Give him some praise! Come on, you can do better than that. Give him some praise, thank him for his presence. Somebody just say, "Thank you, Lord, for your presence." Look at somebody, look at your neighbor and say, "I'm thanking him that he showed up tonight." If they don't listen to you, look at your other neighbor and say, "They're not listening, but I'm thankful that he's showing up tonight to meet with us in this house. Amen."
There's a lot of people that can come through and preach and sing, but if God doesn't show up, we're just out here making a bunch of noise. So, thank God for his presence. His presence is where we find everything that our soul longs for, everything that our spirit needs, and everything that our flesh doesn't want. Amen.
Your flesh will be the one thing that says no to God's spirit. That's why Paul said there's a war going on in your flesh between your flesh and your spirit, and it's warring all the time. I may feel you; I remember you feel like you're in a constant battle sometimes, and you should feel that way. There's a constant battle for your soul between your spirit and your flesh, and the one that wins is the one that you feed the most. If you feed the flesh the most, the flesh will get the better of you. The flesh can change your mindset. The spirit wants to change your mindset, but the flesh is fighting for control of your soulless realm, which is your mind, your will, and your emotions.
I want to talk to you tonight about a missing identity that I feel like is missing in the church today, not just in a corporate way but in our individual lives. Because we're so inundated with data every day, I talked to you back a month or so ago about how fast knowledge velocity channels the earth now. Every 13 hours, news or some type of picture, a photo, or something on social media circles the globe in about 13 hours. That's quick. That means what you know in the morning could change by the time you get home that night from your day; it had circled the globe that fast. So, we're being inundated with data, data, data, data. We're being inundated with, "You need this, you need that, you need the newest this, you need to plug into this, no, you need to be on this diet, no you need to be on that diet, you need to have this type of insurance, you need to have this, you need to watch this type of TV show, you need to wear this kind of clothes." And everything is trying to get you to process information, information that will either feed your flesh or feed your spirit.
So, the missing identity that we have in the church today, the thing that the devil wants to attack in the church today, is our identity. He wants to take away the very thing that identifies us and separates us from everybody else. We're going to go to Acts chapter 16, verse 22. This is a familiar story; most of you even know this story. The crowd rose up together against them, them being Paul and Silas, and the chief magistrate tore their robes off of them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods.
The first thing that they do when Paul and Silas begin to preach the word, and they had just cast out a demon out of a fortune teller who was going around saying, "This is, we need to praise the God whom Paul preaches." And he called her out and he said, "You don't know who we are and we don't know who you are." And he told that demonic spirit to come out of her. And when she got set free, it upset some people in the town that were making money off of her. So, they went to the magistrates and they said, "If you want the tax money that you get off of our fortune-telling business, you need to do something to these guys that are preaching against it."
And the first thing that they did is they tried to take their identity. They took their robes. They were identified; people in the biblical days were identified by the garment that they wore. So, the first thing that the enemy wants to do in society, wants to do to the church, is to try to strip us of our identity.
I want to say this scripture to you tonight, and Tara told you a little bit about what I'm going to talk about. You have to put on a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness. There is nothing in that scripture that says God is going to put a garment on you because you feel heaviness. This is an action that happens when the devil tries to take your identity. You have to choose to take your identity back. You have to choose every day to take your identity back. You have to choose to put on a garment of praise, even though you feel a spirit of heaviness.
What does that mean? Your praise is not always going to feel like praise. You're not always going to have a reason to praise. Listen to this statement: if your praise is attached to your gratitude, when your gratitude runs out, so does your praise. If your praise is attached to your gratitude, the thing that you're thankful for, eventually your flesh is not going to be thankful anymore, and your praise will leave you. If it's attached to your gratitude, so when you begin to praise God in the middle of your circumstances, sometimes you're going to praise God when it looks like the devil is trying to take your very identity. It's going to look like the devil is trying to rob you of things in an intimate way. Where our identity to the world is the most intimate thing that we have to show them. We can show them signs, we can show them wonders, we can show them what we can do corporately. But when you get out in the world today, your identity in God is what the world is looking for, who you are in God.
So when the Bible says put on a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness, he didn't say when you feel the heaviness, go then get excited about it and start praising. Pray, start praising me. What he said was, when you have the spirit of heaviness, grab a garment of praise and put it on. Because when you have praise on, heaviness can't rest on you at the same time. Amen? If you agree, say Amen.
When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely. And he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. Now watch this, their situation goes from bad to worse. They're not only told to be put into prison, but the guard takes it upon himself to attack them even more, and says, "If you want them locked up, I'll lock them in the inner prison."
How many of you know that if the devil is going to attack you today, he's not going to just attack one thing at one time, but he's going to bring multiple things at multiple times? The devil's not strong enough to fight against the spirit of God in you when he stands one-on-one, so what he tries to do is he tries to make us feel outnumbered. He tries to make us feel like you're the only one that's going through what you're going through. Because the devil wants you to believe that if he can isolate you, you're the only one that's getting hit.
Look at what Paul and Silas are going through. They've been hit by the magistrates, they've been beaten with rods by the ones that come where they were commanded to beat them with rods. Now they're thrown into not just prison, but the inner prison, and now they got stocks on their feet. If you start to look at everybody that's coming against them, they ain't got a friend in the world. But when God begins to move on your behalf, the devil will always come to try to make you feel like you can't win because you're being attacked from every side that you look at.
So, what the Lord wants to say to you tonight is this: when you feel like there's no way out, when you feel like there's nowhere for you to turn, it's time for you to start praising. It's a prime opportunity for you to start praising, not when you feel thankful. The Bible says, "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise." The key to you entering into the court where God can touch you is praise. It's not in the moment that you feel thankful for what God has done for you; it's that you know that you can praise God because of what you know He's going to do for you.
Come on, somebody. If your faith is clapping, clap. Because if you can thank God for what you know He can do for you, you have taken your praise and turned it into faith. Because now you're praising and now you're confusing the enemy. Because the enemy says, "I've got you locked up after you beat, I've had you arrested, I've had you locked up, I've had you put in the inner prison, and I still can't shut your mouth up!" If you let the devil take the praise out of your mouth, you are giving up the fight before the fight even starts. Don't let the devil shut you up. Don't let him make you be quiet. When you feel like you are backed into a corner, lift both of your hands up and say, "Now is the time for me to praise!" Now is the time for me to praise. Why? Because I feel like I'm backed into a corner. I feel like relationships ain't working out. I feel like something is being taken from me. So, what does God want to do? He wants you to enter in closer to Him. As your praise becomes your faith.
I've had to praise God in some times when I didn't have anything to praise for. How many of you know that's the best time to praise? Is when you don't have anything to praise for? Again, it confuses your enemy. Your enemy doesn't know what to do. The tactics ain't working anymore.
So here's what happened. They're locked up in stocks, but about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Now watch this. I feel like it's very important that around midnight, they begin to sing. Because Paul knew this, his mercy endures forever, and his mercies are renewed every morning. He's getting close to the new day. I could just see Paul saying, "You know what? This has been one of the worst days I've ever had. But guess what? There's hope because there's a tomorrow. I don't care how bad your yesterday was or your today was. God is still the God of tomorrow. You might have blown it today. You might have missed it today. But God says you ain't got to miss it tomorrow because when the new day comes, his grace and mercy abounds much more.
So when the sun begins to rise, even in this Earth, the sun is rising in your life. And Paul said, "There's a new day dawning for me. And this is the day that the Lord has made. He said, "I'm going to rejoice and be glad in it. I'm going to sing hymns of praise." And guess what? He wasn't quiet about it. The Bible says the other prisoners began to hear them.
Now, if you had been stripped of your identity, beaten with rods, thrown into the inner prison, had your feet locked up, and probably not given anything to eat or anything to drink, you would probably not want to make anybody else mad. But Paul and Silas said, "I don't care if my praise makes you mad. Because I'm not praising to you anyway."
Watch this. If the devil can convince you that your praise has an effect on anybody but God, he can rob you of the praise out of your heart. Your praise ain't for your enemy. Your praise ain't for your wife. Your praise ain't for your friends. Your praise ain't for your parents. Your praise ain't for your kids. Your praise is to lift up the mighty name of Jesus that said, "Every tongue will confess that He is Lord." It's not about you. It's not about anybody else. Your praise is to glorify God. And if somebody happens to hear your praise, they're just benefiting from the victory that God is activating in your life.
So stop thinking that your praise has to do with somebody watching you during praise and worship when you're at church. If they're watching you, they're not praising. And most of the time I'm about to say something, you think you're that important that when you come to church, we're all watching you? Do you think you're that important that when you come into church and you think everybody is watching you lift your hands? Guess what? They ain't watching you lift your hands. They're looking at somebody that's got their hands already lifted. They're looking at the one that they're lifting their hands for. Ain't nobody concerned about you. We're here praising you. We're here worshiping you.
So stop thinking that everybody's watching you and how you worship and how you praise because we're not watching you. But if the devil can convince you and I and other people around you that everybody's watching you, then he can handicap us to keep us from praising. I hate to tell you this: God loves you, but I don't love you that much. I love you on that one.
What are you saying, Pastor Terry? I don't love you enough to praise you, and I don't love you enough to let you steal my praise. Come on, I don't love you enough to steal my praise. If we came in and said, "My identity is going to be fastened in my praise," and I don't care who hears it. Maybe your praise is what's going to set somebody else's praise off. Maybe your praise is the breakthrough that not you're looking for, but the breakthrough that somebody beside you is looking for. Because they may very well say, "If they can praise and I know what they've been through, I can praise God too."
You never know when the chains that you are breaking might not be the chains that you're carrying. It may be the chains that somebody else needs broke off their life. So, my praise can't be attached to my gratitude. Because if my gratitude runs out, so does my praise. So, when I come in, I'm not always going to be thankful. I'm not always going to feel grateful. Sometimes I'm going to have to just praise because I know that's what I'm supposed to do.
When you don't know anything to do, just praise. Lift his name up. He said, "If I be lifted up, I'll draw all men to me." You know what? That's an uncertainty for us as pastors and leaders, because it's not our job to put people in seats. It's our job to lift up the name of Jesus. When we lift up the name of Jesus in spirit and in truth, God will draw people to him. You won't have to worry about if somebody's going to show up at church. If you're looking to lift up the name of Jesus, people will come.
Here's one thing I want to challenge you with tonight, and I hope you do it. And I hope you do it not just because I'm challenging you, but because the Holy Spirit challenges you. When we get on Facebook and we read news feeds, we see what people have done, what they're bragging about, their kids in school, they're bragging about something that happened at work, or they're talking about what they had for dinner, they're talking about what restaurant they went to or what movie they went and saw. But you know what we should be posting about? If God does something for you when you're in church, blast it all over Facebook and tag as many people as you can. Why? Because you're praising God in that news feed.
Somebody's going to ask you, "Where do you go to church?" Somebody, if you praise every day on Facebook, somebody's eventually going to say, "Hey, where do you go to church?" "Where are you getting this real joy from?" "I go to the Tabernacle Church." I'm not telling you not to put the Tabernacle on there. What I'm saying is, I'm more concerned about you giving glory to God and letting God be lifted up. And then people are going to gravitate to your life. It's like a magnet.
So why can we take the time to post about everything in the world that's going on in our life but fail to tell people what God is doing in our church? I better move on. I feel some of y'all looking right through me.
Suddenly, there came a great earthquake, so that the foundation of the prison house was shaken, and immediately, all the doors were opened. And everyone's chains were unfastened. God sends an earthquake because the enemy tried to lock up their feet. God could have used anything, but God will always counter-attack what the devil is trying to put in bondage.
When you begin to praise God and it brings your identity back to what God has called you, the very things in your life that at one time were throwing you in prison, that were beating you with rods, that were shackling your feet up, now all of a sudden, that same thing is washing the wounds of your life away. The very attack that the enemy tries to use against you, your praise turns it around as a weapon in the hands of a mighty God.
Is somebody getting excited tonight? Because your praise will activate miracles out of what the enemy thought was going to destroy you. The very same jailer that was called to lock them up and put them in bondage was the same jailer that now is attending to the wounds that the stocks made on their feet. He's attending to the wounds that the rods made on their back. That thing that used to weigh you down becomes the thing that becomes a servant to what God is wanting to do in your life.
Because your praise can activate things that the enemy thought were going to destroy you, but will actually bring healing to you. Ever had a hard time forgiving somebody for something? You don't have to point them out. When we have a hard time forgiving somebody, it's in the act of forgiveness that we find healing. Why is that? Because we never thought that we would ever forgive that person for the hurt. Maybe you've been hurt by somebody that you need to forgive.
Every time you try to praise, the devil tries to bring condemnation about that into your life. The devil tries to bring something that tries to keep you in bondage. When you begin to praise and you begin to turn those things over to God and all of a sudden you realize when you begin to forgive somebody, that relationship that was broken in your life all of a sudden becomes the thing God uses to heal. It becomes the testimony. It becomes your identity.
At the end of this story, Paul and Silas are greater in their ministry than they were when they started. That doesn't make sense in the natural mind because they've been arrested. They've been falsely accused. They've been thrown into prison. They've been beaten. They've been locked up, even in the inner courts. And then they had to survive an earthquake.
Imagine sitting in a jail cell and that earthquake comes so powerful that it knocks the doors open. It takes the shackles off of their feet. Don't you think for one minute that there was stuff falling around them, that there was walls moving and shifting? It didn't look like God was setting them free. It looked like everything was getting worse. And at the moment that you think everything is getting worse and your praise becomes active in your life, all of a sudden, the very thing that God is using to break you through is the thing that gets everybody else's attention.
And when it gets their attention, what you think is, "My day's getting worse," God says, "I'm bringing it back to make it better than it was when you started." Why? Because your faith is activated in your praise. Your praise has power to do things that you don't realize that you can do.
I love to say it this way, when your hands are lifted in surrender to God, to praise Him, to worship Him, it's you surrendering and saying, "God, I give up. I give up trying to do it my way. I give up trying to figure it out. I give up trying to make things happen. God, I'm just going to lift my hands up and say, 'I praise you.'" Because I'm going to praise you. If they lock me up, I'm going to praise you. If they beat me, I'm going to praise you. If I get my legs put into stocks, I'm going to praise you. If it seems like everything around me is falling in on me, in that moment is when God wants to show up and reaffirm to you your identity in Him.
Your identity is what the world is looking for. Everything in our life right now, our world, our society, has lost its ever-loving mind. I'm just going to, y'all know that when you watch the news, you are dumbfounded. They're reporting the things that they're reporting. I believe our society is at the craziest point it's ever been in. Before, to the point where you almost have to question, is this real? And are they really saying what I hear they're saying? Yes, they are.
And let me know why the biggest reason is, not because the Bible predicts it's going to happen in the end time, that stuff's got to take care of itself. It's because the church has lost its praise. The church has lost its ability to praise God in the middle of a storm. We've lost our identity and our praise. We have allowed the world to rob us of the robe that God said, "I want you to put on."
Why? You have to put on a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness. I don't know what you're going through tonight, but I can tell you this: praise your way out of it. If you need direction, praise your way. If you need finances, praise your way. If you need a relationship healed, praise your way. Bring praise into your life. Not because you've got something to be thankful for, but because God is good and He's worthy to be praised.
Because then what runs out in our gratitude, when our gratitude runs out and our praises attached to our gratitude, the goodness of God never runs out. It doesn't matter if God's answering your prayer or not. When you begin to think of just the goodness of God, you've got a reason to praise. You've got a reason to lift your hands and say, "God, I might not see what I want to see, but I know you're still good. You're still good when everything looks bad. You're still good when everything looks like it's falling in on me." You're still good.
And the very thing that the devil sent to destroy you is the very thing that begins to heal the wounds in your life. When you begin to realize at the midnight hour, when it doesn't look like this day has done anything for you but bad, you say, "Let me praise God because He's still good. Not because my day's been good, not because I feel good, but I'm going to praise Him because He's good."
If you believe that, stand with me tonight. I was going to get the praise team to come back up here and play that song, but I've had to play drums tonight, so I don't want to move into that. But Michael's playing this song right here. This is the song that we started out with tonight, "Freedom."
I want you to do something by faith tonight. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be weird. I don't know what it's going to be. I'm just going to tell you what the Holy Spirit spoke to him. He said to play this and for you to activate praise in your life because He's that good. Not because you feel it. Not because you recognize it. But because the goodness of God is good. Turn it up; God wants to give you freedom tonight. This song is one of those action songs.
on Nov 05, 2023
