Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, let's go to the book of Luke.
The book of Luke, chapter one.
So this morning we looked at Matthew chapter two, and we talked about how that Matthew chapter two says it uses the word worship three different times in Matthew chapter two. One by, well, two by the wise men, well, one by the wise men and then one by Herod, and then the other is the narrative in which the wise men are described as worshiping Jesus, falling down and worshipping the baby.
And I explained how that in Matthew the word praise is not found at all, but in Luke, on the other hand, the word worship is not found in the story of the Nativity at all. But you see the word praise and the concept of praise over and over. So I want to look at that concept of praise this evening.
And we'll start in chapter one.
We'll start in verse number.
Start in verse 39.
The Bible says, and Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste into a city of Judah and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. And she spake out with a loud voice and said, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whencest this to me, that the mother of my lord notice not the mother of God, the mother of my lord should come to me. For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. All right, let's pray together. Brother Joseph, will you pray for our study of the word tonight?
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Thank you for the clarity that your word provides, Lord, that it takes us and flips us from error and helps us to understand. Lord, knowledge is easy to him to understand it. So, Lord, we thank you that Pastor woods taking the time to explain the word of God so that we can understand and be a blessing to others. Lord, we pray that you would Take the word that is preached and minister to our hearts, help us to get a blessing and bless others with it in our recounted pilot.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Amen.
So this is the first example of praise in the story of the nativity where you have Elizabeth is expecting John the Baptist, the man who would become John the Baptist at this point. He's just then so Mary goes to visit Elizabeth at her house in Judah there. And of course, we know that Elizabeth gives this word of praise about the Lord to Mary. All right, and then in response, and we're going to see this factor again, so Mary hears the praise of the Lord by means of Elizabeth, and Mary answers, Elizabeth so kind of echoes that praise back to Elizabeth in verse number 46. And she says, this is called the magnificent, whatever. That must probably be a latin term. It's not a word I ever used. And Mary said, my soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my savior.
For he hath regarded the lowest state of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is his name. Notice she's describing two things, and this is essential to the idea of praise, which you'll see more about that in a minute. But the idea of telling about what God has done and telling about how God is telling about his character, his glories, and then also telling about his works, his mighty works, those are the two kind of two pronged idea of praise.
Mary is doing both, verse 50. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. He hath showed strength with his arm. He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. Of course, this is referring to herself.
He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent away empty. Sent empty away. He hath opened his SeRvANt IsrAel in remembrance of his mercy as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever. And Mary abode with her about three months and returned to her own house.
All right, let's look at over chapter one, same chapter, verse number, verse number 62.
Of course, we're very familiar with this, so that's why I'm not reading everything. You're familiar with the story of how the Lord, he basically muted Zechariah because Zechariah would not believe the announcement of John, that Elizabeth would have John up until this moment when John is born, and it comes time to name the baby on the 8th day, and it says, verse 62 says, and they made signs to his father how he would have him called. And he called for a writing table and wrote, saying his name is John.
And they marveled all. And his mouth was opened immediately and his tongue loosed, and he spake and praised God.
And fear came on all that dwelt round about them. And all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, what manner of child shall this be? And the hand of the Lord was with him. And Zechariah goes into his word of praise, this prophecy. Praise. And verse 67 says, and his father Zechariahs was filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied, saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people. He hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swear to our father Abraham that he would grant unto us. That we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. And so he gives praise to God for how God has chosen to visit his people.
That's that highly prophetic word, the idea of God visiting his people. And of course, we know that carries special significance. It's not just like, well, God sends a blessing. No, when God visited, God came. God with us. He came down. Right? So let's look at chapter two.
Let's look at chapter two, verse eight. The Bible says, and they were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, fear not. For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and singing. No, saying.
That's a common misconception. There are no angels singing at the birth of Christ. This is the only time. And it says, saying, brother Ari, we were talking about this beforehand, saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. And it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into heaven. The shepherd said, one to another, let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad. Notice that they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child and all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things which they had heard and seen as it was told unto them. Notice we might call this the cascade of praise, or we might call it the progress of praise, the procession of praise or whatever kind of a word we might use in that way. But the Angels brought a word from God, not just information. They did not just bring and say, the savior is born in Bethlehem. No, they brought that information. The savior is born in Bethlehem. And it was followed verse 13, by praise. In other words, the angels themselves praise God. Now think about it. Now think about this for a minute because I want you to note who have we looked at so far that's given praise to God? We've looked at Zechariah. Now, he's a priest, right? Is a priest considered a high status position?
Yeah, definitely.
In Israel, a priest would be a highly recognized and an important position that would be recognized by all of the people. So you have that, of course, you have his wife, Elizabeth, who's not a man but a woman. That's significant.
And then you have, after Elizabeth, you have Mary. Now, Mary is of course, the mother of Jesus, but she's lowly. Mary is just an average girl. She's not an important person.
In fact, that's what's so wonderful about Mary is she recognizes her humility, she recognizes her lowly state. And the very fact that the Lord chose Mary not only for her virtue, obviously, but he chose a woman in that lowly state. Again, like I said this morning, that's part of the Lord's humiliation, the Lord's condescension. And so we have Zechariah, we have Elizabeth, his wife. We have Mary. And now here we have angels. Now, the person that gives the praise says something about the praise. That's what I'm trying to get at here. And in this case, you have praise coming from all different kinds of people. You have people of high status and people of low status. You have men, you have women. The praise is coming in all different ways. It's even coming from angels. Now you think about angels being a divine messenger.
Of course the Bible says in Hebrews as a prophecy. The Bible says, let all the angels of God worship him when Jesus came into the world. So if the angels are praising God, we understand the angels have a lot greater knowledge than we have. You think of angels as having great power, as we've seen in the scripture. And yet they're praising the Lord. What are they talking about? We know from the glimpses we have in heaven. What are the angels and the other heavenly beings, what are they doing all the time? What are they doing? They're praising. They're praising.
And so you have the angels. And this is what I called the cascade of praise. You have the angels.
They give praise to the shepherds.
And then the shepherds hear the praise. And then in verse number 16, the Bible says. And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the Babe lying to mangers. They heard the praise of the angels coming from the Lord.
They found Christ. They found what the angels had been talking about. And then what did they do? They saw it themselves.
They saw the truth for themselves.
And then they in turn took that verse 17. When they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them. Verse verse number 20. And the shepherds returning, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen. So you see this progress.
Praise from one heard by another turns into praise of God to another person. And the praise, it echoes, it ripples out. That's how it's intended to be.
And then we keep going. And in verse number 25 of chapter two, we meet another man. His name is Simeon. The Bible says, and behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. The same was just and devout. Notice that his character is important. Now, if you listen, when a person gives praise to God or speaks of the Lord or speaks of God's works, does their character matter?
One thing I've been saying a lot lately.
When I see you hear about movie stars and stuff. And they'll talk about God or talk about Jesus or religion or whatever, they'll quote a verse or something like that. My wife knows. Here. Lately, I've been saying every time I hear something like that, I say to myself, what hast thou to do to declare my statutes?
It's like get God's word out of your mouth, right?
I feel jealousy because their mouth is not fit to be saying the things they're saying, right? That's the way I feel.
But this man was a man of honor. This man was a just and a righteous man. So the character and the reputation of the person giving the praise matters. When Simeon gave praise to God, his words are going to carry weight because of his character. Because of his character. The Bible says, praise is comely to the upright.
It's comely to the upright.
How many of you have ever observed someone that said something like, well, thank the Lord or praise the Lord, but you knew their life was utterly inconsistent with that testimony? I'm not trying to be judgy here. I'm just saying you know them and you know that. It's like there's an inconsistency there.
See, our praise as we praise God should come out of a life that's pure. Praise is comely to the upright.
I'm getting all these notifications on my watch here.
All right. Then you got Simeon. He says this. He was a just and devout man waiting for the consolation of Israel. We're in chapter, verse 25. And the Holy Ghost was upon him. Verse 26. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the spirit into the temple when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms and blessed God and said, lord, now let us, thou, thy servant, depart in peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people, Israel. Now, so he takes Jesus up and he gives this word of praise. But what effect does that word have upon Mary and Joseph? What effect does that word have upon the people that hear in the sound of his voice? And that is then preserved for us in the scripture. In other words, Simeon's experience with the Lord, his personal experience, where the Lord told him, you're going to live until you see the Lord's Christ. Right. His experience plays a part in this praise.
They hear it and they're stunned. They're stunned. You know why? Because it's all perfectly consistent with their experience and what God has done in Mary and Joseph's life, starting with the original vision that God gave to Joseph and to Mary, the announcement of Christ's birth. So they see that, and they see his experience and how the Lord's been working in his heart, and they hear that word of praise, and it causes them in verse number 20, verse 33, rather. And Joseph and his mother marveled, this is the praise affecting them at those things which were spoken of him and Simeon blessed them, verse 34. And said unto Mary his mother, behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel. And for a sign which shall be spoken against yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. And there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Fanuel, of the tribe of Asar. She was of great age and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity. And she was a widow of about four score and four years. She had been a widow for 84 years.
And it says this, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And she, coming in that instant, gave thanks likewise unto the Lord and spake of him to all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. All right, so here you have two others. You have Anna, you have Simeon. Simeon's an old man. He's a man of. Both of these people are old. One's an old man who's probably fairly well known. And one's a widow lady.
You notice that's lowly. She hangs out at the temple. She's basically living off of the temple because she figures well she's given her whole life to the Lord. But really, in the grand scheme of things, she would be a rather insignificant person.
Except for this one instance. This one instance. All of these people from the angels, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary from Simeon and Anna, all of these people give praise to the Lord because of the birth of Christ. Think about that. So when I was saying that Matthew talks about worship and not praise, and Luke talks about praise and not worship. Luke is full of praise. Now notice this verse. I'm going to make a few points here on this subject, but listen to this verse because I want to draw a distinction. We talked about worship this morning and worship being in John four. We talked about how it's a personal and individual. Before you ever have the works, the acts of worship, you have to have the worship in spirit and in truth. We talked about that. That the inner man highly esteeming the Lord and being devoted to him because of his glory, because of his place, because of our esteem of the Lord. That's the first thing. And because of that, we serve him. Because he's worthy of that service. We count him worthy. Now we know whether we count him worthy or not, he's worthy. And that's the idea of worship. And we saw how the servant bowed his head and worshipped. Okay, look at this. Verse two chronicles, chapter 29, verse 30.
Moreover, Hezekiah, the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing, listen, now, sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David and of Asap the seer.
And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshipped. That's two different things these days in christian circles. They have. Well, we have a praise and worship band. No, you don't. You have a praise band. Worship is something entirely different. Entirely different. Worship, at its core is about my individual estimation, adoration and devotion to God because of who he is and what he has done. That's just me and God, we might say, to use a trendy term, that's vertical.
That's worship. Worship is about is this direction. My relationship to God.
Praise is not that.
Praise is this way.
See, in the same way how we're like. Worship deals with our personal evaluation of the Lord and estimation of the Lord in our life. What praise does is it expresses God's value, that value that we have of God in worship.
Praise expresses that value to another.
It expresses that value to another in hopes that that person, hearing that value of the Lord, will also value the Lord, and that will in turn cause them to worship God. Now, let me ask you a question. Is it proper and suitable to praise God until you've worshipped God? Knowing those definitions, no. Worship is first.
That which is in the privacy of the heart, that which is in the secret place of the heart is always most important. That's first.
But once we have that right evaluation of the Lord, an estimation of God in worship, then we can express that. And that's all praise is doing. Praise is talking about who God is and what God has done.
You think about this subject before us with the nativity, Christ coming into the world, all of the God's fulfillments, Christ coming to save us, Christ coming. He didn't just come to save us. He came to set in motion a series of things that will culminate in what is his kingdom on earth, our place. Each one of us, as children of God, the church, are going to have a place in that kingdom. We're going to have brand new bodies without sin redeemed from this sinful flesh. This is all set in motion by what Christ did when he came.
You see, when you talk about Jesus coming, what you're talking about is the works of the Lord. And that's what these people are praising about. So worship deals with our evaluation of God. Praise expresses that value to another.
And in that same vein, we see, because we know what worship is already, but we look at each one of these examples from Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah and the angels and Mary and Anna and Simeon. What do we see in all of these? Their praise was not private. Their praise was public.
It was audible, it was visible for everybody to see.
So this is the difference between the two. Worship is personal and private primarily. And praise is public for all to see and hear, because that's the whole purpose. We're trying to help people see the value and the esteem of the Lord. And then also worship is directed just like I said, a mingo. Worship is directed this direction, is directed upward toward God. Whereas praise is directed, you might say, laterally, horizontally to others.
Praise is directed to others. Worship is for God's ears and for God's eyes.
Praise is for man's ears and for man's eyes. And because of that, who the praiser is matters a lot.
When you give a word of praise and you talk about the Lord to other people, you talk about how good God is to you. You thank God in the presence of another person. You give the gospel.
When you do that, your life, what you are known for, should be consistent with that message because that praise is tied up in who we are. You think of the shepherds when they gave their praise, you might think, well, that's not a very good. I think it'd be a lot better to have this announcement appraise from coming from angels. But God did not want to. Whom did God send the angels to praise?
God sent the angels to praise the Lord, but he sent them to what group? To the shepherds. He didn't send them to King Herod or any of the Jews or the chief priests or the scribes. He didn't send them there. He sent the angels to the lowest, the people who slept outside and followed animals around and stank.
We went to the light show in Easley, and I don't think my wife enjoyed the part about the animals because when you walk into the building, it's like somebody punches you with animal smell, right? Y'all remember that? When you went, it was like, that's the way shepherds smell because they hang out outside.
And when we were in Cambodia, there were shepherds there. They shepherded goats. But it's the same idea. And you knew the shepherds. I mean, it was easy to see. You guys remember that the shepherds around town, they would take the goats out. They were usually muslim because they were the ones that had the goats, but they would take the goats out to go graze and all of that. But the shepherds were lowly people in society, they were at the bottom. They followed animals around.
Their skin was darkened by the sun, which was a bad thing. There. In Asia especially, have dark skin is not a good thing. A tan is not good. But their skin was darkened, often wrinkled, because of the sun. Had seen it so much because they're out in the elements every day with the animals. This is not who you would expect to get an announcement from, and certainly not someone whose praise would be all that interesting to you.
But that's exactly who God sent the angels to, to praise God and give the announcement. And then you have that cascade of praise.
Maybe it was the Lord wanted the shepherds to be the bearers of the message, just as a matter of humility. You know, when the message comes by means of humble lips, you know what that means? It requires humility for the person that hears it.
I mean, all of us.
If some great politician, if the governor, Henry McMaster, came and he wanted to tell us something or he wanted to say a word, we'd all be on the edge of our seat because he's the governor. But if some lowly nothing hobo or something came in and wanted to say something, do you think we'd give the same attention, just speaking honestly? No, we wouldn't. But that's exactly who God chose to give the message. That was the people he chose to give his praise and spread it about.
That requires some humility to hear that, to accept that that's what the Lord chose to do. So whoever is giving the praise and whatever their character is, but that's not the only ones. You also had people like the priest, right, and his wife.
And then you have this lowly virgin girl, Mary.
All of these different people.
Here's the know. Whatever the experiences that you have, the testimony that you have, your age, even your gender, your experiences, all of those can go into the background from which you give praise to God and can have an effect upon the way people receive that praise, the way that you live, your honesty, your uprightness, your relationship with your husband or wife, your relationship with your coworkers on your job, all of those things are the backdrop for your praise when you want to express some good thing about God to others.
The Lord has all of us in different places talking to different people.
Each one of us has a place where we can give that praise to God, and it's valuable. There's nobody's like, well, they ain't going to listen to me or whatever.
Look at this story here. Who's giving praise? All kinds of people.
All kinds of people.
Now, on the subject, I want to read several verses that I wrote down as we get close to being done here, is that we talked about how worship is this way to the Lord and of the Lord. But praise is this way. Right? Praises to others. Listen to these verses.
Isaiah, twelve four. And in that day shall ye say, praise the Lord. Call upon his name, declare. Listen, declare his doings among the people. That's this way. Right. Declare his doings among the people. Make mention that his name is exalted. Psalm 22, verse 22. I will declare thy name unto my brethren. We're not talking to God here. We're talking to another of God. In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
Psalm 96, verse three. Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people. How often do you talk about the Lord? How often do I talk about the Lord? How often do I talk about what God has done in my life personally or what God has done as written in the scripture?
How often do we give thanks to God in the presence of the heathen?
How often do we make mention of God's name to people that don't know him and aren't interested?
Sometimes that's kind of an awkward situation. Right?
But that's exactly what the Lord wants us to do.
Psalm 69, verse 30. I will praise the name of God with a song. I will magnify him with thanksgiving. Here's what you start to see when you start looking up verses on praise. The mention of thanksgiving, giving God thanks in the presence of others so they hear it, you also see singing praise. And this is where praise is different than worship. When we have a service and maybe the Lord works in your heart and you come down to the altar and you want to talk to God, you come down, nobody knows what you're saying.
This is you and the Lord talking, right?
But when we sing, we have the opportunity to do it together.
So worship is individual and praise is corporate.
I'm sorry. Psalm 57, verse nine. I will praise thee, o Lord, among the people. I will sing unto thee among the nations.
Psalm 911. Sing praises to the Lord which dwelleth in Zion. Declare among the people his doings.
Now, what has the Lord done that is greater than the gospel?
All of this subject here in Luke one and two and Matthew two, that was kind of the initiation. It was the first step in a progression of the works of God that would culminate in the resurrection. Right? That was the first Christ's incarnation, the announcement of his birth. All those things were the first steps that would culminate in the cross dying for us and his resurrection.
So when we give the gospel, we're actually giving praise.
That's actually what we're doing.
He says in psalm 145, verse four, one generation shall praise thy works to another. You see that passing it along like this, horizontally, like that, and shall declare thy mighty acts. What acts has God done that is more mighty than providing salvation for sinners? There is no greater act. That is the culmination of God's act. I think you could argue, I mean, not that this is a biblical argument, but I would say that the God's plan of salvation was probably in some ways even greater than his creation.
It dealt with a moral issue of justice, and God solved it, and he did so at great expense to himself, right, his mighty acts. So when you are, I know you read the psalms and you read that and you're like, God's mighty acts and you think, you know what the Red Sea and you think of his creation, you think of the great things God has done, delivering Israel and all the things in the Old Testament, but these things are just as applicable to the gospel.
So praise again. It's not this way, it's this way. Praise is a way to convey information about the Lord. You're conveying information to others about the Lord that perhaps they would not have otherwise known. That's what the shepherds did, that's what Zechariah did, that's what Simeon did. And Anna, they spread abroad this information that the people did not know, all the people in Israel did not know.
You know, one of the best ways that you can do that. The biblical ways of praise is found in one Peter two nine. It says this, but ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people that ye should show forth. Show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
One of the greatest ways we can praise God is by telling other people of God's mighty works, as demonstrated in the gospel.
That perfectly fits the description.
When we tell somebody about Jesus and we convey that information to them, we are praising God. It might not seem like it's praising God. We think of praising God like God provided whatever. God provided a new job for me or whatever. But there aren't any greater works in the gospel. That's the pinnacle, that's the tippety top.
But how much of our evangelism comes in the form of praise?
Sometimes it just becomes right. Ben, it's just giving information.
But imagine if that information we gave was given, wrapped up in praise, right? It arrived as a form of praise, an expression of our own heart's worship to God.
How much more effective would our witness be if that information was wrapped up in praise? Thanksgiving joy. And that's another thing you find often with praise is joy.
Praise ye the Lord. Psalm 147, verse one. Praise ye the Lord, for it is good to sing praises unto our God, for it is pleasant and praise is comely. Let's pray together.
