The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: You see, praise is the remedy. God enters praise. God inhabits praise.

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Healing Word with Pastor Jack Morris. There are times in life that leave us weary, discouraged, and wondering where God is. Yet scripture teaches us that one of the quickest ways to rediscover His presence is through praise.

Today Pastor Jack Morris begins a new five-part series, Drawing Near to God, by showing us that praise is far more than singing a song. It's an act of faith that invites us into the very presence of the Lord. As we open Psalm 34 together, prepare your heart for today's message, "The Blessing of Praise."

Pastor Jack Morris: The message that I want to convey today is this: that when we praise the Lord and give thanks to Him for His goodness to us, it comes back to bless us. I want to say that one again. Listen to me now. When we praise the Lord, when we give thanks to the Lord, we receive an added blessing. God's presence comes into that praise that we're offering, and God is close to us at that time.

You want God to be near you? You want to experience the closeness and nearness of the Lord? Then begin to thank Him, begin to praise Him, and His nearness will come. You will experience the nearness of the Lord. People have said to me, "Pastor, I feel that God has left me, that God is so far away. I just feel so dead and dull inside."

Friend, whether you feel like it or not, you prime the pump. You know what I mean by prime the pump? Remember those old pumps you had to pour a little water in and pump it, and pour a little water in and pump it? It sounds strange, and it almost sounds artificial to begin a worship in that way, but that's what it means when it says, "offering the sacrifice of praise."

You don't feel like it, but you take the time and you engage your lips and your voice, and you start praising Him when you don't feel like it. That's a sacrifice of praise. Now, anybody can say, "Oh, wonderful, wonderful. God is good. God's answered prayer. Whoopee, hey, praise the Lord!"

But when you don't feel like praising the Lord, and you can't think of any reason to praise the Lord, and everything is going wrong, and you feel like that God is on vacation, when you begin to praise the Lord at that time, God's presence comes back into your life, and you begin to feel the nearness, the comfort, the joy. Your face, your heart, your life becomes radiant.

The Bible says so, and I want to encourage you today to think of praising God. Think of something that God has done. You're alive, you're breathing. Everybody say, "God, I'm alive and I'm breathing. Thank you." Thank you. Oh, you didn't say thank you loud enough. Say thank you.

Yeah, that's right. There is reason. You begin to praise the Lord and the blessing of God comes. Now, that's what this Psalm 34 is all about. David wrote this Psalm. It was a time that he was remembering. He reflected back on the time when he was a prisoner of Abimelech, and his life was going to be taken. This is the situation that he was in. He didn't think he was going to live.

And through the help of God, the blessing of the Lord, the direction and the wisdom of God, David got out of that terrible predicament and escaped with his life and became the great king. He remembered that it was not his ingenuity, it wasn't his cleverness that got him out of that terrible mess. It was God. And when he reflected back, that's when he wrote this Psalm.

Now, the Psalm was not written during the time of his imprisonment. It was written sometime after his imprisonment when he looked back in his thoughts, in memory, and praised God for what God had done for him. He began to extol the Lord. He thought back and he thought, "God, I was blessed way back then, and I didn't realize it at the time, but hindsight is so good. It's really 20/20. And I look back and I see the hand of God. I didn't see the hand of God at the time, but remembering, looking back, Lord, you were there in a marvelous way."

He begins to praise and worship the Lord. Now, that's what I want you to think about today. I want God's blessing in your life. You want God's blessing in your life. God wants God's blessing in your life. Begin to praise the Lord and the blessing will come. This is going to be a great day of breakthrough or breaking out for somebody here this morning. I just know that. I'm convinced of that.

Something great's going to happen today, and you're going to experience the power and presence of the Lord. You may have not experienced His power and presence for days, for weeks, for months, but today, because of praise and worship to the Lord, it's going to happen. It's going to start to come.

Now, you have an outline in your bulletin. You need to keep your Bibles open to Psalm 34 and look at your outline and write down the word decision under point A. Under point A, praise is a decision. We're going to try to help you today, and I believe I will. I believe you will be helped.

Praise is a decision. Now, look at verse one. You already have that written in your outline, but it starts out with these two words. David said, "I will extol the Lord at all times." Notice the two words. He said, "I will." You could put the emphasis on the I, or you could put the emphasis on the will. If he starts out and he puts the emphasis on the I, "I, that's what I'm going to do."

Now, I don't know what other people are going to do, whether they're going to love God, serve God, go to church, not go to church, tithe, or not tithe. I don't know what other people are going to do. Matter of fact, David is saying it really makes no difference to me, but I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do.

That's what he's saying. It's a resolve, and he is committed to the resolve. "I will." You sort of take your fist and you put it down. "Now, this is what I'm going to do. I will." Can you ball a fist up today? "I will." That's what I'm going to do. That's going to be my resolution for my whole life. That's something I'm going to do.

People say, "Well, people aren't doing that anymore." David said, "I don't care what people are doing anymore. I only know what I'm going to do. I will extol the Lord." I'm going to extol Him. The word extol means praise the Lord. That's exactly what the word means.

In Psalm 121:2, David says, "My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." My help. I know where my help comes from. It's good to know, isn't it? It's good to know. And that's what David is saying. "My help comes from the Lord."

Now, I know I need help, David is saying, and we all do. We're living in this world, and it's very difficult down here to live the life that we would really like to live. It can become very, very difficult. No one knows what a day is going to bring forth. It may be sunshine in the morning and in the afternoon the clouds may come. You don't know what's going to happen to you or your family. No one knows.

But David says, "I need help from time to time, but I know where my help comes from. It comes from the Lord. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth." And now notice what he says. He goes on in verse one, "His praise, or God's praise, will always be on my lips." Always. I'm going to praise the Lord all the time.

David, finally maturing, knows how God comes and blesses him when he praises the Lord. He is so happy for what God has done in his life, and he knows the more he praises the Lord, the more reason he's going to have to praise Him even more. And he said, "His praise will always be on my lips." All the time I'm going to give thanks and praise the Lord.

Now, you think about it. When I'm sick, God is going to be my healer. I can trust Him. I can pray for healing. I can pray and say, "God, I'm sick, but I have a healer, and I'm thankful that I have you, that I have a healer." If you focus on your sickness, you're going to get depressed, you're going to get down, you're going to become very, very discouraged.

But think of the healer. When I'm sick, I have a healer. When I'm tried, I have Him who sticketh closer than a brother. Now, some of you are going through some trials. Your faith is being tried. But just think about this for a moment. What about those other people who go through some of the very same things that you're going through, but they do not have Him who sticketh closer than a brother? They have to face that trial all on their own.

Friend, how blessed you are. You've got a trial, I know you do, and it's painful, but you've got God. You have the Lord. He sticks with you. And this is life, and terrible things are going to happen from time to time in life. Everybody is touched by the terrible and the painful and the hurt.

Someone said, "But Pastor, you don't know what happened to me." No, that's true. I don't know. But this I do know: you have a friend that sticketh closer than a brother if you have Jesus in your life, and that means you're going to make it. David said, "My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth."

Now, if you try to make it on your own and ignore God, ignore church, or start falling off on spiritual things, then you're relying on you. You're going to fall flat on your face. It'll happen, but you don't have to fall. You can still make it. It's not the time to laugh. You can still make it with the Lord, and He will be there.

Some will go through a burning trial, a burning trial. I mean, your experience right now, what you're going through, is a burning experience. I mean, you are being burned. You're in the frying pan. It's not easy, and it doesn't seem like there's any way to get out at the moment.

But there's one, remember Him, who walks in the fiery furnace with you. He's going to bring you through this burning experience. It's going to be okay. You're not walking alone. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me." God is there. God is where you are, and you need to praise Him.

No, you can't praise Him for the trial, the sickness, the pain, or the difficulty. No, I can't say, "Oh, I'm thankful that I'm sick." No, I'm thankful that I have Jesus with me. I'm sick, but I have Jesus with me. I'm going through a trial. Yeah, I'm not thankful for the trial and for the pain and for the sorrow, but I'm thankful that I have Him who sticketh closer than a brother.

Yes, you have the Lord, and He's going to walk the way with you and bring you through. It will be victorious and it will be wonderful. When I sin, and from time to time we all make mistakes. We all do. There's no one perfect here. There only was one who lived the perfect life, and that was Jesus Himself.

But when we sin, thank God we have Jesus, who is at the right hand of the Father praying for us, asking God to forgive us and to bring us along and to care for us like the shepherd cares for the sheep. Yes, friend, there's always purpose and reason for giving praise and thanks to the Lord.

Now, notice he says here, "His praise will always be on my lips." Now, look at verse two. Read verse two with me. Come on, read it out loud. Hold your Bible up. Psalm 34 verse two together: "My soul will boast in the Lord. Let the afflicted hear and rejoice."

Now, notice he closes verse one by saying His praise will always be on my lips, and the very two words after that is the word soul. "His praise will always be on my lips, my soul will boast in the Lord." What David is trying to tell us is, look, I'm not trying to be clever or be cute with writing this. He said, "This praise that's on my lips, it's not a surface praise to the Lord."

He said, "It's coming out of my heart. It's coming from my soul." Way down deep within me, there is praise and thanksgiving to the Lord because I know He's my helper. And that praise is coming up. It's welling up, and now it has reached my lips. My praise does not start with my lips. It starts with my soul, and then I feel so buoyed and so lifted and so encouraged.

I can't be silent. I must give expression. And boom, from his lips comes forth praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. He said, "What God has done for me, God forbid that I should ever forget it." It's so wonderful. And as he remembers, he praises the Lord from his soul. Now, look at point B in your outline. Praise is a response.

Now, praise is a decision. You're going to have to decide whether or not you're going to praise the Lord. It's a decision. David said, "I will." Now, you need to say that too. I will. Come on, say it. Praise the Lord. Okay, now that's a decision that you have to make. You make it, and great things will start happening to you.

Look at point B. Praise is a response. What David is saying in so many words is, let me tell you why I'm so exuberant. "I'm happy today," that's what David is saying. "I am so happy. I'm looking back, I'm remembering, I am so happy. I want to tell you why I'm so exuberant."

Now, here he goes on to tell us. I'm going to read verses four, five, and six. Look at your Bible with me. Psalm 34 beginning at verse four. He said, "I sought the Lord and He answered me." Oh, that's why you're so exuberant. "I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him, the Lord, are radiant. Their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles."

Now, look at verse six. "This poor man called." So? This poor man called with what result? The Lord heard him. Now, when he says poor, he doesn't mean I didn't have any money, I didn't have any possessions, I had lost my home, I had nothing of this world's goods. No, he's not talking about poverty in the physical material things. He's talking about his soul.

This is what he was saying: "I couldn't help myself. I couldn't deliver myself. I couldn't get out of this mess. I was locked in. I had to see it through. There was no escape as far as anything that I could do. I was too poor to help myself. I just absolutely didn't know what to do with the situation."

Any of you in a situation like that today? You're in a situation you just don't know what to do with it. That's poorness of spirit. And when you recognize that you're poor and He is strong, you're 99 percent of the way to victory today. And some of you are going to break through, and there's going to be a great victory for you today. That's what he meant. He said, "This poor man called." And with what results? And the Lord heard him.

Now, the scripture says we will offer to Jesus the sacrifice of praise continually. You remember the story in the Old Testament about Jacob's ladder and the angels going up and down that ladder, that ladder that reached from earth to heaven? Well, prayer is like climbing Jacob's ladder.

The Psalmist David is saying, "I called to the Lord. And when I called, my call started climbing that ladder to heaven." My call. And as my call was climbing the ladder to heaven, it ran face-to-face with mercy climbing down the ladder. See, when you call, mercy is already on the way.

But God's people have a difficult time calling. And that's why we need to talk about prayer often, often, often, because we forget to pray. We just say, "Oh, what a mess I'm in. Oh, this is terrible what's happened to my family. Oh, this is so painful. Does anybody know? Does anybody care? No, nobody cares for me anymore."

That's what we start going through, this martyr pity-patter type experience. And we've all done it. But David said there was absolutely no one there. "I was alone with Abimelech and my life was on the line, and there was nowhere to look but up. And I looked up and I called, and my prayer went right up that ladder. And before it even got to the top, mercy met it coming down."

That's how God does it for you, friend. That's how He did it for David and how He'll do it for you. Now, look at point C in your outline. Praise is a delight. It's a blessing. Praise is a blessing. I'm going to read verse eight. Well, maybe we all ought to read verse eight. Let's look at verse eight in the Bible, Psalm 34 verse eight together: "Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him."

Taste. Taste buds. There are spiritual taste buds also. He says taste and see. Now, this is a metaphor. It's a comparison likening one thing to another thing. Taste. Now, we use that word a lot. Have you ever heard anybody say, "Have you ever tasted of his anger? Have you ever tasted of her anger?" Have you ever heard that? The word taste. How we use the word taste.

Sometimes a person said, "You know, that experience left a bad taste in my mouth." How about the clothes we wear? We say, "Oh, she dresses in such fine taste." We use that word all the time. David is saying, "Come on, use that word regarding that which is spiritual. Taste some spiritual things. Taste the goodness of the Lord."

"You've tasted the bitterness of earth, the bitterness of disappointment, the bitterness of anger. You've tasted that, and that's left that experience has left a bad taste in your mouth. But now taste the flavor of heaven. Taste the sweet honey of heaven." He's saying that there is something better. You don't need to keep going through.

He's not going to change things necessarily. He's going to change you. Did you get that? He's going to change me. That's where the change takes place. And we've been feasting on our sorrow and our disappointment and our heartache. We've been feasting on it. We've been ruminating on it. We've been saying, "Why, why?"

Friend, you're not going to get an answer to why. You need to say, "God, I don't understand, but I love you because you first loved me. God, I'm hurting, but you're the friend that sticketh closer than a brother." You don't have to figure it all out. Matter of fact, you never will. But you have the Lord, and for His presence near you, you need to give praise and to give thanks.

The scripture says in Psalm 22:3, "You are enthroned as the holy one." You are enthroned. Or in the King James and in the New King James, it says, "God inhabits the praises of His people." It means when you start praising the Lord, God begins to draw near.

When Jacob's call was going up the ladder, mercy was coming down the ladder. You start it, and watch what God brings in. You begin to praise the Lord, you begin to reflect on the goodness of God and begin to think, and the praise of God will start coming.

For instance, if you're lonely today, if you're experiencing loneliness, you need to tell the Lord, "Lord, I'm experiencing loneliness, but you said I will never leave you nor forsake you, and for that I'm thankful. I'm not thankful for my loneliness, I'm thankful for your nearness and your comfort. You're the friend that sticketh closer than a brother."

"Lord, I'm sick, physically ill, I'm sick. But I can look to you because you're a healer. You're the great physician. And I thank you, Lord, for that position that you have and for telling me that in your word and for that experience."

You see, praise is the remedy. God enters praise. God inhabits praise. It's like a little insect that lives below the surface of the water. The little insect lives in a bubble attached to a seaweed or a sea plant at the bottom of the water. Now, what this little insect does, the little insect goes to the surface and blows a bubble around itself and then it takes that bubble with the light and the air of the upper world down into the lower world.

And then it attaches the bubble to a plant at the bottom. And the little insect lives in that bubble. Among the darkness of the bottom of the water, among the slime, the little insect lives in that bubble, but he lives within the atmosphere of the upper world. While in the lower world, he created something for himself.

He breathes the air of the upper world, not the world down there. The insect has its young and nurtures its young in that lower region, but still it's the upper world. Now, you and I are down here where there's problems, sorrow, pain, death, and sickness. And on and on it goes.

But you today can create a praise bubble, so to speak, around yourself. You can begin to breathe the air of the heavenly world, the upper world. You can begin to live and nurture your young, your children, in that atmosphere. You create your own atmosphere is what the Psalmist is trying to say.

You create your own atmosphere. And the Psalmist is telling us that he created an atmosphere of worship, an atmosphere of praise, and there's where the Lord is. Now, that's what I want you to do today. I want you to create an atmosphere of praise.

Guest (Male): Praise has a remarkable way of changing our perspective. As Pastor Morris just reminded us, when we choose to thank God even before circumstances change, we begin to experience His peace, His strength, and His nearness in a fresh way.

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The Healing Word is made possible by faithful friends who believe God's word still changes lives. Your prayers and financial support help us continue sharing the gospel with people across America and around the world. Join us next time as Pastor Morris brings the second message in this series, "Your Divine Invitation," and discover the incredible invitation God extends to everyone of us.