[0:00] Psalm chapter number 145, Psalm 145, you know, that was just a great Thanksgiving song. People, you know, it was a Thanksgiving song, Hannah Farrow, it was. You know that I am opposed to Christmas music, not Christian music, Christmas music before Thanksgiving.
[0:18] Things are supposed to be done decently in order. There's a season for everything in life. And so people, I got today, Hannah sent and said, all these people complaining about Christmas music, I don't see you writing any Thanksgiving songs, all right?
[0:30] That was a Thanksgiving song. And I know that Stephen hates when I do this, but when you were singing, I thought, I would like to sing that song. Could we try to sing that song together at the end of the service?
[0:42] All right, that would be great. They already have it on the screens. I can't see you, Stephen, so I'm just going to assume you're all on board with this. All right, and Psalm 145, I'm going to read first 10 verses.
[0:53] This is a longer psalm. This is, we've seen these psalms before where there's an acrostic. Each verse starts with a different letter. This has the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, minus one.
[1:04] I don't know why it's missing one. In about 50 to 60 years, I bet I know certainly why it's missing. But until then, I probably won't know. But we have plenty here for us, and we're going to see all of it tonight.
[1:15] And it's about the praise of the Lord. You have those titles above that are written for the psalms that are kind of give you an idea who wrote it and what it's about. And this is the only one that has that title with the word praise in it.
[1:26] You'd think that there might be more in the book of Psalms, because Psalms is certainly a book of praise. But this is the one that says a psalm of praise. And that will be our focus tonight in praising the Lord and what that means.
[1:38] Jacob, I thoroughly enjoyed the sermon that you gave tonight. And if you have grown up in church, and you would say, I've been in many churches, but this church seems to talk about joy of the Lord more than I've heard it before, I would gladly be accused of that, all right?
[1:54] I love, I hope that the missionaries' training at Vision Baptist Missions not only know how to teach the truth of God's word, but they're able to explain what it ought to produce in our hearts.
[2:05] And so I love the definition that you gave there for joy and in that encouragement that you gave us from God's word. The word praise is one of those that we may say, but our understanding of it sometimes is not real clear.
[2:19] And God's going to give us an opportunity between now and the end of the book of Psalms to hear that word praise given many times. That is the theme, the last five chapters they call the Psalms or doxologies, much about praising the Lord.
[2:34] So tonight, we won't get done with the whole Psalm, but it'll be very much an introduction to this Psalm and the ones that are coming to follow. If you like alliteration, and I know you do, Greg, all right? If you like alliteration, this chapter is divided out by greatness and goodness, glory, government, and grace.
[2:51] And tonight we'll just look at greatness and goodness. Greg loves alliteration. I think alliteration is precious in poetry. It can be powerful in preaching. It's problematic for proper teaching.
[3:03] And it's perturbing in personal application. All right? Which is to say, I'm not a big fan. All right? When it works, it works. And when it doesn't, you've got some just crazy word you've never heard before.
[3:14] That's where I'm not a big fan of it. And so Psalm 145, I'm going to read the 10 verses, and then I'm going to pray. And then when I get done praying, Greg, would you take that microphone?
[3:24] And Cecily, did she? There she is. All right. There she is. All right. Greg, when I get done praying, or if you go ahead right now, get that microphone, go sit with Cecily. She won't be here on Tuesday night of our Lord's Supper.
[3:36] And after the Lord's Supper, we're going to give a time to give praise and Thanksgiving. And she won't be here. And she had something she wanted to share. And she wouldn't share it with me until I gave her the microphone.
[3:47] All right? But I was not going to keep her from sharing her praise. And so after I read the portion, I'm going to pray. And then we're going to hear what she has to say where she wants to give thanks to our Lord Jesus.
[4:04] Psalm 145, verse 1. I will extol thee, my God, O King, and I will bless thy name forever and ever. Every day will I bless thee. I will praise thy name forever and ever.
[4:15] Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. It will be well worth us spending six months on that one verse right there, and our privilege of sharing the mighty acts of God with the next generation.
[4:35] Verse 5. I will speak of the glorious honor of thy majesty and thy wondrous works, and men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts, and I will declare thy greatness. They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness.
[4:51] The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. Thy work shall praise thee, O Lord, and thy saints shall bless thee.
[5:05] Tonight we will look at how the greatness of God should be central to our lives. Heavenly Father, Lord, we love your word. Lord, we love hearing from you.
[5:16] We're so grateful that you made yourself known to us. Lord, that you have made your word understandable, and that through the work of the Holy Spirit, Lord, we understand it, and we know you through your word.
[5:30] And that's our desire tonight, Father, is to know you from your word. I want to thank you for your goodness. I want to thank you for your greatness. I want to thank you that you have always done things right, and in you there is no shadow or turning, and that there is no doubt, Lord, that you have a purpose in this world.
[5:49] And Lord, we want to be people that give you the praise that is due unto your name. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. All right, Ms. Cecily, please stand there and share your praise, if you will.
[6:00] Hello. I'm thankful for Ms. Dita. Thank you for Ms. Joy.
[6:11] And Matthew. Let's see. And Jeff. Nice. Don't miss Jeff. That's good. Thankful for you, too, Jeff.
[6:22] All right? All right. And Ben and Kristen. Okay. I'll give you guys a hug afterwards. Okay. Nice. That's wonderful. Thank you.
[6:35] And so as we come to this psalm here, which is the, as we're next week, we go into Thanksgiving, and I really love the Thanksgiving season.
[6:46] I think it's great. I mean, people are speaking about it. Even unbelieving people are preparing for Thanksgiving, and it's good opportunities because we're not just thankful, but we know to whom we are thankful. But praise is about seeing, and gratitude helps us see.
[7:01] Thanksgiving allows you to see clearly the things of God that are there, which allows you to give him the gratitude that's needed.
[7:12] So praise is about seeing, and gratitude helps our seeing. So the result of coming out of Thanksgiving ought to be people that are praising the Lord. I'm nearsighted.
[7:23] Sometimes I wear glasses. You know this. Like Mr. Potato, you never know if I'm going to be wearing my glasses or not. It's been a few years since I have. I can't touch my eyeball, Miss Sandy. Just can't do it. It's just not natural. All right?
[7:34] And so I went to the eye doctor to get contacts, and I was there for an hour, and they're just like, you need to grow up before you come back here and try to have contacts. So I haven't went back, really. It just didn't work. But I'm nearsighted.
[7:45] This means I don't see very good far away. I don't see those of you on the back. How many of you are nearsighted in here? I imagine most of you wearing glasses or contacts. You're nearsighted. Not only physically nearsighted, but spiritually I'm often nearsighted.
[7:57] I can't see all the good things that God has done in the past, and I only live what's right in front of me. It's a problem that we all have. But seeing the greatness of God is central to our lives.
[8:08] And so we can discover the greatest joy of gratitude by noticing how often God's word leaks Thanksgiving with praise. So we're getting ready for Thanksgiving, but tonight we're looking at this subject of praise.
[8:21] Thanksgiving does focus more on what God does, and praise is on what God, who he is, but there's a connection between the two. They're not competing against each other. Psalm 35, verse 18.
[8:33] I will give thanks, I will give thee thanks in the great congregation, and I will praise thee among much people. I will give thanks, and I will praise thee.
[8:44] Comes together. Luke 69, 30. I will praise the name of God with a song, and I will magnify him with thanksgiving. Praising the name of the Lord, magnifying him through our thanksgiving.
[8:56] Then in the New Testament, we find these two coming together. Luke 17, 15 says, and one of them, this speaks of the ten lepers, that one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God.
[9:09] And so he's praising the Lord. He's glorifying God. And he fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks, and he was a Samaritan. So thanksgiving and praise should come together.
[9:21] And thanksgiving helps us see and praise who God is. And this act of seeing and praising God is what brings us great joy through thanksgiving. Do you have a tradition?
[9:32] What do you do after the thanksgiving meal? Is it a football game? For me, all of my nieces and nephews know I have a very strong tradition where I fall asleep on the couch within minutes of the meal.
[9:46] I don't know if it's the thing in Turkey or it's the amount of turkey you eat. If you eat as much food as we do on thanksgiving, you go straight to sleep. But the correct result of after thanksgiving should be people that would be praising God.
[10:00] If your family has a tradition and going around and saying what they're thankful for, as that happens, it ought to lead towards we are thankful to the one who has provided all these things. And speak about him.
[10:12] So I want you to look at the thoroughness of David's praise tonight, and maybe we make some ready application to our own life. We're watching a person who is skilled, and I'll say that because it's learned, it's a discipline, it's something that you have to make a decision on, and David was somebody who leads in worship.
[10:30] He is a person who is skilled in the understanding of praise, who yielded himself. And if you are like me and say, I would benefit from a friend who is very much given the praise, well, we have one here tonight, through the Holy Spirit, preserving his word, and we're going to see some things about the praise of David.
[10:47] David. First, here in verse number one, three, I'm going to link three applications out of this first verse. First, well, it says, I will extol thee, and I will make much of thee, my God, O king, and I will bless thy name forever and ever.
[11:01] So David is a king, and he says, my God, O king. Praise always starts with a humble approach to God. The king of Israel is referring to David as king.
[11:14] I mean, we refer to him as king, and we most certainly should, but we shouldn't lose the significance here that this is the king of Israel that is referring to the Lord as the king.
[11:24] He understands. He comes to him humbly. He is the king of kings. He's not a fellow king. He's not a king like David. He is holy and unique, and he submits himself.
[11:35] He humbly comes to him and refers to him as king. So David sees God as the king of kings, and so as a dad, I submit to the father of fathers. You know, I come to him like that.
[11:46] As a shepherd, I come to him as the chief shepherd, that he is the ultimate in all of these things. And so that's that humble position. With no humility, pride will prevent you from gratitude.
[12:01] Pride will keep you from praise, and it will keep you from the greatness of God being central to your lives. So then we see that there, that humility. The Bible tells us in 1 John 4, 4, we recognize the Holy Spirit in us is more powerful, that God is more powerful in us than anything in this world.
[12:18] 1 John 4, 4, you are the God. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
[12:28] And we remind ourselves of that when there's great opposition. But even when there's not great opposition, the God who indwells us is greater than anything that is outside of us, or anything that we are.
[12:41] The king of kings is greater than the king of Israel. The king of kings is greater than the king of your life. So praise will start with a humble approach. And why do we feel this sometimes?
[12:51] We know this. Thursday night at 745, to recognize him as the king of kings comes a lot easier than it does on other days. So why don't we always feel this? And the Bible would say that there's a dullness to the spiritual reality, that kind of sluggishness, where the kids, after the Thanksgiving meal, like, Dad, you want to play football?
[13:10] And I'm like, I don't think I'm going to be able to move, you know? This sluggish, right? A dullness to the senses, spiritually. And so that's addressed a lot of times in the Bible. If you want to turn to the book of Ephesians, Apostle Paul addresses that in a large portion here, as he is praying for believers who do not recognize or feel the power of God in their lives.
[13:32] And this is how it gets communicated. Ephesians 1, 17 and 18, it says, That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, and the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.
[13:56] That we should be aware and open to God's presence in our lives. See, knowledge isn't just being theologically accurate.
[14:07] Who is it that's theologically accurate that has no heart, who would not call God the King of Kings? The Bible says that's even true of the demons of Satan. Being theologically accurate isn't the knowledge that it's speaking of, having the right answers.
[14:22] Joe and I were talking before service, as we often do on Thursday, and we're talking about teaching the Bible and studying it. And I said to him, and I think I shocked him a little bit, and I said, you know, having an outline of what the passage says, a homiletical outline to say, this is what happened with Israel and this is what's going on.
[14:38] I said, I can buy that, you know. And I was just meaning in all the books on my shelves, it would help me have an understanding of what it is saying. But to know God from his word requires me more than just showing up and opening up the Bible.
[14:52] It requires me coming and submitting myself to it. It comes in recognizing. It requires me coming humbly to him and asking for his presence to make real to me what it says here in the Word.
[15:06] And so Paul wants them to know the exceeding greatness. Ephesians 119. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us, Lord, who believe according to the working of his mighty power?
[15:17] He says, I want you guys to not just know this, but I want you to feel this. I want you to experience this. I want you to have this true knowledge of God. And this knowledge is a word that has to do with the relationship.
[15:28] Like you'd find in Hosea chapter 2 where it'd say, I will even betroth thee unto me and thy faithfulness thou shalt know the Lord. It's an experiential relationship that is available to us about God's Word.
[15:44] But sometimes we live as unbelieving people. And that's what Paul says in Ephesians 4. It talks about they testify to the Lord, but henceforth not walk. We shouldn't walk as the Gentiles and vanity of mind and understanding darkened and alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.
[16:05] We should have been made alive by the gospel. But we can fall into these tendencies of dullness of those things. So the first thing we see from David is that when he praises the Lord, he starts off with a humble approach.
[16:19] You are the king. I'm not the king. Second thing you would see here is that praise is always personal even when it happens corporately or in a gathering. Many of these psalms are being repeated.
[16:30] Somebody says it and somebody says it back to them. Well, we're gathering here and we're singing together, but you make a personal decision. And that's from, in the verse 1, it says, I will extol thee, my God, O King.
[16:42] You could say the God of Israel. We've heard that many times. But here he says, my God, I will bless thy name forever. You know, through the gospel, you and I personally have had the light of the glory of God shining upon us.
[16:55] 2 Corinthians 4, 6. For God, who has commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
[17:09] The gospel has shined upon your life. He has become your God. Your salvation was personal from God. You can go back to that place where the light of the gospel shined upon you.
[17:22] Stephanie and I have had some new neighbors come in and they did something that I really appreciate. I didn't expect that they were going to do, but they chopped down all these trees in their backyard. And because of that, we have all kinds of sunlight now on our back deck.
[17:36] And I'm just really appreciative of it because you don't ever, can't go knock on your neighbor's yard and like, hey, you want to spend a few thousand dollars and get rid of those trees in your backyard so that I can have some sunlight.
[17:46] But it's just that you go back there and it shines there upon you. And I never recognized how dark and gloomy it was in the backyard until it now shines. And that sunlight shines upon you and it brings encouragement.
[18:00] I want to take you to that place in your life where the God of the universe became your God, my God, where you came to him broken, hearted, or meek.
[18:11] I was fussing at Greg. I said, Greg, you had me quote the verse wrong. And he said, well, you weren't even in the right, you weren't even in the right verse. That doesn't even matter. Earlier when Jacob said Isaiah 61, that's all I heard. And I just knew you were going to verse one and I was 10 verses off there.
[18:25] But when the spirit of the Lord God, he got a hold of our hearts. And you need to go to that place often. Never get tired of telling your story. And then it shouldn't stop.
[18:36] The gospel should shine upon your lives. You should stop in it. You should bask in it. It's a wonderful thing. So praise, it's personal even when it happens corporately. My God, when you're saying these words, you're making a decision.
[18:49] You are saying these words. Third here, stated resolve to an unchanging God. In his praise here, I'll just give these two verses to you. So he says, my God, O King, I will bless thy name forever and ever.
[19:05] There's no reason I should ever stop praising you. You're an unchanging God. I'm committing to doing it right now. And I'm going to do it for all eternity. And you can. So many commitments that you'd make in life can only be on this side of the world.
[19:17] You can make a commitment to praise the Lord that will never end. It's what we did when we came to know Christ. We will praise his name. And then verse 2, every day. So not just all eternity. That seems maybe abstract and hard.
[19:29] And you say, sure, I'll get it. By heaven, I'm pretty sure I'll be doing it. But then he brings it back to where we're at. And he says, every day will I bless thee. I will praise thy name forever and ever. Every day I will bless thee.
[19:40] There's a commitment that I'm not just going to praise you on Thanksgiving Day. And I'm not just going to praise you when the church asks for it. But every day of my life. Take inventory. Take a look.
[19:52] When is the scheduled time in your life for praising the Lord? There ought to be a lot of unscheduled praise that takes place. And that just kind of pops up in conversations. But it ought to be set aside for you.
[20:04] And that's what we're talking about. When people in here that encourage you to read the Bible, they're not just talking to you about gaining knowledge. They're talking about seeing God and responding. You know, it would be okay.
[20:16] You know, if you're supposed to read 10 chapters a day, but after two verses, you just became so overwhelmed because you saw his goodness. That was good Bible reading that day. You know, that was good Bible reading to see him.
[20:28] And so every day of your life, make that resolve to praise him. A stated resolve and an unchanging God. And then fourthly here, praise is relevant for our everyday lives.
[20:42] Every day I will praise thee. So an unchanging God for all eternity and also every day. And it's relevant to our everyday lives that we will praise the Lord.
[20:53] So every day will I bless thee. See, praise is just not for Sundays. I've got a list here that I've worked on that I'll read to you here and then share with you just one thought.
[21:04] Then we'll pray together. But what I want you to consider here is how praise should not be confined to just when we gather here. If we saw the greatness of God, we would not be so greedy and covetous at work on Monday.
[21:19] If we saw the greatness of God, our eyes wouldn't stray after lustful images and thoughts when no one was around. If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn't get angry at our children so easily on Tuesday mornings.
[21:31] And you're like, what goes on at that house on Tuesday morning? I'm just trying to take us through the week, people, okay? Nothing special about Tuesday mornings. If we saw, well, I don't know. If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn't pout and get hurt so easily in our marriages in the middle of the week.
[21:47] If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn't spend time watching mindless and unhelpful programs every evening after work. If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn't get so discouraged with the evil and godliness in our culture when we watch the news.
[22:00] If we saw the greatness of God, we wouldn't live for Fridays when we get to shed so much of our responsibilities. Our whole life is being touched by us either seeing or ignoring the greatness of God.
[22:14] And that's why it's central. We said it on Sunday night when Greg preached about Jesus as what you think about God. That's the most important thing about your life. How central is the greatness of God to your life?
[22:24] If you don't believe it's relevant, I can't even begin to tell you how many ways it's adversely affecting your life. And so Adrian Rogers said this, I want the manifold presence of God in my life.
[22:37] I need nothing more, and I will settle for nothing less. I want the manifold presence of God in my life, and I need nothing more, and I will settle for nothing less.
[22:47] Let me review these things, and I'll pray for us just these first few verses here. So as we looked at the thoroughness of David's praise, we saw that it started with a humble approach to God. The king said, I'm not the king.
[22:59] You're the king. And then there's a dullness that we get waken up from, a spiritual dullness in our lives where we need to recognize that in our lives sometimes we're just not where we need to be. We're so enamored with less things.
[23:12] Next thing we saw is that it was personal to him. My God, I don't care what else is going on all around me. There may be a thousand people singing your praises, or there may be five. There may be nobody else. But you're my God, and I will praise your name.
[23:24] And then he states a resolved. You're always going to be good, and because of that, I'm always going to praise your name. You're unchanging, so you're always worthy of my praise. And that means that between now and eternity, and no matter what hardships you go through, he never stops being worthy of praise.
[23:42] And you say that out in advance, that there's nothing that comes to me that is worthy, that would cause me to have good reason to not praise the Lord. And then lastly here, it's relevant in every day of our lives.
[23:54] Every day will I bless thee. Every day I will make the greatness of God central to my life. So next time, Lord willing, we get together, we will see why the praise of the Lord in this manner is so appropriate.
[24:09] So would you say with Adrian Rogers here that you want the manifold presence of the greatness of God to be central in your lives, and you need nothing more, and you will settle for nothing less.
[24:19] I'm going to pray, and then we'll end together singing that song. With every head bowed and every eye closed, I give you a moment. Would you humble yourself before the God of heaven? Whatever it is that you think is the ultimate in your life, and whatever area that you think that your position is greater than his, if it's as being a king or as being a mom, if there's something that you have taken on that you think that is your responsibility primarily, that you need to submit yourself to God and say, you are the one in charge.
[24:48] You're the one that I'm looking to follow. The Father doesn't follow us in any area, and so we submit ourselves to him. Heavenly Father, we want your name to be great among us.
[25:03] We extol thee, Lord. You are wonderful. You are great. You are strong. You are worthy of all glory and praise that we would give your name. Lord, as Cecily stood the night, and she began naming people. Lord, she could spend the rest of her days naming people, and she would never scratch the surface of all the good things that you have done, even in her life.
[25:23] Lord, may we be like that. May we look around and just find so many reasons to praise you. Father, you are the king. You are the ultimate. You are the ruler. And Lord, we will bless your name. Lord, we can't add anything to you, but we can recognize your greatness, and it will always be great.
[25:38] And because of that, we want to spend every day of our lives, Lord, praising you, and you have given us the opportunity to do that for all eternity. And we will praise your name forever and ever.
[25:50] Greater you, Lord, and you're greatly to be praised, and your goodness is unsearchable. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[26:00] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[26:11] Amen. Amen. Amen.