When you think of “praise,” what comes to mind? You might think of something that takes place in a church or in a worship service. Maybe you might think of certain actions. Maybe you’ve heard the joke about the woman who in the middle of the sermon stood up, lifted up her hands and said, “Praise the Lord!” The pastor looked at her and said, “Ma’am, please sit down. We don’t praise the Lord in this church.” Yes, some might connect praise with certain actions. Others might think of praise as a certain type of music that is uplifting and upbeat, that makes us feel a certain way. So which one is it? What is praise? This morning, the Bible reminds us that praise isn’t so much about us lifting up our hands or lifting up our emotions. Instead, praise is about lifting up our God, recalling who he is, what has done, and the promises he has made. That’s what Psalm 105 teaches us as it calls us today and everyday and everywhere to “Praise the Lord!”
Let’s look at the first seven verses of this Psalm together. Let’s read them responsively.
Psalm 105:1-7
P: Give praise to the LORD, proclaim his name;
C: make known among the nations what he has done.
P: Sing to him, sing praise to him;
C: tell of all his wonderful acts.
P: Glory in his holy name;
C: let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.
P: Look to the LORD and his strength;
C: seek his face always.
P: Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced, you his servants, the descendants of Abraham, his chosen ones, the children of Jacob.
C: He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth.
These verses are a kind of introduction for the rest of the psalm, an invitation to “Give praise to the Lord” (105:1). But did you notice how the Lord is praised? Let me highlight a couple of phrases, “Proclaim his name” (vs 1); “make known…what he has done” (vs 1); “tell of all his wonderful acts” (vs 2); “look to the LORD and his strength” (vs 4); “remember the wonders he has done” (vs 5). How is the Lord praised? The Lord is praised by doing two things (1) remembering and (2) telling who he is, what he has done, and the promises he has made. And that’s exactly what this psalm of praise goes on to do.
Psalm 105:8,11 He remembers his covenant forever, the promise he made, for a thousand generations… "To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit."
• Remember God’s promise
Around the year 2000 BC, the Lord came to Abraham and made him a promise. He promised three things. First, he promised that from Abraham’s family, the promised Savior would one day come. Second, he promised that Abraham’s family would turn into an entire nation. Third, he promised that the land in which Abraham lived would belong to those descendants. Those were pretty stunning promises considering that Abraham and his wife were old and had no children, and didn’t own even a single acre of the land they lived in. But remember what God did!
Psalm 105:12,14 When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it… He allowed no one to oppress them; for their sake he rebuked kings.
• Remember God’s protection
God protected Abraham’s family and the families of his son Isaac and grandson Jacob. They lived under the constant threat of danger as foreigners living in a foreign land. Yet the Lord continually protected them from powerful enemies and alliances. And remember how God protected their lives not just from their enemies but from natural disaster?
Psalm 105:16,17,20,21 He called down famine on the land and destroyed all their supplies of food; 17 and he sent a man before them-- Joseph, sold as a slave…The king sent and released him, the ruler of peoples set him free. 21 He made him master of his household, ruler over all he possessed
• Remember God’s plan
Jacob’s son Joseph was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. Joseph was taken to Egypt where he was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Once released, Joseph rose to be second in charge of all Egypt. He was put in charge of gathering food to prepare for a famine that would stretch throughout the Middle East affecting the family he had left behind. But the Lord had a plan. Do you remember?
Psalm 105:23-25 Then Israel entered Egypt; Jacob resided as a foreigner in the land of Ham. 24 The LORD made his people very fruitful; he made them too numerous for their foes, 25 whose hearts he turned to hate his people, to conspire against his servants.
• Remember God’s people
Joseph’s father Jacob and their entire family, 70 people in all, would move to Egypt where they found food to eat and a place to live. For the next 400 years, Jacob’s family lived in Egypt, and turned into a nation of millions, the nation of Israel. The Egyptians began to grow worried about the Israelites and their growing numbers. They tried infanticide and slavery to get rid of the Israelites, and then remember what the Lord did?
Psalm 105:26-27 He sent Moses his servant, and Aaron, whom he had chosen. 27 They performed his signs among them, his wonders in the land of Ham.
• Remember God’s power
God sent Moses and Aaron to Egypt to lead the nation of Israel out of its slavery. The Lord sent plague after plague to convince the Egyptians to allow the Israelites to leave, but they refused to let them go. Do you remember what happened?
Psalm 105:37-38 He brought out Israel, laden with silver and gold, and from among their tribes no one faltered. 38 Egypt was glad when they left, because dread of Israel had fallen on them.
• Remember God’s rescue
Finally, after the plague that claimed the life of every firstborn child of every family, the Egyptians begged the Israelites to leave. Moses led the nation of Israel through the waters of the Red Sea which then engulfed the entire Egyptian army. Do you remember what happened?
Psalm 105:40-41 They asked, and he brought them quail; he fed them well with the bread of heaven. 41 He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed like a river in the desert.
• Remember God’s providence
For the next forty years, God provided for the Israelites in miraculous ways, giving them food to eat and fresh water to drink, until they finally arrived in the land promised to their forefather Abraham, nearly 500 years earlier.
Psalm 105:42 For he remembered his holy promise given to his servant Abraham.
• Remember God’s faithfulness
Although throughout those 500 years it must have at times seemed unlikely and sometimes maybe even impossible, the Lord kept his promise. He made Abraham’s descendants into a great nation. Israel now occupied the land the Lord had promised. And from this people of Israel the Lord would one day fulfill the third part of that promise, sending a Savior for all people.
“Praise the Lord!” Actually, that’s what we’ve been doing. We’ve been remembering what our God has done for us, the promises he made and has fulfilled. You see, this is not just some brief Bible history lesson. This is OUR praise. This is OUR God. This is OUR story. This is the promised Savior that WE need. This is a Savior that we need because our lives have not always praised God and honored him. In fact, instead of lifting up our lives before God, there are plenty of times that we would rather hide them, rather embarrassed of the way we acted, the words we used, the thoughts that have crossed our minds. The complaining about the children or the spouse or the parents that God has given to us, considering them more as an inconvenience than gifts from God. The treating of worship and the hearing of God’s Word as something to be squeezed into our busy schedules when we have time, instead of making time. The angry words that were aimed at belittling and embarrassing someone. How embarrassing, and not just for us, but for our God who created us to bring him pride and joy.
But it is at that point that we see why our God is truly worthy of our praise. The children sang/will sing about it this morning. Praise him because God is love. Remember God’s love. God stepped down into our world and walked in our place. Remember Jesus’ life. He lived a life that praised and honored God at all times. Never a complaint about his parents or siblings or even his disciples. He always acted in love for them even when he needed to correct them. He took time each week for worship, regularly studied the Scriptures and made time for prayer. Jesus perfectly honored God with his life, a life that he would willingly sacrifice at the cross as the payment for the sins of all people. Remember Jesus’ death. He did exactly what God had promised to Abraham, bringing the blessing of salvation to all the world. And when all seemed lost, his lifeless body taken from the cross and placed in a grave, Jesus did the impossible. Jesus did exactly as he had promised. Remember Jesus’ resurrection. He came back to life and says, “No more need for embarrassment.” Jesus gives us everything that we need to stand before a holy and perfect God. Remember you are the Lord’s pride & joy. Jesus has made us the pride and glory that we were intended to be, covering us with his perfect life, and placing into our hands the payment for our sins which he secured for us. Praise the Lord!
Yes, we have been, as we remember what our God has done for us, but it is something that we continue to do as we tell others what he has done. You are praising the Lord when you take time as a parent or grandparent to have a devotion, telling and retelling those Bible stories. The Lord is praised when children come to Sunday school and adults come to Bible study and God’s Word is read and heard. The Lord is praised when we hold him up in the lives that we live, demonstrating through our relationships and our work and our words the God we strive to honor. Yes, we are praising the Lord!
You see, praise is so much more than something that only takes place at a church, or a type of music or certain actions. Praising the Lord is lifting up our God for all to see and hear who he is, what he has done and the promises he makes. And so, let us always and in everything praise the Lord. Amen.
