Psalm 145
Psalm 145
is called a Psalm of Praise. This is the
only psalm in the whole book with this official title. Of course, there have been plenty of psalms
that praised God. But this is the only
one with this specific title. By
definition, praise is something given by God’s follower to Him, out of joy for
our communion with Him, and for the purpose of exalting Him. Therefore, we should expect this psalm to be
about God, to be about joy, and to exalt Him.
The first
thing that we hear about is God’s greatness and its inability to be
fathomed. To be fathomed means to be
understood. It seems strange to lift up
something that cannot be understood as being worthy of praise. After all, how many people in High School
lifted up their Geometry books as worthy of being praised? Or how many people lift up our nit-picky IRS
codes as something to be praised? Yes, I
confess to having a little fun with the prior examples – so don’t take them
with too much meaning. But in all
seriousness, how often do we as human beings lift up that which is unable to be
understood as worthy of praise?
Yet, this
is precisely what we do with God. But it
should be this way. God is bigger than
us. He is better than us. He is holy – that is, He is “different” or
“set apart.” How many of us would accept
God as God if we truly did understand Him completely? Think about that for a second. If you understood everything there was to
understand about God, would you really feel like He was God? Isn’t His inability to be fathomed merely
evidence of how He really is God?
Then we
get to the next section, which speaks of one generation declaring His works to
the next. In these verses we understand
another dimension of praise. Yes, praise
is directed from us to God. However,
praise also can serve as a testimonial.
Praise can serve as our testimony to others about God. When God works in our life and we give public
praise to God, we are testifying to those who hear our praise just how glorious
God really is. We should not
underestimate the function of praise in our communities.
The next
few verses that we get are about God’s mercy.
I love what is said in verse 9. God’s
mercy is all over His creation. I am
reminded of a camp song that I learned a decade ago: the Hippopotamus
Song. In the middle of the song is the
line “His fingerprints are everywhere, just to show how much He cares.” God’s mercy is everywhere! God mercy is upon us. It is upon our children. It is upon our parents. It is upon our life. Everywhere we look we can see evidence of His
mercy. Even the fact that we are alive
at all is really evidence of His mercy!
Then we
turn to a section of this psalm on the kingdom of God. His kingdom is a glorious kingdom, enduring
throughout all generations. That’s a
really comforting and praiseworthy thought.
His kingdom was here before I came.
His kingdom is here now. His
kingdom will remain even after I’m gone.
His kingdom remains unchanged even though the generations pass before
Him. Even though the world changes, even
though the methods needed to reach the world take different shapes, and even
though the way we speak about God may change with our vernacular – God’s
kingdom does not change. God’s kingdom
is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Then we
get a long list of reasons to give God praise.
He is faithful. He upholds the
fallen. He raises up those who are bowed
down in submission. He provides for our
needs. He is the only genuine
satisfaction for our desire. He is
righteous and kind. The Lord is near to
those who call upon Him in truth. He
fulfills those who desire Him. He
preserves all those who are in Him.
Isn’t that
a really cool list of attributes? Is
there anything in that list that is not worthy of praise? What is really cool about God is that not
just one of those things is true – they’re all true! We would be happy if a single person could
display any one of those characteristics consistently, but God is all of those
all of the time!
Then we
reach the last line. The psalmist
declares his desire to praise God. The
psalmist declares the hope that all flesh would praise the Lord. I think this is an admirable goal and we
should all do our part today to make that possible.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment