This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Waterford Lakes, East Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar, driving directions, and more audio recordings. We're going to take a little break from Acts this morning and go in to Psalm 150. I believe it's printed for you in the bulletin. I invite you to hear and receive God's Word and then as we go through the sermon, read through it. But for right now, just listen, Psalm 150, praise the Lord, praise God in His sanctuary, praise Him in His mighty heavens, praise Him for His mighty deeds, praise Him according to His excellent greatness, praise Him with trumpet sound, praise Him with lute and harp, praise Him with tamarine and dance, praise Him with strings and pipe, praise Him with sounding symbols, praise Him with loud clashing symbols, let everything that has breath praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Let's do that now in prayer. Gracious God, our Heavenly Father, we sit at your feet, and we pray that you would speak to us that our souls would live, and that we would feast on the richest fare, pray that you would establish our footsteps in your way, and that no sin or inequity would have dominion over us. And we pray this to the glory of Jesus Christ, our King, amen. Well, before we go any further looking into Psalm 150, I think it behooves us to kind of consider the claims of Psalm 150. We are told in, but six little verses, that everything, not just the whole of humanity mind you, and the Hebrew, it's talking about the whole of creation, everything that has life within its body. Okay, so everything, no matter where it's found, be it on Earth below or in the heavens above, is to use whatever means possible to praise God, everywhere in every way, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Now, honestly, it sounds a little bit over the top, doesn't it? You know, in literary and rhetorical terms, it's called hyperbole or hyperbola. You say tomato, I say tomato. Hyperbole is something that, it's when you intentionally exaggerate, or you overstate something in order to make a point, kind of like when Jesus mentioned that whole camel going through the eye of a needle thing. He wasn't actually telling his disciples that it was impossible for the rich to enter into heaven. He was trying to communicate to them through this hyperbole how difficult it is in the cost of being his disciples and how wealth can often become an idol that prevents you and hinders you from following Jesus. It was a hyperbola used to communicate to his disciples how much we need the grace of God in order to follow Jesus, the God to whom nothing is impossible. So hyperbole isn't meant to be taken literally, rather hyperbole is strategically used to get your attention, to get you to listen and carefully think about something that's being discussed. Only someone 50 isn't hyperbole. Someone 50 means what it says. Someone 50 is serious. And the Hebrew, the word praise, is in the imperative mood, 12 out of the 13 times that it's used in this short little Psalm. This Psalm was written to be heard like an avalanche of instruction about praise with one command to praise Yahweh following right after and following on top of another. Everywhere, be it in the narrow confines of a temple in Jerusalem or in an elementary cafeteria in Orlando, Florida. Be it in the innermost chamber of a prison cell or the most remote corner of our vast expanse of a universe. Everywhere, in every way with glassy brassed of trumpet, delicate staccato of harp, rhythmic pulse of a tambourine in the hands of a dancer, the gentle lilt of a cello and a violin and the flute or the rude eruption of these clashing symbols. Everywhere, in every way, everything that has breath, men, women, children, young, old, rich, poor, foul fish and forelegged friends must praise the Lord. Psalm 150 isn't hyperbole. It's serious. We must praise the Lord and they must praise the Lord whoever they may be. You know, pygmy rattlesnake or orbiting astronaut. Nevertheless, Psalm 150 is an awfully short Psalm to make such big sweeping bold demands upon us. It kind of seems to be suffering from what we call Napoleon complex. You know what I mean? The smaller the statue, the bigger the bravado, the smaller the dog, the bigger the bark. I mean, Psalm 150, the language is so superlative in the scope of its demands are so extreme. I mean, surely Psalm 150 must be qualified, right? I mean, after all, what if that breath is shallow from sickness and disease? What if it's rattled and sporadic from the onset of death? What then? What if that breath is short and fast because of fear or panic? What if it's slow and it's deep from exhaustion and weakness? What then? What if that breath is labored and painful under the weight of misery and grief and sorrow? Surely Psalm 150 allows for some exceptions in these conditions, right? Hardly. See, the Psalm does not call just for comfortable middle class American breath to praise the Lord. It also calls out to the breath of life everywhere, whether it's in Iraq or India or Somalia or Chile or even a homeless shelter on church street. Psalm 150 is not just applicable to the breath of those who feel especially cheery and cozy with God this morning. Psalm 150 is a call for every breath of life to give praise to Lord, even if that praise was ruptured this week by fatal diagnosis, a drone strike or spiritual depression, all of us. Every one of us, everywhere both near and far are to praise the Lord. No exceptions, no conditions, no indulgences, no omissions. If the breath of life is still there and for as long as that breath of life is there, it has been commissioned by God to praise Him and Psalm 150 means for us to praise. God. Not some meaningless sanctified will praise God. I used to get that all the time in churches that I grew up in and as I grew older, I mean nuts. I actually, as an intern, I used to get these cassettes from these pastor's conference or pastor will go and he come back and he won all of his interns listen to it and it drove me absolutely nuts because the speakers would get up there and we'll look at brother's such and so just I will praise God and it was just like it meant nothing after while it was just so gratuitous. That's not the Psalm that Psalm 150 is calling for. And Psalm 150 is not calling for some under your breath. Well, I guess I should praise God anyways. And Psalm 150 isn't going to let us get away with offering, well, things could be worse. Kind of praise. That's just like throwing God a bone, like feeding Him the leftovers. Psalm 150 is calling us to praise God, praise that breathes and plucks, praise that beats and slaps, praise that crashes and moves. Psalm 150 calls us to praise that requires our mouth and our ears and our hands and our feet. This is black coffee kind of praise. It wakes you up. It punches you in the mouth. This is straight whiskey kind of praise. It warms you up and makes you sweat. This is whole-hearted, full-bodied, all-out, unadulterated praise. And Psalm 150 is calling us to praise God. Praise. We see David as he played and praised God before Saul. This is praise that routes demons and makes evil spirits flee by boldly declaring the mighty acts of God. And this is praise that tells of God's excellent greatness. And in doing that, it notifies all the powers that be in our world around that we refuse to idolize them. This is praise that announces to the world at large that they don't own our breath and we don't own our breath. Yahweh owns our breath and we're going to offer it to Him in worship alone. That's what Psalm 150 is calling us to. Of course, this does not mean that life isn't still hard. I mean, we still pray, the Lord's Prayer. We still pray for God's kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. And while there's a lot of that kingdom that has come already, there's still a lot of that kingdom that's not yet come. I mean, we still, as the Apostle Paul says, wrestle against the cosmic rulers, the powers, and the authorities over this present darkness, and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We still walk through the valley, the shadow of death. We still suffer the pangs of sin, sickness, confusion, pain, loss. And the Psalmists are fully aware of that fact. I mean, Psalm 150 isn't the only Psalm in the book of Psalms. And the words praise the Lord are not the only words that God speaks in our Psalter. Long before you get to Psalm 150, we hear other things being declared in the Psalm, stuff like this. Oh, Lord, how many are my foes? How many rise up against me? Answer me when I call to you. Oh, my righteous God, give me relief from my distress. We hear, oh, Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. We also hear, surely, and vain have I kept my heart pure, and vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued, I have been punished every morning. We also hear in the Psalms. You have taken my companions and my loved ones from me. The darkness is my closest friend. We also hear the infamous, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You get through all of that before you come to Psalm 150. Psalms, the Psalms were written by people just like us. These are people who knew intimately what it was to sin and to rebel against God, to be betrayed and abandoned and alone, to be depressed and disillusioned, to grieve and mourn, to bleed and die and to wonder why all along. There's was a history of revenge and hatred and death and bloodshed and pain and rebellion and sinfulness and corruption, and that shadow of death was still looming large over them even while Psalm 150 was being written. Things weren't any better for them when Psalm 150 was being composed. Their country was still divided. Much of their homeland had been taken away from them. Many of them were exiled and enslaved, and their future is the people of God did not look very bright or certain, and yet the Psalmist cry out on Psalm 150, praise the Lord. And they do it because at its essence, praising God means finding our pride and our satisfaction outside of ourselves, outside of our accomplishments, our powers, our possessions. It means boasting in God. Instead of us. So pain and ruin and tragedy and lament, they don't disqualify us from praising the Lord. Instead they actually prepare us for praising God. We're told to praise God for his mighty acts and according to his excellent greatness, well our knowledge of those mighty acts and our knowledge of his excellent greatness grow out of our experience of all the pain and the ruin and the tragedy and the lament. Remember creation began in the dark. The Exodus was from slavery and oppression and salvation always begins with sin and death. I think Job is a good example of this dynamic of praise if you will in action. He's a man who had lost all his property to invasion and then he lost all of his children to disaster. His own wife told him, just curse God and die. And then when you heard the news all of all this, he's still lamented. He tore his robe and he shaved his head but yet he worshipped and he said, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I shall return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And after this whole tragic ordeal of Job's life that goes on for I believe 42 chapters is over. And the end Job makes a confession and he says that his eyes had been opened and that now he had come to know God like he'd never known him before. Psalm 150 commands us to praise God no matter what the circumstances are because our praise is not dependent upon our circumstances. But you know something it helps an awful lot when you're not alone.
When you're going through all the tragedy and the pain and the misery and the suffering and the loss, Psalm 150 is a lot easier when you're not alone which is why Psalm 150 tells us that everything that has breath is to praise God together. Now this is obscured by our modern English translations but all of those commands to praise are given in the plural form. If you have an older translation like the King James version or the American standard version, you'll see the opening line is praise ye the Lord. Ye was like the old English way of saying y'all. Not just you, one, all of you praise the Lord together. We're to praise God in his sanctuary and in his mighty heavens together. And we are to praise him for his mighty deeds and according to his excellent greatness together. All of those instruments that are listed in verses three through five, God's not calling them to solo performance. They're being called to make music together in a symphony of praise to God. And unfortunately so much of our worship is offered alone. And by that I mean there seems to be something afoot in the modern church that makes us feel like worship can only be real and sincere when it's offered in the absence of other people. And it's such a compelling feeling these days that even when we come together as the church, and I don't mean just us as a congregation, I mean church with a capital C, when we come together for worship, we tend to treat it like we're all just getting together in the same room to have our private devotions at the same time. We do whatever we can not to be distracted by other people around us so that we can get into our own little world and offer our own little worship. But beloved someone 50 is calling to us telling us to open our eyes and look around for a change. And I want you to do that right now. Now this is odd, but I want you. Instead of looking at me, look around right now. Just look at the people to the left of you, to the right of you. Look at the people in front of you. Look at the people behind you. Look at the people that maybe you rarely even talk with. Maybe even the people that you actually try and avoid. Someone 50 is telling us those people, they're not distractions. They too are a part of everything that has breath. And you and I are called to praise God together with them. And this together praise doesn't just mean that we're praising God with each other. This together praise means that we praise God to each other. In Ephesians chapter 5, the Apostle Paul writes, says, we are to address one another. Now get this. We are to address one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. Praising God to each other is actually part and parcel with us being filled with the Spirit. And you know that little phrase be filled with the Spirit, that command, that's given in the plural. We always hear that and think, what do I need to do to be filled with the Spirit? No, he's talking to all of us together. And our praising God to God and to each other is a part of us being filled with the Spirit together. I mean, after all, we're not called to praise God in a vacuum. Our hearts are still deceitful and they're easily let astray. Our minds still need to be renewed. We're easily distracted. Our souls are still sinful. They're easily discouraged and oppressed and our world with its devils filled still threatens to undo us. So when we intentionally and when we consciously praise the Lord together, being mindful that we're together, you know what, we can actually feed off of each other's faith
when we need it. It helps us to remain faithful to the Lord. That worshiping together, praising the Lord together is actually a way of us helping to keep the song going in our own lives. In other words, we really, really need each other in order to praise the Lord the way Psalm 150 is calling us to do. Or as this 1930s jazz song puts it, brothers and sisters, listen to what I say, moaning and groan and won't drive those blues away, lift up your voices and song. You know you've all done wrong. You sinners, drop everything and let the harmony ring up to heaven and sing, sing you sinners. Just wave your arms all about and let the Lord hear you shout, pour the music right out and sing, sing you sinners. Whenever there's music, the devil kicks. He don't allow music by the river sticks and you've all misbehaved and if you want to be saved, well, sing, sing you sinners.
Psalm 150 is in many ways kind of like a good detective. It asks and then it finds all the answers to all the important questions about the subject at hand. Think about it. Psalm 150, we're told who is to praise the Lord. We're told what we're to praise the Lord for. We're told why we're to praise the Lord. We're told where we're to praise the Lord and we're told how we are to praise the Lord. But did you notice something's missing? There's one question that still needs to be answered and that is when. When do we praise the Lord? And you know, you don't find the answer to that question within the Psalm itself, huh? The whole of Psalm 150 tells us when to praise the Lord. By that, I mean this. When the Psalter was being put together, Psalm 150 was intentionally placed at the end of the Psalter. There was a reason that it was the last one because it was the Psalmist way of saying when the whole matter is said and done, when all the pain and the ruin and the tragedy and the lament are accounted for and weighed in the balances, the ultimate conclusion to whatever we're going through, whenever we're going through it and wherever we're going through it is to praise the Lord. Praise the Lord and the Hebrew is one word. It's the word that we know as al-Aluya.
That may not be the only word in the book of the Psalms. We've seen that. But praise the Lord, al-Aluya is the last word in the Psalms. It's the Psalmist way of letting us know weeping may last for the night but joy comes in the morning and our God is greater than all the sinful ruin and tragedy this earth on this earth and under these heavens and he has determined that morning and destruction and sin and death will not have the last word in our world. Praise will have the last word in our world. Beloved Church of Jesus Christ, Psalm 150 tells us when to praise the Lord and we are to praise the Lord now, right now because the rest of the world is going to tell you, you know what worship is just a waste of time. So quit using God as a crutch and open up your eyes and own up to the reality because it's all just war and suffering and loneliness and it's a life without meaning and purpose. It's just death. That's what you're going to get day after day after day from the world. But Psalm 150 tells us instead to praise the Lord right now because we praise him by faith and not some kind of superficial faith that just says, well, smile, Jesus loves you when your world's falling apart and not some kind of faith that says, well, only bad things happen to bad people or only bad things happen to you when you don't have enough faith and it's not a faith that says, well, you know what, you just need to rise above all your circumstances by just repeating over and over and over and over. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Just do it enough times until you feel it, huh? That's not the faith that Psalm 150 is calling us to. Psalm 150 is calling us as the church to look heavenward to the real, real world where we are told in Revelation 5, myriads and myriads and thousands upon thousands of living creatures and elders and angels can be seen heard praising Jesus with a loud voice saying, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. We are to look heavenward to the real, real world where every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them are saying right now to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. Indeed, the resurrection of Jesus Christ did not change everything before our very eyes and in our lifetime and indeed Easter Sunday did not remove all the corruption and sin and suffering from our world in an instant. The problems of 2,000 years ago were the same problems that we faced last week and the same problems were probably still dealing with this morning but Psalm 150 is telling us to praise the Lord right now because Jesus Christ is the lamb who was slain but he is also the risen Lord. He reigns and he rules over all creation as king right now. He is seated on the throne and he welcomes us into his presence and so now we can be baptized into his death with no fear because we're going to be raised with him in the newness of his resurrection life and now he invites us to his table and we can go and we can sit and we can eat and we can drink with him and we can look around and realize we're not the only ones here. In other words, Psalm 150 is reminding us that today is the third Sunday in the Easter season in case you forgot that the Easter season goes on for seven Sundays and you know what? Psalm 150 is telling us there are many, many, many more Sundays of Easter to come because praise, hallelujah is the last word in our world. Let's pray. Most gracious God, we just praise simply that you will help us to praise you. Praise you as you've called us to do. Lord, open the eyes of our faith that we could see. Lord, you are sitting on your throne firmly grounded and because of that we can praise you. Lord, thank you that you invite us into your presence and we pray that you meet with us now as your table as we eat and drink with you in the new life you have given us. For the glory of Jesus Christ, our King, we ask it. Amen.