Bless The Lord

Hello everyone and thank you so much for joining me today. My name is roderick caesar the third on the lead pastor of Bethel Gospel Tabernacle in Jamaica queens new york and I’m so excited that you decided to join me for the full Gospel hour right here on Global Seven. My prayers that you will be blessed, you would be encouraged and inspired by this message. Thank you so much for joining And God bless. Let’s turn in our bibles or follow along on the screens of the book of psalms. Chapter 34 Psalm, Chapter 34. The Book of Psalm, 34, The Book of Songs. So chapter 30 All right, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble here it and be glad. Oh magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. Let us exalt his name together. Dear Lord, I thank you so much for this time. I thank you for who you are for who you have called us to be. I pray Lord that as this word goes forth that you would be glorified and everything that’s said and done. We thank you and praise you in jesus name. Amen Amen before we dive into the tax. We just got our toes in real quick before we jump in. Uh, just got an update for the early bird special. There’s no partial payments for the early bird because it’s an early bird. You gotta catch the worm and pay in full. Okay, just a heads up. So you guys get that. Okay. Um, blessing the Lord, blessing the Lord. Despite how things look. I love how the author, David, as he’s writing this says, I will bless the Lord. I will bless the Lord. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. No matter what the situation. No matter what the circumstance, I will, that’s a choice that he makes. And we all have choices in this life choices in this world, choices that life uh, situations that life throws at us and choices to make in those situations, David says, no matter what I will choose to bless the Lord. He writes again in psalms 1 21. He says, I will lift up mine eyes to the hills. From where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth, Despite what’s going on in life, he says, I will lift up mine eyes to the hills. I’m not going to be downcast. I’m not going to look at my feet. I’m not going to navel gaze. I’m going to look up to the hills from where my help comes from. Despite how things look, we did an inner resolve to seek the Lord and inner resolve to bless the Lord and inner resolve to trust in his goodness to trust in his righteousness in the midst of our term oil. So I’m 42 David writes, why are you downcast? O my soul and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him my salvation and my God, my soul is downcast within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan and from him Ron and from Mt Maser. So what I love about this portion of text is that David is saying, look, my soul is downcast. He’s not lying to himself. He’s not saying, oh, you know, my my situation is horrible and I feel great about it. No, no, no, I’m sad. No, no, no. I’m downcast. No, no, I I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, but I’m not going to stay here in the midst of this, I shall again praise him. My hope is in God in the midst of my storm, in the midst of my circumstance, in the midst of the weight of the world being on my shoulders. I have hope that my situation will not stay this way. I have hope because my hope is not in my situation, it’s in my God and I shall again praise my God and my salvation, it is well with my soul, what did the hymn writers say? Whatever my lot thou has taught me to say it is, well, I love that because it doesn’t just mean that all, uh, whatever my lot, boom. Now I understand, it’s something that you have to to grow in. It’s something that you have to realize over time. Uh, when when you’re being taught a lesson, you don’t necessarily just understand it immediately. It’s something that you have to to grow in and digest. And you really learn that when it becomes your own, you really learn it when you can just say it back to someone and it becomes more than just something that was downloaded in your mind. But you’ve begun you you begin to know how to put it into practice. And so what we realize is that whatever my lot, whatever the situation, God has taught us to stand firm and to say it as well no matter what my eyes may see, no matter what my ears may hear all as well. The Lord will fight for me. Job is a is a tragic story, a tragic individual in scripture and what we realized in his life, he has so many hardships. If you’ve uh seen the play the hedge that was put on by a C. T. A couple of years ago, it talks about the hedge of protection that the Lord put over job the hedge of protection that the Lord put not only over job but over his family over his finances over all these wonderful things. He was just protecting job. He was just allowing job to have favor and the enemy approaches the Lord and says I’m going to want to want to touch jobs things touch jobs items, take these things away and he will then curse you. Why? Because the enemy thought that jobs love and dedication for the Lord was solely based on the things was solely based on what he had acquired on was solely based on the favor of the Lord. So if those things were removed, if those things were taken, then surely job would curse God. But we see that the Lord allows the hedge to be lifted and the enemy to touch the Children of job to touch the finances of job to touch the health of job. And he hears all of this bad news. And the text says Job arose and tore his robe. He shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped and he said naked, I came from my mother’s womb and naked, I shall return. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord in this job did not sin or charge God with wrong. And then later on we see his wife says to him, do you still hold fast to your integrity? This is after uh, he’s the enemy touches his body and he begins to be sick and he begins to be miserable and failing in health. And his wife says to him, do you still hold fast to your integrity, curse God and die? And he says to her, you speak as one of the foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil in this Job did not sin with his lips. And so what we realize is that the Lord gives the Lord takes away. We realized that jobs perspective that no matter what he had, he did not, he did not lose sight of the fact that he came into this room naked, he came into this world naked and he would leave the same. And that no matter what the name of the Lord is the consistent thing in the name of the Lord will be blessed. Blessed be the name of the Lord. No matter what comes my way, Blessed be the name of the Lord. No matter what tragedy strikes, blessed be the name of the Lord. No matter how disconnected I may feel. Blessed be the name of the Lord, no matter what difficulty I’m up against blessed be the name of the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord For he is good someone 36 1 for his steadfast love endures forever. Just because your situation is not good doesn’t mean your God is not good. Your situation does not define your God. It is God that defines your perspective. In the midst of your situation. Your situation does not define your God. It is God that defines your perspective. In the midst of your situation. We see examples of this time and time. Again, in scripture, joseph was a young man who was excited about what he felt God was going to do in his life. Too excited about it. And he didn’t realize that those closest to him were those that were hating on him the most his brothers, his father gave him a coat of many colors. He was excited about it. He woke up having some great dreams saying that he was going to be the dreams essentially interpreted to the fact that he felt he was God was going to exalt him and he was going to be uh chief over all of his brothers are ruling over all of his brothers. They were all going to bow down to him. His father would bow down to him as well and this is strange because he was the youngest brother and back in biblical times in this context, the younger brother got the scraps right. It went from from oldest to youngest order of importance. But we realized that they were very upset with joseph. They beat him up, they threw him in a pit, they intended to kill him, but instead they threw him in this pit, they leave, go, have lunch, come back and he’s and he’s uh sold into slavery, sold into slavery. And this is a dark and terrible time in joseph’s life. But we realized that from the pit to him being wrongfully accused, being thrown in prison to him, ultimately being reigning and ruling in the palace. It’s a miraculous story, but we realized that God’s hand was with him and in the midst of the changing of his situations, joseph does not curse God. We don’t see the biblical writer, the writer that that penned this text chose to uh omit or to not speak on joseph’s lamenting as much in this portion of text. So what we see is joseph standing firm. What we see is no matter what, I’m sure he shed some tears, I’m sure he was weeping, I’m sure he was saying God, why or why. But what we see in in the text is joseph leaning on the Lord. No matter what the situation, he’s thrown in prison. Unjustly, God elevates him. He’s taken into slavery. God gives him a high position within their he’s he’s brought before the king, he’s forgotten but then brought before the king and God elevates him even more. So God was with him. God strengthened him in the situation and his situation did not define God. We realized that God took his situation, took his circumstance and elevated him in the midst of it. And if God can do that for joseph, he can do the same for us. If God can do that for joseph, he can do the same for you. And for me, daniel is another individual that we look at in scripture whose situation was bleak. But his situation did not define his God. God defined his situation. He and his friends were taken into captivity. Babylonian, Babylon comes and takes over the southern kingdom of Judah and Daniel was taken captive, They’re given new names. They’re given basically new identities they’re being spoken to in a, in a new language and they have to abide by new customs and new rules. They’re out of their homeland in a foreign land, not as freed men, but as prisoners to be servants of the king. They may be in the palace, they may be uh dressed in royal guard. But it’s it’s not, it’s not the the clothes of their people. They may be given names, but it’s not the names of their people. They are in a foreign land. And instead of cursing God instead of saying God, you failed us because we saw our hometown being ransacked. We start we saw our mothers being torn away from us. We saw our fathers being killed. We were dragged away in chains and now brought to this foreign land given different names. That’s why Daniel is the only one named Daniel but the other the other, the other three hebrew boys that we know of Shadrach meshach and Abednego, those are not their hebrew names. Those are the names that were given to them by the Babylonians. And so what we see here is that in the midst of them being in a foreign land being oppressed, They chose to stand firm. They chose to say, you know what we’re not going to eat. The food that the king wants us to eat instead will fast and we’ll eat what the Lord has instructed us to eat, we’re not going to bow down to the gods that the king has us bow down to those idols instead, we’re going to stand firm in the midst of that. And we see that God was faithful to them each and every time, even as Daniel grew old because he, he never uh ended going, ended up going back to his homeland, he stayed in Babylon and God was faithful to him. Even in a foreign land, even in a situation that was less than ideal, God showed his faithfulness and used Daniel to execute his plan. And so what we realize is Daniel’s situation, while less than ideal did not define his God. God worked in and through Daniel to define the situation? The same goes for Esther Esther a young girl chosen to be queen, chosen to be queen to a king who just threw away his first wife threw her right out the door because she wouldn’t come down and entertain his guests. Bye see you nice life onto the next one. And Esther was next chosen to be queen. And a situation arises where she has the decision to say, do I save my people or hide my ethnicity? Do I save my people or hide in the comfort of the fact that my husband does not know that he’s married to a jewish woman or do I reveal who I am and risk the potential of death. We see that uh Esther has a bit of a conflict going on and speaks with her older cousin Mordecai who says, look, even if you don’t come through, God has called you to the kingdom for such a time as this, you cannot hide behind your fancy things in that palace, God has called you to the Kingdom. Her situation is less than ideal, but she steps up and in the midst of her circumstance, God uses her to save her people. God uses her to deliver her people. God uses her as she steps up out of the shadows of of of the the splendor of the kingdom and says, no, this is who I am and and she saves her people. God uses her in the midst of that. And we see as well, another example with paul and Silas who were unjustly beaten and thrown into prison, beaten, thrown into prison, put in stocks and then they begin to sing praises unto the Lord and a great earthquake comes and shakes and and the the doors of the prison are open. The the chains of the individuals are all freed and they can walk right out into freedom, but instead they stay, they stay where they are and the jailer is about to kill himself because he says, look, if any of these prisoners have escaped, that’s off with my head and I want to control my own fate. So he’s about to kill himself. And instead paul and Silas said no, no, no sir, Everyone is still here. No one has escaped your life is just fine. This is a miraculous situation that God has brought. And as a result of that, we see that the jailer and his whole family become baptized become saved and begin to trust in the God that paul and Silas introduced them to. So in the midst of less than ideal situations, time and time again, God comes through in the midst of heartbreak and sorrow and pain time and time again God comes through. So he deserves to be blessed. Whether your situation is something that you want or not, whether you get a positive report from the doctor or a negative report from the doctor. God is still worthy of your praise. And each side of the situation, whether your pockets are filled with money or your bank account is running extremely low and you’re concerned God is still worthy of praise in the midst of the situation, whether you’re sitting fine right now or not, worried about a miracle or whether you need a miracle and you’re at the end of your rope. Either way, God is still worthy of praise in the midst of the situation. Look at what the box says in robotic three verse 17 through 19 he writes though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit beyond the vines. The produce of the olive fail and the fields yield failed to uh to bring forth food. The flock be cut off from the fold and there’d be no herd in the stalls basically. There’s a famine in the land. Watch this. The the fig tree is not blossoming, there’s no fruit on the vines. The olive that is supposed to produce is not producing. The fields are yielding no food. The flock are cut off from the fold. There’d be no herd in the stalls. So everything that should be is not in verse 18. Then he says, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God. The Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer’s, he makes me tread on my high places. Let’s give God praise for what he does for who he is. Even though my situation is less than ideal, even though my situation is painful, I can run to a good God. I can run to a great God because God is good all the time and all the time. God is good. Yet I will rejoice. My situation is painful. Yet I will rejoice. My situation is bleak yet what will you do when your situation is what it is? Because it’s gonna be what it’s going to be. Can you praise God? When things aren’t going your way? Can you praise God? When you pray three times for the Lord to remove uh, this thorn from your side and he says, my grace is sufficient. My my my strength is made perfect in your weakness. You pray God remove this Lord take this from me God and he says, my grace is sufficient for you in the midst of it. Can you still give him praise when you’re praying like jesus prayed God, let this cup pass, I don’t want to go through this, let this cup pass this Cup of your wrath, let it let it pass from me. I don’t want to go to calvary. I don’t wanna do this plan that was promised all the way at the beginning in genesis three, when you said that the serpent would, would would would grasp at my heel, but I would trample its head. I don’t want to go through with that. Let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, can we have a Nevertheless, in our spirit, can we resolve? Just say God, no matter what I’m gonna give you glory, I’m gonna give you praise. I will bless you at all times. I will walk the difficult road. We can run to God because no matter what God is good in terrible circumstances and things that are less than ideal, God is going to do one of two things, he will either deliver you or give you strength to endure, deliver you or give you strength to endure. The disciples were in a boat that was raging, the seas were raging, the winds were raging and their boat, it seemed like it was capsizing or they weren’t going to make it through, They thought they were going to die. Mhm. And have you ever been in a situation like that where you don’t know if you’re gonna make it out? It could be a split second, could be a car accident that you narrowly avoid or a car accident that you don’t avoid. It could be whatever the situation may be, whatever it is. If you think think back to that, they were in that type of situation where they did not know whether or not they would make it out alive. But the Lord, they see jesus in their darkest of moments on the boat with them but fast asleep. And this is a whole another text, a whole another message. But jesus seemed to be asleep when he needed the most. When excuse me when they needed him most and they ran to him and said, Master, Master, don’t you care that we are perishing. He wakes up, wipes sleep out of his eye and says, Peace be still And the winds and the waves say, I know this voice. This is the voice, The same voice that said, Let there be. And there was in the beginning, this is the same voice that gave us life that called us into existence. So we must obey Peace be still okay. And the wind ceased and the waves ceased and they looked at jesus in awe. So sometimes in situations, God does that for us calms our storm delivers us out of the pit psalms. One oh three verses one through five. Bless the Lord, Oh my soul and all that is within me, Bless his holy name! Bless the Lord! All my soul and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from the pit, Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed. Like the Eagle’s, We can give God praise because he does these things. He does these things. He can deliver us in the midst of our terrible circumstances. He can heal us in the midst of our terrible circumstances. He can forgive us in the midst of our sin, He can redeem us from the pit. Turn us around. Yeah, but what happens when we’re in that pit? And God says, I’m giving you the strength to endure the situation? What happens when we’re sick? And God says, I’ve given you the strength to endure the situation. What happens when our backs are up against the wall? And God says, look, I’ve I’ve I’ve given you the strength to endure the situation, Paul prays three times. 2nd Corinthians, he says three times to remove this storm three times I pleaded with the Lord about this. We don’t know what paul’s thorn was a thorn in the flesh. Scholars have many different interpretations of what it could be, he doesn’t specify, but he says three times I’ve prayed for this to leave me, but God says, my grace, it’s sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness and that’s it. Sometimes we want a full long scale paragraph, a book other than scripture that the Lord wants to give us just us in our situation. But he just gives paul a sentence. He says, My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. And paul takes this information and watch how it shifts his perspective. He says. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness so that the power of christ may rest on me. I’m going through this. It’s painful. Yes, but I’m not going to be silent about it. I’m gonna boast all the more in my weakness and what I can’t accomplish because I know what christ can for the sake of christ then I am content with weakness. I am content with insults. I am content with hardships. I am content with persecutions. I am content with calamities for when I am weak then I am strong jesus says, look, let this cup pass in the garden. God does not respond then to him God we don’t we don’t see the Lord in this moment come down from heaven and and and give a full layout to jesus. Okay, Lord jesus, I see what’s going on, you know with this one. None of that, jesus just says nevertheless not my will but yours be done and Luca luke verse 20 luke luke chapter 22 43 says there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him so he does get an angel from heaven. He gets an angel from heaven to give him some strength in the midst of what’s going on because if anyone needed an angel at that moment to intervene for them and to help them it was jesus. But think of what just happened here, the Lord appeared then appeared to him after he prays. Nevertheless not my will be done but yours oh God an angel appears from heaven to strengthen him and that’s beautiful. It’s a wonderful picture. But think about that in contrast with what could have happened when Peter comes to strike off the ear of the individual that’s trying to take jesus and Peter comes to jesus defense in the garden and says no no no not not my jesus and strikes his ear and jesus picks up the ear and heals the individual right before he’s still taken. What did he say to Peter? He says, Peter, life and death. You live by the sword, you die by the sword, he says anyway don’t you know That I could have called 10,000 angels to come and handle this so I wouldn’t have to go through this. So we think of this one angel that comforted him and that’s a wonderful beautiful thing But think about it and what Jesus could have done and what could have happened. He didn’t have to go through what he went through, but he did and the Lord was blessed and then he says on the cross. And one of the seven last words he says, Father! Father, why have you forsaken me, Jesus? He knew what he was doing, he knew what he was saying. I believe that these are his last words. So he was very strategic in what he was saying. And if you are a jew at that time in this day and age and this time you memorize scripture, memorize this. The the art of memorization is something that’s almost lost to us in this day and age when we’re so reliant upon technology. Back then the art of memorization was something that they did regularly often. So when Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you, have you forsaken me? That goes back to psalms 22 And in Psalm 22, the text says you who fear the Lord, praise him all you have all you offspring of Jacob Glorify him, stand in all of him, you offspring of Israel, for he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. He has, he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard when he cries to him, he says, look my face is not hidden God is hurt. God has heard and there’s something about suffering. There’s something about difficulty that God uses to bring us close to him, romans, Paul writes, what shall we say to these things? If God before us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him, graciously? Give us all things. Jesus says, the disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master, which means what he goes through. We go through, paul writes again for those who died with him, also lived with him. If we endure then we rain. If we deny him, he denies us. If we are faithless, he’s not faithless, he will remain faithful. For he cannot deny himself. God gives us strength and he deserves to be blessed, His name is worthy and he deserves to be blessed. I believe that in the midst of what we’re going through, in the midst of uh situations of difficulty, situations of pain, situations that are less than ideal. It’s a beautiful thing that we can run to the Lord. It’s a beautiful thing that we can trust in the Lord? It’s a beautiful thing that we can have hope in the Lord Isaiah Verse 40. Have you not known? Have you not heard the Lord is the everlasting God the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint. He does not grow weary. His understanding is unserviceable. He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might. He increases strength. Even youth shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint in the midst of our season. Whatever it is, whether it’s a great season or whether it’s a difficult season, God gives us the strength to go through it. We must not forget to praise him. We must not forget to give him glory as we go through it because he is always good. What is blessing God do for us? What does blessing God do for us? Says, okay, we got to bless the Lord in all situations. Okay, that sounds great, but why? Just because he’s worthy? Okay, fine. But what does that do for me blessing God puts our focus on God. It allows us to seek the kingdom through all things. It allows us to trust in the Lord with all our heart. Think about it like this. One of the most famous stories in scripture. I just preached on it a couple of weeks ago is David and Goliath. David fights the Giant and he slays the Giant. But if we look closely, David’s focus was not solely on the Giant, but his main focus was on the Lord. Many of us are situations loom our situations are difficult and they are like our giants. But we cannot become so consumed with our situation that we take our eyes off of the Lord. David did not say I come to you with the slingshot and the stone. He said, I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts and then that name by that name, he won the victory. So blessing God allows us to take our eyes off of the situation and focus them on our God. Blessing the Lord also strengthens our faith because we begin to speak the truth about God. When our situation is screaming, lies about God. When our situation is screaming difficulties and screaming that God has abandoned us and screaming that God has forsaken us. We can say no, no. I will bless the Lord because he is good and his mercy endures forever. I will bless the Lord because his grace is sufficient in my time of weakness. I will bless the Lord and give him worship honor and praise Because this is how I will choose to fight my battles. We can speak the goodness of God. We can speak about the life of the goodness of God when we’re surrounded by death. Mm hmm. We realized that the earthquake happened with paul and Silas. Why? Because they were singing in faith. They were singing in faith. Uh and another thing that, that praising God does and blessing the Lord does is it frustrates the enemy. You want to confuse the enemy. You want to frustrate the devil. Sing when you should not be singing, raise your hands when they should just be down in defeat. Praise when you should be losing your mind. Trust God, when you should be walking away, stand, when you should be crumbling on your knees defeated, fall to your knees defeated. When you fall to your knees in prayer and praise, when you should be falling to your knees, defeated and collapsed, confuse the enemy. Saints of God blessing the Lord finally shifts our perspective. God’s ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. It helps us know that someone greater than us is in our situation with us. So as I close and as the team comes up, it’s important for us to realize that God is with us in the midst of our situation, God is with us in the midst of our storm. And no matter what we face God is to be blessed, no matter what we’re up against the Lord is to be praised. No matter what we’re facing God, the name of the Lord, there’s a strong tower, the righteous run to it and they are saved. Let us praise the Lord Saints of God in the midst of what we’re going through. Let us realize, hey, this is how I fight my battles. This is how I fight my circumstances, this is how I fight the difficulties that I’m facing. That if God is for me, who can be against me, no weapon that is formed against me will prosper. Let’s continue to give God praise. Give God glory. Give God the the honor that is due his name and bless the name of the Lord. Through all that we go through. Let us continue to bless the name of the Lord Amen. Let’s give God some praise in this place. Thank you father. Thank you Lord. So for those of you that are here are listening and you don’t know jesus christ as your Lord and savior. You don’t have a relationship with him, but you want one, you want to know this God as Lord and savior. You want to have a relationship with him. I’m going to ask you to raise your hand if you’re here or text saved to the number at the bottom of your screen. If you’re here, I’ll ask you to raise your hand. If you’re uh watching, I’ll ask you to text, save to the number at the bottom of your screen. We just want to pray with you and introduce you to this. This king who allows you to give praise in the midst of your circumstances who redeemed you from the pit and allows you to understand that you have victory through his death and resurrection. Dear God, thank you so much for who you are for those that are listening. For those that don’t know you be with us and strengthen his father, help us to walk in your way. Walk in your truth, walk in the light of who you are. We give you praise honor and glory and I pray that those that don’t know you would come to know you today. I thank you Lord for those that do know you that have relationship with you but are finding difficulty being joyful and having difficulty being giving you glory in the midst of less than ideal situations. I pray Lord that you would fine tune their heart to sing your praise. You would help us in the midst of the storm not to run away, not to harden our heart. God, but to be open to what you’re saying, Open to what you’re doing. Open to how you’re moving God I pray that we would surrender to you father with arms open wide and that we would not be afraid to bless you through all things. We thank you, we praise you. We give you praise honor and glory. We ask all of these things in jesus name and everyone said amen, Amen God bless you. Hello again and thank you so much for tuning in to the message at Global seven. Once again, my name is roderick CAesar the third, the lead pastor of Bethel Gospel Tabernacle. My prayer is that you were blessed and encouraged by the message and if you want to contribute and give to the ministry, you can text B. G. T. f I 277977. Again, you can text b g t f I 277977. We’re so thankful for you and my prayer is that God will continue to strengthen and empower and encourage you as you listen to this message, we hope you tune again later and God bless you. Thank you so much.