Praise the Lord

Good morning. One of the ways we can seek to get to know people is by asking them questions about themselves. And really one of the most personal things you can ask somebody is, what kind of music do you like? Think about it. You never greet somebody that way. Hi, my name's Keith. Oh, you're so-and-so. What kind of music do you like? That's way too personal of a question. We leave it at things that you can Google to find out about them, right? Like, where are you from, and what do you do for work? Now, what kind of music do you like? I'm not even sure that's a first date question. That's a bold first date kind of question. When you're trying to find out who somebody is and learn more about them, Because what we listen to, the kind of music we like, it just says so much about us. It reveals our taste, our interest, our style. And usually there's something surprising, like, I like country music, or I like 80s pop, or whatever that may be for you. Music is very powerful. It tells us something about the individual. Music is powerful to unite a community. It connects us to memories and people. This morning we're going to start a series on God's songs. God likes songs. He likes them so much that he's given us 150 of them in the middle of our Bible. We call them songs. This is God's collection of songs that he has inspired, he's ordained for his people to recite and sing together and these aren't the only songs in scripture. What Dennis actually read earlier is most likely an early Christian hymn. God gave us many songs. He commanded us to sing them together and even to one another. See, songs are powerful to evoke emotion, transform the heart, remind us of events, reinforce truth, and unite us. So this morning, we're looking at a song that Melanie just read, Psalm 146. And we're looking at this song, and really, I want us to look at this as an invitation. The Psalms are God not just inviting us into his praise, but then leading us to praise him as he deserves. that the Psalms are calls to worship. God is saying, come and join a song that's been going on for eternity, singing my praise. Come and join this song. And just because it's so important to know we worship God, the right God, the right way, he gives us the script. All we have to do is align ourselves with it. to make these words the truth we believe, to make these desires transform our heart. So really, we're seeking to be trained in godliness. This is a good transition from the sermon Chris preached last week in training in godliness. This is how we can train ourselves in godliness, to sing God's songs with Him and to Him. So we're in Psalm 146. Again, you can find that on page 525. If you do not have a Bible, take the Bible that hopefully is in front of you. If there's not a Bible in front of you, just keep tapping shoulders until one gets handed back to you. There's few Bibles for anyone and everyone to take. Psalm 146, these are the words God has given us so that we would know how to praise him. Now, before we get into the sermon outline and structure, I'm gonna make a few basic observations so we can just appreciate the text. Our text has a bookend. Notice the first and last line are the same. Praise the Lord. In Hebrew, this is hallelujah, which we've been singing. Hallelujah, all I have is Christ. Hallelujah, Christ, he is my life. We've been singing that exact praise. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. And 146 has a proper place in the 150 Psalms. Look at the first line of Psalm 147. Praise the Lord. 148, praise the Lord. 149, praise the Lord. Guess what 150's gonna say? Praise the Lord. The proper ending of God's songbook. Praise Him. Praise Him. We're going to praise the Lord as we've recited His good deeds, as we've recited the things He's done, the things He's said. We're going to only properly respond to the end of His hymnal, His psalms. Praise Him. Praise Him. Praise Him. So there's a command. Our psalm begins with a command, and then it goes into a warning. Look at verses three and four. as this has already been given a little bit in the pastoral prayer, trust not in princes. Our praise is connected to our trust, and we're gonna think about that a bit. Praising God means we're going to stop doing something else, and that is praising man. And praise and trust, they're connected. So we have a command in verses one and two, we have a warning in verses three and four, and then verse five, the key word is blessed. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is the Lord his God. And he's gonna go through and explain why we are blessed, we're able to praise the creator, the faithful God, the helper. He's the creator, the faithful God who keeps his promises, and the helper. So this morning we're doing something that quite frankly is, different than what we normally do. And we're looking at a psalm. So preaching the epistles, I find that to be a little bit more natural. Because the epistles were written by an apostle. They were meant to be read to a church. And the whole goal there is for someone to read these epistles that are going to help correct, encourage, exhort, to move us forward. And so they fiddle more properly. The psalms are much more personal in reflection. They're actually teaching us not just what God has said, but how to respond properly to what God has said. So here's a practice that parents and anybody can start doing in our worship service. Look at the songs we sing, and whenever songs are as if God are speaking to us, you put an arrow down. That's when God is speaking to us. And when songs are us responding and praising Him and responding to what He said, you put an arrow up. The Psalms are all arrow up. The Pentateuch, that's primarily coming down. God's speaking to us. The Psalms are then learning, or us learning and teaching us to come back up. It's an invitation. An invitation to delight in the one God who we've forsaken and is calling us back to praise him. So let's look at this. Our first point is gonna be looking at verses one and two. And it's a commitment. It's a commitment to live to praise the Lord. A commitment Live to praise the Lord. Again, the key word here for this entire psalm that controls all of it is hallelujah. It's one word in Hebrew. Praise Yahweh, the God of Israel. And notice it's a command. But who is he commanding? Is it as if I'm up here telling you, praise the Lord? No, it's reflective. He's actually speaking to himself. Praise the Lord, oh my soul. He's actually counseling and commanding himself to praise the Lord. He's talking to himself. Now I used to be very paranoid about how much I talked to myself. Because in grade school, people who talk to themselves get picked on and I talk to myself a lot. And it turns out I'm not the only one that does it and so that actually isn't what makes me weird. We all do it. But as I've learned to talk to myself, I'm hoping learning to do it better, and that I do realize the kinds of thoughts that I'm entertaining affect me so much. I'm either embracing and reciting the truth of God, or I'm embracing and reciting the lies of my own sin in the world. I'm either praising God and being thankful for what he's given me or I'm angry and frustrated about what I'm discontent with. We're either focused on God and his own glory and we're learning to recite and praise him or reciting someone's sin against us. We're either going to freedom in worship or bitterness and anger. And so here, as we're looking at this commandment, it's a self-reflective commandment. Praise the Lord, O my soul. There's a giving counsel to oneself that's guarding ourselves. We're regularly tempted to think about how others, including God, should be glorifying us. This is our grand temptation. To not be thinking, I want to live for the praise of God, but I want to live for the praise of me. This is a psalm that is correcting our own idolatry. So let's look at what it actually means to praise the Lord. It means to boast of Him, to declare He is worthy, to think highly of Him, to desire Him, to exalt Him, to have your heart and mind bent up to Him, to find a light in Him above all else. We must tell ourselves to do this because we too naturally think little of God and much of everything else. Now let's look at verse two. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh my soul. He's still making this this commitment and he goes further and I want you to see here verse 2 is a fantastic example of Hebrew parallelism Okay, that's getting a little technical in our Bible study, but this is important as we're studying the Psalms When we think of poetry or song what we normally do in English is have rhyming Right? We rhyme. We have meter and rhyme. Hebrew has meter and parallelism. So as we are to wanting to have rhyme in our song, our poetry, oftentimes, not always, but what Hebrew really emphasizes is parallelism. So I want you to see here, there's a beautiful parallelism. I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Now, C.S. Lewis defines parallelism as the practice of saying the same thing twice in different words. That's a little overly simplistic, but it gets to the point. Verse two is saying something very similar with two different lines. There are actually two different declarations. I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God while I am I be. Well, what's different between those? Well, Lord and God, that's referring to the same person, just different words we're speaking to them. The word seeing is included in the second. It goes from as long as I live to all of my being. It goes from as long the temporary or the forever aspect of time to all my strength. So there is a beautiful repetition. Repetition is a great tool to emphasize something important. Repetition is a great tool to emphasize something important. You typically remember something someone repeated. Here he wants you and he's repeating to himself, I will praise the Lord. I will sing praises to my God. The second phrase is really including that not just as long as I live, but of everything that I am. As long as I live with everything I am, I will praise Him who is truly worthy of praise. As I think about application, I want us to first just step back and remember we were created by God for God. That just has to be our most basic fundamental starting point. We were created by God for God. We were created by the glorious God for His glory. Not that He needed our praise, but He invites us into actually knowing Him so that we can praise Him. Knowing His glory is good for us. Something that's just inherent and important for us to realize. We are worshipers. We are worshipers. We're always worshiping something. Here, this psalmist is just teaching us how to actually focus on the one who's truly worthy of worship. And so first, let's just see this psalm, it's a call to worship. We're invited to praise the God who is truly praiseworthy. And this is such good news. Because our hearts are so easily tempted to put praise on that which is not praiseworthy. We are so easily tempted to praise sin. To think that the lies that it presents, as we sang earlier in All I Have is Christ, that those lies are actually gonna come to fruition, that it's gonna satisfy me. You know, this is an invitation. Come and see true glory. Come and see true power. Come and see true beauty. To know Him and be known by Him, to be loved by Him, to love Him, to be satisfied. As we look at it later, this is truly the blessing that we cannot comprehend. worship. True worship. It's an invitation. Praise the Lord. Second, it's a commitment. This is God giving us a personal reflection so that we can practice praising Him. Praising God takes practice. Actually, as I'm reading this, I'm thinking of the athlete who's in the gym who keeps telling themselves, I've got to keep shooting more free throws. I've got to push myself to do more suicides. I've got to keep doing this because my heart is so inclined to not do what it's supposed to do. I've got to practice. We've got 150 psalms that teach our hearts to practice what they were created for. Praise God. God's giving us a script. The hard work is just following the script. The hard work is just reading the lines over and over again, until they become part of our minds, and then become part of our hearts, and then become part of our actions. God is inviting us, and it is a real commitment that takes practice, and the motivation is seeing God in His glory. Third, it's a prayer. This is a prayer to be prayed. This is a beautiful thing. God has condescended down to us and he's given us the actual words to put on our lips to change us. So here's a challenge for you. Next week, Mark Collins will be preaching Psalm 121. It's a short psalm. We'll start out easy. Read that psalm every day this week. Prepare your hearts for what God might challenge you with. Prepare your hearts to praise the God who is help. Again, we'll be studying next week. Psalm 121, read it every day next week so that it even becomes your own prayer. So first we'll see a commitment. Praise the Lord, O my soul. I will praise Him as long as I live. I will praise Him while I'm being. And then we have what we need as sinners, a warning. Put not your trust in princes and a son of man in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. On that very day, his plans perish. In verses 3 and 4, we see a warning. And this warning is for a people who really function differently under a king than we do. There's an element of trust related to praise. Do not put your trust in the wrong place. Right after hearing, praise the Lord. There's something that we have to realize that those who are praiseworthy are trustworthy. Those who are trustworthy are praiseworthy. He who is truly trustworthy is ultimately praiseworthy. We should be trusting in God alone for our salvation and help and hope. So why does he go into this, do not trust in princes? This really doesn't make a lot of sense to us, most likely. Because we don't live in little kingdoms where every summer the kings would go out to battle. Thankfully, we live in a place that has a lot of peace. Okay, there's fear of war constantly in this world. That's not gonna end, but speaking in history right now, we in America have relative peace. Praise God for that. But these people, they had kingdoms all around. And most summers, the kings are supposed to go out and battle. And what the people were always tending to do is that, we're going to put our faith in a mighty man. And if our mighty man, our king, isn't going to do it, we'll go look into Egypt. That was Israel's constant temptation, to not look up to Yahweh and trust He's going to put the right man on the throne who will lead them in His power. Now, they're constantly looking for a guy who's taller and bigger. Remember Saul? Israel was tempted to trust the king, a prince, who wasn't God's ordained guy, just somebody who's bigger and stronger than everybody else. And when he failed, they would look to Egypt. Constantly their temptation. Now, let's step back a moment and just realize, okay, God, he told us to honor and submit to kings. He told us to give them the respect due to them, but we also remember Proverbs 21. God is ultimately in control of every king. Even Colossians, what we heard earlier, said this. But Proverbs 21, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. Like the rivers of water, he turns it wherever he wishes. So by looking to a prince or a royal power figure is foolish for Israel. They know that God Almighty is in control of all kings on this earth. So this is a bit foreign to us. Now, every four years, we might be tempted to believe that the guy who's promising to fix everything's broken, or the gal, will actually do it. But I don't think we actually wrestle with the same kind of temptation or need the same kind of warning. So I'm gonna do a little bit of a cultural translation here, a little liberty. Instead of put not your trust in princes, really it's put not your trust in yourself. That's our temptation as individualistic Americans. We really should replace princes with my strength, my competence, my wisdom. We look to ourselves to have the power to save us from whatever the problem is. There's very little reverence for God. Don't believe me, go to the bookstore, go to Barnes & Noble afterwards, and look how long the self-help book is, section is. Or go to the Christian section and look how many books there belong in the self-help section. We laugh about that, but that's how we're geared and we need to realize that's how we're geared. All I need is a little help and I can help myself. We think that we can say with the poet, I'm the master of my fate, I'm the captain of my soul. We think we're our own Prince Charming, our own Mighty Mouse. Here I am to save my day. No. We need to realize we need real help. We have a real problem. It's our sin. God is the only solution to the real problem. Sadly, when we think of God, we do not look to him for help. Our tendency is to blame God for what's wrong. That there's a fundamental problem with the way we think as sinners. We look inside for the solution and we blame God outside for the problem. And it's the exact opposite of reality and the truth. The real problem comes from the inside, our sinful desires, our lack of faith. And the real help comes from outside. We have to train ourselves to recognize that. The real problem is that within my own heart, the real help comes from outside. We do not put our trust in ourselves in the same way that Israelites do not put their trust in princes, because there is no salvation in just a man. Men die. There is no ultimate final hope. Men cannot keep the promises that they always make. This is in contrast to the God life. This is in contrast to the God of creation. The God who's creator. Let's move to the third point where we'll spend a little bit more time. The blessing. We've heard a commitment. Praise the Lord of my soul. A warning. Do not trust, put your trust in the wrong place because that will, that will then lead your praise going to the wrong place. Then a promise really. The blessing. Live for the Lord of life. Now blessing controls actually verses five to nine, but there's two stanzas here. I don't know if you noticed, just in the psalm itself, there's two stanzas and they're pointed out very clearly. The first stanza is all controlled by a blessed. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, who made the heaven and earth, the scene of all that's in them, who keeps faith, who executes justice, who gives food. The next stanza is still blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, It's the Lord who opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourner. We hear it's a long list of reasons why you are blessed to be invited to praise the one true God, the God of Israel. This is what the psalmist has given you. Because it's helpful for us. Let's just make it more clear. He's given himself, right? We're giving ourselves. Praise the Lord. Do not put your trust here because it's going to interfere your praise. No, praise the Lord. Here's why it is such a blessing to praise this God, and there's three basic reasons. He's the creator. He's faithful. He is the true help. He's the creator. He's faithful. He is the true help. But let's just pause for a second and go back to that word, blessed. Verse 5, again, is a wonderful example of Hebrew parallelism. Blessed controls both. Blessed is he, there's two ways in which he's going to make this statement, whose help is in the God of Jacob, blessed is he, as assumed there in the second line, whose hope is in the Lord his God. Again, referring to the same person, but in two different ways. He will help you, you can place your hope in him, this is the blessed place. Now blessed is a word that we use often and maybe not real well. The whole bless your heart movement really has just messed up this word. We use it in a derogatory way. Oh, they can't do that, bless his heart. We use it as a derogatory phrase. It's unhelpful. Blessed is a word that actually, I'm gonna hopefully show you, it controls the Psalms. Blessed is a word that really might be best translated as happy. You're happy in this one God, Your well, your peace, all is right. So when somebody asks you how you're doing and you say, I'm fine, that's not blessed. I'm fine is not saying I'm blessed. No, it is well. It is all good. Things are right. Complessed is a wonderful state of being because you have been aligned with God and He is the one who truly makes the heart happy. Turn with me all the way back to Psalm 1. Psalm 1 is a wisdom psalm. We're looking at a praise psalm. Psalm 1 is a wisdom psalm. It's telling you how to live well. That's on page 448 if you're using a pew Bible. Notice how the Psalms begin. Blessed. Happy. At peace. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. There's walking, standing, and sitting. There's a warning of how you're going to live a life, and this is not the blessed life. Verse 1. Then verse two tells us how you can be blessed. But blessed is the man whose delight, his love is in the law of God. He meditates on it. Plants them like a tree planted by a river. He soaks up the life-giving source of the water. Blessed is the man who's gonna put these words of this book from God in his mind, in his heart. He will be happy. What an invitation. We're not just inviting you to praise God. We're telling you that's how God's designed you to be happy. Let's go back to 146. Happy is he who does not trust in princes. Happy is he who sees that true help comes from the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord as God. To be blessed is to be aligned with God so that we can sing it as well with my soul. But now let's look at the psalmist and we're telling ourselves why this is such a blessed place. Why was she praising this one God? Well, the first reason we're going to look at is that He is the faithful God who makes promises. Just the very way He even describes the God at the very first point in verse 5, the God of Jacob, that is already setting apart this God as one true God. Because by saying He's the God of Jacob, we know He's the God who made promises. We know that He's a God, if we go back to Genesis, we see Him making promises. He is the promise-making God, and more importantly, He is the promise-keeping God. Anyone can make a promise. It actually proves He's God, that He kept the promise. Look at verse six. This actually reinforces this. Who keeps faith forever? Now that's a funny phrase. What does that mean that God keeps faith forever? Many translations flatten this out. He is faithful, and that is a right translation and interpretation. But I love the actual literal here, who keeps faith forever. When you love somebody, you're making a deposit with something sacred. You want to make sure that you're going to deposit that sacred, precious love in a safe place? So it is with faith. So it is with hope. Here, the psalmist is saying, this is a safe deposit. This is a safe place to invest your faith, because He's going to keep it. The return is going to be greater than you can imagine. He doesn't let down. He doesn't disappoint. He doesn't fail at keeping His promises. He's made promises to save a people who even hate Him, and He keeps those promises. Over against our own sin, He keeps His promises. This is why He's faithful. He is our help. He is our hope, because He makes promises, and He keeps promises. The second reason he is the blessed one who is worthy of all praise, he's a creator. Look at verse 6. We go back to Genesis 1 here. He made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them. He's a creator. This is why he's better than those princes who are gonna die. He created them. He's a God who creates life. He's not the God who depends upon things for life. This is actually cited back in Acts 14 verse 15, when Paul is confronting the pagans. Why are you worshiping things that have been created when you can worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them? He is a God of life. He is sovereign. He's not like the prince. Just like we read earlier in Colossians, why Jesus is so powerful. He's a creator. He's able to give life because he's creator of life. Third, He helps those who need help. And really this is the main body here, right? This was repeated. And I believe this long list of ways that He helps those who need help isn't to kind of get into each one, but it's to show the grand scope of the ways God helps. There's nothing out of His power that He cannot help. Look at this list. He executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. He opens the eyes of the blind. He lifts up those who are bowed down. He loves the righteous. He watches over the soldier. He upholds the widow and the fatherless. The way of the wicked he brings to ruin. Here we see a beautiful declaration that he helps the helpless. His love is faithful. He is the God of salvation. This is the God we know and love because He helps us. One of the greatest declarations we can simply say about God is He is for us. That summarizes so much of Scripture. He's not against us. He is against those who are wicked. But those who need help and cry out for help, He's for us. Christian, we need to remember this. We need to constantly counsel ourselves. We are supposed to be praising Him and trusting Him and being blessed by Him because He is the one who truly helps. It's a sweet and sacred invitation. Come and receive my help. Friend, if you're not a Christian this morning, this is good news for you today. Because everyone in this room is in need of help. Now, To say we need help, that's hard to admit, right? Let's just face it. It's hard to admit we need help. It's even harder to ask for it. But when this help comes, it is such a sweet relief. I want to acknowledge it. It's hard to say I need help. It's hard to say, will you help me? But here, we're studying the God. We're actually coming and hearing the words of the God who says, I can help you. And maybe what you need help with isn't exactly on this list, but the whole point of this list is it's a grand scope. There's nothing that He cannot help you with. There's been many false gods who tell you, I can help you. And what they're going to want to tell you, and this is the main lie that Satan always brings in to these false idols that are seeking your praise. I can help you if you do this and this and this for me, I'll help you. Because there's something in us that wants us to earn the help. That makes it feel better to ask for and to receive. It makes us feel like it's more secure if we earned it, and there's nothing farther from the truth. The one true God who can truly help you tells you something that's counterintuitive. It's actually so against our logic that it's offensive. He says, just cry out to me, and I will give you You don't have to do anything to earn it. You do nothing but cry out. All you do is say, I need you. This is the help that I have. It's offensive because we think, no, we need to do something. He can help me as I'm helping myself. No. When we really see our need, there's nothing we can do. You see, we have all sinned. We've rejected God, we've run away from God, and there's nothing we can do to repair that relationship. There's nothing, there's no steps to start taking. We've rejected Him, but He looked at us, and He saw our sin, and He's against us in our sin. If you're not a Christian this morning, this is something you need to understand. He's against us in our sin. Which means when we face Him, His wrath is gonna come upon us, and He's gonna crush us. It's the hard news. That's why we need help. That's why he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to live the life we refuse to live. To live that perfect life who Jesus, he didn't have to tell him something to trust in princes. He praised the Lord faithfully his whole life. The one who truly first sings this song is Jesus. He's the one who truly praises God with his entire being all of his life. That's why the end of his life is somewhat confusing. He's crushed. He's judged. He's punished. Why would the one who actually finally came and lived the perfect life for his entire life get judged? He did it for us. He did it so he could help us. He did it because there was nothing we could do to help our situation. So He came, took the penalty we deserve, so that in His death, we can have new life. That's the help we are invited right now to receive. All we have to do is enter into His song. Jesus Christ, who sung this song, who takes your penalty, who rises again in your life, He's now inviting you in. Sing the song with me. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. I will sing to the Lord. I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing to my God as long as I be. We need help. Praise God. We have the great God who has conquered death. He helps us who are in need. He helps us who have no belonging. He gives us the help we need. The final point is a reminder. The Lord, He reigns forever. The Lord will reign forever. Your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord. Here we see that there's a truth that doesn't stop. that this song is going to be going on forever. We are invited into this song that's been going on, and we will sing forever if we simply respond to the invitation by faith. As we reflect upon this, we hear a call to worship. God is calling us to his worship. This is a command to come and praise the one who's truly praiseworthy, to take our eyes off of all those things that distract us and to bring us back, oh my soul, let us stay focused on praising the one who is truly worthy. It's a warning against praising and trusting in error. Not mighty men, not in myself, but the one God who's able. And it's a promise. The blessed life is given to the one who makes this commitment. The blessed life is the one who receives his invitation and praises him. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have given us words to sing. You've given us a reflection so that we can know how to come to you. We thank you, Father, that you have sent your Son so that we know that we can come to you now as your children and make our request known to you. Father, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, we praise you. Help us, Lord, to see the things that we need to be warned against in our lives. Help us to see the sin that entangles us and has entangled us. Set us free, Almighty God. Lord, lead us into that blessed life where we're walking by your spirit and not quenching your spirit. Help us to be in that blessed life where we're loving your word and what you've said and receiving it with joy and living it out by saying, I praise you, oh Lord. Praise the Lord, oh my soul. Help us, Lord, to know how to respond to your great grace and salvation. with your praises. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.