

Unless we declare the worth of God with our mouth, we are not ascribing glory to God.

There's plenty of people, the phrase that I think is, I mean,

I don't even think St. Francis of Assisi said it, but it's like,

always preach the gospel, sometimes use words.

No, we have to preach the gospel with words all the time.

Now, our life better match it, but nobody's going to go,

wow, they're a really nice person, they must know Jesus.

That's not how it works.

We've got to give worship to God.

We have to ascribe praise to Him.

Anytime somebody says something to me that says thank you for something,

I always want to say, praise the Lord.

Because I don't care what I've done, it's about Him.

We've got to give praise and honor to Him.

We've got to ascribe glory to Him.

That's why worship is so important.

The Bible commands worship of God as our highest expression.

It's meant to be direct, intentional, vertical outpouring of adoration toward God.

And this is where our singing comes in.

Singing is part of this.

It's not all of this.

But it is, music in and of itself is not worship.

And yet, think about music that is not worship music.

Music of the world celebrates and praises things all the time.

Music was given to us as a tool, a vehicle to worship God.

It's no just, what's the word I'm looking for?

It's not by happenstance, I'll just say that.

It's not by happenstance, coincidence, there it is.

Woo, flying around my head there for a second.

It's not by happenstance, I'll just say that.

It's not a coincidence that Lucifer was the leader of the worship of heaven before he fell.

Lucifer is also known by the name of Satan.

He's now leading his own worship by getting us to where, I don't want to get ahead of myself, I'm not going to say that yet.

Worship is declaring that this thing is worth more.

And we worship things all the time.

Everything we do on a Sunday morning should be direct worship from the singing of God,

from the singing to the giving to the announcements to the preaching, all direct worship to God.

It should be that.

Nehemiah 8, 5-8 says this,

For he was above all the people, and as he opened it, all the people stood.

And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered,

Amen, amen, lifting up their hands.

And they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

And also, then a bunch of names are in there, I'm going to skip those.

Helped the people to understand the law while the people remained in their places.

They read from the book of the law of God clearly,

and they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.

Man, Nehemiah, the people had just been read the truth of God,

and they responded to it, hands raised, bowed heads.

They responded to God.

If we had time, we'd go to Revelation chapter 4.

My friends, there is constant praise and worship going on in heaven right now.

24-7-365.

Constant praise and worship.

The elders are falling on their faces and declaring how worthy God is.

And living creatures declare his holiness day after day after day after day.

They say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And they're saying it over and over and over and over.

And for those of you who don't know,

for those of you that jokingly say,

man, those 24-7 worship songs, I just hate them.

They sing the same thing over and over and over again.

You're going to be born in heaven.

Because holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

He is that holy.

Not just holy.

Not just holy, holy.

He is holy, holy, holy.

Because he is worthy of our worship.

That's why this is happening in heaven.

My friends, I preach for worship to increase.

We don't worship so preaching increases.

Because someday, preaching is not going to be necessary

because Jesus is going to be with us.

We're going to be in heaven.

No more preaching is going to be necessary

because we're going to have God himself.

I'll tell you what we're going to still do, though.

We're still going to praise and worship.

We get a touch of heaven when we gather together as saints

to worship the God of the universe.

Sunday morning is not the only thing we do as a church body.

But if we fail at worshiping God with everything we've got,

everything we do is impacted.

Everything we do is impacted.

We look back to Psalm 150.

We're implored to praise the Lord in his sanctuary

and in the mighty heavens.

It's a call to worship God on the earth,

meeting at his chosen place.

But also the voice of heaven mingles with our own voices

to lift up this praise.

What an amazing scene we get to enter

when we worship the Lord,

whether individually or corporately.

The verbiage used here speaks to the mighty reign of our God.

He reigns over all.

Commentator said this,

His greatness and glory fill the universe

and so must his praise.

There is no place where praise is not welcomed

or rightly voiced.

Church buildings are good but not necessary.

Church buildings are never essential.

We can praise God anywhere.

At any time, praise can happen in a simple building

like a small church,

in a magnificent European cathedral,

under a tree with South Americans along the Amazon,

in the prison like Paul and Silas,

in a hiding place like the catacombs

as our first brothers and sisters in Christ experienced,

or in a house church in China or Afghanistan.

Any place and anywhere where are where and when

it is right to praise the Lord.

It's always right to praise the Lord.

We praise him for his mighty deeds

and according to his excellent greatness,

the Psalter says.

We praise him for his mighty deeds

and we praise him and worship him

for what he's done, for who he is.

It isn't just about what he's given us,

it's about who he is.

And we praise the Lord with everything we are

and everything we have.

And we praise and worship the Lord loudly.

Look at what he says here.

I mean, trumpets, lutes, harps, tambourines,

strings, pipes, crash the cymbals.

Not just cymbals, but the loud crashing cymbals.

Really?

My voice got really high there.

Now, I always encourage people though,

and this is a little caveat,

I think we see in scripture too.

Some of our brothers and sisters

might run around and praise the Lord.

That's great.

I'm glad they have that freedom

and in that setting.

I always encourage people,

don't do anything that's going to draw attention

away from God and onto you.

Because that can easily be done.

We're supposed to be loud.

We're supposed to, you know,

we need to give people the freedom to do that.

But I think we can see scripturally,

as soon as we draw attention to ourselves

and away from God,

we've gone too far in that setting.

So we have to be a little careful with it too.

But we've got to get,

we've got to actually explode

and praise the Lord.

In fact, this was their trumpet.

We'll see if I can play it this morning.

It's a shofar directly from Israel.

Listen to this.

This is so good.

The Hebrew term for trumpet is shofar.

A term that makes its way

into the English vocabulary as well.

Rather than being a polished brass instrument,

the shofar is a horn of an animal,

lacks any type of mouthpiece.

Because the shofar lacks a mouthpiece to govern sound,

it's not meant to serve as a melodic instrument.

Instead, in the Old Testament world,

the shofar was simply blown,

to signal that certain events were impending,

including war and festal events

such as the Day of Atonement.

In Exodus 19, the shofar is sounded at Sinai

to signal the people the coming presence of God.

In other words, the shofar served

as the acoustic signal of the theophany,

the glory coming down of Yahweh, the divine king.

Similarly, the shofar was used as a signal

to announce God's royal rule.

So here's the thing.

God said,

to make a loud, joyful noise,

not necessarily a good one.

I don't care if you can't hit the broad side of a barn

when it comes to singing.

Lift your voice, God's people.

Shout to God with a voice of triumph,

because he reigns.

We're called to praise the Lord.

God is in our midst.

How can we worship quietly?

How can we not give him our all?

Jesus talks about worship in John chapter four.

If you want to turn there, I'll give you like two seconds.

It'll be on the screen behind me.

It says this, verses 16 to 24.

Jesus said,

Go and call your husband and come here.

This is the Samaritan woman.

Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman.

The woman answered him, I have no husband.

Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband,

for you have had five husbands,

and the one you have is not your husband.

What you have said is true.

The woman said to him the most, well, duh statement in the Bible, I think.

Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.

Yeah, he just told you her life.

He just told you her life.

Anyway, our fathers worshiped on this mountain,

but you say that in Jerusalem is the place,

where people ought to worship.

Jesus said to her, woman, believe me,

the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem

will you worship the Father.

You worship what you do not know.

We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

But the hour is coming and is now here

when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

For the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

This tells us a few things about worship.

Number one, it tells us it's about worship.

It's about the who, not the where.

It's about the who, not the where.

It's not where we worship, it's who we worship.

And this worship points to Jesus and him alone.

We can do it in our homes.

We can do, we're called to do it together in the assembly of the church.

There's something about corporate worship that brings God's glory down.

There really is something about God's people coming together

and lifting up his name together.

The Bible tells us that we are distinct because it is God's going with us where we go.

That's why we're distinct.

And we see that when we fully know that God is with us.

We see that when we fully know that God is present with us.

Jesus purchased us with his blood.

We've been saved.

God's word brings us to worship.

Another thing we have to recognize here is that worship can be deficient if it's about the who.

Isaiah 42.8 says,

I am the Lord, that is my name, my glory I give to no other nor my praise to carved idols.

We can choose to worship other things.

You are a worshiper, simple as that.

Every single one of us in this room is a worshiper.

You can do nothing else.

We've been created to worship, and boy do we.

Look at what you spend your time on.

Look at what you spend your money on.

Look at what you spend your money on.

Look at what you spend your emotions on.

We've got to look back to what Jesus just said in John 4.

We worship in spirit and truth.

It has to be both.

Jesus is talking about our spirit connecting with God.

The church I grew up in, there wasn't a lot of spirit.

I learned a lot of truth.

A lot of truth.

There was little spirit in our worship.

Nobody really got excited.

Maybe because our hands were full of hymnals.

I don't know.

But it's like there was no emotion, and it was highly discouraged.

In fact, I remember being told at a young age that,

emotion to God is close to being sinful.

We sang a lot of hymns that spoke a lot of truth,

but we were simply singing about God.

We weren't singing to Him.

The worship was intellectual.

We were left with a statement that said,

wow, that was so true.

And it has to be truth.

Jesus said it has to be truth.

But the Psalms tell us to sing to the Lord.

There are some great hymns that sing to God.

Holy, holy, holy.

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee.

But if all we do is keep our worship from here up,

we're staying horizontal.

We're not looking at Him.

The Bible says,

The Bible tells us that knowledge puffs us up.

That's why we have a lot of people going around

thinking that they've got it all figured out

because they've got a lot of head knowledge.

But it hasn't traveled from their head to their heart.

If what we read in God's Word doesn't change us,

doesn't draw us to worship Him,

we've totally missed the point.

We've totally missed the point.

And when truth is missing, though,

because you can go the other way and be all about emotion

and only be about how you feel.

Feelings are valid, but they lie to us.

Truth is important because if truth is missing,

then we worship all kinds of other things

thinking that we're somehow spiritual

because we're not.

Because we showed up on a Sunday and felt good

about an emotional connection with God for an hour.

We worship our family.

There's some of us in this room that absolutely worship

and bow down before our families.

I love my family, my wife and my kids.

I am proud of my daughters.

I'm excited about what God's doing in their lives.

But the minute I place them in a place where God belongs,

I have made them my idols.

I've made them my idols.

We can worship our possessions.

It's not wrong to have possessions.

But when they possess you, you've gone into idolatry.

Enough said.

We want to look like them, be like them, watch them.

We look at social media.

We have to be like those people.

We're discontent with how God's made us.

We have to look like somebody else.

Idolatry, my friends.

We all struggle with idolatry on this one.

We begin to find our identity in our job.

We are what we do.

That's idolatry.

That's putting our identity in something that can change.

Talked about that with the students a couple weeks ago

when I was at camp.

If our identity is found in things

that shake, no wonder we have so many people

that struggle with their lives

because our identities are found in all these things

that are changeable.

If our identity is found in the one true God

and we worship Him, it's all of a sudden unshakable.

Then, we worship ourselves.

This is the biggest one of all

and it's the most deceptive one of all.

It's the root of idolatry and sinfulness.

The culture tells us to worship ourselves.

Buy this, be this, look like this,

be this kind of parent, drink this,

work out like this, have these kind of essential oils.

Oh, sorry, I stepped on toes. My bad.

All about image, all about image and idolatry.

If I'm honest, as I'm on this weight loss journey,

if I'm losing weight to get healthier, praise the Lord.

If I'm losing weight to hear people tell me

that I look good, it's idolatry.

Maybe we shouldn't be talking about how people look

but say, hey, I see you're working hard, right?

We perpetuate that idolatry even amongst ourselves.

Gotta be careful with that.

And bottom line, if you wanna see what you worship,

look at your social media accounts.

I know some of you are going, I don't have one.

Okay, fine.

Then look at your bank account, look at something else.

But if you wanna see what you worship,

look at your social media account,

look at what you want to, look at what your history is.

Look at what you're spending money on.

We have more conversations about hobbies, fitness, diets,

health, friendships, family, ways to be a good parent,

going all natural, et cetera, than we have about God,

whether on Facebook or in real life.

None of those things are wrong as part of the list,

but we talk about those more than we talk about God.

Or how God might wanna use those in our lives.

When these things overtake our thoughts,

our actions, our time, it's idolatry

because that's what we worship.

It's what we declare worth our time.

It's worth-ship, it's praise.

We declare worth.

Going back to what Jesus was talking about in John 4,

there's a pattern of worship there.

He says that worship requires understanding

because the Samaritans didn't know God,

even though they tried.

Tried, but they didn't know him.

They only believed the Pentateuch was God's word.

They believed their temple was on Mount Gerizim,

not Mount Zion.

And Jesus corrects her and indicates

that salvation comes from the Jews.

Not for the Jews, not by the Jews,

but comes out of them.

The thing is that to understand God,

God is not how you picture him.

None of us.

A.W. Tozer said in the knowledge of the holy,

what comes into our minds when we think about God

is the most important thing about us.

See, God isn't the sum total of our thoughts about him.

In fact, my friends, our thoughts could be wrong

about who God is.

We have to learn about the God of the Bible,

not the God that's in our heads.

In fact, when our view of God lessens,

so does our worship and sinning

My friend, the world around us defines God

as whatever they want to define God as.

I keep hearing people say,

you just live your truth.

You can't live your truth

because truth is always true

whether you like it or not.

Truth is found in God and God alone.

It's found in his word.

We don't get to define who God is.

He defines who he is and he's revealed himself

through God's word, the Bible.

So the preaching of the word,

learning about God is certainly part of worship.

But if it stops there,

we miss it because spirit and truth,

truth should inspire us to worship God in spirit

because we find out who he actually is.

John Stott, a pastor, says,

all true worship is a response

to the self-revelation of God in Christ and scripture

and arises from our reflection

on who he is and what he's done.

The worship of God is evoked, informed,

and inspired by the vision and the word of God.

The true knowledge of God will always lead us to worship.

True knowledge of God will always lead us to worship.

True knowledge of God will always lead us to worship him.

God wants to be worshiped passionately.

All throughout scripture,

we're told to raise hands in the sanctuary,

to shout to God with a voice of triumph,

to worship and bow down.

This is whole body worship.

My friends, no more intellectual only stuff.

It can't just stay in our heads.

God has called us to love him passionately.

For any of us that are married

or have had a boyfriend or a girlfriend

or whatever you want to say,

if you just walked around and went,

I love you, and then walked away.

I love you, I walked away.

If it was just intellectually,

are you going to have much of a relationship?

No, you need to experience each other

to actually have a healthy marriage,

a healthy relationship,

a healthy friendship for that matter.

And yet with God, often we go,

ooh, that's good.

And then we leave his presence.

Well, we try to leave his presence

because we learned in the Psalms

that we can't leave his presence.

It doesn't matter where we go, he's with us.

Man, there's a lot of repetition in scripture

and heaven's declaring holy, holy, holy

over and over and over.

Scripture repeats itself often.

It allows us to focus on who God is

and what he's done

and be full of emotion

as he hits us with his glory

and the immensity of who he is.

We've got to stop this.

Oh, it's 1030 on Sunday.

Time to repeat the God formula.

For some of us in this room,

that's exactly what we're doing.

It's 1030, got to be a church.

And we've put God into a formulaic box.

God wants you to experience him,

not just go through religious.

What else is really worth getting pumped up for

this side of heaven?

See, God's word indicates

that worship is physical as well.

I know some of us just got a little nervous.

The Psalms talks about involving

the voice, eyes lifted to God.

Not always closed, by the way.

A head held high by God.

Clapping hands, raising hands

throughout scripture.

Entire body bowed down,

laying prostrate before the Lord.

My friends, I'm not sure

those are suggestions.

I'm not sure it's a suggestion

to raise your hands in the sanctuary.

Listen to this.

Psalm 134.

We didn't preach on this one,

but come bless the Lord,

all you servants of the Lord

who stand in the presence of God.

Stand by night in the house of the Lord.

Lift up your hands to the holy place

and bless the Lord.

May the Lord bless you from Zion,

he who made heaven and earth.

Paul in 1 Timothy 2.8.

I desire that in every place,

the men, and he would include women,

should pray, lifting holy hands

without anger or quarreling.

I'm not sure that it's a suggestion.

And I want you to hear this this morning.

If you can raise your hands

for the lions, the tigers,

the...

Who am I missing?

Well, I wasn't going to go 49ers,

but yes, I will say 49ers.

That's for me, though.

I'm trying to apply it to you.

But if anybody wants to join me

in raising hands with the 49ers,

we can do that.

If you can raise your hands for that,

if you can raise your hands

for the concert you're going to,

if you can raise your hands for,

I don't know,

getting money back from the government,

you know, I mean,

if you can raise your hands for these things,

do not come into the house of God

and say, I just don't lift my hands.

You're a liar.

You're letting the enemy lie to you.

For some reason,

when it comes to worship,

we don't like being challenged in our worship.

It's an intensely personal thing.

I get it.

It really is.

But we had to learn how to pray

and learn how to read God's word.

This Holy Spirit had to teach us how to do that.

We have to learn how to worship.

Now, God has made us all in specific ways.

God does not expect you to worship the way I do.

I'm an expressive worshiper.

I'm passionate.

I'm loud.

I'm all those things.

Some of you couldn't be as loud as me

if you gave it everything you got

and I was going 50%.

Some of you,

when it comes to your sports team,

you go,

well, when you're in the house of God,

what do you do?

Redline who you are

when it comes to worshiping the king of the universe.

Redline it because he's worthy.

Don't come into the house of God saying,

yeah, you know, I have to,

I must be reverent.

Yes, there are times to be reverent,

but there are times to give full-throated praise to God

because of who he is and what he's done.

If we really believe that he is the I am,

God, creator, miracle worker,

sanctifier, most high, powerful, almighty,

salvation, eternal, my God,

my rock, my provider,

the king of glory,

the restorer, our peace,

our strength, our healer, our shield.

He's holy.

He is risen.

Guys, every Sunday should be Easter.

We shouldn't have to have a Sunday in April

to get us there.

How can we be apathetic?

Can we be apathetic about this God

who has done so much?

it leads us right into this next point.

People don't know the Lord

because we act like he isn't worth our praise

because worship is a witness to God.

1 Corinthians 14, 24 to 25, Paul says,

but if all prophesy and an unbeliever or outsider enters,

he is convicted by all.

He is called to account by all.

The secrets of his heart are disclosed.

And so falling on his face,

he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

This is something I desire to see in a church someday,

sometime that somebody who doesn't know Jesus

would come into the doors and they say,

wow, I may not believe in this God,

but these people sure do.

I got to find out.

What's going on?

But so many of us sit here like it's just a humdrum thing

that we come to worship God.

It's not.

He's worthy.

I told you it's been a week

and I'm passionate about this one.

See, the word Greek word here is if we all prophesy,

the Greek word here is to proclaim,

to make a declaration easily seen as worship.

He'll be, this person will be convicted.

They'll declare that God is really among us.

It's how we're distinct, distinct.

The presence of God when we worship Jesus,

his glory falls and it's noticed.

Praise and worship is a response to God.

If we had time this morning,

I'd read 2 Chronicles when the fire of God fell on the temple

when it was consecrated and the people fell on their faces.

I mean, the people, all of them fell together before God

and declared for he is good,

for his steadfast love endures forever.

And the practice of worship, Mark 12, 30,

you shall love the Lord your God.

This is Jesus talking with all your heart

and with all your soul and with all your mind

and with all your strength.

Worship God with your mind, all of your thoughts.

Worship him with your heart, your soul,

the core of who you are, the core of all your dreams.

Lay it all before him and worship him with your strength.

Yes, you can be worshipful in your service.

My friends, praise and worship are not a warmup

for a sermon or a reaction to our circumstances.

They are the eternal purpose of every living soul.

That's what we are all called to do.

I don't wanna lose what's happening in the Psalms

as we come to the end of this.

There's a relationship between Psalm 1

and Psalm 2.

Psalm 150, it's so interesting.

Psalm 1 focuses on being faithful to Torah,

God's word to us.

It focuses on being faithful to God's word.

Psalms 150, sorry, Psalm 150,

shows us the outcome of living Torah,

living God's word.

This is what it looks like when we live God's word.

We praise the Lord.

Commentators said it like this.

Torah keeping does arrive at obedience,

yet obedience is not the goal of Torah keeping.

Such a life arrives at obedience.

That unencumbered praise.

The expectation of the Old Testament

is not obedience, but adoration.

Look at the Old Testament again.

It talks about obedience,

but the destination is adoring God

and having a relationship with the one true God

who condescended himself and became one of us

to die on a cross that he didn't deserve.

It even looks forward to Psalm 150,

even looks forward to an expectation

of what God's gonna do.

You look at the first half of Psalms, Psalm 181 to 89,

there's a lot of lamenting psalms there.

Psalms that are real about life

and reminding the reader or the singer

of where help comes from.

Reminding the reader to look to God

and that God has never left you no matter how you feel.

And then Psalm 90 into 150, it changes.

They're largely psalms of praise and thanksgiving

pointing us toward gratefulness

and the praise of the one who loves us and is over all.

But it's easy to say that lament means you're sad

and praise means you're happy.

That's not really how it works.

Commentator put it really well.

I couldn't put it in any better words.

People utter a lament not simply because they're sad,

but more significantly because their world

is broken and disordered.

A lament confesses that the world that they know,

their own world and the world at large,

stands in need of restoration and redemption.

The psalms of praise, however,

move us in a very different direction.

To suggest that one who utters praise

can be equated with one who is happy

is to misunderstand grossly the confessional nature of praise.

See, here's the problem.

When we're sad, we find it hard to worship.

We find it hard to praise.

Here's where the rubber meets the road.

When we praise God, we're doing far more

than simply listing all the good qualities God possesses.

We are uttering a confession about the reality of that God.

We're declaring that the God who is worthy of praise

is the God who will redeem the brokenness

of our lamenting world.

We are declaring that our wailing

will be turned into dancing by this God.

We are declaring that the divine king is coming still.

We are declaring that the divine king is coming still.

So I don't care what we brought in here this morning.

I get it.

Some of us are creating some heavy stuff today.

Praise the Lord.

We've got to get our eyes off of what we're carrying

and onto the one who carries us.

If you are on cloud nine this morning

and you've just seen God's blessing,

praise the Lord.

It's not about you.

He gave it to you.

Lift up his name.

Jesus said in Luke 19, 40,

he answered, I tell you,

if these, his disciples, were silent,

the very stones would,

they would cry out.

I'm going to tell you,

as part of my life mission,

there ain't no rock going to cry in my place.

But let me ask you,

have rocks cried in your place?

Rocks cried in your place.

The rocks are singing praise every day.

Friends, it's time to sing.

Time to make music with the lute,

the lyre, the harp,

the clashing cymbals.

I appreciate our worship team.

They left up their voice

and they worship the Lord.

They play instruments

not because they think they're good,

not because they think they're awesome,

but because they're worshiping

through playing of an instrument.

Why?

So we can be drawn into the presence of God.

Recognize that he's with us.

It's not that he shows up.

God never shows up.

He's always with us.

We just become more aware of his presence.

So, praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary.

Praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his mighty deeds.

Praise him for his excellent greatness.

Praise him with trumpet sound.

Praise him with lute and harp.

Praise him with a tambourine and dance.

Praise him with the strings and pipe.

Praise him with the sounding cymbals.

Praise him with loud clashing cymbals.

Let everything that has breath

praise the Lord.

And we say it together.

Praise the Lord.

Stand and let's lift up our voices this morning.

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