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“Praise the LORD!” God’s love in giving us Praise Psalms.
Today we are going to continue and our study of Psalms in particular we'll be looking at praise songs.
If you remember weeks ago Dennis opened this series with considering lament psalms.
And we learned that the lament psalms have been given to us that we might learn to express emotions of The soul in a way that honors God and reminds us of his faithfulness.
Then on the following Sunday Paul opened up Psalm one so that we could get a glimpse of a wisdom psalm.
Today with Gods help I want to do four things
Explain the genre of praise Psalms
Show how the praise Psalm's functioned in the lives of the Old and New Testament Saints as well as the church down through the ages.
I want to demonstrate how the command given by God that we praise him reveals his supreme wisdom and and demonstrates his loving kindness
I want to show how the command that we praise God is an invitation to continually know him more.
Let’s look at
Praise Psalms (or hymns as they often referred by) are easily recognized by their exuberant praise of the Lord.
The psalmist pulls out all the stops in his rejoicing in God’s goodness.
His praise is exuberant because the psalmist is very conscious of God’s presence.
There are many different types of Praise Psalms, but nearly all of them share a similar basic structure.
Praise Psalm structure
Begin with a call to worship the LORD.
They continue by expanding on the reasons why God should be praised.
Praise Psalms often include, and sometimes conclude with, further calls to praise.
A Call to Worship
So the psalmist begins the Praise Psalm with a call to worship.
Usually this call is extended to other worshipers, but occasionally (as in Ps 103) it is a call to the psalmist himself to worship the Lord.
So sometimes the Praise Psalm is a call to the congregation, in our corporate worship and sometimes it’s for an individual, in our private worship.
Many times a Praise Psalm will open with a simple command to “Praise the Lord!” which in Hebrew is the familiar Hallelu’ Yah.
Such is the case in Psalm 113 and Psalms 146-150.
Listen to the opening of these six Psalms
So, number one, Praise Psalms begin with a call to worship the LORD.
Number two, following the call to worship the LORD, we are told why the Lord is worthy to be praised.
In the Praise Psalm this is the most significant part of the Psalm.
God is to be praised for how he has dealt with his people.
Primarily, how he saves them.
It’s easy to spot the transition from the call to worship to the reason(s) for worship since most of the time the reasons for worship are introduced by a Hebrew word that most often is translated, ‘for’ or ‘because.’
Here’s
And…
The Psalms give varying reasons as the basis of praise such has extolling God as the Creator in Psalm 19:1-4
Allow me to pause for one moment here and point out that although the Psalms do not teach biblical theology and doctrine, they do however give expression to biblical theology and doctrine.
Just here in Ps. 19 we can that according to the word of God all people, tribes and tongues have evidence for a Creator that is to be worshiped.
Now the apostle Paul likely has the truths expressed in Ps. 19 in mind when he wrote Romans 1:18-20.
More on how the Praise Psalms function in scripture in a moment.
Just as the Praise Psalms extol God as Creator they also praise God as King.
We’ll hear about kingship Psalms in a few weeks, but for now listen to Psalm 47:5-6
Finally, as far as structure goes, I said that the Praise Psalms have three parts and most of them do they do.
This third part most often is an expansion on the reason for praise and conclude with this expansion.
So there’s the basic structure of Praise Psalms
Praise Psalm structure
Begin with a call to worship the LORD.
They continue by expanding on the reasons why God should be praised.
Praise Psalms often include, and sometimes conclude with, further calls to praise.
Write your own Praise Psalm.
We’ve spent some time understanding the structure of Praise Psalms but ‘what does it mean to praise God?’ and ‘why is it commanded that we praise God?
What does it mean to praise God?
243 times in the Old Testament Hallelujah or some form of Hallelujah gets translated praise, praises or praised or refers to singing praises.
When we include the New Testament equivalents, 272 times the word praise is used to communicate the senses or ideas of praise.
109 times praise is used in the sense of extolling the greatness of God or His works as an act of worship.
55 times its offering words of respect, honor, or admiration as an act of worship.
To praise God means to offer words of respect, honor, or admiration to Him in light of His greatness and/or the greatness of His works.
But what separates the praise of God from the praise of some other being.
Since I could offer words of respect, honor, or admiration and so on… to a human that is deserving.
Is there is any difference?
My answer is, yes, and the praise psalms give us a clue.
When we spoke of the structure of the praise psalms we observed that the third part of the praise psalm is most often an expansion or even expounding of the reason for praise in part two.
I believe it is in the expansion of the Praise Psalms that we discover God’s supreme praise worthiness over and above any man.
Turn to Psalm 146.
I hope you already see from Psalm 146 how a human is entirely different from God.
Now I know the you already knew that but someone new to the Christian faith might not.
And certainly in ancient Israel it would have been important that the worshiper be reminded that Yahweh was not like the idols of other nations.
The praise of God is greater praise than the praise man because He is greater and only He can save.
He is supremely greater.
No, He is supremely, supreme in His greatness.
How about this, He is supremely supreme in His supreme greatness?
My is point is that praising God is not even remotely similar to praising men.
When we say that the praise of God should be exuberant praise we’re only getting started and the Praise Psalms demonstrate that time after time.
So then, perhaps a good working definition would be... To praise God is to supremely magnify His greatness with words and/or actions of respect, honor, adoration, or admiration for who He is and what He has done.
Now on to our next question.
Why are we commanded to praise God?
It is possible that the command to praise God escaped your notice.
If it did then it is likely because of the sentimentalism with which we view the Psalms in general.
When many think of the Psalms they immediately recall Psalm 23 and images of a gentle shepherd, tenderly watching over sheep come to mind.
Or perhaps we think of one of the great Praise Psalms like Psalm 100, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness…” and so on.
So thinking of the Psalms as ‘arrestors of the human will’ might be new.
Turn to Psalm 46
Psalm 46 is what some would call a ‘descriptive’ praise psalm.
The Psalm describes God’s greatness and magnifies His presence with us and ability save us and restore peace.
This Psalm is one that evokes or stirs up praise.
It is calm, gentle, inviting and yet still a praise psalm.
It is like a friend who has placed his/her hand on your shoulder and whispered, “Peace be still.
Give God praise, He will deliver.”
So then, here, the praise of God is drawn from of us.
The praise of God is not less in this season of life it only has a different expression.
Psalm 46 and others like it are gentle reminders of the command to praise.
This is not the case for Psalms 146-150.
Turn to Psalm 148.
You see elements of the basic structure here and the imperative, the command to Praise the Lord opens the Psalm and it rings forth in its entirety.
The reasons for praise are not found in this Psalm and that’s likely because the last five Psalms function as a doxological unit, a closing Praise, to the entire Psalter.
But what you do find is the command to praise the Lord again and again.
You know many find all this insisting that God be praised offensive.
"When I first began to draw near to belief in God and even for some time after it had been given to me, I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should 'praise' God; still more in the suggestion that God Himself demanded it.
We all despise the man who demands continued assurance of his own virtue, intelligence or delightfulness; we despise still more the crowd of people round every dictator, every millionaire, every celebrity, who gratify that demand.
Thus a picture, at once ludicrous and horrible, both of God and His worshippers, threatened to appear in my mind.
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