(Looking at the WHAT, WHERE, WHY, HOW and WHO of praise to the Lord!)
Read Psalm 150
1.WHAT ARE WE CALLED TO DO? Notice that in vs 1 the psalmist calls us to PRAISE THE LORD! This word in the Hebrew is the word “HALLELUJAH” (made up of the two Hebrew words “Halal” meaning praise and “Jah” meaning the Lord!)
FIRSTLY, the word “Halal” as well as meaning praise, can also mean “TO BOAST IN”. This reminds us that we are to only boast in the Lord!! (1 Corinthians 1:31) WHAT REASONS DO YOU HAVE TO BOAST IN THE LORD?
SECONDLY the word Halal can also mean “to make a fool of”. Thus, to praise the Lord can also be seen as TO MAKE A FOOL OF ONESELF FOR THE LORD!!
We see two examples of this in 2 Samuel 6:14-22 (where David made a fool of himself in front of Israel and even his own wife by dancing for the Lord when the ark of the covenant finally came to Jerusalem!!) and in Joshua 6:3-16 where Israel were commanded to give a shout to the Lord at Jericho rather than knock down the walls! ARE WE WILLING TO MAKE A FOOL OF OURSELVES IN PRAISE TO JESUS? (Sometimes we are more worried about what the people around us are going to think of us if we raised our hands in worship or danced for Jesus, rather than only worrying about what Jesus wants us to do in praise to Him!) Let us learn not to worry about other people’s opinions but just focus on how Jesus wants us to praise Him!!
2.WHERE ARE WE TO PRAISE GOD? vs 1 goes on to tell us we are to praise God both here on earth in His sanctuary and in the heavens!! This is a call therefore for both mankind and the angelic beings to praise God (Psalm 103:19-22)!! The other amazing thing we see here is that In the Old Testament, the only place God’s presence dwelt was in His sanctuary in the temple. The wonderful thing about the new covenant is that we are now THE TEMPLE in which God dwells (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19). This means we can praise God ANYTIME and ANYWHERE!! We are no longer bound by a place and time to be able to praise God!! (John 4:20-24)
3.WHY SHOULD WE PRAISE GOD? vs 2 now tells us the reason for praising God- for His ACTS OF POWER and SURPASSING GREATNESS! This means we praise Him both for WHAT HE DOES and WHO HE IS!!
4.HOW SHOULD WE PRAISE GOD? vs 3-5 reveal to us that we should praise God with ALL KINDS OF INSTRUMENTS and DANCING (Psalm 149:3)!! This means there is no set style of music with which He can be praised!! We are to praise Him with both the LOUD (clash of cymbals, trumpets) and SOFT (harp and lyre) instruments!! Some churches choose to praise Jesus through mellow hymns, other churches choose to praise Jesus through more upbeat modern style music and instruments!! Neither of them are wrong. Let us learn not to judge other churches for the style of music with which they choose to praise Jesus!!
LEARN TO PRAISE JESUS WITH ALL STYLES OF MUSIC!!
5.WHO IS MEANT TO PRAISE GOD? Finally in vs 6, we are reminded that EVERYONE is called to praise the ONE TRUE GOD! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!! Let us take up this challenge to make sure we praise the Lord every single day that we have breath in our lungs!! Don’t let the rocks have to cry out on our behalf (Luke 19:40)!
AND FINALLY from vs 6-Notice that this Psalm STARTS and ENDS with Praise? Let us learn to praise God all throughout our days, to START AND END EVERYDAY IN PRAISE TO OUR WONDERFUL JESUS!!
HALLELUJAH!
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