The Power of Praise - Psalm 146

Summer in the Psalms ‘24

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

July 7, 2024

The Power of Praise (Psalm 146)

We’re looking at psalms from each of the seven categories. One reason why the Psalms are so beloved is because we relate to them. They speak to us no matter what our emotional state from joy to sadness, from confidence to doubt, from thanksgiving to anger. It’s all in here.

Including praise. Let’s turn to a psalm of praise, psalm 146 and let’s pray.

1. A call to stir up the soul in praise the Lord

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! ² I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Psalm 146:1-2

Like most praise psalms Psalm 146 opens with a call to praise the Lord, but unlike most praise psalms, the Psalmist isn’t calling others to praise the Lord, he’s calling own soul to praise the Lord. He’s talking to himself. He’s stirring up praise in his own soul!

Too often we listen to ourselves rather than speak to ourselves. We listen to our emotions: “Do I feel like praising the Lord today? Nah, feels more like a complaining kind of day.” When God does something really amazing in our lives or provides in some great way, praising God might come naturally but to be honest, praising God feels kinda weird on ordinary days.

Most of us don’t naturally settle into praise. It comes naturally for some to settle into lament. It comes naturally to settle into fear. It comes naturally to settle into doubt, sadness, even (on days when we feel blessed) thanksgiving. But praise isn’t where most of us naturally settle emotionally. It needs to be stirred up! And that’s what the Psalmist does: Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord O my soul! He’s telling his soul (not asking his soul) to praise the Lord. Not just on good days. Not just when he sees God do something amazing. Not just when he feels like it.

He makes a declaration of the will: ² I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. He doesn’t say I will praise the Lord as long as everything’s going great. As long as I feel like it. Our souls don’t settle into praise, we need to stir up our souls to praise the Lord. Here are a few reasons why we should want to stir up our souls to praise the Lord:

1. It helps unstuck our emotions from self-focus by focusing on God

It’s beautiful that the Psalms help us express the full range of human emotions from sadness to fear to anger to joy, but let’s face it, we can get stuck in some emotional ruts. We can get stuck in fear. We can get stuck in complaining. We can get stuck in sadness. Or doubt. Or anger. It’s ok to feel these emotions and the Psalms help us do that but we don’t want to get stuck there.

Praise helps lift our focus off ourselves and onto God and that’s so healthy! If you find yourself stuck in a rut of complaining or fear or doubt, lift your focus up towards God and His greatness. Stir your soul up to praise God. Praise the Lord, O my soul!

2. Praise is a powerful weapon when we’re under attack

In 2 Chron. 20 we read that the Ammonites and the Moabites rose up to do battle against Israel and they were afraid. God sent a prophet who told them, “don’t be afraid for the Lord will fight this battle for you. I will give you victory!” That encouraged everyone but then Jehosophat took it further. He put together a worship band and said, “you’re going to march in front of the army and you’re gonna sing God’s praise!”

Imagine marching out to face warriors with swords and axes and shields and all you have is a tambourine. The guys on your side with the axes, swords, and shields are all behind you. In the natural it’s a crazy thing Jehosophat did, but he knew God had promised to overcome their enemy and God and a tambourine will win any fight.

We want God to give us the victory first and then we’ll praise Him, but God says, “praise Me first and then I’ll give you victory!” Praise is a powerful weapon when we’re under attack!

2. Four reasons why the Lord deserves our praise
   

1. Because people can’t save us!

³ Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. ⁴ When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Vv. 3-4

Don’t put your trust in people, no matter how powerful or well-connected they are. The word salvation means help or deliverance and refers to salvation or help in the biggest sense. We cantrust those who have earned our trust to do the basic things we trust one another to do. But no human being can be our Savior. No human can save us in an ultimate sense because they’re in the same predicament. The most powerful people on earth are one breath away from returning to the earth. There’s no power on earth that can overcome age. The unprecedented drama our country is going through with the presidential election is a vivid reminder as the most powerful man on earth, President Biden, who is the Commander in Chief of the most powerful nation on earth, who is surrounded 24/7 by the Secret Service and whose word carries so much power, is powerless, like all of us, to reverse the hands of time.

That’s the human condition: comes a day when we return to the earth. The Hebrew word for earth is “Adamah” where we get the name Adam who was created from the dust of the earth. Our lives are fleeting and have a day when we will draw our last breath and depart this earth, and our plans will leave with us and no human being can save us, or deliver us, or help us. So don’t put your trust in princes, leaders, wise men, philosophers, experts. It’s a dead-end street – literally. But God can save us, help us, and deliver us.

2. The Lord alone can save us!

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God…Vs. 5

Blessed is the Hebrew word “asre” and it means “happy”, not superficially happy but deeply and for good reason happy. Happy is the one whose help is the God of Jacob and whose hope is in the Lord because God is the only One who can help us, save us, deliver us. When we put our hope in Him, our lives are happy (even when we’re sad) because we’re saved.

It’s interesting to me the Psalmist says the God of Jacob. Not Abraham or Isaac but Jacob. Jacob was the deceitful one, the heel-grabber, the manipulator. Jacob’s character was questionable at best, but he did one thing: he held onto God and said I’m not letting go until You bless me! God changed his name (and his character) to Israel – a prince among men.

Jesus didn’t come to save the cream of the crop. The few great men and women who deserve to be saved. Not a single human in all of history deserves to be saved! Jesus came to save the Jacobs of the world – the people with flawed character and messed up lives but how cling to him for salvation. Jesus said I didn’t come for the healthy but for the sick.

And that brings us to the third reason. Actually it expands to many reasons but I’m going to condense it to one statement:

3. God is great

who made heaven and earth,the sea, and all that is in them… Vs. 6

God made the heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. God created universe and filled it with galaxies and stars and planets, including planet earth. All of creation reflects not only God’s power, but His creativity. When we look at all the complexity, precision, creativity, and beauty around us, we see a dim reflection of God’s greatness. I do not understand how atheistic scientists can spend their lives observing and studying creation and not believe in God. Praise God for God is great! Great in power. Great in glory. Great in splendor. Great in wisdom. Great in detail.

3. God is good

…who keeps faith forever ⁷ who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; ⁸ the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. ⁹ The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. Ps. 146:6-9

These verses speak of God’s goodness, His character. From the temptation of Eve in the garden Satan’s always trying to slander God’s character, to get us to question God’s goodness. Satan projects who he is onto God, claiming God breaks His promises, He is unjust, He doesn’t care about the hurting people, He wants to enslave and push you down, He has abandoned you, and for good measure he might accuse God of evil.

The tragic irony for those who listen to the devil’s lies is that by projecting onto God who he is, he gets people to turn away from God and follow him.

The Bible is so clear: God is not only great, He is good. In our language we often use the word “good” to mean ok, and great to mean better. But in the Bible greatness speaks of splendor and glory and power and good speaks of moral excellence. To quote the 19^th century preacher Charles Spurgeon: many wishing to be great have failed to be good.

God is great and God is good. God is powerful but He cares for the weak. He lifts up the one who is being crushed by life. Who is being beaten down by powerful people. He feeds the hungry. He cares for the widow and the fatherless – those who feel so vulnerable and alone. He gives justice to the oppressed and watches over the foreigner.

Many times for many of us, we see the Lord’s deliverance and help over and over again as we go through life. I know I have. But sometimes that deliverance doesn’t seem to come in this life. We don’t know why God allows certain things to happen. There are people who live and die being oppressed. Defenseless people are cruelly taken advantage of and hurt. The guilty go free and the innocent are sometimes condemned. We can’t trace it all out and say this is why, but the Bible tells us this: all these evils are the result of the fall and following Satan’s lead. Satan schemes evil all day long and then blames God for it. God is good.

The gospel doesn’t explain all the brokenness and evil and heartache of the world away. What it does tell us is that Jesus entered this broken world and willingly experienced all the brokenness and evil Satan could throw at him. He was misunderstood and unjustly condemned. He was abandoned even by his closest friends in his darkest hour. He was betrayed by a friend. He suffered and died an excruciating death. Most painful of all, God his Father turned His face away from him on that cross and poured out His wrath on Jesus. It was in that dark hour that Jesus cried out My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

He did that so that everyone who believes in him would not perish but be saved. We experience that salvation right here, right now. It’s not just about going to heaven, it includes the abundant life now. But the reality is that it’s a hope and salvation that transcends this short life where we depart and return to earth. Some may depart this life sick, but we open our eyes in the next life healed. We may depart this life alone and abandoned, but we open our eyes to Jesus welcoming us into his eternal kingdom. We may depart this life oppressed, but we open our eyes to everlasting freedom. We may depart this life condemned but we open our eyes to Jesus saying, there is now no condemnation – enter into your rest.

When we receive Christ, we receive him as our Savior and our King. And we can praise him for that!

The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord! Vs 10