No matter what you do in life, there's
different events, conversations, and all of that.
For every person, there's a soundtrack to their
life.
Here's the verse that I want to give
you.
Psalm 34, verse one and two.
I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Verse two, my soul shall make its boast
in the Lord.
The humble shall hear of it and be
glad.
Number three, oh magnify the Lord with me
and let us exalt his name together.
Let's go back to verse one.
I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Let's analyze that.
I will bless the Lord.
Most times we think of the Lord blessing
us.
How could a human bless the Lord because
he doesn't need anything?
How do you bless the Lord?
Well, when humans bless the Lord, that word
means I will praise the Lord.
I will thank the Lord.
I will remember the goodness of the Lord.
I will extol the Lord.
I will elevate the Lord and remind myself
and let others know how great is God.
I will bless the Lord.
I will praise him.
I will thank him.
I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Notice the two other factors in that little
couplet there.
I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
How many times will I bless the Lord?
At all times.
How often will I do it?
Continually.
The subscription on the Psalms, sometimes you'll see
in your Bibles, Psalm 34, Psalm 27, whatever,
and then some of them have below a
Psalm of David when he was doing such
and such, when he was in such and
such place.
Now those subscriptions, those little descriptions, are not
inspired that we take it with the rest
of the text.
The text is inspired.
Those subscriptions or descriptions of when it was
written, and the experts say some of them
seem very accurate and describe times in David's
life or one of the other psalmist's life.
A Psalm of Moses.
A Psalm of Asaph, who was a worship
leader.
This one says that this was written by
David when he was being chased by Saul,
King Saul, who was jealous of him and
hated him, and was just about to kill
him.
And David had to find a place to
hide, and he went to the Philistines.
And he broke down in his faith when
he was there, and he was so frightened
that the Philistines would kill him but he's
running from King Saul, where can you go?
And he had slain a lot of Philistines
and he killed Goliath, their champion.
So the Bible says that when he got
there, he went like, as it were, from
the frying pan into the fire so he
feigned or made believe that he was crazy.
And he began to drool and write on
the wall.
It's true, it's found in the scriptures that
he did that.
They're linking that Psalm with this at this
time.
In other words, David did that.
God, in his mercy, doesn't save us because
we're always doing the right thing.
He saves us because he's a great God.
Can we all put our hands together and
say amen to that?
How many have had times in your life
when God showed you mercy when you were
totally out of whack?
Come on, lift up your hand.
Totally out there, totally doing crazy things.
Totally lost your faith for the moment.
But notice here what's encouraging.
God doesn't look at a moment's weakness.
David had that.
God looks at the train of a life,
the direction of a life, the current of
a life, which way a life is going.
Because even for the best people who love
God and praise him, there are breakdowns at
a given moment.
We've all had them, amen?
It seems if this subscription is true, it
seems as if David came to his senses,
saw the Lord delivered him, saw how stupid
what he was doing was because God had
told him, you're gonna sit on the throne.
If you're gonna sit on the throne and
that's what God said, then how could the
king of the Philistines kill you?
But you see, even though God has spoken
things to us, sometimes we break down and
we do things we shouldn't do because we
go into panic mode.
I was just counseling a pastor today on
the phone from a faraway place and I
said, brother, you're asking me my advice?
Don't make that decision.
Maybe this is for you today.
Don't make that decision because you're under pressure.
And when we're under pressure and we're frightened
like what will happen, that's when you can
really make bad decisions.
When you're under pressure, under the gun, feeling
all the heat, sometimes you just, I gotta
lean on something, I gotta do something.
And if you're not careful, you can really
do something crazy.
That's probably how David got to that place.
He saw the Philistines looking at him, licking
their chops.
We got David here, finally.
And then he went bonkers on them and
he acted like he was crazy.
So when he came to his senses, he
saw how good God was.
Oh, God is good.
God's not only good when we're faithful, God
is good when we're unfaithful.
God is not only good when the sun
is shining, when the storms are raging, God
is still good.
God is not only good to us when
our friends are helping us, God is good
to us when people let us down.
God is not only good when your spouse
is treating you nicely, God is still good
when your spouse is having a bad day
or a bad week.
God is good.
So David says, I'm gonna bless the Lord,
not when things are going good, I'm gonna
bless the Lord at all times.
I'm gonna be praising Him and thanking Him
all the time, 24-7.
The soundtrack of my life is gonna be,
I will bless the Lord, I will praise
the Lord.
Thank you, God, you are a good God.
Well, there's a problem over there.
Yeah, God will get to that problem, but
I will bless the Lord.
I will praise the Lord.
The undertone of his life, even when he
was busy doing things, was an undertone, a
soundtrack of praise.
He was praising God continually.
I will bless the Lord at all times.
There are, one of the signs of maturity
in a Christian is if their soundtrack stays
the same even though life goes up and
down.
There are some of us, hey, listen, are
we good at praising God when He comes
through?
Are we not good?
Some of us have come to the place
where we just celebrate God's goodness and we
praise God, but the test is when it's
not going good.
Are you still gonna praise God?
Is God still worthy of our worship and
our thanksgiving?
Or do we stop because we don't know
what's happening and it looks bad?
You know, I had a friend who loved
this restaurant and he used to tell me,
you gotta eat at this restaurant.
He took me to the place once.
It was a pretty good restaurant.
And then I went by it.
He goes there to eat all the time.
So I went by it the other time
and I was with him and I said,
oh, that's the restaurant you like to go
to.
And he said, no, I don't go there
anymore.
I said, we used to sing praise at
that restaurant all the time.
He told me about that restaurant.
He said, no, they changed a chef.
How many know in a restaurant they change
a chef?
You got a different restaurant.
Same table, same chairs, same glasses, different comida,
different food.
He was saying, no.
I said, wow, big change.
He said, yeah, I went in there and
had two horrible meals.
They're preparing it different.
See, but God never changes.
We never can stop praising him, never stop
thanking him because he never changes.
He was good, he is good, he will
be good.
He was faithful, he is faithful, he will
be faithful.
Come on, can we put our hands together?
We praise God all the time, continually.
I will bless the Lord.
I want to grow up.
How many want to get more mature in
our spiritual life where we're praising?
Here's one of the tests.
When you meet people who are fluctuating up
and down, they're manic depressives when it comes
to praise, bipolar, up one day, down the
other.
God is great, God doesn't exist.
I'm happy, I'm depressed.
No, no, the sign of a mature person
is no matter what's going on.
One more time, let's praise him.
I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
As I close, notice this.
It's not just praise, and it comes from
the heart.
God only wants praise from the heart, but
it's vocal.
I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my, not
just in my heart.
God inspires people through the ages to praise
him out loud.
Is there a time to be still and
know that he is God?
Yes, but the general rule is God loves
to be praised vocally.
Can we do it at all times where
we're working and wherever?
No, sometimes I'm more convenient than others.
But really, during the day, there's always time
to say, praise God.
How many just give a praise God once
in a while during the day?
Just praise God.
Hallelujah, praise God.
I love you, Lord.
I praise you, God.
All right, what was that problem?
Let me work on that.
Then you go back to what you're doing.
But when you have those breaks in life,
the soundtrack of your life is praise God.
Hallelujah.
In the good times, praise his name.
In the bad times, do the same.
In everything, give him thanks, bless him.
And do it vocally.
Some of you have grown up in situations
or churches where you have been taught and
it's formed strong holes in your mind in
terms of thought patterns that you act different
when you praise God than you do normally.
You get excited, you get vocal about so
many things.
Don't we all?
And then when it comes to God, shh.
But that's nowhere found in the Bible.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
So we're gonna close.
We're gonna give God praise.
It's good to be loud sometimes and praise
God.
See, there's a season for everything.
There's a season to be quiet.
There's a season to study the Bible.
And one of the things in life I
was just thinking about today, one of the
signs of the wisdom we need is when
to change the season.
I was thinking about that.
First of all, you have to understand seasons.
Can't be doing the same thing every day.
In a service, you can't just sing all
meeting long.
We never hear the word.
But if all you did is preach, we'd
never have praise.
But then there's time to pray for requests.
But then you have to take an offering
to support missionaries and do other things.
So when do you stop one and when
do you do the other?
That takes wisdom from leadership, whoever's guiding the
meeting, of when to change the season.
See, you can cut off the spirit.
If the spirit is leading us all to
praise God like we were, Carol encouraged you
all because she knew that this is the
season God wants in the meeting to really
praise him.
But there comes an end to that.
Or there'd be nothing else, but we'd walk
in here, sing, and go home.
There's other things God wants us to do.
And to know when to change those seasons,
to when in life, you know what?
I need to read the word.
I read the word.
I talk to God.
I need time to talk to God.
You know, I need fellowship with people.
I gotta call someone.
No, I need to serve them somehow.
No, I need to go to choir practice.
And to know when to change those seasons
every day.
Very subtle thing, but very important.
But the undercurrent is always praise God.
Praise God.
I love to be around people who are
praising God, who are happy in Jesus.
Because when you're with people who are not
happy in Jesus, and they're Christians, they can
drain the life out of you.
Can they not?
You almost don't, I say this sadly, you
almost are leery of being around them because
you know what you're gonna hear.
The glass is always half full.
There's always something wrong in the house of
the Lord.
There's always people doing what they shouldn't do.
Gloom and doom is coming.
You actually have to have a prayer meeting
when you leave them to just get back.
Come on, how many know what I'm talking
about?
Say amen.
But when you're with a person, now I
close, when you're with a person who has
this soundtrack of praise, look what happens, verse
two.
My soul shall make its boast in the
Lord.
In the Hebrew there, the emphatic part in
the actual Hebrew of that sentence is in
the Lord my soul will make its boast.
The emphasis, according to the language experts, is
in the Lord my soul shall make its
boast, which means, that word boast means in
the Hebrew language, the thing that means more
to me than anything else in the world,
the thing that I'll talk about, the thing
that I'll brag on more than anything in
the world is not what I've done, not
what somebody gave me, not my family, my
country, where I was born.
The number one thing that I will boast
in is the Lord.
The Lord is my boast.
I'm gonna brag on the Lord.
Yeah, I love my grandkids, I'll brag on
them.
Here's a picture.
Take out your phone, show them the, right.
I'm thankful for all those things, but my
number one bragging, my number one boasting, oh,
I'm gonna boast in the Lord.
I was born in Trinidad, and that's good.
Everything is vikey vi, everything is in order
and happening, but that's not my boast.
Trinidad, Roti is not my boast.
My boast is in the Lord.
Come on, how many say amen?
My boast is not in my race, not
where I was raised, what food I ate,
I'm not gonna glorify my heritage.
My number one boast is gonna be Jesus.
Jesus, I brag on Jesus.
But notice what happens here, the next phrase.
The humble shall hear of it and be
glad.
Now that word humble is translated also meek,
but it also could mean the weak or
the hurting or the damaged.
The damaged will hear of it and be
glad.
This is an amazing thing about praising the
Lord.
When you and I praise the Lord and
have that spirit and verbally praise the Lord
and brag on him, David is saying it
has an effect on other people.
David is saying here, the damaged, the wounded,
the hurting people will hear me praising God
and hear how he delivered me and hear
my song and they're gonna be encouraged.
David's gonna say, if he did it for
him, he could do it for me.
Look at how that guy is praising God
and he was so close to death and
she lost her job, but look what God
did and now she's praising God.
It has an effect on other people.
Do you know why God uses the choir
when they're at their best?
I say this not to boast in them,
but I boast in the Lord because carol's
been used by God and the choir's learned
from God.
They're singing not to you.
Do you never notice that they're never singing
to you?
The last thought they have is to perform,
at least the way I have viewed them.
And I've been all kinds of churches around
the world where choirs perform.
They're not performing for anyone.
They're singing to him.
Sometimes I wonder if they're even looking at
her leading and I wonder how they keep
their tempo and everything.
They're singing to the Lord.
And when you see people praise God, it
has an effect on you.
How many know exactly what I'm talking about?
It's like you wanna praise God and it's
like you get reminded, oh, God is good.
Well, how do you, why are you reminded
of that?
Because you see somebody just singing for the
glory of God.
Oh, the wounded and the meek and the
lowly will hear my praise and they're gonna
be encouraged.
Their hearts are gonna be made glad.
And then he goes on to say, oh,
magnify the Lord with me.
Notice he goes from I will do this
and then he just gets caught up because
when you start praising God, you want others
to join you.
That's why you love to come to church
because you don't pray to God all the
time alone in a kitchen or in a
subway.
You wanna be with other people who are
praising God.
These are all signs of a healthy spiritual
life.
The undercurrent, the underscoring, the soundtrack is not
groaning and moaning and all of that but
it's praise God, he's good.
I know, but I heard, yeah, I'm going
through that but God is so good.
I'm gonna count my blessings instead of my
problems because God has shown me time after
time, God is good.
He is faithful, praise God.
Then you do things, you do this, you
have a dinner, oh, I praise God for
the food and then I praise God.
I'm alive today, praise God.
How many are happy you're alive today?
Just lift your hand.
I got, look, blessings, blessings, blessings, blessings.
How embarrassed I was at one time in
Lima, Peru speaking at a conference when all
these pastors who had gone out into the
jungles and the mountains to go start churches
with nothing, they had me speaking every morning
and then at night for a couple days
in a row.
So after the morning session, they were there
and they weren't dressed in their suits and
like they were the night before, they were
more casual.
It was hot but that tradition in that
place was you wear suits and all of
that which was fine, I'll do whatever they
like.
I was walking through where the campgrounds were
and I went into this side yard and
I see all of these white shirts, blue
shirts hung up and jackets hanging out to
be aired, socks hanging and I said to
someone, what is all this?
They said, oh, the pastors, they only have
one suit.
They only have one white shirt or one
blue shirt, one dress shirt.
So every morning they have to go out
and wash it because you get all sweaty
praising the Lord when it's 95 degrees and
there's no AC and there's everything was hung
and their socks, why?
Because that night, they wanted to be right
and be ready to praise God or whatever
and then the next morning, wash the same
shirt, just one shirt.
They only had one shirt, one shirt.
I left with an empty suitcase.
I looked around at people who I thought
could wear my clothes and left everything, every
tie, every suit, everything.
How in the world can you go back
when you see people only have one shirt,
right?
But guess what?
They were praising the Lord.
We have 25 shirts.
Some of you ladies have so many shoes,
you don't even know how many shoes you
have and they were praising God and we're
complaining because we can't find the one we
want or what's, there's a new shoe or
the shoe with the red bottom and all
of that and all these things I hear
people talking about and here they were just
praising God.
Oh, I love to be around people who
are praising God.
They had little but listen, they had more
because when you have a heart of praise,
you have more than anybody and if you
have a lot and you're not praising God,
what good is it, right?
So magnify the Lord with me.
I'm gonna stole the Lord with my mouth.
We're gonna praise God.
Let's just all lift up our hands and
open our mouths and just start praising God
out loud for how good he's been to
you.
Remembering all that he's done for you.
When you were doing wrong or doing something
crazy and God was still faithful.
He's still supplied for us.
We praise you, God.
We honor you, God.
We bless you, God.
We praise you, God.
Help us to praise you continually, Lord.
I will bless the Lord at all times.
Use our mouths and our voices, Lord, to
make praise for you, to give you honor
and glory, Lord.
Open our mouths, Lord.
Take away complaining.
Take away negativity.
Take away criticism and fill us with praise
and honor and glory to our God, Lord.
We bless your name.
You may put your hands down.
Lord, if we stayed till three in the
morning, we still couldn't praise you enough, God.
For all that you've done, giving us your
son, washing away all our sins, there's no
record in heaven of any wrong thing we've
ever done.
How could that be?
Because of your grace, because of your love.
I ask you to forgive us, God, for
being grumpy and complaining, murmuring.
We don't want to murmur.
We want to praise you.
Give us a new soundtrack for our lives.
Give us a new backdrop to everything we
do so that the minute we stop doing
whatever we're doing, even if it's agonizing over
a wayward child, the moment we stop and
divert our minds, we start praising you again.
Because you weren't good and now have changed.
You are always good.
You were faithful.
You are faithful.
You will be faithful.
And we want to thank you publicly, God,
for your faithfulness to this church.
Over all these decades, the bills you have
helped us pay, the things you have brought
us through, the way you've directed us, the
people that you've put together, the choir you've
formed, the deacons you've formed, the great pastoral
staff, Lord, that is here, the sound people,
the people who clean the building, the prayer
band, the keepers of God's house, BT Kids,
visitation ministry, all these things, going to prison,
all these things.
Oh, God, we praise you for that.
That comes from you.
It doesn't come from a pastor.
It doesn't come from some vision someone has.
It comes from you, Lord.
We give you all the praise.
Let's put our hands together and praise God
for all his faithfulness to us.
We praise you, God.
Blessed be your name forever and ever and
ever and ever.
How many are going to keep praising God
now more than ever before?
Say aloud amen.
And that goes, that goes for the choir
behind me and for all of us.
I don't want to preach about praise.
I want to do praise.
I don't want them to just sing about
praise and then the other days when they're
not here, they're all mopey and down.
I don't want us to just get worked
up by music.
I want that to be, don't you want
to make God happy all the time by
just, I will bless the Lord at all
times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul will make its boast in the
Lord.
The wounded, the hurt, the poor will hear
and be encouraged.
Their hearts will be made glad.
Just one last thing.
How many times has this happened?
I could give you, before the Lord, I
could give you 100 incidents quickly probably if
I searched my mind.
But it just happened the other day.
I heard some news or some burden or
someone came to me after the nine o
'clock service and everything's falling apart and I
had to see them.
It was an emergency some months ago.
Between the services when I'm preaching, I like
to try to rest, but you have to
do what you have to do and you
want to help people.
But it distracted me and it pulled me
down a little bit.
I got a little diverted and distracted.
So now the 12 o'clock service, they're
praying, Freddie's leading and the choir's here.
And I came down in the elevator and
I was preoccupied.
I was distracted.
You ever get like that?
You're just not, I'm not focused on God
like I should have been.
The door opened, I walked in.
I don't know her name, but I know
her face.
I've seen her a thousand times in church.
I walked in, you all were praising God.
And she had her hands up, but just
a certain way.
And I opened the door and the first
thing I heard was the music, you all
singing so loud.
And I saw this lady praising God.
Listen, she didn't know I was gonna come.
She didn't know I would look at her.
She was in another world.
She was praising God.
She was worshiping in spirit and in truth.
Her soul was magnifying the Lord.
As God is my witness, I didn't even
look at her for three seconds and my
heart just burst up with praise.
And faith came up in me and I
couldn't wait till I got through and I
put my Bible down and started to sing
with all my heart.
And here I was just in an elevator,
distracted and a little bit down, to be
quite honest with you.
Was disappointed by what I had heard in
this thing.
And then that one lady praising God, and
she never looked at me.
She didn't even know the effect she had
on me.
So let's keep praising God.
Half the world is depressed.
If we're depressed with them, how are we
gonna be a good advertisement for Jesus, right?
Let's be happy, let's be praising God.
Let's be thanking Him, no matter what we
see or hear.