Knowing that we should praise God is basic to the Christian life, isn’t it? I mean, if you’ve been at a church service prior to being a believer, you witnessed the people of God gathering and praising him, and thus had an expectation once you came to faith that you would offer your praise to God. And if you’ve been a believer for a while, you regularly set aside this day of the week to come and – among other things – offer praise to God with your fellow believers. We praise God through our prayers, reading of his Word (which praises him), singing, preaching, coming to the Lord’s Table and baptism, and on and on.
Even if you’ve never been present at a church service your entire life, you are no doubt aware that the response people should give to God is praise. If God exists, then he should be praised is no doubt common to life. I would dare say that if we stopped an unbeliever on the street and said, “If there is a God, what should we do?” one of the most common responses would be that we should praise him.
And the Bible confirms this. In the Psalter, for example, you will find numerous exhortations to praise the Lord. In the last five psalms alone (Psalm 146-150) we are exhorted to praise the Lord over twenty times and that doesn’t include the number of times we are told to sing to him, exult in him, or give thanks to him – strictly those times we are told to praise him.
Therefore, I don’t think any of us would miss a true/false question that was worded: “We should praise the Lord – True or False?” However, I wonder how well we might do if we were asked, “Why does the Bible tell us that we should praise God?” Now, this is different than asking us to think of reasons why we should praise God. Rather, it is asking us to tell reasons given to us in the Bible itself for why we should praise God.
And if we have trouble declaring why the Bible tells us we should praise the Lord, isn’t that odd? I mean, if we can say it is fundamental for the Christian to praise the Lord, then shouldn’t knowing why the Bible tells us that we should praise the Lord be basic for us as well? Shouldn’t it be basic knowledge for the Christian to know why the Bible tells us we should praise God? After all, we try to make sure that we pray in line with how the Bible tells us we should pray, give in line with how the Bible tells us we should give, etc. So, shouldn’t we want to make sure that our hearts are meditating on realities the Bible tells us we should consider when we gather to offer praise to our God?
Again, it would seem so. And thankfully this morning offers us an opportunity to do just that as we look at Psalm 135. We are not told by whom or in what situation Psalm 135 was written. What is known about this psalm is that every verse of this psalm is either quoting or alluding to another text of Scripture somewhere in the Old Testament. That is, this psalm is a mosaic, a collection of other texts pieced together to make something new. And when you realize that this psalm is put together in this fashion, it serves to make us ask, “Why?” Why did the psalmist choose the verses he did?
Well, I believe that if we read the psalm, the reason for his choices becomes somewhat clear. The psalmist has seemed to organize these verses so that he gives us an exhortation at the beginning and ending of the psalm. Verses 1-2 start the psalm by telling us to praise the Lord. Thus, we read: “Praise the LORD! Praise the name of the LORD, give praise, O servants of the LORD, who stand in the house of the LORD, in the courts of the house of our God!” Thus the psalm begins with a call for all of God’s people – those who serve the Lord in the temple and those who are only permitted in one of the courts of the temple – to praise him.
And it ends quite similarly, except that the exhortation to “praise” the Lord is changed to an exhortation to “bless” the Lord (except in the verse last line, which reverts to “praise”), which I think should be seen as somewhat synonymous with praising God. In verses 19-21, we read: “O house of Israel, bless the LORD! O house of Aaron, bless the LORD! O house of Levi, bless the LORD! You who fear the LORD, bless the LORD! Blessed be the LORD from Zion, he who dwells in Jerusalem! Praise the LORD!”
So, the exhortation to praise or bless God brackets the psalm. But how then do the verses in the middle of the psalm function? It seems that these verses function to remind the reader of reasons why it is that God should be praised. This is seen clearly, for example, in verse 3 where the psalmist writes, “Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing to his name, for it is pleasant.” In these parallel statements the exhortation from verses 1-2 is repeated – praise the Lord – while the reason for why God is to be praised follows with a phrase beginning with “for.” Thus, we should hear these verses as saying, “Praise the Lord because he is good, and sing to his name because it is pleasant.” And though this isn’t laid out as clearly in every specific instance in the following verses, I think the aim of the verses between verses 1-2 and 19-21 is to provide reasons for us to praise the Lord, even as verse 3 does.
Therefore, this morning I want us to spend this time (as we look at Psalm 135 together) meditating on and committing to our hearts reasons why it is that God should be praised. And my hope is that in the future as we gather to praise God, we might find our hearts full of the reasons that we have seen in Psalm 135 (among other reasons provided for us in others texts of Scripture, such as Ephesians 1:3-14, for example). So, first . . .
As noted, we see this in verse 3, where the psalmist writes, “Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing to his name, for it is pleasant!” Now, this can be easy for us to gloss over because it seems so simple and perhaps has been felt by us too lightly. But this is a weighty truth. To say that God is good means that he is good at all times. There is never an occasion when God ceases to be good. And this is confirmed in the New Testament when James tells us in James 1:16-17 that every good gift comes from God in whom there is no shadow or variation due to change.
Now, James calls the Lord, “the Father of lights” in that verse so that we might consider that though the other lights have variation and shadows (so that the stars shine brightly one night and not the next, the moon appears bright at times and almost absent at others, and the sun shines brightly on certain days and is obscured by the clouds on others) God is has no change in his nature and that his nature is good. Thus, James concludes that every good gift comes down from him.
Similarly, then, we may say that if Psalm 135:3 reminds us that the Lord is good and we know that there is no variation in him so that he never changes, then he is always good and everything he does is good. This means as well that everything he does in our lives is good. Therefore, we may find ourselves in the most trying of circumstances, burdened by the difficulties and tragedies of life. Yet, we can rest in knowing that the God who is over all of life and apart from whom not even a sparrow falls to the ground is good and is good toward us. Therefore, even if great evil occurs in our lives, the Lord is working that for our good.
And isn’t that what you find yourself holding on to in those difficult times. We praise God in those times – even through our tears – because we know that he is good and will even work the tragedies in our lives for good. This reality is not to be taken lightly but is a rock solid foundation for our faith and our praise. Second . . .
The psalmist makes the greatness of God’s might and power clear in verses 5-7. There, he writes, “For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.”
Do you see what the psalmist says here? God is above all gods, meaning there is none that has power above him. And just to make it clearer, he adds that whatever he pleases, he does. That means that there is nothing that can thwart his plans and purposes and will. Then, as an example of that power, the psalmist shows us that it is the Lord who makes the clouds come out in the sky, the winds blow, and the lightning accompany the rain.
Why is such power praiseworthy? Well, when we put this truth alongside the truth that God is good, this is great news. To have a God who is all-powerful and evil would be horrifying. To have a God who is good but weak is pointless. But to know that the one true God is all-powerful and good should lead us to exult in him. It means that our prayers are indeed powerful and that we can rest in God’s promises. It means that we go out on the mission field under the authority of one who calls out the stars by name. It means that everyone who would stand against God’s people – even collectively – are powerless against him. Indeed, he laughs at them. This is our God. And, yet, if we are not yet moved to worship him because he is good, has chosen us as his own, and is great, the psalm continues. In verse 4, we are reminded that . . .
The psalmist writes in verse 4, “For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his own possession.” And those words might not move us to worship like they would the people who first read this psalm and called themselves “Jacob” or “Israel.” You see, the audience who first heard this psalm would have heard verse 4 as saying, “Praise God, for he has chosen us to be his own special people out of all the peoples on the earth.” Similarly, then, we should allow verse 4 to remind us that we should praise God because he has chosen us to be his children.
What’s interesting about this idea of our being chosen forming a priority among reasons for why we praise God is that it is found also in the New Testament. In Ephesians 1:3, Paul begins praising God and then lists the reasons for why he overflows with praise in the verses that follow. And what is first on his list? He writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ” (1:3-5a).
Why comes to Paul’s mind when he considers why God should be praise? It is the same thing that comes to the psalmist’s mind in Psalm 135 – God should be praised because he chose us to be his. You see, we all deserved hell. We were all condemned in Adam and destined for hell. Yet, the Bible tells us that before we’d done anything – whether good or bad – God chose us to his people (Rom. 9:6-29). He predestined us to be adopted as his very own sons. And if we consider that reality, our hearts should be moved to praise God.
For me, this reality first moved me when I was in my dorm room at Union sometime around 1997 or 1998. I had really been struggling to accept the Bible’s teaching on election for a number of months before I finally came to the point of being convinced that the Bible teaches that God chose us to be his own people before the foundation of the world. And, after wrestling through that and finally accepting it, I found myself lying my bed one night thinking about this reality and meditating on it. And as I lay there I began to ask, “Why me?” Who was I? If I were honest, I was someone who had been unfaithful to the Lord in numerous ways even after professing him as Lord. I had done a number of things that brought dishonor to his name hundreds of times. And as I thought of that I just began asking the Lord again and again, “Why me?”
Finally, in the midst of my praying and questioning, I was overwhelmed with the reality that my eyes were being opened to recognize with more clarity a truth that I had proclaimed for years with my lips, namely, that we are saved as a gift of God’s grace. That is, I was supposed to recognize that I was the recipient of something I most definitely did not deserve. And my questioning, “Why me?” was soon replaced by, “Thank you, God” until I found tears running down my face, overwhelmed by the grace of the Lord. And according to Psalm 135 and Ephesians 1:3-5, that’s one of the main purposes why God revealed his work of election to us. So, let us consider our election in Christ and let it humble us and draw us to him in praise. After all, is anything more humbling to those in Christ than this precious doctrine that the only thing that makes us different from another is what we have graciously received from our God? Third . . .
The psalm reminds the Israelites of the time when God delivered them out of Egypt and brought them into the promised land. We read this in verses 8-12: “He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and of beast; who in your midst, O Egypt, sent signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants; who struck down many nations and killed mighty kings, Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan, and gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to his people Israel.”
Now, when I said, “We should praise God because he has saved us,” your mind no doubt went to considering Christ living, dying, and being raised for us. Yet, then I directed us to verses 8-12, where there is no mention of Jesus, of his death, or his resurrection. Instead, these verses speak of God killing the firstborn of the Egyptians, two mighty kings, and all the kingdoms of the Canaanites in order to give the land to his chosen people, Israel. And, none of us were part of that group that witnessed the parting of the sea or the walls of Jericho coming down.
However, the rest of the Bible continually points to these events in Israel’s history as a picture of God’s redemption. That is, Israel was to remember that their God delivered them from the Egyptians by striking down the firstborn and spared their own firstborn sons through the blood of the lamb being applied to their doorposts. God was so intent on them remembering his salvation of them through this event that he gave them a meal – the Passover meal – that they were to eat and remember what their God had done to physically deliver them from their enemy.
Yet, one night as the disciples gathered with Jesus to celebrate this Passover meal, Jesus announced to them that the focus of this meal that night would not be on deliverance from Egypt. Rather, they were to eat this bread remembering that he had given his own body to be delivered up for them. They were to drink from the cup, remember that his blood was shed for the forgiveness of their sins. That is, once Christ came, his people are not to remember God primarily as the one who freed Israel from Egypt but the one who has freed all of his people of their sins and from his wrath through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
And this is the central reason why we worship God. It is central in this text, and the most time is spent on it for a reason. For how do we see God’s goodness and his great power? It is by looking to the work of his Son for us, whereby he delivered us from divine judgment. How do we know that his choosing of us means something? It is because we look at the work of his Son for us and understand that he did not spare even his own Son in order to make us his own.
Therefore, this is the key reason why we worship the Lord – because he has saved us from our sins. It is why our singing always leads to this note of remembering what Christ has done for us, and indeed even our whole service leads to this note as we come to the table. The gospel is not something we need in order to be converted and then leave behind but the very foundation and content of our worship before the Lord.
And yet the psalm continues, pointing us forward as we consider God is to be praised. In verses 13-14 we are reminded that . . .
One day, regardless of what happens in this life, God will declare his children before all men as those who are righteous. Indeed, we’ve already received this declaration when we first believed, but one day it will be manifested before all men. One day, those who killed missionaries and disgraced even their bodies by cutting off their heads or hanging them in public will see their bodies raised from the dead and be clothed with white linen as God proclaims that they are his people. One day, those who were mocked and persecuted because they held to the gospel message as their hope of salvation will hear their judge declare, “Well done, my good and faithful servants.” God will vindicate his people. It is certain.
But how do we know that it is certain? Well, the psalmist reminds us of a connection in verses 13-14 between God’s renown and the vindication of his people. He writes, “Your name, O LORD, endures forever, your renown, O LORD, throughout all ages. For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants.”
You see, God will not allow his holy name to be profaned. His renown will endure throughout all of eternity. And God has chosen to connect the honor of his name with his own people, who bear his name. This is why we often read in the Scripture, God saying that he will deliver his people and give them new hearts because he will not allow them to profane his holy name. His name is wrapped up with those who bear his name.
This is a comfort to us as well, for God’s name is wrapped up with those whom he has chosen for himself and redeemed. This is why we can know that our vindication is certain and that we will be the objects of his compassion – because we bear his name and his name endures forever, his renown throughout all ages. Therefore, every time we gather to praise the Lord, we are reminded that we are his and that whatever this life holds, our vindication is sure.
Finally, we are reminded that . . .
That is, it’s not as if we are choosing between worshiping the great God or another great god. God alone is the one true God. The psalmist reminds us of this by showing the silliness of idols. He writes in verses 15-18, “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them!”
Therefore, not only will God’s people be vindicated, but those who fail to worship the Lord and worship whatever false gods they choose will be shown to be foolish and will receive God’s judgment.
You see, this psalm begins and ends with a commandment to praise the Lord. And it isn’t just a commandment along the lines of “if you want a really good life” praise the Lord and if you don’t you’re really missing out. No, this is a command from the God who is our creator and ruler to praise him. Is there pleasure in praising him? Of course. But failing to praise him does not mean simply that we miss out on joy but that we are judged in the end. One day all the false gods we have exalted in our rebellion against the Lord will be cast down and those of us who have worshiped them will be thrown into a lake of fire forever.
In his work The Treasury of David, Spurgeon tells the story of a missionary in India who walked into an idol temple, walked up to a large idol statue that was raised above the people, and raised his hand for all to be silent. Then, he touched the idol’s eyes and said, “It has eyes, but it cannot see! It has ears, but it cannot hear! It has a nose, but it cannot smell! It has hands, but it cannot handle! It has a mouth, but it cannot speak! Neither is there any breath in it!”
At that moment, of course, it seemed that the natives might rise up and kill the man. Instead, however, an older respected man stood up, realizing the foolishness of worshiping this idol, and said, “It has feet, but cannot run away!” And all the people followed and went to their homes.1
I pray that our proclamation of the gospel to those around us might be accompanied with lives of devotion and worship that is so clear that unbelievers might have their eyes opened not only to the folly of their own ways but to the beauty of worshiping the one true God.
And may we today find ourselves praising this one true God because he is good and great, because he has chosen us, because he has saved us, and because he will have compassion on us and vindicate us on that last day. May we praise him now, even as we come to the table. Amen.