Praise | Psalm 150 | Blake Jenkins

I have a confession to make.

I I plan out our sermons a year ahead of time, where we'll be on any given Sunday in God's Word.

Partly because I think it honors the Lord with wise and intentional preparation.

It helps me to serve you better, but y'all, there has to be some flexibility, right?

There has to be some accommodation, some recognition of what's going on at the time or what's happening on a particular Sunday.

So today we were slated to preach through one of the Psalms of Lament.

Okay?

How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me, right?

But that just didn't seem to fit.

You understand?

And so there has to be some flexibility.

There has to be some accommodation.

And it seemed fitting for us to unfold from God's word a psalm of praise.

A psalm of praise.

Psalm 150.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

And so as we come to God's word this morning, we're going to ask Him in just a moment to give us eyes to see, ears to hear, for Him to speak as we do each week.

And we're going to ask God to tune our hearts.

Tune our hearts.

Like a musical instrument, right?

Now I'm not going to do it, but if I went over here to our acoustic guitar and I just started messing with the key, like the turnkeys and everything like that, it would mess some stuff up, right?

If I went over to the strings and the piano with a wrench and started doing this, that, and the other, right?

It would mess some things up.

But for us, our hearts are instruments.

And they are prone to going out of tune.

And that's why we need to, like that very first line of that beloved hymn, Come Thou Fount.

Come thou fount of every blessing.

Tune my heart to sing thy grace.

We've gotten out of tune in some ways.

The notes of our lives can be a little flat, a little sharp, or sometimes the string can be completely snapped.

But the Lord this morning wants to restore, strengthen, and tune your heart to sing his praise because that's why you were made.

Let's go to God's word.

Heavenly Father, as we come to your word this morning, I pray that you would give us eyes to see.

God, that you would give us ears to hear.

God, we pray that you would speak.

For we your servants are listening.

It's through Christ we pray.

Amen.

We can use a number of those investigative questions, right?

Who, what, when, where, why, how.

We're not going to use all of them, but we can use some of them this morning to get more out of God's word, to increase our understanding and help us to follow Him and praise Him and to have hearts that are tuned for His glory.

The first question: Who are we to praise?

You can write that in the Lord, all caps.

We're to praise the Lord.

Psalm 150, verse 1, that first part says, Praise the Lord.

Psalms 150:1

And again, by way of reminder, when you see Lord in all caps in your English Bible, that is the way the translators are trying to communicate.

The word used right here for Lord is Yahweh, the covenant name of God, the name that he himself disclosed to Moses there at the burning bush.

I am who I am.

Yahweh, the God who has brought his people into relationship with himself through deliverance.

And so when you see this first line, praise the Lord, there, that's three words in our English Bibles.

If you were to read it in Hebrew, which is the original language of the Old Testament, it would just be a one-word opening to the psalm.

And it's the word hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

That's one of those good churchy words that we've used a lot, right?

Hallelujah, Hosanna, right?

You know, there are some of these words that have just kind of worked their way into our phraseology because it's a declaration of praise, and that's a right and good thing.

It's appropriate.

But when you break it down, when you say hallelujah, there is so much behind that word.

You can write it there in your listening outline.

You can see hallelujah is the word for praise.

The you at the end is the designation for who it is to do it.

And then Yah is the Lord.

It is a shorthand abbreviation for Yahweh.

So elongated, it would be hallelujah, Yahweh.

So you can see that this declaration at the very beginning of the psalm, it is that when you say hallelujah, hallelujah, you are praising God.

You are praising Yahweh, the one true living God.

And this is not an invitation just to be religious, but it is an exclusive invitation to the one true living God.

No Allah of Islam, no Krishna or Vishnu of Hinduism, no gods of this age like money or the state or even yourself.

All of these things are worthless idols.

And I love people of different religions, but I hate their little g gods.

That they are worshiping demons.

That's what Paul would proclaim in the New Testament.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 19 through 20.

1 Corinthians 10:19–20

Look at the screen.

What do I imply then?

That food offered to idols is anything?

Or that an idol is anything?

No.

I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons and not to God.

I do not want you to be participants with demons.

And so, church family, do not see lost people as the enemy.

That's why here Spencer Creek, our minister of students, say all the time lost people are not the enemy.

Love them, share the gospel with them.

Don't see them as the enemy, but know that they have been deceived and they are being led to hell by the enemy.

And we want them to find life.

We want them to find purpose and joy in the praise of the one true God.

And in our concluding song today, we're going to sing a line.

I won't bow to idols, I'll stand strong and worship you.

All praise is due to the one true living God.

Even though this is a short psalm, 13 times the command, the invitation to praise is extended.

So this psalm, it comes right out at the beginning and it tells us who it is that we are to praise.

We are to praise the Lord.

And so next, we consider where are we to praise God?

You can write it in everywhere.

We're to praise God everywhere.

Look at the second part of verse one.

Praise God in his sanctuary.

Praise him in his mighty heavens.

Earth and heaven.

This is a structured way, a literary device, to be able to show that God is to be praised everywhere.

He's to be praised when his people are gathered together and when they're scattered apart, in the highest heavens and in the lowest parts.

Everywhere.

God is meant to be praised.

One of my favorite songs is a chorus that we sang just a moment ago.

It's the Doxology.

Some of you grew up in traditions where you sang that every single week, right?

I love this song.

And some of you might be familiar with its origin, a little bit with its history, but some of you might not be.

Thomas Ken, he was a bishop in the Church of England.

And before that, he was a student at Winchester College and at the New College there in Oxford.

But even after he graduated, he was still very involved in the life of the universities and there in ministry through the local cathedral.

And Thomas Kinn, he wanted to build up a lot of the college students that were there and a part of his ministry and that he saw walking across campus every single day.

And so one of the things that Thomas Kinn sought to do was to write a prayer and song book to help them in their personal devotions.

And what you were able to see in that songbook that he gave to his people, his students, was that there was a song for the morning, a song for midday, and a song for the evening.

And each of those songs ended with the doxology chorus.

The doxology that we sing today, it was the closing stanza of each of these three hymns that were to be sung morning, midday, and night.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.

Praise him, all creatures here below on earth.

Praise him above ye heavenly hosts.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

On earth and in heaven, all creatures, earthly, heavenly, our God is not a regional God.

He is not restricted by geopolitical lines, but no, he is the cosmic creator and redeemer and deserves to be worshipped everywhere for all time.

And in our closing song today, we're going to sing a line that says, We're creation suddenly articulate with a thousand tongues to lift one cry.

Then from north to south and east to west, we would hear Christ be magnified.

Everywhere.

God is to be worshipped.

And so what a joy and a privilege is it for us to be able to gather together for the worship and praise of God.

And not just to do it while we're here, but to do it as we are sent out and wherever we go.

Where are we to praise God?

Everywhere.

Next, we'll consider in verse 2 why are we to praise God?

For who he is and what he's done.

This is the why of Psalm 150.

Look at verse 2.

Praise him for his mighty deeds.

Praise him according to his excellent greatness.

This is the why.

We've touched on it some here as we've looked at the Psalm already because it's all intertwined in some way.

But here it is explicit.

We are to praise God because of his excellent greatness.

That's who he is.

And we are to praise God for his mighty deeds.

That is what he has done.

Who is God in his excellent greatness?

What is he like?

God is infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, holy, almighty, good, wise, just, merciful, gracious, sovereign, eternal, faithful, righteous, patient, compassionate, glorious, and true.

And his excellent greatness.

And what has he done?

What are his mighty deeds that he has done?

Well, in the Old Testament, their minds would have instantly gone to the Exodus, would have instantly gone to that great act of deliverance of Yahweh on behalf of his people, where he split the sea so that they could walk right through it onto the other side and towards the promised land.

Mighty deeds of deliverance from slavery there in Egypt.

And for us now in the light of Christ, that God has now, through his son, delivered us from the slavery of sin through the cross and into the presence of God.

That Jesus Christ, that he, the Messiah, is the promised one who was uniquely qualified as truly God and truly man, he came to deliver us from the dominion of darkness and now to lead us into his beloved kingdom.

That he, he has burst the bonds of sin and death and liberated us from the tyranny of the devil, and now leads us into life and life everlasting.

These are the mightiest of deeds.

Mighty deeds that you and I could have never done.

And these things are true even when you don't feel like it.

You see, our praise for God is not solely contingent upon how you feel.

Now there are psalms of praise where the psalmist praises God because of deliverance, where he praises God because he heard his cry and he answered his prayer, the psalms of praise because of the provision and the abundant blessing of the Lord, and those are right and good and appropriate.

But this psalm is rooting the praise simply in who God is and what he has done.

This is completely separate from whatever it is that you're going through or whatever you're feeling right now.

I remember Alistair Begg.

I don't know if you've listened to Alistair Begg.

I love listening to Alistair Begg.

I mean, really any preacher with like a Scottish or Irish accent, like instant cool points right there, right?

Love listening to Aleister Begg.

And Alistair Begg, I remember one of the sermons where he was talking about praising the Lord.

And he talks about how when he was on sabbatical at one point, he went to go visit a church.

And he was sitting there in the pew.

It was an especially rough morning, and the worship leader comes out front and kind of like a rock concert and says, How are y'all feeling this morning?

Good.

I'm so glad.

Great.

Alistair Begg was not feeling so good.

Because Aleister Begg is thinking there in that moment.

I feel rotten.

But it doesn't matter what I feel.

Don't ask me how I feel.

Ask me what I know.

Ask me what I know to be true.

That is beyond anything that I'm experiencing here and now.

Don't just call me from where I'm at right now, but call me to something more.

Something that is beyond my circumstance.

Don't ask me how I feel.

Ask me what I know to be true.

We worship God for who He is and for what He's done.

We're gonna sing a line in our closing song today that says, I won't be formed by feelings.

I'll hold fast to what is true.

And if the cross brings transformation, then I'll be crucified with you.

Feelings are useful, but feelings are not ultimate.

Let truth shape your thinking and your feeling, and know that He is exceedingly great, and He has done mighty deeds on your behalf.

Next, in response to this, we consider how are we to praise God?

Verses three through five.

How are we to praise God with all we have and all we are?

Listen to this.

Praise Him with trumpet sound, praise Him with lute and harp.

Praise Him with tambourine and dance.

Praise Him with strings and pipe.

Praise Him with sounding cymbals.

Praise Him with loud clashing cymbals.

My goose, I was I was reading and meditating.

Every week I have an 11 by 17 piece of paper.

I handwrite our passage for the week.

I have different colored pens because I'm OCD.

And I go through and I mark all of the different kinds of things in the text.

And I'm just sitting there and I'm like, why all of these different instruments?

Like I have questions just like you have questions.

Why are all of the this is a lot of page real estate in Psalm 150.

Instruments listed right here.

There are eight instruments.

And a lot of these instruments were not typically used in temple worship.

But rather, more often, they were used at marriage ceremonies, national celebrations, and military celebrations.

So why were these things included?

It was to show us we are to worship God with everything that we have.

And it's not just our one particular way that we think God is most pleased with and best praised by.

Because there's one thing that was mentioned in here that was not an instrument.

And some of you, good Baptists, got a little nervous.

Dancing.

Don't get nervous.

But there is physical expression.

It's not sensual, it's not pagan or provocative, but it is holistic.

Like the truths of what we're singing and the one that we're singing to, it's too good for it just to stay in the mind or stay in the heart or stay in a whisper.

But it is meant to be shouted into and acted with everything that we have.

It comes across in our whole being, everything that we have, and all that we are, and in different ways.

Because I asked the question, I'm asking the questions of the text.

I'm why is this here?

Why the different symbols?

Why the different symbols, the sounding symbols, and the loud crashing symbols?

There's a difference.

That one is for rhythmic and beautiful use, the sounding symbols, and one for loud and rucous use, like a clashing.

Right?

Like, I mean, they're just right here.

You go over here.

Ouch.

Okay.

That we have these, like making use of these for like you have a well-placed symbol in a song and the sounding, and then others when you're just crashing it out and you're just trying to make a whole lot of noise.

Why?

Because the one that we are praising is worth the pitch and the volume of everything that we can muster.

There is beauty and there's order.

There's spontaneity and then there's loftiness.

And so we don't want, it's not just a clean either or, but it is a both and.

There are shouts and there's singing.

There's the rhythm and there's the roar that's uncontrollable.

Makes me think about the World Cup that's happening right now, right?

I don't know if you've watched any of the soccer matches.

I don't know if you've seen on social media all the people coming from other countries and being like, America's awesome, right?

That as you are seeing, like people experiencing and the folks in the crowd, and yeah, the tickets are insanely expensive.

But when somebody scores a goal and you have the roar of the crowd, and it's not even people that are there, you have watch parties that are happening in live camera feeds of people back in their home country and everybody going nuts.

And you have everything there, you cannot control the spontaneity and the flow and the chaos and the praise right there.

And then you have everybody for a time coming together and joining in unison and singing their chants and singing their national anthem and singing their team's songs.

It's not either or, but it's both end.

And I'm not here to lambass folks for singing and praising them, but no, I'm saying if we do it for that, and it's right and good and appropriate to do that, then how much more for us to be able to do that for the one who has saved us from our sin and has now secured for us ever a place in paradise with him forever where there'll be no more suffering or sickness or sin anymore?

Like, how much more should we give our lives as an offering to the one who achieved the greatest victory we could ever imagine?

How much more should we praise God with all that we are?

And so in our closing song, we are going to sing today a line that says, Oh, Christ be magnified from the altar of my life.

That we are crawling up on the altar, the place of sacrifice, where Paul, like in Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, would say, We present our bodies as living sacrifices.

Romans 12:1

And this is our spiritual act of worship.

Everything that we are put on the altar as an offering to our God.

All that we have, all that we are, all for Him.

And we see at the very end, this is for all people.

The last question, verse 6.

Who is to praise God?

Everything that has breath.

Everything that has breath.

Verse six.

Let everything that has breath praise Yahweh.

Praise Yahweh.

Hallelujah.

Do you have breath?

You were meant to praise the Lord.

That He who reached into the dust and in love his spirit breathed, he formed us in his very likeness.

We were created in the image of God.

We now have his breath in our lungs, and we were designed, created to be instruments of praise.

You're an instrument.

Do you know that?

That you are an instrument.

That, like even the way that your body is designed is an instrument.

Like you have, when you sing, there is wind coming from the bellows and moving past the vocal folds in your neck and coming out, and you have feet that are stomping and hands that can clap, that you are a percussion instrument, and you have a heart.

And biblically speaking, hearts make melodies.

Your heart makes a song.

Your heart is a part of you as an instrument.

Paul, the apostle, would write in the New Testament, Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Follow along there.

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing, and here it is, and making melody in your heart.

All of this is for the Lord.

Your heart left on its own is diseased in sin.

But it can be made new through Jesus.

It can be restored to do what it was designed to do, to love God, to feel his presence, and to make melody for his glory.

And so if you have breath, if you have a heart, a heart and a breath that can be used, it must be used to give him praise.

And so for us, we know that he is worthy of the worship of the breath of every creature everywhere from all of time.

And I'm here to tell you this morning, this is why we do missions.

This is why we do missions.

I remember there's sometimes you read a quote, a line from a book, and it strikes you like a bolt of lightning and it sticks with you forever.

There's a book, Let the Nations Be Glad.

John Piper wrote it many, many years ago.

And I remember there, in that very book, this kind of thought-provoking line, but really put everything in perspective for me.

And there Piper wrote, missions exists because worship doesn't.

Missions exists because worship doesn't.

Because there are people who were created in the image of God, but they've been marred by sin and are not giving God the glory due to his name.

And that's why we do missions so that they would give their lives to God, that they would find joy and peace in believing and worship him with everything.

Because there will come a day when missions will no longer be.

We will not do missions in the new heavens and the new earth, but we will worship for all of eternity.

And so missions is a temporary enterprise that we engage with so that his name might be lifted up among the nations, that he might be praised.

And we are doing this because we want to see.

We must see.

Every person who has breath must see that God is worth everything that we have.

He is the one who has made us, he is the one who has saved us.

And in our closing song that we're going to sing in just a moment, we're going to sing a line that says, When every creature finds its inmost melody, and every human heart its native cry, oh, then in one enraptured hymn of praise, we will sing Christ be magnified.

He saved us at the cross.

He has given us new hearts through his spirit.

He is tuning us now to sing his praise more and more.

So let us give him all that we are and give him all that we have all for his glory.

Hallelujah.

Let's pray.

Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, for the call to worship you.

That is our chief end, our ultimate purpose to glorify, to praise, to magnify you, and to enjoy you forever.

And so help us, God, to live more and more into that purpose.

And when we find great joy and peace in believing, we praise your holy name.