Sermon Tone Analysis

Great Is the Lord

A Song of Praise.

Of David.

1  I will extol you, my God and King, (a)

and bless your name forever and ever.

2  Every day I will bless you (b)

and praise your name forever and ever.

3  Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, (g)

and his greatness is unsearchable.

4  One generation shall commend your works to another, (d)

and shall declare your mighty acts.

5  On the glorious splendor of your majesty, (h)

and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.

6  They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, (v)

and I will declare your greatness.

7  They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness

and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

8  The Lord is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

9  The Lord is good to all,

and his mercy is over all that he has made.

10  All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord,

and all your saints shall bless you!

11  They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom

and tell of your power,

12  to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds,

and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

13  Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,

and your dominion endures throughout all generations.

(Cf.

4)

[The Lord is faithful in all his words

and kind in all his works.]

14  The Lord upholds all who are falling

and raises up all who are bowed down.

15  The eyes of all look to you,

and you give them their food in due season.

(Synthetic)

16  You open your hand;

you satisfy the desire of every living thing.

(Synthetic)

17  The Lord is righteous in all his ways

and kind in all his works.

18  The Lord is near to all who call on him,

to all who call on him in truth.

19  He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;

he also hears their cry and saves them.

(Synthetic)

20  The Lord preserves all who love him,

but all the wicked he will destroy.

(Only line of retribution; antithetical)

21  My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,

and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

(All remaining synonymous)

ME

This is my last message on the Psalm so it seems appropriate to end on a positive note.

It is Christmas almost, which means a break for everyone, family dinners, exchange of gifts, and pretty soon we will all be with our loved ones counting down the end of 2018.

It is a time of joy, hope, anticipation.

Even today on the advent calendar the focus is on the preparer, John the Baptist, the forerunner to the main event.

And in just a week’s time, we are also going to witness seven brothers and sisters being baptized right behind me in the baptistery, declaring their trust and allegiance to the central figure of the main event, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

So what’s there not to love about Christmas?

WE

But just go to the local mall which I tried to avoid like a plague , older you get

John the B

Jesus has come, and He is coming, again

Who will we be expecting?

Page 524

GOD

This Psalm has been called the A to Z of Praise, a poetic masterpiece and other acclamations by scholars.

The Psalm uses an acrostic which as I shared back on October 21 on , goes through the Hebrew alphabet, with the nun or roughly ’n’ missing in this one.

It is attributed to David and here, unlike some of the other Davidic Psalms does not indicate the occasion or intention of writing.

But it doesn’t matter.

Every verse except to a small part of verse 20 shouts out what this Psalm is.

It is a Praise Psalm!

It is a Creation Psalm!

It is a Kingdom Psalm, and it is a Salvation Psalm!

Also, because it’s not a Psalm to be read from the centre as we also analyzed in the past messages, so we can read normally down the Psalm and find out its truth.

If we were to break it down, it can be understood as follows:

Verses 1-3

Verses 4-10

Verses 11-13a

Verse 13b-20

Verses 21

1  I will extol you, my God and King, (a)

and bless your name forever and ever.

2  Every day I will bless you (b)

and praise your name forever and ever.

declares David’s two focus of God, God as God and God as King.

God as God is further expanded in verse 4-7, and God as King is expanded in verse 11-13a.

To extol means to lift up the name of God, and as you may remember name represents in Hebrew character, attribute, purpose, etc.

Just an aside, my name is Freddy, which is a derivative of Frederick, which apparently in German means a peaceful ruler.

Most Chinese names have a story behind them as well.

The last name is just brought down from ancestry but the two characters, sometimes one, sometimes three, usually is the aspiration of who your parents or grandparents want you to be or achieve.

Mine is Yiu, Fai, both have the left character light on the left, and the closest translation is glorious splendour.

However, since I have become a Christian, I am afraid I need to disappoint my ancestors and say not for my glorious splendour, because I have none, but for his alone.

So God’s name is lifted high, blessed and praised, and it is also a sustaining name.

Forever and ever is an attribute to God who in his being is eternal, and therefore we can eternally bless and praise His name.

3  Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, (g)

and his greatness is unsearchable.

It reminds me of those schoolyard fights we have as kids when we would extol our dad with other children.

Sometimes to the point of making up stuff because we want to let others know just how proud of our dad we are.