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.

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!

The book of Psalms is a holy hymnbook of praise and as it concludes we see the priority of praise as the last five Psalms all begin with, “Praise the Lord.” For the psalmist, “praise the Lord” was an ecstatic expression of unbridled joy. In Psalm 150, in just six short verses, we see the phrase of praise 13 times, Praise is what starts every sentence. The word, “praise” is derived from a Latin word which means to prize. When we praise, we are expressing our approval by valuing that which has worth and merit. The word also means to “shine” or “make a show by celebrating.” To praise the Lord is to prize Him and celebrate Him as the only one worthy of glory and honor. Worship reveals our want for God, it is the act of offering ourselves over to Him. Worship is about we not me. It is an essential aspect of being a Christian, because it is more than just offering our praise and love it is offering our lives to God. Worship is a lifestyle that drives us to desire Jesus and Psalms 150 is not the drawing to a close of Psalms but the:

• Call to Praise – Verse 1

Worship is about ascribing worth and we have been called to lift up the name of God, to humble ourselves and adore Him. The problem is our preferences so we become centered on our selfishness. Today worship has become focused on what we like or what we want from worship. In our self-satisfying society it’s easy to fall into the “what’s in it for me worship” where we come to worship with our concerns and our cares. But the Psalmist reminds us that our focus should not be on our situation but His sanctuary. To praise means to applaud and lift up the name of God in His sanctuary, which means the scope of praise is more than a few songs on Sunday. Praise means recognizing God is present even in our problems because every place that we are is His sanctuary, we are never out of the presence of God. We are also called to praise Him in His mighty heaven, some translations interchange two other words for heavens, firmament and expanse. In essence, all three are attempting to describe the foundational formation of the universe the firmament. The firmament that great expanse holding the fabric of the heavens together, it is the power that stretches across the entire universe. The psalmist is not just saying that God is to be praised in heaven but in all of the cosmos. Every square inch of the universe has reason to resound with the praise of our almighty God.

• Cause of Praise – Verse 2

God has proven Himself over and over that He is worthy of our praise. Throughout history we see the evidence that God is worthy because He is faithful in His actions. He was the One who rescued and redeemed His people from bondage in Egypt. Who proved Himself when He poured out ten plagues on Egypt and parted the waters of the Red Sea. He supplied manna and separated the Jordan River. He caused the walls of Jericho to fall with a shout and came with salvation. Today would you take a moment to reflect and remember something that God has blessed you with over this last week. You do have cause to praise Him for the blessings in your life, your family, your forgiveness and the faithfulness of a loving heavenly Father. We are to praise Him for His unequaled greatness, a greatness that can’t be surpassed. The psalmist is literally saying that we need to praise God because even His greatness is great. His greatness is something so far above and beyond anything that we can comprehend that we simply cannot grasp it. My life is no more valuable than anyone else’s yet God brings His touch, His grace, His mercy, His love into my life daily. The problem with God’s generous gift of grace is that we are people who take Him for granted. If we stop to think about our salvation and all that God has done for us would we surrender to the song of praise?