Psalm 150
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Intro:
Intro:
We’ve spent the last 5 weeks jumping around in the book of Psalms
You can approach the Psalms a lot of different ways
But our study this time has been through the lens of keeping the main thing the main thing
So the overall theme and truth that the Psalms want to teach us is this:
How do I live a life of Praise to the Lord?
So each and every week as we’ve walked through a specific Psalm we’ve gone back to this question
And hopefully we’ve seen that there are many different ways that we accomplish this task
Well, today we are going to end with the very last Psalm in your Bible and what we will see is that Psalm 150 sole purpose is to answer this question for us.
Perhaps none more straightforward than this one
So instead of walking through the Psalm and then at the end asking the question
This week we will ask the question and allow Psalm 150 to answer it for us
So How do we live a life of praise to the Lord? Let’s read
1 Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. 2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. 3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, 4 praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, 5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. 6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
So a couple of questions inside this question.
#1 who do we worship
#2 Where do we worship
#3 Why do we worship
How do we worship
Who is invited to worship
#1 who do we worship
#1 who do we worship
Now I have to point out the obvious just to make sure we are all clear on this, but there are 150 total Psalms
Since this is Psalm 150 that means that this is the last Psalm
Now, it’s important to realize that the Psalms aren’t necessarily put in a specific order.
They aren’t done chronologically.
In fact our last one, Psalm 90 is probably the oldest one we have.
I say all that to say this, Psalm 150 is strategically, specifically, and intentionally placed at the end of this book.
This year we got season passes to wild adventures for Christmas. So my wife and 3 girls have gone a few times. Idk if you’ve ever been but when you walk in one of the first rides you come to is the shoe ride. Now, the shoe ride compared to six flags rides or disney rides isn’t all that impressive. It last what feels like all of 12 seconds. It has maybe 2 7 or 8 foot drops, it whips around a couple corners but really doesn’t go that fast, doesn’t go upside down, it hardly straps you in, it just has a bar that drops over your legs to keep you in the seat. Well my girls love it! And this year my 3 year old really wanted to ride it! So, we started talking to her about it as we walk up and wait in line. And she’s excited but it’s an unsure excited. We talk and pump her up and by the time we get to the front of the line she is ready. She’s seen people go in front of her and sees that you are supposed to raise you hands, and so we begin and she has her hands in the air and just like any other roller coaster, on the ascent up, it’s not that bad, she has her hands up, shes ready to go! Then all of a sudden that first drop hits and immediately things begin to change, there’s a look of terror, there are screams coming out, tears being cried, shaking going on and at this point, enjoyment is no longer the goal, just getting off alive is. We make it to the end of the ride and her sister begin to ask her how it was and she is very unsure, but what happens is, as the day goes on she begins to get more and more proud of herself for riding this ride and she begins to talk about how brave she is and how much fun it was and because the ride is at the beginning of park it’s also at the end of the park, so on the way out we ask her if she wants to ride again to which she responds, maybe next time.
This is what the Psalms are like. It’s a roller coaster, an emotional roller coaster.
There’s moments and Psalms where it’s like God is after me, my enemies are beating me down, I suffer and I fall
And then the next Psalm is like, let’s bask in the goodness and faithfulness of God
It’s up and down but then we get to Psalm 150 and you can’t help but realize that it ends the roller coaster ride for us with great intentionality and anticipation to ride the ride
The Psalms aren’t just a magic prayer 8 ball that we pick up whenever we need a pick me up
It’s very intentional in its approach to show us the grittiness of life.
And it ends this way by showing us, no matter what your life experience has been or is currently.
Like whether you are currently experiencing an overwhelming joy right now
Whether you are experiencing some pain, loss, suffering
Because of the world we live in, that we talked a little bit about last week, life is like this, it has its ups and downs
But regardless of how your life has played out, is playing out, or will play out it is all leading us to this revelation
“Praise the Lord!”
So my hope through this study is that the Psalms can help us and teach us in every area of our lives but ultimately it leads us to praise.
Who do we worship?
1 Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens.
To be human is to worship
You worship something
What do you worship?
What do you love?
What gets you fired up?
What gets you up in the morning?
What sustains you through the day?
You were created to worship and there’s nothing you can do to change that
Our problem: we worship the wrong things.
We have exchanged that which is most lovely for things that pail in comparison
And you know what might be the scariest part for me about this?
When I find myself worshipping something other than the Lord, I can’t ever remember deciding to do it.
Like I can’t ever remember a moment where I went, you know what, I’m gonna choose this over God right now
Because it doesn’t happen that way, our hearts turn on themselves.
Jeremiah 17:9 (NIV)
9 The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.
Follow your heart? No! This is where it leads us.
And Scripture is clear, your heart is desperately sick!
And you don’t love the things you should, you don’t worship the things you should
So Psalm 150 starts this way, by showing us to worship to love what is most lovely
Praise the Lord
And this Lord here is the personal name of God
Yahweh
Praise the Lord!
This is the overwhelming point that this Psalm is teaching us.
God is worthy of worship!
You were created to worship Him!
But sin has twisted that reality for us.
This Psalm is reminding of us of it
in just 6 verses it says Praise the Lord 13 times!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise Him, Praise Him
It is a getting back to original design.
You are never more in tune with who you are supposed to be when you worship the Lord
And you are never more hypocritical and twisted than when you worship anything else
Who do we worship? The Lord!
Where do we worship?
1 Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens.
This term sanctuary is a term used very loosely
It’s a term used to describe eden in Genesis
It’s a term used to describe a specific place where God is dwelling
It’s a term used to describe the actual temple of God
but, it’s also a term used to describe every part of God’s creation. Every single part!
Every part is God’s dwelling place.
And it says in his mighty heavens.
So here’s what the Psalmist is saying when we ask the question “where do I worship God?” Answer: Everywhere!
What this means is that we don’t have the option to compartmentalize where we worship God
we don’t get to do what we want at our jobs but then come and worship God at church
We don’t get to pick and choose where and how we worship the Lord
The Psalmist is saying, no, God isn’t just worthy of some praise, He is worthy of a lifetime of praise and more
So we don’t just praise where we want when we want, we praise Him every where at all times!
Cultural Christianity has fallen victim to the idea that God is an accessory to be rationed out
And we’ve forgotten that He is a well that never runs dry
Do you realize that you can not possibly Praise the Lord enough?
You can’t do it enough and yet our goal is to see how little we can do it and still be good to go to heaven
That is not the ultimate goal for Christians
We are to glorify and enjoy Him forever.
How do we do that, by praising Him
So the Scripture is clear for us this morning, if you are a Christian than you don’t get to compartmentalize Jesus in your life.
Who do we worship? The Lord! Where do we worship Everywhere!
Why do we worship?
Why do we worship?
2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise Him for what He has done.
Praise Him for what He has accomplished.
The psalmist is pointing the Israelites back to all that He had done
Praise Him for His excellence in greatness
Because we are humans we are emotional beings. And because we are emotional are emotions are major and often primary dictators of our actions
Right? So, the way you act, where you go, what you say, how you say it, what you do, will often be dictated by how your day is going.
If it’s bad, you probably aren’t going to be chipper and friendly as you would be if you were having a great day.
The problem we face is that we often allow our circumstances to dictate whether we worship or not
And what the Psalmist is saying is, we don’t wait for our circumstances to align just right to prompt us into worship
It’s the character of God that fuels our praise
So let me be honest with you this morning, when you are struggling to praise the Lord, wherever that might be, ultimately it’s not about your circumstances, it’s that you’ve lost sight of the character of God
You can’t blame anything or anyone else on your lack of worship
If you know God, you worship Him.
There’s a problem in the church today. We have a lack of praise in the life of the church.
And the diagnosis has been: We know a God that we don’t praise
But what the Psalmist is saying is that the diagnosis is actually that: we are trying to praise a God that we don’t know
We worship Him because of who He is.
It’s a knowledge of who God is that fuels our worship of Him
So ultimately it’s not a praise problem, it’s a discipleship problem
“The heart cannot love what the mind does not know.”
What Psalms 150 teaches us is that, if you knew the acts that He has done for you, if you knew of His overwhelming goodness you would have no other choice, you could not help it, you would have no other desire but to praise Him!
This is one of the results of reading Scripture, it is a constant reminder to us of who He is and what He has done.
Why do we praise Him, because of who He is and what He does!
How do we worship?
How do we worship?
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, 4 praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, 5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.
Now, a lot of people will use this verse to try to show you what specific instruments are appropriate in the practice of praising God
that’s not what the Psalmist is saying
The Psalmist is saying, no matter the instrument, use it to praise the Lord
You have a trumpet? Use it to praise the Lord
a harp?
a lyre?
strings?
cymbals?
generosity
hospitality
resources
skills? Use it to praise the Lord
So the message isn’t hey if you’ve got this this or this then use that to praise God with
and it isn’t even some tier list where it’s like hey if you’ve got this skill then use it first but if you don’t then use this one but if you don’t have it then keep moving down
And instead of us saying, well if I had the gift of teaching then I could, or if I could play the guitar or if I could sing or if I made what they made or if I fill in the blank....then I could use that to praise the Lord
That’s not the message here
The message is, whatever you’ve got, use it to praise God with
How do we worship? With whatever we have
And lastly,
Who is invited to praise the Lord?
Who is invited to praise the Lord?
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
Everything!
Everything is. And everything will. This is how Psalms ends, this is how revelation ends. Everything knee will bow and tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.
And the Psalmist uses an interesting word here. He says let everything that has “breath” praise the Lord
Why not life? Why not ability? Why not let every believer or person?
This word breath is an interesting symbol that flows throughout all of Scripture
We see in Genesis when God creates man and woman
7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
So at the foundation of the world, at its conception the Creator God forms man and breaths the breath of life into him
And He does this so that they may use that breath given to them to return back to the Creator God, praise and worship
But instead of doing that, the creatures, you and I use that breath to breathe praises on counterfeit gods. On other things aside from God
And as we know, this causes separation and ultimately it leads us to the cross where the Creator God put on flesh and pays the penalty for our misuse of worship
46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
The Creator God gives us breath to praise Him, we don’t and so He gives up His last breath to save us.
But as we know the story doesn’t stop there, the Holy Spirit raises Jesus from the dead, gives Him new breath, new life
And before He ascends this happens in John
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord
The one who gave us life in the garden, the one who gave His life on the cross, and the one who breaths life into us is inviting us to use our breath to praise Him
Who’s invited into this? Every creature!!!
#1 who do we worship
The Lord
#2 Where do we worship
Everywhere we are
#3 Why do we worship
Because of who He is and what He has done
#4 How do we worship
With anything and everything that we have
#5 Who is invited to worship
We all are