MORE Praise

INTRODUCTION: When the Well Feels Dry

Ephesians 3:20 MEV

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or imagine, according to the power that works in us,

Some of us here today walked in here , and it feels like you've been in a spiritual desert. You've been praying, but heaven seems silent.

You've been worshiping, but you can't feel His presence like you used to.

You've been reading your Word, but it feels like you're just reading words on a page.

Some of you are wondering, "Where did God go? Why does it feel so dry?"

I want you to know something right now—you're not alone, and you're not abandoned.

What you're experiencing is what the saints throughout history have called a "dry season."

And here's what I've learned: dry seasons aren't punishment; they're preparation.

They're not God moving away from you; they're God inviting you to move toward Him in a new way.

Today, as we close out our MORE series, I want to give you something practical, something powerful, something that will change the way you approach God for the rest of your life.

We've been talking about experiencing MORE of God's presence, and today I want to show you the pathway that will get you there. Turn with me to Psalm 100.

This is one of the shortest psalms in the Bible, but it's packed with revelation about how we enter into God's presence. Let me read it to you from the Modern English Version:

Psalm 100 MEV

A Psalm of thanksgiving. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise; be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.

This psalm is like God's GPS system for getting back into His presence.

And here's the key that I want you to catch today:

Praise is our pathway to encounter God.

Not our feelings.

Not our circumstances.

Not our performance.

Praise is the pathway.

You see, most of us have it backwards. We think, "When I feel God's presence, then I'll praise Him. When things get better, then I'll worship.

When the breakthrough comes, then I'll be thankful." But God says, "No, you've got it backwards.

Praise isn't the destination; it's the pathway to His Presence.

Thanksgiving isn't what you do when you arrive; it's how you get there."

When we are in a dry season, we can Praise our way back into the Presence of God.

I’ve learned that sometimes our Pathway to God’s Presence is blocked by different barriers and that includes dry seasons, anger, aggravations, depression, all of these can block our pathway in God’s Presence, but Praise will break that barrier and we can get back into the Presence of God.

Praise isn't just for the mountaintop; it's the pathway through the valley.

THE INVITATION: "Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving"

Look at verse 4 with me:

"Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise."

This is an invitation.

God is saying, "Come in! The door is open! My presence is available!"

But notice something crucial—there's a specific way to enter.

You don't enter His gates with complaining.

You don't enter His courts with criticism.

You don't access His presence with a list of everything that's wrong.

You enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.

Now, I need you to understand something about the temple imagery here. In the ancient temple, there were gates and courts. The gates were the outer entrance—the first point of access.

The courts were the inner areas where you drew closer to the Holy of Holies, where God's presence dwelt.

So this psalm is giving us a progression: thanksgiving gets you through the gates, and praise brings you into the courts.

Thanksgiving opens the door, and praise brings you deeper.

But here's what happens to most of us when we're in a dry season: we stand outside the gates and complain.

We stay at a distance and rehearse everything that's going wrong.

We camp out in our circumstances instead of entering into His presence.

And then we wonder why we can't feel God.

Listen to me: complaining closes gates. Murmuring locks doors. Negativity builds walls between you and the presence of God.

But thanksgiving—thanksgiving swings those gates wide open!

The children of Israel learned this the hard way. They had an eleven-day journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, but it took them forty years. Why? Because they complained instead of giving thanks.

They murmured instead of praising.

And their complaining kept them wandering in circles in the wilderness. But there's another group in Scripture who learned the power of thanksgiving. When Nehemiah and the people rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, do you know what they did at the dedication? They formed two great choirs of thanksgiving that marched around the walls, and the Bible says "the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off."

Thanksgiving didn't just open gates—it announced to the enemy that God's people were back in His presence!

Here's what I want you to see: God invites us into His presence, but we have to choose to enter. He's not going to force you through those gates. He's not going to drag you into His courts.

He's standing at the door saying, "Come in! Enter with thanksgiving! Come before Me with praise!"

But you have to make the choice.

And that choice is especially important in a dry season. Because when you're in a desert, thanksgiving doesn't come naturally.

When you're going through difficulty, praise isn't your first instinct.

Your flesh wants to complain.

Your emotions want to withdraw.

Your mind wants to rehearse all the problems. But your spirit—your spirit knows that thanksgiving is the key that unlocks the gate.

So let me ask you:

What are you rehearsing?

Are you rehearsing your problems, or are you rehearsing His promises?

Are you meditating on what's wrong, or are you giving thanks for what's right?

Because whatever you focus on will determine whether you're standing outside the gates or entering into His presence.

I'm telling you, even in a dry season, you can find something to be thankful for.

You can thank Him that you woke up this morning.

You can thank Him that you're still here.

You can thank Him for His faithfulness in the past. You can thank Him that He's never left you or forsaken you.

And when you start giving thanks, you'll find that the gates start to open.

THE ACTIVATION: "Come Before His Presence with Singing"

Psalm 100:2 MEV

Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing.

This is where we move from thanksgiving to praise, from the gates to the courts. Moving from one encampment to the next is an active movement.

You cannot move without taking action. Singing is an action.

Come singing, not waiting until the circumstances are right.

Come with gladness not waiting until everything becomes better.

Come before His presence with singing.

Praise is active obedience, not passive emotion.

It's something you do, not something you wait to feel.

And this is where a lot of us get stuck in dry seasons.

We're waiting to feel something before we do something.

But God says, "Do something, and then you'll feel something."

Let me show you what I mean. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas were in prison. They had been beaten. They were in chains. Their backs were bleeding. Their feet were in stocks. It was midnight—the darkest hour. If anybody had a right to complain, it was them. If anybody had a reason to question God, it was them. But what did they do? The Bible says, "At midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them."

They didn't wait until they felt like praising.

They didn't wait until the circumstances changed.

They didn't wait until they were released from prison.

At midnight, in the darkest hour, in the most difficult circumstance, they activated their praise. And what happened?

An earthquake shook the prison, the chains fell off, the doors flew open, and the jailer and his whole household got saved!

Their praise didn't just change their circumstances—it changed their perspective.

It shifted their focus from their problems to God's power.

And that's what praise does. When you praise God in a dry season, you're not denying the difficulty; you're declaring that God is bigger than the difficulty.

Or look at 2 Chronicles 20. King Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah were surrounded by three armies. They were outnumbered and outmatched. It looked like certain defeat.

But Jehoshaphat did something unusual—he appointed singers to go before the army, praising God for His mercy and His holiness.

Can you imagine that? Not warriors in front—worshipers in front! Not weapons leading the way—worship leading the way!

And what happened? The Bible says that when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against their enemies, and their enemies destroyed each other.

The people of Judah didn't have to fight—they just had to praise. And by the time they got to the battlefield, all they had to do was collect the spoils. It took them three days to gather all the treasure!

This is why when God institued and directed the tabernacle and how it was to be arranged, the Tribe of Judah was always in the front, Judah means praise. So Praise always preceded the Presence of God and battle was always won after Praise went first.

Do you see the pattern?

Praise shifts your focus.

Praise activates God's power.

Praise is the weapon that defeats the enemy and opens the way for breakthrough.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: "But Pastor, I don't feel like praising. I'm going through too much.

It feels fake to praise when I'm hurting." Let me tell you something: it's not fake to praise when you're hurting—it's faith.

Faith isn't praising because everything is perfect; faith is praising because God is perfect.

Faith isn't waiting until you see the breakthrough; faith is praising before the breakthrough comes.

When you praise God in the dry season, you're not just changing your circumstances—you're changing yourself.

You're training your spirit to trust God regardless of what you see. You're building spiritual muscle. You're developing the kind of faith that can stand in any storm. So let me challenge you today: activate your praise. Don't wait until you feel like it. Don't wait until things get better. Come before His presence with singing right now. In the middle of the dry season. In the middle of the difficulty. In the middle of the waiting. Activate your praise, and watch what God does.

THE REVELATION: "Know That the Lord, He Is God"

Now we come to the heart of this psalm, verse 3: "Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture." And then verse 5: "For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations."

Praise isn’t about getting something from God, Praise is knowing who He is.

When you praise Him, you encounter His character.

When you worship Him, He reveals Himself to you.

And this is crucial in a dry season, because dry seasons have a way of making us question who God is.

When you can't see what God is doing, worship reveals who God is.

When you can't trace His hand, you can still trust His heart.

When the circumstances are confusing, His character is constant.

Look at what this psalm tells us about God's character.

It says He is God—He's sovereign, He's in control, He's the Creator.

It says He made us—we belong to Him, we're His workmanship, we're not accidents.

It says we are His people and the sheep of His pasture—He's our Shepherd, He cares for us, He leads us, He protects us.

Then verse 5 gives us three eternal attributes: He is good—His nature is good, His intentions are good, His plans are good.

His mercy is everlasting—it never runs out, it never fails, it's new every morning.

His truth endures to all generations—What He has said in His Word still endures, it transcends time the promises that we read in the Scripture are still Yes and Amen.

This is what you need to know in a dry season: God hasn't changed.

Your circumstances may have changed.

Your feelings may have changed.

Your situation may have changed.

But God—God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He's still good.

His mercy is still everlasting.

His truth still endures.

And when you praise Him, something happens in your spirit. You start to remember who He is.

You start to recall what He's done.

You start to recognize that He's faithful.

Praise becomes a revelation of God's character to your heart. I've seen this happen over and over again. I've watched people come into this sanctuary carrying heavy burdens, weighed down by circumstances, wondering where God is.

But when they start to worship, when they lift their hands and their voices in praise, something shifts. The burden doesn't necessarily disappear, but they encounter the Burden-Bearer.

The problem doesn't always go away, but they meet the Problem-Solver.

The dry season doesn't instantly end, but they find the Well that never runs dry.

Church worship isn't about getting God to change your circumstances; it's about encountering God in the middle of your circumstances. And when you encounter Him—when you really know that the Lord, He is God—everything changes.

Your perspective changes.

Your faith increases.

Your hope is renewed.

Because you realize that the God who made the heavens and the earth, the God whose mercy is everlasting, the God whose truth endures to all generations—that God is with you, for you, and He will never leave you.

THE DECLARATION: Praise MORE, Experience MORE

Now we come full circle in our MORE series. We've been talking about experiencing MORE of God's presence, and today I'm declaring to you:

if you want MORE of God's presence, you need to give Him MORE praise.

If you want to encounter Him MORE deeply, you need to worship Him MORE consistently.

If you want to experience MORE breakthrough, you need to activate MORE thanksgiving.

This is the principle: MORE praise equals MORE presence.

When you praise Him MORE, you position yourself to experience Him MORE.

But here's what I've noticed: most of us make praise our last resort instead of our first response. We try everything else first. We try to figure it out ourselves. We try to fix it in our own strength. We try to manipulate the circumstances. We try to convince other people to help us. And then, when we've exhausted all our options, we finally say, "Well, I guess I'll just praise God."

No! Praise should be your first response, not your last resort.

When the diagnosis comes, praise Him.

When the bill arrives, praise Him.

When the relationship is tested, praise Him.

When the job is lost, praise Him.

When the dry season hits, praise Him.

Make praise your immediate response, and watch how quickly you encounter His presence.

I'm convinced that many of us are living with less of God's presence than we could have simply because we're not praising Him enough.

We're not thanking Him enough.

We're not worshiping Him enough.

We want MORE, but we're not willing to do MORE.

We should challenge ourselves to start every single day with fifteen minutes of praise. Not prayer requests. Not intercession. Not petition. Just pure praise. Thank Him for who He is. Worship Him for His character. Declare His goodness. Rehearse His faithfulness. Sing to Him. Lift your hands to Him. Give Him the sacrifice of praise.

And I promise you, if you'll do that consistently for thirty days, you will not be the same person at the end of those thirty days.

You'll encounter God in a fresh way. You'll experience breakthrough in areas where you've been stuck. You'll find that the dry season starts to give way to a season of refreshing.

God is about to break through in your situation, but the breakthrough is going to come through your praise.

You've been waiting for the circumstances to change, but God is waiting for your worship to increase.

You've been asking Him to do something, but He's asking you to praise Him for who He is.

And when you start praising Him—really praising Him, consistently praising Him, sacrificially praising Him—you're going to experience a breakthrough that you've been waiting for.

The dry season is about to end for some of you, but it's not going to end because you figured it out.

It's not going to end because you worked harder. It's not going to end because circumstances finally aligned.

It's going to end because you learned to praise your way through it. You learned that praise is the pathway to His presence. You learned that thanksgiving opens the gates and worship brings you into the courts. So I'm declaring over you today:

MORE praise, MORE presence. MORE thanksgiving, MORE breakthrough. MORE worship, MORE encounter. This is not just a nice idea—this is a spiritual principle that will transform your walk with God.

ALTAR CALL: Step Through the Gates

I want to close by giving you an opportunity to respond. This isn't just about hearing a message; it's about activating what you've heard. It's about stepping through those gates with thanksgiving and entering those courts with praise. Right now, wherever you are, I want you to do something. If you're able to stand, I want you to stand to your feet. And I want you to make a decision: "I'm not going to wait until I feel like praising. I'm not going to wait until the circumstances change. I'm not going to wait until the dry season is over. Right now, in this moment, I'm going to activate my praise."

Some of you have been standing outside the gates for too long.

You've been rehearsing your problems instead of entering His presence.

You've been focused on what's wrong instead of giving thanks for what's right.

But today, you're going to step through those gates.

Today, you're going to enter His courts.

Today, you're going to encounter His presence through your praise.

I want you to lift your hands right now. This is a physical act of surrender and worship. And I want you to begin to thank Him. Out loud. Don't worry about what anybody else is doing. This is between you and God.

Thank Him for His goodness.

Thank Him for His faithfulness.

Thank Him for His mercy.

Thank Him that He's never left you.

Thank Him that He's with you in the dry season. Now begin to praise Him. Praise Him for who He is.

Praise Him because He's God.

Praise Him because He's sovereign.

Praise Him because He's your Shepherd.

Praise Him because His mercy is everlasting. Praise Him because His truth endures to all generations.