Thursday April 25
The Focus of Worship
Psalm 150:1-6
1 Praise the LORD! Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty firmament!
2 Praise Him for His mighty acts; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
3 Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; Praise Him with the lute and harp!
4 Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!
5 Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!
We come finally to the last psalm, the climax of the great doxology, the "Hallelujah Chorus" of the Hebrew hymn book. The sobs and sighs of many a previous psalm are now changed into shouts and songs. The wistful longings, triumphant hopes, and soaring faith of so many of the Hebrew hymns are now caught up in rapture and made to reverberate around the throne of God. Nowhere, not even in the vastness of the book of Psalms itself, is there anything to compare with this last resounding doxology of praise.
The book of Psalms begins with God blessing man: "Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful...." The book of Psalms ends with man blessing God. In this last psalm praise to God springs up like a fountain. I noticed as I went through the psalms in these chats a pattern that was often repeated in most of them. The psalm would begin with a cry or a plea to the LORD for help as the psalmist expressed his pain or suffering but before it was finished he would changed his focus from his problem or discouragement and look up to Jehovah and would praise Him for His mercy and deliverance!
When you read and study the psalms, you meet with joys and sorrows, tears and trials, pains and pleasures, but like many of the previous psalms, the book of Psalms closes on the highest note of praise! Like the book of Revelation that closes the New Testament, this final psalm says to God's people, "Don't worry—this is the way the story will end. We shall all be praising the Lord!"
The word "praise" is used thirteen times in this psalm, and ten of those times, we are commanded to "Praise Him." Each of the previous four Books of Psalms ends with a benediction (Psalms 41:13; 72:18-19; 89:52; 106:48), but the final Book ends with a whole psalm devoted to praise. Like the previous psalm, it gives us a summary of some essentials of true worship.
First in verse 1, we are reminded that the focus of worship is the LORD Himself! “Praise the LORD! Praise God…”. "Hallelu Yah"—hallelujah—"Praise Jehovah” (or Yah, for Yahweh), which is the covenant name of the LORD. It reminds us that He loves us and has covenanted to save us, keep us, care for us, and eventually glorify us, because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His Son, on the cross. The new covenant was not sealed by the blood of animal sacrifices but by the precious blood of Christ.
"God" is the "power name" of God (El, Elohim), and this reminds us that whatever He promises, He is able to perform. Worship is not about the worshiper and his or her needs; it is about God and His power and glory. Certainly, we bring our burdens and needs with us into the sanctuary (1 Peter 5:7), but we focus our attention on the Lord.
My friend, we are told in Philippians 2:9-11, that because of the obedience and death of Jesus Christ on the cross, that “God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name”, and that one day in the future, “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
We won’t have a choice on that day, but we do now! So, please choose to worship and praise the LORD today!
God bless!