Praise the Lord God

I came across some interesting prayers. We're going to be looking at how this psalm works in life and in the book of Psalms. I came across these interesting prayers and they're prayers of children. Don't I know you, but I love the way that children are just open and honest about their prayers. The first one is Debbie.

Debbie's age seven. Dear God, please send a new baby for Mommy. The baby you sent me last week cries too much. Don't you love that honesty? This is Angela.

She's aged eight. Dear God, this is my prayer. Could you please give my brother some brains? So far, he doesn't have any. I used to pray that about my sisters actually.

And here, this is Lois who's age nine. Dear God, please help me in school. I need help in spelling, adding, subtracting, science, reading, history, geography, writing. I don't need help in anything else. Ain't that wonderful?

Just open honesty. We delight in the prayers of children. They're not afraid to just put there before God what's on their mind. I need help, God, and can you fix this for me? I'm not afraid to bring those things before God, uninhibited when it comes to, you know, expressing their feelings before God.

Asking prayers and it's fun. But when I think about prayers, I think sometimes aren't our prayers focused around asking? You know, we're it's true. We're encouraged to ask things from God, but there's more to prayer than just asking things of God. If you look at the Psalms, there are many prayers and praise and hymns and songs throughout the Psalms.

When you come to the end of the psalms, starting here at Psalm 146, you get a group of five psalms all beginning and ending with the words, praise the Lord or hallelujah as it is in its original language. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. We're not really sure who wrote these last five psalms. The Greek version of the Old Testament attributes them to Haggai and Zechariah, the time when the people have come back out of exile.

What's important is when you look at this in the context of the Psalms as a glorious whole. We begin with Psalm one. We end with Psalm 115. And this book of Psalms ends with an uninterrupted note of praise to God. Finishes by just bringing the focus and the attention all to God.

You know, if you go through the earlier Psalms, you know, the Psalmist there, they bring everything before God as well just like these children do. They bring their grief, their shame, their sins. They bring their doubts and fears before God and say, God, this is what I'm feeling. And they record ups and downs in life. They record their defeats and their victories in the name of the Lord.

You would encounter just the realness of their life, their struggles with life and faith. But you get to the end, these last five psalms, and all that's put aside. All that's in the past. And the final words in the book of Psalms is praise to God. Praise of God.

And praise is where our faith leads us when we think about God. When all is said and done, we come before God. Our hearts beat with praise to God. And I don't think we spend enough time praising God. Praising God is not like thanking God.

When you thank God, it's a prayer of thanking God for specific things that He's done, good things. And we come before God with our thanks. But in a sense, it's still about me. It's still about thank you for what you've done for me. Thank you for what you've done for these people.

Praise is more about just adoration for God, for who He is. It's God centred. Praise you God for who you are. And I think sometimes praising is what we can forget to do. You know, do we understand all that God is doing in our lives or in the world?

We'd have to say no. Of course not. But we understand enough about the nature of God to praise Him. To praise Him in spite of our difficulties. The Psalmist expressed their difficulties in life and yet they can end with this note of praise.

Roy Clements, he's an English Baptist pastor. And he knows that there are three words that are understood in every language around the world. Amen, hallelujah, and Coca Cola. Coca Cola is known around the world. You know, we all know.

Amen. We all know Coca Cola. But do we all know this word hallelujah? I've just got a little video clip that I want to show you about the way the word hallelujah is used in our society. Hey.

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This is Bob. Bob stands for broadband in a box. Bob gives you fast wireless broadband and phone in one sexy little box for one little monthly bill. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

To find out more about Bob, give us a call or go online. What? Hallelujah. Hey. At IONet, we like to keep things simple.

You know, when that ad came out, I know people were chuckling about it, but when you think and reflect on it, trivialising the word hallelujah, praise the Lord, and throwing that in an ad to grab people's attention. You know, it's just I don't know. To me, that is really the meaning of the word praise the Lord. It's really the meaning of God and worship and yet we throw that around in our society in commercials on TV. Now, this word hallelujah, it's made up of two Hebrew words.

The first is halal, which means praise. And then we got you, which is just a contraction of the word Jehovah. And so you put them together, praise Jehovah, praise the Lord. And so that's where it comes from. That's why in the Psalmist, it's translated as praise the Lord.

If you go back to your revised standard version or the new American standard version, they would still put the word hallelujah. Hallelujah means praise the Lord. Often in Jewish worship, it's used as a liturgical response. So what the priest or the leader would say something like, the Lord is good. His love endures forever.

And the people would respond, hallelujah. Praise the Lord. But as Clements, the guy who did the amen, hallelujah, Coca Cola, he goes on to say, he points out that the person who composed these last psalms doesn't want hallelujah repeated as a trite jingle. He said it's not meant to be used as a mantra that's chanted like a Hare Krishna would do. It's not meant to draw people into some state of spiritual ecstasy.

He says it's intended as a kind of liturgical alarm clock to wake a sluggish congregation. He says, it starts with hallelujah. You've got to be alert to this. You've got to wake up. There's business at hand and our business is to praise the Lord.

And he says, praise the Lord is an act of worship. Worship that humans bring to an almighty God. Yet we skip that sometimes in our lives. What is praise? What is praise?

Well, it begins verse one, praise the Lord, O my soul. So there's an internal dimension to our praise. Our soul is the beginning point of praise. I can't praise God except that I've been changed in my heart. I can't praise the Lord unless His grace has reached into my life and transformed it.

I can't praise God without a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then I can come before God in a way that is pleasing. The writer to the Hebrews says, without faith, it's impossible to please God because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. So our praise comes from the inside. But that internal praise needs to be expressed in our lives, expressed earnestly externally.

And that's where it goes on in verse two to say, I will praise the Lord while I live. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. So singing in this context has little to do with hitting the right notes. Getting it, you know, on the right spaces on the lines. It's bringing what's on the inside to an expression on the outside.

Praise comes from the heart because of what God has done. It's expressing what we believe on the inside on the outside. It has little to do with performing musically correct. It has everything to do with bringing to God the very best praise that comes from within you. Now, those who have musical ability, we praise God for them because they can lead us, they can guide us, they can use their gift to praise God doing it, hitting the right notes.

And they lead us in that. But those of us who are musically challenged like myself, we've still got a responsibility to bring from the inside praise of God. I was told the other week, last week at Redlands that the guys doing the AV have made a recording of my singing and of Etienne's because we've got the mic there and they've done a recording and they're threatening to make a compilation of our singing and play it one Sunday morning. And part of me says, oh, no. Another part of me says, so what?

I'm praising God. So if I'm musically challenged as my children continually remind me that I am, I still have an obligation to praise God. I shouldn't just fold my arms, wait for the singing to be finished, count the bricks on the back walls we used to do when we were kids. I think that's probably bordering on it's shameful, but it's probably bordering on sinful because we're not expressing our hearts before God. We're called to praise God, so we should try.

No one came this morning to hear me sing. He sing the wrong notes. Well, I hope I didn't record that either. Thank goodness.

But we're gathered together as God's people to sing praise, and that's what we do as God's collective people. And together, we make a beautiful noise before the Lord, led by those who are gifted in music, and offering a praise that comes from the inside out. And that's what we do as God's people when we come together. We don't come together for different things. We come together to praise the Lord.

Henry Ward Beecher was a celebrity preacher in England, famous for his ability to preach, to just hold a congregation spellbound with his preaching and his teaching. And people would flock from neighbouring towns just to come and hear him preach. Now, he had a brother Thomas who was also a preacher, but nowhere near as gifted. And one snowy Sunday, the church was packed full because Henry was going to preach. But his brother Thomas walks out from the back room.

And realising that this was Thomas, the less gifted preacher, a number of people, visitors and members of the congregation got up and started walking out. In a moment of inspiration, Thomas Beecher stood up and said, all those who came to worship Henry Beecher, you may leave now. Those who came to worship God can stay. He was drawing people back to the fact that they haven't come to hear Henry, but they've come together to praise God. That's what we do is we gather as church.

We come together to praise God. We come together for the glory of God. We come together because we know who God is. We understand what He's done for us. We bring glory to God.

There's no place for hero worship other than the worship of Jesus. There's no place for half-hearted feeble worship. Our singing bears that out. Now there's if you go through the rest of the Psalms from one hundred forty-six to one hundred fifty, there's more to it than just singing praise to God. It unpacks it for the rest of our life, but this psalm tends to have this focus on singing praise to God.

The question we ask is why is God the only object worthy of our praise? Why is God the only object? Well, the psalmist tells us why. The first point he makes is that He is the maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them. You know, people aren't, can't give us security because giving security is beyond their power to give.

I think this cyclone or what a hurricane Sandy that came through just showed that we can't give the protection that people need in certain times. But that's not so with God. He is the almighty. He's the creator of heaven and earth. The one who fashioned everything out of nothing.

And He moulded us out of the dust of the earth and He breathed into us the breath of life. God doesn't lack any power like man does. Things that happen are entirely within His power and His security to give. In the light of the New Testament, we know that we praise a God who reveals Himself in Christ Jesus. We praise God because He's the almighty creator, but the message of the New Testament says that that God who created all things, He did that through Christ.

So we praise God because He's the maker of heaven and earth. We praise God because He's the one that we can trust. He will not fail us. Again, the psalmist says, one forty-six, do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground.

On that very day, their plans come to nothing. It seems that the psalmist called to worship and his personal resolve to worship is followed by this warning, don't put your trust in princes. And you think, is that disconnected from worship or is it connected some way? And I think it really is connected because it challenges us to consider where we do put our trust. You know, as people, there are times we can put our trust in money.

We can put our trust in money, but money can't save us. Just ask someone who's been unemployed for a long period of time. Just ask someone who's retired and dependent on the interest rate for their retirement income. Just ask people who have invested their money in some of these banks or corporate institutions that collapse. We can't put our trust in money.

You know, sometimes we're challenged to put our trust in technology. You know, all the gadgets are nice but they're not dependable. Just ask someone whose computer has crashed. Just before I moved from Melbourne up to Brisbane, I went to the doctor and I had to have a blood test and I just had had this checkup. And I visited the doctor and when I get there, he says the girl on reception says, oh, well, I can't look anything up because the computers are down.

And so she writes this little appointment thing on a card and she gives it to me. So when you go to the doctor, take that in there and he'll write stuff on there. And so then I go to the doctor and he can't pull up my personal information. I've been going to this doctor for six years and he can't look up my personal information because the computer system is down. And so he says to me, well, you'll have to come back later to pick up the referral for going for the blood test because I can't print that off because the computers are down.

And then he says, well, then when you go out to pay, they can't log that in because the computers are down. So they'll just take a, they'll give you a bill and next time you come, you'll have to pay the bill. So this whole doctor's surgery dependent on the computers, it crashes for a couple of hours and I can't even get a checkup done. So we can't put our trust in technology. And the question comes out, what do you put your trust in?

The main reason sometimes we fail to praise God is because we value some of these things more than God. Now theoretically, we know that's not right. Theoretically, we know that God is of supreme importance. But God at times seems invisible and remote, distant from our thoughts. And so we see other people and the things around us and we begin to put our dependence there, put our trust in them.

Some people say, we put our trust in politicians. Does get a chuckle, doesn't it? We put our trust in politicians. We chuckle at that, but when you read the paper, you realise that people are actually trying to do that. They say, if the government legislated this, then this would be okay.

So they are in a sense, we don't, they may not be, we may not feel they're trustworthy people, but we tend to put our trust in what we think that they can do to fix things up, the problems in society. But they can't even solve their own problems, and yet we put our trust sometimes in them to fix the problems of society. May we put our trust in education and science. You know, if we just knew more about the world, if we could just have a better education for children, then things would be better in this world. We devalue the place of God.

Or perhaps we value ourselves more than we value God. We think, well, we can handle the troubles by ourselves, work through the emergencies with our own wisdom and understanding. And so we don't, in a sense, praise God about His working in these things. And I thought this through and I thought, actually that is true of me. I think I can manage everything on my own and what I do is that I do this much and I've got this little bit left that I'm struggling with and I'll bring that to God.

I don't bring the whole lot. I just work out what I can do, what I can solve, what I can manage, and what I have access to. The things that I know that I can fix or I'm pretty sure that I can fix. And God, you can fix those little unfixable things that go on around my life. Put our trust in ourselves and the things that we can do.

Jesus tells a parable in Luke 12 that strikes at that. He tells about the rich man who pats himself on the back because he's a self-made man. He's built these barns. He's wealthy and he can kick back in life. Jesus says, God calls him a fool because he's put his trust in himself.

We can't put our faith and our trust in ourselves or in others. The only being in the universe that you can depend on unconditionally is God. God who is, as the psalmist says, the maker of heaven and earth. And the psalmist calls us to turn our attention to God. And so we should praise God because He gives us hope.

He gives us hope. The psalmist goes on to say, blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the maker of heaven and earth. So his hope is in the Lord his God. You know, he's reminding us that God has a track record. This God of Jacob has a track record.

A reminder that the God of history is tracking and looking after His people. And we know from scripture what God did for Jacob and his people. We know that what God has done for people through the centuries of scripture. God has a track record and we can put our hope there. In the light of the New Testament, we've got an even deeper hope.

We have a deeper hope because God has kept His promise. He promised to send a deliverer, the Messiah, the one to stand in our place, and He did. He sent His son, Jesus Christ. He promised to deliver us from our sins and Jesus bared the punishment for our sin. He did it through Jesus Christ, carry the guilt and shame of your sin and mine.

Carry the anger of God for our disobedience. People put their hope in things that have no track record or at best a poor track record. Where do you find your sense of hope and security? If you begin to develop an attitude of praising God, you find that that's where you put your hope. You put it in God, not in things that can fail.

And we're reminded that in Titus, Titus chapter two. And I can't read that so I'll read it from here. Titus chapter two starting at verse eleven. It says, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to lose self control of upright and godly lives in this present age.

While we do what? While we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own. We have hope because of what Jesus Christ did on earth. We have a glorious, a blessed hope as we wait for Christ to return. And when He does, He'll set all things right.

So we put our hope in God. And we praise God because God loves us. Psalm 146 verses seven to nine, it says, this is the demonstration of God's love. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoner free.

The Lord gives sight to the blind. The Lord, notice the Lord, repeated refrain. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and widow.

But frustrates the way of the wicked. So when God look at the things that God has done for us, and I think, how many times do we praise our favourite musician? Anyone want to throw out their favourite band? You got one? No.

Alright. No one's got any favourite bands. What? Sorry? Newsboys.

There you go. I've got some favourite bands, U2, Coldplay. And I think about Coldplay and I think I can tell people about Coldplay songs. I can go on about that. I can tell people about Chris Martin, and he's married to Gwyneth Paltrow, and just a whole lot of stuff like that.

But hey, guess what? He doesn't know me. He doesn't know me at all. He doesn't even know I exist. Or we do that with our favourite actors.

You know, we can know every movie that they've been part of. We can give the biography of their life, but they don't know that we exist. But as you reflect on the Psalms word, He's the creator of heaven and earth. You know, this God who created heaven and earth upholds the cause of the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets the prisoner free. It's a personal thing that He does for people.

The God of the universe, the one who sustains His creation, pays attention to each of His created beings. God knows and cares for each one of us. It amazes me that the God who made the heaven and earth and sustains the creation pays attention to me at all. But that's what we're told. You know, the grand scope of the universe, we may seem insignificant, but not in God's eyes.

Not in the eyes and the heart of the creator who says, for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. If that's the only reason we praise God, then it's enough. And lastly, we praise God because the Lord reigns forever. Your God, O Zion, for all generations. Think about the Lord's not hampered or restricted by the boundaries of time or the ways of people.

He's not restricted like we are. God can't be voted out of power at the next election. There's no term limits for who God is and what He does. He's always able to help. He's always there to sustain.

He's always there to help. He's there forever and ever. And so we praise God because He reigns forever. We know that from now into eternity, God rules over all things and in all things through Christ. And notice when you go through the psalm, the psalmist doesn't say, I'll praise the Lord as long as I enjoy health, as long as I have a good life, as long as I'm comfortable with life.

He doesn't say that to the Lord, I'll praise the Lord, if I and my family arrive safely at our destination, if God, this happens for me in life. Whatever our circumstances, whatever our situation, the psalmist calls us to praise the Lord in whom we're ultimately secure. Whatever the circumstances, anything can happen and may happen, but the psalmist knows and he sees through that to the God who holds all things. He knows in whom he can put his trust and so he says, hallelujah.

Praise the Lord. So even in the midst of our struggles in life, we're called to praise the Lord because God alone is good and powerful and trustworthy. Why would we settle for anything less? He's the only one of whom we can say, hallelujah. Praise the Lord.