Untitled Sermon

Praise him, Praise him, Praise him

What is it about our God that makes you think he deserves praise?

In psalm 147, 5 psalm conclusion to the book of Psalms. Contains in it 3 calls to praise, but begins by stating to the audience that it is good to sing praises to our God and that he is worthy of it.

Where does this Psalm fall?

Not sure how often we sit back and remember why or how good our God is, but praise is clearly the language of God’s people. And if we find ourselves lacking today in reasons why, the Psalmist here gives us three main reasons to praise him. He employs language from the common history of God’s people in Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Job, other Psalms, and Ezekiel even to call forth the praise of God’s people, to help them remember he truly is worthy of all praise.

What is it about our God that makes you think he deserves praise?

He Looks BACK: He tells us to Praise God for his Particular Care (vs. 2-6)

Vs 2-3: The Lord builds up Jerusalem, he gathers the outcasts, he heals the broken hearted, binds up their wounds.

The Psalmist is really employing what he has heard throughout the history of God’s people to remind them now of their need to praise him

, other Psalms, even the imagery of is used here to paint a picture of God in his merciful hearing of his people’s needs and his answering of their prayers.

The language here seems like it could be describing their return from exile back to the Land God had first promised the people after 70 years away in exile.

So this Psalmist remembers much the people have together experienced and as he calls it to mind, He is reminding the people that the Lord is the God who has answered and cared for them.

Vs 4-6 He is also the one who is transcendent in his power and understanding, and who also exercises moral judgement for his people.

vs 4: he determines the number of the stars, he gives to all of them their names. BST says that not only is this showing God’s powerful intentional care with which he has made the world, it calls to mind the very promises God made in his covenant with Abraham in

English Standard Version Chapter 15

And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Vs 5 He has no limits or lacking in his strength and his wisdom and might are infinite, language that evokes where the Lord reminds his people of his indefatigable sovereign power.

Vs 6 He is also the one particularly involved in lifting up the humble and bringing the wicked down. The sovereign with indefatigable power is the one who is executing moral judgments throughout the world, even when it might not seem so.

I wonder, is this picture of particular, individual strength what sustains us in the everyday work of our ministry?

Is this what sustains us in our understanding of God’s fitting nature of our praise?

Do you think this is How God who can meet the needs of us his needy people? What about the needy people to which we minister?

He Looks AROUND: He tells us to praise God for his sustaining and nourishing providence(7-11)

after the second call to praise, the Psalmist now focuses in on the active cultivating power of God in creation.

7-9: He covers the heavens with clouds, waters the earth, causes grass to grow, feeds its animal life from the very wildest to the very smallest.

Calls forth imagery that says the Lord is the active sustainer and carer for the world from the very largest of the natural events that order it to the very blades of grass that grow, from needs of each of its largest creatures to its smallest creatures. Calls forth the words of our Lord Jesus in : 26:

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they.

The idea seems to be that if our God can be actively involved in the sustaining care of his creation, it should not only inspire our trust for him to sustain us but it should also lead to absolute praise. He is arguing for the praise of God from the Greater to the Lesser in a parallel seeming way. From Skies and storms down to the blade of grass, the Lord is producing life. From the wild beasts to the little ravens, here is the Sovereign of the universe actively involved and caring for his world. Will he not also care for us and should this not also elicit unceasing praise from us?

We live in a time when what grabs the headlines is the storms that ravage and destroy and seem to tell the story of creation groaning. But the Psalmist looks at the everyday turns of God’s faithful care for the world and the natural ways he feeds and nourishes his creation and sees a fountain of reasons to praise the Lord.

vs. 10-11 He also stops to marvel at the tension that this knowledge of God as creator/sustainer evokes. The one who made the horse and has unceasing strength and power to sustain is the one who delights not in physical strength but those who fear him and wait upon his covenant keeping love.

What a marvel that our God who made the sun and all of its infinite power, sends the storm with its absolute destruction, causes life to grow in this world and in us delights not in sheer power but in humble trust. It says something deeply unfathomable that our God who majors in the use of his power to nourish and nurture life is one who delights in those who realize they have no life in themselves. here.

He Looks UP: He tells us also to Praise God for his powerful Word and works on our behalf

the Psalmist turns in the last 8 verses to call the people to praise again, as he employs a litany of quotes from all the Psalms and quotes

Vs 13-14: Again the restoration language of the return from Exile is in view here as the Psalmist employs language that focuses on the city of Jerusalem and the God who has brought it back into existence. It is his power who has strengthened the security of the city (in the bars of their gates), his power that has blessed their sons within. He is the one who makes their borders to be at peace, ceases the hostility of their enemies and satiates his people with wheat. How does he do so?

Vs 15-20: This leads the Psalmist to conclude by reflecting on the Word by which the Lord commands his creation.

He governs creation by it, sends his judgments by it through his creative power sustaining his people and world.

But he also reveals himself in it and uses it to communicate himself to his people: Derek Kidner says in his commentary:

Psalms 73–150: An Introduction and Commentary The God Who Commands (147:12–20)

But verses 19, 20 are the climax. Here is no merely activating word, but, amazingly, the meeting of minds. It has been well pointed out that, purely as the means of getting things done, statutes and ordinances, or even appeals and encouragements, are most uncertain tools. So by addressing us, not programming us, God shows that he seeks a relationship, not simply a sequence of actions carried out. ‘God does not wish to have my obedience as something which is valuable in itself. He wants me.’

Psalms 73–150: An Introduction and Commentary The God Who Commands (147:12–20)

So verse 20, which may at first sound self-satisfied, is an exclamation of wonder. If pride were to creep into it, the very name Jacob (19) should silence it, and the call to be ‘a light to the nations’ (Isa. 49:6) redirect it.

By a word, God does all of these things. By his own word!