The Purpose of Praise

Most of us probably have never heard of the man by the name of Martin Rinkart, but he was the son of a coppersmith. And he was raised in a very poor family. But he decided one day to make sure he furthered his education, especially in the realm of theology.

Upon his graduation, he became a pastor in his hometown of Eilenburg, Germany in the year 1617. The interesting thing about that is in the year 1618, the 30 years war in Europe broke out. And Martin Rinkart only pastored for 32 years.

So 30 of the 32 years, he was engulfed in war and conflict. In the year 1637, a massive plague began to sweep through all of Europe. And once it reached his town of Eilenburg, people began to die in droves.

They say that 50 people a day died. A total of 8,000 people died in that town alone. And Martin was the man who ended up burying most of them because all of his pastor friends died in the plague.

Another person who died in the plague was his very own wife. So he buried her as well. In all, over the 30 years war, 8 million people were killed.

Massive. And so 30 of the 32 years of his pastoral ministry, he embarked on war and conflict, loss, plague, disease, pain, he spent his whole ministry comforting those who had lost loved ones. He spent his whole ministry trying to help bury those who had died.

He spent his ministry trying to help people understand the sovereignty of God and the presence of God in their lives. And during that time, he wrote a hymn. A hymn that is in our hymn book even today.

And he wrote that hymn specifically because he wanted the people of Eilenburg to understand that the only way through their adversity was through thanksgiving. So he wrote this hymn called Now We Thank We All Are God. This is how it goes.

Now we thank we all are God with heart and hands and voices who wondrous things hath done in whom his world rejoices. Who from our mother's arms hath blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us and keep us in his grace and guide us when perplexed and free us from all ills in this world and the next.

All praise and thanks to God, the father now be given, the son and him who reigns with them in highest heaven. The one eternal God whom earth and heaven adore for thus it was, is now and shall be evermore.

He wrote that hymn in the midst of all the pain that he himself had experienced but knew that the only way to make it through the hardship of his life was to give thanks and to rejoice in his God.

A lesson that he understood because he like us was on the pathway to praise. A pathway that would take him one day into glory but he understood Isaiah 43 verse number 21 that the people who are called by my name, they will declare my praise. He understood that.

He also understood Psalm 147 verse number 1 which says for it is good to sing praises to God for it is pleasant and praise is becoming or beautiful or fitting. He understood that when we neglect to give joy and praise to God, life loses its luster. Our soul loses its song and Martin Renkert wasn't about to lose the luster of the beauty of his life by not giving praise to God but simply to thank him and to honor his blessed name and that's what he did.

Thus, all these years later, we sing this hymn and yet very few of us understand that in the midst of whatever it is we're going through, the only way through it and the only way out of it is through hymns of thanksgiving and praise to our God. And so to better understand that, we've embarked on this journey called the pathway to praise. We began several weeks ago looking at the privilege of praise, then we looked at the profit of praise, then the people of praise, then the prerequisites to praise.

Last week, it was the priority of praise. This week, it's the purpose of praise. What is the purpose of praise? Well, we're gonna give you four then this morning.

The first one you will readily recognize. The next three, maybe not so much. But in all reality, they build one upon the other.

And when you understand the purpose of praise, the pathway to praise becomes a whole lot smoother. So, point number one is this, that the purpose of praise primarily is to fulfill a command from God or to give thanks to God. You understand that, praise fulfills a command from God.

I've told you the last couple of weeks that the most frequently repeated command in all of scripture is to either rejoice always or to praise the Lord or to give thanks to his name. The Bible records that command to give thanks 85 different times. It commands us to praise the Lord 250 times.

And it commands us to rejoice 300 times. So well over 600 times in the Bible, we are commanded to give praise to God, to rejoice always, to give thanks to his name. It's a command that we obey.

Paul would know that and so when he wrote to those in Thessalonica, he said very simply this, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. It is God's will for you to be joyful, prayerful, and thankful. These are commands that God has given to us.

And we are to obey them. We are to follow them. The Bible says in 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse number 1, first of all then I urge that entreaties and prayers and petitions and thanksgiving be made on behalf of all men for kings and all who are in authority.

God says, I command you to not just pray for your kings, not just petition me about those in authority, but I want you to give thanks for all your kings and all those in authority. I'm sure that you pray for our governor, but do you thank the Lord for our governor? I'm sure you pray for our president, but do you thank the Lord for your president? I'm sure you pray for your spouse, but do you thank the Lord for your spouse? I'm sure you pray for your boss at work. You should, but do you give thanks to God for your boss? At work.

Someone has said this. When a person prays without thanksgiving, he has clipped the wings of prayer so that it cannot rise. So, you pray for your governor, but you don't thank the Lord for your governor, so your prayers do not rise.

You petition the Lord on behalf of your boss, but you don't give thanks to God for your boss, and therefore your prayers refuse to rise. We forget that thanksgiving and praise and prayer go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other.

It's imperative that we understand this. We are to be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. So, the reason we don't rid ourselves of anxiety is not because we don't pray, we do, but we don't pray with thanksgiving, and therefore our anxiousness resides within us still because we refuse to praise the Lord and therefore clip the wings of prayer so they do not rise.

Praise, thanksgiving fulfills a command from God. It says in John chapter 14, these words, verse number 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. So put it into today's message, if you love me, you will praise me.

You will give thanks to me. You will rejoice in me if you love me. He says down in verse number 23, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word.

What's my word? My command, to give thanks and to praise me. And my father will love him and we will make our abode with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words and the word which you hear is not mine, but the father's who sent me.

If you love me, you'll praise me. If you love me, you'll give thanks to me because it's a command that God has given. And he made it very clear that if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.

Excuse me. So he says this in verse 21 of John 14. He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me.

He who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and will disclose myself to him. In other words, if you love me, you will praise me. If you praise me, I will manifest myself to you.

I will disclose myself to you. If you praise me, if you give thanks, if you obey the most frequently repeated command in the scriptures, I will manifest myself to you in such a way that you will understand me. And one of the reasons we have a hard time comprehending God is because we refuse to obey the command to give thanks to him, to praise him or to rejoice in him.

And so number two, point number two is this. If praise fulfills the commandment from God, then praise is that which furthers my consciousness of God. Praise furthers my consciousness of God.

A thankful spirit is the single greatest act of personal worship because it recognizes God for who he is. So if I give praise to God, if I obey the command of God to rejoice always, then what God does is he manifests himself to me. He furthers my consciousness of his existence, of his presence, of who he is.

For example, he furthers my consciousness of his holiness. The Bible says in Psalm 30, verse number four, give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name. Give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name.

In Psalm 99, God three times says that he is holy, that we are to give thanks to him for the Lord your God is a holy God. Stephen Charnock has written voluminously about the attributes of God. In it, he says this about God's holiness.

He says God's holiness is the crown of all his attributes, the life of all his decrees, the brightness of all of his actions. Nothing is decreed by him, nothing is acted by him, but what is worthy of the dignity and becoming the honor of this attribute. In other words, God is a God of grace and that grace is a holy grace.

God is a God of love and that God is a holy love. Our God is a God of wrath and that wrath is a holy wrath. Our God is a God of justice and it's a holy justice.

Our God is a God of righteousness; it's a holy righteousness. The law of the Lord is holy. He's given us his spirit, it's called the holy spirit.

So in other words, when we fulfill a command given to us by God, it furthers our consciousness of God by helping us understand not just his holiness, but even his nearness. Listen to what the Bible says over in Psalm 75, verse number 1. Unto thee, O God, do we give thanks, for thy name is near.

I give thanks because, Lord, you are near, you are present. Paul would say in Philippians chapter 4, verse number 4, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. Why does he say that? Verse five, for the Lord is near.

And because the Lord is near, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. So there's this rejoice always, and then there's this prayer with thanksgiving, but right in between there is the Lord is near. So when I fulfill a commandment from God to give praise to his name, it furthers my consciousness of God, not just his holiness, but his nearness.

And not just his nearness, but his willingness. Listen to what the Bible says. The Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 9:15.

Thanks be unto God for his indescribable gift. What's the gift? The gift of eternal life. How did he receive the gift of eternal life? Because of his willingness to come and die, right? He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

He willingly did that. He did not think equality with God's something to be grasped but he willingly took on the form of a servant, became a man, and died. The Bible says, for you know the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that although he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.

He did that willingly. And when you fulfill a command to God to rejoice always, to give thanks to him, to praise his glorious name, it automatically furthers your consciousness of who God is by understanding his holiness, by understanding his nearness, by understanding his willingness, by understanding his forgiveness. Paul would say in 1 Timothy 1:12, I thank Christ, Jesus my Lord, for he, because of him I was shown mercy.

Mercy. I was forgiven.

The Bible says in Nehemiah 9:17, thou art a God of forgiveness. Ephesians 4:32, God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us. That's what our Lord has done.

And whenever I fulfill a commandment by God to obey him because I love him, he discloses himself to me. It furthers my consciousness of God. That I might understand who he is and what he's done.

And if you go through the Bible, you can understand more about his greatness, more about his goodness, more about his loving kindness, more about his graciousness, more about his uniqueness as God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. All that is just open up to me because I've obeyed the commandment of God because I love him so. So, the Bible teaches that when I give thanks to God and praise his glorious name, it fulfills a commandment from God.

And once it fulfills a commandment from God, it furthers my consciousness of God. And then it forges my convictions about God. It forges my convictions.

It solidifies my convictions. It strengthens my convictions. It shapes my convictions about God.

Think of Martin Rinkart when he would fulfill a commandment by God to give thanks. It helped him understand and see God for who he is. It only shaped and solidified his convictions about God.

You can see that in the life of Jonah as he sat in the belly of the fish. His convictions about God were forged. Or Job, after he had lost everything in Job 1:21. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. His convictions were only forged all the more through his adverse circumstances.

Or even Habakkuk. Looked at him last week, Habakkuk chapter 3. His convictions were forged all the more when he became conscious about his God and his sovereignty and his wisdom.

But how about Daniel the prophet? Turn back with me if you would to Daniel chapter 6. Daniel chapter 6. Daniel is the one man who led in two world empires.

Daniel was taken off into captivity when he was around 16 years of age. He was taken from his family. He was taken from his town.

He was hauled off into captivity for 70 years. And yet all the while Daniel was one who fulfilled a commandment from God by giving thanks to the Lord. And it only furthered his consciousness of God and only forged his convictions about God.

And he was one who would pray and give thanksgiving to God every single day. When you come to Daniel chapter six, he oversees the 120 different satraps and commissioners in the land. He's put in charge.

And those who did not know the Lord were not happy that Daniel was put in charge. And so they came against him trying to defame the man's name and to get him removed from his position of authority. Understand that Daniel was there primarily because of the sovereignty of God. God placed him there. God put him there. God was gonna use him there.

But there was something about the person humanly that was unique because the Bible says in Daniel 6, verse number 4, that he had an extraordinary spirit. It wasn't what everybody else had. His character was unique.

And it goes on to say in verse number 5 and 6 that he was faithful to his God. He was committed to his God. And so, from the divine standpoint, God placed him there, but from the human standpoint, he was a man of great character who honored his God.

And so, the efforts of those he oversaw to discredit him, they could find nothing about the man. They could find nothing in the man because he was of supreme integrity. And so they decided to have the king, King Darius, sign a decree that you could not bow down and worship or pray to any other God than the great king himself.

So Darius did. And this is Daniel's response in verse number 10. Now when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house.

Now in his roof chamber, he had windows open toward Jerusalem. He continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God as he had been previously doing. He did the same thing he always did.

He prayed and he praised his God. You see, we get so wrapped up in preserving and protecting our lives that we forget to pray and to praise the God who truly is the protector and preserver of our life. So because we forget to pray and praise the God who protects and preserves, we set out on a journey to protect and to preserve our own lives as if we are God of our lives and the true God of the universe is not.

But Daniel knew that the only way to be protected and preserved was to pray and to praise. So we did. He knew the outcome.

He knew what was going to happen. But his convictions were forged in conflict. His convictions were shaped and molded in conflict because he had fulfilled a command from God that furthered his consciousness of God that forged his convictions about his God.

He wasn't afraid, wasn't scared, he just trusted. Darius was distraught because he loved Daniel. But he knew there was no way out of the document that he signed.

So Daniel was thrown into the lion's den. Of course, you know the story. Almost everybody knows the story.

But on the very next day, Darius wakes up at dawn, verse 19. At the break of day and went in haste to the lion's den, when he had come near the den to Daniel, he cried out with a troubled voice. The king spoke and said to Daniel, Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you constantly serve been able to deliver you from the lions? Then Daniel spoke to the king, oh king, live forever.

My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouths. They have not harmed me. It is much as I was found innocent before him and also towards you, oh king, I have committed no crime.

Incredible narrative the Lord gives us about Daniel. My God was able to do exactly what he said he would do. The Bible says in Ephesians chapter three that our God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ever ask or think according to the power that works within us.

Our God's able to do that. He's able to go way beyond what we can ever ask or think because he's equipped us with his power. And I wonder if you have seen that in your life and in your family, that your God is able to do way beyond what you can ever imagine, what you can ever conjure up in your mind because of the power that works within us.

Our God is able to do incredible things. But if we disobey a command which says we are to give thanks in everything, we are to rejoice always, we are to praise his glorious name and God gives us that command repeatedly all throughout the scriptures. If we don't do that, then we will not receive a further understanding of who God is and therefore our convictions about him will become very, very weak.

But not Daniel, not Job, not Paul, not those heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. No, their convictions were shaped and strengthened and then solidified because they were people of praise. So what is the purpose of praise? Number one, it fulfills a command from God.

Number two, it furthers our consciousness of God. Number three, it forges our convictions about God. Once it does that, it just fuels our commitment to God, it fuels our commitment to God.

It's almost like our commitment is set ablaze with passion, with drive. And so our commitment to God never wavers, never goes by the wayside simply because we understand who our God is. We shared with you Acts 16 about Paul and Silas when they're in prison.

Paul and Silas were men of praise. They fulfilled the commandment from God. Thus furthering their consciousness of God, thus forging their convictions about this God they served only fueled their commitment while they were in prison to praise and to pray to their God without ever knowing they would be set free from the shackles that enraptured them.

Same is true with the apostles of Acts chapter 5. They were men of praise. Read Acts 2, the early church gathered together and they praised God daily.

They were a people of praise. They understood that they were on this pathway that was all about praise. They understood the priority of praise and they understood the prerequisites to praise and they completely understood that they were a people of praise that had been formed by God for his glory and for his honor that they would declare his praise.

They understood that. They understood that praise was befitting, becoming, beautifying their lives. They understood that.

They praised God daily. So when they were flogged and beaten, all they did was rejoice because their convictions had already been forged. It just fueled their commitment all the more to keep on preaching the word even though they were beaten because they did.

What a great testimony. If you got your Bible, turn with me for a moment to John's gospel, the 6th chapter. Giving thanks to God truly fuels your commitment.

We're gonna use Jesus as the illustration because he was committed to doing the Father's will, was he not? And in John chapter 6, you have the feeding of the 5,000. It's the only miracle in the Bible outside of the resurrection that's recorded in all four gospels. And so there's a reason why Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John recorded this miracle.

Yes, it's because they were under the inspiration of God and yes, they were obedient to God, but yet if it's repeated four times and the only miracle that is, it must be significant. It must be important to understand. We must grasp the meaning of this marvelous meal that was beyond anything we could ever understand because he only counted the men in those days.

So it's 5,000 men not counting their wives and not counting their children. And Jewish families tended to be large families, not small families. So you're thinking somewhere between 20 to 25,000 people, a lot of people.

And they come to the end of the day and Christ asks a question. He asks a question to all the men, but he specifically asks Philip because Philip is from Bethsaida and the feeding of the 5,000 takes place in Bethsaida. And he asks a question not because the Lord is looking for information.

Our Lord doesn't need any information. There's nothing he doesn't know. So when the Lord asks a question, it's not for his information.

It's for your illumination. So you will understand. So you will grasp what it is God is doing.

And he asks the question for the purpose of examination because he was going to test his men. They had been with him and seen him perform many, many miracles. So when he asked the question, verse number 5, where are we to buy bread so that these may eat? He's thinking now that they've seen the miracles.

There's no reason to doubt that God can do whatever he wants to do. But instead, they begin to think through things logically, rationally, humanly. He asked Philip because he's from Bethsaida and maybe he knows about all the rest of it.

Maybe he knows about the restaurants in Bethsaida. Maybe he knows about fast food places that are open after dark in Bethsaida. Maybe Philip knows the place, the location where there will be enough food to feed 25,000 people.

But the answer given by Philip is 200 denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them for everyone to receive even a little. A denarii was one day's wage. 200 days wages is not nearly enough to feed all the people.

They're thinking in terms of pennies, but they're not thinking in terms of power. They're thinking from a logical perspective. None of the money.

Andrew finds a lad with a couple of fishes and a few loaves of bread, brings them to the Lord. It's all we got, we don't have anything else. So listen to what the Lord says in verse number 6.

This he was saying to test them, for he himself knew what he was intending to do. That little phrase is enormous. He tests them, he gives them an examination because he wants to know where they are with their perception of God.

He wants to know what they're thinking about what God can do, but they're not thinking about what God can do. They're thinking about what they can do. And yet that little phrase speaks volumes as to our relationship with the Lord because the Lord always knows what he intends to do with your situation.

He's got a plan. He knows what he's gonna do amidst your difficulty, amidst your pain, because he has a plan. But he also knew not just what he intended to do at that moment, but he knew what he intended to do for the salvation of lost souls.

He knew what he intended to do. Because if you read, go down to verse number 11, it says, Jesus then took the loaves and having given thanks. I would have loved to have been there to hear the prayer of thanksgiving that God would give there on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee, the little village called Bethsaida, with 25,000 people around.

I wonder what the prayer of thanksgiving sounded like coming from the lips of the Son of God. The bible doesn’t tell us. It's just that he took the bread and he gave thanks.

I really truly believe that it fueled his commitment to fulfill the Father's will. Because later on in John 6, he would end up talking about bread from heaven, that he was the man that came down out of heaven, that he was actually the bread of life, knowing that he would sacrifice his life. And then on the eve of the crucifixion, he would take the bread, he would break the bread, he would give thanks for the bread, which was representative of his body and said, this bread is my body, which is given for you.

You do this in remembrance of me. So you go back to John chapter 6, and this prayer of giving thanks goes way beyond thanking the Lord for some fishes and some bread that he was gonna multiply over and over again. I mean, actually, just think about it.

He could've just said, bread for everyone, and they all would've had bread. Bread, fish for everyone, and they all could've had fish. But that's not what he did.

He gave this instruction for his men to set them down into groups of 50 and 100. And then they would come back to him, they would receive fish and bread, they would take it to those groups, come back, receive more fish and bread, take it to the next group, come back, receive more fish and bread, and they just kept doing it over and over and over again. And they only had just a few fishes and bread to begin with.

But God was using these men in an exercise that would help fuel their faith and their commitment to God to give thanks for all that he does and how he provides because he's a great provider of man. And when it was all said and done, they had 12 baskets full of bread and fish. And the word for basket in John 6 is kofinos, which were little coffin-like baskets that would keep their food for the day.

And God was showing them that they would have food for their meal on the next day. And God was giving thanks because he was doing something miraculous among them. But he was giving thanks because it just fueled more his commitment to God to be the bread of life for the souls of lost men and women.

That was his aspiration, that was his passion, that was his dream, that's what he wanted to do. And this miracle, which is huge in terms of its numbers, was a small way of him exemplifying the fact that he was the bread of life and that he would supply the needs for man way beyond what he could ever imagine because he was a God who truly cares for his people. He took the bread, he gave thanks.

And what he said in that prayer of thanksgiving is not recorded. But the implications of that prayer are absolutely huge because in all reality, he was teaching his men a very marvelous lesson. In praise and thanksgiving.

Because the very next scene is a scene where Christ would send his men out in the boat and he himself would go up into a mountain to pray. And they would find themselves fearing for their lives amidst a huge and great storm. And Christ would begin walking on the water to meet his men.

And having gotten into the boat, he would calm the waters. And Mark's account tells us that the disciples were astonished. But it also tells us this.

Mark 6, verse number 51. It says, or excuse me, verse number 52. They were utterly astonished for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their hearts were hardened, cold, and calloused.

You see, it's imperative that you learn from the feeding of the 5,000. There's a reason it's in every gospel. And it's the only miracle repeated in all the gospels that Christ himself performed.

Because if you don't learn about the incident from the loaves, you're not gonna make it when tough times come. Because if you don't trust God for your daily provisions, you will not be able to trust God amidst difficult situations. In other words, you must learn to give praise and thanksgiving to God, no matter what the situation.

Even in the midst of a boat, on the sea, when it looks like you're about to lose your life, they struggled at the oars. They tried to protect and preserve their life instead of pray and praise to the one who is the protector and preserver of their lives. So important.

The purpose of praise, it truly fulfills a commandment from God. It helps us understand who God is, once we understand who God is, we are truly convicted about living for him. And that conviction leads to a lifelong commitment that's unreserved in serving our God.

As you journey, as we journey on the pathway of praise, may we understand the purpose of praise for each of us, let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for today and all that you do. Lord, you are a great God.

You go way beyond we could ever imagine. You truly, truly want us to see who you are. You just simply say, obey me.

I will disclose myself to you. You'll be able to see me in all of my splendor and all of my glory. Once you see me, you'll be convicted like never before.

And your commitment will never wane in your service of the king. Lord, go before us. You know what's happening in each person's life personally.

You know what's going on in their family, at work, at school. You know what they're facing on this day. May they, on their journey along this pathway, learn to praise you all the more, more so now than ever before, because you are the one who protects and preserves their lives.

In Jesus' name, amen.