1 Chronicles 16:23-29

Let the whole earth sing to the LORD! Each day proclaim the good news that he saves. Publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does. Great is the LORD! He is most worthy of praise! He is to be feared above all gods. The gods of other nations are mere idols, but the LORD made the heavens! Honor and majesty surround him; strength and joy fill his dwelling. O nations of the world, recognize the LORD, recognize that the LORD is glorious and strong. Give to the LORD the glory he deserves! Bring your offering and come into his presence. Worship the LORD in all His holy splendor.

1 Chronicles 16 records David’s heartfelt gratitude of praise and thanksgiving to God. The backdrop to his worship requires that we remember what had transpired prior to the praise.  The Ark of the Covenant that signified God’s word, provision, and power for his people had been stolen by the Philistines. The ark represented the reality of God’s presence with his people so in essence the Philistines stole the reality of God’s presence from God’s people. The result was that God’s people lost their focus and effectiveness. In 1 Samuel 5 we are told that after the Philistines took the ark they placed it in their temple in a position next to their “god” Dagon. The next morning the ark was in the same place but their “god Dagon had left his place beside the ark and instead was positioned face down before the ark. The Philistines propped him back up but the next morning their “god” was again face down before the ark this time his hands and head broken off. It’s one thing to have to prop up your “god” but you know it’s going to be a bad day when you have to piece him back together! The sad part is that they still didn’t get the message that there is only One God so they were struck with tumors. After seven months of self-torture, the Philistines sent the ark back ten miles from Jerusalem at a place called Kiriath Jearim and left it for 20 years. Saul became Israel’s first king and he neglected to bring the ark back to Jerusalem the center of worship. When David became king, a man after God’s own heart, he directed the ark’s return to Jerusalem and wrote the song of praise found in 1 Chronicles 16. What David teaches us about thanksgiving is that praise can be:

• Proclaimed

For David praise wasn’t something to be proclaimed periodically but daily. David made it a point to praise and the question we should ask today is do we plan to praise? Do I make praise my purpose? Just as Israel was robbed of God’s presence by the Philistines, we too can be robbed by the enemy when we fail to proclaim God’s power.  It is easy in daily life to lose our awareness of God’s presence and Satan will use anything he can to distract you from an intimate relationship with Christ. His goal is to rob you so you become unaware of God’s presence and you lose your focus. God’s people lost their focus for a long time because God’s presence wasn’t at the center of their lives. The sad reality was that the ark was gone and no one seemed to miss it. It is so easy to let other things creep in and replace God and when that happens our worship is replaced by worry.   When God isn’t at the center of your life things get out of balance and we focus on blame. The constant chorus of our lives becomes to complain about our circumstances because when we lose our focus we lose our gratitude. David was intentional, he prepared himself to praise God by reminding himself and others of God’s power to save. By bringing the ark back David made God the center of their chorus of worship. Praise has the power to refocus us and re-center us in the chaos and the problems. Through praise God’s presence again became the center of life for His people. When they regained their focus they remembered why they were thankful. What is at the center of your praise, has anything replaced the Redeemer? And if it has, have you even noticed?

• Published

Praise pours from a thankful heart. David now moves from verbal proclamation to written publication of the power and presence of God. The point here is that praise should be shared and the vehicle for delivering that praise is not limited to the verbal. Who are you telling about God and how are you doing that? Today we have put praise in a box by placing our preference above the purpose of praise, which is to focus all the glory on God.  The truth is that there are many vehicles on the road of praise, from the vehicle of verbal praise to the published page, yet there is only one destination. The road of praise is not about rules and restrictions and regardless of peoples preference we are to proclaim our praise. David rejoiced that God’s presence was again the focus of his people. David’s praise of thanksgiving came as he remembered what God had done. In verse 12 David recounts and remembers the wonders of what God had done but he also recalls in verse 15 how God remember His covenant with His people. Praise is not just a show of feelings but a focusing on the facts, and the facts are that we have a faithful Father.

• Presents

In verse 29 David’s call to praise is also a call to present God with our presents, “Bring your offering and come into his presence” Praise is not just proclaimed or published it is presented in our offering and gifts of self, time, and resources. Are we coming into His presence to give or take? Thanksgiving is a time to stop and reflect, to refocus on what is important so we don’t get stuck in another rut. Our lives are like mirrors which are revealed by what they reflect and a thankful life reflects a life of praise. What you worship is reflected in your walk. What are you thankful for, what do you need to proclaim, publish and present to the world this Thanksgiving?

Psalm 150

1 Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heaven! 2 Praise him for his mighty works; praise his unequaled greatness! 3 Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn; praise him with the lyre and harp! 4 Praise him with the tambourine and dancing; praise him with strings and flutes! 5 Praise him with a clash of cymbals; praise him with loud clanging cymbals. 6 Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord! Praise the Lord!

As we look at Psalm 150 we see that the greatest number of words between any two “praises” is four and that only happens one time. The rest of the time there are only two words between one praise and the next. It reveals the hurry that the writer was in to praise and the enthusiasm to express what the Lord had done in his life. What if as believers in Jesus Christ we were eager to show that same type of excitement over being a child of God? When was the last time you were out of breath telling someone about Jesus Christ? When was the last time you could hardly complete a sentence because you were talking so fast about Christ? It’s time for us to get excited about God and to be enthusiastic about what He has done for us. After looking at the Call to worship and the Cause of worship we now find ourselves engaged in the:

•             Concert of Praise – Verse 3-5

Praise should be a concert where we join together and the psalmist now tells us to praise God through music and includes several instruments.

Ram’s horn was used to signaling the start of a battle or the successful conclusion and so it indicates not only the start of the worship services but the victory of worship.

Harp & Lyre are instruments that require skillful hands to play them properly. Our praise of God is not confined to words but should also come through the skill of our hands.

Tambourine and dancing remind us that worship is an active experience and not something that we encounter passively. Today we have become passive in our praise, holding back in our worship because we worry about what other people might think. We have mistaken being reserved as being reverent and in so doing we have lost the point of worship which is to become lost in the worship of God. Getting to that place where nothing and no one else matters because in that moment it is just you and God. Do you let go with God, do you praise with abandon?

Strings & Flute give us the picture of a large group of instruments, much like an orchestra which is made up of many different individuals worshipping as one. God loves diverse worship with different ways of expressing praise, lots of participants but one recipient. The most important part of praise is that you have a part to play in worship. What would happen to the orchestra if the pianist stopped playing or if the violin section didn’t show? You are a part of God’s church and your part of the praise matters. Praise requires participation and when we don’t show we are stealing His praise. We don’t just rob God of reverence we rob ourselves from the opportunity to lose ourselves in Him.

Cymbals reveal the intensity of worship, the clashing and crashing that creates emotion and depth to our praise. What if we praised God with all of the intensity that we could muster? This list of instruments represented every one that they had available to them to be used and we must praise God with everything that we have.

•             Crescendo of Praise – Verse 6

Crescendo is a musical term that refers to the building of a musical piece to its climax or its finale. This seems to fit the purpose of this psalm and the priority of praise. This is the last psalm and the call is for the whole earth to give praise to God. It calls every living thing in the universe to worship the one true God. Praise calls the world to a choice, worship God or worship self. What will be the crescendo of your life, the crowning achievement, what you accomplish or your adoration? Today we have drifted away from worship on the waves of self-praise whose current carries us far from God. The psalmist’s last cry is one of praise.