Opening: 

• Incredible Summer at Bethany
  • Mission trips + BKids Camps + BoldX + NOP + Launching Groups next month ○ Kids start school in a matter of weeks - Not counting *Funny*
• Wrapping up Psalms of Summer
  • Quick look back at previous weeks
  • It’s important that Psalms isn’t just a grab-and-go book
  • We should commit the Psalms to memory + pray them daily
  • Today we’re going to wrap up with Psalm 150 

Let’s read the text: 

1 Praise the Lord, Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. 2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. 3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, 4 praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, 5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. 6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD. 

ILLUS: “Praise is a universal language” 

• Hallel (praise) - Jah (God) 
• No matter the language! 
• Funny: The next time that you shout HALLELUJAH because you lost a few pounds, remember that you're shouting a word that echoed in the hills of ancient Israel! 
• Praise is one of the main themes woven through the Psalms - 171 times ○ The reality is that least one third of the Psalms are laments - filled with agony and desperation 
  • I’ve heard the Psalms called “an anatomy of all parts of the soul.”
  • The Psalms contain the whole range of human emotion—from grief to joy, from hatred to compassion, from doubt 
  • It’s important to see the intentionality in how this book is built 
• The 5 books of Psalms - *Gives context to doxologies* 
  • Each of the 5 books conclude with a doxology 
  • Doxology = Expression of praise SING DOXOLOGY 
  • It’s a theme we see throughout the book, but never more evident than in Psalm 146-150 ○ It’s incredible that Psalms concludes with 4 chapters solely focused on PRAISE ○ Why is this important to understand:
    • The psalmists share their pain, struggles, desperation - yet at the end there is the resounding call to praise the Lord!
    • No matter your story - it ends with praise. 
    • No matter your struggle - it ends with praise.
    • Psalm 150 tells us that irregardless of how we feel, or what life looks like, we have breath for ONE REASON - to PRAISE
    • The Psalms in a way should be reflections of our own lives - there is real pain, adversity, and struggles - yet PRAISE should always be on our lips - it should be the main theme of our life!
  • Eugene Peterson: “Psalm 150 does not stand alone; four more hallelujah psalms are inserted in front of it so that it becomes the fifth of five psalms that conclude the Psalter. These five hallelujah psalms are extraordinarily robust ... [This means] no matter how much we suffer, no matter our doubts, no matter how angry we get, no matter how many times we have asked in desperation “How long?”, our story always develops into praise. Everything finds its way to the doorstep of praise.”
  • Can we practice for a moment? 

Let’s build a framework for praise: 

A frame that gives us a picture of praise. 

1. Where: Everywhere 

• Sanctuary: context
  • Building we’re in wasn’t built as a sanctuary, it was a warehouse
• Mighty Heavens: When we praise here on earth we’re matching/reflecting what’s happening in heaven
• Praise him on earth + heaven = everywhere 
• Revelation 4-5 = picture of eternal praise
  • Praise is the eternal occupation for those who love Jesus 

2. Why: For Everything 

• Reasons we praise: 
  • ● Acts of Power: We praise God for what He does 
  • ● Surpassing Greatness: We praise God for who He is no matter what he does
• Acts of Power - Drill down 

  
  

  • ■ Look outward - creation 
  • ■ Look inward - our bodies/intricacy
    • ILLUSTRATION: Complexity of human body / Cells
  • Greatest work of all - redemption/salvation
• 2 Corinthians 9: “thanks be to God for his indescribable gift” 
• VISUAL: List of mighty acts
• Even when you feel like you don’t have a reason to praise, praise him for WHO HE IS
• VISUAL: List of who He is
  • Praise - Latin and French word meaning PRICE
  • When you declare praise, you are declaring the value of God no matter what you’re experiencing
• ILLUSTRATION: African Taste Berry
  • Praise is the Taste Berry of the Christian life
  • It takes the sorrow of life and the struggle and makes it taste sweet 
  • No matter how you feel or what your going through it takes the sorrow from it 

3. How: With Everything 

1. Music is a part of our expression 
   1. “Everyone pull out your Lyres, your pipes, your harps!” 
2. FUNNY: Front lines - get rid of their worship team? 
3. Martin Luther quotes on music (pick 2): 
   1. “The devil, the originator of sorrowful anxieties and restless troubles, flees before the sound of music almost as much as before the Word of God....Music is a gift and grace of God, not an invention of men. Thus it drives out the devil and makes people cheerful. Then one forgets all wrath, impurity, and other devices.” ■ “Music is one of the fairest and most glorious gifts of God, to which Satan is a bitter enemy; for it removes from the heart the weight of sorrow.”
   2. FUNNY: “A person who does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of donkeys and the grunting of hogs.” 
4. Every gift God gives us is given with the intent of us returning that gift to Him
   1. Music is a gift - His intent is that we would return the gift to Him as an offering of praise 
5. STORY: John Beekman story - the reason we sing is because we have a reason to sing
   1. Even if ALL YOU CAN DO IS BREATHE!
   2. You can use your breath for bad things - gossip, slander, negativity or for PRAISE! 

4. Who: Everyone 

1. You are part of everyone! 
2. STORY: Circus story 
   1. We can miss the main event 
3. Praise will transform you, it will reform you, but it’s not ABOUT you! 
   1. It’s a declaration based not only in what he does, but who He is 
   2. So I ask you - WHO IS HE TO YOU? 
   3. Savior? Lord? Or just part of the parade? 
   4. Worship will last for all of eternity for those who know Jesus, but there will be those who are separated from God