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1:30The Psalms this morning. As we approach this Psalm together, there are several things I want to point out to you or bring to your mind about the Psalms at large. As I mentioned, there are 150 individual Psalms divided into five books. Perhaps you've read through them and you see every so often you'll see that inscription: book one, book two, book three. There are five books, and they are all compiled primarily for public use. This book of Psalms is not written for any one individual, but for the public gathering of God's people, the public gathering of Israel. So, much like the hymnals that are under your seats and were compiled together for congregations like ours to sing songs and praises to God together, the book of Psalms also is a book of Psalms, many of them written to go with music and our biblical poetry, if you will. And so, they are compiled for the public gathering of God's people, much like our hymnals. Some have even called it a divine hymnal, if you will. So, you can think of the book of Psalms like that. It is written by a whole host of authors. Many of them are written by King David. I think 70-plus Psalms in the Book of Psalms are written by David. Some are written. By Moses, you'll find some written by the sons of Korah and Asaph and others, and then there are probably 50 or so that just simply unknown authors. We don't know who wrote them. But they were all compiled and collected. And if you've read through the Psalms, you will notice that they often are connected to the psalmist's life. Some personal experience that they are going through, some trial in life, some event in Israel's history. In fact, the Psalms span the history of Israel about 900 years, I believe. So you get a whole variety of events, experiences that the psalmists are going through, and they record them in the book of Psalms. And as you go through the Psalms, you are taken on sort of a roller coaster of emotions. If you've ever read through the Psalms, you would find this, and they express sometimes some of the deepest emotions that I think the human soul could ever express. Have you ever noticed that? You've read through the Psalms.

4:08They express some very deep heart emotions, and they put them into words. And I think oftentimes that's why people turn to the Psalms in the trials of their life. When you're going through some difficult times or even some good times, you turn to the Psalms because they're relatable. You can relate to them. They put in Words, maybe what you are feeling on the inside and have no words to express. And then you read the Psalms and they express the very things, the very thoughts that you are thinking. For example, maybe there's been a time in your life where you have resonated with the psalmist in Psalm 13, where he asks, How long, O Lord, will you forget me? How long will you forget me? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? Have you ever felt like that? Ever had a time in your life where you feel like God maybe has forgotten you? He's not paying attention to you? Or maybe, David, you can relate to David in Psalm 51, and maybe there's a time in your life where you are dealing with some personal sin, and you cry out to God like David does, God, be gracious to me according to your loving kindness. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly, cleanse me from my sin. Can you relate to that? Or perhaps Psalm 69, Save me, O God, for the waters have threatened my life. I have sunk deep. I have sunk in deep mire, and there's no foothold. There's no way out. And I'm weary with my crying. My throat is parched, and my eyes fail while I wait for God. Have you ever been there? Does that resonate with you?

6:01I know I can relate to some of these. And if that's you here this morning, I want to encourage you by saying that the Psalms, while they express some dark moments of a person's life, and we can relate to those, they don't stay there. And if you read through the Psalms, they don't stay in the pit of despair. As you read through them, they begin to lift your eyes upward to heaven. And they begin to show us and help us see a God who has not forgotten. They help us see a God who is gracious, who's infinitely gracious, who is forgiving, who's slow to anger. And they help us see a God who does cleanse from sin, who does hear our cries, who does see the tears that no one else sees. That's exactly what the Psalms do. They begin to lift our eyes up to see a God who hears, a God who forgives.

7:06And as you begin to read through these Psalms and you begin to look to God, and as the Psalmists begin to look to God and point to God, something happens. Hope is found. Hope is found. And as hope begins to emerge in some of the writings of the psalmists, you begin to see them put their trust and their hope in the God, the Creator. God, the faithful God. And as the trust begins to build, and you see this developing through the Psalms, a trust in God, a peace begins to grip their hearts and our hearts as we read their words. And when a soul is put to rest, when a soul finds rest in God, the circumstances of life can be crazy on the outside, but your soul has found rest, and that gives way to an overflow of some of the purest praise of God. Have you ever found that to be true in your life?

8:08That's exactly what the Psalms do, though. They take us from some of the lowest points in our lives, and they take us all the way up to the pinnacle of the highest praise of God. And so this morning, in Psalm 150, I want to take you to the pinnacle of praise, if you will, to the very end of the book of Psalms. And to really, if you were to look at the last five chapters of the book of Psalms, beginning in Psalm 146 to the very end, what you would notice is that they all begin and end with the same phrase. They begin with praise the Lord, and they end with praise the Lord. All five chapters, and then you come to chapter Psalm 150, and again, it is this pinnacle of praise. And that is our text this morning. Let me read it to you before we begin. Psalm 150, verse 1, a psalm of praise. Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise Him in His mighty expanse. Praise Him for His mighty deeds. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with trumpet sound. Praise Him with harp and lyre. Praise Him with timbrel and dancing. Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe. Praise Him with loud cymbals. Praise Him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

9:50Any guesses on what Psalm 150 is about? And so this morning I've got a 13-point outline. I'm just kidding. There's only four points. But no, seriously, this is a call to praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. In just six verses, we have the command to praise the Lord 13 times. 13 times is repeated. In fact, it has such a strong emphasis on praising the Lord that many of the commentators would refer to this psalm as the finale or the grand crescendo of praise, they call it. And so you can see. How the culmination of all the Psalms, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, in the last five chapters, and then Psalm 150, 13 times, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord.

10:42The Hebrew word for praise, you may have heard it, is hallel. Hallel, it means to boast, to magnify, to exalt, obviously translated here to praise, to bring praise. And it's often connected to another word, the word Yah. It's a reference to God's covenant name, Yahweh. So praise Yahweh, praise the Lord. You may have heard it translated into English, hallelujah, hallelujah. Probably heard that. The famous hallelujah chorus, right, repeats that over and over again. And it means praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. That's what this psalm is all about: a universal call for God's people, for you and for me, to praise the Lord. And so this morning, I want us to understand four things, four aspects about genuine praise, so that you and I would be a people who praise the Lord. Four things, four aspects. We're going to look at the location of praise in verse 1. In verse 2, we'll see the content of praise. Verses 3 to 5, we're going to see the expression of praise. And then verse 6, the conclusion, we'll see. The participants of praise. So again, it's all about praising the Lord. First, let's look at the location of praise in verse 1. Where is the Lord to be praised? Verse 1 gives us two answers. First, we are to praise God in his sanctuary. That's what it says. Praise God in His sanctuary. What does that mean? Well, the word sanctuary literally means holy or sacred, and it's used throughout the scriptures. If you were to go through the Old Testament, it's kind of a big part of the Old Testament, especially in the Torah, the first five books. You see God making a distinction between that which is holy and that which is common. And he begins setting apart all these various things. For example, the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day was a holy day. It was a day that was set apart from all the other days of the week. The Sabbath. Israel was a nation to be a holy nation, a nation that was set apart, that was holy, set apart from all the other nations.

13:15Within the nation of Israel, you have the 12 tribes, and you have the tribe of Levi. The Levites were to be set apart as a holy priesthood, a tribe of priests for all the other tribes. And then of Of course, you have the tabernacle and later the temple or his sanctuary, and they were to be holy places, holy places, a place set apart for special purposes. And of course, that special purpose of the sanctuary, of God's sanctuary, his temple, was what? It was to be a gathering place, right? A gathering place for God's people to come together and to offer their sacrifices of praise to the Lord. That's what the temple was. That was his sanctuary. It was set apart for the praises of God. And so, what the psalmist is saying here is that he's saying that the Lord is to be praised in his sanctuary, he's to be praised in his holy place, the place where God's people have gathered to praise the Lord, to worship. Listen, if there is one place on earth that God ought to be praised, it is in the gathering of his people, is it not? It's in the assembly of God's people. That is where the Lord ought to be praised. And when God's people come together for the sole purpose of praising the Lord, it is an extraordinary thing. It's unique. It's holy. It is set apart from all the other types of gatherings that we could go to. It is a holy place. Thing. It's unique.

15:05I remember when I was a young boy, I grew up in Houston, and my parents took me to church every Sunday. We would go every Sunday. Rarely would we miss. And we lived in North Houston, Northwest Houston, and we would drive in probably 30, 45 minutes to a large church near downtown. And one of the things that always stuck with me, even from a very early age, was the experience of walking into the sanctuary, into the sanctuary on the Lord's Day. Something that's always stuck with me. And I remember walking in to the back. We'd always come in through the back. And I remember walking in through the doors. And you look around. It was a very large building, very large. I would see probably 5,000 or 6,000 people. If I had to guess, there were balconies, two or three balconies that held people. So there were rows and rows of pews. And as you walk in, you would see this vast place. And you'd look to the walls. And the walls were lined with 50 and 60-foot windows full of the most beautiful, intricate stained glass that you've ever seen. Very, very detailed, beautiful. And the sun would shine through them, and they would sparkle, and they would display.

16:30Many of the stories of the Bible, one was this magnificent cross, just beautiful. And as you would look around, you'd look up, and they had the steeple. There was this big dome that went up to a steeple, and it was also full of stained glass. And so, as the lights would turn on and you looked up, it was as if, I don't know, as a young boy, I thought you were looking up into heaven. And it was just beautiful. And then behind the stage, you'd have the choir, and there were, it must have been a hundred people, all dressed in matching robes, looked like maybe a host of angels, if you will. And they were singing, and below the choir, you had the orchestra and all of the instruments that you can imagine.

17:23A full orchestra. They even had a, I think, a large harp. Pat would love to get his pans on the harp, I think. But it was huge. I mean, it was probably taller than I was, big golden harp. The guy would sit there and play. And so they would play this beautiful music. And here I was, this young boy, walking in. And what I remembered the most wasn't all those things, right? Those things obviously made an impact. But what I remembered is coming in with just hundreds and thousands of people. And they were all coming in, and we sat near the front. And so we would be. Walking down the aisles with all of these people, and the choir director would start the music, and they'd begin calling us to worship. And they would begin singing a familiar song, one that I think they would sing almost every Lord's Day. And it was a song called Holy Ground. We are standing on holy ground. And this nine-year-old boy, and seeing all these people and hearing the songs, we're standing on holy ground.

18:32And I know that there are angels all around. So let us praise Jesus now because we're standing in his presence on holy ground. And everybody's walking down the aisle singing this song. And it just was impactful for me because it was something special. And yes, all of the things that I just mentioned were special, but what I think was most impactful was just coming into God's sanctuary, all of people coming, gathering for the sole purpose of praising the Lord. And it was this unique time. And so I wonder, when you came in this morning and you came in to find your seats, was the praise of God on your mind? Were you coming here to praise the Lord with all of God's people? Or was your mind somewhere else on many other things, the circumstances of your life?

19:30If it was not the praise of the Lord, then I challenge you this morning to change your thinking about the Lord's Day, about coming into his sanctuary. This is a special day. This is a holy day. It's a day that's been set apart and reserved for the worship of God. And it ought to be reserved in our minds. And so when we come here, let's not treat this time as something that's trivial or common or like any other day of the week. Let it be a day of the week for the worship and praise of God in his sanctuary.

20:07So, again, if there's one place we should praise the Lord, it is in his sanctuary. It's among his people. And I think the psalmist is reminding of that here this morning. Praise God in his sanctuary. But that is not the only place that we are to praise God. Look at the next line. Praise God in his mighty expanse. Praise him in his mighty expanse. The word used here speaks of the heavens, the expanse, the open skies above.

20:41You may remember this term being used in Genesis 1. You can turn there if you'd like. But it resonates with the creation account. God, in chapter 1, verse 1 of Genesis, he says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. You remember, he created the heavens and the earth. And then in verse 6, he says, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. So he creates the earth, and then he separates the waters from the waters with this thing called the expanse. And in verse 8, he says, And God called the expanse heaven.

21:24And there was evening and there was morning the second day. And then if you skip down to verse 14 of chapter 1, it says, And then God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. So he starts putting the lights in this expanse, in the heavens. He says, Let them, in verse 15, let there be the lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth. And then it's verse 16, God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, the lesser light to govern the night. And he made the stars also. Verse 17, and God placed them where?

22:07He placed them in the expanse of the heavens. And so when you step outside of this building and you look up, you see the mighty expanse. That's what it is talking about. It's everything above the earth and around the earth. It's the entire created universe. That is what the mighty expanse is referring to. It's as far as the eye can see. It's as far as the telescope can see. It's as far as the space shuttle will go. It's everywhere, all around the earth, above the earth. And it's a place where God has displayed his power. The lights, the stars, the planets, the sun, the moon, all of it. It's where he has displayed his power in the mighty expanse. And so when the psalmist calls us to praise him in his mighty expanse, he's saying we should praise him wherever God's mighty power has been put on display. You see that? You are to praise him in the created universe. In other words, praise him everywhere. Praise Him everywhere. So not only are we to praise Him in His sanctuary, in the gathering of God's people, right here this morning, but we are to praise Him when we leave this place, when we go out into the world, when we go to our jobs, when we travel overseas, wherever we go, we are commanded to praise the Lord.

23:36See that? So, where are we to praise the Lord? Corporately, together, right here, in the gathering of God's people. Individually, everywhere, wherever we go. That is where we are to offer praises to God. So, that is where we are to praise God. But next, I want you to see the contents of. Our praise. What are we to praise God for? What are we to praise Him for? Verse 2 gives us, again, two answers. Let me read it. It says, praise Him for His mighty deeds. That's the first one. First, we are to praise Him for what He has done. Praise Him for His mighty deeds. The psalmist here is bringing to mind, He's attempting to bring to mind all of the mighty works that God has done, that God has ever performed. Did you know that you can praise God for that? You can praise God for all the things that He has done. That is what we're being called to do here this morning, to praise Him for all that He's done. If you were here this morning at 9 o'clock, I believe they were going through Psalm 19, if I'm not mistaken, and the very opening lines of Psalm 19, do you remember what that says? The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. The heavens, the expanse, are declaring the work of His hands. And did you know that you could just walk outside and look up into the mighty expanse and have a whole host of things to praise God for? Did you know that? Let me give you an example of that. Turn with me to Psalm 104.

25:28Psalm 104. Psalm 104 is a perfect example of this. And it's as if the psalmist walked outside, literally, and began looking around and started pouring out praise to God. And they were pouring out praise to God for things that he had done. He begins by saying, Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord, my God, you are very great. You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a cloak, stretching out heaven like a tent curtain. He lays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters. He makes the clouds his chariot, and he walks upon the wings of the wind.

26:14He makes the winds his messenger, flaming fire his ministers. He established the earth on its foundation so that it will not totter forever and ever. You covered it with deep as with a garment. The waters were standing above the mountains. And at your rebuke, they fled. At the sound of the thunder, they hurried away. Verse 8, the mountains rose, and the valleys sank down to the place which you have established for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass over, so that they will not return to cover the earth. So you see this psalmist walking outside, and he's seeing the clouds, he's seeing the mountains, he's seeing the valleys, and he's seeing, and he's declaring. The work of God. And then verse 10, he sends forth the springs in the valleys that they flow between the mountains. He's seeing the streams. And he recognizes that they give drink to every beast of the field and they quench the thirst of all the animals. And then verse 14, he causes the grass to grow for the cattle and the vegetation for the labor of man, so that man may bring forth food from the earth. So he begins praising God for the very grass that's growing, for the work that man has, that God has given him.

27:37And then verse 19, he made the moon for the seasons and the sun for the place of its setting, and you appoint darkness and it becomes night. And then he gets interesting in verse 20, you appoint darkness and it becomes night, in which the beasts of the forest prowl about. The young lions roar after the prey and they seek food from their God. And when the sun rises, they withdraw and they lie down in their dens, so that man goes forth to do his work and to do his labor until evening. Have you ever praised God for the fact that the lions aren't walking around during the day? That's what the psalmist is doing here. He's praising God because God created the animals in the system such that the wild beasts go to bed while man goes to work. And then when man goes to bed, the wild beasts come out and Can have their food. And he praises God for that. He says, Oh, Lord, how many are your works? And he goes on and on, and he begins just looking around creation and praising God for his mighty works.

28:46And he concludes the psalm in verse 33, I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. So again, back to our Psalm in Psalm 50, 150. You can praise God for his mighty deeds. You can praise him for all the things he's done. And it doesn't have to end with creation, right? We didn't even get to the New Testament. You can praise God for the work of salvation, the work of the cross, that he hasn't judged you for your sin, that he's redeemed you, that he's reserved you in heaven, all of these things, right? We can praise God. And then from there, we can praise God for the things that we can see he's done in our own life. One of the things that I encourage people to do is to create what I call a faithfulness journal. And you begin documenting all of the ways throughout your life that God has protected you, how he's provided for you, how he's guided you, how he's led you and been faithful to you. Keep record of those things and let those become. The content of what you praise God for. Praise Him for His mighty deeds.

30:07Also, back in Psalm 150, we are to praise Him according to His excellent greatness. That's the second thing we can praise God for. Praise Him for who He is, praise Him for His excellent greatness, His character. Did you know you can praise God because simply He is God and there is no one like Him? Do you praise God for that? Do you praise Him because He's sovereign and there is nothing that can thwart His power? There's nothing that is out of His control. You can praise Him for that. You can praise Him because He's immutable. He doesn't change. He's unchanging. You can praise Him because He's omniscient. He knows all things. He knows everything about you. He knows the beginning from the end. You can praise Him for that. You can praise Him because He never lacks power. He's infinitely gracious. He's patient. He's merciful. He's slow to anger. And on and on, He's good. He's kind. His kindness is everlasting. You can praise Him for that. He's holy. He's faithful. He cannot lie. Think about that. He cannot lie. He's always faithful. He keeps His Word. And on and on and on and on we can go. We can praise God for His excellent greatness.

31:28And so this morning, I'll ask. You, what kinds of things do you praise God for? Do you praise God? Do you praise Him? And what do you praise Him for? What is the content of your praise? You know, it's a funny thing, it's a humbling thing, not funny, when you take an internal inventory of what you praise God for and you begin thinking through some of those things and you begin to realize maybe that you don't praise God for as deep of things as we just mentioned. They're often trivial things or common things, which God should be praised for, those things as well.

32:10But oftentimes, we stop there, and we never get to praising God for the things that He's done and for His His character. And what we realize is that the content and quality of our praise is a direct reflection of our relationship with the Lord. And so, again, I ask you to do an inventory of your praises this morning. What kinds of things do you praise God for? Are they the deep character of God? Do they reflect an intimate relationship with Him? I hope so.

32:47And, of course, we have the scriptures as a plethora of things to remind us of things that we can praise God for. And so, I exhort you this morning: let God's mighty anger. Acts, let his excellent greatness be the starting point and not the ending point of your praise. Okay, so we've seen where we are to praise God, the locations of praise to be in his sanctuary, among his people, and in his mighty expanse. And then we looked at two things that we can praise God for, what he has done and who he is. And now I want to look at the expression of praise. How are we to praise God?

33:32What is that supposed to look like? Well, verses 3 through 5 give us, I think, a unique answer to that question. Let me read them for you. It says, Praise Him with trumpet sound. Praise Him with harp and lyre. Praise Him with timbrel and dancing. Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe. Praise Him with loud cymbals. Praise Him with resounding cymbals. Kind of an interesting way to answer that question. Obviously, there's a variety of instruments here that are being called upon to be used in the praise of God. One observation that we can make is that pretty much every major instrument group is mentioned here. You have the wind instruments, right? You've got the trumpet or the shofar, which we've actually had, I don't know where Eliu is, there he is. He plays the shofar. For us sometimes. It's a little startling if you're not prepared for that.

34:37But the shofar, right? It's a wind instrument, a trumpet, the pipe. You've got the stringed instruments, harp and lyre, and other stringed instruments mentioned. The percussion, you've got the timbrel, which would be our version of a tambourine, most likely, as well as the cymbals and the resounding cymbals. I think those are the big ones, right, that are really loud. And dancing, right? All of these things, you've got these major groups, and they're all being called upon to praise the Lord. And so, what is the psalmist trying to say? Is he suggesting that we need to go out and get all of these instruments? I think if Pat had his way, the answer would be yes, right?

35:20If you know Pat, he loves instruments. But I don't think that's what we're being called to do, right? We can do that, but that's not what the psalmist is after. He's not saying the only way to praise God is if you have all these things in place. No, I believe what's happening is that the psalmist is being caught up in this excitement, right? This excitement of praise, and he's calling on everyone to come praise the Lord. And he's looking out and he's saying, just anything and everything, bring whatever you have, whatever instruments there are, get the wind instruments, the string, the percussion, just bring it all and come praise the Lord. Let's have a full expression of praise. To the Lord.

36:03That is what the psalmist is calling for, a full expression. And again, I'm going to pick on Pat because it's Psalm 150, and you can't preach Psalm 150 without talking about praise jam. Any of y'all familiar with praise jam? Got a few of y'all. If you haven't ever had a chance to come out to praise jam, you need to come out on Monday nights. They're taking a break for June, I think, but starting back up in July. If you've ever seen Pat Johnson recruit for praise jam, it's like this.

36:34Anyone play instruments? Okay, what do you play? Oh, I play guitar. Okay, bring your guitar. What do you play? You play violin? Bring the violin. You got two of them? Bring two of them. What do you play? Oh, you play the cello. Okay, bring that. You play the organ? Ooh, we've got an organ. Pat, bring the organ. You play the triangle? Yep, bring it. Cowbell? Yes. Banjo? Yes. He's even got the little kids playing the xylophone. And so you come, and again, it's this summoning of calling all the people, big and small, young and old, bring every instrument you have and come praise the Lord. You see? That is what the psalmist is doing here, I believe. He's calling everyone to come give a full expression of praise to God.

37:23He's summoning the whole band, the whole orchestra. But you know, another observation I think we can make. About these few verses is that it's not really about the instruments. A lot of the instruments are mentioned here, but it's not about them because you can have all the instruments in the world and still not be engaged in genuine praise to the Lord. It's not about the instruments. Now, the psalmist is not calling people to a performance. He's not calling them to a musical performance to come watch people play a bunch of really neat instruments. There's a time for that. No, he's calling them to come praise the Lord and give full expression of genuine praise. And let me tell you something. Genuine praise always comes from the heart. It always comes from the heart. The music and the instruments are just a means to express it. You see? You may have heard that music stirs the soul. Have you ever heard that? I think it's true. I think music does that. It does. It stirs up the soul. It stirs up the emotions and the thoughts that we have. For example, I was sitting here a couple weeks ago at a wedding. Langston and Jillian were getting married, and part of their service, they had a song, a worship song. And as I was sitting out here in the seats, the violin began to play, the piano began to play the melody of this particular song. And as I heard the melody, I was immediately stirred and taken back 15 years to a time when I was 22 years old. I was newly married. We had a two-month-old sitting in our laps. And we were kind of at a crossroads in our life. We had a lot of big decisions to make, and I didn't have any answers. I had no idea which way to turn. I had not a whole lot of money and not a whole lot of answers. And it was a time in our life where we really had to depend on the Lord.

39:36And I was sitting at another wedding, my best friend's wedding, and we were sitting there with all these circumstances in our life going on. And the song came on, and it was played at that wedding. And the words were, Wonderful, Merciful, Savior, Precious Redeemer, and Friend. Who would have thought that a Lamb could rescue the souls of men? Counselor, Comforter, Keeper, Spirit we long to embrace, you offer hope when our hearts have hopelessly lost the way. And then it broke out into the chorus of, You are the one that we praise. You are the one we adore. You give healing and grace that our hearts always hunger for. And we go on. And so as I was sitting here at Langston's wedding, immediately my heart was stirred and I was reminded. Reminded of that time in my life, and I was reminded of how God stirred my heart to reflect on his faithfulness and his character and his goodness and all those things. And in a moment of time, I was stirred up to praise God at a wedding. And that's what music does: it stirs our heart, it reminds us of things sometimes. And I think that's what was happening here, or would happen here in Psalm 150. All these instruments were very crucial and pivotal in the Israelites' history. As you read through the Old Testament, you hear of the trumpet being played. And so, as the trumpet would be played, they would be most certainly reminded of the official sacrifices in Jerusalem, or perhaps the Day of Atonement, the Great Day of Atonement, or the trumpet being blown when the Ark of the Covenant was brought back into Jerusalem, or when the king was being anointed. They would blow the shofar, they would blow the trumpet. And they most likely would hear these things, and it would be reminding them of all these great things. Same with the harp and the lyre would be instruments of joy. They would get played at times of celebration and festivals and great victories in battle. Same with the tambourines and the dancing and the stringed instruments. They would likely have reminded the people of God of all these great things that. God had done. You see, all these great things about his excellent character, and they would have stirred up the people to praise the Lord. That is the purpose of music. It's the purpose of the instruments and the voices and the songs that we sing, the words that we sing, they ought to stir us to praise the Lord.

42:22And so that is what the psalmist is calling for here: to use all of these instruments and to facilitate the praise of God among his people. A full expression. And so, again, I ask you to consider your praise this morning. And when you come in here week after week, do you come to just hear the music, to hear a performance? Or are you coming to praise the Lord? Do you allow the words of the hymns, the words of the songs? Pat and the music teams that come up here, they give their minds to picking songs that stir our minds and point our minds towards God. And I hope that you allow those things to stir your hearts to pour out your praise to God. It's what the Lord deserves. He deserves unhindered, full expression of our praise.

43:20Again, where do we praise the Lord? Everywhere. In his sanctuary, in every place. What do we praise him for? Everything. All that he is and all that he's done. How do we praise the Lord? With everything that we have, with everything that you have. And lastly, I want you to see who is expected to participate in the praise of the Lord. Notice verse 6. It's the conclusion of this psalm. It says, Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. That's every living thing, everything that has life in it is commanded to praise the Lord. Of course, that includes every living thing, including the animals. The animals are called to praise the Lord. They have breath. They have life. They praise God, but they don't praise the Lord the same way that we praise the Lord. The animals and really all of creation for that matter, the trees, the rocks, etc., they all bring praise and glory to God in their own unique way just by existing. They reflect the glory of God back to Him. But they cannot remember. Animals cannot remember. They cannot recite all of the mighty acts of God. They can't praise the Lord as we have been talking about here this morning. Their only expression of praise, again, is to reflect the glory of God.

44:57But all of you and me, all of us. Here this morning, we're different. And one of the things that sets us apart from the animals is that we can remember. We can reflect. We have a choice to praise the Lord or not to praise the Lord. And so this is what the psalmist has in view here in Psalm 150. He is calling on all people, everything that has breath, especially those of us who can choose to praise the Lord. And he's calling us to praise Him. And again, this is how he concludes the entire book of Psalms. Everyone, everything that has breath is commanded to praise the Lord. Every tribe, every tongue, every nation is expected to render their praise and worship to the God of the universe. Every knee will bow. Those in heaven and under heaven, those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, they will confess that Jesus is Lord to the praise and glory of God the Father.

46:03And I would submit to you that this is the best ending that the psalmist could have picked for the close of Psalms. It is an exhortation to praise. And if you remember the Psalms, how does the Psalms begin? Do you remember Psalm 1? How blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly? His delight is in the law of the Lord. It begins. With God blessing man. That's how the Psalms begin. And then we come through all the Psalms and we come to the very end, the crescendo of praise, and we are seeing man being called to return praise to God. So God blesses man, and then man is then in turn to bless God. And that is the call of all of us here this morning. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. If you are sitting here this morning and breath is flowing in and out of your lungs, you can know this: that you are expected and commanded to praise the Lord with those very same breaths. That is the command here before us. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. May that be true of each and every one of you here this morning. May you view every breath as a gift from your Creator, and may you use those breaths to praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Let's pray.

47:35Heavenly Father, again, we must acknowledge that our breaths do come from you, that you are the Creator God, the God of the universe. The heavens declare that. It's unmistakable. We are without excuse. It's been clearly portrayed to us who you are and what you have done. And on top of that, we have the revealed Word of God that expresses. Your greatness. And God, we thank you for that. And we ask you this morning that you would stir our hearts to praise, and that as we leave here, that we would walk out wherever we go, and that the praise of God would be on our lips. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.