There’s A Story Behind My Praise

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Reference

Isaiah 55:10 - 12 KJV

Sermon Notes

07.21.24_There's A Story Behind My Praise.pdf

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Endtime United Ministries

Isaiah 55:10-12 (KJV)

10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

The Title of Today’s Message is: There’s A Story Behind My Praise

Introduction

We are in the third sermon in our Apostolic DNA series this morning, and the Lord told me to share with you that today’s message is for two types of people in the house this morning. And those two types of people are these– those in the house that feel like praising Him and those in the house that don’t feel like praising Him. And if were to be honest, we can find ourselves anywhere along that continuum on a daily basis, because life has a way of rollercoastering us from joy to sorrow, from peace to turmoil, from highs to lows, and from abundance to lack on a day-to-day basis. But as a part of our Apostolic DNA, we must recognize that the worthiness of God is not predicated on how we feel at the moment or even what season of life we may be going through. He is worthy just because He is God, and our praise, especially at the times where we don’t feel like giving Him the praise, confuses the enemy.

I praise God for the shift that is taking place in our ministry. If we were to be honest, we have experienced shifts before. Just while I’ve been your pastor for these short 6 ½ years, we have talked about the moving cloud on our ministry, the open door that God has placed in front of us, and even the great shaking process that would take place that would infuse new life into our ministry. We discussed the great homecoming that would take place, and I’ve witnessed members come back home to Endtime. We’ve witnessed answered prayer, as God has spoken in the house and the testimonies came back that God has done it again. We’ve witnessed healing in the house, with people coming off of medications and the diagnosis of the doctor being reversed by the chief physician. We’ve witnessed the baptism of the Holy Ghost and those who were lost giving their lives back to Christ. We’ve witnessed cancer dry up, diabetes be eradicated, wounds being healed quickly after surgery, and the death angel passing over when it sees the blood after declaring that the Holy Communion of Jesus Christ could heal our mortal bodies while also saving our souls. And now, God shared with us this past week that a Holy Maturity is descending upon this house that will allow our witness to be strengthed.

Connection to the Introduction

And I just wonder if I have anyone in the house that truly believes that from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same that God is worthy of all the praise? God has been faithful to us even when we have been faithless. God has given us second, and third, and fourth chances for things that we have promised Him we would never do again. God has opened doors to opportunities that we know we were not qualified for. God has held back His hand of judgement to give us opportunity to be more righteous. And sometimes, if we are not careful, we will sit on our praise because we are so busy staying in our feelings about what we think He hasn’t done that we forget to put ourselves in remembrance of what He has already done. And this is why I can declare with my whole heart what you have heard me say very often while delivering the unadulterated Word of God– if God never does anything else for me, I can praise Him all the days of my appointed time because He has already done enough.

This is the posture of maturity that God is speaking of in the house, that we begin to understand that it is in our Apostolic DNA to offer God the praise He so richly deserves. To understand that there are times that you have to put your feelings to the side and offer a Towdah praise. A Towdah praise is a sacrificial praise– the kind of praise that says I’m tired in my body, but I have to lift up my voice and bless the name of the Lord. The type of praise that says everything within me wants to complain, but when I look back over my life and see where God has brought me from, I have to bless the Lord at all times and have His praise to be continually in my mouth. It is the type of praise that God honors, because he sees your maturity as a perfect praise, and a it starts a chain reaction in your life. You begin to go from maturity to perfection, and from perfection to glory, and from glory to glory. And I declare that God is in a dispensation where He is not going to just give His glory to any old body. His glory, church, is designed for the Yadah praisers– the ones that declare “with my hands lifted up, and my mouth filled with praise, with a heart of thanksgiving, I will bless thee oh Lord!” His glory is reserved for the halal praisers– that declare “With my whole heart, I will bless you oh Lord!” His glory descends upon those who are Zamar praisers… who don’t hide behind stringed instruments and organs, psalteries and harps, cymbals and high sounding cymbals and only play them when it is time to perform. But to those who know that the best instrument they have to bless him is the joyful noise that God has blessed you with in your voice. There shouldn’t be any less power in the house if the electricity goes out because even Webster’s dictionary understands that power and electricity are not the same thing! Electricity is created by electrical current moving from one point to another, while power is defined as using what energy has been invested in you to do something.

You can sit in the house of God and have the electricity run right through you, charging you up week after week after week, but until you do something with the electrical charge that has been invested in you, it is possible that you can be in the presence of electricity and still not have any power. But I declare today that our Apostolic DNA will not allow us to be in His presence but for so long before we understand that the Bible says–

in Psalm 33:1 that we ought to rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright
James 5:13 that if any among you is suffering, we ought to pray, and that if anyone is cheerful, we ought to sing praise
Hebrews 13:15 that we should continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips that acknowledge his name
Psalm 71:8 that our mouths are filled with His praise, and with His glory all the day
Psalm 103:1 and 2 that we should bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits
and that Psalm 150:6 declares that the only prerequisite of praise is breath in your body since David declares to let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Get your praise partner’s attention as quickly as possible and say “Praise partner– don’t make me praise Him all by myself!” And I wonder if anyone has a 30-second Towdah praise to offer God right in the middle of the message…. sacrifice for your King…. sacrifice for the lover of your soul….. sacrifice for the one who pulled you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Sacrifice for Jehovah Jireh– the God who provides… Jehovah Rapha– the God who healeth thee!

Contextual Evidence

You have to understand that when you see me shouting when you see me dancing, when you see me leaping and rejoicing in the Lord, it is not because I’m happy all the time– but it is because I have made up my mind that though happiness may come, and happiness may go, this JOY that I have, the world didn’t give it, and the world can’t take it away. This means that when God designed me, He programmed me with the Apostolic DNA that would cause me to say “Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul!” Get your neighbor’s attention one more time because we aren’t quite done praising God just yet and please, only if you mean it, look at that neighbor and say, “there’s a story behind my praise!” My story might not be your story, and I’ll be honest and say I thank God that your story is not my story because I was not created to be able to withstand what God assigned for you to go through to get to where you are, but one thing that we all have in common is this– you are not here right now because of any goodness of your own. Psalm 124 says it like this: “If it had not been for the Lord who was on your side, men would have risen up against you, they would have destroyed you with how angry they were with you, but blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as a prey to the teeth of the enemy!” The world may have you to think that you are a self-made success and got here because of what you all by yourself to overcome, but the devil is two liars, and the truth is not in his deceiving lips. Everyone’s story has the same thesis– but by the grace of God, there go I!

In reflecting upon the story behind my praise, God had me to meditate on a different scripture for our text today for us to understand that He has sole authorship of how my story goes.

If rain and snow cannot return unto God until they perform what they were designed to do, what does that say about you and me? The story behind my praise is that God thinks enough of me to give me a work to do

11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

If God said it, it has to come to pass!

12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.