Why Should We Give God Praise?
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 1 viewNotes
Transcript
You all have heard that we should praise God. We should give him praise because he is worthy. If you are with A Place of Hope, you know we have Sunday Night Praise, and we offer up praise and thanks before the Lord as a family. But why do we give God praise?
We know he is God, by why should we continuously give him praise. Today we are going to look at 1 chapter in the Book of Psalms, and David will answer this question, Why should we give God praise?
But first, lets declare we what believe as a church about the Bible.
++++Cornerstone Creed++++
Open your Bibles to Psalm 103.
Now David wrote most of the Psalms inn the Bible, and each that we see was written because of something that David had experienced. He wrote a psalm after Nathan told him of his sin with Bathsheba. He wrote many psalms as he was fleeing from Saul who wanted to kill him, and he even wrote some Psalms while he was out attending sheep in the fields when he was all alone.
Psalm 103 is another psalm that David wrote. But I don’t know if there was something happen that made him write this, but maybe it was a time when he experienced God’s mercy. Maybe something happened and he realized how merciful God was in his life.
But this is one of the most beautiful psalms. It is full of praise. And that gave that David displays is directly to God. I think that it would do all of us good, to every week, read Psalm 103. So this morning I am going to read the entire chapter, then, I want to make some comments about what David is saying.
So, Psalm 103. Now I am reading from the ESV version, so there may be a few words that re different if you have a different translation, but I have put up here the version I am reading if you want to read along.
Of David.
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children,
18 to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word!
21 Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will!
22 Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Why should we give God praise? This psalm of David shows exactly why. Over and over again, David shows the greatness of our God and the reason we should daily lift up praises to his name.
Let’s look at the reasons David gives, why we should give praise to God.
But first I want you to see something. Look at the first verse and the last verse of chapter 103….
Psalm 103:1 “1 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!”
Psalm 103:22 “22 Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!”
What do you see that is the same in both the way he begins and the way he ends?
Psalm 103:1 “1 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!”
Psalm 103:22 “22 Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!”
David is so committed to giving praise to the Lord, that he begins the chapter by giving praise and he ends the chapter by giving praise. He felt that strongly about it.
If you are saved and a follower of Christ, how important is it that you give praise to hum, everyday? Maybe, David could be showing us by starting the chapter with praise, and ending the chapter with praise, is that we might need to praise hi to begin our day and to end out day. I don’t know if that is what he is saying, but its not a bad idea. To start your day and end your day with God, praising him.
But again our question is “why should we give praise to God?” Let’s look what David says…
3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
What we are going to see in these verses from David, are the attributes of God. When I say attributes I am pointing to his character. The things that make him who he is. And this is what we know about God’s character, he will never change.
Hebrews 13:8 “8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
It is because of his character that we praise God. Look at his first characters:
Look at verse 3: who forgives all your iniquity (sins). The Bible tells us that we can come to him and ask for forgiveness and he is faithful to forgive. Look at what he says in verse 10: he does not deal with us according to our sin. In other words, we don’t get what we deserve. He is a forgiving God. Forgiveness is part of his character, he can’t change that.
…who heals all your diseases… Sometimes people read that and they think, ah I will never get sick, I will never have a disease, but thats not what that means. This is a fallen world we live in, we are going to get sick and maybe some of us will have a disease. But what David is saying here,, is that there will come a time when we will no longer be sick and or have a body that will fail us. For those who believe, the day we enter into heaven, we will be eternally healed. No more sin, no more darkness… just life, forever.
Eternal healing for those who follow him is part of his character, he cant change that.
Look at verse 4: who redeems you from the pit. This is a picture of an eternal life separated from God. For those that know him and follow him, there will be no pit when we die, only an eternity with the presence of the Lord.
And look what we receive from him: steadfast love and mercy. Those two words, steadfast love also mean grace. He gives us grace and mercy, and he places them on our head like a crown.
Grace and mercy are part of his character and he can’t change that.
David talks more about steadfast love (grace)
Psalm 103:8 “8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
Psalm 103:11 “11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;”
Psalm 103:17 “17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children,”
Then look at verse 5: satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like eagles,
I read this verse and I can’t help but remember the words of Isaiah: Isaiah 40:31
“31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
We praise him because of who he is and what he can do. He will give strength to us in times of trouble. Whatever we face, we can count on him because he is faithful.
Faithfulness is part of his character for the believer, and he can’t change that.
Who does he do all of this for? Who does he forgive? Who does he give eternal healing too? Who does he rescue from the eternal bit and give grace and mercy too? And who does he renew like the days of our youth even while we are old? Who does he do all of this for?
Look at Psalm 103:17
17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children,
Who are those who fear the Lord? Verse 18 says that it is those who keep his commandments and the covenant.
Those that praise God. Not with just the words of your mouth, but with the words of your heart and words of your life.
Psalm 103 was written before Jesus the Messiah came to the earth. And as an Israelite reading this Psalm during that time, they knew what David said when he wrote the word covenant. You see that God made a covenant with the Hebrew people that if they would keep the covenant that Abraham made with God, he would bless them. That meant that God would take care of their enemies and provide for them. But if they were to break the covenant and turn away from him to other small g gods, then he would allow people to come against them.
Then when Jesus came, he became the covenant. Since then, our covenant exists in a relationship with our Savior.
As Christians we can enjoy the grace, mercy, forgiveness, and strength because we have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
But if you don’t have that relationship with Jesus then you can’t enjoy those things.
You see, this is why we praise him…everyday, until the tim ewe see him in heaven. He deserves it. And we owe it to him. We owe everything to him.
Do you have a relationship with Jesus Christ where you can truly praise him and say “Bless the Lord, Oh my Soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!!?
—-
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
