Praise The Lord

Brothers and sisters, it is no secret what type of Psalm this is. It is a psalm of praise, amen?

The Psalmist who penned this Psalm not only encourages the worshippers to praise God, but he instructs them where, why, how and who should praise God. This corporate praise psalm functions as the concluding doxology for the psalter. The psalm opens with a series of exhortations to praise God because of who He is.

So, as we look at this want to share with us today from the four aspects that the Psalmists instructs. First there is:

I. The where of praise:

In verse one the psalmist writes, “Hallelujah! Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in His mighty heavens.”

The Sanctuary represents God’s holy place; the place where he dwells. The allusion here is, probably, to the temple, the place of his abode on earth. The Sanctuary was also the place where the people of God would meet God for worship, so for the Psalmist to beckon for praise to be made in the Sanctuary, suggests those who were in the Sanctuary or who come to the Sanctuary be prepared to praise God. Beloved, we talk about being able to praise God anywhere and many times the place where we ought to really praise Him is quiet. Are you all with me?

After a week of dealing with satan and his hell hounds, the job, other folks and yourself and then to make it back to the house of the Lord one more time, you ought to be ready to praise the Lord, because if the truth be told, He didn’t have to allow it to be, so, while you are on your way to the Sanctuary you should be revving yourself up so that when you hit the doors of the Sanctuary, you can tell the usher, Hallelujah, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go unto the house of the Lord!! then come on in and worship and get your praise on.

He says praise Him in the Sanctuary. Then he says Praise Him in the mighty heavens. This whole expression is equivalent to earth and heaven; Praise him on earth; praise him in heaven. The Heavens are the expanse or the sign and seat of His power. In other words the Psalmist is saying there ought to be praise everywhere for our God.

The second aspect of praise that the Psalmist provides is:

II. The why of praise:

Verse two tells us for His, “Praise Him for His powerful acts; praise Him for His abundant greatness.”

Praising God for His mighty acts often refers to God’s actions on behalf of the Israelites when He rescues them. To help make this clearer, the Psalmist in writes, “One generation will declare Your works to the next and will proclaim Your mighty acts.” Just as the Lord worked on behalf of the people of Israel, He has performed mighty acts for us. Have I got a witness? You know the wonderful things that He has done for you. You know how He made a way out of no way.

You know, how He showed up right on time and showed out in your situation.

You know how the Lord turned your impossible circumstance to possible. You know the mighty acts that He has done and so you ought to praise Him for it. While you’re praising Him for His mighty acts that He has performed in your life, keep in mind the Psalmists says, Praise Him for His abundant greatness. That word abundant in the Hebrew means multitude, and beloved what that lets us know is the Psalmist was letting the people know that their praise should measure up to God’s greatness. Here it is, Because God’s greatness is immeasurable, then your praise ought not have limits. You see many of us who know the Lord praise Him sometimes like we don’t know Him. We act like we are ashamed of Him. We might wave our hand.

We might clap our hand.

We might whisper “praise the Lord.”

Well, brothers and sisters, I need to let you know, that if you are going to praise God, you need to let go and let loose and let it out, because the Lord has given us so many great reasons to praise Him. So your praise should try to measure up to His greatness. Third we have:

Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

III. The how of praise:

III. The how of praise:

Verses 3-5 provide us with how we ought to praise the Lord. The Psalmist says, “Praise Him with trumpet blast; praise Him with harp and lyre. Praise Him with tambourine and dance; praise Him with flute and strings. Praise Him with resounding cymbals; praise Him with clashing cymbals.”

When we look at what the Psalmist suggest as how we should praise God there are two things that ought to capture your attention.

You ought to praise God with everything you have: You see the writer mentions those instruments that were a part of the worship and he even mentions dance. In many of our Churches we forbid certain instruments and some forbid worship through dance. But beloved from what i see in our text, all instruments and dance should be used in our worship and praise to the Lord.

Your praise ought to consist of some noise: I’ve been told that I can’t tell folk how to praise the Lord, and that’s correct. But when I was told that some folk praise the Lord quietly, I had a problem with that, and the reason I had a problem with that is because praise erupts from the heart and manifests itself through our voices by this thing that is known as “noise”, Every thing the Psalmist mentions in verses 3-5 makes noise except dance, However, there must be some noise made to dance to.

So, brothers and sisters, when we praise the Lord, you ought to praise Him with everything that you have and there ought to be some noise.

Finally my friends, we have:

IV. The who of praise

In verses 3-5 Praise was to be done by the instruments and dance, but here in verse 6 The Psalmist invites All living things in the air, the earth, and the waters. In other words, he was calling for one universal burst of praise.

One of the things that caught my attention about verse 6 is it ends this Psalm and it concludes the book of Psalm with, “Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord.”

That lets us know that every created creature ought to praise the Lord. But beloved since we know that’s not how it is, at least the people of God ought to praise the Lord.

The mere fact, that God sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sin, ought to move us to praise Him.

Because He resurrected Him on the third day, we ought to praise Him.

Because He has appointed a time for Him to come again, we ought to praise Him.

Because He watches over us each and every day, we ought to praise Him.

Because of who He is, we ought to praise Him.

Because He provides for us, we ought to praise Him.

In our worship, praise Him.

In our singing, praise Him.

In our teaching, praise Him.

In everything we do, we ought to praise Him.

Let everything that is able to breathe, praise the Lord!!!