Praise No.1 Heartfelt Praise

["The Star-Spangled Banner"] This morning about praise, the praise of our God and Father, all that we owe to Him through our Lord Jesus Christ, and it's the book of Psalms that really contain some of the most powerful inscriptions of praise to the Lord. In Scotland they have what's known as the Psalter, which is the Scottish paraphrase of the Psalms, and I'd like the 103rd Psalm to be read to us, and it would be ruined with a Yorkshire voice, so we're going to have a real genuine Scotsman to read it, psalm 103. Come on Ellie, thank you.

Psalm 103, O thou my soul, bless God the Lord, and all that in me is, bestirred up his holy name to magnify and bless. Bless O my soul, the Lord thy God, and not forgetful be, of all his gracious benefits he hath bestowed on thee. All thine iniquities who doth most graciously forgive, who thy diseases all in pains doth heal and thee relieve, who doth redeem thy life that thou to death mayst not go down, who thee with loving kindness doth in tender mercies crown, who with abundance of good things doth satisfy thy mouth, so that even as the eagle's age renewed is thy youth.

God righteous judgment executes for all oppressive ones his ways to Moses and his acts made known to Israel's sons. The Lord our God is merciful and he is gracious, long-suffering and slow to wrath, in mercy plenteous. He will not chide continually, nor keep his anger still.

With us he dealt, not as we sinned, nor did requite our ill. For as the heaven in its heights, the earth surmounteth far, so great to those that do him fear his tender mercies are. As far as east is distant from the west, so far hath he from us removed in his love all our iniquity.

Such pity as a father hath unto his children dear, like pity shows the Lord to such as worship him in fear. For he remembers we are dust, and he our frame well knows, frail man his days are like the grass, as flower in field he grows. For over it the wind doth pass, and it away is gone, and off the place where once it was it shall no more be known.

But unto them that do him fear God's mercy never ends, and to their children's children still his righteousness extends. To such as keep his covenant, his mindful, and mindful are all we, of his most just commandments that they may them obey. The Lord prepared hath his throne in heaven's firm to stand, and everything that being hath his kingdom doth command.

O ye his angels that excel in strength, bless ye the Lord, ye who obey what he commands and hearken to his word. O bless and magnify the Lord, ye glorious hosts of his, ye ministers that do fulfil whate'er his pleasure is. O bless the Lord, all ye his works, wherewith the world is stored, and his dominions everywhere.

My soul, bless thou the Lord. May the Lord add his blessing to that reading of his word. I'd like you to open your Bibles, it's Psalm 103, and I'm returning to the subject of praise and worship.

Some of you who attend, and I wish all of you would, our downtown meetings on a Wednesday, you might recall that some eighteen months ago I gave a series of Bible studies on what it means to worship the Lord. You might wonder why I'm coming back to this particular theme. Well, it's a perennial theme, isn't it, in any case? You judge a church in one sense by its worship.

The reason why we're here on a Sunday morning, Sunday evening, the reason why we live, basically, surely, if we're Christians, is to worship God. And so, in one sense, I don't apologize for the repetition. But there may be another reason why I just want to take this short series is because to some degree, if I may confess what I hope is a loving heart and a humble heart, not all that I wanted in terms of a practical response to what I was sharing seemed to come through.

Now, that could be for two reasons. One, it could be because I was wrong. Two, it could be because of your reluctance.

Or three, maybe it could be because I wasn't clear enough. So I'm opting for the latter and having a rerun. Now, that's not an indication that we're just going to cover exactly the same ground because the subject of praise and worship is, well, it's like a river.

It runs from Genesis, it widens in Exodus, it gets broader and broader until it comes to the New Testament, and you're swamped in the reasons why you should praise God. There is a river whose streams thereof gladdens the heart, the river of God's love. So, we're going to look at the whole theme of praise, at least for a little while, and touch on certain aspects of the biblical teaching on this most important and the most wonderful subject, privilege of being able to praise our God.

You know, it's a very unfortunate expression that sometimes you hear about church. For example, I don't mean this with any disrespect, but this afternoon, the scouts are coming here for an act of worship, and now, the very word act itself could have a slightly wrong connotation, wrong in as much as it perhaps is misrepresented. An act, well, it's a language of the theatre, isn't it, a language of the stage.

It's the language of performance. It's the language of assuming what you are not. If you're an actor, you put on a part.

Now, you've no need to interpret act of worship in that sense, but maybe for a lot of folk who come along traditionally to church, occasionally, it really is just an act of worship, something that's not deep down from the soul, that causes them to be present to sing the praises of God. Again, I'm not being overtly critical, but one has to point this out as a preacher that sometimes our civic occasions, our national occasions when the abbey or St. Paul's Cathedral, when they're filled, an act of worship is engaged in, but it's not worship in the New Testament and Old Testament sense. It's perfunctory.

It's done because, well, it's the right thing to do at that point. An act of worship, almost a masquerade, a mask that people put on for that particular occasion. Now, it's an indictment on the church in terms of the living community of God when people come together in buildings like this, if all that they do is copy that, that is an act.

But when we come, we come into church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, we engage in an act of worship not as a reference point for the week, but rather as a re-emphasis of the reference point for our lives, for all our lives are to be lived in the service of God to honour the Lord, not so. I mean, the hymn writers got this all worked out, didn't they? They said, I'll praise my maker while I have breath and when my voice is lost in death, praise shall employ my nobler parts. My days of praise shall ne'er be passed while life or thought or being last or immortality endures.

Don't come to me and say what you're preaching. It flows out of the last 20 years of Christian experience and understanding. That hymn goes back many, many decades, a couple of centuries.

My days of praise shall ne'er be passed. These old hymn writers, they had a great experience of God that prompted them to put together some of the majestic verse that often we sing. Abraham was the founder of what? Well, he was the founder of the Jewish race and his descendants, they have the name Jew.

Well, you say that's not new. I've known that for years. Why are you telling me? Well, do you know what Jew means? Actually, it's a Hebrew, at least a derivative, a derivation of the Hebrew verb praise.

Why did God select those who came from the loins of Abraham to be his people? Because in a special fashion, they were given the responsibility, the privilege of praising the Lord. And so he speaks to Israel in the Old Testament in very, very loving language. He calls Israel his treasure, the apple of his eye.

It's the language of the lover expressed to the beloved. Did you sometimes, maybe a few moments ago, feel that some of the songs that we sing here, well, they're a little bit sentimental, aren't they? Isn't he wonderful? Isn't he beautiful? Yes, you are. You feel that that's sort of a little bit too immature for your basic spirituality.

You know you're a very mature evangelical Christian, and you need to express yourself in weighty words and language of the creeds and so on and so forth. Well, let me, in one sense, correct your attitude. And if that's your spirit, then it's the wrong spirit.

Because in the Song of Solomon, you get the most exquisite, the most intimate references that are used for the two who have a love relationship. The illustration of God's love for you and your love for him, you have it fleshed out, you have it spoken in the most endearing of terms, do you not? The Old Testament people were called to live their lives to the praise of God. Now, in one sense, they let the Lord down, didn't they? In a very unfortunate fashion, our Savior makes it very clear that when he came into the world as God's own representative, by and large, he was rejected by his people.

And it would perhaps be true to say that there are indications in the ministry of our Lord of him excommunicating the people on the part of their unbelief. But there is still a people of God, from the Jews, yes, but embracing beyond that particular group. Look, will you, for a moment, at 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9, because there you've got set out for you to understand what, in effect, is the New Testament equivalent to the Old Testament people of God.

And it's written by a leading Christian Jew, 1 Peter 2 and verse 9. But you, in fact, if you've got the NIV, you can read it with me, 1 Peter 2 9, and we'll go on to the 10th verse as well. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.

Once you have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. All right, backtrack on to the 9th verse again. Halfway through the verse is set out for me what is my particular function in my life.

Am I called to be a preacher? Am I called to engage in service for the Lord? Am I called to be a good husband? What is the nature of my prime calling? Well, all the examples I've given you are good ones and admissible, but beyond and above everything else, I am called to declare the praises of him who called me out of darkness into his wonderful light. In other words, written across my heart is the word Jew. The reason I live is to worship you.

Did you find that one too sentimental when we introduced it at the time? But it's true, you see, my friend. It really is honest to God true. The reason you live, if you trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, is to extol the praise of him who sent into this world our Lord Jesus.

And amongst all the people of mankind, the call thou company of the redeemed have something to be glad about. When our Lord Jesus Christ went into Jerusalem on the final occasion, you remember the boys and girls were crying out in adulation of the Savior. Not just Hosanna to the Son of David as he walked in through the beautiful gate, but within the temple precincts.

Can you imagine on those marble flagstones as our Lord went across towards the inner sanctuary, the boys and girls, they saw him and they praised him for who he was. And the religious clergy came along and they said, well, you know, you don't do that sort of thing here, Jesus, it's not allowed. You don't allow boys and girls to come and utter praise to you.

But Jesus says in Matthew 21 that the praise that those children offered him was praise perfected. It is the best example of spontaneous, unprepared praise that you get amongst those who met up with the Lord Jesus Christ. It wasn't received by the religious clergy because, well, it wasn't prepared.

It wasn't part of the liturgy. These boys and girls, they hadn't been ordained and so on and so forth. And Jesus, in effect, says a plague on your objections.

These kids know more about praising me and my Father than you know. Praise from the depths of our hearts because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. The community, the church community that does not encourage and cater for praise is deficient in serving its fellowship.

Now, once again, let me make the point, the hymn writers knew this. You go back to Robert Grant, a great hymn writer of a couple of centuries ago, and what does he say? Oh, worship the King, all glorious above. Oh, gratefully sing his power and his love, our shield and defender, the ancient of days, pavilioned where God lives, pavilioned in splendor, and girdered with praise.

The praises of his people God looks for. C.S. Lewis, who suggests to us that the most wholesome, the most innocent experience that there is on God's earth and the most enjoyable is when a company of people in an unqualified fashion, releasing the emotions of the depths of their soul, join together in an anthem of praise to the great God of the universe. It should be one of the most wonderful things in life to be praising the Lord God.

That's why occasionally we encourage you from our pulpit not to be sluggish on the first hymn that we sing, as though you've got to wait half an hour before you really get into the spirit of the service. The best thing is to prepare your heart and mind before you come so that from the word go, you're bursting to thank the Lord for his goodness and for his grace towards you. Listen to another hymn.

Praise my soul, the King of heaven, the object of praise. To his feet, the direction of praise. Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, the description of praise.

Who like me, the surprise of praise? Praise him, praise him, the repetition of praise. Why are you praising God? Well, for what he's done. You think of a little boy who for months has been looking forward to Christmas.

He's dropped hints blatantly as to what he wants Father Christmas, alias mom and dad, because kids are not quite as dull as perhaps we think they may be in terms of what happens on the 25th of December. He's been dropping them hints as to what he wants. And when the 25th dawns, and he opens his sock, or these days his pillow slip, and discovers inside that toy that he's been wanting so very, very long, he engages in joy, in thanksgiving to his parents for what they have done.

Not so? Well, is it right? I mean, please don't just sit there. If you agree with the point I'm trying to make, at least look lively about it. It's true, isn't it? Youngsters show gratitude for what they have received.

And you and I, we have not just a right, it should be a natural response to thank the Lord for what we have received from him. So John Wesley, he hardly needed to write this because he was living in the time of revival with his brother and with his colleague George Whitfield. He gives some instructions to people who come into the Methodist class meetings and sing some of the marvelous hymns that he and his brother have composed.

Sing lustily and with good courage. Beware of singing as though you were half dead or half asleep, but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of it being heard than when you sang the songs of Satan.

Well, of course, that's obvious, isn't it? Because when someone has received from God the gift of salvation, when he's known the mighty empowering of the Holy Spirit, that experience gives expression to thankfulness. So when you come together, brethren, says Paul writing to the Corinthians, what happens? Everyone of you has a psalm, everyone of you has a tongue, everyone of you has something to contribute to the whole tapestry of worship which you are weaving on the occasion of you coming corporately together. Or here's the apostle writing to the Ephesians, and he's talking about being filled with the Spirit.

And immediately he mentions being filled with the Spirit, he goes on to the concept of singing. And he says, don't be drunk with wine. Why did he say that? Because very often, song, melody, is quickened, is stimulated at a carnal level by the intoxicant of drink.

Now, in one sense, it's true to say that the person who is filled with the Spirit is like, hear me carefully, is like the man who has been intoxicated. The stimulant is different. He has received the baptism of the love of God within his own heart, and it finds a natural expression in terms of thanksgiving and joy to the Lord for all that has been done.

So don't sing as the intoxicated ones at that level sing, but sing as men and women who have known the fullness of the Holy Spirit and who in rapture are caught up to praise the living God. So when we want to think of the way we ought to be praising the Lord in our services today, we perhaps ought to give more authority and weight to the book of Psalms. Because you see, the book of Psalms is the hymn book of the church, traditionally.

Nothing mattered with the 17th and 18th century songs. Nothing mattered with the 19th century songs. What is a matter is when people think that in the 20th century, it's impossible for people to compose hymns and songs.

I used to get, I don't know, I used to get letters about occasions when I introduced a 20th century song. I mean, it really was quite ridiculous, as though you can't write the praise of the Lord in the 20th century as they have in the 19th and the 18th. But the heart of the singing, of the worshipping community, historically, is traceable back to the Psalms.

When our Lord went to church, inverted commas, when he went to the synagogue, when he went to the temple, it was from the book of Psalms that his worship would have been discovered in terms of corporate singing. You see, Jesus wasn't born a Lutheran. No, he wasn't born a Presbyterian.

He didn't spend his first 28 years or so in Worthing Tabernacle. The culture of our Lord Jesus in terms of the way that he worshipped was the culture of the Jews in the Old Testament, the book of Psalms. It spells out for us in a very clear way that sort of environment in which our Lord Jesus used to worship the Heavenly Father when he was on earth.

And that's the reason why I say you come back to the book of Psalms when you want to learn about worship, not exclusively. There's other teaching as well. As I said, the river of worship goes the whole way through the Old Testament and gets wider and wider in the New Testament.

But here in the book of Psalms, you have heightened worship to the Lord God. If you go halfway through the book, you come across the psalm of ascents. Now, what does that mean? Well, when the Jews from northern Palestine were moving towards Jerusalem, they had, as they got down into the valley near the Dead Sea, to climb up the hill, the slope, rather a steep one, to Jerusalem.

Now, it's hot. Not everybody is given to jogging in the morning. Not everybody likes a hike when the sun is at its hottest.

And so to keep them going, there were these psalms of ascents, which they used to sing one with the other with the other. When the British army was in battle, do you know why it always had with it a company of men, a regiment given over to playing instruments? Because when you move with music and song, it helps you to cover more quickly and to go more energetically across difficult terrain. Now, that was the same, as I say, in the Old Testament.

They had these psalms, these songs of ascents, which they used as they got towards Jerusalem. Let me give you an example of the sort of psalm. We're coming to 103 in a moment.

Don't get impatient. I'm not going to expound the whole psalm today, so don't feel that you've got another hour coming after I get to the actual psalm. Let's go to Psalm 67 by way of exampling, illustrating that point.

Here we are in the 68th verse. No, it can't be 68. I'll get it in just a moment.

Psalm 67. In that psalm, you've got the people in a repetitive fashion praising the Lord and expressing their gratitude to him for the gracious way in which he has dealt with them. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us.

Verse 3. May the people praise you, O God. May all the people praise you. And just in case everyone hadn't got the message, verse 5. May the peoples praise you, O God.

May all the peoples praise you. And so you've got there an example of one of the psalms, which were sung on occasions as the pilgrims moved towards Jerusalem and in the temple itself. Let's go to the next psalm, Psalm 68.

Your procession, verse 24. Your procession has come into view, O God. The procession of my God and King into the sanctuary.

In front are the singers, after them the musicians. With them are the maidens playing tambourines. Praise God in the great congregation.

Praise the Lord in the assembly of Israel. There is the little tribe of Benjamin leading them. There the great throng of Judah's princes.

And there the princes of Zebulun and of Naphtali. Now look, this isn't metaphorical. This is the assembly of the whole concourse of the children of Israel.

The small tribe of Benjamin leading the worship. Leading the people as they move towards Jerusalem. The larger tribe of Judah.

There is a noise of the instruments. There is a thrill of the congregational singing. And at the forefront of everybody's mind is the goodness of this God who has done what? Who's chosen these people to be his people.

Over above all the other people in the world. And therefore they engage in rapturous song to the Lord. Let's go to Psalm 118.

And you get a similar sort of expression made plain. In fact, you could have gone to any of these psalms. I'm really picking them out at random.

Here is Israel in congregation once more. The opening verses. Give thanks to the Lord for his good.

His love endures forever. Now, one section of the congregation. Let Israel say, his love endures forever.

Let the house of Aaron say, specific tribe, his love endures forever. Let those who fear the Lord say, his love endures forever. A certain amount of repetition there, isn't there? The bringing in of the whole congregation in this holy act of worship.

You see, it's possible to get a little bit too sophisticated and a little bit too mature and a little bit too ponderous in your approach to profound worship. There are times when worship can be extremely repetitive. That doesn't mean that you're reduced to the level of a zombie.

Go to Psalm 136, will you? Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. And the refrain is, his love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods.

His love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords. His love endures forever.

And so, at the end of every verse, there is that repetitive refrain. His love endures forever. These Jews were not like the Ephesians saying, great is Diana of Ephesians for several hours.

You remember the story in the Acts of the Apostles. These are Jews with minds who are enlivened, who when they see such tremendous propositions as is indicated in the first part of each of these verses, their hearts are so quickened in response that they come back with the same refrain. His love endures forever.

If you sing two or three times, he is Lord, he is Lord, he's risen from the dead, and he is Lord, it gives your mind a chance to bring in the various areas in your life that he is Lord of. Is he Lord of your bank balance? Is he Lord of your relationships? Is he Lord in your marriage? Is he Lord in your thought life? You may repeat he is Lord, but plug it into or plug it onto something that you're asking God to be Lord of, you see. There is an area in which repetition can become very, very useful, not the repetition of the pagan with their much speaking and their utter nonsense, but there is this repetition in Jewish worship which is good for us to simulate.

Well, let's quickly come to Psalm 103, because here you discover a choice example of a Psalm which was written to help the people exclusively praise God. You can go through all of the 22 verses and you won't find any petition at all. Smuggle into it is no request.

The Psalm actually is built around the Jewish alphabet, which has 22 letters, and each verse leads off with one of the letters or encompasses one of the letters of the alphabet. It starts with, praise the Lord, O my soul, and it concludes with the same thing, praise the Lord, all his works, everywhere in his dominion, praise the Lord, O my soul, written by David as to, quote, one old preacher. It was written when he carried himself out as far as heaven.

Isn't that interesting? He carried himself out as far as heaven. Do you ever want to do that? I don't say do you always achieve it, but is this what you want to do? You see, if church, to quote my lead into notes and news this week, if church is to be the gateway to heaven, should there not at least be a desire in our hearts and minds that occasionally we will lose sense of one another and we'll be caught up in rapturous praise to the God who's done so much for us? This psalm, written when David carried himself out as far as heaven, the call to worship, it's personal, praise the Lord, O my soul, your wife can't worship God for you. The person alongside can contribute to worship but can't offer worship as a proxy for you.

When everyone else is complaining, when everyone else is grumbling, when everyone else is thinking, well, God didn't do that very well or this brother did that to me or this sister did that to me, when thoughts are filling our minds which shouldn't have any place in our minds at the beginning of worship on a Sunday, when others are doing this, bless the Lord, O my soul, I will fix myself on the thing that really has prompted me to come with the worshiping people of God. I will fix myself on the Lord. Now, do you do that? Do you spend time sometimes in directing someone, in bringing to the forefront unpleasant experiences of the past week or what have you? Praise the Lord, O my soul, we're called into the most wonderful occupation that any human being can have entrusted to him.

We're called vocationally to praise God. This I will do, my soul, praise the Lord. Why do I speak to myself? Because sometimes I am not automatically in a position on a Sunday where I want to praise him, so I talk to my soul and I admonish my soul and sometimes in a repetitious fashion I say to my soul, praise the Lord.

I coerce myself, my rising in the morning is fairly early, not because I'm a natural early riser, I coerce myself to get up. You coerce yourself at times to praise the Lord and in the very stimulus that you give yourself you begin to realise that as your emotions are stirred that praise is the most refreshing occupation that you can engage in. All my inmost being praises Holy Name.

Praise is not just personal, it's emotional. Why are we afraid in this church sometimes of emotion when it's a God-given characteristic built into the human psyche? All my inmost being includes every aspect that there is in my personality, the deep recesses of my heart, everything praising the Lord. That's what this psalm says.

David has to teach himself, he has to train himself, he has to tempt himself to appreciate the benefits of soul worship. The Americans have various types of music, country music, negro spirituals, then they have soul music. I remember a lady coming to see me some while ago, she talked to me about her husband.

Her husband played a stringed instrument, I've forgotten which one it is, one of the less known ones, and she said sometimes when my husband plays in the middle of the night his soul comes through and I hear of someone who's unhappy and sad as he surrenders his soul to his instrument. Now that's a negative example, let's put it more positively. When Yehudi Menuhin was once asked why he was so brilliant on the violin, this was his answer.

The key word is surrender. I surrender my personality to that violin. Praise is my violin, soul is the music.

I surrender myself to this great God who has done so much for me. Forget not all his benefits, it's personal, it's emotional, but my friend it's rational. I'm not opting for an emotional high that has no rational basis.

Who forgives all your sins? David takes himself back into the confessional and realizes what God has done, pronounced absolution. Who heals all your diseases? David takes himself into the surgery and realizes what God has done, he has healed him. David goes into the mortuary and he sees there the grave and the corpse and the awfulness of death.

Who redeems your soul from the pit? David goes into the banqueting room, into the antechamber of the palace who crowns you with love and compassion. David goes into the religious supermarket who satisfies your desires with good things. David goes into the spiritual health club so that your youth is renewed like the eagles and so on and so forth.

There's a rational basis for the praise that the Bible enjoins us to give to this God who has done all things well. Your praise corresponds to your realization of the goodness and the greatness of God. I can never turn a congregation into a praising people because, you see, corporate praise depends upon individual experience.

You can't say thank you for that for which you don't feel gratitude. You can't say thank you for that which you have not received. That's why civic and national services are sometimes an act of worship.

But not the real thing. But when the people of God appreciate the God of the people and all that he's done, then, blessed be God, it's possible for our hearts to be caught up in love and wonder and praise and to thank him in an uninhibited fashion for his goodness to us. Praise the Lord from a full heart.

Let's sing number 33. Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation. Oh goodness, your grace illustrated in so many ways.

We want to thank you for our Lord Jesus, for his death on the cross and his mighty resurrection. We offer you our heartfelt thanks.