Reasons Why I Shabach the Lord

0:22 and growing up as a teen, I didn't quite know how to do it. If you don't know how to deal with discouragement and depression in God's way, it can have a devastating impact on your life. It can impact your decisions. It can impact your relationships. It can impact your own sanity. and I want to give you a I want to talk today from a passage that God gave me years ago to help me deal with my depression and I believe it will help some of y'all whether you know it or not somebody on your road is struggling with depression don't look up and down you might send them into further depression don't look up and down the road God does have solutions and answers.

1:22 And Psalm 147, that's what I want you to turn to today. Psalm 147 is a passage that God used to help me. And that's what I want to talk with you about today. Amen. Psalm 147. And since I've got, this is one of those passages that help deliver me from the slump of discouragement from being emotionally, mentally, physically drained, because life has a way of sapping your strength. When you look at those bills and you ain't got the money, that's discouraging. Look at your relationships when your children don't do what you want them to do. When you know you taught them right. The You teach them one thing and they do the very opposite of what you told them to do.

2:25 Your health, your health can depress you when you get sick, when you have, I have, I have diabetes, high blood pressure. I take 12 pills every day. Don't matter how much I walk, exercise, try to eat right. It's a struggle. And if you look at the circumstances of your life and only focus on that, it will make you get depressed. Do I have any witnesses here today? I believe God wants to raise up a generation for us not to be controlled by depression or discouragement. So Psalm 147, I want to walk down through here and talk about.

3:21 Matter of fact, God gave me Psalm 147 and spoke to me and helped me learn how to give him praise. One of the signs of maturity is when you can learn how to worship and give God praise. Don't clap yet. Don't clap till I say it. Just wait.

3:45 Yeah, now I forgot what I was about to say. Oh yeah, when you can learn to worship God, even when everything around you is haywire and jacked up, when you can genuinely, from the bottom of your heart, give God praise.

4:13 And I'm thankful to God that he has brought me to a place in my life that regardless of what is happening on the outside, God has given me something on the inside to do with the people. My oldest child, my oldest daughter, my wife's not oldest daughter. I won't call Sarah by name. I won't call her name out. When she graduated from college, she got a job in Florida. So my wife and I made arrangements to help her get that, help her move to Florida, got her apartment and furniture and we helped her get settled in and she got it she had a job and and we took the time went out and helped you you know get everything set my wife is the the consummate interior decorator yeah she's good at that that she should she she should go and start a company and start making some money from it.

5:21 And so when we got all set in now, now we're going to the airport and we're headed back to Maryland. Here's what she said to us. Bye. I had expectations that she might say, Mom and Dad, thank you all for taking out the time. Thank you for helping me get settled in. Thank you for the resources. Thank you for taking me shopping. Thank you for the furniture that y'all bought for me. Thank you for all that y'all did to help me get settled in another part of the country. thank you for helping me. Is that what she said? No. She said, bye.

6:16 If the truth be told, some of you have had God do spectacular things for you, and you've never taken the time to say thank you for opening up doors. Thank you for the job that you gave me. Thank you for healing me from sickness and diseases. Thank you for all that you've done for me. You didn't say anything to him. Don't you think God is worthy of some kind of expression of gratitude? He didn't have to do it. Somebody ought to say, I'm thankful that God blessed me even though I didn't deserve it. I didn't earn it. He didn't give me what I earned. I didn't deserve the blessing that he gave me. I didn't deserve it. God wants to raise us up to be a people who have the ability and the capacity to worship him for the things he has done. And hold up.

7:11 Wait a minute. I got to say something else. And to thank him ahead of time for the stuff he's going to do. that would be meaningful to God. And so I want to spend these next few moments. Psalm 47, help me. It's 147. That's the passage I want to talk to you about today. Psalm 147. I'm titling this message, The Reason Why I Shabbat the Lord.

7:41 Help me give you that explanation. Somebody say, The Reason Why I Shabbat the Lord. The word Shabbat, this is, if you look at Psalm 147, verse 12, verse 12, it says, Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise your God, O Zion. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise your God, O Zion. That word, that first word praise is the Hebrew word Shabbat. And that word Shabbat in the Hebrew word means to make a loud noise unto God. It means to open your mouth, clap your hands, make some kind of an expression and some kind of noise to the God that we serve. Matter of fact, it says, praise your God, Zion. I like that verse right there. I like that expression there.

8:34 Here's what that means. It says, oh, Zion. Zion is the place where God dwells. Zion is the location of God's holy city. That's what Zion means. Zion means this represents being in God's perfect will. And here's what I'm learning. I'm learning that whether you are in Jerusalem or Zion, whether you're on your way to Zion or whether you've arrived at Zion, Jerusalem means I'm on my way somewhere. Whether I've gotten to where I'm going or whether I've gotten there already, God is worthy of some kind of expression from you to give him glory. And that's just why I'm giving God the praise. Here's what I'm trying to get you to understand. regardless of the drama that you might be in, regardless of the circumstances that you might face, regardless of the burden, regardless if nothing's going the way you want it, regardless of what your circumstances might look like, we serve a God who is worthy of us giving him praise and giving him celebrations.

9:30 Guess what? Because even if you're not there yet, you're on your way to get there. Do I have anybody here that believes I'm on my way? I ain't got there yet, but I'm on my way. I haven't arrived yet, but I'm on my way. Amen. And I know sooner or later, ultimately, somehow, someway, the God that I serve is so real and so alive and so vibrant. At some point in the midst of my circumstances, he's going to get me to being in his perfect will for my life. And he's been so good to me over the years that I don't have to wait until I get there. I can go ahead and praise him even before I arrive. Can I get an amen right there from anybody? That's what God, here's the measurement, here's the evaluation of spiritual maturity.

10:33 That you can worship and give God praise even when things are not going the way you were. that's how you know you've arrived to some level of maturity if you still complaining and still moping uh your capacity to worship and praise god um uh i was talking to my that same daughter She's a basketball coach. She coaches basketball. She's a college head coach of a college basketball team, and they ain't doing too good right now. She's complaining and sad. They're not doing well. So I said to her on the phone yesterday before her. They had a game yesterday. And I said to her, let me tell you what real drama is. If you're complaining because your team ain't winning.

11:31 Let me tell you about my prayer partner, one of my prayer partners. I got multiple prayer partners. And I have a prayer partner whose wife has been sick with an incurable disease that she doesn't even want to get up every day for over 30 years. For over 30 years, she's fighting and wrestling sickness and a disease that cannot be cured. And just one year ago, their daughter, this guy's daughter, was overseas and got sick and had to come back to the United States. And when she got back to the United States, the doctors discovered what it was. They didn't know what it was for a long time. She, too, has a disease. He said, she's in so much pain and so much frustration and disappointment that she doesn't even want to live. And I said to my daughter, I said, you complaining because your basketball team won't do what you want to do.

12:28 Let me tell you what something really is something worth. And yet this guy, in the midst of the pain of his wife and his daughter, gives God the praise every day. So I'm going to give you four reasons why I'm learning to praise the Lord to help pull me up out of my depression every day. Four things I want to tell you. And guess what? I made it easy. They all begin with P. Go ahead, Pastor. All of my points that I am presenting to you during this presentation begin with a P. Go ahead. Praise the Lord. Say, thank God they all begin with P. Here's what verse 12. I just read verse 12.

13:20 Do you praise the Lord, O Jerusalem? Praise your God, O Zion. I love that right there. Verse 13. For he has strengthened, verse 13, for he has strengthened the bars of your gates. He has strengthened the bars of your gates. Here's something to praise God for, is for his protection. Verse 13, first part of verse 13. He's protecting you. I don't know whether you know it or not, but life could be a lot worse for you than it is. And somebody ought to give God the praise. He's protecting you. I should have died from cancer, but he protected me. I wish I could, somebody could give God the praise. I should have lost my job, but he protected me. I'm giving God the praise that he is a, he, he put, somebody said, don't you know the devil wants to frustrate you, defeat you, harm you.

14:18 He wants you to quit. He wants you to lose everything you have. But I'm thanking God today that he did not let the enemy do to me what he desired to do to me. He protected me. Will anybody here know God is a protector? Anybody here knows no weapon formed against you can prosper? Somebody give God the praise. He protected me. Thank him that he kept you on your side of the highway and the other person on their side of the highway. He protected you. You should have had a disease that should have taken you out, but he protected you. I want us to recognize that we serve a God that is a protector of you. I'm thanking God that he protected me from stuff that I didn't even know that I had should the risk of having happen to me, but he protected me.

15:13 He strengthened the bars of your gates. That means protection.

15:34 The devil can't harm you. The devil can't do anything to you that God does not allow him to do to you. And that's enough just to shout about right there. Somebody look at your neighbor and say, you deserve to give God more praise than you're giving him. But look, look, look, look.

15:57 You ought to be thanking God because something could have happened to you that didn't happen to you. He deserves some praise from you. He deserves more than a bye. He deserves more than a nod. He deserves some hands being raised. He deserves some mouth being opened. He deserves a dance. He deserves some celebration. Thank you that you have protected me. Somebody say protection, protection, protection. I gotta hurry up. Here's number two.

16:55 It's in verse 13 too. He has blessed your children within you. I'm about to run around the building right here on this point right here. He has protected the children within you. Y'all see, y'all don't get it. Let me give y'all some explanation. Let me make you understand what this means. He says, he's protected the children within you. Now get this. Here it is. Here it is. here's where the blessings of God folds out. This is what God, here's what our community has not yet learned. And let me try to make you learn this. Because I say it to y'all all the time, but y'all don't, I don't know if y'all get it.

17:46 I'm questioning whether you get it. Because here's what God is trying to tell us. God is saying, I got a reward for the children coming out of you. It still went over y'all head. Let me rewind and give it back to you. Because what God is ultimately saying is, what I'm doing is I'm setting up stuff for the children to have not yet even come out of you yet.

18:13 And I know what that means. What God has made me to understand is that he has a reward and a blessing for my grandchildren. Y'all ain't hear what I'm saying. Somebody say my grandchildren. You know what's wrong with this culture? We spend so much time taking the resources God has given to us and spending it on us when God gave it to you, not for us, but for your children's children. I want y'all to get that. You need to understand what God flows through you, what God puts in your hand is not for you to buy a fancier car or a bigger house or spend more money on more expensive of clothes. God gave it to you that you might be pouring into your grandchildren. Don't you know that your children, most of y'all children are grown. Y'all got grown, rockhead kids.

19:07 It ain't for your kids, it's for your children's children. Proverbs 13, 13, Proverbs chapter 13 says, a good man will put his inheritance in his children's children. Thank you. My wife got that. She got it. She got it. She understands it. She's just as, you know, y'all know I'm retiring in three years, right? Don't act like y'all don't know. I've been telling y'all that.

19:43 And we're trying to figure out where we're going to move because we downsizing. There ain't no need of me holding on to no house. My house got six bedrooms in it because we got six kids. Amen. They gone. They have graduated from college. They got jobs. They are able to take care of themselves. My responsibility is to help my children raise their children. Are y'all with me y'all? The claps are getting lower and lower and lower. So I'm telling my wife, it's time for us to sell this house. We don't need no six bedrooms.

20:38 She said, you're going to have a big room and I'm going to have a big room. The answer is no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, whatever room you're going in, I'm coming right to whatever room you are. I'm trying to find some warm climate to move in. I'm trying to get somewhere where there ain't no snow, ain't no 30 degree weather. She says, I don't want to be far from the grandchildren. Then she started quoting scripture, for a good man inheritance is in his children's children.

21:35 And she's right. I want to try to pull you away from the mentality that your retirement years and the older years you're in, that you're only taking care of yourself. You should be pouring into your children's children. See, here's the difference between the 8 o'clock and the 10 o'clock crowd. The 8 o'clock crowd stood up and clapped.

22:14 They were so excited. That's the old crowd. This 10 o'clock, y'all still wrestling with it because y'all didn't, not a single one of y'all stood up to say that. And yet it's children. But I'm telling you, here's point two. Point two is I'm praising the Lord and shebaking the Lord because he gave me children. He gave me products. I have the opportunity to bless the product that God has put within me that's coming out from me. Some of them haven't even come yet, but God has anointed me and given me resources to be a blessing to my children's children. See how the claps are getting lower and lower? Because you're only concerned about yourself. But that's not the call of God. The call of the Lord is I'm Shabbat-ing God because he's given me resources to bless my children.

23:12 Look what your neighbor say, products. And I see God blessing my kids. All my kids are doing well. Every last one of them. All six of them are doing good. I got six kids. My son Jimmy is here today. He got a string of projects. Projects. We're working on a movie now called God With Us.

23:53 Look. It is a modern presentation of if Jesus came today. And the other day, my wife and I, he was over at the house. He said, let me show you a little bit of the movie. We watched about 30 minutes of it. It's wonderful. It's great, excellent. It's a professional production. and I'm super proud of how God's using him he ain't got no kids yet thank God because he ain't he ain't married praise the Lord he ain't got no kids yet but he he working on it he working on getting married he working on having a wife he's working on having a family and he gonna get there Amen. And we already got something stored up for his children and children that haven't even come yet.

24:52 Y'all hear what I'm saying? Do y'all hear what I'm saying? Do you get it? What am I telling you? Tell your neighbor what I'm trying to get you to do. Tell them, go ahead. I don't know what they told you, but I hope they told you the right thing. The scripture says he has blessed your children within you. God's already got something lined up for your children in you. And I'm praising him for that. here's number three I got four I'm almost finished I got seven minutes to give you these other two verse 14 he makes peace in your borders here's point three God gives you peace I want to shout right here for just a moment here's what that means this is this is something worthy of celebrating. I'm giving God thanks and glory and praise because here's what that means. Regardless of what's happening around you, God gives you the capacity to have peace within.

26:17 All hell breaking loose on the outside, but I got peace inside. The president has bombed Iran, but I ain't worried about it. I got peace within. I serve a God that regardless of what the circumstances are, he got my back. He got me covered. Y'all ain't hear what I'm saying to you today. We can give God praise even though the world has all kind of anxiety and all kind of hell breaking loose and the economy is crazy and money is getting changing and weak and all that kind of stuff. God has given me deep down inside the comfort and the peace to know that he got me covered. And he has you covered. and he's got you that you don't have to be stressed out. You don't have to be worried. You don't have to be fearful. God will give you peace. Who am I preaching to today?

27:10 That devil's trying to make you think you ain't got no money to pay your bills. He wants you to think a war is going to break out. He got you thinking all kinds of stuff is happening, but I'm here to tell you that according to the scripture in Psalm 147, he gives you peace within your borders. Somebody hallelujah, say hallelujah. Somebody give God the praise that he got my back. He got me covered. He's given me safety. I'm safe. Safe in the arms of Jesus. Safe in his arms. He got his arms around you and around me. I'm safe. I'm safe. Somebody high five your neighbor, tell them I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe. I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe.

28:11 Amen, I ain't worried about nothing at all. No weapon formed against me can prosper. I'm safe. He won't allow the wars of life to destroy me. I'm safe. I'm complete in my borders. Here's my final point. Point number four. Y'all got the first point? Yes. What was that? Yes. Number two? No. Number three? Yes. Number four? Yes. Let's see. Some of y'all was at the earliest service. Verse 14, the latter part says, and fills you with the finest wheat. He makes peace in your borders and fills you with the finest wheat.

29:07 That represents provision. Somebody say provision. He makes provisions. He's got you covered. He gives you the best. Amen. Amen. Y'all stop worrying about, stop being stressed out about having a food. Amen. Here's what I know about God. God always makes a way out of nowhere. God always provides. Somebody say amen. Stop being worried that you ain't going to have no provision. You're going to be taken care of. You're going to have some food in your cupboard somewhere. God is going to provide for you. That took a whole lot of stress off of me. It made me not worry because God said, I'm going to fill your barns with wheat. And guess what?

30:02 Here's what the Scripture says. I've never seen the righteous forsaken. Or his seed. That was somebody who knew the Scripture. Or his seed. Begging bread. I'm not begging. I got food. He keeps feeding me. Come on, somebody. I got food. He's taking care of me. He's nurturing me. And guess what? Here's what I know about God. Let me preach to this section right here for just a section. I feel tension over here with some of y'all like you worried about whether you're going to have some food. You're going to have some food. If God don't give you food, it means you need to go on a diet. Go ahead. Tell yourself. Do that again. Do it one more time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

31:01 He's going to put food on your table. But here's where I am. I'm finished. I'm bringing my plane in for a landing. I'm concluding this message. I'm closing the dishwasher.